news.ycombinator.com
Critique this 8–9-module course for experienced devs moving to contractinghttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45595957I’ve been a software consultant for ~30 years. I’m shaping a course for experienced engineers (US SWE/DevOps/SRE, ~5–15 yrs) who want to move into contracting using an agency-first workflow: you qualify/price/deliver; agencies bring openings and handle MSAs/SOWs. Expected time: 2–4 hrs/week.I’d love a sanity check from people who contract or place engineers: what’s missing, out of order, or unrealistic?What students should build • A realistic target rate (with clear rate math) • A recruiter-ready profile and 10–15-minute qualification script • A simple “operate-like-a-business” setup (LLC/banking/insurance) • A pipeline plan that typically leads to interviews in ~6–12 weeks • Tactics to avoid scope/rate mismatches and keep agencies happyDraft syllabus (9 modules)Module 1: Introduction — What’s This All About? (Why you should/shouldn't go independent) Module 2: How Contracting Through an Agency Works Module 3: Finding Work & Working with Agencies Module 4: Setting Up Your Business & LifOct 15, 2025 5:36 PM
trott.hattimatimlabs.in
Show HN: Trott – search,sort,extract social media videos(ig,yt,tiktok)https://trott.hattimatimlabs.inI built Trott out of frustration with my own “Saved” folders on Instagram and YouTube. I’d save reels and shorts—workout tips, recipes, travel spots—thinking I’d find them again later. But, like most people, I ended up with a black hole of unsorted videos: no search, no filters, and if I ever did find the right video again, I’d have to dig through the whole thing just to get that one detail I needed.When I tried looking for solutions, I found only genre-specific apps or tools that demanded manual uploads or new workflows. None felt like they understood how real users behave or save content. So I decided to build Trott.What makes Trott different?You can share any Instagram Reel or YouTube Short (TikTok support launches next week) to Trott, straight from your phone’s native share menu—no manual uploads.Trott uses AI to extract relevant info automatically (ingredients, places, products, etc.) and sorts everything for you.It’s fully searchable with natural language. Just type something likOct 15, 2025 11:43 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Show HN: Free API to extract PDF datahttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45581760Hi HN,Like everyone, I'm working on an product that uses LLMs to extract data from photos and documents. Part of the processing pipeline is extracting data from PDFs as raw text or a raster image.As part of our leadgen strategy, we've opened our REST API that lets you process pages of a PDF. The API is completely free to use anonymously, but is rate limited to 1 page per 30 seconds. Creating a free account removes this restriction.The two endpoints are:- https://extract.dev/api/pages/extract/raster - Rasterize a page of a PDF- https://extract.dev/api/pages/extract/text - Extract text from a page of a PDFBoth have the same request format: { "file": "https://assets.extract-cdn.com/data/hd-receipt.pdf", "page": 1 } I've outlined more of the documentation here: https://extract.dev/docsUnder the hood, the API is using Poppler to extract text and rasterize pages. Note that the text extraction functionality extracts actual text encoded in the PDF, and does not employ an OCR model. Give it a sOct 14, 2025 4:10 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: Favorite Pairing App?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45581151Been looking for a solution for some volunteer work. I used Tuple at a previous job and I wanted to find a low-cost or self-hosted equivalent - NOT a full video conferencing app. I really liked the focus on audio and screen sharing that Tuple had, but after some github and reddit searches I can't find anything that is currently open and self hosted. Does anyone here have something they recommend?Oct 14, 2025 3:23 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: Has AI stolen the satisfaction from programming?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45572130I've been trying to articulate why coding feels less pleasant now.The problem: You can't win anymore.The old way: You'd think about the problem. Draw some diagrams. Understand what you're actually trying to do. Then write the code. Understanding was mandatory. You solved it.The new way: The entire premise of AI coding tools is to automate the thinking, not just the typing. You're supposed to describe a problem and get a solution without understanding the details. That's the labor-saving promise.So I feel pressure to always, always, start by info dumping the problem description to AI and gamble for a one-shot. Voice transcription for 10 minutes, hit send, hope I get something first try, if not hope I can iterate until something works. And when even something does work = zero satisfaction because I don't have the same depth of understanding of the solution. Its no longer my code, my idea. It's just some code I found online. `import solution from chatgpt`If I think about the problem, I feOct 13, 2025 7:07 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Show HN: Tabsdata – Pub/Sub for Tables to Replace ETL Pipelineshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45569167Hi HN,I am one of the founders of Tabsdata, a new system for data integration built around publish/subscribe for tables.Tabsdata is a self-managed system you can deploy in your own environment. It is built in Rust for performance and safety, with Python bindings for expressing data flows. You get both a browser-based UI and a CLI that covers the full surface area of the platform.We started this project after spending nearly two decades in data integration. Over that time, we have seen the modern data stack emerge in layers: ingestion, preparation, quality, productization, and so on. Many of those layers were designed to handle semi-structured data and schema drift. But that complexity often left data teams with brittle workflows and limited visibility.One of the key lessons for us was this: no matter how data starts out, it always turns into tables. APIs, logs, Parquet files, event streams - everything eventually lands in tabular form. So we made tables the first-class unit in the systOct 13, 2025 3:08 PM
