The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past week
Latest posts:
Show HN: Monolisa v3 – a typeface for developers and creatives
Originally we (Andrey, Marcus, Juho) built MonoLisa in 2020 as we realised there's room for a better monospaced typeface for developers. The key insight was to make the glyphs slightly wider to make more room for design to make letters like m feel less cramped.<p>Since then we've released a variable v2 (2022) and now we're happy to expand the typeface with a new family called MonoLisa Text. The reasoning was to cover *other* use cases beyond coding with this proportional font.<p>We hope you give Monolisa a go as there's a free trial to try. We also welcome feedback!
Show HN: An ASCII 3D Rendering Engine
Show HN: Nub – A Bun-like all-in-one toolkit for Node.js
Colin here, creator of Nub. I’ve had the general shape of this in mind for years. Nub runs your code with stock `node`, augmented with a `--require` preload hook[0] that adds a transpiler (oxc-powered, packaged as a Node-API add-on), registers a module resolution hook[1], and injects polyfills as needed for APIs like `Worker`, `Temporal`, etc. All purely additive, your code ultimately runs using Node’s actual engine & stdlib implementations.<p>[0] <a href="https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#-require-module" rel="nofollow">https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#-require-module</a><p>[1] <a href="https://nodejs.org/api/module.html#moduleregisterhooksoptions" rel="nofollow">https://nodejs.org/api/module.html#moduleregisterhooksoption...</a>
Show HN: Nub – A Bun-like all-in-one toolkit for Node.js
Colin here, creator of Nub. I’ve had the general shape of this in mind for years. Nub runs your code with stock `node`, augmented with a `--require` preload hook[0] that adds a transpiler (oxc-powered, packaged as a Node-API add-on), registers a module resolution hook[1], and injects polyfills as needed for APIs like `Worker`, `Temporal`, etc. All purely additive, your code ultimately runs using Node’s actual engine & stdlib implementations.<p>[0] <a href="https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#-require-module" rel="nofollow">https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#-require-module</a><p>[1] <a href="https://nodejs.org/api/module.html#moduleregisterhooksoptions" rel="nofollow">https://nodejs.org/api/module.html#moduleregisterhooksoption...</a>
Show HN: TikZ Editor – WYSIWYG editor for figures in LaTeX
Hi all! TikZ is a widely-used LaTeX package for drawing figures in papers. It uses commands like \draw[->] (0,0) -- (1,2); to draw lines, shapes, text, etc. Academics usually code up their figures by hand, so there is lots of twiddling around with the coordinates and recompiling until things look nice. I guess it’s a bit like SVG, but it’s more code than markup, for example it has loops with \foreach.<p>I built an open-source WYSIWYG TikZ editor (available for web and desktop) that allows you to edit your TikZ source code visually by dragging and resizing elements. It simultaneously shows the source code and the rendered figure, and lets you edit either one while the two views stay in sync. I’m not aware of any other editors that are simultaneously source editors and WYSIWYG (even for editing SVG or HTML), and I’m quite pleased with how well the combination works.<p>The way the app is implemented is by parsing the TikZ code, and at all times keeping track of the exact source location of each object. Thereby, when a user drags an element to a new position, the app can override just the numbers in the coordinate without changing anything else in the code (such as line breaks or indentation).<p>This approach essentially required reimplementing a large fraction of TikZ, which is the kind of task that no human would ever want to do. I think building software that doesn’t exist yet because it would be impossibly tedious to code up is one of the great new possibilities thanks to coding agents, and it’s worth brainstorming for other examples. (This app was built almost entirely by Codex.)<p>Implementing the app came with lots of fun side quests, including building converters from SVG / pptx / ipe to TikZ, re-implementing the LaTeX hyphenation and line-breaking algorithm to support multi-line nodes, and making a color picker that uses the red!20!black color mixing notation used in LaTeX papers.
