MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: Convert WhatsApp chats to PDF – preserve conversations permanently
by gprogrammer1 | 2025-08-17 22:57:09+00:00
Hi HN! I built https://chattopdf.app after losing important WhatsApp conversations when switching phones. The problem: WhatsApp's built-in export creates messy .txt files that are hard to read and share professionally. Whether it's business conversations, family memories, or legal documentation, there's no clean way to archive chats. What it does:

Converts WhatsApp exported chats into clean, formatted PDFs Preserves timestamps, sender names, and message flow Handles media placeholders and emoji properly Works with both individual and group chats
by commandersaki | 2025-08-17 23:00:57+00:00
When I visited China and pings to my VPN in the US jumped from 200ms to 30 seconds depending on the time of day, bufferbloat was severely affecting me. That could only be described as bufferbloat, since the packets were suffering from store and forward overhead to an excessive degree and my pings were able to measure it across times of day.

I think you suffer from tunnel vision here, particularly if you ascribe the issue to your ISP which would have magnitudes more capacity than subscriber links, even if oversubscribed. For Bufferbloat to be an issue in that regard they'd have to be a choke point, in which case there's actual seriously problems at that point. I'd expect being China there's a lot more going on anyway with GFW and poor routing.

Bufferbloat, which is largely considered a solved problem and which predominantly affects the less affluent these days, is not something that will get much attention in journals since nobody in academia seeks funding for something that they do not think they can improve or publish.

I feel this is the point you missed when having a conniption; I didn't say bufferbloat didn't exist, I said it was overhyped. I would like you to reflect on these two views and see how they differ significantly, as it clearly went over your head on your crusade to crucify me.

About 30% of the population is mentally ill and thus when someone is posting bizarre things online, it is often the result of mental illness. Figuring out which mental illness is often the only reason responding to bizarre posts is worthwhile

Sure happy to say I suffer mental illness. I have been morbid less than 0.5% of the time in the last 15 years, otherwise it is in remission. What's actually bizarre is thinking there is one type of mental illness that makes people somehow unhinged or can't carry a debate because you simply do not like what they say, it's clear that your one psychology class which you use as a crutch to spout nonsense shows you're clearly out of depth here, you should seriously stop; it's also abundantly clear you use it as a guise to gatekeep and to condescend; if you can't debate or argue in good faith, I would put forth the advice you keep trying to palm off - do not continue posting, disengage.

But if I didn't sway you with above, stop and at least read the HN guidelines; this isn't the other social media platforms you're used to.
by thr0waway001 | 2025-08-17 23:02:07+00:00
yes that's true, but the but the guy had every opportunity to become a soulless money grubbing prick with hundreds of millions (or maybe even billions) instead of just tens of millions if he didn't have a good sense of compassion and generosity. But at some point he decided he had enough money and success and that it was important for other people who had been with Apple to get their fair share.

In other words, he was a kind soul before the money and the success. The money and the success did not change him, but in fact, amplified his generosity and other good qualities. And to this day he remains a warm charismatic pioneer of Silicon Valley.

Jobs, on the other hand, boy that guy was selfish to the bone, and though he was not as money hungry as other CEOs, the success really amplified his ugliest traits that allowed him to treat people as disposable including his own friend Wozniak.

