MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: ToolMateX – Free Privacy-First Web Tools for Devs, Designers and Makers
by zonayedpca | 2025-10-01 16:38:58+00:00
Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on a project called ToolMateX, a growing collection of small, utility-based tools that run directly in your browser. No logins, no tracking, no sending your data to my server. Everything happens on-device, in your browser.

I built this because I often needed quick tools (formatters, converters, validators, image utilities, etc.) and got tired of ad-filled, slow, or shady sites. So instead of jumping between random sites, I wanted a single, fast, clean, and secure place.

Some of the tools live today:

- JSON, HTML, CSS, JS, SQL formatters

- Base converters (binary, decimal, hex, etc.)

- Color pickers, gradient/palette generators

- Image optimizers, favicon/icon generators

- Password & hash generators

- QR code, Lorem Ipsum, Regex testers

- Validators (HTML, CSS, JSON, Email, URL…)

...and more.

All of them are free and will always remain free on the website. The collection is growing week by week based on what’s genuinely useful.

Website: https://toolmatex.com

I’d love feedback on:

- Are these tools actually useful to you in daily work?

- Any tools you wish existed but haven’t found a decent version of online?

- Thoughts on the UX, is it simple enough or needs tweaking?

This is just the beginning, I’m also building a desktop app version (privacy-first, Rust backend, offline-first, with an installable tool store). But for now, I’d love your thoughts on the web version.

Thanks for reading, and even more if you give it a try...
by t_mann | 2025-10-01 16:39:00+00:00
I'm on a similar page. I try to set things up so that as many things as possible are regular files in my folder structure, which I then sync across devices. In my experience those are the only files I can rely on being able to retrieve long-term. Eg I don't use a photo app at all, I just have a folder with sub-folders (where I copy them manually). I don't know (yet) how Nextcloud fits with that, but it has several features that look really interesting in general (eg video calls).
by alex1149 | 2025-10-01 16:39:29+00:00
Location: Dallas, TX, USA Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes Technologies: Typescript, Node.js, Python, SQL (especially PostgreSQL), AWS (EC2/Lambda/ECS/EKS, RDS/Athena/Firehose, IAM/Organizations/security tools, and more all managed through IaC), Terraform, Kubernetes, CI/CD Résumé/CV: https://alexwendland.social/cv/alex_wendland_2025_10_1.pdf Email: alex_wendland_proton@proton.me

--

DevOps/SRE/Platform Engineering -- I'm interested in solving infrastructure and operational problems with software and taking ownership of the whole software system, including production.

I thrive when embedded in product teams, blending backend and infrastructure. I'm comfortable taking initiative to identify and remove performance or process bottlenecks -- many times users have thanked me for removing a big pain point they only realized the scale of after it was fixed.

Looking for teams where I can combine backend and infrastructure work, dig into performance problems, take ownership across the stack, and help scale products reliably.
by ryandrake | 2025-10-01 16:39:39+00:00
It's a totally backwards way to build a product.

You're supposed to start with a use case that is unmet, and research/build technology to enable and solve the use case.

AI companies are instead starting with a specific technology, and then desperately searching for use cases that might somehow motivate people to use that technology. Now these guys are further arguing that it should be the user's problem to find use cases for the technology they seem utterly convinced needs to be developed.
by gchamonlive | 2025-10-01 16:40:13+00:00
I on the other hand think it's irrelevant if a technology is a blackbox or not. If it's supposed to fit the opensource/FOSS model of the original post having access to precursors is just as important as having access to the weights.

It's fine for models to have open-weights and closed data. It's only barely fitting the opensource model IMHO though.
by jrowen | 2025-10-01 16:40:20+00:00
I too experience many of these things, and I have been called autistic by numerous people independently, but in that tongue-in-cheek manner of our generation that has watered it down a lot. I'm nothing even close to the people on Love on the Spectrum, or the kids in grade school that were essentially in special ed.

I think yeah the language has gotten very ambiguous and the "spectrum" is so wide and ill-defined that we need more and better words, but, I do also feel like it isn't just everyone's shared experience. I do feel like there are a lot of people who don't really experience these things, that aren't stuck in a constant self-conscious hyper-analysis and reflection loop, and are able to just kind of go with the flow a bit more (which is not to say that they don't have troubles or anxieties).

Edit: I will also note that I did have a similar reaction to you to this game. I didn't even go past the intro because I felt like I knew what it was. I would call this something like autism-lite, and it probably is pretty widespread, particularly in HN-like circles. It does feel a little bit confusing and even offensive to compare it to "capital A autism," an actual disability, but that's where our lexicon is right now.
by mjburgess | 2025-10-01 16:40:25+00:00
You're assuming people sample unifromly and at random from the population. People connect with similar people, form relationships in similar envioronemnts, so your social group is vastly more specialised than it might seem.

