The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past day
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Show HN: Read the Tape – Wordle for daytrading, five blind S&P 500 charts a day
Read the Tape gives players the same 5 S&P500 stock charts per day to predict. You select low, medium or high confidence and then call the chart UP or DOWN. It's a 1d chart which then resolves over 5 days. Alpha is scored against the Monkey Index, a basket of 11 random coin flips at low confidence which provides a tangible win/lose condition.<p>We're two weeks in and some interesting data is being kicked up. Players like to call tops even though stonks go up- 60% of the 70 charts so far resolve higher, players' down calls have only been right 31% of the time. There's a full stats dive at <a href="https://readthetape.cc/notes/tape-report-1" rel="nofollow">https://readthetape.cc/notes/tape-report-1</a><p>Your feedback and thoughts is most welcome.
Show HN: Read the Tape – Wordle for daytrading, five blind S&P 500 charts a day
Read the Tape gives players the same 5 S&P500 stock charts per day to predict. You select low, medium or high confidence and then call the chart UP or DOWN. It's a 1d chart which then resolves over 5 days. Alpha is scored against the Monkey Index, a basket of 11 random coin flips at low confidence which provides a tangible win/lose condition.<p>We're two weeks in and some interesting data is being kicked up. Players like to call tops even though stonks go up- 60% of the 70 charts so far resolve higher, players' down calls have only been right 31% of the time. There's a full stats dive at <a href="https://readthetape.cc/notes/tape-report-1" rel="nofollow">https://readthetape.cc/notes/tape-report-1</a><p>Your feedback and thoughts is most welcome.
Show HN: Ex Situ – Open-source spatial index of displaced cultural artifacts
Hi, I designed and developed a spatial index that maps museum artefacts as connecting arcs/hyperlinks from their origin site to institutional location/sources. The Index specifically looks at western/euro-american institutions and maps their collection categorised by them under Islamic art, Asian/African art, ethnological collections, Middle East, South America etc.<p>Started as my MA thesis in 2022, kept building since, mostly solo with a little funding. Fully open source, self-hosted, AGPL-3.0, Next.js + Deck.gl on the frontend, Strapi backend, Python ETL pulling from museum open-access APIs. Currently indexing over 100k artifacts from all over the world, across 8 collections (Met, V&A, SMB Berlin). Recently added an md export so researchers can download provenance data for a filtered set of artifacts.<p>The infrastructure is conceptualized as an indexer, not a hoster. Even images are kept as URLs pointing to the source institutions. It's connective tissue between archives that were never designed to speak to each other, with an origin-first search UI concept. The data model is on purpose flat, to avoid encoding problematic taxonomies, and routes researchers directly to the source giving responsibility to the source institutions rather than duplicating institutional data. It indexes the relationship between origin sites and destination collections.<p>Coming from a design background, taking this project from prototype to production app has been incredibly rewarding, but honestly it’s getting a little bit overwhelming to scale alone. I would love community’s feedback on performance scaling, any code contributions, data pipelines for missing museum apis or general feedback.<p>Repo: <a href="https://github.com/hburakyel/ex-situ" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/hburakyel/ex-situ</a><p>Live: <a href="https://exsitu.app" rel="nofollow">https://exsitu.app</a>
Show HN: Justif – Knuth-Plass justification and microtypography for the web
Justif is a drop-in JavaScript library that progressively enhances web pages to TeX-level text justification. Installation is a single <script> line, standard text and accessibility affordances are unchanged, and users with JS disabled get native browser rendering.<p>I made justif because I've long been a fan of justified text. I think it looks clean and elegant, and makes reading more enjoyable. But bad justification is the opposite, with gaping spaces that distract me to the point of making the text near unreadable.<p>Browsers have got better recently at handling justified text [0][1], but still use suboptimal greedy algorithms for the most part, and are not near that TeX/InDesign level of quality that I crave. `text-wrap: pretty` exists but is far from a panacea, as you can see for yourself in the demo.<p>Justif also has the benefit of providing more consistent text layout across browsers. Blink (Chrome), Gecko (Firefox) and WebKit (Safari) all justify text differently, so normally what the user sees depends on what browser they use.<p>Take a look at the demo, play around with it, see if you can break anything. I'm open to improvements of the API design as well, so please let me know your thoughts.<p>For more details, see the README: <a href="https://github.com/lyallcooper/justif" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/lyallcooper/justif</a><p>0: <a href="https://cloudfour.com/thinks/justified-text-better-than-expected/" rel="nofollow">https://cloudfour.com/thinks/justified-text-better-than-expe...</a><p>1: <a href="https://owickstrom.github.io/the-proportional-web/" rel="nofollow">https://owickstrom.github.io/the-proportional-web/</a>
