The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past day
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Show HN: Figure is a daily logic puzzle game
Hello, HN! Figure is a little side project I’ve been working on. Someone described it as Bejeweled meets Wordle.<p>I built the puzzle interface and website in Next.js and React, which was a first for me and overall a great learning experience. The daily puzzle data is queued up in a PostgreSQL table. Another table stores anonymous solve stats. Once a day, a cron job hits a serverless API that promotes the next puzzle as “live” and prompts Next.js to update the prebaked static site with the new data. The game state is managed with Redux and your stats are persisted to localStorage. Framer Motion for animations. Styling is mostly Tailwind CSS. I use Figma for design and Logic Pro to make the sounds.<p>I get a lot of questions about how the puzzles are generated. It’s not super sexy. I generate random grids of tiles and then run them through a brute force solver (sounds rough but the puzzles don’t feel anything). Every few days, I play through puzzles that look promising based on the solution space and pick some good ones to go into the queue. The rest are sent back to the void (again, painless).<p>I’ve spent a little bit of time tinkering with a procedural generator, but so far the random ones are better. The downsides of the random approach are (1) the curation effort required, and (2) the high variability in puzzle difficulty. I have a feeling there’s a whole body of math and CS knowledge where Figure is an example of something that I don’t know the name for (imposter syndrome intensifies).<p>As for the future of Figure, I feel strongly about keeping it free of ads, login walls, in-app purchases, or anything else that infringes on enjoyment or privacy. I’d also like to make sure Figure is accessible to everyone. English isn’t exactly required to play, but translations for the UI and website would be nice. I’ve tried to build Figure to be friendly to people who have color vision deficiency and people who rely on screen readers and keyboard navigation, but I have no idea if it’s actually any fun in these cases.<p>Here are some miscellaneous thoughts…<p>1. It’s been surprisingly satisfying to build a web game with a modern frontend stack. I’ve noticed a lot of grumbling on HN over the years from OG web developers who yearn for the days of semantic HTML, a sprinkling of CSS, and vanilla JS. I was in that boat too and have grumbled plenty about the breakneck pace of frontend evolution. One of my goals with this project was to pick some popular frameworks and give them an honest try. I’m now a believer, but there’s still no way I can keep up with all the progress.<p>2. I found Tailwind awkward at first, but after a while I realized I was using Figma a lot less and just designing in code with utility classes, which is great for focus and flow. Having lived through the Web 2.0 standards revolution, it was hard to let go of some deeply rooted opinions about semantic purity, but overall I’m sold.<p>3. I really love side projects. At most jobs, you’re pushed toward specialization. Side projects allow you to build out a generalist skillset, which makes you better at your core job function and better at collaborating with others. It’s also liberating to explore and pivot around without time pressure. Figure started out as a 3D fidget toy in Unity where you fling projectiles at floating objects…<p>4. I made this game on my trusty 2013 MacBook Pro, which has been almost completely sufficient (ahem Docker ಠ_ಠ). I’ll probably get an M2 Air soon, but I’m reluctant to say goodbye to the best computer I’ve ever owned.<p>5. I’m very grateful for the people who build and maintain open source projects. It’s also delightful how many paid services offer generous free tiers to let developers play around: Figma, GitHub, Vercel, Supabase, and Pipedream, just to name a few that I’m currently using actively. If you work on FOSS and/or these excellent platforms, thank you.<p>Anyway, hope you like it. Happy to answer any questions.
Show HN: Figure is a daily logic puzzle game
Hello, HN! Figure is a little side project I’ve been working on. Someone described it as Bejeweled meets Wordle.<p>I built the puzzle interface and website in Next.js and React, which was a first for me and overall a great learning experience. The daily puzzle data is queued up in a PostgreSQL table. Another table stores anonymous solve stats. Once a day, a cron job hits a serverless API that promotes the next puzzle as “live” and prompts Next.js to update the prebaked static site with the new data. The game state is managed with Redux and your stats are persisted to localStorage. Framer Motion for animations. Styling is mostly Tailwind CSS. I use Figma for design and Logic Pro to make the sounds.<p>I get a lot of questions about how the puzzles are generated. It’s not super sexy. I generate random grids of tiles and then run them through a brute force solver (sounds rough but the puzzles don’t feel anything). Every few days, I play through puzzles that look promising based on the solution space and pick some good ones to go into the queue. The rest are sent back to the void (again, painless).<p>I’ve spent a little bit of time tinkering with a procedural generator, but so far the random ones are better. The downsides of the random approach are (1) the curation effort required, and (2) the high variability in puzzle difficulty. I have a feeling there’s a whole body of math and CS knowledge where Figure is an example of something that I don’t know the name for (imposter syndrome intensifies).<p>As for the future of Figure, I feel strongly about keeping it free of ads, login walls, in-app purchases, or anything else that infringes on enjoyment or privacy. I’d also like to make sure Figure is accessible to everyone. English isn’t exactly required to play, but translations for the UI and website would be nice. I’ve tried to build Figure to be friendly to people who have color vision deficiency and people who rely on screen readers and keyboard navigation, but I have no idea if it’s actually any fun in these cases.<p>Here are some miscellaneous thoughts…<p>1. It’s been surprisingly satisfying to build a web game with a modern frontend stack. I’ve noticed a lot of grumbling on HN over the years from OG web developers who yearn for the days of semantic HTML, a sprinkling of CSS, and vanilla JS. I was in that boat too and have grumbled plenty about the breakneck pace of frontend evolution. One of my goals with this project was to pick some popular frameworks and give them an honest try. I’m now a believer, but there’s still no way I can keep up with all the progress.<p>2. I found Tailwind awkward at first, but after a while I realized I was using Figma a lot less and just designing in code with utility classes, which is great for focus and flow. Having lived through the Web 2.0 standards revolution, it was hard to let go of some deeply rooted opinions about semantic purity, but overall I’m sold.<p>3. I really love side projects. At most jobs, you’re pushed toward specialization. Side projects allow you to build out a generalist skillset, which makes you better at your core job function and better at collaborating with others. It’s also liberating to explore and pivot around without time pressure. Figure started out as a 3D fidget toy in Unity where you fling projectiles at floating objects…<p>4. I made this game on my trusty 2013 MacBook Pro, which has been almost completely sufficient (ahem Docker ಠ_ಠ). I’ll probably get an M2 Air soon, but I’m reluctant to say goodbye to the best computer I’ve ever owned.<p>5. I’m very grateful for the people who build and maintain open source projects. It’s also delightful how many paid services offer generous free tiers to let developers play around: Figma, GitHub, Vercel, Supabase, and Pipedream, just to name a few that I’m currently using actively. If you work on FOSS and/or these excellent platforms, thank you.<p>Anyway, hope you like it. Happy to answer any questions.