Autism compounds this greatly because of the double empathy problem, so one should expect an autistic person to have mostly autistic friends and to be in environments where the rate of autism is far higher
by dmix | 2025-10-01 16:40:34+00:00
> OpenAI and Anthropic build and train models specifically to work via CLI driven processes,

Cursor agents open terminals just fine in VSCode and is a major part of how Cursor works.

I personally code in VSCode text editor prior to Cursor (left VIM a while ago) and prefer to stay in the context of a desktop text editor. I find it's easier to see what's changing in real time, with a file list, file tabs, top level and inline undo buttons etc.

I've even stopped tabbing to a separate terminal by about 50%, I learned to use VSCode terminals to run tests and git commands, which works well once you learn the shortcuts + integrate it into some VSCode test runner extensions. Plus Cursor added LLM/autocomplete to terminal commands which is great. I don't need a separate CLI tool or Bash/zsh script inside terminal to inject terminal commands I forgot the arguments for.
by coredog64 | 2025-10-01 16:40:47+00:00
In airline parlance, this is called "buyer furnished equipment". Boeing sells the airframe (without the engines, even if there's only one choice) and the seats, lavatories, etc. are all provided by the customer. The certifying authority (e.g. FAA/JAA) will have a maximum passenger count for the type. I'm reasonably certain that the BFE has to be certified as well, as you couldn't evacuate the type limit if the aisle wasn't in the center or you mixed 3-2 and 2-3.
by latexr | 2025-10-01 16:40:56+00:00
You don’t need to copy and paste manually. Snippet managers allow you to search for what you want and paste directly, or even type a few characters and have the text automatically replaced.

There is no LLM which could ever be faster than a well-configured snippet manager for stuff you’ve done before. Not to mention you won‘t get random bad text thrown at you.
by mtalantikite | 2025-10-01 16:41:21+00:00
I tried it for a few months, but never was really able to get it to work for me, although I did find the dictionary hover overlay in YouTube videos to be helpful at the beginning. Yabla is different in that they will break up a video into pieces, have you listen to it without subtitles, and then ask you to type out what you heard. This was really helpful, particularly on the advanced levels, as picking up various accents can be difficult until your ears adjust.
by dietr1ch | 2025-10-01 16:41:28+00:00
Masking is just acting in a way that you normally wouldn't, but have to. Think of a spy blending in avoiding to get caught, it's a conscious effort not to screw up and it takes more energy/willpower from you than not having to pretend to be someone else. I guess it gets harder the more different from yourself you have to act, like having an itch you can't scratch or will get "punished" somehow, damn.
by throwhn43642 | 2025-10-01 16:41:30+00:00
Yeah the modern workplace is a nightmare for me with all the get togethers and reasons to be forcefully happy about everything. I functioned reasonably well in places without all those shenanigans and the ability to work quietly. Or where they just happen once a year or something. Remote was a true game changer but it's not the same.

Also I wonder about the meds part, I haven't been prescribed any despite getting a diagnosis

But generally a cool idea, I like the graphics and how the energy inevitably goes down. I think it's more of a US office experience though
by Ancapistani | 2025-10-01 16:41:35+00:00
I'd estimate that using AI to implement a well-defined feature typically takes about 1.5x the time for me - and yet I still use AI extensively.

The key difference is that I can context switch. Once the AI has context and is doing its thing, I can move on to another task that's not working in the same area or project. I can post on HN. I can catch up on my Slack inbounds, or my email.

Having two tasks running at once nets a small but nice improvement in velocity. Having any tasks running while I'm doing other things effectively doubles my output.
by kokey | 2025-10-01 16:41:36+00:00
I love it, I have been meaning to put together a similar simulation to demonstrate the effects of interruptions and context switches on developers.

Something like the following:

- a game or puzzle which requires working memory, like matching pairs or some puzzles that need a lot of working memory and/or flipping between screens

- this gets interrupted by fullscreen interruptions of someone's face, and text asking questions, or announcing something, and you have to pick an answer or a reaction (multiple choice)

- it could start with questions like 'hi, are you busy?' or 'can I ask you a question?'

- answers which tries to end the conversation quickly could lead to even more demanding reactions or questions

- interruptions stating there is an emergency can lead to a lot of questions and answers which then leads you to discover than it is in fact not an emergency

- once one of these engagements finish you can return to the game and try to complete it

- you'll get multiple interruptions like this

- other interruptions can also flash up, like a notification that a meeting is due in x minutes

- it could then have a short simulated meeting, perhaps just a line by line scroll of dialogue between others, where you need to say nothing

- however, at some point someone will ask you directly about one of the items discussed, and you will be given a set of fairly ambiguous multiple choice answers which you will have to try out until you get to the 'correct' one

- at the end of the meeting you return to the working memory task/game

- this gets interrupted by someone then asking you about the action points in the meeting

- return to the game

- get notifications about the end of your work day coming up

- more interruptions, etc.
by SDResilinc | 2025-10-01 16:41:52+00:00
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Our Careerspage: https://careers.resilinc.ai/
by genewitch | 2025-10-01 16:42:01+00:00
I haven't played any of these games, not a one; however, i'm wondering if anyone else that watched this has examples from, uh, the last 15-20 years.

