The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past day
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Show HN: Cadence – A guitar theory app
Hello HN, I just released this music theory and ear training mobile app for guitar which I've been working on for a bit more than a year on the side.<p>The idea was to make something for the eternally "intermediate" guitarist (myself included). There are a lot of beginner apps which rely on learning songs, toolkits which give you a bunch of stuff with no explanation but not many in-between apps to actually learn and practice more generic and somewhat advanced stuff.<p>The app contains short lessons, recaps and most importantly challenges (visual, audio and pure theory) along with a very complete library.<p>The challenges are made for practicing, they will get increasingly harder and getting to the max score is supposed to be quite hard. The idea being that you have to repeat them regularly until your brain has integrated the info and it flows naturally rather than being a one time quick dopamine shot. This is partly inspired by how language learning apps work.<p>It has no ads, a lifetime purchase option and you can use it without an account if you don't care about multi-device sync or backing up your progress.<p>Android: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apizon.cadence.android">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apizon.cad...</a><p>iOS: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cadence-guitar-theory/id6747011447?platform=iphone">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cadence-guitar-theory/id674701...</a><p>(This is my second and last post about this sorry for spam. My first post a few weeks ago didn't get any views and posting on a saturday might not have helped...)
Show HN: Cadence – A guitar theory app
Hello HN, I just released this music theory and ear training mobile app for guitar which I've been working on for a bit more than a year on the side.<p>The idea was to make something for the eternally "intermediate" guitarist (myself included). There are a lot of beginner apps which rely on learning songs, toolkits which give you a bunch of stuff with no explanation but not many in-between apps to actually learn and practice more generic and somewhat advanced stuff.<p>The app contains short lessons, recaps and most importantly challenges (visual, audio and pure theory) along with a very complete library.<p>The challenges are made for practicing, they will get increasingly harder and getting to the max score is supposed to be quite hard. The idea being that you have to repeat them regularly until your brain has integrated the info and it flows naturally rather than being a one time quick dopamine shot. This is partly inspired by how language learning apps work.<p>It has no ads, a lifetime purchase option and you can use it without an account if you don't care about multi-device sync or backing up your progress.<p>Android: <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apizon.cadence.android">https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apizon.cad...</a><p>iOS: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cadence-guitar-theory/id6747011447?platform=iphone">https://apps.apple.com/us/app/cadence-guitar-theory/id674701...</a><p>(This is my second and last post about this sorry for spam. My first post a few weeks ago didn't get any views and posting on a saturday might not have helped...)
Show HN: bbcli – A TUI and CLI to browse BBC News like a hacker
hey hn!<p>I (re)built this TUI tool for browsing BBC News in the terminal, it uses an RSS feed for getting headlines and previews and you can read articles too.<p>Try it out and let me know what you think! :)
Show HN: bbcli – A TUI and CLI to browse BBC News like a hacker
hey hn!<p>I (re)built this TUI tool for browsing BBC News in the terminal, it uses an RSS feed for getting headlines and previews and you can read articles too.<p>Try it out and let me know what you think! :)
Show HN: ASCII Automata
