The best Hacker News stories from Show from the past week
Latest posts:
Show HN: Self-Hosted Maps Stack
Over the past week I built a project to let people self-host an entire maps stack so they don't have to send data to the big G. Right now it includes a base map, geocoder and directions server. Currently only bicycle directions are supported, and I'm only hosting tiles for Seattle because I'm unemployed and can't afford to host data for the whole planet. Check it out!<p><a href="https://maps.ellenhp.me/" rel="nofollow">https://maps.ellenhp.me/</a><p><a href="https://github.com/ellenhp/headway" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ellenhp/headway</a><p>Ultimately I'd like to really focus on transit routing (not implemented) but I'll probably throw a driving mode in there too.
Show HN: Self-Hosted Maps Stack
Over the past week I built a project to let people self-host an entire maps stack so they don't have to send data to the big G. Right now it includes a base map, geocoder and directions server. Currently only bicycle directions are supported, and I'm only hosting tiles for Seattle because I'm unemployed and can't afford to host data for the whole planet. Check it out!<p><a href="https://maps.ellenhp.me/" rel="nofollow">https://maps.ellenhp.me/</a><p><a href="https://github.com/ellenhp/headway" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ellenhp/headway</a><p>Ultimately I'd like to really focus on transit routing (not implemented) but I'll probably throw a driving mode in there too.
Show HN: Self-Hosted Maps Stack
Over the past week I built a project to let people self-host an entire maps stack so they don't have to send data to the big G. Right now it includes a base map, geocoder and directions server. Currently only bicycle directions are supported, and I'm only hosting tiles for Seattle because I'm unemployed and can't afford to host data for the whole planet. Check it out!<p><a href="https://maps.ellenhp.me/" rel="nofollow">https://maps.ellenhp.me/</a><p><a href="https://github.com/ellenhp/headway" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/ellenhp/headway</a><p>Ultimately I'd like to really focus on transit routing (not implemented) but I'll probably throw a driving mode in there too.
Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes
Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes
Show HN: A Reddit style site to discuss podcast episodes
Show HN: I turned my face rec system into a video codec
Before the pandemic, my tiny startup was doing quite well selling Edge AI systems, based on our own lightweight AI inference engine, with object detection and face recognition for smart city and smart retail & food service applications.<p>When the real world shut down, there was suddenly nothing to monitor on streets and in restaurants, so I set out to try and evolve our real time face recognition system into a video codec for high quality face-to-face online interactions, as I was not satisfied with the quality of Zoom and friends. I got it to work, and the first release for IOS was just approved on Apple's app store, link: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/vertigo-focus/id1540073203" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/app/vertigo-focus/id1540073203</a><p>The way it works is that you create a meeting URL, which you can share out-of-band, for instance via slack or text message. You can also share as a QR code which the app can scan to join a call. You then place your device on a surface in front of you so that the front camera can see you, and it will recognize you face and assign you to your own session, which is broadcast to the meeting channel. If more than one person is in view, both of you will be broadcast but with separate session ids, like if you were on separate cameras. Other meeting participants will show up on your screen and you can start talking. It is optimized for eye contact, meaning that the eyes will actually make it through to the other side as more than just dark pixel clouds, so thinks should feel a bit more personal than the standard Zoom/Teams/or Google Meet call.<p>Because it uses face rec, you can ONLY show your face, and if you disappear from view your audio will stop after a while, to avoid situations like when you need to go the the restroom but forget to mute. This also solves dick-pics etc.<p>The CODEC is not based on H26[45], but is pure AI that runs on the GPU. There is a neural network that compresses the video in real time, and another one decompressing on the receiving end. Finding a tight network architecture that would do this in real time with acceptable quality was a major part of the effort. There are several quality settings possible, but right now it is set fairly high and for 20FPS maxes out around 700kbit/s, though typically uses about half. I've demonstrated good results down to around 200kbit/s, so in theory it should work over satellite links or even Bluetooth. The protocol is UDP with no congestion control but with (Wirehair) FEC to protect against mild packet loss, future versions will detect packet loss and adapt to available bandwidth.<p>The audio just uses OPUS and may click a little bit, I blame AudioEngine or the fact that the last time I wrote audio code was for the game I published for the Amiga in 1994.<p>If you don't have a friend around or multiple devices to play with, there is an "echo test" server mode that allows you to be in a meeting with yourself. Traffic will be peer-to-peer if possible, but otherwise you will be relaying through my tiny Raspberry PI server, so YMMV. I plan to try to switch to something like fly.io soon to improve scalability.<p>There is also a MacOS version coming very soon, and the underlying AI engine also runs on Windows & Linux. Android support is planned.<p>Please take a look and let me know what you think.