Show HN: TikZ Editor – WYSIWYG editor for figures in LaTeX
Hi all! TikZ is a widely-used LaTeX package for drawing figures in papers. It uses commands like \draw[->] (0,0) -- (1,2); to draw lines, shapes, text, etc. Academics usually code up their figures by hand, so there is lots of twiddling around with the coordinates and recompiling until things look nice. I guess it’s a bit like SVG, but it’s more code than markup, for example it has loops with \foreach.<p>I built an open-source WYSIWYG TikZ editor (available for web and desktop) that allows you to edit your TikZ source code visually by dragging and resizing elements. It simultaneously shows the source code and the rendered figure, and lets you edit either one while the two views stay in sync. I’m not aware of any other editors that are simultaneously source editors and WYSIWYG (even for editing SVG or HTML), and I’m quite pleased with how well the combination works.<p>The way the app is implemented is by parsing the TikZ code, and at all times keeping track of the exact source location of each object. Thereby, when a user drags an element to a new position, the app can override just the numbers in the coordinate without changing anything else in the code (such as line breaks or indentation).<p>This approach essentially required reimplementing a large fraction of TikZ, which is the kind of task that no human would ever want to do. I think building software that doesn’t exist yet because it would be impossibly tedious to code up is one of the great new possibilities thanks to coding agents, and it’s worth brainstorming for other examples. (This app was built almost entirely by Codex.)<p>Implementing the app came with lots of fun side quests, including building converters from SVG / pptx / ipe to TikZ, re-implementing the LaTeX hyphenation and line-breaking algorithm to support multi-line nodes, and making a color picker that uses the red!20!black color mixing notation used in LaTeX papers.
Show HN: Got sick of ads, so I made my own logic puzzle site
Show HN: Oak – Git alternative designed for agents
Oak is a version control system I've been working on designed for agents (<a href="https://oak.space" rel="nofollow">https://oak.space</a>). It improves the speed and context your agents need when working on serious projects. With virtual mounts, agents locally and in the cloud no longer need a full copy of a repo to get working. You can work on many tasks in parallel without needing to download everything or fight worktrees. Version control shouldn't waste you or your agents time. It should be fast, creative and fun to make things with agents.<p>Oak is still early in development. There's no Windows build and missing plenty of features (no CI, no issues, no comments). We still use GitHub Actions for building Oak now, but we've been fully bootstrapped on Oak with no Git backup for several months: <a href="https://oak.space/oak/oak" rel="nofollow">https://oak.space/oak/oak</a>.<p>Blog post: <a href="https://oak.space/blog#git-is-forever" rel="nofollow">https://oak.space/blog#git-is-forever</a><p>Docs: <a href="https://oak.space/docs" rel="nofollow">https://oak.space/docs</a>
Show HN: Teach your kids perfect pitch
Show HN: TownSquare, a tiny presence layer for websites
<a href="https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare_release/" rel="nofollow">https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare_release/</a><p><a href="https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare/" rel="nofollow">https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare/</a>
Show HN: TownSquare, a tiny presence layer for websites
<a href="https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare_release/" rel="nofollow">https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare_release/</a><p><a href="https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare/" rel="nofollow">https://cauenapier.com/blog/townsquare/</a>
Show HN: Gerrymandle - Daily puzzle game where you redraw electoral districts
Show HN: Are You in the Weights?
With more traffic moving off-web and into LLMs, I got curious about what traces we leave "in the weights". My design partner and I built a site in the past few weeks that checks recognition across frontier and small models. It queries many of them in parallel, clusters the responses, and tells you how strongly they recognize you. Happy to answer any questions here!
Show HN: Inkwash, a watercolor sketching app and explanation
I've made a drawing app based on my physical sketching practice, using fluid sim and some shader tricks to mimic watercolor-style ink washes. Best used on iPad or with a drawing tablet. The linked article shows how the core engine works, with plenty of little interactive demos. It was fun to make, sharing in hopes others find it fun too :)
Show HN: High-Res Neural Cellular Automata
Neural CAs model self-organizing pattern formation.<p>Now they can generate patterns at HD resolution in real-time, enabled by turning each CA cell into a Neural Field.<p>Try 3 demos: grow a pattern from a seed (and damage it, it heals), synthesize PBR textures that can regenerate, or create 3D textures like clouds.
