The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past day
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Show HN: Virtual Maker – Make 3D/VR scenes in the browser
Show HN: Infracost (YC W21): Cloud Costs for Terraform in VSCode
Hey, Hugo from Infracost (<a href="https://www.infracost.io" rel="nofollow">https://www.infracost.io</a>) here. Infracost shows engineers the cost of each Terraform change in CI/CD before launching resources. When something changes, it posts a comment with the cloud cost impact. e.g. you’ve added two instances and volumes and have changed an instance type from medium to large; this will increase your bill by 25% next month from $1000 to $1250 per month.<p>Over the last few months, I've been working on a native evaluation for Terraform. Previously we relied on the Terraform CLI to fetch cloud resource information, which was a little slow and cumbersome.<p>Native parsing is not only lightning-fast, but it means we have contextual file information, which allows us to try a load of cool new things. For example, we could provide real-time suggestions to optimise your cloud costs as you write your infrastructure code! This VSCode extension is the result of a few weeks of hacking away whilst I should have been relaxing in the sun in Italy... time better spent, I think!<p>We're excited about the possibilities of directly integrating with editors. There is so much we can do to make DevOps lives easier when optimising cloud spend. Right now, we're looking for your feedback on this initial version of the extension. It currently ships with:<p>1. Show a snapshot of the total cost of resources right above their Terraform definitions. Updated on file save.<p>2. Resource and module blocks support showing cost estimates, including 3rd party module blocks.<p>3. A cost overview web-view shows a detailed breakdown of what components affect the price.<p>Please note this is an early release of the VSCode extension, so there will likely be bugs. If you get stuck, please raise an issue (<a href="https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost/issues" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost/issues</a>), and we'll help you out asap.<p>We’d love to get your feedback on this extension, mainly what you think it’s missing and would help your workflow. Head over to the GitHub repo (<a href="https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost</a>) for more information and installation instructions.
Show HN: Infracost (YC W21): Cloud Costs for Terraform in VSCode
Hey, Hugo from Infracost (<a href="https://www.infracost.io" rel="nofollow">https://www.infracost.io</a>) here. Infracost shows engineers the cost of each Terraform change in CI/CD before launching resources. When something changes, it posts a comment with the cloud cost impact. e.g. you’ve added two instances and volumes and have changed an instance type from medium to large; this will increase your bill by 25% next month from $1000 to $1250 per month.<p>Over the last few months, I've been working on a native evaluation for Terraform. Previously we relied on the Terraform CLI to fetch cloud resource information, which was a little slow and cumbersome.<p>Native parsing is not only lightning-fast, but it means we have contextual file information, which allows us to try a load of cool new things. For example, we could provide real-time suggestions to optimise your cloud costs as you write your infrastructure code! This VSCode extension is the result of a few weeks of hacking away whilst I should have been relaxing in the sun in Italy... time better spent, I think!<p>We're excited about the possibilities of directly integrating with editors. There is so much we can do to make DevOps lives easier when optimising cloud spend. Right now, we're looking for your feedback on this initial version of the extension. It currently ships with:<p>1. Show a snapshot of the total cost of resources right above their Terraform definitions. Updated on file save.<p>2. Resource and module blocks support showing cost estimates, including 3rd party module blocks.<p>3. A cost overview web-view shows a detailed breakdown of what components affect the price.<p>Please note this is an early release of the VSCode extension, so there will likely be bugs. If you get stuck, please raise an issue (<a href="https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost/issues" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost/issues</a>), and we'll help you out asap.<p>We’d love to get your feedback on this extension, mainly what you think it’s missing and would help your workflow. Head over to the GitHub repo (<a href="https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/infracost/vscode-infracost</a>) for more information and installation instructions.
