The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past day
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Show HN: My not-for-profit search engine with no ads, no AI, & all DDG bangs
I've been working on a little open source [1] search engine, nilch. I noticed that nearly all well known search engines, including the alternative ones, tend to be run by companies of various sizes with the goal to make money, so they either fill your results with ads or charge you money, and I dislike this because search is the backbone of the internet and should not be commercial, so it runs in a not-for-profit style and aims to survive on donations. Additionally I'm personally really sick of AI in my search results so I got rid of that, and I wanted DuckDuckGo bangs so it supports all of them. Like many alternative search engines, it is fully private.<p>Sadly, it currently does not have its own index but rather uses the Brave search API. Once I'm in a financial position that it's possible, I would absolutely love to build a completely new index from the ground up which is open source, as well as an open source ranking and search algorithm, to back it.<p>I posted on Reddit and got an amazing amount of feedback which I implemented a number of feature requests, so I would really like your ideas, critiques, and bug reports as well. Thank you and sorry for the long post!<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/UnmappedStack/nilch" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/UnmappedStack/nilch</a>
Show HN: My not-for-profit search engine with no ads, no AI, & all DDG bangs
I've been working on a little open source [1] search engine, nilch. I noticed that nearly all well known search engines, including the alternative ones, tend to be run by companies of various sizes with the goal to make money, so they either fill your results with ads or charge you money, and I dislike this because search is the backbone of the internet and should not be commercial, so it runs in a not-for-profit style and aims to survive on donations. Additionally I'm personally really sick of AI in my search results so I got rid of that, and I wanted DuckDuckGo bangs so it supports all of them. Like many alternative search engines, it is fully private.<p>Sadly, it currently does not have its own index but rather uses the Brave search API. Once I'm in a financial position that it's possible, I would absolutely love to build a completely new index from the ground up which is open source, as well as an open source ranking and search algorithm, to back it.<p>I posted on Reddit and got an amazing amount of feedback which I implemented a number of feature requests, so I would really like your ideas, critiques, and bug reports as well. Thank you and sorry for the long post!<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/UnmappedStack/nilch" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/UnmappedStack/nilch</a>
Show HN: Stop Claude Code from forgetting everything
I got tired of Claude Code forgetting all my context every time I open a new session: set-up decisions, how I like my margins, decision history. etc.<p>We built a shared memory layer you can drop in as a Claude Code Skill. It’s basically a tiny memory DB with recall that remembers your sessions. Not magic. Not AGI. Just state.<p>Install in Claude Code:<p><pre><code> /plugin marketplace add https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill
/plugin install ensue-memory
# restart Claude Code
</code></pre>
What it does: (1) persists context between sessions (2) semantic & temportal search (not just string grep). Basically git for your Claude brain<p>What it doesn’t do: - it won’t read your mind - it’s alpha; it might break if you throw a couch at it<p>Repo: <a href="https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill</a><p>If you try it and it sucks, tell me why so I can fix it. Don't be kind, tia
Show HN: Stop Claude Code from forgetting everything
I got tired of Claude Code forgetting all my context every time I open a new session: set-up decisions, how I like my margins, decision history. etc.<p>We built a shared memory layer you can drop in as a Claude Code Skill. It’s basically a tiny memory DB with recall that remembers your sessions. Not magic. Not AGI. Just state.<p>Install in Claude Code:<p><pre><code> /plugin marketplace add https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill
/plugin install ensue-memory
# restart Claude Code
</code></pre>
What it does: (1) persists context between sessions (2) semantic & temportal search (not just string grep). Basically git for your Claude brain<p>What it doesn’t do: - it won’t read your mind - it’s alpha; it might break if you throw a couch at it<p>Repo: <a href="https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill</a><p>If you try it and it sucks, tell me why so I can fix it. Don't be kind, tia
Show HN: Stop Claude Code from forgetting everything
I got tired of Claude Code forgetting all my context every time I open a new session: set-up decisions, how I like my margins, decision history. etc.<p>We built a shared memory layer you can drop in as a Claude Code Skill. It’s basically a tiny memory DB with recall that remembers your sessions. Not magic. Not AGI. Just state.<p>Install in Claude Code:<p><pre><code> /plugin marketplace add https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill
/plugin install ensue-memory
# restart Claude Code
</code></pre>
What it does: (1) persists context between sessions (2) semantic & temportal search (not just string grep). Basically git for your Claude brain<p>What it doesn’t do: - it won’t read your mind - it’s alpha; it might break if you throw a couch at it<p>Repo: <a href="https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/mutable-state-inc/ensue-skill</a><p>If you try it and it sucks, tell me why so I can fix it. Don't be kind, tia
Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code
Show HN: Vibe coding a bookshelf with Claude Code
Show HN: Z80-μLM, a 'Conversational AI' That Fits in 40KB
How small can a language model be while still doing something useful? I wanted to find out, and had some spare time over the holidays.<p>Z80-μLM is a character-level language model with 2-bit quantized weights ({-2,-1,0,+1}) that runs on a Z80 with 64KB RAM. The entire thing: inference, weights, chat UI, it all fits in a 40KB .COM file that you can run in a CP/M emulator and hopefully even real hardware!<p>It won't write your emails, but it can be trained to play a stripped down version of 20 Questions, and is sometimes able to maintain the illusion of having simple but terse conversations with a distinct personality.<p>--<p>The extreme constraints nerd-sniped me and forced interesting trade-offs: trigram hashing (typo-tolerant, loses word order), 16-bit integer math, and some careful massaging of the training data meant I could keep the examples 'interesting'.<p>The key was quantization-aware training that accurately models the inference code limitations. The training loop runs both float and integer-quantized forward passes in parallel, scoring the model on how well its knowledge survives quantization. The weights are progressively pushed toward the 2-bit grid using straight-through estimators, with overflow penalties matching the Z80's 16-bit accumulator limits. By the end of training, the model has already adapted to its constraints, so no post-hoc quantization collapse.<p>Eventually I ended up spending a few dollars on Claude API to generate 20 questions data (see examples/guess/GUESS.COM), I hope Anthropic won't send me a C&D for distilling their model against the ToS ;P<p>But anyway, happy code-golf season everybody :)
Show HN: Z80-μLM, a 'Conversational AI' That Fits in 40KB
How small can a language model be while still doing something useful? I wanted to find out, and had some spare time over the holidays.<p>Z80-μLM is a character-level language model with 2-bit quantized weights ({-2,-1,0,+1}) that runs on a Z80 with 64KB RAM. The entire thing: inference, weights, chat UI, it all fits in a 40KB .COM file that you can run in a CP/M emulator and hopefully even real hardware!<p>It won't write your emails, but it can be trained to play a stripped down version of 20 Questions, and is sometimes able to maintain the illusion of having simple but terse conversations with a distinct personality.<p>--<p>The extreme constraints nerd-sniped me and forced interesting trade-offs: trigram hashing (typo-tolerant, loses word order), 16-bit integer math, and some careful massaging of the training data meant I could keep the examples 'interesting'.<p>The key was quantization-aware training that accurately models the inference code limitations. The training loop runs both float and integer-quantized forward passes in parallel, scoring the model on how well its knowledge survives quantization. The weights are progressively pushed toward the 2-bit grid using straight-through estimators, with overflow penalties matching the Z80's 16-bit accumulator limits. By the end of training, the model has already adapted to its constraints, so no post-hoc quantization collapse.<p>Eventually I ended up spending a few dollars on Claude API to generate 20 questions data (see examples/guess/GUESS.COM), I hope Anthropic won't send me a C&D for distilling their model against the ToS ;P<p>But anyway, happy code-golf season everybody :)
Show HN: Pion SCTP with RACK is 70% faster with 30% less latency
SCTP is a low level protocol focused on reliable packet transmission. Unlike hopelessly flinging packets from one device to another, it makes sure that the packets are correct using CRC, removes duplicate packets, and allows for packets to be sent in any order.<p>Going into an established library, I thought that everything was already implemented and that there wasn't anything to do until I went through the existing issues and organized all the tasks and decided on an order. Sean DuBois (<a href="https://github.com/Sean-Der" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Sean-Der</a>), one of the co-creators and current maintainers of Pion, an open-source pure Go implementation of WebRTC (which uses SCTP), introduced me to a dissertation that was written about improving SCTP from 2021 (<a href="https://duepublico2.uni-due.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/duepublico_derivate_00073893/Diss_Weinrank.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://duepublico2.uni-due.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/d...</a>). To my surprise, the features in it weren't actually implemented yet, and generally went unused even though it depicted pretty big improvements. This came as a bit of a shock to me considering the countless companies and services that actively use Pion with millions of users on a daily basis.<p>This led to two things: 1) implement the feature (done by me) and 2) measure the performance (done by Joe Turki <a href="https://github.com/JoeTurki" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/JoeTurki</a>). If you're interested in reading more, please check out the blog post where we go over what SCTP is used for, how I improved it, and the effort that went into making such a large improvement possible.<p>This also marks a huge milestone for other companies and services that use SCTP as they can refer to the implementation in Pion for their own SCTP libraries including any real-time streaming platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Discord screen share, Twitch guest star, and many more!<p>For my personal background, please take a look at a comment below about what it was like for me to get started with open-source and my career related journeys. Thanks for reading!
