Thursday, 26 February 2026
Wednesday, 25 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: A real-time strategy game that AI agents can play
Show HN: A real-time strategy game that AI agents can play
23 by __cayenne__ | 3 comments on Hacker News.
I've liked all the projects that put LLMs into game environments. It's been a weird juxtaposition, though: frontier LLMs can one-shot full coding projects, and those same models struggle to get out of Pokémon Red's Mt. Moon. Because of this, I wanted to create a game environment that put this generation of frontier LLMs' top skill, coding, on full display. Ten years ago, a team released a game called Screeps. It was described as an "MMO RTS sandbox for programmers." The Screeps paradigm of writing code and having it executed in a real-time game environment is well suited to LLMs. Drawing on a version of the Screeps open source API, LLM Skirmish pits LLMs head-to-head in a series of 1v1 real-time strategy games. In my testing I found that Claude Opus 4.5 was the most dominant model, but it showed weakness in round 1 as it was overly focused on its in-game economy. Meanwhile, I probably spent a third of all code on sandbox hardening because GPT 5.2 kept trying to cheat by pre-reading its opponent's strategies. If there's interest, I'm planning on doing a round of testing with the latest generation of LLMs (Claude 4.6 Opus, GPT 5.3 Codex, etc.). You can run local matches via CLI. I'm running a hosted match runner with Google Cloud Run that uses isolated-vm. The match playback visualizer is statically served from Cloudflare. I've created a community ladder that you can submit strategies to via CLI, no auth required. I've found that the CLI plus the skill.md that's available has been enough for AI agents to immediately get started. Website: https://llmskirmish.com API docs: https://ift.tt/t0jUwg7 GitHub: https://ift.tt/47FLjnm A video of a match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnBPaZ1qamM
23 by __cayenne__ | 3 comments on Hacker News.
I've liked all the projects that put LLMs into game environments. It's been a weird juxtaposition, though: frontier LLMs can one-shot full coding projects, and those same models struggle to get out of Pokémon Red's Mt. Moon. Because of this, I wanted to create a game environment that put this generation of frontier LLMs' top skill, coding, on full display. Ten years ago, a team released a game called Screeps. It was described as an "MMO RTS sandbox for programmers." The Screeps paradigm of writing code and having it executed in a real-time game environment is well suited to LLMs. Drawing on a version of the Screeps open source API, LLM Skirmish pits LLMs head-to-head in a series of 1v1 real-time strategy games. In my testing I found that Claude Opus 4.5 was the most dominant model, but it showed weakness in round 1 as it was overly focused on its in-game economy. Meanwhile, I probably spent a third of all code on sandbox hardening because GPT 5.2 kept trying to cheat by pre-reading its opponent's strategies. If there's interest, I'm planning on doing a round of testing with the latest generation of LLMs (Claude 4.6 Opus, GPT 5.3 Codex, etc.). You can run local matches via CLI. I'm running a hosted match runner with Google Cloud Run that uses isolated-vm. The match playback visualizer is statically served from Cloudflare. I've created a community ladder that you can submit strategies to via CLI, no auth required. I've found that the CLI plus the skill.md that's available has been enough for AI agents to immediately get started. Website: https://llmskirmish.com API docs: https://ift.tt/t0jUwg7 GitHub: https://ift.tt/47FLjnm A video of a match: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnBPaZ1qamM
Tuesday, 24 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026
The Missing Semester of Your CS Education – Revised for 2026
40 by anishathalye | 1 comments on Hacker News.
