The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past week
Latest posts:
Show HN: A game that tests how well you know your local area
Show HN: Calenday, real-time collaborative calendars for trip planning
Show HN: I'm writing an MMORPG game for learning programming
Hi, I've been developing an HTML5 MMORPG game where people can submit code to play a game, like collect items, destroy defense towers or kill monsters, etc.. I've been working on this for over 1.5 yrs (all my spare time) and now it's ready for preview, does anyone want to try it out? It's mostly opensource (and the rest will be opensource sooner or later)<p>Please access it with PC, it's an HTML5 game: <a href="https://bytelegend.com/" rel="nofollow">https://bytelegend.com/</a><p>I really want it to expand to more languages, but right now I've only finished Java part. I wonder if anyone can help me with other languages. Besides, I'm not a good game story designer, but I really really want it to be a game with a fantastic story. Any help will be appreciated.
Show HN: Oh-heck, a terminal command for when you forget other terminal commands
Show HN: PDF API – Generate, convert, and modify PDF documents
Hi HN,<p>Arek here. We’re super excited to officially launch PSPDFKit API [1].<p>PSPDFKit API is a collection of HTTP APIs that enable you to convert, generate, and edit documents without running any service on your infrastructure.<p>What differentiates our API from others is that you can chain together multiple “actions” as part of a single API request. For example, you can convert, OCR, watermark, edit, and flatten a document — all in one call.<p>Available actions [2]:<p>- PDF Generator<p>- PDF Converter<p>- Image Converter<p>- OCR<p>- Watermark<p>- Merge<p>- Split<p>- Duplicate<p>- Delete<p>- Flatten<p>Our documentation includes sample code for JavaScript [3], Python [4], Java [5], C# [6], PHP [7], and the command line. We also have a Postman collection [8].<p>Let us know what you think or if you have any questions.<p>[1] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/</a><p>[2] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/documentation/tools-and-api/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/documentation/tools-and-api/</a><p>[3] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/javascript/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/javascript/</a><p>[4] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/python/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/python/</a><p>[5] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/java/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/java/</a><p>[6] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/csharp/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/csharp/</a><p>[7] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/php/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/tools/php/</a><p>[8] <a href="https://pspdfkit.com/api/documentation/getting-started/postman-collection/" rel="nofollow">https://pspdfkit.com/api/documentation/getting-started/postm...</a>
Vim Reference Guide
Hello!<p>"Vim Reference Guide" is intended as a concise learning resource for beginner to intermediate level Vim users. I hope this guide would make it much easier for you to discover Vim features and learning resources than my own blundering experience.<p>To celebrate the release, ebook version is free to download till 31-Mar-2022:<p>* <a href="https://learnbyexample.gumroad.com/l/vim_reference_guide" rel="nofollow">https://learnbyexample.gumroad.com/l/vim_reference_guide</a><p>* <a href="https://leanpub.com/vim_reference_guide" rel="nofollow">https://leanpub.com/vim_reference_guide</a><p>Some of my other ebooks and bundles are on sale and I'm currently creating short 1-3 minute videos to highlight Vim features. You can find these details in the above links.<p>Visit <a href="https://github.com/learnbyexample/vim_reference" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/learnbyexample/vim_reference</a> for markdown source and other details related to the book.<p>Hope you find these resources useful. Let me know your feedback.<p>Happy learning :)
PartialExecuter: Reducing WebAssembly size by exploring all executions in LLVM
WebAssembly is commonly used as part of web applications, and minimizing its size is especially important.<p>As part of the latest release of Cheerp, our C++ to WebAssembly/JavaScript compiler, we have introduced a powerful new LLVM optimization that aggressively reduce WebAssembly output size at compile time.<p>We have named this optimization 'PartialExecuter', the key idea behind it being taking advantage of known function parameters to find inner code blocks that cannot ever be possibly executed.<p>Such blocks can then be completely removed from the compiled output, significantly reducing its size.<p>What makes this pass more powerful than typical Dead Code Elimination is the ability of reasoning over all the possible executions that the code can take, while being robust to memory stores and side-effects. Moreover, PartialExecuter can even reason over loads as far as they refer to read-only memory. This latter capability is especially useful to drop code from complex functions whose behavior depend on input strings (i.e. printf).<p>We think this work may be of interest for the HN community, and we welcome feedback and questions.<p>In-depth blog post: <a href="https://leaningtech.com/reducing-webassembly-size-by-exploring-all-executions-in-llvm/" rel="nofollow">https://leaningtech.com/reducing-webassembly-size-by-explori...</a>
Show HN: I made Devzat – It's like Discord but in the terminal, over SSH
Run `ssh devzat.hackclub.com` to try it out! The repo is here: https://github.com/quackduck/devzat (golang).
