It&#x27;s the time of the year again, so I&#x27;d be interested hear what new (and old) ideas have come up.Previously asked on: 2023 → <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38467691">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=38467691</a>2022 → <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34190421">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=34190421</a>2021 → <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=29667095">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=29667095</a>2020 → <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24947167">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=24947167</a>2019 → <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20899863">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=20899863</a>2018 → <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17790306">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17790306</a>2017 → <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=15148804">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=15148804</a>

Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell

Kinda early with this one, but I’ll start:1. There will be at least one AI personality that will become household famous.

Ask HN: 2026 Predictions

Let&#x27;s say your company has 20 employees (markets, products, dev) and one stable product they offer. The plan is to introduce another new product and maybe add new members to the team.What challenges are there? What&#x27;s important? Do you have any experiences to share?

Ask HN: What are your experiences with scaling a company?

so far i&#x27;m thinking: build an app and charge subscription, open source data labeling on hugging face, long-running task&#x2F;agents with computer use or MCP. any other ideas&#x2F;suggestions?

Ask HN: Ideas for spending $8k in Anthropic credits?

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook messenger are having an outage according to downdetector.

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp Outage

I know I probably shouldn&#x27;t read on my smartphone before going to sleep, but I do. My phone (a recent Pixel) has an OLED screen, so black pixels emit no light at all.I would have hoped that dark mode would mean mobile apps for reading (e.g. Substack) would use a black background, but many of them use something almost black. But I don&#x27;t want my phone to act as a flashlight.Readwise Reader works well, except:- Sometimes I decide I must read the original page (due to some formatting or features that don&#x27;t work in the Reader view).- (Sometimes only?) articles I sent to reader via email don&#x27;t show up in Dark Mode, even if I manually select itFirefox with the Dark Reader extension works well, except that the top and bottom bars aren&#x27;t quite black (even though Dark Reader can make the page background black).Am I doing something wrong? Or is my preference (pure black) unusual?

Ask HN: Why don't mobile apps use pure black for dark mode?

I am replacing some old outdoor lights and I want to get LED lights that I can program? Any suggestions on the best ones? Ideally replaceable&#x2F;extendable light strings with some kind of programmable controller that has usb&#x2F;wifi. If it has an app my family can use that’s a plus.

Ask HN: What are the best programmable holiday lights?

How can I turn highly structured database-type data into something RAG-able where accuracy is paramount and analysis is possible? I don&#x27;t want to fine-tune a NLP -&gt; SQL model. I want a chat interface for a RAG&#x27;d database that has text and numerical data. Possible? What projects should I look at?

Highly structured data RAG prep?

Having worked at Google I have unfortunately been exposed to what is possible when in comes to version control systems. I have been looking for a git alternative that is just generally simpler, more ergonomic, and allows for things like stacked PRs while maintaining git compatibility, since everything is on github.I am uninterested in `you can do that in git with [insert esoteric commands]`.My main contenders right now are Sapling[0], a project from Meta, and jj[1]. I am wondering if anyone has experience with either, or definitely those who have tried both, what was your experience? They both have a lot of nice features.[0] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sapling-scm.com&#x2F; 
[1] https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;martinvonz&#x2F;jj&#x2F;blob&#x2F;main&#x2F;docs&#x2F;sapling-comparison.md

Ask HN: Git Alternatives – Sapling vs. Jj

Hi fellows,I&#x27;ve been pursuing my own projects for the past 5 years and dreaming about being an entrepreneur (aka the capitalist era Hercules) for the past 15.I haven&#x27;t succeeded, at least big time, yet. We also live in a very high cost of living location (mostly for the family&#x2F;kid&#x27;s sake if you wonder) so I can&#x27;t really quit my job forever and continue my entrepreneurial journey full-time (I did a 1,5 year break previously and burnt through all savings though).The question is, where do people like myself fit well in terms of full-time jobs and&#x2F;or other ways of making money?I am software engineer by training, but I&#x27;ve acquired business&#x2F;marketing knowledge and skills over years, learnt accountability and people management, UI&#x2F;UX and user interviews, bits of product thinking, analytics and decision making.I feel like an entrepeneur, my skillset is very broad and, probably, quite shallow in some areas too. Perhaps it&#x27;d make a good CPO&#x2F;CTO, in an early-stage company, but this comes with a tradeoff of being paid sometimes 2x less than a senior&#x2F;staff at big tech and not much more than an engineer in a startup.The reason I ask of course, is because while I&#x27;m experimenting, having fun and feeling good about myself, I feel like I am missing on lots of opportunities and probably being too risky about not buying a house while the clock is ticking.Please share your experiences and thoughts, thanks!

