benbrown

old internet. grew up on gopher and irc, never wanted to leave. made a bunch of weird stuff. corpo drone day job. adult goth. austin, tx. my pronouns are he/him.

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Public Key

npub1pk06xqjnl6un6njjetxk2z9nd8naefttn0exefw7mq78ge3hclpqmaapmj

NIP-05 Address

benbrown_at_hackers.town@mostr.pub

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqm8arqfflawfafefv4nt9pzekne7u544ehunv5h0ds0r5vcmu0sspz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43qjjugh3

Publishing to

relay.mostr.pub

Author Public Key

npub1pk06xqjnl6un6njjetxk2z9nd8naefttn0exefw7mq78ge3hclpqmaapmj

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Last Notes

2024-06-21 21:15:39

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@npub1xxt…f2tp chefs kiss

2024-06-21 13:12:38

Reading about how “ai” software requires so much power that we are keeping coal power plants online and using more fossil fuels than ever… because software companies don’t want to simply fix the bugs in the software we already bought but instead want to throw it all away and replace it with horse shit.
So instead of a working toolbar in Word you’ll get a magic wand icon that makes arbitrary changes to your document and your town will turn into a swamp or desert and you will still spend thirty minutes trying to remove that extra table cell.

2024-06-19 23:46:44

Look what I just found! Whoa!! Remember when this seemed cutting edge? I imported this from Japan!!
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/645/947/275/025/111/original/950ebca62c2a1374.jpeg

2024-06-10 20:01:05

It used to be that when Apple made announcements I got all excited and basically got in line to buy the new thing. Now, I just state wistfully at the aging devices I already own and wonder when they will break and force me to buy something I don't want.

2024-06-09 02:40:08

Y'all it is shockingly easy to build a web app with vanilla javascript and no frameworks that accepts file drag/drops, paste files and images from clipboard, device photo capture, and support for apple "stickers" that get pasted in from the keyboard.
The people selling you these frameworks and dependency trees with 100000 files don't want you to know how easy it is to do without them.

2024-06-09 01:08:20

I feel a desperate need to emulate Crazy Taxi at home if uh, anyone knows how to do that

2024-05-24 22:54:48

The mesh lives!! First message sent was received.
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/498/519/454/239/864/original/640099f1d93beaa8.jpeg
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/498/519/540/340/110/original/0ce6706070752cce.jpeg

2024-05-21 01:00:44

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From now on instead of a phone, I just have a raspberry pi strapped to my belt buckle with a giant battery pack in my backpack and a keyboard on my arm

2024-05-21 01:00:05

Just read an article about how Apple is going to incorporate openAI into the next iOS and it made me realize I need to maybe get a pine phone

2024-05-19 18:27:01

We went to a neighborhood pool. It was closed because of the chemicals.
We went to a different pool. We swam for 20 minutes. They kicked us out because of the chemicals.
We are now on our way to the third pool.

2024-05-17 15:07:18

Have you tried unplugging it and then just leaving it unplugged

2024-05-15 13:44:45

Early in my career people fought and died so that we would use paragraph tags to indicate a paragraph in an HTML document instead of fucking BR tags blasted all over the place but now the best developers in the world just slap a react element on the page with a CSS JavaScript class name assigned at random and we call this modern technology, i fucking hate it.

2024-05-13 22:11:52

I finally got a copy of this BBC series I’ve been trying to find since reading about it in Hooky’s book. All the way from Australia!
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/436/071/012/334/988/original/9e0f28675fca642c.jpeg

2024-05-11 20:34:12

Floppies live!
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240510-floppy-disks-why-some-people-are-still-in-love-with-this-obsolete-computer-storage-technology

2024-05-08 12:49:55

Conan, what is best in life?
Download stuff, see it archived safely, hear the lamentations of the major media companies

2024-05-08 12:20:30

A cool artist I follow is selling some very nice vintage art books. Check it out:
https://cloverkin.com/gabobooksale

2024-05-07 20:27:33

At this point the only tech device launch I am interested in is a hoverboard, a Gundam battle mech, or time travel.

2024-04-24 16:11:17

Working in the enterprise after working at my own wacky startups all my life really makes me understand Marvin the android on a much more intimate level.

2024-04-06 21:01:49

Another fine addition to my collection.
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/226/287/841/071/483/original/0384d04aa2d629e6.mp4

2024-04-05 18:55:12

Beautiful
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/220/128/745/500/008/original/4ca0e340e162d18d.jpeg

2024-04-05 18:07:32

There are only about 25 copies left of the print book, btw.

2024-04-05 14:11:03

When the total eclipse passes over central Texas and its majesty is obscured by rain clouds, a crack is going to open up in the earth and demons are going to pour out and begin turning people into zombies. It will be the beginning of the first age of chaos that will last until the infinite space raven eats the universe.
You heard it from me first.

