301–310 of 375 posts
and yes, you should post pics and stories like when jwz renovated the dna lounge. (i think one of his first posts was about building his own pos system, fwiw)
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Yeah. Anyone who hated writing code but had to, like biologists and chemists, now don't have to.
The less physicist code exists in the world the better.
I had a friend who told me a story, that when he was a kid, he found a copy of the Borland Pascal DOS compiler on his dad's machine. It came with a demo demonstrating the graphics library, but that was the extent of his introduction to Pascal, most of the syntax he figured out by trial and error.
He went ahead and build a quite elaborate tank game, with things like enemy AI, multiple weapons and destructible terrain.
The code was a fever dream, but the game was pretty impressive, and enjoyable.
One of the things he didn't intuit, was that you could not only use built in functions, but define your own. So when he needed a code block a second time, he just copied it, so you can imagine how pleasant that code looked.
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> There are many opportunities to retrofit old systems of all types with modern low-cost embedded technologies. I'd leave out the "old" there. An example: Friends work(ed) as engineers in theaters and music-venues. The costs for (DMX) equipment is insane. Some lamps, rigs or controllers are so expensive that shows only rent them. While there's lots of cases where you don't want to cut costs¹, quite often a cheap vari…
With respect to bowling alleys, for things like professional shows or food safety it's a bit more than "nobody got fired for buying IBM". The stuff's gotta be able to survive field conditions and not cost millions of dollars in refunded show tickets or spoiled foods. Manufacturers test and make themselves accountable for this. Cheap, customized modules work until they don't, and by then the engineer who put the custo…
Experts know there is stuff worth spending on, and there's stuff like the ESP32 where no amount of money will buy you something better, and no amount of money will save you, if the guy building the whole thing is an idiot.
Right now I'm working on adding LED + DMX DJ light control - I kinda want to be able to order LED strips to "chase" a ball as it goes down the lane or back up the return. I plan on triggering laser-light shows and such with the DMX controller. Eventually, I want to allow a customer walk up to the lane, tap to pay and start bowling immediately, too. Kiosk-ize bowling alleys, yknow? I'm pumped. So much room for activit…
I'll throw out two quick suggestions for you: - DMX kinda sucks but it's manageable. Cabling isn't cheap, it really wants shielded 120 ohm cable. If you do go that route, don't cheap out and use Mic cable or Cat-5, you'll be chasing ghosts forever. - However... Art-net is an absolutely brain dead simple protocol that you can run over WiFi or ESP-Now if you don't care about it being perfect, or over Ethernet with an E…
I've used mic cables for 1000+ shows over 20+ years with no issues. I guess most of my runs have been at most 100-200 feet if distance is the issue. Wireless/wifi controllers are the only things I've had consistent problems with.
I love seeing software engineering applied to physical systems. Replacing expensive proprietary infrastructure with simple, repairable components feels like the kind of engineering that creates long-term value.
It does. But it's nothing special. This isn't "software engineering applied to a physical system". This is just software (and some hardware) engineering. This is just engineering. Making things to do things. You want to do something and you make a machine that does it.
I'm delighted to read about your project!
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We just charge a flat rate with shoes included. We do $5 / person or $25 for a whole hour for larger groups. Wanted to take some of the advanced calculus out of the price of bowling, yknow?
What is wrong with you, you’re going to ruin capitalism not caring about maximizing profits.
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Pretty sure this is an AI summary of this HN post, not the other way around
Fun fact: I double-checked with my AI, which concluded: "The original HN post is, by the way, considerably more worth reading than the rehash."
One thing I've always wanted at a bowling alley is an instant slow-motion video replay of the pins being knocked down. Seems easy to do in theory, a Raspberry Pi + compatible camera could do this very easily, so long as you could mount it in a good locaiton. The only alley integration needed would be to tie into whatever sensor detects when the ball reaches the end of the lane. * Mount a 60 fps camera pointed at the…
Probably better to enable it only for strikes/spares as it would drain too much time, but the idea is great.
Not sure if any of that's relevant to you!