Ask HN: How can a software engineer with a broad skillset make money?

Ask HN: What are your long-term career goals?

Could really use your advice &#x2F; encouragement.After 36 years of spinning my wheels unfocused, scatterbrained, and anxious, I was finally and recently diagnosed with ADHD. Medication has begun and I&#x27;ve noticed some improvements, but there&#x27;s still a long way to go.My struggle with ADHD and its severe deficiencies in executive function and memory have made it near impossible to: 1) accrue knowledge &amp; experience in real-time across my career, 2) recollect the information that may have actually made it through to my brain, 3) play long-term strategic games, resulting in a lot of burned bridges and unfinished projects.In an effort to jumpstart my career, I&#x27;ve spent the past year applying to jobs in my field and while there&#x27;s been a good bit of traction as far as being invited to interview, my interview performance is so laughably abysmal. I cannot access any information when needed. The information I do have access to is fragmented and scattered. Rejection sensitivity creates a suffocating urgency to impress and be perfect. I can&#x27;t be &quot;myself.&quot;The sum total of these challenges is that I am in no way capable of inspiring even an ounce of confidence. I look good on paper and crumple in person. I know I have potential, but I need more time than a 30-minute call allots to show it. At this age, no one is hiring for potential and no one is willing to give me a chance. I don&#x27;t blame them.I feel like I&#x27;m operating with half a brain, and that half is atrophied over the years of blank-mindedness. I struggle to think in detail. I struggle to think in a clear and structured way. I just struggle to think. I feel cognitively impaired.How do I even begin rebuilding at this age? I want to be skillful. I want to be a leader. I want to contribute meaningfully.

Ask HN: How do I rebuild at 36yo after a checkered career of undiagnosed ADHD?

The age of 47 is said to be the bottom of the midlife crisis U curve.Have you gone through this? If so, was it a period of professional transformation for you? How did you transform? Or, after a period of turmoil, did you eventually stay in your previous role? How did it relate to your personal life?

Over 47? Have you gone through midlife transformation?

Are there any online courses specifically for software application architecture (rather than learning syntax, math, etc.)?

Ask HN: Are there any courses specifically for software architecture?

Hi everyone, currently I am trying to learn software design &amp; engineering by these mit opencourse courses
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;openlearninglibrary.mit.edu&#x2F;courses&#x2F;course-v1:MITx+6.005.1x+3T2016&#x2F;abouthttps:&#x2F;&#x2F;openlearninglibrary.mit.edu&#x2F;courses&#x2F;course-v1:MITx+6.005.2x+1T2017&#x2F;aboutI think I learn much better by these type of university courses and was wondering are there any other universities open courses on subject of software design or construction with actual projects, assignments, pdfs for learning material that other folks have used.I think these kind of courses can help a lot of students with software design.Open to any programming language and framework:)

Ask HN: Please recommend university open courses for software design?

Does it matter whether you are doing retro gaming or retro programming?

Ask HN: Does retro computing make you feel younger or older?

In light of recent events it is clear that some part of American society does recognize the great injustice being done by the corporations and some people seem to support vigilante bringing justice by any means possible, even straight up murder, which is kind of inefficient - they will always find a new CEO. So this inevitably begs the question of what ever happened with hacktivism as a whole? That used to be a thing 10 - 15 years back when I was more impressionable person and it seemed to me like it could bring the change to status quo. These days you can hardly hear anymore about any targeted attacks on greedy corporations with goal to release information to bring them down. It sure looks like most of the hackers have sold out to those corporations for profit or even for free doing bug bounty programs, ignoring the injustice being done by those very same corporations. So what happened to hacktivism? How did it fizzle out after anonymous, lulzsec almost completely?

Ask HN: What Ever Happened to Hacktivism?

