The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past week
Latest posts:
LinuxDAW – Quality audio software for Linux
I made/released this exactly one year ago today.<p>It's a simple webpage giving an overview over quality software that runs on Linux. It has search and filter to narrow down what you're looking for. Default sorting is latest additions so it can be used as a "news site". There is also a RSS feed available.<p>I needed this myself, so I used it as a pet project to upgrade my knownledge from Vue2 to Vue3.<p>Source code is ofc open and contributions/feedback is always welcome. <a href="https://codeberg.org/fractalf/linuxdaw.org" rel="nofollow">https://codeberg.org/fractalf/linuxdaw.org</a><p>Cheers!
Show HN: Inbox Zero – open-source email assistant
Clean Up Your Inbox In Minutes
Newsletter management, AI automation, and email analytics.
Inbox Zero is the open-source email app that puts you back in control of your inbox.
Show HN: Anytype – local-first, P2P knowledge management
Anytype is built on the open-source AnySync protocol: a local-first protocol based on CRDTs. Users of Anytype can create spaces - graph-based databases with modular UI. Each space has unique access rights. Today, Anytype's beta is in single-player mode. Multiplayer mode, which will support local-first collaboration between multiple users, will be launched in the first half of 2024.<p>Anytype fulfils the seven ideals of local first software from here - <a href="https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/" rel="nofollow">https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/</a> , our team felt these things are important to all of us:<p>• No spinners: your work at your fingertips. Anytype keeps the primary copy of each space on the local device. Data synchronization with other devices happens quietly in the background - allowing you to operate with your data at your fingertips.<p>• Your work is not trapped on one device. Users can easily work on different devices. Each device keeps data in local storage, synchronisation between devices happens in the background using CRDTs to resolve conflicts.<p>• The network is optional. Everything works offline. Data synchronization need not necessarily go via the Internet: AnySync allows users to sync data via local WiFi networks. Still, there is a role for the network - it works as additional backup, helps with peer discovery and especially solves the closed-laptop problem (you made changes on laptop, when your phone was offline, the changes can either sync when both devices are online or via backup node).<p>• Seamless collaboration with your colleagues. Achieving this goal is one of the biggest challenges in realizing local-first software, but we believe with CRDTs it's possible. AnySync supports it & we will release multiplayer version soon.<p>• The Long Now. Because you have a local-first application, you can use it on your computer even if the software author disappears. This is also strengthened by open data standards and open code.<p>• Security and privacy by default. AnySync uses end-to-end encryption so that backup nodes store encrypted data that they cannot read. Conflict resolution happens on-device. The keys are controlled by users.<p>• You retain ultimate ownership and control. Users control encryption keys; there is no central registry of users (we don’t ask even your email). We added an option to self-host your backup to support full autonomy of users from the network.
Show HN: Scan QR codes to check in guests registered via Google Forms
Hi HN!<p>I made a no-code platform for creating physical data collection apps, using QR codes [1].
It does not yet have a self-service config UI though, which limits adoption.<p>That's why I recently released a Google Forms™ add-on for QR code check-in, based on the platform. This focused use-case makes it easy to provide a fully self-service config UI.<p>How it works:<p>1. Create your Google Form as you normally would [2]<p>2. Activate the add-on if you hadn't already [3]<p>3. Craft a confirmation email to be sent to each form responder<p>Upon each form submission, the add-on will send a PDF with a unique QR code (a V4 UUID) to the responder.<p>Have guests present this code at the event, and record check-ins in bulk using the included QR scanner.<p>See here [4] for more information, or try the Google Sheets™ version [5] (which doesn't send email).<p>[1] <a href="https://admin.trak.codes/" rel="nofollow">https://admin.trak.codes/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://forms.google.com/" rel="nofollow">https://forms.google.com/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/qr_code_ticket_for_attendance/9398047938" rel="nofollow">https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/qr_code_ticket_...</a><p>[4] <a href="https://blog.darkaa.com/qr-code-pass-per-response-google-forms-addon/" rel="nofollow">https://blog.darkaa.com/qr-code-pass-per-response-google-for...</a><p>[5] <a href="https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/qr_code_pass_for_attendance/1028329904752" rel="nofollow">https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/qr_code_pass_fo...</a>
Show HN: Rem: Remember Everything (open source)
An open source approach to locally record everything you view on your Apple Silicon computer.<p>Note: Relies on Apple Silicon, and configured to only produce Apple Silicon builds.<p>I think the idea of recording everything you see has the potential to change how we interact with our computers, and believe it should be open source.<p>Also, from a privacy / security perspective, this is like... pretty scary stuff, and I want the code open so we know for certain that nothing is leaving your laptop. Even logging to Sentry has the potential to leak private info.
