MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: What if your menu bar was a keyboard-controlled command center?
by pugdogdev | 2026-01-17 17:31:21+00:00
Hey Hacker News
The ones that know me here know that I am a productivity geek.

After DockFlow to manage my Dock and ExtraDock, which gives me more space to manage my apps and files, I decided to tackle the macOS big boss: the menu bar.

I spend ~40% of my day context-switching between apps — Zoom meetings,
Slack channels, Code projects, and Figma designs.
My macOS menu bar has too many useless icons I almost never use.

So I thought to myself, how can I use this area to improve my workflows?

Most solutions (Bartender, Ice) require screen recording permissions, and did not really solve my issues.
I wanted custom menus in the apps, not the ones that the developers decided for me.

After a few iterations and exploring different solutions, ExtraBar was created.
Instead of just hiding icons, what if the menu bar became a keyboard-controlled command center that has the actions I need?
No permissions. No telemetry. Just local actions.

This is ExtraBar: Set up the menu with the apps and actions YOU need, and use a hotkey to bring it up with full keyboard navigation built in.

What you can do:
- Jump into your next Zoom call with a keystroke
- Open specific Slack channels instantly (no menu clicking)
- Launch VS Code projects directly
- Trigger Apple Shortcuts workflows
- Integrate with Raycast for advanced automation
- Custom deep links to Figma, Spotify, or any URL

Real-world example: I've removed my menu bar icons. Everything is keyboard-
controlled: cmd+B → 2 (Zoom) → 4 (my personal meeting) → I'm in.

Why it's different: Bartender and Ice hide icons. ExtraBar uses your menu
bar to do things.
Bartender requires screen recording permissions.
Ice requires accessibility permissions. ExtraBar works offline with zero
permissions - (Enhance functionality with only accessibility permissions, not a must)

Technical:
- Written in SwiftUI; native on Apple Silicon and Intel
- Zero OS permissions required (optional accessibility for enhanced keyboard nav)
- All data stored locally (no cloud, no telemetry)
- Very Customizable with custom configuration built in for popular apps + fully customizable configuration actions.
- Import/export action configurations

The app is improving weekly based on community feedback.
We're also building configuration sharing so users can share setups.

Already got some great feedback from Reddit and Producthunt, and I can't wait to get yours!

Check out the website: https://extrabar.app
ProductHunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/extrabar
by westurner | 2026-01-17 17:31:26+00:00
Wren6991/PicoDVI commit history:
https://github.com/Wren6991/PicoDVI/commits/master/ :

> Add 720x480p 60Hz mode (270 MHz bit clock)

> RP2350 changes (including RISC-V)

From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41260679 :

> The new HSTX interface on the RP2350 seems to be squarely targeted at this use case (video output) and doesn't require the use of PIO or consuming a ton of CPU cycles. There's a nice write up on the capability here:
by impossiblefork | 2026-01-17 17:32:15+00:00
So, since there's a lot of talk like this, how are we leeches?

If anything, surely it's the Americans who are leeches, what with the fact that they're living off software exports and monopolies as opposed to production of actual useful goods?

Do you think we didn't invest in our defence? Here in Sweden we put in 5% of GDP until the Soviet Union dissolved. It was pro-US politicians like Carl Bildt, a man who associated with US intelligence, who reduced defence spending. We had nuclear weapons and refrained from assembling them on a US request in return for being under your nuclear umbrella.
by dataviz1000 | 2026-01-17 17:32:18+00:00
I was introduced to Maslow's hierarchy of needs 25 years ago around the same time I read about Pavlov's dogs.

The need to belong is extraordinarily motivating. It became obvious that the cults leveraged the need in the individual to belong to a group by accepting the person without judgement first rather than attacking the person they are trying bring into their group pushing them away.

The leaders who understand that are winning.
by bpodgursky | 2026-01-17 17:32:40+00:00
The EU has a huge strategic problem because they let their own defenses and industry rot for decades and can't functionally stand alone against Russia, US pressure, and Chinese economic infiltration / industrial replacement at the same time. At least, not without great sacrifices the population isn't willing to make, like pension reform.

