Aes Cult

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Jellyfish, aesthetics, and why I'm building a synthesizer
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Jellyfish, aesthetics, and why I'm building a synthesizer

My new hobby will reward me with bleeps and bloops

Alex Weber
Aug 6, 2020
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Share this post
Jellyfish, aesthetics, and why I'm building a synthesizer
aescult.substack.com

Hi again! First, let me say thanks for spending your time reading this. If you like it, you can click the little heart icon at the top or bottom of the post to let me know.

Second, you may have noticed, I’ve moved my newsletter to a new home on Substack. I chose this platform because it has some better features about handling images, and I really like sharing images with you as part of this.

Here’s one right now—This crown jellyfish is highly aesthetic:

r/PhotoshopBattles: Crown Jellyfish

Capitalism 2.0, CryptoCriticism, Science

Here’s a couple things I read recently that were interesting.

  • If we want to continue to have growth within capitalism, we should consider that perhaps Universal Basic Income is Capitalism 2.0

  • The Haskell Elephant in the Room: Shady cryptocurrency operations are building on this novel and trusted programming language to try to seem more trustworthy

  • You Want to See My Data? I Thought We Were Friends! A comic discussing the perverse incentives in science, and thoughts on how to improve the institutions that support research

Pics & Aesthetics

Left: updated quarantine style. Center: droplets on a grape leaf. Right: playa sunset

I’m enjoying some new clothes and accessories in the first pic. In the third, I continue to enjoy taking photos with reflections by getting my lens very close to the surface.

So, about this synthesizer I’m working on…

Last August I attended DEF CON in Las Vegas, the preeminent hacker convention in the US, if not the world. It was both exciting and inspiring! I picked locks, tried to hack a toaster, collected stickers, and did my first real soldering project, building a “badge”. Specifically, this one:

DCDarknet Badge 8 from DEF CON 27. Photo by @briansak on Twitter

So anyway, DEF CON is cancelled this year, as you might expect. I enjoyed the process of building that badge, though, so while looking for a new project, I found the x0x b0x.

Left: x0x b0x. Right: Roland TB-303. Top right: x0x b0x circuit board. Photo: Limor on Flickr

It’s a clone of a famous synthesizer colloquially called the 303. I’m excited for it and enjoying the process. Optimistically, I’m about a quarter of the way through the project. It’s kind of a nights-and-weekends thing right now.

What have you been doing lately?

TTYS,
A

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