Worst thing he ever did, if you ask me, was deny his daughter Lisa even when he had the means to give her mother and his daughter a better life. He seemed spiteful in principle. I understand being skeptical at first about being alleged as the father of a kid, especially while you're trying to make it early on in your career, but after the paternity test proves you're the dad, and you have the means to provide, and you still don't then you are trash.
by merksoftworks | 2025-08-17 23:02:12+00:00
This is the direction i've been theoretically harping about to all my friends, API first creative software will win out. After Effects has a decent JS api, Da Vinci Resolve has python and lua, you can script your way to a decent starting point with any of these tools. They even have well featured rollback for transactions committed during scripting. We need a generic MCP for the scripting environments in many desktop apps, screen capture for ones which take multimodal input.
by bentinata | 2025-08-17 23:02:34+00:00
Very fun and interesting article. I'm currently working in enterprise for around 3 years. I sure am growing technically, but I feel like I learn more about people, communications and bureaucracy here. That comment about budget and mouse is also on track, but with financial stability that working in $ENTERPRISE brings, I can just buy the mouse myself. Maybe some empire will question me regarding the unauthorized mouse, but I can just... ignore... um, talk myself out of the fake urgencies of mouse authorization.
by cdavid | 2025-08-17 23:02:44+00:00
I agree it is confusing, because starting with notation will confuse you. I personally don't like the partial derivative-first definition of those concepts, as it all sounds a bit arbitrary.

What made sense to me is to start from the definition of derivative (the best linear approximation in some sense), and then everything else is about how to represent this. vectors, matrices, etc. are all vectors in the appropriate vector space, the derivative is always the same form in a functional form, etc.

E.g. you want the derivative of f(M) ? Just write f(M+h) - f(M), and then look for the terms in h / h^2 / etc. Apply chain rules / etc. for more complicated cases. This is IMO a much better way to learn about this.

As for notation, you use vec/kronecker product for complicated cases: https://janmagnus.nl/papers/JRM093.pdf
by throwup238 | 2025-08-17 23:03:18+00:00
Oh a LOT will still be around in ten thousand years, especially if climate change causes a lot of desertification. The oldest Egyptian papyrus is almost 4,600 years old and that’s just papyrus, an organic material that doesn’t survives very long in more humid climates.

Ten thousand years isn’t very much in geological timescales, not enough to bury everything and crush it to dust so anything that gets left in a landfill (and not harvested in the future) has a chance of surviving. Anything made of noble metals like gold and platinum especially, so it’ll mostly be a question of how much is thrown away versus recycled.

Our modern middens will be full of artifacts.
by hirvi74 | 2025-08-17 23:03:32+00:00
> It's the most replicated finding in psychology

Why would it not be? It's not like intelligence was some sort of unknown intrinsic discovery that psychologist happened to uncover. Intelligence was defined and the tests were created to support the definition.

I've done quite a lot of personal, hobby-research on this subject, and I remain convinced that IQ deserves to be met with a lot of skepticism and controversy. I do believe the tests measure something insofar that all tests measure something, but I am not certain that either intelligence, or at least intelligence alone, is the only thing being measured on those tests.

Not to mention, with over one hundred years of intelligence research, what good has actually come from the field? Historically, there was plenty of racism, eugenics, and the furthering of certain political agendas that have come from intelligence research. Again, whose life has actually been improved from this research? Has IQ positively contributed to the field of education? Has the research helped increase human quality of life and happiness? Of course, leave it to psychology -- its most "robust and replicated finding" is, essentially, useless.
by primering | 2025-08-17 23:03:41+00:00
Yeah it's funny they even mention ORM while at the same offering something that has nothing to do with ORMs at all. Yes, many ORM libraries offer additional tools like migration and querybuiler, but that's not the point of an ORM. ORM maps relation data to your OOP data structures. They completely misused the term entirely, which is kinda surprising.
by wakawaka28 | 2025-08-17 23:04:13+00:00
I am very skeptical that any employed reader of HackerNews in the US cannot afford eggs. Are you working in tech at all?

You may resent the state of the economy (as do I) but your loans will not go away. Nor should they. You knew you would have to pay that back when you started studying, and you did in fact study something useful that paid off. Taxpayers took a chance on your future, you got a useful education, and you owe everyone to pay it back.
by echelon | 2025-08-17 23:04:28+00:00
I hope the walls don't cave in on you. Eyes up. My friends in VFX are adopting AI workflows and they say that it's essential.

> Why OnlyFans May Sell for 75% Less Than It’s Worth [1, 2]

> Netflix uses AI effects for first time to cut costs [3]

Look at all of the jobs Netflix has posted for AI content production [4].