We returned to MIT last month to teach a revised version of Missing Semester, six years after the original debut (which has been extensively discussed on HN, in https://ift.tt/UZcCP7p and https://ift.tt/Fp9YC7X ). We’ve updated the course based on our personal experiences as well as major changes in the field (e.g., the proliferation of AI-powered developer tools) over the past several years. The 2026 course includes revised versions of four lectures from the previous course, and it adds five entirely new lectures: - Development Environment and Tools - Packaging and Shipping Code - Agentic Coding - Beyond the Code (soft skills) - Code Quality We’d love to hear any feedback from the HN community to improve the current or future iterations of the course. In particular, we’re curious to hear the community’s take on our inclusion of AI-related topics (e.g., dedicating an entire class to the topic of agentic coding; though we tried to counterbalance it with plenty of disclaimers, and a dedicated section on AI etiquette in Beyond the Code). --Anish, Jon, and Jose
40 by anishathalye | 1 comments on Hacker News.
We returned to MIT last month to teach a revised version of Missing Semester, six years after the original debut (which has been extensively discussed on HN, in https://ift.tt/UZcCP7p and https://ift.tt/Fp9YC7X ). We’ve updated the course based on our personal experiences as well as major changes in the field (e.g., the proliferation of AI-powered developer tools) over the past several years. The 2026 course includes revised versions of four lectures from the previous course, and it adds five entirely new lectures: - Development Environment and Tools - Packaging and Shipping Code - Agentic Coding - Beyond the Code (soft skills) - Code Quality We’d love to hear any feedback from the HN community to improve the current or future iterations of the course. In particular, we’re curious to hear the community’s take on our inclusion of AI-related topics (e.g., dedicating an entire class to the topic of agentic coding; though we tried to counterbalance it with plenty of disclaimers, and a dedicated section on AI etiquette in Beyond the Code). --Anish, Jon, and Jose
New top story on Hacker News: AI-generated replies really are a scourge these days
AI-generated replies really are a scourge these days
17 by da_grift_shift | 17 comments on Hacker News.
17 by da_grift_shift | 17 comments on Hacker News.
Monday, 23 February 2026
Sunday, 22 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
Show HN: Elecxzy – A lightweight, Lisp-free Emacs-like editor in Electron
4 by kurouna | 1 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN. I am a programmer from Japan who loves Emacs. I am building elecxzy. It is a free (zero-cost), lightweight, Emacs-like text editor for Windows. I designed it to be comfortable and ready to use immediately, without a custom init.el. Here is a quick overview: - Provides mouse-free operation and classic Emacs keybindings for essential tasks (file I/O, search, split windows, syntax highlighting). - Drops the Lisp execution engine entirely. This keeps startup and operation lightweight. - Solves CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) IME control issues natively on Windows. I never managed to learn Lisp. I just copy-pasted snippets to maintain my init.el. However, I loved the Emacs keybindings. I loved operating an editor entirely without a mouse. I wanted an editor I could just open and use immediately. Also, standard Emacs binaries for Windows often have subtle usability issues for CJK users. So, I thought about whether I could build an Emacs-like text editor using Electron, the same framework as VS Code. Building an editor inside a browser engine required thinking a lot about what NOT to build. To make it feel native, I had to navigate DOM limitations. I learned that intentionally dropping complex features improves rendering speed. For example, I skipped implementing "word wrap." For syntax highlighting, I did not use a full AST parser. Instead, I used strict "line-by-line" parsing. The highlight colors for multi-line comments are occasionally incorrect, but it is practically unproblematic and keeps the editor fast. Under the hood, to bypass browser limitations and handle large files smoothly, I implemented a virtual rendering (virtual scrolling) system. For text management and Undo/Redo, I use a custom Piece Table. I built a custom KeyResolver for Emacs chords. I also used koffi to call Win32 APIs directly for precise IME control. I respect Windows Notepad as one of the most widely used text editors. However, in my daily work or coding tasks, I often felt it lacked certain features. On the other hand, I found VS Code too heavy just to write a quick memo. Even with extensions, it never quite gave me that native Emacs flow. I do not want to replace Notepad, VS Code, or Emacs. If users want rich extensions and heavy customization, I believe they should use Emacs or VS Code. My goal is to fill the gap between them—to build a "greatest common denominator" editor for people who just want an Emacs-like environment on Windows without the setup. It is still in alpha (so it might not work perfectly), but you can test it on Windows by downloading the zip from the GitHub releases, extracting it, and running elecxzy.exe. For screenshots, basic usage, and keybindings, please check the README on the GitHub project page. I am looking for feedback: Is there a demand for a zero-config, Lisp-free, "Notepad-like" Emacs-style editor? What are the minimum standard features required to make it useful? I would love to hear your technical insights.