ASCII AUTOMATA is a tool to analyze the visual connectivity of characters in textmode fonts. It works by scoring edge connectivity of each piece and finding the best matching neighbour piece. Every time it places a piece, it "grows" towards the edges it touches by placing a matching piece. The red heatmap shows how frequently each character is used, useful for analyzing the fonts.<p>I initially made it as a tool for myself. When I design textmode art fonts it is sometimes difficult to figure out if a specific character would actually be useful for drawing or not. I wanted a tool which would show how useful and versatile some character is, and how well it connects to all other pieces.<p>But, as it turned out, this tool produces unexpectedly beautiful emergent patterns, so I made it into a proper little toy-tool for anyone to play around with.<p>Sidenote: it was also a good opportunity to test a new method for constructing a responsive semi-complex UI.<p>I made a web component which renders text as SVG paths using hershey vector fonts. The SVG fills the parent element, and applies stroke after the stretching happens: so strings "a" and "aaa" take the same amount of space, while remaining legible because the stroke is independent of the text's transformations. Thus, I never have problems with overflowing text in the UI!<p>The layout is made with a CSS grid. For example the sidebar is simply <div style="--cols:8;--rows:41;" class="sidebar grid"> and then each UI element gets a position and size <vec-text style="--x:1;--y:19;--w:2;--h:1;">Cell Width</vec-text> . As a result, the layout is easy to make, the sidebar itself can be any size or shape,all the UI elements stay exactly where I put them, and all text remains legible due to the stretchy, monolined vector font web component. It's great!<p>The WHOLE UI layout is just 120 lines of HTML, and 40 lines of CSS (for around 90 UI elements)!<p>(it did take a while to fiddle with the coordinate numbers, but I'm working on a wysiwyg tool to make that easier too...)<p>[crossposted this comment from mastodon: <a href="https://typo.social/@gdc/115405978249292146" rel="nofollow">https://typo.social/@gdc/115405978249292146</a>]
Show HN: ASCII Automata
ASCII AUTOMATA is a tool to analyze the visual connectivity of characters in textmode fonts. It works by scoring edge connectivity of each piece and finding the best matching neighbour piece. Every time it places a piece, it "grows" towards the edges it touches by placing a matching piece. The red heatmap shows how frequently each character is used, useful for analyzing the fonts.<p>I initially made it as a tool for myself. When I design textmode art fonts it is sometimes difficult to figure out if a specific character would actually be useful for drawing or not. I wanted a tool which would show how useful and versatile some character is, and how well it connects to all other pieces.<p>But, as it turned out, this tool produces unexpectedly beautiful emergent patterns, so I made it into a proper little toy-tool for anyone to play around with.<p>Sidenote: it was also a good opportunity to test a new method for constructing a responsive semi-complex UI.<p>I made a web component which renders text as SVG paths using hershey vector fonts. The SVG fills the parent element, and applies stroke after the stretching happens: so strings "a" and "aaa" take the same amount of space, while remaining legible because the stroke is independent of the text's transformations. Thus, I never have problems with overflowing text in the UI!<p>The layout is made with a CSS grid. For example the sidebar is simply <div style="--cols:8;--rows:41;" class="sidebar grid"> and then each UI element gets a position and size <vec-text style="--x:1;--y:19;--w:2;--h:1;">Cell Width</vec-text> . As a result, the layout is easy to make, the sidebar itself can be any size or shape,all the UI elements stay exactly where I put them, and all text remains legible due to the stretchy, monolined vector font web component. It's great!<p>The WHOLE UI layout is just 120 lines of HTML, and 40 lines of CSS (for around 90 UI elements)!<p>(it did take a while to fiddle with the coordinate numbers, but I'm working on a wysiwyg tool to make that easier too...)<p>[crossposted this comment from mastodon: <a href="https://typo.social/@gdc/115405978249292146" rel="nofollow">https://typo.social/@gdc/115405978249292146</a>]
Show HN: I'm rewriting a web server written in Rust for speed and ease of use
Hello! I got quite some feedback on a web server I'm building, so I'm rewriting the server to be faster and easier to use.<p>I (and maybe some other contributors?) have optimized the web server performance, especially for static file serving and reverse proxying (the last use case I optimized for very recently).<p>I also picked a different configuration format and specification, what I believe is easier to write.<p>Automatic TLS is also enabled by default out of the box, you don't need to even enable it manually, like it was in the original server I was building.<p>Yesterday, I released the first release candidate of my web server's rewrite. I'm so excited for this. I have even seen some serving websites with the rewritten web server, even if the rewrite was in beta.<p>Any feedback is welcome!
