The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past week
Latest posts:
Show HN: SmartHome – An Adventure Game
SmartHome is a free, browser-based game written in vanilla JavaScript and no libraries. I don't want to spoil anything about the gameplay, but if you like text adventures, point-and-click adventure games, puzzle games, escape room games, art games, incremental games, cozy games, and/or RPGs, then this might be your speed.<p>If you find it too hard and don't mind some mild spoilers, then check out the hints page: <a href="https://smarthome.steviep.xyz/help" rel="nofollow">https://smarthome.steviep.xyz/help</a><p>Enjoy!
Show HN: Open-sourcing my failed startup Buzee – A file search application
Buzee is a file search application that helps you find your files effortlessly.<p>As a modern-day knowledge worker, I have several thousand documents, presentations and other files on my computer. I built Buzee in my free time to help me weave my way through this maze. I have been using it pretty much everyday since the day I built it - and I love it!<p>I thought I could turn Buzee into a startup. I reached out to offices and helped set it up for them. But it didn't pan out.<p>I am now letting go of this project because I have other priorities in life.<p>Please feel free to do with this project as you wish. I am happy to help you get started with the codebase.<p>Do share what you build. I would love to see it!<p>Cheers
Show HN: I designed an espresso machine and coffee grinder
It was a lot of work as a solo project but I hope you guys think it’s cool. When I say “we” in the website it’s only in the most royal sense possible. I also did all the photo/videography. I started out designing a single machine for personal use, but like many things it sort of spiraled out of control from there.<p>I felt like espresso machines were getting very large, plasticky, and app-integrated without actually improving the underlying technologies that make them work. The noisy vibratory pumps in particular are from 1977 and haven’t really changed since then. So I wanted to focus on making the most advanced internals I could and leaving everything else as minimalist as possible. The pump is, as far as I know, completely unique in terms of power density and price. Without spending several thousand dollars, it was difficult to find a machine with a gear pump, and adjustable pressure was also similarly expensive but this machine has those things and costs a normal amount to buy. You can also turn the pressure way down and make filter coffee.<p>I also saw so many people (including myself) using a scale while making espresso, and even putting a cup below the group head to catch drips, entirely negating the drip tray, so I basically designed for that! The profile of the machine is much lighter on the eyes and doesn’t loom in the corner like my old espresso machine did.<p>And for the grinder, basically everything on the market uses conical and flat burrs that have descended from spice grinders, and the same couple of standard sizes. Sometimes larger companies design their own burrs, but only within those existing shapes. There is sort of a rush to put larger and larger burrs into coffee grinders, which makes sense, but with cylindrical burrs, you can increase the cutting surface way more relative to the size of the grinder. When grinders get too big, maintaining alignment becomes mechanically cumbersome, but the cylindrical burr can be very well supported from the inside, and there is the added benefit of hiding the entire motor within the burr itself. The resulting grounds are just outright better than all the other grinders I have used, but obviously this is a matter of taste and my own personal bias.<p>The biggest downside for the grinder is that it doesn’t work with starbucks style oily roasts, because the coffee expands so much while traveling down through the burrs and can sometimes clog up the teeth. It doesn’t hurt the grinder but it does require cleaning (which is tool-free!). Another downside for both machines is the fact that they run on DC power so it’s best if you have a spot in your kitchen to tuck away the power brick.<p>I also made a kit that makes the gear pump a drop-in upgrade for other espresso machines, to reduce noise and add adjustable pressure.<p><a href="https://velofuso.com/store/p/gear-pump-upgrade-kit" rel="nofollow">https://velofuso.com/store/p/gear-pump-upgrade-kit</a><p>The roughest part of this process were the moments midway through development where they weren’t working at all. When the grinder is just jamming itself instantly or the fourth factory in a row tells you the part you’re making is impossible or the pump is alternating between spraying water out the side and into your face and not pumping at all. And the default thought is “Of course it’s not working, if this was going to work someone else would have already made it like this”. The route you’ve taken is fundamentally different enough that there are no existing solutions to draw on. You’re basically feeling around in the dark for months on end, burning money, and then one day, every little cumulative change suddenly adds up to a tasty espresso. And it’s not perfect yet, but you at least can see the road ahead.<p>Anyways, this is way more than I expected to write, thank you for reading! Tell me if you have any questions
Show HN: Kubernetes Spec Explorer
I built an interactive explorer for Kubernetes resources spec<p>A few things included:<p>- Tree view with schema, type and description of all native resources
- History changes since version X (properties added/removed/modified)
- Examples of some resources that you can easily copy as a starting point
- Supports all versions since X, including the newly released 1.32
- I also want to add support for popular CRD, but I’m not sure how I’ll do that yet, I’m open to suggestions!<p>Everything is auto generated based on the OpenAPI spec, with some manual inputs for examples and external links.<p>Hope you like it and if there’s anything else you think it could be useful just let me know.