> Gabe Newell says AI is a 'significant technology transition' on a par with the emergence of computers or the internet, and will be 'a cheat code for people who want to take advantage of it' [5]

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the cofounder of DreamWorks [6]:

> "Well, the good old days when, you know, I made an animated movie, it took 500 artists five years to make a world-class animated movie," he said. "I don't think it will take 10% of that three years out from now," he added.

I can keep finding no shortage of sources, but I don't want to waste my time.

I've brushed shoulders with the C-suite at Disney and Pixar and talked at length about this with them. This world is absolutely changing.

The best evidence is what you can already see.

[1] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/onlyfans-may-sell-75...

[2] https://archive.is/Xndzx

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vr4rymlw9o

[4] https://explore.jobs.netflix.net/careers?query=Machine%20Lea...

[5] https://www.pcgamer.com/software/ai/gabe-newell-says-ai-is-a...

[6] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/cofounder-dreamworks-say...
by terminalshort | 2025-08-17 23:04:54+00:00
I guess you could call it fatalist, but is it fatalist to say I was born to be 5'10" and there's not a damn thing in the world I can do to be 6'? Isn't it the same with intelligence? You may feel smarter now, but are you really? What, exactly, makes you fell like you are? Do you think that if you met those same people today they wouldn't still be significantly smarter than you?
by hirvi74 | 2025-08-17 23:06:07+00:00
As a geneticist who studies cognitive function, if you get a moment, do you mind reading this blog [1] and stating if you think it's factually correct or not? My genes are too poor, and thus, my IQ is likely too low for me to be certain I can trust my own opinions on the matter.

[1] http://bactra.org/weblog/520.html
by pembrook | 2025-08-17 23:07:28+00:00
Sorry, cookie banners are a direct result of EU legislation, it really is that simple.

While your "evil data broker malicious compliance conspiracy" narrative is a popular one, especially on this website, that doesn't make it true and you've offered zero facts to support it either.

I've dealt directly with multiple companies in regards to this legislation, and know exactly why we made the decisions we did based on the legal advice given in each instance.

But I will not argue further. You want this conspiracy narrative to be true as it plugs into the tapestry of religious narratives that form your identity. Any facts or logic I can offer against this are no match.

However, could you not agree that moving forward, a centralized browser-based setting is the better solution for all parties involved?
by linkage | 2025-08-17 23:07:36+00:00
You're conflating development with operations. Many of the greatest software tools we use every day were built by small teams.

Your examples of big projects are great, but the majority of enterprise companies are not sending people to the moon or building physical infrastructure. If you look at the top 20 companies in the United States by headcount, the majority of those companies are large because they require a physical presence all over the country (Walmart, Home Depot, Marriott). The largest company that does not require a physical presence is Cognizant. Has Cognizant ever made anything worth using?
by k310 | 2025-08-17 23:07:40+00:00
Let me toss a few ideas your way.

1. I have found internet sources of information byte-sized, disconnected, and incoherent. When people ask about books, I say that they have the "three C's," Continuity, Coherence and Context. Something about the internet seems to encourage foraging over farming, but that might just reflect my current internet habits.

2. I never ran into a partner to help start and grow the idea.

3. "Packaging" is important. Nothing real happens for free. We all knew this when we bought parts or kits. The internet has its downsides. Long story short, just helping people take time away from it can be beneficial. The lure and benefits have to outweigh the costs. I personally got payback, albeit modest, from every kit built and every bit of learning, sooner or later. The "This is fun" aspect might call for a community of users or a mentor of sorts. I have been tech help for a lot of people over time, and honestly, there's no comparison between phone and text messages (still doing it) and "being there", and that is/was key on the after-school idea. Do what works for you and your young (or old) customers.
by Ms-J | 2025-08-17 23:08:29+00:00
Anytime a court bans something useful that the people want, there will always be a technical solution that works in complete parallel to the government narrative. Sometimes, entire markets pop up.