Show HN: Squad – Group accountability partners for building atomic habits
Show HN: JWST Image Slideshow
Show HN: Genie Builder, no-code UI plugin for building data apps
Hi! Genie Builder is a free VSCode plugin that makes it easy to build web GUIs for Julia applications (and in future, Python apps too). Users can simply drag & drop UI elements to create interactive dashboards and data apps, without writing any frontend code.<p>The tool is designed for data scientists and researchers who need to expose their data models to business users with an interactive web application, but lack the software development skills to build one.<p>Genie Builder completely eliminates the need to learn frontend development to code the UI. And very soon, we’re also going to support one-click cloud deployments to make it easy to build AND deploy data apps - no frontend nor devops skills required.<p>I’m Adrian, the creator of the open-source Genie web framework (<a href="https://genieframework.com/" rel="nofollow">https://genieframework.com/</a>). Genie offers low-code libraries for building data applications - just like Streamlit or Dash, but for JuliaLang. We developed Genie Builder because of feedback from our open source community who needs more productive data tooling.
Show HN: I Created a personal radio platform that delivers news, podcasts, music
If you want to keep up with the latest news, podcasts, plus listen to Spotify music delivered in a new way, you should try out AudioOne FYI.<p>AudioOne FYI delivers a personalized radio experience of everything that matters to you, no one else. Just create an account and tell AudioOne what you like, it will deliver everything as an audio first experience.<p>Get up to 3 personal audio newsletters a day, with The latest news, subscribed and preferred podcasts and short topical audio clips.<p>Search for the latest news and podcast episodes powered by Google and other sources and listen, not read the results. You can also follow your search topics and they will be delivered in your own personal radio station. AudioDrops are going to change how you follow content that matters forever.<p>Soon you will be able to build your own custom radio stations and share them with others. Create a curated experience of music, news and podcasts that you and your audience can enjoy, always up to date. You will also be able to go live and host guests on your own dedicated radio station or broadcast in syndication.<p>Try it. Want the personal experience, create a free account.<p>More features to come. Will keep you up to date, here on Hacker News.<p>Thanks,<p>Tony
Show HN: I Created a personal radio platform that delivers news, podcasts, music
If you want to keep up with the latest news, podcasts, plus listen to Spotify music delivered in a new way, you should try out AudioOne FYI.<p>AudioOne FYI delivers a personalized radio experience of everything that matters to you, no one else. Just create an account and tell AudioOne what you like, it will deliver everything as an audio first experience.<p>Get up to 3 personal audio newsletters a day, with The latest news, subscribed and preferred podcasts and short topical audio clips.<p>Search for the latest news and podcast episodes powered by Google and other sources and listen, not read the results. You can also follow your search topics and they will be delivered in your own personal radio station. AudioDrops are going to change how you follow content that matters forever.<p>Soon you will be able to build your own custom radio stations and share them with others. Create a curated experience of music, news and podcasts that you and your audience can enjoy, always up to date. You will also be able to go live and host guests on your own dedicated radio station or broadcast in syndication.<p>Try it. Want the personal experience, create a free account.<p>More features to come. Will keep you up to date, here on Hacker News.<p>Thanks,<p>Tony
Show HN: Open-source serverless security lake powered by Rust + Apache Iceberg
Show HN: Open-source serverless security lake powered by Rust + Apache Iceberg
Show HN: Open-source serverless security lake powered by Rust + Apache Iceberg
Show HN: Extensible OSS Retool Alternative
Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs
Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs
Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs
Show HN: PDF-Diff - Visualize any differences between two PDFs
Show HN: Convert English to Cron Expressions
Show HN: Convert English to Cron Expressions
Show HN: I created a browser automation tool
I created this tool a few months ago to automate some of my tasks.
I use it to collect prices and files and to get notified when something changes on certain websites. The task runner uses Playwright.<p>I'm not sure if it can be useful to anybody else besides me :) Any feedback is welcome.
Show HN: I created a browser automation tool
I created this tool a few months ago to automate some of my tasks.
I use it to collect prices and files and to get notified when something changes on certain websites. The task runner uses Playwright.<p>I'm not sure if it can be useful to anybody else besides me :) Any feedback is welcome.
Show HN: I created a browser automation tool
I created this tool a few months ago to automate some of my tasks.
I use it to collect prices and files and to get notified when something changes on certain websites. The task runner uses Playwright.<p>I'm not sure if it can be useful to anybody else besides me :) Any feedback is welcome.