Show HN: I turned my face rec system into a video codec
Before the pandemic, my tiny startup was doing quite well selling Edge AI systems, based on our own lightweight AI inference engine, with object detection and face recognition for smart city and smart retail & food service applications.<p>When the real world shut down, there was suddenly nothing to monitor on streets and in restaurants, so I set out to try and evolve our real time face recognition system into a video codec for high quality face-to-face online interactions, as I was not satisfied with the quality of Zoom and friends. I got it to work, and the first release for IOS was just approved on Apple's app store, link: <a href="https://apps.apple.com/app/vertigo-focus/id1540073203" rel="nofollow">https://apps.apple.com/app/vertigo-focus/id1540073203</a><p>The way it works is that you create a meeting URL, which you can share out-of-band, for instance via slack or text message. You can also share as a QR code which the app can scan to join a call. You then place your device on a surface in front of you so that the front camera can see you, and it will recognize you face and assign you to your own session, which is broadcast to the meeting channel. If more than one person is in view, both of you will be broadcast but with separate session ids, like if you were on separate cameras. Other meeting participants will show up on your screen and you can start talking. It is optimized for eye contact, meaning that the eyes will actually make it through to the other side as more than just dark pixel clouds, so thinks should feel a bit more personal than the standard Zoom/Teams/or Google Meet call.<p>Because it uses face rec, you can ONLY show your face, and if you disappear from view your audio will stop after a while, to avoid situations like when you need to go the the restroom but forget to mute. This also solves dick-pics etc.<p>The CODEC is not based on H26[45], but is pure AI that runs on the GPU. There is a neural network that compresses the video in real time, and another one decompressing on the receiving end. Finding a tight network architecture that would do this in real time with acceptable quality was a major part of the effort. There are several quality settings possible, but right now it is set fairly high and for 20FPS maxes out around 700kbit/s, though typically uses about half. I've demonstrated good results down to around 200kbit/s, so in theory it should work over satellite links or even Bluetooth. The protocol is UDP with no congestion control but with (Wirehair) FEC to protect against mild packet loss, future versions will detect packet loss and adapt to available bandwidth.<p>The audio just uses OPUS and may click a little bit, I blame AudioEngine or the fact that the last time I wrote audio code was for the game I published for the Amiga in 1994.<p>If you don't have a friend around or multiple devices to play with, there is an "echo test" server mode that allows you to be in a meeting with yourself. Traffic will be peer-to-peer if possible, but otherwise you will be relaying through my tiny Raspberry PI server, so YMMV. I plan to try to switch to something like fly.io soon to improve scalability.<p>There is also a MacOS version coming very soon, and the underlying AI engine also runs on Windows & Linux. Android support is planned.<p>Please take a look and let me know what you think.