bing.com
How to collect huge frequent flyer points without flyinghttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8c8736b05d47c481b99f0d4c03303a&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.msn.com%2Fen-au%2Fmoney%2Fmarkets%2Fhow-to-collect-huge-frequent-flyer-points-without-flying%2Far-AA1OlDFb&c=6118433728877313138&mkt=en-usFrequent flyer points balances are booming as growing numbers of Aussies accumulate 300,000-plus points each year – sometimes without even taking to the skies. Spending on the ground is the key ...Oct 12, 2025 11:35 PM
coin-flip.vip
Show HN: Heads or Tails? The Story of Building a Better Coin Fliphttps://coin-flip.vip/It all started with a simple, age-old need: I needed to flip a coin.It wasn't for anything monumental, just a friendly debate with a colleague over who would pick up the coffee tab. I went online, typed "coin flip," and was met with a sea of functional, but utterly soulless, websites. A pixelated, generic silver coin spun on my screen. Click. It landed on heads. The experience was… underwhelming. It felt like using a basic calculator when you were hoping for something more.That's when the thought struck me. For centuries, the simple act of a flip a coin has decided fates, settled arguments, and sparked games. It's a tiny moment of suspense and pure, unadulterated chance. Why was its digital counterpart so bland?Driven by this minor frustration, I dug deeper. What if you needed to decide between more than two options? What if you were a game master needing to simulate multiple events at once? I searched for a site that could let me flip a coin ten, or even twenty times, simultaneously. Oct 11, 2025 3:17 AM
ambigramgenerator.me
Show HN: Ambigram Generator: Create words that read the same upside-downhttps://www.ambigramgenerator.me/Hello Hacker News!This is a side project I've been working on: Ambigram Generator (https://www.ambigramgenerator.me/). It generates rotational ambigrams, which are words or phrases that read the same when inverted (rotated 180 degrees).The Technical Challenge: Why is Ambigram Generation Hard? The core challenge isn't just about flipping letters; it's about solving a complex substitution cipher problem while maintaining legibility and aesthetic coherence.Character Pair Mapping (The Logic): The system relies on a massive, pre-rendered and manually optimized database of character pair combinations (e.g., 'A' flips to 'V' or 'L' flips to 'J'). The difficulty lies in optimizing the system to prioritize aesthetically pleasing pairings over just mechanically correct ones. Our current engine holds hundreds of pairing rules derived from hand-drawn ambigram work.Aesthetic Coherence (The Design): Unlike a simple font swap, generating an ambigram requires that the 'A' from one side perfectly meldsOct 11, 2025 3:05 AM
bing.com
Why Accessibility At Work Must Also Include Mental Healthhttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8d0fc3aff148bc9ff00d5cba219823&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forbes.com%2Fsites%2Fkeelycatwells%2F2025%2F10%2F10%2Fwhy-accessibility-at-work-must-also-include-mental-health%2F&c=16607297910842071832&mkt=en-usForbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Keely founded Making Space, closing the disability employment gap. When people think about disability inclusion at work, they may ...Oct 10, 2025 9:34 AM
bing.com
Board Games We Love for Kids and Familieshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a89fc43e823411eb0bbfba25b4594f1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fwirecutter%2Freviews%2Fboard-games-for-kids%2F&c=18205057552692448262&mkt=en-usWe independently review everything we recommend. We may make money from the links on our site. Learn more› By Courtney Schley and James Austin Board games for kids don’t have to be boring, but you ...Oct 10, 2025 9:26 AM
spacenews.com
Former U.S. defense officials urge Pentagon to scale up hypersonic weapons to match China, Russiahttps://spacenews.com/former-u-s-defense-officials-urge-pentagon-to-scale-up-hypersonic-weapons-to-match-china-russia/The recommendation comes in a new report by the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security The post Former U.S. defense officials urge Pentagon to scale up hypersonic weapons to match China, Russia appeared first on SpaceNews.Oct 9, 2025 11:12 PM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: Does anyone want to take on the payment processing networks with me?https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45531720Going out on a limb hereI’ve been working on a prototype payment network that allows people to send and receive payments at a fraction of the cost to traditional rails.I started working on this when building out the previous fintech I started, Safepay (YC S20) and realized how much value card networks extract from fintechs on both sides, and by extension the businesses that rely on them and thought that there has to be a better way.I think I’ve found what this could be and the only thing holding me back is finding the right person to take this on with.So what is it? (Links added below)The idea is to allow people to make and receive payments through simple aliases. Send money from your Chime account to your friend on Coinbase or pay a merchant using Stripe with your Revolut account. Scan a QR code on a receipt with your banking app after dinner and settle the bill.In the background we pass messages back and forth between different participants and process net, deferred settlements with Oct 9, 2025 7:03 PM