I just updated my data extraction leaderboard with Gemini Flash 2.0 Experimental. It is quite a bit slower with large input token sizes right now, but a bit more accurate than Gemini 1.5 Flash which is at the top right now. Google and AWS are pushing out really competitive models right now.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;coffeeblack.ai&#x2F;extractor-leaderboard&#x2F;index.html

Gemini Flash 2.0 Experimental: A bit more accurate, but slower

Can anyone else log in? I get an SSO error.

ChatGPT Down in Denmark? EU?

Can an AI Agent post autonomously to HackerNews?

What is the Hacker News posting limit?

I use both Cursor IDE and vanilla VS Code with GitHub Copilot and imho Cursor (Pro) still works better than VS Code with Copilot. But perhaps you have different experiences? Also, how about other IDEs than these two? Are there better alternatives?

Ask HN: Which IDE with AI integration is the best as of today?

Example Code:struct Shape {<pre><code> void draw();

 int area(int x, int y); 
</code></pre>
};make_trait(Shape, draw, area);int main() {<pre><code> auto circle = Circle();
 auto square = Square();

 &#x2F;&#x2F; NOTE: all of this is strictly checked, so if you are creating
 &#x2F;&#x2F; a trait out of a Object, the object MUST implement all the trait functions


 auto t0 = trait&lt;Shape&gt;::make(&amp;circle);
 t0.draw();

 auto t1 = trait&lt;Shape&gt;::make(&amp;square);
 t1.draw();

 &#x2F;&#x2F; Another thing to be kept in mind is trait&lt;T&gt; is just like a View
 &#x2F;&#x2F; It DOES NOT OWN anything, so you are the one making sure the data
 &#x2F;&#x2F; pointer is valid
 
 auto array = std::array{t1, t0};
 for (auto&amp; shape : array) {
 std::cout &lt;&lt; shape.area(2, 3) &lt;&lt; std::endl;
 } </code></pre>
}Repository: github.com&#x2F;Jaysmito101&#x2F;rusty.hpp?tab=readme-ov-file#traits-in-c

Implementing Rust-like traits for C++ 20 (with no runtime overhead)

I really fear I might have messed up my chance to get people to view my post. I originally posted as SHOW HN, but really I want to ask. This was my original post:I&#x27;m an anon that&#x27;s made enough to retire, relatively young.But, I still suffer very badly from anxiety and depression (it runs deep in the family. Most of my childhood was in phyc wards with my mum).I&#x27;m an alcoholic and a somewhat drug user, which is how I cope, along with SSRIs.However, I have made an effort to document my highs with free-style Photoshop. It&#x27;s cathartic and even when I&#x27;m sober I appreciate it, a lot. Like it was from a different person.I am very naive about this, but is my art anything special, or is it run-of-the-mill garbage?I&#x27;m not an artist, have no links to that world, nor am I schooled in it, so would love any feedback from anyone who is.My site is https:&#x2F;&#x2F;heighart.com&#x2F; and it&#x27;s half-built. I will build it out more with my full collection eventually, I just keep changing my mind on the UI&#x2F;UX.

Ask HN: My Vulnerable Art

It&#x27;s difficult to predict exactly how the incoming US government will affect US tech and services, but the consequence of failure to manage and mitigate risk to individuals (whether american or rest of world) seems worryingly severeHow will YC companies navigate this new landscape, to protect people (and their data)?

Risks, mitigation, and protection, for incoming U.S. government change

Hello HN! After a recent story about how someone lost access to their email address after using it for 10 years, I began thinking how I could prevent this kind of nightmare in my life. Some alternatives often suggested:A. Pay for your email. Use Fastmail. But how do you guarantee that Fastmail won&#x27;t screw you over someday? Get a lawyer! But how would the law work across countries? Not everybody lives in the US!B. Buy a domain name and host your own email address. But you don&#x27;t own domain names either. You rent them from someone else. There are so many failure modes that can make you lose your domain. Missed payment. Error in admining it. Fake abuse reports triggering takedowns. How can you avoid all of these failure modes? Get a laywer! But again, laws don&#x27;t work very well when there are geographical boundaries.So must we always buy a paid email service from our own country where if things go south, we can hire a laywer and rectify the matter? Must we always buy a ccTLD of our own country if we want to host our own email?