Show HN: An 8-bit live gamecast for baseball
Hey HN, I built a website to watch live baseball games in an 8-bit broadcast. It takes live MLB data streams and converts them into near real-time pixel art gamecasts.<p>Been waiting to share this for when there’s actually a good slate of games happening since the site is pretty bare otherwise.<p>Here is today's schedule:<p>Mets @ Reds - 9:40am PDT
<a href="https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/824503" rel="nofollow">https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/824503</a><p>Royals @ Nationals - 10:05am PDT
<a href="https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/822721" rel="nofollow">https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/822721</a><p>Marlins @ Phillies - 10:05am PDT
<a href="https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/823450" rel="nofollow">https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/823450</a><p>Tigers @ Astros - 11:10am PDT
<a href="https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/824178" rel="nofollow">https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/824178</a><p>Padres @ Cardinals - 11:15am PDT
<a href="https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/823044" rel="nofollow">https://ribbie.tv/watch/game/823044</a><p>..and another 14 games throughout the later day.<p>I'm still early on in this project, but I've tried to add little details with actual stadiums, day and night modes, between inning graphics and interstitials, live scoreboards, etc.<p>Would love any feedback and ideas. Thanks for checking it out!
Can Europe train a frontier AI model on the compute it owns?
Show HN: Trace – Offline Mac meeting transcripts you can flag mid-call
I'm the developer of Trace, a non-intrusive, shortcut-driven Mac app that records and transcribes your meetings on-device. I know, another meeting transcription app. Please bear with me though, I'm confident that this is at least a little novel.<p>I primarily built Trace for myself. I'd been using MacWhisper, but there was enough fiddling before each call that I'd forget to start it and walk out of an hour-long meeting with nothing written down. So the things I cared about most were that it's quick to activate and stays out of the way. You activate Trace by pressing a global shortcut (configurable), which reveals a small bar at the bottom of your screen (there's also a keystroke and/or option to hide it entirely if you'd rather not see it at all).<p>As I was building it I wanted to bake in a couple of workflows I'd wished for in other transcription apps.<p>1. Mid-meeting you can press another global shortcut to mark a "key moment" and type a note. The note shows up in the resulting transcript inline at that timestamp. I wanted to add this because I kept catching myself thinking "wait, that bit matters" in meetings and reaching to jot it down in a separate app like Obsidian, which I then needed to add context to, which took me out of the meeting. I use it all the time. If I paste the transcript into an LLM afterwards (which I find myself doing more and more these days) the important moments are flagged so it doesn't gloss over them. This is more noticeable in longer meetings with lots of topics.
2. With another keyboard shortcut you can summon a rough live recap (subtitles, basically) to quickly recap what's just been said.<p>Trace uses standard macOS microphone and system recording APIs to capture both sides of the conversation as two separate tracks and then runs the system side through on-device diarization to identify speakers. Right now we only label them as "Speaker 1", "Speaker 2", etc but there are plans for speaker labelling in the future. You can also show a "live recap" as the call is happening to review what someone just said.<p>All transcription models run on your machine. To be clear though, Trace doesn't do any of the summarising itself, it just produces a markdown transcript, so if you want summaries then you need to pass the output to an AI.<p>The app is sandboxed and your audio/transcripts are never uploaded anywhere - they just exist as audio files and markdown on disk. The only network call Trace is required to make is on the first run to download the speech and speaker models (around 500MB) from Hugging Face, and after that it can be used fully offline. If enabled, a Google Calendar integration can auto-name sessions but that needs a network connection.<p>The app is £9.99 on the macOS App Store. I've been using it every day for months now and I'm super happy with how it's improved my workflow. Feedback very welcome.
Show HN: Kage – Shadow any website to a single binary for offline viewing
Show HN: Kage – Shadow any website to a single binary for offline viewing