4 by kurouna | 1 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN. I am a programmer from Japan who loves Emacs. I am building elecxzy. It is a free (zero-cost), lightweight, Emacs-like text editor for Windows. I designed it to be comfortable and ready to use immediately, without a custom init.el. Here is a quick overview: - Provides mouse-free operation and classic Emacs keybindings for essential tasks (file I/O, search, split windows, syntax highlighting). - Drops the Lisp execution engine entirely. This keeps startup and operation lightweight. - Solves CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) IME control issues natively on Windows. I never managed to learn Lisp. I just copy-pasted snippets to maintain my init.el. However, I loved the Emacs keybindings. I loved operating an editor entirely without a mouse. I wanted an editor I could just open and use immediately. Also, standard Emacs binaries for Windows often have subtle usability issues for CJK users. So, I thought about whether I could build an Emacs-like text editor using Electron, the same framework as VS Code. Building an editor inside a browser engine required thinking a lot about what NOT to build. To make it feel native, I had to navigate DOM limitations. I learned that intentionally dropping complex features improves rendering speed. For example, I skipped implementing "word wrap." For syntax highlighting, I did not use a full AST parser. Instead, I used strict "line-by-line" parsing. The highlight colors for multi-line comments are occasionally incorrect, but it is practically unproblematic and keeps the editor fast. Under the hood, to bypass browser limitations and handle large files smoothly, I implemented a virtual rendering (virtual scrolling) system. For text management and Undo/Redo, I use a custom Piece Table. I built a custom KeyResolver for Emacs chords. I also used koffi to call Win32 APIs directly for precise IME control. I respect Windows Notepad as one of the most widely used text editors. However, in my daily work or coding tasks, I often felt it lacked certain features. On the other hand, I found VS Code too heavy just to write a quick memo. Even with extensions, it never quite gave me that native Emacs flow. I do not want to replace Notepad, VS Code, or Emacs. If users want rich extensions and heavy customization, I believe they should use Emacs or VS Code. My goal is to fill the gap between them—to build a "greatest common denominator" editor for people who just want an Emacs-like environment on Windows without the setup. It is still in alpha (so it might not work perfectly), but you can test it on Windows by downloading the zip from the GitHub releases, extracting it, and running elecxzy.exe. For screenshots, basic usage, and keybindings, please check the README on the GitHub project page. I am looking for feedback: Is there a demand for a zero-config, Lisp-free, "Notepad-like" Emacs-style editor? What are the minimum standard features required to make it useful? I would love to hear your technical insights.
Saturday, 21 February 2026
Friday, 20 February 2026
Thursday, 19 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: A physically-based GPU ray tracer written in Julia
Show HN: A physically-based GPU ray tracer written in Julia
7 by simondanisch | 1 comments on Hacker News.
We ported pbrt-v4 to Julia and built it into a Makie backend. Any Makie plot can now be rendered with physically-based path tracing. Julia compiles user-defined physics directly into GPU kernels, so anyone can extend the ray tracer with new materials and media - a black hole with gravitational lensing is ~200 lines of Julia. Runs on AMD, NVIDIA, and CPU via KernelAbstractions.jl, with Metal coming soon. Demo scenes: github.com/SimonDanisch/RayDemo
7 by simondanisch | 1 comments on Hacker News.
We ported pbrt-v4 to Julia and built it into a Makie backend. Any Makie plot can now be rendered with physically-based path tracing. Julia compiles user-defined physics directly into GPU kernels, so anyone can extend the ray tracer with new materials and media - a black hole with gravitational lensing is ~200 lines of Julia. Runs on AMD, NVIDIA, and CPU via KernelAbstractions.jl, with Metal coming soon. Demo scenes: github.com/SimonDanisch/RayDemo
Wednesday, 18 February 2026
Tuesday, 17 February 2026
Monday, 16 February 2026
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Saturday, 14 February 2026
Friday, 13 February 2026
Thursday, 12 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: A free online British accent generator for instant voice conversion
Show HN: A free online British accent generator for instant voice conversion
4 by Katherine603 | 9 comments on Hacker News.
I've developed a simple AI-powered British accent generator. Enter or paste your text, select the voice that best fits your project's tone, and generate speech for free. It supports up to 500 characters and offers 8 distinct, lifelike voices. Everything runs entirely within your browser. I'm primarily seeking feedback on output quality, user experience, and any technical improvements worth exploring.
4 by Katherine603 | 9 comments on Hacker News.
I've developed a simple AI-powered British accent generator. Enter or paste your text, select the voice that best fits your project's tone, and generate speech for free. It supports up to 500 characters and offers 8 distinct, lifelike voices. Everything runs entirely within your browser. I'm primarily seeking feedback on output quality, user experience, and any technical improvements worth exploring.
Wednesday, 11 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Itsyhome – Control HomeKit from your Mac menu bar (open source)
Show HN: Itsyhome – Control HomeKit from your Mac menu bar (open source)
15 by nixus76 | 8 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN! Nick here – developer of Itsyhome, a menu bar app for macOS that gives you control over your whole HomeKit fleet (and very soon Home Assistant). I run 130+ HomeKit devices at home and the Home app was too heavy for quick adjustments. Full HomeKit support, favourites, hidden items, device groups, pinning of rooms/accessories/groups as separate menu bar items, iCloud sync – all in a native experience and tiny package. Open source ( https://ift.tt/zpbseV1 ) and free to use (there is an optional one-time purchase for a Pro version which includes cameras and automation features). Itsyhome is a Mac Catalyst app because HomeKit requires the iOS SDK, so it runs a headless Catalyst process for HomeKit (and now Home Assistant) access while using a native AppKit plugin over a bridge protocol to provide the actual menu bar UI – since AppKit gives you the real macOS menu bar experience that Catalyst alone can't. It comes with deeplink support, a webhook server, a CLI tool (golang, all open source), a Stream Deck plugin (open source, all accessories supported), and the recent update also includes an SSE event stream (HomeKit and HA) - you can curl -N localhost:8423/events and get a real-time JSON stream of every device state change in your home. Home Assistant version is still in beta – would anyone be willing to test it via TestFlight? Appreciate any feedback and happy to answer any questions.
15 by nixus76 | 8 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN! Nick here – developer of Itsyhome, a menu bar app for macOS that gives you control over your whole HomeKit fleet (and very soon Home Assistant). I run 130+ HomeKit devices at home and the Home app was too heavy for quick adjustments. Full HomeKit support, favourites, hidden items, device groups, pinning of rooms/accessories/groups as separate menu bar items, iCloud sync – all in a native experience and tiny package. Open source ( https://ift.tt/zpbseV1 ) and free to use (there is an optional one-time purchase for a Pro version which includes cameras and automation features). Itsyhome is a Mac Catalyst app because HomeKit requires the iOS SDK, so it runs a headless Catalyst process for HomeKit (and now Home Assistant) access while using a native AppKit plugin over a bridge protocol to provide the actual menu bar UI – since AppKit gives you the real macOS menu bar experience that Catalyst alone can't. It comes with deeplink support, a webhook server, a CLI tool (golang, all open source), a Stream Deck plugin (open source, all accessories supported), and the recent update also includes an SSE event stream (HomeKit and HA) - you can curl -N localhost:8423/events and get a real-time JSON stream of every device state change in your home. Home Assistant version is still in beta – would anyone be willing to test it via TestFlight? Appreciate any feedback and happy to answer any questions.
