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slhommeon Refurbishing a Tektronix TDS7104 Oscilloscope

Love this. I knew nothing about oscilloscopes until just a few months ago, when reasearched and bought one from a science lab. It wasfor a personal side project. I gutted it out and installed a mini PC inside, and now i run AI models into it. It's like my personal AI assistance. Hooked up to OpenAI realtime voice, grok bot, claude code, etc so I can command it to do stuff even when my main computer is off.

I just mainly love the retro-moder look of it. Here's a link to how it looks, for those curious:

https://x.com/slhomme/status/1965131874734584291

I had now idea there was such a huge second-hand market for those. It was such a great opportunity to learn about this tech.

slhommeon Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (October 2024)

Building https://videojam.co

Creating launch/hype videos for your product is hard. It's expensive if you go through an agency or a freelancer. You could DIY it with Adobe After Effects, but it takes a whole set of motion design and video editing skills!

That's why I built VideoJam, an easy-to-use video builder for startups, solo entrepreneurs, and hackers. Create your video in no time - no video editing skills required. You can create product videos from scratch, with ready-made scene templates, or using entire video templates.

I just launched this week, any feedback is very welcomed. Also, don't hesitate to reach out if you want to try at no cost during the beta.

slhommeon YouTube will show labels on videos that use AI

The backend is made in bubble.io, and it uses a bunch of AI models via APIs: elevenlabs for the text-to-voice, some lipsync models (via replicate), a bit of deepfake (roop) for the host, a bit of chatGPT for the script generation

slhommeon Unauthorized "David Attenborough" AI clone narrates developer's life, goes viral

Loved it, I thought that was quite hilarious! I can see how people get a little upset about it though, but in my mind this kind of content is just unavoidable.

I myself have been playing a lot with this kind of tech lately by creating realistic clones (voice + videos) of YouTubers and tiktokers. I think it has potential to go viral quite easily. I never published any of those though, because of ethical concerns. Just a question of time before other creators do this at scale though.

I almost did that with cloning real TV newscasters from bbc / fox / cnn, etc... but decided not to. But I did create a 100% "fake" journalist for an app that lets you create breaking news on the fly [1]. The result is still a little rough, obviously, but I can already tell how in just a few months it'll be impossible to distinguish a clone from a real person.

[1] https://fakenews.me

slhommeon YouTube will show labels on videos that use AI

"it's not immediately clear to me how this line will be defined" I'm myself struggling with this as well, even more as a creator, than a consumer.

I just built an AI-generated fakenews app [1] (for fun) and it opened my eyes: we're playing with fire.

The tech is already there: a bit of roop (deepfake) + SadTalker (lipync) + chatGPT, etc and voila! Anyway can create realistic videos / music on the fly! It's both thrilling and terrifying.

AI's involvement in media production isn't just a technical footnote; it's a fundamental shift in the landscape of information and creativity. Just like we scrutinize the origins of our food, we need to dissect the genesis of our media.

What YT is doing here is a first small step. It's time for all tech giants to confront this reality head-on. We're at a crossroads, and the path we choose will redefine our relationship with technology, creativity, and truth.

[1] https://fakenews.me

slhommeon Show HN: Scribble Diffusion – Turn your sketch into a refined image using AI

Yes, it uses Replicate indeed (scribble-diffusion) What I find is that kids (at least mine) are motivated to create even more drawings on their own and then see what it looks like with AI, which gives them more ideas, so they create even more drawings. So, so far, I'd say it has a positive impact. But I'm also pretty curious how this may end up impact on the long term.

slhommeon Show HN: Scribble Diffusion – Turn your sketch into a refined image using AI

Uploading my own images was one of the reasons I created my own version of this. It works great with kids pictures! This is so fun to see my kids smile on their face every time they see the AI version of their drawings!