Show HN: Waycore – an open-source, offline-first modular field computer
Hi HN,<p>I’m building Waycore, an open-source project exploring what a flexible, offline-first field computer should look like for outdoor, survival, and off-grid scenarios.<p>The core goals are adaptability and resilience:<p>modular hardware (external sensor/tool modules)<p>extensible OS with support for external apps (guidelines in progress)<p>no required internet connection — maps, models, and knowledge work offline<p>optional LTE/Wi-Fi when available and explicitly enabled<p>A major focus is on-device agentic AI, not just chat or image recognition. The AI is intended to:<p>read live sensor data (GPS, compass, environment)<p>reason over offline knowledge<p>use apps and core APIs<p>assist with navigation, safety checks, logging, and communication<p>Main project repo (OS & architecture):
<a href="https://github.com/dmitry-grechko/waycore" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/dmitry-grechko/waycore</a><p>There’s also a separate repo curating freely downloadable survival & outdoor PDFs for offline use:
<a href="https://github.com/dmitry-grechko/waycore-knowledge" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/dmitry-grechko/waycore-knowledge</a><p>I’m looking for feedback and contributors around:<p>UI/UX for rugged touch devices<p>hardware modularity & interfaces<p>offline/edge agent architectures<p>small models that work well without internet<p>high-quality public-domain or permissive survival knowledge sources<p>Happy to answer questions or hear critique.
Show HN: Mysti – Claude, Codex, and Gemini debate your code, then synthesize
Hey HN! I'm Baha, creator of Mysti.<p>The problem: I pay for Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, and Gemini but only one could help at a time. On tricky architecture decisions, I wanted a second opinion.<p>The solution: Mysti lets you pick any two AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini) to collaborate. They each analyze your request, debate approaches, then synthesize the best solution.<p>Your prompt → Agent 1 analyzes → Agent 2 analyzes → Discussion → Synthesized solution<p>Why this matters: each model has different training and blind spots. Two perspectives catch edge cases one would miss. It's like pair programming with two senior devs who actually discuss before answering.<p>What you get:
* Use your existing subscriptions (no new accounts, just your CLI tools)
* 16 personas (Architect, Debugger, Security Expert, etc)
* Full permission control from read-only to autonomous
* Unified context when switching agents<p>Tech: TypeScript, VS Code Extension API, shells out to claude-code/codex-cli/gemini-cli<p>License: BSL 1.1, free for personal and educational use, converts to MIT in 2030 (would love input on this, does it make sense to just go MIT?)<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/DeepMyst/Mysti" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/DeepMyst/Mysti</a><p>Would love feedback on the brainstorm mode. Is multi-agent collaboration actually useful or am I just solving my own niche problem?