Show HN: Brevity 500 – Short games to help you become a powerful writer
Hi folks, I've been experimenting with ways to teach people how to write better for a few years. During this time, I've worked in finance, sales, and software -- and everywhere I went, most people didn't write effectively, even when their job depended on it!<p>Learning how to become a better writer is generally not fun...books, lectures, and videos are passive and boring and tedious. Getting feedback from real people is generally most effective, but difficult and time-consuming.<p>Brevity 500 is my attempt at creating a learning experience that is active, engaging, and NOT tedious. It offers static human-generated advice along with real human feedback for paid users.<p>So far, in early testing, the games seem to appeal most to marketers and salespeople, but as a technical writer and developer myself, I think these games can help anyone build a strong foundation to become better at any kind of non-fiction writing.<p>Try it out and let me know what you think!
Show HN: Brevity 500 – Short games to help you become a powerful writer
Hi folks, I've been experimenting with ways to teach people how to write better for a few years. During this time, I've worked in finance, sales, and software -- and everywhere I went, most people didn't write effectively, even when their job depended on it!<p>Learning how to become a better writer is generally not fun...books, lectures, and videos are passive and boring and tedious. Getting feedback from real people is generally most effective, but difficult and time-consuming.<p>Brevity 500 is my attempt at creating a learning experience that is active, engaging, and NOT tedious. It offers static human-generated advice along with real human feedback for paid users.<p>So far, in early testing, the games seem to appeal most to marketers and salespeople, but as a technical writer and developer myself, I think these games can help anyone build a strong foundation to become better at any kind of non-fiction writing.<p>Try it out and let me know what you think!
Show HN: Brevity 500 – Short games to help you become a powerful writer
Hi folks, I've been experimenting with ways to teach people how to write better for a few years. During this time, I've worked in finance, sales, and software -- and everywhere I went, most people didn't write effectively, even when their job depended on it!<p>Learning how to become a better writer is generally not fun...books, lectures, and videos are passive and boring and tedious. Getting feedback from real people is generally most effective, but difficult and time-consuming.<p>Brevity 500 is my attempt at creating a learning experience that is active, engaging, and NOT tedious. It offers static human-generated advice along with real human feedback for paid users.<p>So far, in early testing, the games seem to appeal most to marketers and salespeople, but as a technical writer and developer myself, I think these games can help anyone build a strong foundation to become better at any kind of non-fiction writing.<p>Try it out and let me know what you think!
Show HN: Brevity 500 – Short games to help you become a powerful writer
Hi folks, I've been experimenting with ways to teach people how to write better for a few years. During this time, I've worked in finance, sales, and software -- and everywhere I went, most people didn't write effectively, even when their job depended on it!<p>Learning how to become a better writer is generally not fun...books, lectures, and videos are passive and boring and tedious. Getting feedback from real people is generally most effective, but difficult and time-consuming.<p>Brevity 500 is my attempt at creating a learning experience that is active, engaging, and NOT tedious. It offers static human-generated advice along with real human feedback for paid users.<p>So far, in early testing, the games seem to appeal most to marketers and salespeople, but as a technical writer and developer myself, I think these games can help anyone build a strong foundation to become better at any kind of non-fiction writing.<p>Try it out and let me know what you think!
Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present
I wanted to share a simple web app I created recently, which lets you estimate income taxes owed in the US: <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a><p>All the calculations occur directly in the browser, and are powered by a Fortran program that has been converted to WASM using emscripten. This calculator was originally developed in the 1970s [1] by the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER has been maintaining this F77 codebase for the last 50 years, and uses it primarily for academic research on tax policy. The Fortran source code itself is over 1MB of text, because it codifies both federal and all 50 states' tax laws for each of the last 62 years.<p>I first learned about NBER TAXSIM [2] a few months ago via an interesting paper they published "Automatic Tax Filing: Simulating a Pre-Populated Form 1040" [3]. The Fortran code itself is not open-source, but is available on request for research purposes. I reached out to NBER and proposed compiling it to WASM, so it could be run directly in a browser. With relatively little effort I was able to create a js/wasm version [4], thanks in huge part to previous open-source work [5].<p>This WASM build now powers <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a>, which is my attempt to create an interactive UI to allow for easier exploration of the US tax code. Specific tax scenarios can also be shared easily, by simply copying the browser URL. The code for this webapp is also open-source [6].<p>This was my first time experimenting with WASM, and I am already a huge fan. Not only was I able to take a 60 year old codebase and get it working on every modern browser and device, this work is also now benefiting the academic community. For example, the js/wasm can be run directly in V8, which means it can also now be run locally within R using libv8 [7]. Previously most researchers were uploading their tax scenarios to NBER's servers via ftp/ssh/http.<p>[1] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf</a><p>[2] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008" rel="nofollow">https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008</a><p>[4] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js</a><p>[5] <a href="https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/" rel="nofollow">https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/</a><p>[6] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app</a><p>[7] <a href="https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11</a>
Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present
I wanted to share a simple web app I created recently, which lets you estimate income taxes owed in the US: <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a><p>All the calculations occur directly in the browser, and are powered by a Fortran program that has been converted to WASM using emscripten. This calculator was originally developed in the 1970s [1] by the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER has been maintaining this F77 codebase for the last 50 years, and uses it primarily for academic research on tax policy. The Fortran source code itself is over 1MB of text, because it codifies both federal and all 50 states' tax laws for each of the last 62 years.<p>I first learned about NBER TAXSIM [2] a few months ago via an interesting paper they published "Automatic Tax Filing: Simulating a Pre-Populated Form 1040" [3]. The Fortran code itself is not open-source, but is available on request for research purposes. I reached out to NBER and proposed compiling it to WASM, so it could be run directly in a browser. With relatively little effort I was able to create a js/wasm version [4], thanks in huge part to previous open-source work [5].<p>This WASM build now powers <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a>, which is my attempt to create an interactive UI to allow for easier exploration of the US tax code. Specific tax scenarios can also be shared easily, by simply copying the browser URL. The code for this webapp is also open-source [6].<p>This was my first time experimenting with WASM, and I am already a huge fan. Not only was I able to take a 60 year old codebase and get it working on every modern browser and device, this work is also now benefiting the academic community. For example, the js/wasm can be run directly in V8, which means it can also now be run locally within R using libv8 [7]. Previously most researchers were uploading their tax scenarios to NBER's servers via ftp/ssh/http.<p>[1] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf</a><p>[2] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008" rel="nofollow">https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008</a><p>[4] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js</a><p>[5] <a href="https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/" rel="nofollow">https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/</a><p>[6] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app</a><p>[7] <a href="https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11</a>
Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present