So they are playing gentle with the US because it's the least bad choice right now.
by CzaxTanmay | 2026-01-17 17:32:42+00:00
By “ethical attack simulations,” I mean simulations intended for defensive security testing, education, and controlled lab environments (e.g. local machines, intentionally vulnerable targets, or systems you own or have permission to test). Cyber+ itself doesn’t try to enforce morality in code; instead, it focuses on transparency and explicitness so it’s clear what an action does. Like most security tooling, ethical use depends on authorization, scope, and intent rather than the language alone. I’m open to improving the wording if “ethical attack simulations” feels misleading or too vague.
Try Cyber+ out. I will be very happy if you'll help by giving me some syntax ideas.
by j45 | 2026-01-17 17:32:46+00:00
There are studies done that social media before 14 greatly increases depression in new ways.

And short form content physically shrinks the brain. Studies easily accessible.

Just because boomers are out of touch doesn't mean you or I default are in touch.

Boomer probably had the same deluded feeling of being better than the generations before them but likely lost something.

Since we're wanting to point fingers, why not point some fingers at the millenials who built the digital slot machines that the users today don't know they were curated to use.
by bootsmann | 2026-01-17 17:33:12+00:00
The problem is NATO, a lot of the EU is reluctant to push back because at the end of the day the US guarantees that Russia cannot pursue the type of landgrab it is currently trying to do in Ukraine against other states. The risk that the US runs into when trying to take Greenland is that this argument loses weight instantly, so the expectation is that the EU will be much more willing to use its anti coercion tools if Trump tries to make it a reality.
by Telaneo | 2026-01-17 17:33:12+00:00
> What happens if an octogenarian phones Geek Squad and says they're running Variant <X> of Linux?

Geek Squad: 'Sorry, we don't support that.'

Grandma: 'Well, what can you do to help me then?'

Geek Squad: 'We can set you up with a new computer. That'll be $Cost-of-new-computer plus $Cost-of-X-hours-of-setup.'

Grandma (possibility number 1): 'Alright, guess I don't have much choice, and you're the expert.'

Grandma (possibility number 2): 'No thanks. I'll use my phone instead.'
Looking for cofounder(s) in next‑gen memory (theory-driven and materials)
by feynman_quantum | 2026-01-17 17:33:21+00:00
Hi HN — completed a PhD and exploring a startup or lab-to-product path around next‑generation memory technologies and neuromorphic devices (compute‑in‑memory, memristive devices, analog/mixed-signal accelerators), with a strong emphasis on theory-driven materials discovery and device physics (modeling → candidate materials → prototype path).

Is anyone here looking for a cofounder in this space, or interested in exploring one of these directions together?

Technical cofounder: device physics, materials modeling/DFT/MD, compact models, TCAD, neuromorphic circuits, or EDA flows for emerging memories.

“Builders”: tapeout/ASIC, mixed-signal, test/characterization, firmware, or bringing-up lab hardware.

Business/product: deep-tech GTM, customer discovery in edge AI / datacenter / sensing, or grant+BD (SBIR/industry consortia).

What’s available:

Can share more details (problem framing, thesis/portfolio, candidate architectures, early experiments) over email/DM.

Open to remote at first; happy to do a structured work-trial (2–6 weeks) before committing to equity/scope.

If there’s a better venue than a standalone Ask HN post, pointers welcome (e.g., the recurring “Who’s Looking for Cofounders” thread, or YC’s cofounder matching).
by Terr_ | 2026-01-17 17:33:32+00:00
> > it includes workers with no path to citizenship

> You're still an immigrant even if you can't become a citizen.

Yes, like I said. My point is that these two scenarios are very different:

1. "I am +1 to the immigrant count because this is a great place for me and my family to live and I wish for us to move here permanently."

2. "I am +1 to the immigrant count temporarily because the wages here are so much more than I could earn at home, and I'm remitting that money back to my family who live somewhere else. As much as this is an opportunity for me, we could never move here because same wages would have my family homeless and starving, making this a terrible place to move permanently."