Show HN: Mysti – Claude, Codex, and Gemini debate your code, then synthesize
Hey HN! I'm Baha, creator of Mysti.<p>The problem: I pay for Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, and Gemini but only one could help at a time. On tricky architecture decisions, I wanted a second opinion.<p>The solution: Mysti lets you pick any two AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini) to collaborate. They each analyze your request, debate approaches, then synthesize the best solution.<p>Your prompt → Agent 1 analyzes → Agent 2 analyzes → Discussion → Synthesized solution<p>Why this matters: each model has different training and blind spots. Two perspectives catch edge cases one would miss. It's like pair programming with two senior devs who actually discuss before answering.<p>What you get:
* Use your existing subscriptions (no new accounts, just your CLI tools)
* 16 personas (Architect, Debugger, Security Expert, etc)
* Full permission control from read-only to autonomous
* Unified context when switching agents<p>Tech: TypeScript, VS Code Extension API, shells out to claude-code/codex-cli/gemini-cli<p>License: BSL 1.1, free for personal and educational use, converts to MIT in 2030 (would love input on this, does it make sense to just go MIT?)<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/DeepMyst/Mysti" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/DeepMyst/Mysti</a><p>Would love feedback on the brainstorm mode. Is multi-agent collaboration actually useful or am I just solving my own niche problem?
Show HN: Mysti – Claude, Codex, and Gemini debate your code, then synthesize
Hey HN! I'm Baha, creator of Mysti.<p>The problem: I pay for Claude Pro, ChatGPT Plus, and Gemini but only one could help at a time. On tricky architecture decisions, I wanted a second opinion.<p>The solution: Mysti lets you pick any two AI agents (Claude Code, Codex, Gemini) to collaborate. They each analyze your request, debate approaches, then synthesize the best solution.<p>Your prompt → Agent 1 analyzes → Agent 2 analyzes → Discussion → Synthesized solution<p>Why this matters: each model has different training and blind spots. Two perspectives catch edge cases one would miss. It's like pair programming with two senior devs who actually discuss before answering.<p>What you get:
* Use your existing subscriptions (no new accounts, just your CLI tools)
* 16 personas (Architect, Debugger, Security Expert, etc)
* Full permission control from read-only to autonomous
* Unified context when switching agents<p>Tech: TypeScript, VS Code Extension API, shells out to claude-code/codex-cli/gemini-cli<p>License: BSL 1.1, free for personal and educational use, converts to MIT in 2030 (would love input on this, does it make sense to just go MIT?)<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/DeepMyst/Mysti" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/DeepMyst/Mysti</a><p>Would love feedback on the brainstorm mode. Is multi-agent collaboration actually useful or am I just solving my own niche problem?
Show HN: Ez FFmpeg – Video editing in plain English
I built a CLI tool that lets you do common video/audio operations without remembering ffmpeg syntax.<p>Instead of:
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf "fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos" -loop 0 output.gif<p>You write:
ff convert video.mp4 to gif<p>More examples:
ff compress video.mp4 to 10mb
ff trim video.mp4 from 0:30 to 1:00
ff extract audio from video.mp4
ff resize video.mp4 to 720p
ff speed up video.mp4 by 2x
ff reverse video.mp4<p>There are similar tools that use LLMs (wtffmpeg, llmpeg, ai-ffmpeg-cli), but they require API keys, cost money, and have latency.<p>Ez FFmpeg is different:
- No AI – just regex pattern matching
- Instant – no API calls
- Free – no tokens
- Offline – works without internet<p>It handles ~20 common operations that cover 90% of what developers actually do with ffmpeg. For edge cases, you still need ffmpeg directly.<p>Interactive mode (just type ff) shows media files in your current folder with typeahead search.<p>npm install -g ezff
Show HN: Ez FFmpeg – Video editing in plain English
I built a CLI tool that lets you do common video/audio operations without remembering ffmpeg syntax.<p>Instead of:
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf "fps=15,scale=480:-1:flags=lanczos" -loop 0 output.gif<p>You write:
ff convert video.mp4 to gif<p>More examples:
ff compress video.mp4 to 10mb
ff trim video.mp4 from 0:30 to 1:00
ff extract audio from video.mp4
ff resize video.mp4 to 720p
ff speed up video.mp4 by 2x
ff reverse video.mp4<p>There are similar tools that use LLMs (wtffmpeg, llmpeg, ai-ffmpeg-cli), but they require API keys, cost money, and have latency.<p>Ez FFmpeg is different:
- No AI – just regex pattern matching
- Instant – no API calls
- Free – no tokens
- Offline – works without internet<p>It handles ~20 common operations that cover 90% of what developers actually do with ffmpeg. For edge cases, you still need ffmpeg directly.<p>Interactive mode (just type ff) shows media files in your current folder with typeahead search.<p>npm install -g ezff