Show HN: I'm rewriting a web server written in Rust for speed and ease of use
Hello! I got quite some feedback on a web server I'm building, so I'm rewriting the server to be faster and easier to use.<p>I (and maybe some other contributors?) have optimized the web server performance, especially for static file serving and reverse proxying (the last use case I optimized for very recently).<p>I also picked a different configuration format and specification, what I believe is easier to write.<p>Automatic TLS is also enabled by default out of the box, you don't need to even enable it manually, like it was in the original server I was building.<p>Yesterday, I released the first release candidate of my web server's rewrite. I'm so excited for this. I have even seen some serving websites with the rewritten web server, even if the rewrite was in beta.<p>Any feedback is welcome!
Show HN: Katakate – Dozens of VMs per node for safe code exec
I've built this to make it easy to host your own infra for lightweight VMs at large scale.<p>Intended for exec of AI-generated code, for CICD runners, or for off-chain AI DApps. Mainly to avoid Docker-in-Docker dangers and mess.<p>Super easy to use with CLI / Python SDK, friendly to AI engs who usually don't like to mess with VM orchestration and networking too much.<p>Defense-in-depth philosophy.<p>Would love to get feedback (and contributors: clear & exciting roadmap!), thx
Show HN: Katakate – Dozens of VMs per node for safe code exec
I've built this to make it easy to host your own infra for lightweight VMs at large scale.<p>Intended for exec of AI-generated code, for CICD runners, or for off-chain AI DApps. Mainly to avoid Docker-in-Docker dangers and mess.<p>Super easy to use with CLI / Python SDK, friendly to AI engs who usually don't like to mess with VM orchestration and networking too much.<p>Defense-in-depth philosophy.<p>Would love to get feedback (and contributors: clear & exciting roadmap!), thx
Show HN: Katakate – Dozens of VMs per node for safe code exec
I've built this to make it easy to host your own infra for lightweight VMs at large scale.<p>Intended for exec of AI-generated code, for CICD runners, or for off-chain AI DApps. Mainly to avoid Docker-in-Docker dangers and mess.<p>Super easy to use with CLI / Python SDK, friendly to AI engs who usually don't like to mess with VM orchestration and networking too much.<p>Defense-in-depth philosophy.<p>Would love to get feedback (and contributors: clear & exciting roadmap!), thx
Show HN: I'm making a detective game built on Wikipedia
Hi HN!
Worked on this side project for a while and wanted to share it. It's free to play.
Show HN: I'm making a detective game built on Wikipedia
Hi HN!
Worked on this side project for a while and wanted to share it. It's free to play.
Show HN: Web-directive.js – A directive pattern for native HTML
A library to implement directive pattern for native HTML without any framework, which is inspired by Vue.js.
Show HN: Browser-based PDF form fields detection (YOLO-based)
Hey HN!<p>Last week, Joe Barrow released CommonForms [1], a set of open models for automatically detecting form fields in PDFs.<p>He trained two models, FFDNet-S and FFDNet-L, on a dataset of 55k documents. You can read more about his approach in the arXiv paper [2].<p>As someone who's been searching for reliable models to auto-detect form fields (one of the last hard problems in PDF form filling), I was seriously impressed by the quality of these models. I wanted to give them the attention and distribution they deserve, so I created a fully browser-based implementation that handles both detection and field addition.<p>My implementation relies on his models and onnx runtime web + some post-processing. I plan on publishing a small browser library to encapsulate it in the coming days to make it easier to deploy anywhere (currently you'd have to fork / copy my code)<p>Happy to answer any questions about the browser-based implementation!<p>Questions about the models themselves should be directed to Joe, who I believe is also on HN [3]<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/jbarrow/commonforms" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jbarrow/commonforms</a>
[2] <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16506" rel="nofollow">https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.16506</a>
[3] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jbarrow">https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=jbarrow</a>
Show HN: I got tired of managing dev environments, so I built ServBay