Use encryption, anonymity networks, cryptocurrencies, and no logs VPN's with endpoints in countries that have no authority over you. That should take care of the majority of users that require and enjoy human rights.
by lz400 | 2025-08-17 23:08:43+00:00
But that makes sense, technology makes headlines when it's exciting. Crypto I'd disagree there's been advances, it's mostly scams and pyramid schemes and it got boring and predictable in that sense so once the promise and excitement is gone, HN doesn't talk about it anymore. Self driving cars became a slow advance over many years, with people not claiming it was around the corner and about to revolutionize everything.

AI is now a field where the claims are, in essence, that we're going to build God in 2 years. Make the whole planet unemployed. Create a permanent underclass. AI researches are being hired at $100-300m comp. I mean, it's definitely a very exciting topic and polarizes opinion. If things plateau and the claims dissappear and it becomes a more boring grind over diminishing returns and price adjustments I think we'll see the same thing, less comments over it.
by platelminto | 2025-08-17 23:09:24+00:00
Tried it out for a bit - recently upgraded to Max so was willing to try one of these run-stuff-in-parallel tools.

It wasn't great.

- Installation using the provided binaries just fails on my machine - I have Ubuntu 22.04, which apparently has too old a version of glibc. Building from sourced worked though.

- Every time I want to open a new chat, it brings me back to the project list. I don't want to click on the same project every time!

- Scrolling is awful! It's slow, and it often doesn't automatically scroll down as the chat is generated so you have to do it yourself.

- There's no title or anything across sessions. If I'm now working on multiple things at the same time, I want to know what I'm working on quickly!

- The log/text entries take up so much space. Something like this would benefit from a much more compact view - it shouldn't use my entire screen to show me 1 TODO list and 1 tool use.

- Unlike the video, the code changes are all wrapped in a "AI Summary" entry which tells me what it did in a few words, with no option (that I could find) to open the code itself. Confused, couldn't find a setting for this.

- There's multiple UI bugs, and it's sluggish overall.

I didn't use the Agents stuff, which (given the video starts with it) might be the main focus? But as it stands, for my attempt at running multiple Claude Code sessions at once, this was too buggy to really work. Someone else mentioned https://conductor.build/, which might be more what I'm looking for, but unfortunately it lacks Linux support.

I hope it gets better! I could see myself using it after a few more releases, and I'm rooting for them - just sharing my experience here for others who are considering trying it.
by mcv | 2025-08-17 23:10:09+00:00
I don't recall the Archimedes ever getting called a "BBC Micro". I remember the introduction of the Archimedes. We had an Acorn Electron, and we'd seen the introduction of various "BBC Masters"; BBCs with more memory, more powerful hardware, but still a BBC. The Archimedes, was always marketed as something completely new, as far as I recall.

My brother had one. Really cool machine, and as far as I remember, on a completely different level than anything that had existed before it. Soon succeeded by the Risc PC, which I mostly remember for being able to accept various configurations of additional processors (it could get either an x86 as co-processor, or several additional ARMs).
by golemiprague | 2025-08-17 23:10:59+00:00
The problem is that in the west green energy became a religion while in China it was just a practical solution when it made sense. They didn't have a problem to build a coal based facility or a sun based facility, depends on the needs and cost. Now that green energy makes more sense, naturally they ustilise more of it. In the west though it was all about doom's day predictions, culture wars and cancelations. So it all became a religion war rather than a mere technical consideration.
by InGoodFaith | 2025-08-17 23:11:33+00:00
didn't the underlying API they built upon ramp up their pricing and effectively price them out?

like a precursor to reddit's own API pricing changes that made it hard for 3rd party clients to compete.