Show HN: Arctype, a cross-platform database GUI for developers and teams
Hi HN! I’m Justin, founder and CEO of Arctype, and we’re very excited to share Arctype with the community. Arctype is a cross-platform GUI (soon to be open-sourced) to manage and query your databases, with built-in collaboration and visualization. It currently supports Postgres, MySQL, and SQLite, as well as newer-generation databases like ClickHouse, PlanetScale, and Yugabyte (and more coming very soon!).<p>Think of Arctype as “phpMyAdmin meets Postman”. Most of our team grew up learning how to program using the LAMP stack and we missed the experience of interacting with our databases using phpMyAdmin. We wanted to bring back the experience of a simple app that lets you explore and query your databases, but with an updated and modernized interface.<p>At the same time, we were heavily inspired by the ease-of-use and collaboration features of Postman. We wanted to create a super useful, collaborative app like Postman that your whole team uses for development—but for databases instead of APIs.<p>We have a few thousand developers using Arctype today but we haven’t shared it with the HN community yet–we’re excited to hear your feedback! We also have a very active Discord community at arctype.com/discord where developers can ask questions and talk about databases/SQL.<p>I’m sure the community has a lot of questions, so we’ve compiled a list of the most common ones we get:<p>“Why isn’t Arctype open source yet?”<p>It will be soon! We’ve been focusing mostly on features that users have been asking for, as well as performance, stability, and security. We’re not completely happy yet with the documentation and development experience of contributing to Arctype, but this will be a core focus for us in the coming weeks. We just want to make sure it will be very easy for the community to contribute once we publish on GitHub.<p>“How does Arctype make money?”<p>Arctype is free (and will be free forever) for most developers. We have a typical SaaS model for large teams based on a per-seat license as well as an enterprise version that companies can run on their own infrastructure.<p>“Why is Arctype built using Electron?”<p>We wanted to make it easy for anyone to use Arctype–Electron is currently the most practical solution to make it cross-platform and also accessible via a web app. Apps like VSCode and Discord have shown that it’s possible to achieve decent performance so we’re confident that over time the advantages of developing on Electron will outweigh the slight performance hit compared to native apps.<p>“Does Arctype need an account?”<p>You can use Arctype without an account or you can login via email or Google. Certain features such as sharing queries and dashboards with your team require an account.<p>“Is Arctype secure / does it store credentials?”<p>All of your credentials are stored locally, and queries are also executed locally on your machine. We do have a feature that lets you automatically share your credentials to your team, but that is strictly opt-in, and all credentials are encrypted on our backend. Additionally, we have an enterprise version that companies can run on their own infrastructure for organizations that have stringent security requirements. If you’d like to learn more, we have more info at arctype.com/security.<p>“Does Arctype use any analytics software?”<p>Arctype has usage-based analytics and error reporting (we use Sentry) that we use to improve the app and to help us fix bugs/crashes. However, this can be turned off. Additionally, Arctype can be used fully offline.<p>“Why doesn’t Arctype support X database?”<p>Email me at justin at arctype.com :) We’ll make it happen.
Show HN: Arctype, a cross-platform database GUI for developers and teams
Hi HN! I’m Justin, founder and CEO of Arctype, and we’re very excited to share Arctype with the community. Arctype is a cross-platform GUI (soon to be open-sourced) to manage and query your databases, with built-in collaboration and visualization. It currently supports Postgres, MySQL, and SQLite, as well as newer-generation databases like ClickHouse, PlanetScale, and Yugabyte (and more coming very soon!).<p>Think of Arctype as “phpMyAdmin meets Postman”. Most of our team grew up learning how to program using the LAMP stack and we missed the experience of interacting with our databases using phpMyAdmin. We wanted to bring back the experience of a simple app that lets you explore and query your databases, but with an updated and modernized interface.<p>At the same time, we were heavily inspired by the ease-of-use and collaboration features of Postman. We wanted to create a super useful, collaborative app like Postman that your whole team uses for development—but for databases instead of APIs.<p>We have a few thousand developers using Arctype today but we haven’t shared it with the HN community yet–we’re excited to hear your feedback! We also have a very active Discord community at arctype.com/discord where developers can ask questions and talk about databases/SQL.<p>I’m sure the community has a lot of questions, so we’ve compiled a list of the most common ones we get:<p>“Why isn’t Arctype open source yet?”<p>It will be soon! We’ve been focusing mostly on features that users have been asking for, as well as performance, stability, and security. We’re not completely happy yet with the documentation and development experience of contributing to Arctype, but this will be a core focus for us in the coming weeks. We just want to make sure it will be very easy for the community to contribute once we publish on GitHub.<p>“How does Arctype make money?”<p>Arctype is free (and will be free forever) for most developers. We have a typical SaaS model for large teams based on a per-seat license as well as an enterprise version that companies can run on their own infrastructure.<p>“Why is Arctype built using Electron?”<p>We wanted to make it easy for anyone to use Arctype–Electron is currently the most practical solution to make it cross-platform and also accessible via a web app. Apps like VSCode and Discord have shown that it’s possible to achieve decent performance so we’re confident that over time the advantages of developing on Electron will outweigh the slight performance hit compared to native apps.<p>“Does Arctype need an account?”<p>You can use Arctype without an account or you can login via email or Google. Certain features such as sharing queries and dashboards with your team require an account.<p>“Is Arctype secure / does it store credentials?”<p>All of your credentials are stored locally, and queries are also executed locally on your machine. We do have a feature that lets you automatically share your credentials to your team, but that is strictly opt-in, and all credentials are encrypted on our backend. Additionally, we have an enterprise version that companies can run on their own infrastructure for organizations that have stringent security requirements. If you’d like to learn more, we have more info at arctype.com/security.<p>“Does Arctype use any analytics software?”<p>Arctype has usage-based analytics and error reporting (we use Sentry) that we use to improve the app and to help us fix bugs/crashes. However, this can be turned off. Additionally, Arctype can be used fully offline.<p>“Why doesn’t Arctype support X database?”<p>Email me at justin at arctype.com :) We’ll make it happen.
Show HN: Muse 2.0 with local-first sync
Hey HN, I want to share with you something I and my four colleagues have been working on for the last several years. It’s a whiteboarding and notes tool called Muse[1]. We just released a 2.0 version which includes local-first sync.<p>A little backstory: I’m one of the authors of the 2019 essay Local-first software[2]. (Past HN discussions[3][4].) The thesis is to reclaim some of the ownership over our data that we’ve lost in the transition from filesystems to cloud/SaaS. So I’m excited to bring CRDT technology “out of the lab” and into a commercial product as a chance to prove the value of local-first in real-world usage.<p>As a developer and computing enthusiast, I care about abstract ideas like data ownership. But for most users I think the benefits of local-first will surface in how it feels to use the software day-to-day. One example is ability to work offline or in unstable network conditions: any changes between devices will be automatically merged when you reconnect to the network, no matter how long you’ve been disconnected.<p>Another area is performance. The sync backend was written by my colleague Mark McGranaghan who has written extensively about software performance[5][6] and why we think the cloud will never be fast enough to make truly responsive software.<p>A few technical details:<p>– Client-side CRDT written in Swift, streaming sync server written in Go<p>– Sync server is generic, doesn’t have any knowledge of the Muse app domain (cards, boards, ink, etc). Just shuffles data between devices<p>– Transactional, blob, and ephemeral data are all managed by this one single state system. For example ephemeral data (someone wiggling a card around) for example, isn’t even transmitted if there are no other clients listening in realtime.<p>More in this Metamuse podcast episode.[7]<p>We draw heavily on research from people like Martin Kleppmann, Peter van Hardenberg[8], and many others. A huge thank you to this wonderful research community.<p>Even if you have no interest in the Muse concept of a digital thinking workspace, I’d encourage you to try the free version just to see how local-first sync feels in practice. My opinion is that is fundamentally different from web/cloud software is well as from classic file-based software—and an improvement on both. Would love to hear what you think.<p>[1]: <a href="https://museapp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://museapp.com/</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/" rel="nofollow">https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/</a><p>[3]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804478" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804478</a><p>[4]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21581444" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21581444</a><p>[5]: <a href="https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/" rel="nofollow">https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/</a><p>[6]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170</a><p>[7]: <a href="https://museapp.com/podcast/56-sync/" rel="nofollow">https://museapp.com/podcast/56-sync/</a><p>[8]: <a href="https://www.inkandswitch.com/pushpin/" rel="nofollow">https://www.inkandswitch.com/pushpin/</a>
Show HN: Muse 2.0 with local-first sync
Hey HN, I want to share with you something I and my four colleagues have been working on for the last several years. It’s a whiteboarding and notes tool called Muse[1]. We just released a 2.0 version which includes local-first sync.<p>A little backstory: I’m one of the authors of the 2019 essay Local-first software[2]. (Past HN discussions[3][4].) The thesis is to reclaim some of the ownership over our data that we’ve lost in the transition from filesystems to cloud/SaaS. So I’m excited to bring CRDT technology “out of the lab” and into a commercial product as a chance to prove the value of local-first in real-world usage.<p>As a developer and computing enthusiast, I care about abstract ideas like data ownership. But for most users I think the benefits of local-first will surface in how it feels to use the software day-to-day. One example is ability to work offline or in unstable network conditions: any changes between devices will be automatically merged when you reconnect to the network, no matter how long you’ve been disconnected.<p>Another area is performance. The sync backend was written by my colleague Mark McGranaghan who has written extensively about software performance[5][6] and why we think the cloud will never be fast enough to make truly responsive software.<p>A few technical details:<p>– Client-side CRDT written in Swift, streaming sync server written in Go<p>– Sync server is generic, doesn’t have any knowledge of the Muse app domain (cards, boards, ink, etc). Just shuffles data between devices<p>– Transactional, blob, and ephemeral data are all managed by this one single state system. For example ephemeral data (someone wiggling a card around) for example, isn’t even transmitted if there are no other clients listening in realtime.