It has markdown and emoji support, DMs, channels, and it can show images too. You can send code, and it gets syntax highlighted (you can change the theme). You can ping people like so: @user and it sends them a \a, which should play an audible sound if the terminal allows it. There's inbuilt games and rainbow names and a lot of other small things I don't remember right now.<p>You might find the auth system interesting: it's based on a hash of ssh pubkey (bans use that and a hash of IP, so it isn't so easy to get around a ban)<p>Also an interesting issue: bots that go around trying to brute force ssh into random IPs with common usernames. My current solution is banning if rapid successive joins are detected.
Show HN: HN Avatars in 357 bytes
Paste the following into the console of any HN page - for annotated avatars on all HN comments. (self contained code)<p><pre><code> for(u of document.querySelectorAll('.hnuser'))for(u.prepend(c=document.createElement('canvas')),x=c.getContext('2d'),c.width=18,c.height=14,s=u.innerText,r=1,i=28+s.length;i--;i<28?r>>>29>X*X/3+Y/2&&x.fillRect(6+2*X,2*Y,2,2)&x.fillRect(6-2*X,2*Y,2,2):r+=s.charCodeAt(i-28,x.fillStyle='#'+(r>>8&0xFFFFFF).toString(16)))r^=r<<13,r^=r>>>17,r^=r<<5,X=i&3,Y=i>>2</code></pre>
Show HN: HN Avatars in 357 bytes
Paste the following into the console of any HN page - for annotated avatars on all HN comments. (self contained code)<p><pre><code> for(u of document.querySelectorAll('.hnuser'))for(u.prepend(c=document.createElement('canvas')),x=c.getContext('2d'),c.width=18,c.height=14,s=u.innerText,r=1,i=28+s.length;i--;i<28?r>>>29>X*X/3+Y/2&&x.fillRect(6+2*X,2*Y,2,2)&x.fillRect(6-2*X,2*Y,2,2):r+=s.charCodeAt(i-28,x.fillStyle='#'+(r>>8&0xFFFFFF).toString(16)))r^=r<<13,r^=r>>>17,r^=r<<5,X=i&3,Y=i>>2</code></pre>
Show HN: I made my personal website a Pokémon-style minigame using Phaser 3
Repo here: <a href="https://github.com/ariroffe/personal-website" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ariroffe/personal-website</a>
Show HN: I made my personal website a Pokémon-style minigame using Phaser 3
Repo here: <a href="https://github.com/ariroffe/personal-website" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ariroffe/personal-website</a>
We’re the founders of Substack, we just launched an iOS app. AUA
Hi! This is Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi, the founders of Substack, with Sachin Monga, the head of product. Yesterday, we launched an iOS app for Substack, so you can read all your Substack subscriptions in one place, with no distractions.<p>Readers have been tweeting at us for years now to ask when we’d have an app. We’ve long wanted one too, and we suddenly got the manpower to be able to build a good one when we acquired Sachin’s company Cocoon (W19) last year.<p>Soon after starting Substack, we found it easiest to explain what we do as “We make it simple to start a paid newsletter.” Even then, a Substack was more than just an email newsletter: it was also a blog, and it could host embedded video and audio, and people could leave comments and participate in discussion threads. But the term “newsletter” was useful shorthand because everyone kind of got what that meant. All along, though, we’ve been quietly building the tools for what we call “personal media empires,” encompassing different media formats (natively) and community discussion (which we intend to make better and better).<p>By a similar token, right from the start we’ve been intending for the company to do more than just provide subscription publishing tools. We’re excited by the vision of Substack becoming a network, where writers and readers benefit from being part of a larger ecosystem. For writers, it means they can be discovered by readers who might not otherwise have found them. For readers, it means being able to connect directly with writers and other readers and to explore a universe of great work.<p>The app is a key part of the network vision. Nothing changes in terms of writers and readers being in control. The writers still own their mailing lists, content, and IP and can take it all with them anytime they want. Anyone who signs up to a Substack through the app still goes on to that mailing list. And readers still get to choose what appears in their “inbox,” with the power to subscribe and unsubscribe from whatever they want (you can also add any RSS feed into the app via reader.substack.com). But now we’ll have more and better ways to surface recommendations from writers and readers, to show people’s profiles, and to deliver notifications inside and outside of the app.<p>This is just a start for the Substack app. We want to keep improving it, so please give us feedback and ask us the hard questions. What do you think we’re doing wrong? What could be better? What could be great? What might we not have thought of?<p>We’re here for the next couple hours. Ask us anything.<p><a href="https://on.substack.com/p/substackapp" rel="nofollow">https://on.substack.com/p/substackapp</a>
Show HN: World’s first £3 flat fee (0% FX markup) money transfer service
Good morning everyone! My co-founder and I recently moved to the UK after working at Robinhood for over 5 years. We were stunned at the fees it was costing us to move money across borders with existing fintech solutions, so we decided to start Atlantic Money - the world’s first fixed fee (with no FX markup) money transfer product. For £3 you can transfer up to £1M. Let us know if you have any questions!