The saving grace with these API wrappers is that local models being a thing can still let them hedge against the underlying AI labs eating up their stack.
by convolvatron | 2025-08-17 23:13:13+00:00
where is the concern for my agency when an advertiser steals my time and attention. when they call me on the phone, send texts, prisesopen my email account, and plaster ads all over the streets.

in what sense is an ad for hair products different from a person pretending to be a little old lady in South Africa who just wants to make sure her late husbands millions go to a random person on the internet - its not

I have made my choice to try to remove myself as far as possible from your 'product discovery', but that's one choice you're not willing to let me have. there are innumerable people in the world who just want a chance to make me listen to their pitch. what do I owe them that I should have to.
by timgdelisle | 2025-08-17 23:13:55+00:00
Very much agree with you, at this point the abstraction is too low-level to be considered a proper ORM (or whatever the acronym should be for OLAP) and we're progressively working our way up to the right level. I love the idea of operating at the dimensions/measures level. Hoping we address this concern in the next couple of releases! Really appreciate the feedback
Show HN: RouteScout – A bike routing app that lets you love or hate hills
by enzovt | 2025-08-17 23:14:17+00:00
Hi HN, I’m a high school student in Seattle who loves riding hills.

I found that route makers like Google Maps get you from point A to B on a bike, but they don’t give you fun routes. So i made my own

RouteScout lets you: - Control the surfaces (never gravel or dirt with a road bike!) on the route - Indicate your preference for hills (I LOVE or HATE hills gives you different routes) - Prefer routes with bike lanes and cycling paths and roads made for bikes. - Filter types of roads (big roads gone!) - And when looping around it won’t take you back on the same exact road on the way back

*Upcoming feature*: Being able to use your previous activities from Strava to give you the option to favor roads that you’ve never been on (or have been on).

The app is free forever (without selling daya). Try it here: https://routescout.tennisbowling.com

I wrote all of the routing, database, and logic (no AI) So if you end up running into any issues please email me at rs@tennisbowling.com and i’ll fix them asap.
by bentinata | 2025-08-17 23:15:25+00:00
It won't gonna change how people (mostly management) see the name. I've seen whole empire named after Pokemon, only for another round of restructure that will change teams name to another Pokemon.

While talking to friends at other empire:

> I've been digging around, who are the members of Ludicolo?

> Oh, we've renamed to Felbat.
by mcv | 2025-08-17 23:16:45+00:00
I don't think Acorn "dropped the ball". They were doing amazing things, but they simply weren't IBM, and their PC wasn't an IBM PC. The corporate world was rapidly standardizing on PCs and MS DOS, and that it was crap didn't really matter; it was more powerful than what the corporate world before, and it had all the support it needed for business applications. Superior architecture didn't matter; killers apps did. I wish it was different and really hoped the Archimedes would be the new standard. Well, decades later the ARM would finally become the new standard.
by themafia | 2025-08-17 23:17:05+00:00
> you're not breaking those keys.

You inferred break but I meant leak. As the financial incentives increase so does the pressure on the physical part of the system. Which historically has always been the weakest and is often exploited.

> hop in on a game

Do you mean public lobby? And you're willing to completely sacrifice your control over your own computer to have a pleasant public gaming experience? Aren't there other ways to solve this problem? In particular by moving it away from the monopolized server/lobby model we currently have?

> And frustration leads to players leaving the game.

It sounds like the game lacks capabilities if this is what is happening. In previous eras I would have just left the server and told the client to ignore it forever. Then servers which allow cheating either intentionally or due to bad management do not get played on.

> Unlike someone cheating at football

Think F1 and Nascar. They have cheating problems. There's millions of dollars on the line. Of course they do. Yet.. they seem to manage just fine without resorting to violence. Which I think is the more apt comparison because the lead for this story is how it impacts tournaments and other scenarios where monetary rewards are up for grabs.

> at making any money through the online portion of your game is dead.

Then you need to provide a service that is worth the money. Punting on the problem and insisting that gamers submit to these types of hardware schemes that don't actually address the totality of the problem is ridiculous. I don't see how it's a problem for them not to profit. Why should they? What is their "stewardship" worth here exactly?