Ask HN: How do you manage the risk of losing access to your email address?

I&#x27;ve been locked out of my Google account which contains over a decade of my digital life, and I&#x27;m at my wit&#x27;s end trying to recover it.The situation:- Woke up today completely locked out- Got &quot;secure your account&quot; message- Set new password + recovery info but kept getting redirected to login- Received &quot;unusual activity&quot; warning (around the time I was asleep)- System asks for old phone number (lost in 2022)- Have tried recovery dozens of times through g.co&#x2F;recover- Still have access to old recovery email but system never asks for it itWhat I&#x27;ve tried:- Using same devices and network as always (google pixel)- Multiple recovery attempts with both old&#x2F;new phone numbers- Both old&#x2F;new passwords (then never say which one they accept)- Following all official Google recovery guidesI have so much of my life there:- Primary email communications- Password manager data- Business documents and projects- Personal documents- Google Drive contents- Contacts- OAuth access to numerous services- Years of irreplaceable dataI&#x27;ve exhausted all official channels and online resources. The thought of permanently losing access to this account is terrifying. Has anyone successfully recovered their account in a similar situation? Any Google employees or security experts who might be able to help?This account represents my entire digital identity, and I&#x27;m desperate for any guidance or assistance.

Tell HN: Need help, locked out of Google account with 10 years of personal data

I&#x27;ve been using Duolingo for 400+ days to learn French. While the App does a pretty good job of giving me the feeling of actual learning, I don&#x27;t feel like I&#x27;ve learned much when taking a step back and reflecting on it.Did anyone learn a language using the App? I am not talking about &quot;speaking&quot; the language because Duolingo is not made for this. I am talking about reading &#x2F; listening comprehension.

Ask HN: Does Duolingo Work?

Is it worth doing some extra work to have a site work both with and without JS?

Ask HN: What percentage of HN users have JavaScript disabled?

Due to the associated costs of integrating LLMs into products, many services rely on free trials that convert into monthly subscription plans. Does it make sense to introduce something in-between?For example, after having used the Cursor IDE, I&#x27;m still hesitant to pay for a subscription. If Cursor offered a freemium model supported by ads, e.g., in the chat tab, I would gladly tolerate them to use the service for free.Function calling agents are only getting smarted and can be configured to determine the relevant moments to serve ads during interactions, using high-level contextual + demographic information. Also, ads would be showcased separately from the LLM&#x27;s response, with clear messaging to as why they were shown.Does this approach make sense? Could it make freemium models sustainable without much disruption to the user experience?The visuals on my website is the only way to fully articulate this idea. Feedback would be much appreciated.https:&#x2F;&#x2F;promptly-mvp-589d2.web.app&#x2F;

Ask HN: Is the freemium model the future for AI-platforms?

https:&#x2F;&#x2F;radar.cloudflare.com&#x2F;trafficCloudflare radar shows 50% global traffic drop. Like, instantly, about UTC 02:00 8 Dec. Apparently, all continents affected. Downdetector.com has a spike on all graphs about the same time. The internet is pretty centralized these days, so a sudden 50% drop is explainable. Still, I see no commentary on the media.

Anyone Noticed the Outage?

I get it if you&#x27;re an ads-driven websiteBut why do agencies, municipalities, (government) railways or other non-ads driven websites need to have cookies, and hence the frustrating banners?My hypothesis is they want to be &quot;better safe than sorry&quot; but maybe there are real marketing purposes behind it?some examples:
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mckinsey.com
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.london.gov.uk
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ns.nl (Dutch railways)
https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.britishmuseum.org

Ask HN: Why don't they remove the cookies (and hence the banners)

Accepting suggestions about anything: IDEs, compilers, editors, editor extensions, etc.

Ask HN: Best dev environment for C in 2024?

Ask HN: Do you believe we are in a particularly chaotic time period?

My Grandmother asks what (physical) book I&#x27;d like for Christmas each year. Last year I asked for Pro Git. This year I might ask for Data Structures &amp; Algorithms in Python.I listen to countless audio-books, but don&#x27;t find myself sitting down to read a physical book except for this strange tech-knowledge niche, where I can learn without it feeling like laptop-work-overtime because it&#x27;s a physical book. Do you like any particular books in physical form?