This is really interesting — thank you for building it. It seems some of the comments here are living up to HN's reputation. May that prove to be a good omen, as it has been in the past.
The main thing I'm wondering is whether there's a way to record with this (so here's my wishlist). Often I'll be practicing along to another song, or just noodling around, and I'll really wish I had recorded what I just played. Would be amazing if I could say, "Alexa, record that", or "Alexa, record the last 90 seconds".
Similarly: "Alexa, record this." (and then after X minutes if I forget to stop the recording / no input is detected Alexa asks if I still want to be recording).
"Alexa play a metronome at 80 bpm and record this". "Alexa, play the last track and record a new track" (gotta make this very clear so as not to confuse overwriting the original vs recording additional layers). Sync the recording folder w/ Dropbox so it's ready for my DAW. Save two streams: one clean of the raw guitar (so I can tweak to my heart's delight later), one with the applied effects.
I'm curious to dig into the tones more; a lot of apps are goodish but don't quite get it right. S-Gear is the best plugin I've found. Also, I'm a huge fan of the amPlug 2 line from Vox. $40 for really impressive tones via a battery powered gadget as big as a few matchboxes. Sounds great hooked up to speakers and good enough to use in recording. But they don't give you a lot of options in terms of effects.
Great project! Hope the above is useful — I'll be following along!
This post is a good primer on PR basics. If you'd like to read more on the subject, I (also) wrote a book about startup PR with plenty of examples (and a few jokes).
(I used to write for TechCrunch and have subsequently done PR consulting for startups. Feedback on the book has been quite positive; if you read it and wish it covered something, let me know!)
If you're concerned about the way the tech industry engineers addiction by exploiting bugs in our brains, check out Time Well Spent - http://TimeWellSpent.io
It's an (early-on) movement exploring ways to build products that respect our time and focus. (Watch the video for a good overview).
Hi, OP here. It was very gracious of him, but I should note that I've met Phil several times over the years (including while I was formerly a TechCrunch reporter), which I suspect had something to do with the speed.
Obviously there's a lot of demand in SOMA, but one suggestion to anyone thinking of living there: spend some time wandering around, both during the day and during the evening, and see if you like the vibe of the neighborhood (this advice holds true for any neighborhood, really). I say this because I lived in an area that seemed desirable — about 5 minutes away from the 4th & King Caltrain, at 4th and Brannan, and, while it didn't seem so bad at the time, in hindsight I've come to realize that I really wasn't very happy there.
It's very convenient for work, but it doesn't feel like a neighborhood at all. Everything seems to close around 8pm and most of your friends probably aren't going to be hanging out around there. Yes, there are a handful of cafes around and you can find a few blocks that are busier, but in general it just feels like a generic chunk of tall buildings — I found it pretty gloomy.
I couldn't agree more. SOMA is a terrible place to live if you're under 30 and want urban nightlife. SOMA has some cool places with a bit of character... District, 25 Lusk and 21st Amendment, but on the whole it feels either very sterile or very industrial. If I had it to do over again, I would have braved the 20 minute commute and lived in somewhere that had more culture... the haight, mission, pac heights or (gasp) marina.
Thanks for posting this here, I'm a big fan of Hacker News.
By the way, I'll have some free time (at least for the next few weeks), so if any HN folks have any questions related to PR, feel free to shoot me a note (email is in my profile).
This isn't inconsistent with the purpose of the films. Like the other Jedi, Obi-Wan is a flawed character through the first three films. He doesn't live up to the pacifist and altruistic ideals of the Jedi in many, many ways. Lucas stresses this with a number of cinematic parallels to Luke in Empire.
This is why the ending of III is in sharp contrast to the ending of VI: Obi-Wan goes to kill rather than confront and forgive Anakin as a true Jedi presumably would. Even Yoda makes this mistaken in attacking Palpatine -- although he seems the only character aware of why he failed after the fact.
RepublicWireless.com just went live with all the details. Here's the catch (they're quite transparent about it):
The phone monitors how much data you're sending over Wifi vs cellular, and if you're using a disproportionate amount of cell data compared to the rest of the community, they can boot you.
"The best way to know how you're doing is by checking out your Cellular Usage Index (CUI). If it's too high, we'll let you know and give you tips to bring it down. You have plenty of time. But meanwhile, you still pay a flat fee of $19/month no matter what."
> if you're using a disproportionate amount of cell data compared to the rest of the community, they can boot you.
Sounds like a simple prisoner's dilemma, with the "selfish" incentive driving people to lower the total consumption. Of course, the prisoner's dilemma only has the optima it does because of a lack of shared information; people can cooperate when they can strategize in some out-of-band way.
For this service, the "cooperation" strategy would entail everyone conspiring to drive the average up, so that the service provides more to everyone without anyone in particular having a "disproportionate" usage.
The main thing I'm wondering is whether there's a way to record with this (so here's my wishlist). Often I'll be practicing along to another song, or just noodling around, and I'll really wish I had recorded what I just played. Would be amazing if I could say, "Alexa, record that", or "Alexa, record the last 90 seconds".
Similarly: "Alexa, record this." (and then after X minutes if I forget to stop the recording / no input is detected Alexa asks if I still want to be recording).
"Alexa play a metronome at 80 bpm and record this". "Alexa, play the last track and record a new track" (gotta make this very clear so as not to confuse overwriting the original vs recording additional layers). Sync the recording folder w/ Dropbox so it's ready for my DAW. Save two streams: one clean of the raw guitar (so I can tweak to my heart's delight later), one with the applied effects.
I'm curious to dig into the tones more; a lot of apps are goodish but don't quite get it right. S-Gear is the best plugin I've found. Also, I'm a huge fan of the amPlug 2 line from Vox. $40 for really impressive tones via a battery powered gadget as big as a few matchboxes. Sounds great hooked up to speakers and good enough to use in recording. But they don't give you a lot of options in terms of effects.
Great project! Hope the above is useful — I'll be following along!