Tuesday, 10 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
AI doesn’t reduce work, it intensifies it
36 by walterbell | 8 comments on Hacker News.
Original article: https://ift.tt/13rMT8K...
36 by walterbell | 8 comments on Hacker News.
Original article: https://ift.tt/13rMT8K...
Monday, 9 February 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Minimal NIST/OWASP-compliant auth implementation for Cloudflare Workers
Show HN: Minimal NIST/OWASP-compliant auth implementation for Cloudflare Workers
11 by vhsdev | 4 comments on Hacker News.
This is an educational reference implementation showing how to build reasonably secure, standards-compliant authentication from first principles on Cloudflare Workers. Stack: Hono, Turso (libSQL), PBKDF2-SHA384 + normalization + common-password checks, JWT access + refresh tokens with revocation support, HTTP-only SameSite cookies, device tracking. It's deliberately minimal — no OAuth, no passkeys, no magic links, no rate limiting — because the goal is clarity and auditability. I wrote it mainly to deeply understand edge-runtime auth constraints and to have a clean Apache-2.0 example that follows NIST SP 800-63B / SP 800-132 and OWASP guidance. For production I'd almost always reach for Better Auth instead ( https://ift.tt/DoKkNQp ) — this repo is not trying to compete with it. Live demo: https://private-landing.vhsdev.workers.dev/ Repo: https://ift.tt/filwPa9 Happy to answer questions about the crypto choices, the refresh token revocation pattern, Turso schema, constant-time comparison, unicode pitfalls, etc.
11 by vhsdev | 4 comments on Hacker News.
This is an educational reference implementation showing how to build reasonably secure, standards-compliant authentication from first principles on Cloudflare Workers. Stack: Hono, Turso (libSQL), PBKDF2-SHA384 + normalization + common-password checks, JWT access + refresh tokens with revocation support, HTTP-only SameSite cookies, device tracking. It's deliberately minimal — no OAuth, no passkeys, no magic links, no rate limiting — because the goal is clarity and auditability. I wrote it mainly to deeply understand edge-runtime auth constraints and to have a clean Apache-2.0 example that follows NIST SP 800-63B / SP 800-132 and OWASP guidance. For production I'd almost always reach for Better Auth instead ( https://ift.tt/DoKkNQp ) — this repo is not trying to compete with it. Live demo: https://private-landing.vhsdev.workers.dev/ Repo: https://ift.tt/filwPa9 Happy to answer questions about the crypto choices, the refresh token revocation pattern, Turso schema, constant-time comparison, unicode pitfalls, etc.
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Algorithmically Finding the Longest Line of Sight on Earth
Show HN: Algorithmically Finding the Longest Line of Sight on Earth
16 by tombh | 5 comments on Hacker News.
We're Tom and Ryan and we teamed up to build an algorithm with Rust and SIMD to exhaustively search for the longest line of sight on the planet. We can confirm that a previously speculated view between Pik Dankova in Kyrgyzstan and the Hindu Kush in China is indeed the longest, at 530km. We go into all the details at https://alltheviews.world And there's an interactive map with over 1 billion longest lines, covering the whole world at https://map.alltheviews.world Just click on any point and it'll load its longest line of sight. Some of you may remember Tom's post[1] from a few months ago about how to efficiently pack visibility tiles for computing the entire planet. Well now it's done. The compute run itself took 100s of AMD Turin cores, 100s of GBs of RAM, a few TBs of disk and 2 days of constant runtime on multiple machines. If you are interested in the technical details, Ryan and I have written extensively about the algorithm and pipeline that got us here: * Tom's blog post: https://ift.tt/Rfxgu0l * Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ift.tt/KVE5LPR This was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves! 1. https://ift.tt/anFKmEb
16 by tombh | 5 comments on Hacker News.