Hey HN,<p>For years, my local development setup has been a fragile mess of tools that never quite played nicely together. On my mac, it was a constant battle with Homebrew services starting (or not starting) on boot, conflicting PHP and Node versions managed by `asdf` or `nvm`, and a collection of `docker-compose.yml` files that I'd copy-paste and tweak for every single project. The cognitive load was just too high.<p>Setting up SSL was another chore involving `mkcert`. Sharing a quick demo with a colleague meant firing up ngrok. And if I wanted to run two projects that needed different versions of PostgreSQL? Good luck. I’d have to stop one service to start another.<p>I missed the simplicity of the MAMP/XAMPP era, but I needed something that could handle the diverse stack of a modern developer – not just PHP and MySQL, but Python, Go, Rust, Node.js, and various databases.<p>That’s why I (along with my small team) built ServBay. It's our attempt to bring back simplicity and speed to local development without sacrificing power. It's a native app for macOS and Windows, not a wrapper around Docker or VMs.<p>Here's what it does:<p>One-Click Stacks: You can install and run multiple, isolated versions of languages like Python, Node.js, Go, Java, Rust, Ruby, and .NET. No more path conflicts or environment variable hell.<p>Databases, Plural: This was a huge one for me. You can run multiple instances of MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, and MongoDB simultaneously. Project A can use Postgres 14 while Project B uses Postgres 16, both running at the same time on different ports.<p>Automatic SSL: Any host you create gets a valid SSL certificate out of the box. No more browser privacy warnings for `<i>.test` or `</i>.localhost` domains.<p>Built-in Tunneling: If you need to demo a feature or test a webhook, there's a one-click button to expose your local site to the internet via a secure tunnel.<p>One-Click Local AI: This is something we're really excited about. We've added a feature to easily download and run models like Llama 3 or Stable Diffusion locally through a simple UI, so you can experiment without worrying about API keys or costs.<p>Everything Else: It also handles one-click backups, has a clean, non-intrusive UI, and is designed to be as lightweight as possible.<p>I know what many of you are thinking: "Why not just use Docker?"<p>And that's a fair question. We use Docker for production and complex, multi-service architectures. But for quickly spinning up a single-service app, testing a new framework, or just general day-to-day development, the overhead of `Dockerfile`s, `docker-compose.yml`, slow file sync on macOS, and resource consumption often feels like overkill. ServBay is for those moments where you just want to get to the code.<p>The project is still young, and we have a long roadmap ahead. I'm here all day to answer any questions, listen to your (brutally honest) feedback, and hear about what your own development workflows look like.<p>You can check it out here: <a href="https://www.servbay.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.servbay.com</a><p>Thanks for reading.
Show HN: Open-Source Voice AI Badge Powered by ESP32+WebRTC
hi!<p>video[0]<p>The idea is you could carry around this hardware and ask it any questions about the conference. Who is speaking, what are they speaking about etc... it connects via WebRTC to a LLM and you get a bunch of info.<p>This is a workshop/demo project I did for a conference. When I was talking to the organizers I mentioned that I enjoy doing hardware + WebRTC projects. They thought that was cool and so we ran with it.<p>I have been doing these ESP32 + voice ai projects for a bit now. Started with an embedded sdk for livekit[1] that jul 2024 and been noodling with it since then. This code then found its way into pipecat/livekit etc...<p>So I hope it inspires you to go build with hardware and webrtc. It's a REALLY fun space right now. Lots of different cheap microcontrollers and even more cool projects.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPuNpaL9ig8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPuNpaL9ig8</a><p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/Sean-Der/embedded-sdk" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Sean-Der/embedded-sdk</a>
Show HN: EloqDoc: MongoDB-compatible doc DB with object storage as first citizen
We're excited to share EloqDoc, a new open source document database built on top of Data Substrate. EloqDoc is designed around the principle of treating object storage (like S3) as a first-class citizen for durability and cost efficiency. If you love the flexibility of MongoDB's document model but are struggling with scaling, cost, and consistency due to its coupled architecture, EloqDoc is for you. It’s built to solve MongoDB's inherent infrastructure challenges while remaining fully compatible with existing MongoDB clients and drivers.<p>Key Features:<p>1. Object Storage as First Citizen: Uses object storage for primary durability, leveraging local NVMe caching to achieve both lower cost and higher performance than using block-level storage (e.g. EBS).<p>2. Decoupled Compute & Storage: Scale your compute/QPS independently of your storage capacity, or vice-versa, without data movement.<p>3. True ACID Transactions: Delivers full ACID compliance with especially fast distributed transactions—consistency without compromise.<p>4. Native Distribution & Multi-Writer: It's a natively distributed database, eliminating complex manual sharding routers (like mongos) and supporting true Multi-Writer scalability.<p>Check it out:
<a href="https://www.github.com/eloqdata/eloqdoc" rel="nofollow">https://www.github.com/eloqdata/eloqdoc</a><p>We welcome any feedback, critique, or questions on the EloqDoc!