Show HN: Quantus – LeetCode for Financial Modeling
Hi everyone,<p>I wanted to share Quantus, a finance learning and practice platform I’m building out of my own frustration with traditional resources.<p>As a dual major in engineering and finance who started my career at a hedge fund, I found it challenging to develop hands-on financial modeling skills using existing tools. Platforms like Coursera, Udemy, Corporate Finance Institute (CFI), and Wall Street Prep (WSP) primarily rely on video-based tutorials. While informative, these formats often lack the dynamic, interactive, and repetitive practice necessary to build real expertise.<p>For example, the learning process often involves:<p>- Replaying videos multiple times to grasp key concepts.<p>- Constantly switching between tutorials and Excel files.<p>- Dealing with occasional discrepancies between tutorial numbers and the provided Excel materials.<p>To solve these problems, I created Quantus—an interactive platform where users can learn finance by trying out formulas or building financial models directly in an Excel-like environment. Inspired by LeetCode, the content is organized into three levels—easy, medium, and hard—making it accessible for beginners while still challenging for advanced users.<p>Our growing library of examples includes:<p>- 3-statement financial models<p>- Discounted Cash Flow (DCF) analysis<p>- Leveraged Buyouts (LBO)<p>- Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A)<p>Here’s a demo video to showcase the platform in action. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDRNHgBERLQ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDRNHgBERLQ</a><p>I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback! Let me know what other features or examples you’d find useful.
Show HN: Don't let your billion-dollar ideas die
Most great ideas are either forgotten or die in our notes app. So made this simple website in a day.<p>1. Save your ideas<p>2. Set an expiry<p>3. After expiry, the ideas goes public. So if you don't work on them, someone else probably will
Show HN: A portable hash map in C
Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites
I’ve spent a lot of time reading articles that promise a lot but never give me what I’m looking for. They’re full of clickbait titles, scary claims, and pointless filler. It’s frustrating, and it’s a waste of my time.<p>So I made a tool. You give it a URL, and it tries to cut through all that noise. It gives you a shorter version of the content without all the nonsense. I built this because I’m tired of falling for the same tricks. I just want the facts, not a bunch of filler.<p>What do you think? I’m also thinking of making a Chrome extension that does something similar—like a reader mode, but one that actually removes the crap that gets in the way of real information. Feedback welcome.
Show HN: Cut the crap – remove AI bullshit from websites
I’ve spent a lot of time reading articles that promise a lot but never give me what I’m looking for. They’re full of clickbait titles, scary claims, and pointless filler. It’s frustrating, and it’s a waste of my time.<p>So I made a tool. You give it a URL, and it tries to cut through all that noise. It gives you a shorter version of the content without all the nonsense. I built this because I’m tired of falling for the same tricks. I just want the facts, not a bunch of filler.<p>What do you think? I’m also thinking of making a Chrome extension that does something similar—like a reader mode, but one that actually removes the crap that gets in the way of real information. Feedback welcome.
Show HN: Countless.dev – A website to compare every AI model: LLMs, TTSs, STTs
Show HN: Countless.dev – A website to compare every AI model: LLMs, TTSs, STTs
Show HN: Hacker Herald – like HN but with crowdsourced pics and subtitles
Hi folks this is a project I worked on with some of my students when I was running an online JS programming course. Although the online course is no more, I finally got around to releasing Hacker Herald with a former instructor and student - thanks Arnav and Archis!<p>To those wondering if there is a need for such a Hacker News front end, I would just point out that most newspaper websites are laid out like this - clearly some people like this kind of layout!<p>Also for some stories a picture really does help - currently there is a HN story titled, "Portland airport grows with expansive mass timber roof canopy". But IMO it's better to actually see a picture of the timber roof while scrolling rather than having to click through to the article.
Show HN: Banan-OS, an Unix-like operating system written from scratch
This is my operating system that I've been working for the past 2 years. All of the code is written exclusively by me except from ported software. banan-os has a monolithic kernel targeting x86 (i686) and x86_64 architectures. The project consists of bootloader, kernel and userspace libraries (libc, libGUI, libFont, ...). It also uses my custom C++ standard library partly based on stdc++.<p>Currently I have basic TTY and GUI environment with some of the basic UNIX utilities like cp, ls and stat. I have basic support for USB (keyboard/mouse/storage), disks (NVMe, AHCI), custom networking stack with TCP and UDP support, and a UNIX-like filesystem with /dev /tmp /proc filesystems.<p>The whole project is written in C++ except for my BIOS bootloader that is written in 16-bit real mode assembly. I have been testing the OS mainly on virtual machines but also frequently on real hardware.
