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olpadon Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)

I would suggest investing a little time in your website UI, it screams LLM generated right away and I can’t get an immediate sense of what the actual UI might look like right away. I really like the first animation but it’s unclear if that’s what the UI is or if that’s just a pitch correction generic animation.

Just a little bit of human-touch design in the website could go a long way towards the trust of the software. For example melodyne’s website shows me their (arguably outdated) UI right on the main page. I already know what they do as most will with a pitch correction software, so they just have a short blurb, an image of their actual product, and some links. Not saying you should copy this exactly, but if I’m looking around for something other than the industry standard I need to know I can trust it and I need to know what it looks like without downloading it first.

olpadon Ask HN: What are you working on? (August 2026)

I also find myself constantly using search engine conversions because it’s easier to type in plain text rather than scroll through a menu of [class of unit] and [specific unit]. Plus I have a browser open a lot of the time. I’m using kagi and my main complaint with their unit conversion is that you can’t modify the values in the results. If I type “in to mm” it defaults to 1 inch = 254mm, and I have to explicitly search for, say, “45 in to mm” each time. Being able to just search the first one and then type in my value on either side of the conversion is something that other engines do well

olpadon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)

I’m working on an open source audio interface, which will hopefully one day turn into a whole line of open source pro audio gear.

olpadon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)

Your website seems like a lot of fluff without actually giving me a concrete example on what Next Move Theory is, just my experience from glancing at it

olpadon Ask HN: What are you working on? (June 2026)

https://codeberg.org/olpad/openmic

An open source audio interface along the lines of a Scarlett 2i2.

olpadon Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

I’m not saying only teach interesting things, I’m saying teach things in an interesting and engaging way so that kids don’t feel the need to cheat their way through it to just get it done.

College is a different dynamic from a middle/high school classroom, but I don’t remember 95% of the material from my college engineering classes anyway, it’s the problem solving and information finding that I’ve retained and have helped me do the things I do. I remember the stuff from the classes that taught me the material in an engaging way though.

olpadon Failing grades soar with AI usage, dwindling math skills in Berkeley CS classes

I always absolutely hated when a teacher did a reverse classroom and I had to “learn” at home and then practice in the classroom. I think the solution is more engaging lessons and less outside work. I know why homework exists, but homework is a chore that most people want to get done as fast as possible. If kids got to learn something interesting in school and then have their free time after school, there would be less dependence on AI. If they’re interested in the topic, they’ll put more effort into it. If not, they were never going to retain it anyway

olpadon Show HN: Reassign – a 24-hour dial for planning your day

Never mind I just didn’t read the tutorial I was expecting to be able to tap the dial to create an event like google calendar

olpadon Show HN: Reassign – a 24-hour dial for planning your day

Doesn’t seem to work on mobile

olpadon Ask HN: I've been using AI for 3 years,I've lost the ability to think for myself

I’ve only been doing hardware for a few years, and I’m not the best in the world at it but I still find a lot of joy in building something with my hands and seeing it work. Definitely not too late in your thirties to get into anything, even woodworking or product design or sewing or anything physical with an intellectual challenge behind it.

olpadon Ask HN: I've been using AI for 3 years,I've lost the ability to think for myself

Work on a physical project, get into hardware design, build something physical. Even if you use AI for some of the research you’ll still be thinking a lot more than you will doing things that can entirely be validated with a chatbot

olpadon Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2026)

You might want to add a home page that doesn’t require a google sign in so that visitors can see the product before any commitment

olpadon Is my blue your blue? (2024)

Red vs orange vs yellow is not the same as green vs cyan vs blue though. Red and orange and yellow are the same distance on the color wheel as green and blue and purple, so you could do this same thing with red/red-orange/orange or the orange to yellow spectrum exclusively.

olpadon Programming languages used for music

It’s mostly just for fun, but lilypond has a bit of outdated syntax in modern programming terms. The main difference though is that lilypond compiles to music engraving, whereas capo compiles to a more universal file format that can then be used to engrave, or inserted into another file, or opened in another program.

olpadon Programming languages used for music

A few months ago I outlined a spec for a new modern programming language inspired by LilyPond I call Capo. I haven’t done anything with it yet but the idea is that it compiles to MNX, which is the (still in development) successor to MusicXML, becoming a language that could be used as a scripting language in any program that supports MNX or as a standalone text-based music tool. Thought this group might find it interesting: https://github.com/Capo-Lang/capo

olpadon What are your frustrations with the music streaming industry?

I'm researching the pain points of music streaming for both listeners and artists. This 3-5 minute survey covers frustrations, features, and artist compensation, and I would love to hear HN's perspective.

Let's start a discussion about what works, what doesn't, and where the music industry is headed next.

I'll share my findings here when I get 100+ responses!

olpadon Non-profit music streaming startup

Hi everyone, I'm currently working on a non-profit music streaming startup called Hark. I just made a website to start collecting emails of people interested, and I am looking for some feedback and help determining how I can get more people interested, specifically with providing users with some value beyond the good morals of supporting musicians through a more fair platform.

This project started because I'm a musician and I know a lot of musicians, and the current state of the music industry has been on a severe downturn for most musicians ever since Spotify introduced the world to (legal) music streaming and began normalizing paying artists very little for their work. To keep this post short, you can read more about specifically how I'm trying to solve this problem on my website (and enter your email if you want to help me out).

Currently working towards a beta that will hopefully be ready in the next month-ish.