We're Tom and Ryan and we teamed up to build an algorithm with Rust and SIMD to exhaustively search for the longest line of sight on the planet. We can confirm that a previously speculated view between Pik Dankova in Kyrgyzstan and the Hindu Kush in China is indeed the longest, at 530km. We go into all the details at https://alltheviews.world And there's an interactive map with over 1 billion longest lines, covering the whole world at https://map.alltheviews.world Just click on any point and it'll load its longest line of sight. Some of you may remember Tom's post[1] from a few months ago about how to efficiently pack visibility tiles for computing the entire planet. Well now it's done. The compute run itself took 100s of AMD Turin cores, 100s of GBs of RAM, a few TBs of disk and 2 days of constant runtime on multiple machines. If you are interested in the technical details, Ryan and I have written extensively about the algorithm and pipeline that got us here: * Tom's blog post: https://ift.tt/Rfxgu0l * Ryan's technical breakdown: https://ift.tt/KVE5LPR This was a labor of love and we hope it inspires you both technically and naturally, to get you out seeing some of these vast views for yourselves! 1. https://ift.tt/anFKmEb
Sunday, 8 February 2026
Saturday, 7 February 2026
Friday, 6 February 2026
Thursday, 5 February 2026
Wednesday, 4 February 2026
Tuesday, 3 February 2026
Monday, 2 February 2026
Sunday, 1 February 2026
Saturday, 31 January 2026
Friday, 30 January 2026
Thursday, 29 January 2026
Wednesday, 28 January 2026
Tuesday, 27 January 2026
Monday, 26 January 2026
Sunday, 25 January 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Sightline – Shodan-style search for real-world infra using OSM Data
Show HN: Sightline – Shodan-style search for real-world infra using OSM Data
3 by ni5arga | 0 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I built *Sightline*, a Shodan-style search engine for *physical-world infrastructure*. Shodan makes it easy to explore exposed internet services. Sightline applies the same idea to the real world, using OpenStreetMap as the data source. You can search things like: * “telecom towers in karnataka” * “power plants near mumbai” * “data centers in paris france” or use structured queries: * `type:telecom operator:airtel region:karnataka` * `type:data_center operator:google` Sightline: * uses Overpass API for querying OSM features * uses Nominatim for resolving countries, regions, and cities * avoids hardcoded geography * uses deterministic, rule-based parsing (no AI inference) Repo: https://ift.tt/coKnPUG Try it out: https://sightline-maps.vercel.app
3 by ni5arga | 0 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I built *Sightline*, a Shodan-style search engine for *physical-world infrastructure*. Shodan makes it easy to explore exposed internet services. Sightline applies the same idea to the real world, using OpenStreetMap as the data source. You can search things like: * “telecom towers in karnataka” * “power plants near mumbai” * “data centers in paris france” or use structured queries: * `type:telecom operator:airtel region:karnataka` * `type:data_center operator:google` Sightline: * uses Overpass API for querying OSM features * uses Nominatim for resolving countries, regions, and cities * avoids hardcoded geography * uses deterministic, rule-based parsing (no AI inference) Repo: https://ift.tt/coKnPUG Try it out: https://sightline-maps.vercel.app
Saturday, 24 January 2026
Friday, 23 January 2026
Thursday, 22 January 2026
Wednesday, 21 January 2026
Tuesday, 20 January 2026
Monday, 19 January 2026
Sunday, 18 January 2026
Saturday, 17 January 2026
Friday, 16 January 2026
Thursday, 15 January 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: MailPilot – Freedom to go anywhere while your agents work
Show HN: MailPilot – Freedom to go anywhere while your agents work
6 by keepamovin | 5 comments on Hacker News.
https://mailpilot.chat What is this? A local TUI (like Claude, Codex, Gemini, OpenCode or Copilot) that wraps your agent and sends each turn to an email in a nice format. What does it enable? It lets you email your agents. And them email you. So They Keep Working on the tasks you want, and You go and do What You Want. No need to stay at your desk. Be free. I built this for me, but thought others would find it useful, so I turned it into a product. I want get outside, and away from my desk, but still have the agents work. The accidental killer feature: You can CC your team. If you forward the thread to a coworker, their reply goes straight to the agent context too. It turns a local session into an async multiplayer thread. Works out of the box with Claude, Codex, Gemini, Copilot, and OpenCode. Happy to answer questions! https://mailpilot.chat
6 by keepamovin | 5 comments on Hacker News.
https://mailpilot.chat What is this? A local TUI (like Claude, Codex, Gemini, OpenCode or Copilot) that wraps your agent and sends each turn to an email in a nice format. What does it enable? It lets you email your agents. And them email you. So They Keep Working on the tasks you want, and You go and do What You Want. No need to stay at your desk. Be free. I built this for me, but thought others would find it useful, so I turned it into a product. I want get outside, and away from my desk, but still have the agents work. The accidental killer feature: You can CC your team. If you forward the thread to a coworker, their reply goes straight to the agent context too. It turns a local session into an async multiplayer thread. Works out of the box with Claude, Codex, Gemini, Copilot, and OpenCode. Happy to answer questions! https://mailpilot.chat
Wednesday, 14 January 2026
Tuesday, 13 January 2026
Monday, 12 January 2026
Sunday, 11 January 2026
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Tuesday, 6 January 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Prism.Tools – Free and privacy-focused developer utilities
Show HN: Prism.Tools – Free and privacy-focused developer utilities
21 by BLGardner | 13 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I'm Barry and I've built Prism.Tools ( https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/ ) – a collection of client-side developer utilities that respect your privacy. Many of these tools were used way back in the days when I ran a BBS and started my communities first ISP, serving three local communities with Dial-Up Internet, Web Hosting etc. The tools have been refined to reflect the changes in tech since then and designed for the Novice and Pro alike. As I locate more tools others may find useful I will refine and add them to the collection. Use them, Share them, or not. They will be here if you need them... 40+ dev tools (JSON formatters, regex tester, base64 encoder, Git command helper, etc.) that run entirely in your browser. Zero tracking, zero analytics, zero data collection – everything processes locally. Self-contained HTML files with no build process or frameworks. I realized I had a lot of tools/utilities I've built over the years for my own use. I lothe having to 'sign-up' just to access/use simple utilities that I can create myself. I've refined them and put them in one safe place so I could easily access them if/when needed. I decided to make them available via Github Pages for anyone that may find them useful. Prism.Tools is the result. Each tool is a standalone HTML file with embedded CSS and JavaScript. No frameworks, no npm packages, no build steps – just open the file and it works. The entire toolset: - 100% client-side processing – your data never leaves your browser. - No external dependencies except for specific libraries from cdnjs.cloudflare.com (marked.js for markdown, exifr for image metadata, etc.) - Consistent dark UI – every tool follows the same design language for familiarity. - Vanilla JS where possible – only reaching for Public CDN Resources when necessary. The constraint of "single HTML file" was intentional. It forces simplicity and ensures tools remain maintainable. It also means users can inspect, modify, or self-host any tool trivially. These tools have helped me with debugging production issues, Quick formatting tasks, learning Git commands (the Git command helper has been particularly helpful) Just visit https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/ and try any tool. No signup, no install. What tools are missing that you find yourself needing? Any performance issues with specific tools? UI/UX friction points? All tools follow the same privacy-first philosophy... Your data stays in your browser. No accounts, no tracking, no servers processing your information. The project is also a demonstration that you don't always need React, Vue, or complex build pipelines – sometimes vanilla JavaScript in a single HTML file is exactly the right tool for the job. Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+) CSS3 with CSS Grid Minimal external libraries: marked.js, exifr, highlight.js, sql-formatter (all from CDN) No frameworks, no bundlers, no npm Hosted on Github Pages Happy to answer questions about the technical implementation, design decisions, or specific tools! All tools are inspectable – just view source on any page to see exactly how they work!
