news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: Anyone doing production image editing with image models? How?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46721518Hey HN — I’m building an app where users upload “real life” clothing photos (ex. a wrinkly shirt folded on the floor). The goal is to transform that single photo into a clean, ecommerce-style image of the garment.One key UX requirement: the output needs to be a PNG with transparency (alpha) so we can consistently crop/composite the garment into an on-rails UI (cards, outfit layouts, etc.). Think “subject cutout that drops cleanly into templates.”My current pipeline looks like: 1. User-uploaded photo (messy background, weird angles) 2. User-upload is matched to “query” image (style target) + promptCurrently using Nano Banana) 4. Background removal model to get transparency and save as RGBA PNGThis works, but it feels hacky + occasionally introduces edge artifacts. Also, the generation model sometimes invents shadows/background cues that confuse the background removal step. It feels like the two steps are fighting one another.I’m trying to understand what “good” looks like in production Jan 22, 2026 4:33 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Surviving AIhttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46720146What follows was written by ChatGPT 5.2 Instant and it reflects my conversation with it about the two articles linked below. Enjoy.Ego plays a complicated role in periods of technological change. It sharpens skill during stable eras, but it often hinders adaptation during inflection points.Two recent essays on AI and software engineering illustrate this tension clearly.Emir Ribic’s “From Craftsmen to Operators” https://dev.ribic.ba/the-rapid-evolution-of-software-engineer-s-roleRibic frames the rise of AI-assisted development as a loss of craft. He mourns the disappearance of deep, line-by-line problem solving and the sense of authorship that came with it. Engineers, in his telling, are becoming operators—prompting, reviewing, and assembling—rather than builders. The piece captures something real: pride in difficulty, satisfaction in mastery, and the joy of personally solving hard problems.But that pride is also where ego enters. What’s being lost isn’t just a way of working—it’s a forJan 22, 2026 3:05 PM
quietpage.app
Show HN: QuietPage – Privacy focused journaling with E2E encryptionhttps://www.quietpage.app/Hey HN,I built QuietPage because I loved 750words.com but it felt dated and had zero privacy guarantees. And honestly, I wanted to build something.It's a journaling app with: - Daily writing with auto-save (like 750words) - End-to-end encryption (Fernet: AES-128-CBC + HMAC-SHA256) - Streak tracking to build the habit - Mood tracking and basic analytics - Tag systemEach user gets a unique encryption key, entries are encrypted before they hit the database. Even I can't read them.Tech stack is Django REST + React + PostgreSQL + Redis. Running on Railway but you can also self-host it with Docker.It's free to use right now. To be honest, I'm not sure about monetization yet, just want to see if people actually find it useful first :)Would love your feedback!Jan 22, 2026 1:22 PM
getperspectives.app
Show HN: Perspectives – I wanted AI to challenge my thinking, not validate ithttps://getperspectives.appI built Perspectives because I got tired of ChatGPT agreeing with everything I said.Ask any LLM to "consider multiple perspectives" and you get hedged consensus. The model acknowledges trade-offs exist, then settles on a moderate position that offends nobody. Useful for summaries. Useless for decision making.Perspectives forces disagreement. 8 personas with fundamentally incompatible frameworks debate your question through a structured protocol, then vote using Single Transferable Vote to surface where they actually land. The output is a PDF report synthesising all of it.How it worksBlind Proposals: Each persona generates a position without seeing the others. This prevents the "anchoring problem" where early responses shape later ones, bypassing the default sycophancy of LLMs.Interrogation of Blind Proposals: Proposals face structured challenges from 3 opposing personas. A "high-empathy" persona (e.g., The Idealist) will be challenged by a "low-empathy" cluster (e.g., The Pragmatist). Jan 22, 2026 10:02 AM
spacewar.com
Slingshot to embed AI agent in US Space Force space warfare traininghttps://www.spacewar.com/reports/Slingshot_to_embed_AI_agent_in_US_Space_Force_space_warfare_training_999.htmlLos Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 19, 2026 Slingshot Aerospace has secured a 27 million dollar contract to modernize how the US Space Force trains for conflict in orbit by embedding its TALOS AI agent into the service's Operational Test and Training Infrastructure program. The 18 month effort will integrate AI native technology into existing training capabilities so that exercises more accurately reflect the rapidly evolving orbital threJan 22, 2026 2:29 AM
mynextbook.ai
Show HN: I built an AI book recommender in 2 dayshttps://mynextbook.aiHi HN! I built this in ~2 days over the New Year's break, and it was the most fun I've had coding in a while...*Why I built it:* I was tired of generic listicles and recoms from Google Search, ChatGPT/Gemini, and Goodreads. I wanted something where I could say "a cozy mystery for a rainy weekend" or "something like Kafka but less depressing" and get actual niche results.*How it works:* - Describe what you're looking for in plain text (or voice) [https://mynextbook.ai/onboarding-books] - A RAG system, built using Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite + Exa search, finds personalized recommendations - Metadata is fetched from multiple sources - ~5-10 seconds from input to recs (5-10X faster with cache)*Stack:* - Next.js 14 / TypeScript on Vercel - Neon (Postgres) + Prisma - Gemini + Exa Search API - Built with Cursor + Claude Code, & AntiGravity (happy to discuss which was better for what)*Try it without signing up:* no sign-up required to explore*Bonus:* It also recommends movies and TV shows based on Jan 21, 2026 3:17 PM
spacenews.com
Accelerating digital transformation is the keystone to deterring space warhttps://spacenews.com/accelerating-digital-transformation-is-the-keystone-to-deterring-space-war/The United States cannot beat China without accelerating digital transformation: cloud-native services, edge computing, AI/ML-driven autonomy, software-defined payloads, zero-trust cybersecurity, network maneuver and automated DevSecOps pipelines. Digital transformation drives the pace at which militaries convert data into decisions, and decision dominance enables proactive deterrence. Choices made today about software, data, resilience and partnerships will therefore […] The post Accelerating digital transformation is the keystone to deterring space war appeared first on SpaceNews.Jan 21, 2026 2:00 PM
x-pilot.ai
Show HN: X-Pilot – Code-Driven AI Video Generator for Online Courseshttps://www.x-pilot.ai/Hi HN,I'm Heshan, founder of X-Pilot. We're building an AI Video Generator for online courses and educational content. Unlike most text-to-video generator that render videos directly from models (which often produce random stock footage unrelated to the actual content), we take a code-first approach: generate editable code layers, let users verify/refine them, then render to video.The Problem We're SolvingMost AI video generators treat "education" and "marketing" the same—they optimize for "looks good" rather than "logically accurate." When you feed a technical tutorial or course script into a generic video AI, you get: - Random B-roll that doesn't match the concept being explained - Incorrect visualizations (e.g., showing a "for loop" diagram when explaining recursion) - No way to systematically fix errors without regenerating everythingFor educators, corporate trainers, and knowledge creators, accuracy matters more than aesthetics. A single incorrect diagram can break a learner's menJan 21, 2026 1:24 PM
spacedaily.com
Century-old solar records refine future cycle forecastshttps://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Century_old_solar_records_refine_future_cycle_forecasts_999.htmlLos Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 21, 2026 An international team of astronomers has developed a new way to extract solar polar magnetic information from more than a century of historical observations, improving prospects for predicting future solar cycle activity. The work combines data from the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in India with modern measurements to reconstruct the behavior of the Sun's polar magnetic field over more than 100Jan 21, 2026 1:11 PM
spacedaily.com
Birth conditions fixed water contrast on Jupiters moonshttps://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Birth_conditions_fixed_water_contrast_on_Jupiters_moons_999.htmlLos Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 21, 2026 While Io, the most volcanically active moon in the solar system, appears completely dry and devoid of water ice, its neighbor Europa is thought to harbor a vast global ocean of liquid water beneath an icy crust. A new international study co-led by Aix-Marseille University and Southwest Research Institute finds that this stark contrast in water content was imprinted at birth as the moons formed aJan 21, 2026 1:11 PM
dailydone.work
Show HN: Share Project Updates with Clientshttps://dailydone.workHi, I'm posting Daily Done, a web app for sharing project updates with clients - https://dailydone.work.Give it a try, it's completely free right now.Concept - make it easy to share updates, and let clients see them without any friction (no signup required for clients). Clients can also react with emoji and comment.Goals - my day job is making web apps, but I've never shipped a product on my own. With this I wanted to create something that I could actually build, ship, and support end-to-end. So it is pretty simple (maybe too simple?).Tech stack - NextJS... don't hate me. Next has an annoying amount of magic, but I really like using it. Let's me use React to generate plain HTML, and sprinkle in client-side JS for interactive bits. - Sqlite / Turso. Local dev without needing docker is really nice. - WorkOS authkit, instead of rolling my own auth. - Polar for billing, although billing isn't currently active.Challenges - The classic problem of getting people to try it out. - Building someJan 21, 2026 12:23 PM
bing.com
Capital Structure Theory: Key Concepts for Financial Managementhttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8d4f4d10874f0e9cd03e1005527894&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.investopedia.com%2Fask%2Fanswers%2F031915%2Fwhat-capital-structure-theory.asp&c=3451496062172833942&mkt=en-usSean Ross is a strategic adviser at 1031x.com, Investopedia contributor, and the founder and manager of Free Lances Ltd. Gordon Scott has been an active investor and technical analyst for 20+ years.Jan 21, 2026 7:41 AM
nasa.gov
NASA Unlocks Golden Age of Innovation, Exploration in Trump’s First Yearhttps://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-unlocks-golden-age-of-innovation-exploration-in-trumps-first-year/One year into President Donald J. Trump’s second term, NASA is delivering measurable progress across human spaceflight, science, aeronautics, and cutting-edge technology. These advances mark the beginning of a new Golden Age of American space leadership driven by clear national direction and historic investment through the Working Families Tax Cut Act. Since his inauguration as […]Jan 20, 2026 5:56 PM
bing.com
The Changing Role of HR in Today’s Workforcehttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8d218cbbdd4cd89afde6af5a5f6ec2&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.snhu.edu%2Fabout-us%2Fnewsroom%2Fbusiness%2Frole-of-hr&c=15779740512526254075&mkt=en-usWhen reviewing job growth and salary information, it’s important to remember that actual numbers can vary due to many different factors—like years of experience in the role, industry of employment, ...Jan 20, 2026 4:00 PM
bing.com
Biomedical Engineering MS, PhD Degree Programshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8d03057746433faf346fe759c7ae77&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mtu.edu%2Fbiomedical%2Fgraduate%2Fprogram%2F&c=10472794898239558230&mkt=en-usThe graduate programs in biomedical engineering at Michigan Tech provide a research-intensive education integrating the engineering sciences with biomedical science and clinical practice. Your ...Jan 20, 2026 4:00 PM
nasa.gov
Hubble Nets Menagerie of Young Stellar Objectshttps://www.nasa.gov/image-article/hubble-nets-menagerie-of-young-stellar-objects/A disparate collection of young stellar objects bejewels a cosmic panorama in the star-forming region NGC 1333 in this new image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. To the left, an actively forming star called a protostar casts its glow on the surrounding gas and dust, creating a reflection nebula. Two dark stripes on opposite sides of […]Jan 20, 2026 3:52 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: Do you have any evidence that agentic coding works?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46691243I've been trying to get agentic coding to work, but the dissonance between what I'm seeing online and what I'm able to achieve is doing my head in.Is there real evidence, beyond hype, that agentic coding produces net-positive results? If any of you have actually got it to work, could you share (in detail) how you did it?By "getting it to work" I mean: * creating more value than technical debt, and * producing code that’s structurally sound enough for someone responsible for the architecture to sign off on.Lately I’ve seen a push toward minimal or nonexistent code review, with the claim that we should move from “validating architecture” to “validating behavior.” In practice, this seems to mean: don’t look at the code; if tests and CI pass, ship it. I can’t see how this holds up long-term. My expectation is that you end up with "spaghetti" code that works on the happy path but accumulates subtle, hard-to-debug failures over time.When I tried using Codex on my existing codebases, with or Jan 20, 2026 12:45 PM
bing.com
Some Xbox gamers were just treated to free gift cardshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8b221ff4bd4d219b7361f7586ffdb0&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.msn.com%2Fen-us%2Fmoney%2Fother%2Fsome-xbox-gamers-were-just-treated-to-free-gift-cards%2Far-AA1UDD6G&c=12630863655436373713&mkt=en-usSeveral Xbox users were recently surprised by the addition of fresh gift cards to their accounts, following a related promotion back in December 2025. This unexpected bonus isn't actually the first of ...Jan 20, 2026 11:30 AM
nasa.gov
Jaclyn Kagey Shapes Humanity’s Return to the Moonhttps://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/jaclyn-kagey-shapes-humanitys-return-to-the-moon/For Jaclyn Kagey, helping astronauts put boots on the Moon is part of her daily work. As the Artemis III extravehicular activity lead in NASA’s Flight Operations Directorate, Kagey plays a central role in preparing astronauts for humanity’s return to the lunar surface. She helps define how astronauts will work on the Moon, from planning detailed spacewalk […]Jan 20, 2026 11:00 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: How would you design for this scale today?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4668602320 years ago I worked at a utility (electricity distribution). The government introduced a mandate to switch everyone from "basic" meters (4 data points per year, read quarterly by a human looking at a dial), to "remotely read interval meters" (48 data points per day, streamed periodocally over the day). The company had around a million meters and our data was going intake was going to jump by roughly 3.5 orders of magnitude. Key requirements: store 15 months of meter data hot/active, bill customers on time-of-use tariffs, estimate/substitute missing data (previous period lookup or guess), and (key requirement) send the meter data to the regulator and market participants within 24 hours of receipt.The solution I came up with back in 2005 was a sharded Oracle 10g database, storing 1 read per row (controversial!) and the biggie - using Oracle Advanced Queuing to run worker jobs that could scale independently (no. of processes per queue) with a design that was basically a queue per busineJan 19, 2026 11:29 PM