Show HN: Justif – Knuth-Plass justification and microtypography for the web
Justif is a drop-in JavaScript library that progressively enhances web pages to TeX-level text justification. Installation is a single <script> line, standard text and accessibility affordances are unchanged, and users with JS disabled get native browser rendering.<p>I made justif because I've long been a fan of justified text. I think it looks clean and elegant, and makes reading more enjoyable. But bad justification is the opposite, with gaping spaces that distract me to the point of making the text near unreadable.<p>Browsers have got better recently at handling justified text [0][1], but still use suboptimal greedy algorithms for the most part, and are not near that TeX/InDesign level of quality that I crave. `text-wrap: pretty` exists but is far from a panacea, as you can see for yourself in the demo.<p>Justif also has the benefit of providing more consistent text layout across browsers. Blink (Chrome), Gecko (Firefox) and WebKit (Safari) all justify text differently, so normally what the user sees depends on what browser they use.<p>Take a look at the demo, play around with it, see if you can break anything. I'm open to improvements of the API design as well, so please let me know your thoughts.<p>For more details, see the README: <a href="https://github.com/lyallcooper/justif" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/lyallcooper/justif</a><p>0: <a href="https://cloudfour.com/thinks/justified-text-better-than-expected/" rel="nofollow">https://cloudfour.com/thinks/justified-text-better-than-expe...</a><p>1: <a href="https://owickstrom.github.io/the-proportional-web/" rel="nofollow">https://owickstrom.github.io/the-proportional-web/</a>
Show HN: A self-running space economy SIM in Rust and Bevy
I built this with Claude cause I always wanted to tinker with a simulation economoy and I love space themes.<p>A space-economy sim where nothing is scripted. A few hundred autonomous ships each run their own planner. Some chase the best trade route, take a delivery contract, refuel, retrofit at a shipyard, or dock so the crew can rest before morale tanks.<p>Markets price everything off supply with shortage-urgency multipliers, factions tax and subsidize, populations migrate when they're unhappy, and stations that go broke get abandoned and rot.<p>It started as an Elixir/Phoenix prototype, but the BEAM scheduler struggled on Windows gaming PCs, so I had Claude rewrite the engine in Rust.<p>The sim core is pure, synchronous, IO-free (its own hecs ECS), and the Bevy client embeds it directly as a library, sim and renderer share one world with zero marshalling. Ship AI is a GOAP planner over a world state; ships replan mid-flight when a better option appears. ~485 agents today at p50 ~10-20ms/tick, architected to push toward 100k+. Single native binary, bundled SQLite, no runtime deps. Getting into 100k has been a struggle, but I have pushed it into the thousand and it was running fine.<p>It's a sandbox, not a game yet, there's no objective yet, and I'm not actively pushing it toward "shippable." Anyone can fork it and take it over. Or it can stay as some type of AI slop, but part of me thinks it is already in a pretty good shape for a simulation use for various games or ideas.<p>(Full disclosure: a lot of this was built pairing with Claude. That's how I had the bandwidth to take it this far. Happy to talk about what that workflow actually looked like.)
Show HN: A self-running space economy SIM in Rust and Bevy
I built this with Claude cause I always wanted to tinker with a simulation economoy and I love space themes.<p>A space-economy sim where nothing is scripted. A few hundred autonomous ships each run their own planner. Some chase the best trade route, take a delivery contract, refuel, retrofit at a shipyard, or dock so the crew can rest before morale tanks.<p>Markets price everything off supply with shortage-urgency multipliers, factions tax and subsidize, populations migrate when they're unhappy, and stations that go broke get abandoned and rot.<p>It started as an Elixir/Phoenix prototype, but the BEAM scheduler struggled on Windows gaming PCs, so I had Claude rewrite the engine in Rust.<p>The sim core is pure, synchronous, IO-free (its own hecs ECS), and the Bevy client embeds it directly as a library, sim and renderer share one world with zero marshalling. Ship AI is a GOAP planner over a world state; ships replan mid-flight when a better option appears. ~485 agents today at p50 ~10-20ms/tick, architected to push toward 100k+. Single native binary, bundled SQLite, no runtime deps. Getting into 100k has been a struggle, but I have pushed it into the thousand and it was running fine.<p>It's a sandbox, not a game yet, there's no objective yet, and I'm not actively pushing it toward "shippable." Anyone can fork it and take it over. Or it can stay as some type of AI slop, but part of me thinks it is already in a pretty good shape for a simulation use for various games or ideas.<p>(Full disclosure: a lot of this was built pairing with Claude. That's how I had the bandwidth to take it this far. Happy to talk about what that workflow actually looked like.)