21 by BLGardner | 13 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN, I'm Barry and I've built Prism.Tools ( https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/ ) – a collection of client-side developer utilities that respect your privacy. Many of these tools were used way back in the days when I ran a BBS and started my communities first ISP, serving three local communities with Dial-Up Internet, Web Hosting etc. The tools have been refined to reflect the changes in tech since then and designed for the Novice and Pro alike. As I locate more tools others may find useful I will refine and add them to the collection. Use them, Share them, or not. They will be here if you need them... 40+ dev tools (JSON formatters, regex tester, base64 encoder, Git command helper, etc.) that run entirely in your browser. Zero tracking, zero analytics, zero data collection – everything processes locally. Self-contained HTML files with no build process or frameworks. I realized I had a lot of tools/utilities I've built over the years for my own use. I lothe having to 'sign-up' just to access/use simple utilities that I can create myself. I've refined them and put them in one safe place so I could easily access them if/when needed. I decided to make them available via Github Pages for anyone that may find them useful. Prism.Tools is the result. Each tool is a standalone HTML file with embedded CSS and JavaScript. No frameworks, no npm packages, no build steps – just open the file and it works. The entire toolset: - 100% client-side processing – your data never leaves your browser. - No external dependencies except for specific libraries from cdnjs.cloudflare.com (marked.js for markdown, exifr for image metadata, etc.) - Consistent dark UI – every tool follows the same design language for familiarity. - Vanilla JS where possible – only reaching for Public CDN Resources when necessary. The constraint of "single HTML file" was intentional. It forces simplicity and ensures tools remain maintainable. It also means users can inspect, modify, or self-host any tool trivially. These tools have helped me with debugging production issues, Quick formatting tasks, learning Git commands (the Git command helper has been particularly helpful) Just visit https://blgardner.github.io/prism.tools/ and try any tool. No signup, no install. What tools are missing that you find yourself needing? Any performance issues with specific tools? UI/UX friction points? All tools follow the same privacy-first philosophy... Your data stays in your browser. No accounts, no tracking, no servers processing your information. The project is also a demonstration that you don't always need React, Vue, or complex build pipelines – sometimes vanilla JavaScript in a single HTML file is exactly the right tool for the job. Vanilla JavaScript (ES6+) CSS3 with CSS Grid Minimal external libraries: marked.js, exifr, highlight.js, sql-formatter (all from CDN) No frameworks, no bundlers, no npm Hosted on Github Pages Happy to answer questions about the technical implementation, design decisions, or specific tools! All tools are inspectable – just view source on any page to see exactly how they work!
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: Is this the best epoch converter?
Show HN: Is this the best epoch converter?
5 by subhash_k | 0 comments on Hacker News.
I frequently use epochconverter in my day to day work. Sick of old UI, i created new website. Completely redesigned the epoch converter with modern UI elements. Check out - https://ift.tt/oQ5GYyB Let me know if you have any improvement to it. Upvote if you liked it.
5 by subhash_k | 0 comments on Hacker News.
I frequently use epochconverter in my day to day work. Sick of old UI, i created new website. Completely redesigned the epoch converter with modern UI elements. Check out - https://ift.tt/oQ5GYyB Let me know if you have any improvement to it. Upvote if you liked it.
Monday, 5 January 2026
Sunday, 4 January 2026
Saturday, 3 January 2026
New top story on Hacker News: Show HN: uvx ptn, scan a QR, get a terminal in your phone
Show HN: uvx ptn, scan a QR, get a terminal in your phone
28 by yxl448 | 4 comments on Hacker News.
Scan QR → web terminal → vibe coding in bed. Mobile-first terminal via Cloudflare Quick Tunnel. No port forwarding. Feedback welcome.
28 by yxl448 | 4 comments on Hacker News.
Scan QR → web terminal → vibe coding in bed. Mobile-first terminal via Cloudflare Quick Tunnel. No port forwarding. Feedback welcome.
Friday, 2 January 2026
Thursday, 1 January 2026
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