Uploaded photos Examples: https://imgur.com/a/jeWgRvH Website: https://crappydrawings.ai

slhommeon Make-A-Video: AI system that generates videos from text

Yes it's happening real time, so far it's been generated about 8k movies over the last 3 hours. The costs right now are roughly about $150 for the generated images (Stable Diffusion) and $30 for the generated texts (GPT-3).

slhommeon Make-A-Video: AI system that generates videos from text

Sorry about this, we're having a hard time handling the heavy traffic coming from Hacker News. Over 4k movies generated in just the last 2hours, this definitely impacts our servers performances, not mentioning our Stable Diffusion and GPT bills! hehe. Currently working to make things smoother!

slhommeon Make-A-Video: AI system that generates videos from text

Yep, that's because GPT-3 was trained on real existing data, and it's quite a challenge to make sure the story plot is 100% fake. When it's too close from an existing film, it just sometimes gives it the same film title. I have in-between GPT-3 prompts to avoid that as much as possible, but sometimes real movie titles slips through the cracks. Something I hope to improve shortly.

slhommeon Make-A-Video: AI system that generates videos from text

As an owner of a Video Production studio, this kind of tech is blowing my mind and makes me equally excited and scared. I can see how we could incorporate such tools in our workflows, and at the same time I'm worried it'll be used to spam the internet with thousands and thousands of souless generated videos, making it even harder to look through the noise.

A fun related experiment, I thought it was fun to see what kind of movies AI would generate, so I created a "This Movie Does Not Exist" website[1] that auto generates fake movies (movie posters + synopsis). It basically uses GPT-3 to generate some story plots, and then uses that as a prompt (with in-between steps) for Stable Diffusion. Results may vary, but it definitely surprises sometimes with movies that look and sound amazing!

[1] This Movie Does Not Exist: https://thismoviedoesnotexist.org/

slhommeon Show HN: A programmer's approach to finding gifts

I love this article [1] about the effectiveness of gifts. Turns out, most of the time you're better off gifting cash. It's more aligned with what the priorities of the gift receivers:

- Usefulness (can I do something with it?) - Versatility (can I do a variety of things with it?) - Quality (is it well made/going to last?) - Stuff they've asked for (did I actually say I want this?)

I've been gifting cash for a little while now, and the reaction has almost always been better / more fun than with a more traditional gift. I do so this with an extra fun (retro) package though [2] which does add to the fun. (disclaimer, I own this website).

[1] https://www.willpatrick.co.uk/articles/how-to-buy-gifts-that...

[2] https://cashbox.gift

slhommeon Ask HN: Share your personal site

https://slhomme.com My personal website - html/css only, I like to keep it minimalist with a bit of personality.

slhommeon Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

Yes, at least via websites like Zapier, integromat etc. I haven't looked at it yet, but I'm sure it's very possible to do it natively from Amazon via webhooks too. So I'd say 95% yes!

slhommeon Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

Nice catch, thanks! Just fixed it. I'm still working on that website, a lot of the copy is still kind of temporary.

slhommeon Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

Thanks! I knew absolutely nothing about IoT and hardware before this, but quickly realized how big and welcoming the community is. This made things very motivating and enjoyable to get started (but still quite overwhelming!). I personally started by diving into the Arduino ecosystem and the world of micro controllers, particularly the esp8266 and esp32. It's all open-sourced and there are tones of tutorials to help you get started. The most challenging part for me so far has been to go from a "DIY prototype" for personal use to a "certified, safe commercial product". It's been a LOT more challenging than I thought, and took way longer to get there. But very fun to say the least.

slhommeon Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

https://getgumball.com

My wife and I started an online/offline shop last year. When our very first orders came in, it was the best feeling ever! I wanted some kind of celebration device that would turn on and play some celebrating music each time this happened. So I started learning IoT / hardware and build a cool retro-looking police light that I can plug into our WooCommerce/Shopify/Zapier accounts (or really anything else with webhooks). This was such a fun project and people wanted to get some for their own. So I'm working on making it a "real" product. I don't care if it becomes a "success" or not, I'm already so happy to use it for my own and my friends.

slhommeon The tools and tech I use to run a one-woman hardware company

Very cool. Good luck with the project!

slhommeon The tools and tech I use to run a one-woman hardware company

Oh thanks! Yes, this website is still very much a work in progress I do it the "#buildinbuplic" way, so some content on the website still needs to be created / improved.

slhommeon The tools and tech I use to run a one-woman hardware company

Very inspiring. I'm myself starting a similar journey with my first hardware product (https://getgumball.com) and it's really reassuring that it is possible to do something like this in "solo" mode. We hear a tone of people doing it in the SaaS work, but not so much in hardware - if anybody here knows other similar examples, I'd love to hear about it!

slhommeon Ask HN: How many projects do you work on at a time?