I think most of the qualifications are met by Escape Velocity(all 3), for instance; but it doesn't look like any of the games they mention! 2d/2.5d top down, open world and free roaming exploration, in game persistence, future setting, gun combat but you don't have to even have guns on your loadout, emergent situations (i assume based on gameplay), slow pace (you spend a lot of time travelling and finding resources) - and therefore "not constant action" - large inventory (depending on ship), there's dialog, resource management, and survival. It ticks most of the boxes, but was made a decade after most of the games they mention, is a "space game", etc.

If there's anyone more in tune with genre delineation, i'm interested in other games that meet most, if not all, of their criteria. I have no nostalgia for the style/look/engines used in the old games, and as such, i probably won't play any of them to understand the "qualia".
by Aurornis | 2025-10-01 16:42:01+00:00
Small startup teams can sometimes get away with datacenter management being a side task that gets done on an as-needed basis at first. It will come with downtime and your stability won't be anywhere near as good as Cloudflare or AWS no matter how well you plan, though.

Every real-world colocation or self-hosting project I've ever been around has underestimate their downtime and rate of problems by at least an order of magnitude. The amount of time lost to driving to the datacenter, waiting for replacement parts to arrive, and scrambling to patch over unexpected failure modes is always much higher than expected.

There is a false sense of security that comes in the early days of the project when you think you've gotten past the big issues and developed a system that's reliable enough. The real test is always 1-2 years later when teams have churned, systems have grown, and the initial enthusiasm for playing with hardware has given way to deep groans whenever the team has to draw straws to see who gets to debug the self-hosted server setup this time or, worse, drive to the datacenter again.
by dormento | 2025-10-01 16:42:05+00:00
Behold the TASbot

https://tasvideos.org/TASBot

> TASBot is best described as a special R.O.B. robot outfitted with Legos to hold a custom circuit board that can exactly mimic the behavior of a video game controller. TASBot can play games on real video game consoles with superhuman abilities, usually leading to game breaking glitches in front of live audiences.
by FarMcKon | 2025-10-01 16:42:08+00:00
This is a false dichotomy presented to people. By framing this as 'Giant government, or giant business?" you are going to get crap answers.

None of these are one size fits all solutions, and there should be a mix. We have a working patch-work of laws in physical space, for a reason. It allow flexibility, and adjustments as we go, as the world changes. We should extended that to virtual space as well.

Age / Content Labeling and opt-in/ opt-out for some content. Outright ban on other kinds of content. A similar "I sue when you abuse my content" for copyright, impersonation, etc.

One size does not fit all, and is not how the real world works. Online shouldn't work much differently.
Show HN: Spit Notes – A songwriting app that keeps lyrics and audio together
by mcadenhe | 2025-10-01 16:42:23+00:00
Any songwriter who uses the iOS Notes app to write their lyrics has a mess of New Recording 142 voice memos in their Voice Memos app. I made Spit Notes as basically the Notes app but with a built-in voice recorder that keeps your audio files neatly organized on the same line as your lyrics. Now you can quickly capture your song ideas while driving or when you wake up in the middle of the night without worrying about losing them in your pile of untitled voice memos.

While you can attach audio to notes with other apps, adding and recording audio has a lot of friction, and often the layout of the audio elements in those apps are too pronounced to keep the text flowing seamlessly. This is not the case with Spit Notes.

I've wanted this app to exist for years but I put off making it myself because I knew it would take me a lot of time to build manually without knowing Swift. In recent years I've been writing AI-assisted code, but with AI coding agents getting better and better, 3 months ago I decided to see if I could vibe code a full product.

The code for this project was not AI-assisted, but human-assisted, with me providing the vision and feel of the app, while the AI agent takes that, makes a pass at the code base, and then I QA it, letting the AI know what worked/didn't work, and iterating.

I started with paying for Cursor and using Opus 4 but after getting insanely good initial results with Opus 4 and seeing my cursor costs start to rise, I remembered this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44167412 and took the plunge with Claude Code max $200 plan. This turned out to be an incredible value because it allowed me to use claude basically without limit. However, Gemini still had the biggest context window and as the project grew I had to use Gemini to create plans for big features and find deep bugs across all of the AI-generated modules.

Pro tip: create broad reference files for you and the AI, like an ARCHITECTURE.md where you keep a human-readable version of the technical big picture. You can then reference that for the AI so it stays aligned with your current progression.