Show HN: Top headlines of the world to start the day
Show HN: All desktop software calculators are wrong, so I had to build my own
A new calculator software cannot really bring attention (<a href="https://chachatelier.fr/chalk/" rel="nofollow">https://chachatelier.fr/chalk/</a>)<p>However, I wrote a full article explaining why I had to build something "new" that does not behave like usual desktop calculator softwares :<p><<a href="https://chachatelier.fr/chalk/article/chalk.html" rel="nofollow">https://chachatelier.fr/chalk/article/chalk.html</a>><p>TL;DR
All "small" calculator softwares I know share the same design flaws. And the GUI is not the only stumbling block in their poor efficiency. Handling correctly numerical approximations - expected or not - is crucial to trust the results. It is usually not done in lightweight tools. It should. So I prove that if I could do it, OS manufacturers could as well.
Build or don't build a software feature?
Show HN: I made a privacy-first minimalist Backblaze
Creator here. I was looking for something as simple as Backblaze Personal [1] but privacy focused and open source. This is my attempt to build that.<p>Uses PyQt6 [2] for the GUI and Pyinstaller [3] for creating the platform specific binaries. The backup engine under the hood is Restic [4]. The server code is written in Laravel [5]. All the code is on GitHub [6].<p>I actually really like Backblaze (even use B2 for this offering behind the scenes) so this isn't meant to throw shade their way. Just wanted a private open source alternative. Something like Bitwarden but for backups.<p>[1] <a href="https://backblaze.com" rel="nofollow">https://backblaze.com</a><p>[2] <a href="https://pypi.org/project/PyQt6" rel="nofollow">https://pypi.org/project/PyQt6</a><p>[3] <a href="https://pyinstaller.readthedocs.io/en/stable" rel="nofollow">https://pyinstaller.readthedocs.io/en/stable</a><p>[4] <a href="https://github.com/restic" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/restic</a><p>[5] <a href="https://laravel.com" rel="nofollow">https://laravel.com</a><p>[6] <a href="https://github.com/blobbackup/blobbackup" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/blobbackup/blobbackup</a>
Show HN: I made a privacy-first minimalist Backblaze
Creator here. I was looking for something as simple as Backblaze Personal [1] but privacy focused and open source. This is my attempt to build that.<p>Uses PyQt6 [2] for the GUI and Pyinstaller [3] for creating the platform specific binaries. The backup engine under the hood is Restic [4]. The server code is written in Laravel [5]. All the code is on GitHub [6].<p>I actually really like Backblaze (even use B2 for this offering behind the scenes) so this isn't meant to throw shade their way. Just wanted a private open source alternative. Something like Bitwarden but for backups.<p>[1] <a href="https://backblaze.com" rel="nofollow">https://backblaze.com</a><p>[2] <a href="https://pypi.org/project/PyQt6" rel="nofollow">https://pypi.org/project/PyQt6</a><p>[3] <a href="https://pyinstaller.readthedocs.io/en/stable" rel="nofollow">https://pyinstaller.readthedocs.io/en/stable</a><p>[4] <a href="https://github.com/restic" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/restic</a><p>[5] <a href="https://laravel.com" rel="nofollow">https://laravel.com</a><p>[6] <a href="https://github.com/blobbackup/blobbackup" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/blobbackup/blobbackup</a>
Show HN: I made a little math game named Summle
I made this game for my children to play, as they are heavily into Wordle, and I thought they'd also like something maths based!<p>Every puzzle is solvable and has at least one solution (usually more).<p>There is a kids mode in the settings, plus a hard mode for extra difficulty.