Show HN: Private blogging and journaling with a simulated audience
Show HN: GeneGuessr – a daily biology web puzzle
I made a web game inspired by Geoguessr and Wordle, where you get shown a 3D model of a random human protein each day, and you have to triangulate its gene name using similarity clues.<p>My background is in wet lab molecular biology and I intend this game to be engaging mostly to other biologists. But if you're outside the field, I'm interested to know if you can still solve it with browser use LLMs, and if you learned something interesting doing so. Let me know what you think.<p>I made it with Claude over the last 2 months. My coding experience is limited to basic python data analysis and figure making. I've seen people online asking, "Now that we have coding AI, why isn't there a deluge of awesome AI-generated apps made by non-coders?" - if this sounds like you, check out Geneguessr to understand what a web app by a non-coder looks like.<p>I might write more about the process if there's a demand, but what really unlocked the project for Claude was Linear MCP, where it could put each individual issue on a shared Kanban board. This, and Playwright MCP for testing on live site, were the two workhorses that got me through this. For bugs Claude couldn't one-shot, Linear was great for consolidating issue information so that I could dump it into ChatGPT Codex - it would usually think for like half an hour, output very confusing explanations, but the bug was gone.<p>Game is free, no log-in required, sorry if you run into any mobile bugs - didn't test it much there.<p><a href="https://geneguessr.brinedew.bio/" rel="nofollow">https://geneguessr.brinedew.bio/</a>
Show HN: GeneGuessr – a daily biology web puzzle
I made a web game inspired by Geoguessr and Wordle, where you get shown a 3D model of a random human protein each day, and you have to triangulate its gene name using similarity clues.<p>My background is in wet lab molecular biology and I intend this game to be engaging mostly to other biologists. But if you're outside the field, I'm interested to know if you can still solve it with browser use LLMs, and if you learned something interesting doing so. Let me know what you think.<p>I made it with Claude over the last 2 months. My coding experience is limited to basic python data analysis and figure making. I've seen people online asking, "Now that we have coding AI, why isn't there a deluge of awesome AI-generated apps made by non-coders?" - if this sounds like you, check out Geneguessr to understand what a web app by a non-coder looks like.<p>I might write more about the process if there's a demand, but what really unlocked the project for Claude was Linear MCP, where it could put each individual issue on a shared Kanban board. This, and Playwright MCP for testing on live site, were the two workhorses that got me through this. For bugs Claude couldn't one-shot, Linear was great for consolidating issue information so that I could dump it into ChatGPT Codex - it would usually think for like half an hour, output very confusing explanations, but the bug was gone.<p>Game is free, no log-in required, sorry if you run into any mobile bugs - didn't test it much there.<p><a href="https://geneguessr.brinedew.bio/" rel="nofollow">https://geneguessr.brinedew.bio/</a>
Show HN: GeneGuessr – a daily biology web puzzle
I made a web game inspired by Geoguessr and Wordle, where you get shown a 3D model of a random human protein each day, and you have to triangulate its gene name using similarity clues.<p>My background is in wet lab molecular biology and I intend this game to be engaging mostly to other biologists. But if you're outside the field, I'm interested to know if you can still solve it with browser use LLMs, and if you learned something interesting doing so. Let me know what you think.<p>I made it with Claude over the last 2 months. My coding experience is limited to basic python data analysis and figure making. I've seen people online asking, "Now that we have coding AI, why isn't there a deluge of awesome AI-generated apps made by non-coders?" - if this sounds like you, check out Geneguessr to understand what a web app by a non-coder looks like.<p>I might write more about the process if there's a demand, but what really unlocked the project for Claude was Linear MCP, where it could put each individual issue on a shared Kanban board. This, and Playwright MCP for testing on live site, were the two workhorses that got me through this. For bugs Claude couldn't one-shot, Linear was great for consolidating issue information so that I could dump it into ChatGPT Codex - it would usually think for like half an hour, output very confusing explanations, but the bug was gone.<p>Game is free, no log-in required, sorry if you run into any mobile bugs - didn't test it much there.<p><a href="https://geneguessr.brinedew.bio/" rel="nofollow">https://geneguessr.brinedew.bio/</a>