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Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

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Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#511

Post by berniedurfee »

djur wrote: post #103

For the past five years or so, I've taken singing lessons. I really recommend it to anyone who has even the faintest interest, even if you feel like you can't carry a tune in a bucket. What I learned the first four to six lessons was enough to make a substantial difference both in my vocal quality and in my comfort in singing for long periods (one of the first things you learn, essentially, is how not to shred your v…

Good for you! Chest voice? Face voice?

I took lessons for a bit and I found there was more to the techniques than I had anticipated.

Singing through the nose, well resonating in the nasal cavity, as a technique to enrich the voice was the one thing that stuck with me.

Now I hear it all the time. So many singers are nasally because it helps them sing clearly, in tune and with richer overtones.

It’s subtle sometimes, but once you listen for it, you hear the nasal resonance in almost all singers, unless they’re chest singers or screamers.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#512

Post by bayindirh »

I'm passionate about writing small, close to OS utilities for myself and writing high performance C++ programs. Particularly, extracting almost demoscene level of performance from computers seemingly lacking said performance.

My Ph.D. thesis puts this passion to practical use, by developing a scientific application which uses every ooze of performance it can get from a system.

The end result is "You shouldn't be able to compute with this accuracy at this speed. What have you done?", which is extremely satisfying for me.

Also, I'm learning Go in these days.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#513

Post by benzesandbetter »

I started playing around with GPT-3 and it led me down the rabbit hole of NLP and Transformers. I'm kind of blown away by these tools and what they're capable of, particularly when woven in with the other languages and tools I work with. It brings back the feeling of curiosity and exploration from my very early days of programming.

A couple weeks ago, I started exploring Pu Erh. I ordered a few different teas from white2tea and got a little gong fu set. So far my favorites have been 2018 "Flapjacks" and and the 2022 "Pretty Girls". I just ordered a few others from Yunnan Sourcing which should be arriving any day. This is after years of only drinking matcha. I still start my day with a good sized matcha ~3-4g which seems to smooth out the effects of the Pu Erh nicely.

Somehow a late-night Amazon shopping session led to me buying an Ocarina. It's been a lot of fun leaning a new instrument, particularly one that's melodic and super-portable. The first one I picked up is a "Night by Noble", which is great for the money (~$35) but only hits its higher notes when played pretty loudly. So, I just ordered a Polygon from STL Ocarina which from what I've read has a mellower high-end that can be played more softly. I make up different melodies when I'm out and about, and then record loops and hooks on my Akai Force in my studio at home.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#514

Post by ShredKazoo »

marceloabsousa wrote: post #486

Thank you for this post. It’s nice to see that it wasn’t buried. From the times of IRC, I do miss the feelings of the early times of the internet. I’ve the privilege to invest a lot of time thinking about what I should be doing my life professionally. In the end, the best I could think of was to be an enabler for others - which for me meant ‘to give them time’. I realised that I also needed to use my expertise to try…

>In my early days of using the internet it was much easier to make meaningful connections.

That's what I recall as well. I wonder what happened.

One story is something like: high-profile hostile interactions drive engagement, and are actually good for the bottom line of e.g. social media websites. But they also have the effect of modeling bad behavior, reducing "internet social trust" and "internet social capital". I wonder if any of the literature on social trust / social capital could be usefully applied to the entire internet considered as a community.

Another project related to this which I think could be super interesting: The big social media websites get a ton of traffic and scrutiny, but there are loads of niche online communities on other domains which have popped over the years. HN being just one example -- Mastodon is another which has been in the news a lot recently. It'd be cool if someone was to study these communities informally: create a taxonomy, make use of anthropological tools, or simply write a "travelogue" of becoming a user of a broad variety of niche online communities for just a few weeks each. I think this could be the first step to helping us find our way out of the current mess.

Right now it is too hard to compete with the big sites. Someone could shine a spotlight on small players who have something cool going on and want to grow. If nothing else, the next time there is a "crisis" like Elon buying Twitter, you can give people a list of the top 3 alternative sites they should be checking out. Never let a crisis go to waste!

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#515

Post by dolajide »

biztos wrote: post #461
dolajide wrote: post #231

Thanks capturing this feeling about the early internet and hello from Nigeria. I am in the process of setting up my farm. Starting with 12 hectares with the plan to increase to 100 in the next 3 years. It’s totally different from tech but interesting. On the tech side, I am focused on leveling up my fundamental skills so, I finally summoned up the will to begin going through my Elements of computing systems book (on…

Do you come from a farming background? And do you live at the farm? I ask because I have a couple of tiny farms in my life, but can't live near the farms. Curious what other people are doing with "tech and farm" combinations.

No I do not come from a farming background. I don’t intend to live at the farm. I intend to recruit people to run it day to day (labor is still cheap in Africa). Learn and adjust along the way, and if it’s successful, scale it.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#516

Post by ShredKazoo »

MrVandemar wrote: post #390

Hello from Redmond, Western Australia. It's rural, close to the South Coast of WA. We live in a straw-bale house on a farm where we run a small number of cattle, horses and donkeys, and we grow a lot (but not yet all) of our own fruit and vegetables. We steward of 50ha area of pretty pristine Australian bush in a biodiversity hotspot, and we've replanted the roadside and house area and put in some windbreaks with nat…

I wrote a comment the other day about how global warming might not be that bad: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33483424

I know some people will be upset because they think saying that might mean we don't get emissions under control. I don't think people here on HN have much control over emissions, but in any case I encourage you to get emissions under control to the extent you can!

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#517

Post by theck01 »

biztos wrote: post #426

Hello from Bangkok, Thailand! I have always been, and hope to always remain, passionate about art. Mostly visual art in the "fine art" and "Art World" sense, but also any and all creativity that channels the human spirit to create things (even just ideas) that never existed before in the world. Yesterday I organized a group of 23 people to see a hotel art fair named Hotel Art Fair[0]. Some were art nerds like me, som…

Hi from the eastern half of the US!

I too am working my way deeper into visual arts. I’m excited to go see the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney in NYC soon. His ability to light imaginary scenes is very impressive, I hope to learn a lot by seeing his paintings in person.

Do you have any favorite artists or works? And I see you paint as well from your bio, what sorts of things do you make?

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#518

Post by _jcrossley »

I've been passionate about learning classical guitar for a few years, but that's really ramped up since COVID lockdowns. I'm working through a standardized exam system, and completed my grades 5, 6, 7 and recently, 8.

During part of the process I realized that I wanted to get feedback on my raw practice sessions - think 30 minutes warming up with C major scales, followed by an hour working on one line of a piece - so I started streaming on Twitch and posting incremental progress videos to YouTube and TikTok (@jcpractices everywhere). That's been an incredible experiment - the "hobbyist classical music practice streamer" space is a niche^5, but my small growing community is so encouraging to keep going.

According to my new teacher (who also streams!), I'm playing at the senior recital level at an average university, or at the 1st year level of a student at conservatory. It feels like such a huge accomplishment as someone who started in the evenings after work at 25. I'll never be a "great player" or make meaningful money from it, but it's one of those hobbies that I plan to pursue for the rest of my life for the sheer enjoyment. I'm looking forward to seeing how far I can get.

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#519

Post by thinkingemote »

seibelj wrote: post #449
thinkingemote wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you think about individualism, tech and Christianity? There's a difference between an individual and a person with Catholicism I think, and the individualistic approach to life I have heard goes hand in hand with pride, going it alone, rejecting God, others, and ones whole personhood. We live in relation to others. Another thing we hear is that the modern world is in it's troublesome state because of the indiv…

The government murdered the son of god which is a foundational element of Christianity. The Catholic Church is a supranational entity that will survive as nation states rise and fall. No one in 2022 puts a gun to your head to join nor stay inside it. There is no forced tithe. You are encouraged voluntarily to donate money and assist others but unlike the government not doing so is something you have to deal with your…

by "I mean, have you thought about this deeply? " I was asking if you had because I hadn't and was curious and am looking for someone who had. Hence the question. Sorry if I offended. I do not mean to imply that you have not. I have not encountered a Catholic tech individualist before (but am a Catholic). It's entirely possibly you are not an "individualist", sorry. Its also possibly that I'm combining two of your interests (blockchain-ish + catholicism) which you have separate feelings and interests about, if that's the case, apologies. I have an interest in mycology and catholicism but I don't have any theories combining the two!

Also, see, I am not the same user(s) who replied to your original comment, but looking at their replies I can understand that you have, what appears to me to be written a defensive response. It was not the one that I was looking for. So I'm sorry. It's cool, brother. Sometimes I get worked up and reply to others still in a heated frame of mind based on something before someone else said, so I can understand when it happens, if it did.

I am curious about individualism and catholicism and these new technologies. I'm less interested in tech and government which is common here in HN, as evidenced by the other responses you got. Maybe you could provide me with the equivalent of some AOL keywords - if suitable. This might be better just to get me started than trying to parse my awkward questions!

It seems to me that individualism is the opposite of communitarianism - both extremes have their problems which Catholicism points out. What do you think? Do you see individualism and libertarianism occurring more often with Anarchist, atheism or neo-paganism or not, perhaps how is Christianity more suitable here? But really, it's this question and how it relates to new technologies. Do these technologies help us work communally, or just a tool like the stuff most of us use to be used one way or the other, or something else? How is it different from a self organising Anarchist community vision? Is it a really New Thing I guess I'm asking?

Re: Ask HN: Comment here about whatever you're passionate about at the moment

#520

Post by gonzo41 »

Lio wrote: post #242

It's raining hard here. I've just discovered our roof is leaking. It looks like some of the concreting that held the tiles up has come loose and a large section will need to be replaced. As I hate heights and know nothing about roofing, so I'm going to have to get a professional in to fix it. This is going to really hurt financially. Not something I'd bother whinging about here normally but this seems like the place…

I had a pretty bad roof leak on an iron / colorbond roof. It was from a stick getting up and under one of the valleys and being just at the right angle to let water into the house. IT really sucked. It was a significant point of stress for me. I just paid to have the problem go away. the money angle hurt, but over a long enough timeline usually these things square up.

Good luck with it.

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