Both people are happily adding to the "immigrants inside" count, but they are very different judgements about the country.
by dtkav | 2026-01-17 17:33:52+00:00
Writing your own skill is actually a lot better for context efficiency.

Your skill will be tuned to your use case over time, so if there's something that you do a lot you can hide most of the back-and-forth behind the python script / cli tool.

You can even improve the skill by saying "I want to be more token efficient, please review our chat logs for usage of our skill and factor out common operations into new functions".

If anything context waste/rot comes from documentation of features that other people need but you don't. The skill should be a sharp knife, not a multi-tool.
by lanyard-textile | 2026-01-17 17:34:05+00:00
Denial: "These dependabot MRs aren't even fixing real security issues, these do not exist in the wild."

Bargaining: "Okay we'll fix them but we'll do it on a schedule, so that it doesn't interrupt sprints."

Anger: "Okay let's just yoink the package lock file how about that?"

Depression: [skip ci]

Acceptance: "So apparently copilot can do this..."
by Calavar | 2026-01-17 17:34:20+00:00
I don't think any oil execs are interested in this, just like they weren't interested in investing in Venezuela after Maduro's ouster (at least if you believe the Financial Times).

Rather these invasions appear to be the pet projects of neo-imperialist advisors in the government who see national growth as a zero sum game, a Starcraft-esque race for a finite set of resources where powerful countries can generate wealth only by using their power to steal from others. In Steven Miller's own words: "[The world] is governed by force, [is] governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time."
Show HN: HORenderer3: A C++ software renderer implementing OpenGL 3.3 pipeline
by zghdls | 2026-01-17 17:34:25+00:00
Hi everyone,

I wanted to share a personal project I've been working on: a GL-like 3D software renderer inspired by the OpenGL 3.3 Core Specification.

The main goal was to better understand GPU behavior and rendering pipelines by building a virtual GPU layer entirely in software. This includes VRAM-backed resource handling, pipeline state management, and shader execution flow.

The project also exposes an OpenGL-style API and driver layer based on the official OpenGL Registry headers, allowing rendering code to be written in a way that closely resembles OpenGL usage.

I'd really appreciate any feedback.
by pessimizer | 2026-01-17 17:34:43+00:00
Fox News has never cared about Greenland, and was energetically anti-Trump during the 2016 primary, most of his 1st term, during the Biden presidency, and during the 2024 primary. They're almost fully in the bag for him right now, but hate tariffs.

But even now, Fox News refused to sign on to the new Pentagon press pass requirements, and gave up their access.

Important things are going on. It's not good to mindlessly repeat tropes; we have to actually engage with the world as it is.
by cauch | 2026-01-17 17:34:57+00:00
The example I gave what about Adams being convinced to "know better" while it was clearly not true, which is to me a clue that when it comes to his view on society and business, which already looks pretty simplistic to me, the idea that he "knew better" is more probably the result of him thinking that and managing to convince others people who also like to see themselves as smarter than others.
by RicoElectrico | 2026-01-17 17:34:59+00:00
I'm pretty scared what userland piece of software will be re-written while ditching backwards compatibility and making the current body of support knowledge worthless. After all, we've replaced the display server (sort of), audio, init and service management, network commands (netplan) if not much more.

My bet would be on a rewrite of CUPS in Rust. Oh, your printer that worked for 20 years is now a useless brick? What a shame, at least now the printing subsystem is secure and blazing fast.
by bflesch | 2026-01-17 17:35:22+00:00
You talk about "market forces" and you don't seem to understand them at all.

"Confidentiality", "Integrity", and "Availability" are a foundational concept of security (the CIA triad).

For non-US citizens "Integrity" and "Confidentiality" have been compromised for a long time, but these things have no day-to-day impact. They are only relevant as kompromat material once you become powerful and they want you to act in US interests.

What's new are serious, escalating threats and actions against "Availability". This is the most important pillar of security, and a whole different beast. Microsoft has blocked email accounts of international court of justice due to political pressure. Buffoons in US tech leadership such as Cloudflare CEO feel so emboldened that they openly threaten to cut off Italy. After TV performances by Musk, Thiel, Tim Apple, Zucky and Bezos in favor of trump there is no doubt they would cut off another country as form of pressure - and if it is only for a week.