Show HN: EloqDoc: MongoDB-compatible doc DB with object storage as first citizen
We're excited to share EloqDoc, a new open source document database built on top of Data Substrate. EloqDoc is designed around the principle of treating object storage (like S3) as a first-class citizen for durability and cost efficiency. If you love the flexibility of MongoDB's document model but are struggling with scaling, cost, and consistency due to its coupled architecture, EloqDoc is for you. It’s built to solve MongoDB's inherent infrastructure challenges while remaining fully compatible with existing MongoDB clients and drivers.<p>Key Features:<p>1. Object Storage as First Citizen: Uses object storage for primary durability, leveraging local NVMe caching to achieve both lower cost and higher performance than using block-level storage (e.g. EBS).<p>2. Decoupled Compute & Storage: Scale your compute/QPS independently of your storage capacity, or vice-versa, without data movement.<p>3. True ACID Transactions: Delivers full ACID compliance with especially fast distributed transactions—consistency without compromise.<p>4. Native Distribution & Multi-Writer: It's a natively distributed database, eliminating complex manual sharding routers (like mongos) and supporting true Multi-Writer scalability.<p>Check it out:
<a href="https://www.github.com/eloqdata/eloqdoc" rel="nofollow">https://www.github.com/eloqdata/eloqdoc</a><p>We welcome any feedback, critique, or questions on the EloqDoc!
Show HN: I created a cross-platform GUI for the JJ VCS (Git compatible)
Personally, I think the JJ VCS (<a href="https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jj-vcs/jj</a>) hit a point some time in this past year where I find it hard to find a great reason to continue using git. Over the years I've cobbled together aliases and bash functions to try to improve my git workflow, but after using jj, which works with ~any git repo and integrates great with Github repos, all of the workflow issues I ran into with git are not only solved, but improved in ways I couldn't manage with simple scripts.<p>One example is the op log, which lets you go to any point in your repo's time and provides simple undo and redo commands when you want to back out of a merge, didn't mean to rebase, etc.<p>Because I have a pretty strong conviction that JJ is at this point a cleaner and more powerful version of git, my hopes are that it continues to grow. With that, it seemed a proper full-featured GUI was missing for the VCS. There's some plugins that add some integration into VS Code, and there's one in the works to get Intellij support working, but many of the constructs JJ provides in my opinion necessitate a grounds-up build of a GUI around how JJ works.<p>Right now, [name-redacted] is an MVP in an open beta. I did my best to support all of the core functionality one would need, though there's many nice-to-haves that I am going to add, like native merge support, native splitting, etc. Most of this will be based on feedback from the Beta.<p>I'm really grateful for the great community JJ has built, alongside the HN community itself in the countless VCS-based posts I've read over the years, and am hoping for lots of input here during Beta under real usage - the goal is to be a full-featured desktop GUI for the VCS, similar to many of the great products that are out there for git.