I wanted to share a simple web app I created recently, which lets you estimate income taxes owed in the US: <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a><p>All the calculations occur directly in the browser, and are powered by a Fortran program that has been converted to WASM using emscripten. This calculator was originally developed in the 1970s [1] by the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER has been maintaining this F77 codebase for the last 50 years, and uses it primarily for academic research on tax policy. The Fortran source code itself is over 1MB of text, because it codifies both federal and all 50 states' tax laws for each of the last 62 years.<p>I first learned about NBER TAXSIM [2] a few months ago via an interesting paper they published "Automatic Tax Filing: Simulating a Pre-Populated Form 1040" [3]. The Fortran code itself is not open-source, but is available on request for research purposes. I reached out to NBER and proposed compiling it to WASM, so it could be run directly in a browser. With relatively little effort I was able to create a js/wasm version [4], thanks in huge part to previous open-source work [5].<p>This WASM build now powers <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a>, which is my attempt to create an interactive UI to allow for easier exploration of the US tax code. Specific tax scenarios can also be shared easily, by simply copying the browser URL. The code for this webapp is also open-source [6].<p>This was my first time experimenting with WASM, and I am already a huge fan. Not only was I able to take a 60 year old codebase and get it working on every modern browser and device, this work is also now benefiting the academic community. For example, the js/wasm can be run directly in V8, which means it can also now be run locally within R using libv8 [7]. Previously most researchers were uploading their tax scenarios to NBER's servers via ftp/ssh/http.<p>[1] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf</a><p>[2] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008" rel="nofollow">https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008</a><p>[4] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js</a><p>[5] <a href="https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/" rel="nofollow">https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/</a><p>[6] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app</a><p>[7] <a href="https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11</a>
Show HN: Calculator for US individual income tax, from 1970-present
I wanted to share a simple web app I created recently, which lets you estimate income taxes owed in the US: <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a><p>All the calculations occur directly in the browser, and are powered by a Fortran program that has been converted to WASM using emscripten. This calculator was originally developed in the 1970s [1] by the non-profit National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER has been maintaining this F77 codebase for the last 50 years, and uses it primarily for academic research on tax policy. The Fortran source code itself is over 1MB of text, because it codifies both federal and all 50 states' tax laws for each of the last 62 years.<p>I first learned about NBER TAXSIM [2] a few months ago via an interesting paper they published "Automatic Tax Filing: Simulating a Pre-Populated Form 1040" [3]. The Fortran code itself is not open-source, but is available on request for research purposes. I reached out to NBER and proposed compiling it to WASM, so it could be run directly in a browser. With relatively little effort I was able to create a js/wasm version [4], thanks in huge part to previous open-source work [5].<p>This WASM build now powers <a href="https://taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.app</a>, which is my attempt to create an interactive UI to allow for easier exploration of the US tax code. Specific tax scenarios can also be shared easily, by simply copying the browser URL. The code for this webapp is also open-source [6].<p>This was my first time experimenting with WASM, and I am already a huge fan. Not only was I able to take a 60 year old codebase and get it working on every modern browser and device, this work is also now benefiting the academic community. For example, the js/wasm can be run directly in V8, which means it can also now be run locally within R using libv8 [7]. Previously most researchers were uploading their tax scenarios to NBER's servers via ftp/ssh/http.<p>[1] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/feenberg-coutts.pdf</a><p>[2] <a href="https://taxsim.nber.org/" rel="nofollow">https://taxsim.nber.org/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008" rel="nofollow">https://www.nber.org/papers/w30008</a><p>[4] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.js</a><p>[5] <a href="https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/" rel="nofollow">https://chrz.de/2020/04/21/fortran-in-the-browser/</a><p>[6] <a href="https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/tmm1/taxsim.app</a><p>[7] <a href="https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/shanejorr/usincometaxes/pull/11</a>
Show HN: We made a fast audio editor for podcasting
Show HN: I ranked news websites by speed
I've been working on building "the fastest news website" for a few reasons:<p>1. I got tired of waiting for news websites to load, so I made a text-only news website that only has major news headlines.<p>2. I wanted to demonstrate to the world that if you want to build something really fast on the web, you can do it without loads of JavaScript.<p>3. I wanted to show that you can design something that looks good without having tons of images, etc.<p>I put together the speed page at <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed</a> to hold my website to be more accountable for speed, but it's also interesting to see how fast other news websites are (or in most cases, are not).<p>Some feedback I'm interested in receiving:<p>1. What's your take both on the speed ranking methodology for Legible News?<p>2. Are my descriptions of the metrics for a non-web developer reasonable? Example of that at <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed/websites/associated-press" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed/websites/associated-press</a>, and if you click through the links on that table, you see a description like <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed/audits/cumulative-layout-shift" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed/audits/cumulative-layout-shift</a><p>Sorry ahead of time, but I can't fit all news websites on the speed report. I had to target general news websites, not ones for specific niches like HN for Tech. If there's something you think that's missing please post it, but I can't promise that I'll add it.<p>If you like it, please consider subscribing! Thanks!