In this week, our markets would be offline and nonfunctional. The market has a very high incentive to untangle from this mess of shitty bootlickers and impulsive convicted criminals.

It will take some time, but the market forces are clearly following the new incentives.

What surprises me here on HN that people who are seemingly US tech workers are quite ignorant to how it feels to be on the receiving end of this totally reckless, unprompted and idiotic behavior.
by SilverElfin | 2026-01-17 17:36:00+00:00
This is written from a Canadian perspective, but even within America, there are good reasons to stop giving money to American tech companies and find alternatives. The founders and executives and investors of all of these companies have become wealthy and powerful. Now they are dismantling the country by funding a certain political group and looking the other way as that same group seeks to deport 100 million Americans (basically all non whites), invade allied nations, and terrorize people in the streets. There’s no escape from the reality that dollars given to American tech companies is dollars given to that same machine.
by constantcrying | 2026-01-17 17:36:52+00:00
An opioid addiction is no where close to dropping a hundred Euros a month on video games. I doubt that many people on here actually would want to ban adults from spending "too much" money on video games. And my comment is in response to the general sentiment that this represents some kind of "anti-consumer" behavior, when there is a large organic market for this and consumer actively want these features.

Personally I am very paternalistic and would support a total ban on these mechanics, together with legal limits of how much money people are allowed to spend on activities like these. Of course making any of these activities available to kids, should be banned as well. This is obviously an extremely unpopular position, since, as I said, consumers really enjoy these mechanics.
by overfeed | 2026-01-17 17:37:00+00:00
Han chauvinism is comparable to Manifest Destiny across multiple dimensions. AFAICT, both groups believe(d), despite initial conditions, their authority is pre-ordained and they are/were taking the nation to it's rightful place in the world/history. Other folk they encounter(ed) are bit-players and don't have the same rights, privileges, qualities or shared destiny.
by ASpring | 2026-01-17 17:37:17+00:00
People have been botting on Runescape since the early 2000s. Obviously not quite at the Claude level :). The botting forums were a group of very active and welcoming communities. This is actually what led me to Java programming and computer science more broadly--I wrote custom scripts for my characters.

I still have some parts of the old Rei-net forum archived on an external somewhere.
by grayhatter | 2026-01-17 17:37:45+00:00
> If this is intentional, to omit this entirely seems like it unnecessarily politicizes the issue rather than documenting the history of a person.

I feel as if you're trying to inject a political motivation when a simpler one is better. If something of little note is offensive to the person you're talking about, it's disrespectful to their humanity to mention it.

E.g. You would only mention someone was born, to parents who were avid members of the KKK, if and only if, their life story related in some way.

Otherwise you're trying to introduce some preexisting bias that doesn't belong. In this example, if this person left their community to fight racism. The information about the set of likes reasons they got involved, are worth the bias of introducing the assumptions you're reasonably allowed to make about their parents.

If they find that religion offensive, and spent their life exclusively on epidemiology, it's wrong to include that detail, true or not.

Then, do consider the "political" aspect, that has led to the deadname policy that Wikipedia has. Many people, who for their own cultural reasons, want to disrespect someone, will refuse to address or refer to some individual the way they want to be. That behavior is no different from calling some one fuckface, and refusing to address them differently. You've selected something they find offensive, in order to bully and harass them, needlessly. Given that toxic reality, for cases like this, it's better to defer to not mentioning the name they were given at birth, because that detail might be used against them. Again, there might be some stronger reason you would want to include it. But it's better to err on the side of respecting the individual.
by vosper | 2026-01-17 17:37:48+00:00
Passive house thinking comes from an era of peak oil concerns, no solar, and no heat pumps. None of those conditions holds anymore. Further, passive houses are notorious for overheating and because they’re so airtight they require expensive mechanical ventilation and make-up air systems unless you want indoor air pollution problems.

People building houses today are much better served by spending their money on solar + battery + heat pumps than going passive.
by eschu | 2026-01-17 17:37:51+00:00
I had to look into companion (discrete-time) models for simulating saturable inductors in real-time on FPGA at work.

