HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Another video about what you can achieve with Excel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8 (HDR Image processing)

My favourite (ab)use of Excel, which is already on your list, is using it for HDR photography[0].

While I'd never use it for day-to-day anything, things like this are a really interesting way to show how things like HDR photography actually work. Excel can be very approachable for stuff like this.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8

> It does everything, badly.

Yes, it does do everything[0] badly.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8

I just watched a talk this morning about doing high dynamic range photography in Excel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8). Looks like now I've got something to watch tomorrow!

⬐ f00_

that is great, both of these reminded me of deepexcel: multi-layer neural networks implemented with a spreadsheet!:

http://www.deepexcel.net/

⬐ JepZ

For those who are wondering who the hell calls his software 'MatheAss': Its German and could be translated as 'Math Ace'.

⬐ cs702

Reminds me of ExcelNet (deep learning with Excel):

http://www.deepexcel.net/

⬐ cs702

PS. Make sure to read the related "paper:" http://www.deepexcel.net/paper.pdf

⬐ jimmies

Among all the software that came out of Microsoft, Excel is one fine software. The other one is Solitaire.

⬐ aaronbrethorst

Ski Free.

⬐ Terretta

Microsoft Bob (codename "Utopia", seriously) “Assistants” and the vestigial Office Paperclip beat Siri, Home, and Cortana to the punch, commercial products anticipating agents and chatbots by two decades.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob

⬐ paulie_a

Microsoft Bob was an abomination on so many levels

⬐ tjoff

Arguably so is Siri, Cortana and Home too.

⬐ tinus_hn

Excel is quite powerful but it also tries to do too much and does a lot of it badly.

Solitaire does one thing and it does it quite well.

⬐ ubermonkey

SO true. Imagine how much important business knowledge is tied up in an Excel macro, or -- God forbid -- in a ridiculously long formula stored in cell Q237 or whatever.

Less snarkily, Excel is so capable that lots of office workers learn IT and never bother going any deeper, and so they do things like re-inventing relational databases using Excel, etc.

⬐ dragonwriter

> Imagine how much important business knowledge is tied up in an Excel macro, or -- God forbid -- in a ridiculously long formula stored in cell Q237 or whatever.

Often none, and that's the bigger problem; those aren't vehicles that are good for storing business knowledge, so the business knowledge that went into them is often either stuck in someone's head (who may have left long ago) or lost entirely.

An (possibly entirely correct in context, possibly not) application of that knowledge in a particular context is captured in the macro or formula, but the knowledge itself, including the factors from the context contributing to the particular application, is not captured.

⬐ ubermonkey

Fair point for sure.

And this whole malady is especially common in finance departments, which are (typically) horribly documented anyway. It's all institutional knowledge, and those in that area tend to be long-term employees who don't know the difference between "things that are part of accounting and finance everywhere" and "things that are idiosyncratic to Acme Corp."

⬐ BuildTheRobots

Very entertaining and well delivered talk; it not only does what the title says, but also explains some of the math and magic behind making HDR images.

⬐ ktavera

The humour reminds me of http://oneweirdkerneltrick.com/

⬐ ubermonkey

I'm reminded of the oft-linked Goldbloom quote in Jurassic Park. ;)

I'm also reminded of a guy I knew in college. He would LOVE this, because when we were working together at a university computer lab, he was the guy who would learn a tool, and then use that tool to the exclusion of all else, even to the point of absurdity.

The only tool he really knew when he started working there was Lotus, and he ended up figuring out how to automate all sorts of network administration tasks in Lotus macros.

⬐ cjdell

Reminds me of a comedy show where they were making colour images in Excel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBX2QQHlQ_I

⬐ post_break

I wish I could find the article about the guy who wrote a program in excel for working with digital surround sound like 5.1 and 7.1 Dolby.

⬐ jonplackett

Love the little joke about the sublime text pop up.

⬐ None

None

⬐ victorqhong

Also see rendering 3D in Excel:

https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131968/microsoft_exce...

⬐ chuckdries

Anyone know what "!!Con" is? I can't google for it, I just get the dictionary definition of "con"

⬐ GrayShade

"Con" is often short for "conference". In this case, it's from http://bangbangcon.com/.

⬐ IncRnd

It's a little known fact, but Powershell runs with Excel as the internal execution engine. The secret is actually hidden in plain sight. Just look at the name for a clue...

Powershell = Powexcel = Powered by Excel

⬐ tritium

Hmm

Yes perfect

⬐ aeleos

This is very similar in style to my favorite presentation and paper of all time, titled On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint [0]. The research, presentation and paper were all created inside of powerpoint and it is probably the greatest thing ever made. If you enjoyed the above video you will definitely enjoy this.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8

⬐ romwell

The style seems to be clearly inspired by the said awesome presentation (e.g. the inclusion of the "Motivation: N/A" slide).

⬐ IncRnd

That was a great video! Unfortunately, clicking on each cell's entries really slows down computations.

At National Supercomputing Center For Energy and the Environment we retrofitted all the PowerPoints to use timed animations. Now all computations execute in constant time. There is no need to click! As a special bonus, the code is no longer susceptible to side-channel timing attacks.

On The Turing Completeness of PowerPoint https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNjxe8ShM-8

Compiling C to printable x86, to make an executable research paper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA_DrBwkiJA

HDR Photography in Microsoft Excel?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8

Zebras All the Way Down https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE2KDzZaxvE

Solving Layout Problems with CSS Grid and Friends https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XkzpgWoYEI

Console Security - Switch https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-8941-console_security_-_switch

Let's move SMM out of firmware and into the kernel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GEaw4msq6g

Bringing Linux back to server boot ROMs with NERF and Heads https://media.ccc.de/v/34c3-9056-bringing_linux_back_to_serv...

Sharing the Chisel https://youtu.be/2C8F7GBRluY?t=11m31s (looks like the actual conference video wasn't released)

You should definitely check out !!con. They have really fascinating and weird talks about all sorts of interesting CS and design topics. Plus, it's pay what you can and is located in New York, so there's lots of interesting stuff to do nearby.

My favorite talk from this year was about implementing an algorithm for HDR photography purely in Microsoft Excel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkQJdaGGVM8