MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: Leilani – SIP client that streams call audio to the OpenAI Realtime API
by kfeeney | 2025-10-30 19:41:30+00:00
We built a SIP user agent that registers to any PBX just like a soft-phone and streams audio to OpenAI’s real-time API. No SIP trunking, call forwarding or unintegrated voice systems. Leilani behaves like a normal extension… because it’s just a normal SIP extension.

How it works

- Implements bog standard SIP over TCP to connect just like a normal desk phone or spftphone. - Streams RTP (mu-law) bidirectionally to OpenAI’s realtime API - Handles function calls for external actions (webhooks)

Use cases

- After-hours auto-attendant - Voicemail/intent capture with structured output - Internal system lookup (CRM, scheduling, ticket creation, etc.) via function calls - Replaces IVR’s with natural conversation

Why?

Most AI voice systems expect you to hand over call routing, use their SIP trunk, or are an entirely separate voice stack all together. Every company (nearly) already has a SIP PBX, so we thought operating as a normal SIP extension was the simplest integration point.

Tech Stack

- The backend is built in asynchronous Rust. - We connect to the realtime API using websockets rather than SIP trunking or WebRTC - Hosted on a simple AWS EC2 instance

Limitations / gotchas

- Currently only supports SIP over TCP, we have TLS support coming soon - There are some NAT traversal assumptions (we behave like a softphone) - Latency depends on PBX and model RTT and audio frame sizes (currently seeing ~300ms across most deployments) - You still need your own OpenAI key. Could be a positive or negative, depends how you look at it :)

Link https://leilani.dev
by thefaux | 2025-10-30 19:41:32+00:00
I find the direction of zig confusing. Is it supposed to be a simple language or a complex one? Low level or high level? This feature is to me a strange mix of high and low level functionality and quite complex.

The io interface looks like OO but violates the Liskov substitution principle. For me, this does not solve the function color problem, but instead hides it. Every function with an IO interface cannot be reasoned about locally because of unexpected interactions with the io parameter input. This is particularly nasty when IO objects are shared across library boundaries. I now need to understand how the library internally manages io if I share that object with my internal code. Code that worked in one context may surprisingly not work in another context. As a library author, how do I handle an io object that doesn't behave as I expect?

Trying to solve this problem at the language level fundamentally feels like a mistake to me because you can't anticipate in advance all of the potential use cases for something as broad as io. That's not to say that this direction shouldn't be explored, but if it were my project, I would separate this into another package that I would not call standard.
by lloydatkinson | 2025-10-30 19:41:56+00:00
I got the email just now about this. I was happy to pay real money for good software as I had done for Affinity V1 and would have upgraded to V3… but now it’s free because we are the business now.

With a big dollop of AI slop on top.

Every single time some acquisition happens, this happens.

I am more than happy to pay good money for quality software to support a business so it doesn’t need to resort to this. Even a monthly subscription would have been preferable.
by griffzhowl | 2025-10-30 19:42:26+00:00
Not really, no, but I can see why you might think that, because Bell's theorem is often described as saying that quantum mechanics contradicts "local realism", but "realism" in this sense has a precise technical meaning, which is that a physical system at some time has a complete set of well-defined values for all the possible measurements that we might do on it (and "local" just means that physical effects can't propagate faster than the speed of light). It was known since the beginning that quantum mechanics, as a theory, doesn't have this feature because of complementary observables, aka the uncertainty principle, which says that the more precisely some quantities are known, the less precisely the theory determines other quantities, e.g. in the case of a spin-1/2 particle, knowing the value of its spin along one axis means that it's value along any axis at right-angles is completely uncertain - it can be up or down with equal probability.

Nevertheless, it was thought (e.g. in the Einstein Podolsky Rosen paper in 1935) that it might be possible to formulate a theory that could reproduce all the correct predictions of quantum mechanics, while also ascribing simultaneous well-defined values to all the physical quantities possessed by a quantum system, i.e a locally realistic theory. These are also known as local "hidden variable" theories, where the idea was that some of the values of the variables might be unobserved simply because of measurement practicalities - we can't measure the spin of a particle along two orthogonal axes simultaneously because the measurement needs a magnetic field gradient along the direction we're measuring in.

Bell derived an inequality that any locally realistic theory must satisfy, and showed that quantum mechanics in fact violates this inequality, so no locally realistic theory can reproduce the predictions of quantum mechanics. Alain Aspect and others later implemented Bell's thought experiment in the lab and showed that the physical world obeys quantum mechanics, and so is not describable by a locally realistic theory.

In my view, none of that shows that there is "no objective reality". Rather, it shows that objective reality is as far as we can tell quantum mechanical, and not locally realistic in the sense described above. It's certainly the case that quantum mechanics requires a modification of the classical concepts of reality, i.e. of classical ideas about what a physical system is, but you would only accept that conclusion if you agree that quantum mechanics is telling you something objective about reality... At least according to how I understand those words.

So I think what people really mean when they say quantum mechanics shows there's no objective reality is just that it contradicts classical conceptions of physical systems, which is clearly true but sounds less sexy and mysterious.
by beloch | 2025-10-30 19:42:31+00:00
I have to agree with you. I've heard competing claims that Musk is doing, with Tesla, something similar to what he did with Hyperloop: Promise a futuristic but ultimately impractical solution to forestall those trying to proceed with proven solutions (i.e. bullet trains) that might compete with his own business.

However, it's becoming increasingly apparent that the above paragraph ascribes genius to what is more simply explained by incompetence. It's more likely Musk believed he could make Hyperloop work, but couldn't. Similarly...

- Musk thought he could buy an election and gain the inside track for his companies, but was too witless to maintain good relations with the politician he bought.

- He bought Twitter seemingly on a lark and proceeded to rapidly run it into the ground.

- He put a bunch of script-kiddies in charge of DOGE, which promptly made a mess of an entire government and created a historically massive deficit while gutting government services.

- He alienated the core customer demographics that had formerly been one of Tesla's mains sources of income. (The other being government grants and subsidies which... whoops.)

Now, Tesla's shareholders are weighing whether or not a man with Musk's recent track record is worth a trillion dollar pay package[1]. It's gobsmacking that they even need to think about this.

So, no, Musk is not some evil genius undoing green energy by deliberately creating a false solution that fails to deliver. He's just a garden variety mediocrity who has been promoted far past his capabilities or character and has been utterly undone by the resulting ego trip. He's an object lesson in just how much damage the wrong person in the right place and time can do to the world.

[1]https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/musk-could-leave...
by dragonwriter | 2025-10-30 19:42:40+00:00
Well no, the in operator is just defined to produce results equivalent equivalent to any(nan is x or nan==x for x in a); it is counterintuitive to the extent people assume that identity implies equality, but the operator doesn't assume that identity implies equality, it is defined as returning True if either is satisfied. [0]

Well, more precisely, this is how the operator behaves for most built in collections; other types can define how it behaves for them by implementing a __contains__() method with the desired semantics.

[0] https://docs.python.org/3/reference/expressions.html#members...
by ThatFave | 2025-10-30 19:42:41+00:00
To answer your last question, on your operating system there is something called “PATH”. It is a user- or systemwide variable that dictates where to look for programs. It basically is a list of directories, often separated by “:” Further reading: https://www.java.com/en/download/help/path.html (this may have Java references but still applies)
by Terr_ | 2025-10-30 19:43:16+00:00
A similar issue occurs in SQL, where NULL != NULL. [0] In both bases, our typical "equals" abstraction has become too leaky, and we're left trying to grapple with managing different kinds of "equality" at the same time.

Consider the difference between:

1. "Box A contains a cursed object that the human mind cannot comprehend without being driven to madness. Does Box B also contain one? ... Yes."

2. "Is the cursed object in Box A the same as the one in Box B? ... It... uh..." <screaming begins>

Note that this is not the same as stuff like "1"==1.0, because we're not mixing types here. Both operands are the same type, our problem is determining their "value", and how we encode uncertainty or a lack of knowledge.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Null_(SQL)
by kulahan | 2025-10-30 19:43:35+00:00
It might be easier to describe as an eye that is only opened manually, and can only focus on highly specific things. This is my superpower - I can see things vividly in my mind, spin them around, zoom in/out, and more.

When I'm looking at it, the only thing I can see is whatever object is being imagined. However, yes - it's similar to the sensation of seeing with your own actual eyes. The reason it seems so foreign is because our real eyes can see more than one thing at a time. Our mind's eye can only see exactly one subject at a time (though I should mention that when I navigate cities, I do so by imagining a birds-eye view, so there are many objects IN the map, but I cannot see anything other than the map, and it becomes extremely blurry outside of the section I'm focusing on).
by FjordWarden | 2025-10-30 19:43:50+00:00
After coming down from the shock of learning there are people like you I was even more amazed that one of the founding engineers of Pixar, and a giant in computer graphics, also has this condition. He even did a survey that found his artists where more likely to be on the aphantasia spectrum than managers. Dunno, maybe some people are so driven to create what they cannot think or see.
by mainecoder | 2025-10-30 19:44:17+00:00
Why does this have to be a political issue the TP-Links hardware and software can be examined, this is not a difficult process that would need the greatest experts on earth a simple examination should show whether data is being sent to China or if there is any security issue that can be spoken of so far nothing. Might as well say sanction then because we need to make a distinction between a technical security flaw or economic and political reasons, if the security flaw is not articulated then it's safe to assume it is political.
by eptcyka | 2025-10-30 19:44:17+00:00
I see, and I still believe that as far as network protocols go, UDP allows for unreliable communication and TCP allows for reliable communication, at least at a naive first glance. I don't see anything wrong with UDP being labeled as unreliable. Is there a particular reason you believe it is reliable? Say if UDP was a reliable network protocol, what would be an unreliable network protocol?
by duxup | 2025-10-30 19:44:33+00:00
Yeah I often will ask for a quick phone call and try to work from the top down, or the bottom up depending on the client. Getting to the thing we're solving often leads to a different problem description and later different button or concept altogether.

Sometimes it's just me firing up some SQL queries and discovering "Well this happened 3 times ... ever ..." and we do nothing ;)
by godshatter | 2025-10-30 19:44:37+00:00
There was a study published by the University of Exeter in 2021 that showed the following:

rsfMRI revealed stronger connectivity between the visual–occipital network and several prefrontal regions (BAs 9, 10, 11) in the hyperphantasic group when compared with the aphantasic group

Here is a link to the paper: https://academic.oup.com/cercorcomms/article/2/2/tgab035/626...

So there does appear to be a way to potentially test for aphantasia that requires no self-reporting, just an attempt to visualize.
by jacobr1 | 2025-10-30 19:45:18+00:00
The cycle repeats frequently in industry. New waves of startups address a problem with better UX, and maybe some other details like increased automated and speed using more modern architectures. But feature-creep eventually makes the UX cumbersome, the complexity makes it hard to migrate to new paradigms or at least doing so without a ton of baggage, so they in turn are displaced by new startups.
by aurumque | 2025-10-30 19:45:39+00:00
There is a related set of experiences that articles like this tend to conflate.

* presence of internal monologue

* ability for visualization

* ability for audiation

* affective memory (remembering feelings)

* SDAM (weak autobiographical memory)

It speaks to the larger questions around the human experience, and that we are only now discovering the many ways it differs for each individual.
by tcdent | 2025-10-30 19:45:44+00:00
To be clear, we're not looking through the Sun at the object. We're looking past the Sun at the object through a telescope that is positioned to observe the Sun, for the most recent imagery.

I agree with you, but I have been experimenting with image processing using the data available from this satellite (as a hobbyist). Honestly, while it's impressive that we gather data from a piece of technology that's floating in space, the resolution of this is nothing to write home about. If I take anything away from my brief amount of experience with this, it's that we still have a long way to go in terms of the quality of our imaging of our surrounding space.

I haven't fully finished my processing yet and still need to tune the wavelength and account for some drift, but this is basically the state-of-the-art: https://tcdent-pub.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/3i_atlas_10302...
by sebastiennight | 2025-10-30 19:45:44+00:00
Just add a $6-7CHICKENJOCKEY memecoin where they can put money in, see a 50% daily return for a random period of time, and suddenly have it go to zero.

Or even worse, in the tradition of these unclickable javascript buttons of the late 1990's, just detect when the finger is approaching the "withdraw" button and have the asset crash right before they can click!
by nachox999 | 2025-10-30 19:45:45+00:00
I believe the complete opposite. If someone is willing to buy your business, no matter the amount, it’s because it’s worth MUCH more than what they’re paying. It’s illogical for them to pay less than its real value. It’s even illogical to think they’d pay exactly what it’s worth. Why would somebody bother buying a company if they were only going to break even?
by jazzyjackson | 2025-10-30 19:46:26+00:00
In fact dozens of US spies and informants were killed or imprisoned when a secret communications network was exposed doing just that. I wish I bookmarked a better source, it described that the HTML for the portal was reused on every site, so once it was discovered on one site, everyone using it was burned.

Here's one article that alludes to it re: CIA informants in Iran, but I seem to remember China killing US spies and it just not making the news at all

"an analysis by two independent cybersecurity specialists found that the now-defunct covert online communication system that Hosseini used – located by Reuters in an internet archive – may have exposed at least 20 other Iranian spies and potentially hundreds of other informants operating in other countries around the world.

This messaging platform, which operated until 2013, was hidden within rudimentary news and hobby websites where spies could go to connect with the CIA. Reuters confirmed its existence with four former U.S. officials."

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-spie...
Show HN: I built a tool to preview mesh gradients on UI components
by ugo_builds | 2025-10-30 19:46:36+00:00
I was sick of being bad at UI, so I built a tool to preview my mesh gradients on actual components before using them on my website.

The tool has several export options, several components, and potentially infinite combinations of gradients to test on components.

I'm still bad at UI though
by davisr | 2025-10-30 19:46:47+00:00
> I have to admit you're the first person I've ever talked to who would be happy to let others commercially exploit the fruits of their labor without any sort of compensation, while actively trying to make a living from that labor yourself, fascinating!

What's fascinating is that you just described every employee, ever. At this point, I'm giving up on you. Consumers are price sensitive? Please, they buy Funko Pops and Frappachinos by the millions. It's not about cost, it's about convenience and authenticity. People will pay for convenience, for software that does what they want, from its official source.

It's cheap to sling bullshit like yours and costly to refute it. It's costlier to build a cash-positive business selling copies of free software, in the face of that code, and binary builds, being available -- by others, for no cost -- in various package mangers and popular source repositories.

You're just wrong, dude. You don't know what you're talking about. I'm tired, and done, arguing with you.
by GuinansEyebrows | 2025-10-30 19:46:48+00:00
Photoshop has that (adjustment layers in adobe world) but smart objects lets you use any layer effect non destructively, not just the predefined adjustment layers (which also apply downward by default, not just as a per-layer thing). It’s like a layer group on steroids. Pretty hard for me to live without now or id just have an intel hackintosh running CS5/CS6 :)
by dessimus | 2025-10-30 19:47:52+00:00
The point is that how does the whistleblower know whether or not they are not whistleblowing to the very people or allies to those being reported on if who is behind it?

To pull an example out of thin air, would you risk whistleblowing to TruthWave on Amazon if you knew that the Washington Post was running TruthWave?
by whytevuhuni | 2025-10-30 19:48:02+00:00
> > facts to counter-argue your point of: "hasn't ever led to quality software in any shape or form, neither it ever will".

> Your line of reasoning is something akin to - there are some skilled programmers that have shipped high quality software and wrote the code using lubed mechanical switches.

No, I can second that the claim of "hasn't ever led to quality software in any shape or form" has been pretty solidly invalidated by GP. You may be able to claim many other things, and some of them might be true, but that point above won't be.
by tredre3 | 2025-10-30 19:48:06+00:00
I tried ;) GIMP developers aren't very open to external contributions. I don't consider my attempts to be of low quality either, but the bike shedding resulted in them never being accepted. "It's best to wait until X lands" or "I think this will be part of Y".

Meanwhile, 10 years later, the functional features I've tried to contribute are still not possible in GIMP ;)
by jahsome | 2025-10-30 19:48:09+00:00
I disagree with your assessment but allow me to clarify so there is no room for misunderstanding.

Yes I do believe the type of coworker who uses a screenshot to communicate instead of describing an issue is indeed lazy and insulting.

The article on the other hand clearly isn't lazy. It's obviously quite thorough, just at the time was not well organized.
by dns_snek | 2025-10-30 19:48:24+00:00
They seem to be more committed to protecting the viability of all future business decisions than anyone's anonymity:

> We may share your data with third parties under the following circumstances:

> During a Change in Control: If Truthwave undergoes a business transaction like a merger, acquisition, corporate divestiture, or dissolution (including bankruptcy), or a sale of all or some of its assets, we will take appropriate measures to continue to protect your anonymity and identity, but may need to share, disclose, or transfer all of your data to the successor organization during such transition or in contemplation of a transition (including during due diligence). (All data categories)

https://www.truthwave.com/legal/privacy-policy
by marojejian | 2025-10-30 19:48:24+00:00
paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09661-0

Had never heard of "nanobodies" before. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-domain_antibody sounds really promising. and fun that they come from camelids, like llamas and alpacas.

P.S. This is a more conventional approach vs. the guy who let a bunch of snakes bite him: https://www.wpr.org/news/meet-wisconsin-man-let-hundreds-ven... (also a great story).

P.P.S. Coincidentally I got angry when during an economics podcast, they referred the saying that camels are "horses designed by a committee." No biologist would say such a thing. camels kick ass at their environment, and apparently they can help us with our environment too.
by atoav | 2025-10-30 19:48:44+00:00
Well this puts them on my blacklist. And I am an educator in precisely the artschool they would profit off catering to.

I refuse to teach my student tools that change the contract once you bought into them.

Adobe is on that list too.

The only major non-open source software that isn't is anything by Black Magic or Steam, both companies that have found healthy sustainable business models and jave acted reliable towards creaters and the open source community they relied on in their humbe beginnings.
by majoe | 2025-10-30 19:48:52+00:00
> Most of Europe became rich under imperialist, authoritarian governments not with their current system

Europe prospered under democratic governments after the second world war. My particular region of Germany was rural, agrarian and piss poor before the war. Now it is an industry hub and one of the richest regions in Germany, all thanks to a democratic government, which prioritised development of rural areas.

The wealth we now enjoy is incomparable to what we had under authoritarian rule before.

Let's also not forget, that the Cold war divided Europe in two halves, one with democratic governments and one under authoritarian rule, an A/B test so to say. The end result was, that they needed a wall in Berlin to keep the people from fleeing to the west.

> Look around the world and see how many countries managed to achieve similar success using the same liberal principles

Beside the whole of Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Uruguay and Taiwan come to mind. Taiwan has a per capita GDP 2.5x that of mainland China.
by xeonmc | 2025-10-30 19:50:07+00:00
Actually, by the Kramers-Kronig relation you can infer the imaginary part just from the real parts, if given that your time signal is causal. So the phase isn’t actually lost in any way at all, if you assume causality.

Also, pedantic nit: phase would be the imaginary exponent of the spectrum rather than the imaginary part directly, i.e, you take the logarithm of the complex amplitude to get log-magnitude (real) plus phase (imag)