The same week, a friend asked out of curiosity where the inductor equation came from.

It had been quite a while for me, so I found interesting to sit down and derive it from first principles (Maxwell's equations).

I needed to create a simple continuous nonlinear model anyway for validating the discrete models.
by notahacker | 2026-01-17 17:37:58+00:00
An ageing Biden and Dubya have also occupied that office and they don't exactly strike me as "master persuader" types either.

Nobody is accusing Trump of lacking ambition or charisma, and there's also no doubt the party machine that backed him is pretty sophisticated in the arts of political campaigning. But there's a difference between being a "master persuader" able to convince almost anyone of almost anything and being a shameless braggart in front of an electorate that's unusually impressed by a celebrity's overconfidence and wealth, and also being a lot less shameless about appealing to their chauvinistic attitudes than predecessors.
by laurencerowe | 2026-01-17 17:38:23+00:00
I think it is simply because in most of Europe air conditioning is unnecessary for comfort 95% of the year. Here in San Francisco most homes don't have air conditioning either, but there might be a week or two where it gets very hot and we just put up with the barbaric technological primitiveness.

Much of the US is extremely unpleasant without air-conditioning for a substantial portion of the year so of course everyone living in those parts installs it.
by cauch | 2026-01-17 17:38:47+00:00
Not sure this reality obvious analysis really helps. I've seen a lot of people thinking they are really smart for saying that everyone including them are idiots. Adams made a lot of declarations or actions that shows that he really thought of himself as "able to see what the idiot sheeple were not able to see", and this quote is not out of character at all: "you idiots don't even realise that everyone is an idiot including me".
Show HN: MindFry – A database engine that implements biological memory decay
by laphilosophia | 2026-01-17 17:38:48+00:00
MindFry is an open-source database that models organic memory behavior:
- Data decays over time when not accessed
- Reading data strengthens it (observer effect)
- Connections can amplify or suppress each other
- System "mood" affects accessibility thresholds

Written in Rust. TypeScript SDK available. Docker ready.

Use cases: AI agent memory, game NPCs, computational neuroscience.

GitHub: https://github.com/laphilosophia/mindfry
Crates.io: https://crates.io/crates/mindfry

Feedback welcome. This is v1.6 — functional but experimental.
by mananaysiempre | 2026-01-17 17:39:12+00:00
Quitting Fairchild to make your own semiconductor manufacturer (twice), quitting Intel to make your own CPU manufacturer, etc. The point isn’t that people didn’t do it if brave/desperate enough, the point is that it wasn’t a Thing You Can Do in the collective consciousness. Also, relatedly, that the societal infrastructure to support(/profit from) this category of people wasn’t yet in place, so you needed to be wealthy or connected (even more so than now).
by picafrost | 2026-01-17 17:39:15+00:00
I find this narrative in some corners of American politics fascinating because of how completely it misunderstands US power.

Hegemony isn't charity. It's expensive. What the US gains is an invitation to exert power all over the world from bases and ports within countries playing a willing role in the US position. It gains the US dollar as the reserve currency and petro-currency of the world. In particular, without the world accepting the US dollar as the reserve currency, the US's ability to maintain a large budget deficit evaporates.

To gain this sort of power without invitation and strong alliances built on shared understanding and trust will cost the US much, much more in the longer term.
by b00ty4breakfast | 2026-01-17 17:39:35+00:00
Novelty can increase enjoyment which can imply that the activity is "fun" (though not all enjoyable activities can be categorized as "fun").

However, using the context clues, I surmised that the original poster, that is the one who enjoys seeing emojis being used as bullet points in literature produced by his colleague, finds this to be "fun".

Is that pedantic enough? AM I GOOD ENOUGH???? WILL YOU LOVE ME NOW DADDY?
by thatguy0900 | 2026-01-17 17:40:20+00:00
I think a lot of those old central heat systems you couldn't actually control the heat, being able to lose a lot of heat to the window if you wanted was probably a feature. I was watching a video on old soviet blocks in cold areas and it sounded like it really sucked to live too close to the central heater and have to deal with super hot houses