Once the Codex CLI became available on homebrew it was a wrap. I cancelled my claude code max plan and have been happily coding without ever hitting any rate limits (other than when they made that update that accidentally reduced rate limits instead of increase them). Today, I pay for for chatgpt plus and gemini $20 plan and am able to clear most obstacles on the first or second prompt. I haven't tried opus 4.5 but since I am not really getting stuck with codex, for now I'll stick with that.
by tptacek | 2025-10-01 16:42:43+00:00
That's a Manichean perspective that probably applies in a lot of workplaces, but definitely doesn't uniformly apply to competitive software jobs. In a competitive software shop, your employer is probably motivated more by retention, churn, and motivation concerns than they are over whether they can hold on to the extra comp money it would cost to raise your level. Losing a performing developer is very expensive.

I don't doubt at all that a lot of software developers have had the experience you describe, but when you describe it as intrinsic to the economics of commercial software development, I think you're bound to end up in some weird places.
by noahbrier | 2025-10-01 16:42:44+00:00
I'm trying to engage with you on this, but I'm really not sure what you're getting at. You originally stated "I think the essential job of marketing is to help people make the connection between their problems and your solutions. Putting all on them in a kind of blamey way doesn't seem like a great approach to me."

I agree that's the job of marketing, but I'm not someone who markets AI, I'm someone who helps large marketing organizations use it effectively. I agree that if my goal was to market it that wouldn't be an effective message, but my goal is for folks who work in these companies to take some accountability for their own personal development, so that's my message. Again, all I can do is be honest about how I feel and to be consistent in my beliefs and experiences working with these kinds of organizations.
by card_zero | 2025-10-01 16:42:56+00:00
Well, I'm an artist, but I don't insist that I can visualise things vividly, whatever that really means.

I'm looking at the brain scans in the article now. It's good that it's got 'em. Do they really mean what they're presented as meaning? It shows that some people, when told to imagine things, activate a bunch of brain regions. Some of those are also involved in actual looking, though not with clear purposes. Then there's also areas to do with memory and salience. I'll say that the people in this group are having a more emotional experience when they imagine. They give more of a shit, they pay more attention. I'm not sure that this qualifies as a skill, or an ability, or "seeing". But heck, what's seeing anyway?
by clickety_clack | 2025-10-01 16:43:02+00:00
I totally agree on point 1. Being able to make piece wise, limited updates with AI was a sweet spot, but they keep pushing towards “ai changes hundreds of lines across dozens of files” type edits. I bought into cursor heavily from the off, and I’ve seen it create auth bypasses, duplicate component libraries and break ORM models. I know what I want to do, I just want it to happen faster and in a way I can control and direct, and that’s not the direction cursor seems to to be going.

I’ve actually gone back to neovim, copying in snippets from ChatGPT. I don’t think I’ve given up anything in speed.
by gsf_emergency_2 | 2025-10-01 16:43:02+00:00
Had Archimedes lived to teach the Romans his calculus we might have reached Mars by 500 AD

https://youtu.be/h0gPomI3h8o

that's not from hesitation. And one can only call the Syracuse invasion an inefficiency in hindsight.

The immediate opportunity of a ~million Roman lives compared to other hypothetical opportunities

(One might guess that opportunities of the win-win type weren't covered by Munger's model)
by furyofantares | 2025-10-01 16:43:11+00:00
This is an "all lives matter" flavor of comment. Discussing difficulties that autistic folks often have, which are usually exacerbated by autistic traits and struggles but not caused by autism, does not mean nobody else has those troubles.

But it's common and extremely frustrating for anyone neurodivergent to be told "but everyone feels that way" whenever they discuss any of their issues.
by sokoloff | 2025-10-01 16:43:23+00:00
Similar to the author’s cases: I’ve sat through several presentations of small teams who worked for 6-10 weeks to create a web app that does something (the details vary slightly from case to case) where at the end of the presentation, my first thought is “what a waste of effort and money; that would have taken 2-4 hours if they’d just used a spreadsheet”.
by bayesnet | 2025-10-01 16:43:49+00:00
In college, I worked for a small team in a large organization that used SAP. My team tracked everything in an Excel dashboard, and I was tasked with automating data ingestion from SAP into Excel. The only tool I had available was the SAP GUI input emulation API for VBA. It was extraordinarily painful to set up and would break every time the SAP team would change the GUI to add or remove a button. Lots of fun.
by grayhatter | 2025-10-01 16:43:57+00:00
> I think yeah the language has gotten very ambiguous and the "spectrum" is so wide and ill-defined that we need more and better words, but, I do also feel like it isn't just everyone's shared experience.

We used to have other words. Asperger's used to be a separate condition but was merged into one diagnosis. I wonder if there was a reason the experts who study this decided to go with fewer words?

Have you tried adding additional adjectives? That's usually what I do when the word I want is too general, and isn't as specific as I want to be.