It was Supercon this weekend, and Hackaday staffers made their way to Pasadena for what was by all accounts an excellent event. Now they’re all on their way home on red-eye flights and far from their benches, so spare a thought for the lonely editor holding the fort while they’ve been having fun. The supply of cool hacks for your entertainment must continue, so what’s to be done? Fortunately Hackaday writer [Anne Ogborn] has the answer, in the form of an automated Hackaday article generator.
We once had a commenter make a withering insult that one of our contributors’ writing styles looked like the work of an AI driven bot, a sentence that the writer in question treasures enough to have incorporated in their Hackaday email signature. [Anne] is a data scientist and Prolog programmer by trade so knows a bit about AI, and she has no need for such frippery. Instead she’s made a deck of cards each marked with a common theme among the work featured here, and generating new article titles is a simple case of drawing cards from the pack and assembling the resulting sentence.
The result is both amusing and we think, uncannily on the mark. Who wouldn’t want an ESP8266 powered cardboard drone? We think it will make a valuable addition to the Hackaday armoury, to be brought out on days such as the first of April, when there’s always an unexpected shortage of hacks. Video below the break.
The “cardboard drone” part has already been worked out: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-09-03/ukraine-war-australian-made-cardboard-drones-russia-warfare/102804120
Okay, I’m normally the last one to mention this horrible chip, but it doesn’t seem quite rigth for a HaD auto generator to not have 555 in it.
You do have a very fair point.
Why do you think the 555 is horrible?
It’s no longer politically correct, times move on.
Twitter users uncovered offensive comments the 555 timer made back in 2011
Wait til they find the tweets it sent in 1973
The chip? Fine, indispensable. Talking about it here? Way overdone, cringe. This specific case does have a point however
Wait! Isn’t that only for the comments?!
frfr. we’re always saying “shoulda been a 555”. almost never do we say “that was an interesting use of a 555”
IIRC, “Far Side” cartoonist [Gary Larson] used a random word generator to inspire some of his works.
The relatively simple action of simplifying a body of work or enterprise into single units is the first step in business process optimization. You start with the keywords, figure out the interactions and dependencies, and then boom, your CEO lays off 40% of the company because the PPP loan protections expired 6 months later!
Hackaday writers, you’re doing a good job.
I come here every morning without fail to get my dose of interesting tech!
Interesting. I myself prefer the comments to the article
Pretty much sums it up.
Hack suppose to be a solution to a problem, not art.
Hack is in the eye of the beholder.
I love “cat easily makes 3d printed toy”. I hope one of you folks with a cat will do this project.
I must confess, once or twice I’ve left a comment criticial of some bit of writing. Hopefully not withering. Hopefully not discouraging; for each of you, I enjoy reading your articles, especially when you add a bit of personal experience or feeling. I would miss your contributions. HaD is one of only two web sites that really engage me.
That engagement obviously applies to a lot of other readers. The flip side of that coin is that something that annoys a reader is really going to annoy them, and you’re pretty likely to hear about it. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, it may not be expressed in a nice way. Even when polite, such critisizism can’t be easy to take, especially since it’s public. Thank you for putting up with it.
Suggestion: Perhaps something for private feedback? Maybe it already exists and I don’t know about it… Not everybody will use it, especially the nastier commenters, but it might be valuable. It would at least let politer readers stay engaged and get annoyances off their chest, and help keep the public comments on-topic.
I don’t personally believe there are any nasty commenters here, I think they’re just trying to get their viewpoint across and happen to convey it in the wrong tone, HaD should have a little reminder at the top of the comments box that says (more or less):
I strongly agree with your private feedback suggestion