Show HN: Stacks – an hourly card solitaire about building four gardens
Show HN: Wheesper – Start an anonymous discussion with a link
Show HN: Wheesper – Start an anonymous discussion with a link
Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat tour of grace cathedral, San Francisco
Show HN: Immersive Gaussian Splat tour of grace cathedral, San Francisco
Show HN: Bribes.fyi – Built something to report bribes
Show HN: LoopGain – Stop agent loops with control theory, not max_iterations
Show HN: LoopGain – Stop agent loops with control theory, not max_iterations
Show HN: How much profit does your employer make per employee?
Show HN: A canvas-based note taking and organizer app
So I've been working on this app for a very long time now. Started off by wanting an app that separates long form notes from short form notes visually and keeps everything organized on a canvas.<p>The app features:<p>-Sticky notes for quick, small notes and A4 notes for long form documents<p>-A quick mode that uses local storage to quickly open the app and jot down a thought on the canvas
-A PDF export option that exports your notes into 3 custom designed PDF styles<p>-Visual hierarchy to replicate file structure instead of a linear fashion, where your files are notes, stacks are folders and labels are names for your folders<p>Would love to continue working on this app if you guys like the concept.
Show HN: A canvas-based note taking and organizer app
So I've been working on this app for a very long time now. Started off by wanting an app that separates long form notes from short form notes visually and keeps everything organized on a canvas.<p>The app features:<p>-Sticky notes for quick, small notes and A4 notes for long form documents<p>-A quick mode that uses local storage to quickly open the app and jot down a thought on the canvas
-A PDF export option that exports your notes into 3 custom designed PDF styles<p>-Visual hierarchy to replicate file structure instead of a linear fashion, where your files are notes, stacks are folders and labels are names for your folders<p>Would love to continue working on this app if you guys like the concept.
Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s
I might be the only SRE on Earth with his own bowling center. It's a more in-depth gig than you'd think.<p>My family and I bought an abandoned 8-lane bowling center in the rural mid-west. In our small town there weren't many recreation options for families. You've heard of a food desert? This is an R&R desert.<p>It had been abandoned for a good reason. The roof leaks, the electrical system was constantly surging, and my 70-year-old bowling equipment (still) doesn't work perfectly. The system that keeps your score is particularly interesting to me. It's the thing you watch during your game, but it fades into the background beyond that. Turns out these things are really cool, but absurdly expensive.<p>Ours was installed in 2008 and cost six figures. It's calculating ball speed and trajectory, camera-based pin detection (object detection and trig, on ICs!), runs the fouling, the animations, the pinsetting machine and ball return. Very cool stuff for its age.<p>From the business perspective, my facility only cost me $105k. To forklift-replace the score keeping system runs anywhere between $80-$120k, depending on features, vendor, and unit age. No upgrades or service contracts, mind you, and every feature and customization is a new line item. That's for a 1:1 replacement on a system installed in 2008. Incredible, given how fast the tech world moves.<p>Replacement parts cost a shocking $4000 per pair of lanes. But wait, the bowling machines themselves are 70 years old, so what's this "advanced" system actually doing back there? Actuating a single relay to trigger that big old machine. Everything else is strictly mechanical. Meanwhile I've got a six-figure invoice in my hand. I'm upset.<p>Given the state of open hardware, computer vision, real-time event streaming, and open source running megascale products worldwide, there had to be a way to do this myself.<p>So far I've built an equivalent prototype for about $200 per lane-pair, $400 if you're fancy. ESP32 and ESPNow with an RS485 fallback, reporting to a raspberry pi lane computer that's really just redis and a state machine bolted to an ESP32 gateway for the mesh.<p>Since it's all ESP32, I've got a fistful of spare controllers in a drawer, pre-flashed or waiting to be. All common off-the-shelf hardware: microcontrollers wired to relays, optocouplers, and IR-break-beam sensors, each running slightly different firmware. Writing the firmware and protocol is the actual hard part.<p>It's an ESPNow star-topology mesh: each node emits events from its sensors and accepts commands for its controls, reporting to a gateway node connected to the raspi over UART. From there it's event streaming: RX packets get translated and tossed into redis, commands relay back out to the mesh as needed. RS485 sits underneath as a wired fallback for noisy RF environments.<p>Once the data's in redis, it's familiar middleware/React/websocket/pub-sub stuff. Any React dev can build their own UI and bowling animations. Since it all runs on commodity hardware, I can do legit anything I want as the proprietor, and I own all my data. Repairs take five minutes; I can swap the rig on a lane pair in under 10. I'd bet a house like mine could go from zero to running in an hour or two.<p>We're calling it OpenLaneLink, and I plan to open source the hardware, firmware, and software stack when it's ready. Bowling is fun, and I want to help keep it affordable for alleys like mine.