I usually have one main big project (currently https://getgumball.com) and a couple of smaller fun ones (currently https://cashbox.gift and http://listorama.io/).

But I have a list of 10+ other projects I'd love to work on that I constantly have to force myself not to. That's really a challenge to keep the focus on 2-3 max, like a lot of other creative people, I'm always tempted to try new ideas and projects, and it can quickly become an issue (never finishing the projects already started).

slhommeon Show HN: I built an After Effects for dummies

Really cool product, lots of potential, pretty well done too, it's really easy to use. One thing that'd be really cool for social videos is to let users add animated gifs from existing libraries like giphy.com and such (basically like Instagram / Snapchat does). Wish you all the best with this project.

slhommeon Ask HN: What projects are you working on now?

I'm working on an IoT rotating light (think like a real police light) that turns on with the sound of your choice whenever you receive a notification of your choice. It can be set up via Zapier/IFTTT or an API. New sale on your Shopify website? New star on a GitHub project? Website down? New mention from a specific person/word on Twitter? New subscriber on YouTube? Someone ringing your doorbell? Your fav sport team just scored? You get the idea. It just makes notifications a lot more fun and "real". I like to think it will help capture the same excitement as in Ghostbusters #1 when they get their very first client and set off the alarm.

Ghosbusters ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXMcbhn6Np0

More info on my YouTube channel (in French): https://youtu.be/pkoNW3ifuYE

slhommeon The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

Nice, thanks a lot for the info that's going to be helpful. I'll look into these!

slhommeon The Amazing $1 Microcontroller (2017)

I just got into the micro controller world a few days ago and it's overwhelming how many options there are! Between the pi, the Arduino, the ESP8266, Wemos ans so so many more which all come in so many flavors it's really tricky to the "ideal" one for a beginner like myself. The project I have in mind would require to work on batteries as opposed to plugin it into a well. It sounds like you're suggesting that anything ESP8266-based would not be ideal not plugged into a wall. Could you share some pointers to what alternative might be better for very low consumption but still has wifi capabilities? Thanks a lot! I'll keep digging in the meantime, this is a fascinating world I'me happy to explore!

slhommeon Sandwich Video: The company that makes nearly all startup videos

By the way, we also made a "behind the scene" interview about this video: http://startup-videos.com/blog/behind-the-scenes-of-the-doll...

slhommeon Sandwich Video: The company that makes nearly all startup videos

Adam and Sandwich video are pretty much the reference in the "startup videos" industry, specially for "live action" videos. They have such a distinctive style and premium quality standard attached to each of their videos. Even though they have a very specific style, they always try to stay innovative and craft original concepts, which is very inspiring. We made a "behind the scene" interview with Adam a little while back when Sandwich really started to get popular http://startup-videos.com/blog/startup-videos-interview-sand... definitely worth a read if you want to learn more about his process.

That being said, there's a lot of other very innovating and smart videos made by other studios/startups, and if you're curious about them, a good place to check out is http://startup-videos.com (disclaimer: I'm one of the cofounder of the site).

slhommeon Ask HN: Companies that make startup videos?

Hello,

This page should help: http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-examples-of-startup-...

Also check out http://startup-videos.com to find great videos for inspiration as well as a list of startups/freelancers offering that kind of services.

Hope it'll help.

slhommeon Creating slick intro videos for startups

You should have a look at this topic on Quora.com for a list of companies/freelancers doing that kind of videos.

http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-good-examples-of-startup-...

We also do a lot of startup videos at http://thinkmojo.net

slhommeon Ask HN: Good video introductions to a start up service?

Check out http://startup-videos.com for great examples of starup videos introductions. You'll also find a page with a list of agencies/freelancers offering such services. Hope it'll help