Hello hackers,
As always, thank you to everyone who presented, showed up, and asked questions - you're the bestest!
And a huge thank you to Blue Apron for hosting us and providing us with the best catering we've EVER had - our jaws just dropped at the noms! (btw, they are of course hiring :)
Eric explained how he uses web MIDI to reprogram hardware synthesizers, and taught us about how people can share patches to program their synthesizers. Folks have been sharing photos of the knobs and dials and such on a Facebook group, but he figured he could find a better way to help share the synth hacks!
Faraz wrote a library for automatically updating Android apps you've released, without needing any special permissions. We particularly appreciated the interesting discussion about ethical issues and the balance between not wanting to risk making users unhappy with changes, but wanting to be able to fix bugs quickly.
The Video Machine is a video controller, powered by an Arduino, that controls the playback of videos presented on a web browser. By pressing the buttons on the control, you control which videos are played on the screen and through the speakers.
To give credit where credit is due, Dror didn't create this awesome project alone - it was a collaboration between him and Mint Woraya Boonyapanachoti!
They wanted to share the invitation for the ITP Winter Show, which is an events full of hacks that if we're lucky might be as interesting as this one - we definitely wanna check it out!
Sophia wrote this game (and the game engine!) to commemorate the time she and some friends celebrated Halloween by renting a house to hang out in for the weekend. We love it - writing a commemorative game sure beats just buying t-shirts!
How do you organize a secret santa when you don't want anyone to give a gift to their significant other(s) or sibling(s)? Devin solved this by writing a secret santa app involving not one, but two different kinds of self joins.
Nikita is a sentimental AI that can assess your emotions (through voice and face), calculate deviations in heart rate, and recognize people by faces. Using that data, it provides recommendations (music, quotes, and Uber ride requests to parks, bars, restaurants) to stabilize mood and heart rate.
Michelle wanted to learn Morse Code to help her read a Wired Love, an 1879 novel about a romance between two telegraph operators.
So of course, she wrote a Morse code trainer using WebAudio and audio sprites of the NATO alphabet. Words are spelled out in NATO to get the reader used to reading from spelled out text, then one character at a time is switched to Morse, with a cameo from the novel.
- Github
- Wired Love, a Romance of Dots and Dashes by Ella Cheever Thayer
We decided to experiment with turning off the $5 donation this time. This had the expected result of more people RSVPing and a lower percentage actually showing up.
A lot of the folks who didn't show up really did take the time to change their RSVPs to no a day in advance, which was responsible and great! But it was really too late to allow more people in off the waitlist, which is a bummer.
We're going to try continuing without a required donation next time, but we're gonna ask you to try extra hard to please update your RSVPs earlier if you realize you're not going to be able to make it, in order to make room for someone who really wants to attend. Thanks!
Our next meetup will take place on February 16, 2017. Dev Bootcamp has graciously offered to host us again, so that's where we'll be!
We'll release the official Meetup announcement soon, and like last time, RSVPs will open 2 weeks before the event. Time to start thinking about what you might want to present in February!
As always, you can follow us on twitter, and we look forward to seeing you in February!
Happy hacking,
&&{ aditya, danielle, sasha }