Show HN: I ranked news websites by speed
I've been working on building "the fastest news website" for a few reasons:<p>1. I got tired of waiting for news websites to load, so I made a text-only news website that only has major news headlines.<p>2. I wanted to demonstrate to the world that if you want to build something really fast on the web, you can do it without loads of JavaScript.<p>3. I wanted to show that you can design something that looks good without having tons of images, etc.<p>I put together the speed page at <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed</a> to hold my website to be more accountable for speed, but it's also interesting to see how fast other news websites are (or in most cases, are not).<p>Some feedback I'm interested in receiving:<p>1. What's your take both on the speed ranking methodology for Legible News?<p>2. Are my descriptions of the metrics for a non-web developer reasonable? Example of that at <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed/websites/associated-press" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed/websites/associated-press</a>, and if you click through the links on that table, you see a description like <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed/audits/cumulative-layout-shift" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed/audits/cumulative-layout-shift</a><p>Sorry ahead of time, but I can't fit all news websites on the speed report. I had to target general news websites, not ones for specific niches like HN for Tech. If there's something you think that's missing please post it, but I can't promise that I'll add it.<p>If you like it, please consider subscribing! Thanks!
Show HN: I ranked news websites by speed
I've been working on building "the fastest news website" for a few reasons:<p>1. I got tired of waiting for news websites to load, so I made a text-only news website that only has major news headlines.<p>2. I wanted to demonstrate to the world that if you want to build something really fast on the web, you can do it without loads of JavaScript.<p>3. I wanted to show that you can design something that looks good without having tons of images, etc.<p>I put together the speed page at <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed</a> to hold my website to be more accountable for speed, but it's also interesting to see how fast other news websites are (or in most cases, are not).<p>Some feedback I'm interested in receiving:<p>1. What's your take both on the speed ranking methodology for Legible News?<p>2. Are my descriptions of the metrics for a non-web developer reasonable? Example of that at <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed/websites/associated-press" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed/websites/associated-press</a>, and if you click through the links on that table, you see a description like <a href="https://legiblenews.com/speed/audits/cumulative-layout-shift" rel="nofollow">https://legiblenews.com/speed/audits/cumulative-layout-shift</a><p>Sorry ahead of time, but I can't fit all news websites on the speed report. I had to target general news websites, not ones for specific niches like HN for Tech. If there's something you think that's missing please post it, but I can't promise that I'll add it.<p>If you like it, please consider subscribing! Thanks!
Show HN: I stripped DALL·E Mini to its bare essentials and converted it to Torch
Show HN: I stripped DALL·E Mini to its bare essentials and converted it to Torch
Show HN: Yboard is a multiplayer desktop-like workspace based on CRDT
I've always been curious about real-time multiplayer user interfaces.<p>When I found out about CRDTs and Yjs[1] I thought they could serve as a solid base for a project like that.<p>So I built this pretty simple desktop-like UI (heavily inspired by lifeat.io) and used Yjs to replicate the whole UI state among multiple peers, creating the experience of a unique interface.<p>Try online: <a href="https://yboard.lol" rel="nofollow">https://yboard.lol</a><p>[1]: <a href="https://github.com/yjs/yjs" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/yjs/yjs</a>
Show HN: PRQL 0.2 – a better SQL
Hi everyone — thanks for your interest in PRQL — let us know any questions or feedback!<p>We're excited to be releasing 0.2[1], the first version of PRQL you can use in your own projects. It wouldn't exist without the feedback we got from HackerNews when we originally posted the proposal.<p>[1]: <a href="https://github.com/prql/prql/releases/tag/0.2.0" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/prql/prql/releases/tag/0.2.0</a>
Show HN: PRQL 0.2 – a better SQL
Hi everyone — thanks for your interest in PRQL — let us know any questions or feedback!<p>We're excited to be releasing 0.2[1], the first version of PRQL you can use in your own projects. It wouldn't exist without the feedback we got from HackerNews when we originally posted the proposal.<p>[1]: <a href="https://github.com/prql/prql/releases/tag/0.2.0" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/prql/prql/releases/tag/0.2.0</a>