I hate vendor lock-in. I'm not a fan of closed systems, calling support for every hiccup, or paying to "white label" my own equipment. Want to go Tron-themed for a night? Good luck finding a neon neumorphic theme in something bought at the turn of the century.<p>All that bugged me. Sure, bowling equipment is niche, but the open hardware and software landscape is amazing.<p>Thanks for reading! Let me know if anyone's interested in more posts about this bowling nonsense.
Show HN: I replaced a $120k bowling center system with $1,600 in ESP32s
I might be the only SRE on Earth with his own bowling center. It's a more in-depth gig than you'd think.<p>My family and I bought an abandoned 8-lane bowling center in the rural mid-west. In our small town there weren't many recreation options for families. You've heard of a food desert? This is an R&R desert.<p>It had been abandoned for a good reason. The roof leaks, the electrical system was constantly surging, and my 70-year-old bowling equipment (still) doesn't work perfectly. The system that keeps your score is particularly interesting to me. It's the thing you watch during your game, but it fades into the background beyond that. Turns out these things are really cool, but absurdly expensive.<p>Ours was installed in 2008 and cost six figures. It's calculating ball speed and trajectory, camera-based pin detection (object detection and trig, on ICs!), runs the fouling, the animations, the pinsetting machine and ball return. Very cool stuff for its age.<p>From the business perspective, my facility only cost me $105k. To forklift-replace the score keeping system runs anywhere between $80-$120k, depending on features, vendor, and unit age. No upgrades or service contracts, mind you, and every feature and customization is a new line item. That's for a 1:1 replacement on a system installed in 2008. Incredible, given how fast the tech world moves.<p>Replacement parts cost a shocking $4000 per pair of lanes. But wait, the bowling machines themselves are 70 years old, so what's this "advanced" system actually doing back there? Actuating a single relay to trigger that big old machine. Everything else is strictly mechanical. Meanwhile I've got a six-figure invoice in my hand. I'm upset.<p>Given the state of open hardware, computer vision, real-time event streaming, and open source running megascale products worldwide, there had to be a way to do this myself.<p>So far I've built an equivalent prototype for about $200 per lane-pair, $400 if you're fancy. ESP32 and ESPNow with an RS485 fallback, reporting to a raspberry pi lane computer that's really just redis and a state machine bolted to an ESP32 gateway for the mesh.<p>Since it's all ESP32, I've got a fistful of spare controllers in a drawer, pre-flashed or waiting to be. All common off-the-shelf hardware: microcontrollers wired to relays, optocouplers, and IR-break-beam sensors, each running slightly different firmware. Writing the firmware and protocol is the actual hard part.<p>It's an ESPNow star-topology mesh: each node emits events from its sensors and accepts commands for its controls, reporting to a gateway node connected to the raspi over UART. From there it's event streaming: RX packets get translated and tossed into redis, commands relay back out to the mesh as needed. RS485 sits underneath as a wired fallback for noisy RF environments.<p>Once the data's in redis, it's familiar middleware/React/websocket/pub-sub stuff. Any React dev can build their own UI and bowling animations. Since it all runs on commodity hardware, I can do legit anything I want as the proprietor, and I own all my data. Repairs take five minutes; I can swap the rig on a lane pair in under 10. I'd bet a house like mine could go from zero to running in an hour or two.<p>We're calling it OpenLaneLink, and I plan to open source the hardware, firmware, and software stack when it's ready. Bowling is fun, and I want to help keep it affordable for alleys like mine.
I hate vendor lock-in. I'm not a fan of closed systems, calling support for every hiccup, or paying to "white label" my own equipment. Want to go Tron-themed for a night? Good luck finding a neon neumorphic theme in something bought at the turn of the century.<p>All that bugged me. Sure, bowling equipment is niche, but the open hardware and software landscape is amazing.<p>Thanks for reading! Let me know if anyone's interested in more posts about this bowling nonsense.