bing.com
Tokio Marine Weighs More Than $10 Billion of International M&Ahttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8d008b78db4acca8ddeee5bc1bab6c&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2F2025-10-08%2Ftokio-marine-weighs-more-than-10-billion-of-international-m-a&c=2393300588439906473&mkt=en-usTokio Marine Holdings Inc., Japan’s top property and casualty insurer, could spend more than $10 billion on acquisitions to boost its international business, according to Brad Irick, who co-heads the ...Oct 8, 2025 8:37 AM
news.ycombinator.com
Ask HN: How many of you now use AI over doctorshttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45508047I have recently essentially ceased using doctors for most run of the mill items and instead turned to Ai to diagnose and recommend treatment and then purchased the medications from online pharmacies.For example I order my own blood work. I decide what labs to order and interpret the results via chatGPT / Grok, etc. I then order medications via online pharmacies. Recently started taking High blood pressure medication all worked out with Ai and the results have been great.I still use doctors for things I cannot such as colonoscopy, etc but for everything else I use Ai.I just got frustrated at having to wait 6 - 8 weeks to see a doctor, get labs and then wait another 6 - 8 weeks to see them to review the labs when I can get the entire thing resolved myself in a week.Anyone else do the same?Oct 7, 2025 7:58 PM
photowand.ai
Show HN: Photowand – Turn selfies into professional photos with AIhttps://photowand.aiHey HN! I built this over a weekend after a frustrating experience with our wedding photographer.We paid $5,000 and got back a few dozen photos. The colors were off in several shots – too warm, inconsistent lighting, some faces looked washed out. I wanted to fix them myself, but photo editing is incredibly complicated. Photoshop has hundreds of buttons, layers, masks, adjustment curves. I spent hours watching YouTube tutorials just to adjust colors on one photo. There had to be a better way.So I built Photowand.What it does: Upload any photo, describe what you want in plain English, and get professional-quality results in ~20 seconds. "Fix the colors and lighting" or "change background to beach sunset" or "make this look like a professional headshot." No Photoshop skills needed.Try it without signup: photowand.aiHow it compares to existing AI tools:vs ChatGPT: - Better photorealistic quality (specialized model, not general-purpose) - 4x faster processing (20 seconds vs 80+ seconds) - BOct 6, 2025 4:22 PM
spacenews.com
Utilize the ISS as a resource: a common sense, fiscally responsible plan leveraging the International Space Stationhttps://spacenews.com/utilize-the-iss-as-a-resource-a-common-sense-fiscally-responsible-plan-leveraging-the-international-space-station/NASA plans to spend approximately $1 billion of taxpayer money to destroy the International Space Station (ISS) in 2030. The ISS contains over $1.5 billion worth of space-grade materials already in orbit. Instead of throwing this asset away, we should redirect that funding to develop the technology to recycle it. This approach saves a valuable […] The post Utilize the ISS as a resource: a common sense, fiscally responsible plan leveraging the International Space Station appeared first on SpaceNews.Oct 6, 2025 1:00 PM
bing.com
The Best Throw Blanketshttp://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=6a8d0cdfefb0425abfae91d16ba3097e&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2Fwirecutter%2Freviews%2Fbest-throw-blankets%2F&c=6332989137670223470&mkt=en-usWe independently review everything we recommend. We may make money from the links on our site. Learn more› By Jackie Reeve Jackie Reeve is a writer covering bedding. She’s spent the past 10 years ...Oct 6, 2025 8:52 AM
glass.8ball.space
Show HN: Got sick and tired of AI in search engines, so I made my ownhttps://glass.8ball.spaceI got sick and tired of how much AI was being pushed at me from nearly every search engine. So I built my own, Project Glass.It is built on a few core beliefs: Transparency and Privacy is paramount. AI isn't required. Real user engagement is the best signal.It has a clear transparent (puns intended) algorithm, that you can view on the home page, it takes the following things into account for the ranking: 1. Title 2. Snippet 3. Number of clicks/Click Rate 4. Recency (with a slow decay)It uses 0 front end Javascript, and no AI in any part of the creation or use of this.I have been working on this for a while, and this has been my daily use search engine for a few weeks now, if you can please try it out, let me know what you think, and please be kind!Ill be around all day to answer questions and review feedback.Thank you!Oct 4, 2025 2:33 PM
github.com
Show HN: Custom guitar tab sheets with Cursorhttps://github.com/adiasg/guitar-tabsI made my own system to create & maintain custom guitar tab sheets. It uses Cursor's agent loop to automate what I used to do manually - scour Ultimate Guitar for tabs of every part of the song and piece it together.You can ask for tabs in the structure you like by amending the instructions in AGENTS.md.Hope someone finds this useful!Oct 4, 2025 2:50 AM