Show HN: I combined spaced repetition with emails so you can remember anything
Hey HN,<p>I am a student shipping apps in my free time. This is my 4th for the year!<p>Non-fic books and podcasts have been part of my life for years now but I always struggled with remembering what I’ve read or listened to. I wanted it to stick even after years.<p>My notes list grew large but I never really revisited them. That’s why I created GinkgoNotes.<p>You can enter notes you want to recall and leave it to the app to create a personalised (based on spaced repetition) email schedule. That means you’ll get your notes emailed to you a couple of times exactly when you should read them again (based on Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve) so it’s certain that you’ll remember them.<p>I hope this will be helpful as it was for me. Would love some feedback!<p>Iskren
Show HN: Outerbase Studio – Open-Source Database GUI
We just launched Outerbase Studio, the open-source version of our core database offering. It works in your browser or as a desktop app and supports MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite.<p>What it does:<p>• Connects to MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases.
• Spin up local databases directly through the UI, even if you don’t have one running.
• Manage and query your data in a lightweight, intuitive interface.
• Completely open source.<p>Why we built it:
We wanted to share the core Outerbase experience with the developer community as a free, open-source tool. It’s simple, fast, and removes the barriers to working with databases locally.<p>GitHub: <a href="https://github.com/outerbase/studio">https://github.com/outerbase/studio</a><p>Release Blog: <a href="https://www.outerbase.com/blog/outerbase-studio-open-source-database-management/">https://www.outerbase.com/blog/outerbase-studio-open-source-...</a><p>Try it out: studio.outerbase.com<p>Would love the HN communities feedback, please try it out and let me know what you think!
Show HN: My C compiler compiled itself
One of the most challenging projects of my life :)
Show HN: Markwhen: Markdown for Timelines
Show HN: Markwhen: Markdown for Timelines
Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)
I needed a security camera inside my house, one that would send motion notifications to my smartphone and would allow me to livestream remotely. However, I could not find one that I could trust due to privacy concerns. Many of them upload the plaintext of videos to their servers and none is fully open-source as far as I know. Therefore, I decided to use my spare time to build one from scratch. Called Privastead (as in Private Homestead), it uses OpenMLS for end-to-end encryption (between the camera local hub and the smartphone) and is mostly implemented in Rust (except for part of the Android app that is implemented in Kotlin). The system is functional now and I've been using it in my own house for the past couple of weeks.<p>Based on some of the discussions I've seen online, it seems like there are other users who are also concerned with the privacy implications of home security cameras. Therefore, I decided to open source my solution for everyone to use. If you need a privacy-preserving home security camera, please give it a try and provide feedback. Note that trying out the system requires you to have a supported IP camera, a local machine connected to the IP camera, a server, and an Android smartphone. I have put together detailed instructions on setting up the system, which I hope makes it easier for others to get the system up and running.<p>In addition, consider contributing to the project. The prototype currently has a lot of limitations: mainly that it has only been tested with one IP camera, only allows the use of one camera, and only supports Android. I'll continue to improve the prototype as time permits, but progress will be much faster if there are other contributors as well.
Show HN: Open-source private home security camera system (end-to-end encryption)
I needed a security camera inside my house, one that would send motion notifications to my smartphone and would allow me to livestream remotely. However, I could not find one that I could trust due to privacy concerns. Many of them upload the plaintext of videos to their servers and none is fully open-source as far as I know. Therefore, I decided to use my spare time to build one from scratch. Called Privastead (as in Private Homestead), it uses OpenMLS for end-to-end encryption (between the camera local hub and the smartphone) and is mostly implemented in Rust (except for part of the Android app that is implemented in Kotlin). The system is functional now and I've been using it in my own house for the past couple of weeks.<p>Based on some of the discussions I've seen online, it seems like there are other users who are also concerned with the privacy implications of home security cameras. Therefore, I decided to open source my solution for everyone to use. If you need a privacy-preserving home security camera, please give it a try and provide feedback. Note that trying out the system requires you to have a supported IP camera, a local machine connected to the IP camera, a server, and an Android smartphone. I have put together detailed instructions on setting up the system, which I hope makes it easier for others to get the system up and running.<p>In addition, consider contributing to the project. The prototype currently has a lot of limitations: mainly that it has only been tested with one IP camera, only allows the use of one camera, and only supports Android. I'll continue to improve the prototype as time permits, but progress will be much faster if there are other contributors as well.