<p>More in this Metamuse podcast episode.[7]<p>We draw heavily on research from people like Martin Kleppmann, Peter van Hardenberg[8], and many others. A huge thank you to this wonderful research community.<p>Even if you have no interest in the Muse concept of a digital thinking workspace, I’d encourage you to try the free version just to see how local-first sync feels in practice. My opinion is that is fundamentally different from web/cloud software is well as from classic file-based software—and an improvement on both. Would love to hear what you think.<p>[1]: <a href="https://museapp.com/" rel="nofollow">https://museapp.com/</a><p>[2]: <a href="https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/" rel="nofollow">https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/</a><p>[3]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804478" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19804478</a><p>[4]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21581444" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21581444</a><p>[5]: <a href="https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/" rel="nofollow">https://www.inkandswitch.com/slow-software/</a><p>[6]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18506170</a><p>[7]: <a href="https://museapp.com/podcast/56-sync/" rel="nofollow">https://museapp.com/podcast/56-sync/</a><p>[8]: <a href="https://www.inkandswitch.com/pushpin/" rel="nofollow">https://www.inkandswitch.com/pushpin/</a>
Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos
Show HN: VideoMentions – Search YouTube based on the spoken words in videos
Show HN: IndigoStack – a new native macOS app for local web development
Hi HN,<p>I'm opening up the beta for IndigoStack. It's a native macOS app which provides a fresh take on how to run all the services you need for local web development. I've been building it for myself as a Laravel & Drupal developer and I'm now looking to get some beta testers on board!<p>Check it out, and don't forget to sign up to the forums to give us your feedback!<p><a href="https://indigostack.app" rel="nofollow">https://indigostack.app</a><p>My motivation:<p>Like many developers I've developed a love-hate relationship with the existing options for local development on a Mac. If they're virtualised, you'll often get...<p>* high CPU usage
* high RAM usage
* poor filesystem performance / syncing
* command line and configuration complexity<p>And existing native solutions tend to be either too simplistic, or command line-based or both.<p>So I've built IndigoStack with everything I liked and wanted, running everything natively on your Mac:<p>* services are all native & fast
* services are standalone; macOS updates won't ruin your setup
* able to run multiple services (eg PHPs) simultaneously
* easily build / start / stop / rebuild your stacks in the GUI
* run multiple projects which don't interfere with each other
* config-in-code; quickly and easily share stacks within a team
Show HN: IndigoStack – a new native macOS app for local web development
Hi HN,<p>I'm opening up the beta for IndigoStack. It's a native macOS app which provides a fresh take on how to run all the services you need for local web development. I've been building it for myself as a Laravel & Drupal developer and I'm now looking to get some beta testers on board!<p>Check it out, and don't forget to sign up to the forums to give us your feedback!<p><a href="https://indigostack.app" rel="nofollow">https://indigostack.app</a><p>My motivation:<p>Like many developers I've developed a love-hate relationship with the existing options for local development on a Mac. If they're virtualised, you'll often get...<p>* high CPU usage
* high RAM usage
* poor filesystem performance / syncing
* command line and configuration complexity<p>And existing native solutions tend to be either too simplistic, or command line-based or both.<p>So I've built IndigoStack with everything I liked and wanted, running everything natively on your Mac:<p>* services are all native & fast
* services are standalone; macOS updates won't ruin your setup
* able to run multiple services (eg PHPs) simultaneously
* easily build / start / stop / rebuild your stacks in the GUI
* run multiple projects which don't interfere with each other
* config-in-code; quickly and easily share stacks within a team
Show HN: Little Procedural Pixel Worlds
Took a break from the falling sand simulation blog posts this week to work on another small project. It's a little pixel world generator- each time you visit, you'll see a new little world. I really like this stuff and had a blast building it yesterday!
Show HN: Little Procedural Pixel Worlds
Took a break from the falling sand simulation blog posts this week to work on another small project. It's a little pixel world generator- each time you visit, you'll see a new little world. I really like this stuff and had a blast building it yesterday!
Automatic supercuts on the command line with Videogrep
Show HN: Remult – a CRUD framework for full-stack TypeScript