2024-04-04 00:59:59

Gave a quick Meshtastic talk at Def Con 512. Great audience!

2024-04-02 13:52:47

The best websites in the world, the ones that got us all hooked on the internet in the first place, people hand built them in HTML.

2024-03-29 16:38:01

If you want a copy of my book by next Tuesday or Wednesday, order in the next hour or so before I ship the next batch of orders :)
https://shop.benbrown.com/

2024-03-28 00:18:37

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@npub1090…xllx thanks for your interest! I am doing some investigating because a few people have requested it.

2024-03-24 18:01:50

Wow wow wow I am shaking with excitement to see this!
The cover stock is very nice - smooth and matte. I love how it turned out.
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/151/964/318/121/999/original/4a81eac62e36bf0d.jpeg

2024-03-24 17:54:48

The books are here and they are beautiful!
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/151/945/080/361/827/original/a7bb63853f223ea7.jpeg

2024-03-23 19:26:50

Brought the kids to a skate rink. The entrance is armored up and looks like a pawn shop. There is a door with a buzzer on it. But once you go through it is like 1984 in here.

2024-03-22 21:25:19

There are 10 of these. Each disk has a copy of the story as a text file as well as the PDF I sent to the printer and a tiny low res version of the book cover.
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/141/440/218/404/835/original/a0c0333461ec53d6.jpeg

2024-03-22 15:08:28

Tore the arms off my Hackers.Town shirt. Couldn't be constrained by those sleeves!!
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/139/963/911/553/835/original/2a646199cf244eae.jpeg

2024-03-13 14:26:14

Here for the mechs!
https://www.theverge.com/24099430/netflix-atlas-trailer

2024-03-12 15:08:04

Max Headroom concept art, part 2.
Up close design of the Network 23 building. This is the original pencil drawing. The shading and details on the rooftop antenna and helicopter are so cool.
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/083/340/223/082/176/original/33a9ec7c05b1a368.jpeg

2024-03-12 15:06:07

Max Headroom concept art, part 1.
Network 23 building in the middle of the city. Max appearing on a giant screen on the side of another building.
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/112/083/326/939/178/056/original/a6676b1ca4793e9b.jpeg

2024-03-02 19:23:33

Ok now I really can’t wait to order some more tiny computers
https://austinmesh.org/

2024-02-28 22:28:23

I wrote a new short story. It is a cyberpunk story with hackers and fist fights and common folks up against big corporations. It is also set in a food truck trailer park. It is called "LIBRARY." I hope you like it!
The story is at the link below. There is also a PDF version.
https://benbrown.com/library/
It took me two months to write this and I got a ton of inspiration from all the cool real stories I hear from people around me, especially the folks on hackers.town, so thanks everyone!

2024-02-24 00:32:33

The moon!!!! 🌕

2024-02-08 21:26:29

I finally bought my first Raspberry Pi. I got a little display too. I am excited about the idea of running more web servers on my local network.

2023-12-19 16:09:13

This is so cool:
https://blog.partykit.io/posts/cursor-party
This is multi-user flying cursors with little one line chats that remind me of Animal crossing. You can add it to your site with a few lines of code.
Partykit is a cool thing, making it easier to build websocket type apps that are real time and multi-user on the web.
What if every personal site was like a weird animal crossing island you could visit with other people?!

2023-06-28 12:45:38

As I was going to bed last night, the Alexa started glowing yellow, which means it has a notification. I said, “Alexa clear notification” but it misheard me and started a long sales pitch about how my printer needed ink and did I want to reorder now. It was loud and obnoxious and after 10pm.
I was so pissed I ripped the power cable out of the device and turned it upside down.

2023-06-05 19:20:05

“Instead of using laptops, they wear their computers on their bodies, broken up into separate modules that hang on the waist, on the back, on the headset. They serve as human surveillance devices, recording everything that happens around them. Nothing looks stupider; these getups are the modern-day equivalent of the slide-rule scabbard or the calculator pouch on the belt, marking the user as belonging to a class that is at once above and far below human society.”
Neal Stephenson already said it

2023-06-02 02:02:06

Let's do a Fiction Quest play test, woo!
Come try out the ai-assisted text adventure game I've been building on nights and weekends. It's fun and weird and retro and futuristic all at once!
You can join in for the next few hours for free! If you like it, consider joining the Patreon which gives you access to the game world all the time.
See you in the game! (I'm Zeb)
https://play.fiction.quest/
https://hackers.town/system/media_attachments/files/110/472/148/164/643/666/original/26fde42410f98f36.png

2023-05-03 22:07:02

OK for a limited time only, come join my chatroom that is currently running an experimental MOO system based on GPT and configured to contain both Chatsubo from Neuromancer and Cyberdelia from Hackers.
https://chat.happynetbox.com/