Show HN: Whataaabout.com – unique activity ideas for the holiday break
Hi HN, I’ve been working on whataaabout.com with a friend, while learning to code. It's a fun little website for those short on time but seeking new experiences.
It started from a question, "when was the last time you did an experience you had never done before?". As human beings we need some degree of novelty, to expose ourselves to the unfamiliar and keep learning throughout our lives. So to add a spark to my daily routine and keep novelty coming my way, I started collecting ideas of interesting and unusual activities I’d like to try out sooner or later.
The main selection criteria is things that take a short amount of time and are not too demanding, nor location-specific. I organized them based on categories like uniqueness, humans involved, location, price, time required, and others.<p>I hope you like it, and I’d be happy to hear your thoughts, as well as any cool activity ideas you might have. Cheers!
Show HN: Weeks of Your Life
Hi! I made an interactive visualization of your life in weeks. Inspired by Tim Urban's Your Life in Weeks (Wait But Why) and Buster Benson's Life in Weeks.<p>Hopefully it's a fun thing to do together with family over the holidays.<p>I wrote about it on my digital garden: <a href="https://www.petemillspaugh.com/weeks-of-your-life" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.petemillspaugh.com/weeks-of-your-life</a><p>Any feedback is welcome. Top on my todo list is improving performance (reduce interaction lag).
Show HN: Weeks of Your Life
Hi! I made an interactive visualization of your life in weeks. Inspired by Tim Urban's Your Life in Weeks (Wait But Why) and Buster Benson's Life in Weeks.<p>Hopefully it's a fun thing to do together with family over the holidays.<p>I wrote about it on my digital garden: <a href="https://www.petemillspaugh.com/weeks-of-your-life" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.petemillspaugh.com/weeks-of-your-life</a><p>Any feedback is welcome. Top on my todo list is improving performance (reduce interaction lag).
Show HN: An open-source, self-hostable synced narration platform for ebooks
Hi, I made a thing! This is by far the most work I've ever sunk into a side project; I've been working on this thing for over two years, and I'm super proud of it, even though there's still a lot more to do!<p>Storyteller is a self-hosted platform for ebooks with synced narration. This is basically self-hosted WhisperSync, for anyone familiar with that Amazon product.<p>It's currently made up of two self-hostable backend systems and a mobile app for reading and listening to the books it produces. Technically it uses an open spec, EPUB 3's "Media Overlay", for syncing the narration, but very few ebook apps actually support Media Overlays, and even fewer work well and have nice interfaces.<p>The mobile app is available on the Apple App Store as "Storyteller Reader", and I plan to release it for Android as well early next year.<p>Anyway, I hope someone finds this interesting or useful!
Show HN: An open-source, self-hostable synced narration platform for ebooks
Hi, I made a thing! This is by far the most work I've ever sunk into a side project; I've been working on this thing for over two years, and I'm super proud of it, even though there's still a lot more to do!<p>Storyteller is a self-hosted platform for ebooks with synced narration. This is basically self-hosted WhisperSync, for anyone familiar with that Amazon product.<p>It's currently made up of two self-hostable backend systems and a mobile app for reading and listening to the books it produces. Technically it uses an open spec, EPUB 3's "Media Overlay", for syncing the narration, but very few ebook apps actually support Media Overlays, and even fewer work well and have nice interfaces.<p>The mobile app is available on the Apple App Store as "Storyteller Reader", and I plan to release it for Android as well early next year.<p>Anyway, I hope someone finds this interesting or useful!
Show HN: Heynote – A dedicated scratchpad for developers
Hey!<p>I made Heynote entirely for my own use case. For many years, I always had an Emacs instance running with the scratch buffer open, even long after I had abandoned Emacs as my programming editor in favor of more recent IDE:s.<p>The simplicity of having just one big scratch buffer appeals to me, but I still want to separate the different things I jot down somehow (without using tabs or similar). Previously, my solution was to insert a bunch of blank lines between the notes, but hitting C-A would still select the entire buffer. That's why I came up with the concept of "blocks", which turned out really well for my use cases.<p>I decided to release Heynote, thinking it might be useful to others.
Show HN: Heynote – A dedicated scratchpad for developers
Hey!<p>I made Heynote entirely for my own use case. For many years, I always had an Emacs instance running with the scratch buffer open, even long after I had abandoned Emacs as my programming editor in favor of more recent IDE:s.<p>The simplicity of having just one big scratch buffer appeals to me, but I still want to separate the different things I jot down somehow (without using tabs or similar). Previously, my solution was to insert a bunch of blank lines between the notes, but hitting C-A would still select the entire buffer. That's why I came up with the concept of "blocks", which turned out really well for my use cases.<p>I decided to release Heynote, thinking it might be useful to others.
Show HN: Talk to any ArXiv paper just by changing the URL
Hello HN, Talk2Arxiv is a small open-source RAG application I've been building for a few weeks. To use it just prepend any arxiv.org link with 'talk2' to load the paper into a responsive RAG chat application (e.g. www.arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762 -> www.talk2arxiv.org/abs/1706.03762).<p>All implementation details are in the GitHub. Currently, because I've opted to extract text from the PDF of the paper rather than reading the LaTeX source code (since I wanted to build a more generic PDF RAG in the process), it struggles with symbolic text / mathematics, and sometimes fails to retrieve the correct context. I appreciate any feedback, and hope people find it useful!<p>Currently, the backend PDF processing server is only single-threaded so if embedding takes a while please be patient!
Show HN: I'm open-sourcing my game engine
Modd.io is a collaborative game editor that runs in browser. It's kind of like Figma for game dev.<p>We made this engine low-code and multiplayer-first, so developeres can quickly prototype casual multiplayer games.<p>I hope some of you guys will find this useful. Would love to hear feedback also. Thank you.<p>Engine Demo: <a href="https://www.modd.io" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.modd.io</a>
Show HN: I'm open-sourcing my game engine
Modd.io is a collaborative game editor that runs in browser. It's kind of like Figma for game dev.<p>We made this engine low-code and multiplayer-first, so developeres can quickly prototype casual multiplayer games.<p>I hope some of you guys will find this useful. Would love to hear feedback also. Thank you.<p>Engine Demo: <a href="https://www.modd.io" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.modd.io</a>
Show HN: I built an open source AI video search engine to learn more about AI
Hi there! When Supabase announced their recent hackathon, I thought it was a good time to build something to learn more about so many of the new AI models and tech out there. From the different techniques of embedding documents to the future RAG.<p>With the rise of short form content with TikTok and Youtube. A lot more knowledge is in videos than ever before. Finding specific answers within millions of videos can be difficult for any one person to go through. So the question is if there is Google that indexes text on website making it easier to find based on the context of on your question, why is there no Google that indexes video content making it easier for users to find answers within them.<p>So I built this to showcase that it's very much possible with the technology and infrastructure that is readily available.<p>I've indexed thousands of videos from Youtube and will be adding more, some of the things coming soon:
- Index TikTok videos
- Using whisper to transcribe audio in videos that don't have captions
- Auto scraping both Youtube and Tiktok everyday to add new content<p>The tech stack:
- Supbase (PostgreSQL, PG_Vector, Auth)
- Hasura (GraphQL layer, permissions)
- Fly (Hosting of Hasura)
- JigsawStack (Summary AI, Chat AI)
- Vercel (NextJS hosting, Serverless functions)<p>The code is opensource here:<a href="https://github.com/yoeven/ai-video-search-engine">https://github.com/yoeven/ai-video-search-engine</a><p>Would love some feedback and thoughts on what you would like to see?
Show HN: Microagents: Agents capable of self-editing their prompts / Python code
Show HN: NowDo – MacOS todo app for procrastinators
Show HN: Get any piece of Google Earth as a single normalized glTF 3D model
Google released an API in May to get fetch 3D Tiles of anywhere on Earth. Using this in standard 3D engines like Blender is tricky because (1) the tiles are in a geographic coordinate system (2) you get a lot of little tiles at varying quality levels<p>I wanted to simplify this so all you need to do is get an API key, select a map region and a zoom level, and get one combined glTF file that you can throw into any engine. Especially if you're just prototyping and want to see how this data looks in your engine before investing in figuring out all the nuances of the API & coordinate system.<p>(Note that the API prohibits offline use, as in you can't distribute a processed glTF file like this. But you can do this preprocessing in memory whenever you're fetching tiles).
Show HN: My Go SQLite driver did poorly on a benchmark, so I fixed it
<a href="https://github.com/ncruces/go-sqlite3">https://github.com/ncruces/go-sqlite3</a> was doing poorly on this benchmark that was posted yesterday to HackerNews [1].<p>With the help of some pprof, I was able to trace it to a serious performance regression introduced two weeks ago, and come up with the fix (happy to field questions, if you're interested in the nitty gritty).<p>It's not the fastest driver around, but it's no longer the slowest: comfortably middle of the pack.
It's based on a WASM build of SQLite, and thanks to <a href="https://wazero.io" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://wazero.io</a> doesn't need CGO.<p>[1]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38626698">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38626698</a>