MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
Show HN: Satellite imagery object detection using text prompts
by eyasu6464 | 2026-03-09 07:52:33+00:00
I built a browser-based tool for detecting objects in satellite imagery using vision-language models (VLMs). You draw a polygon on the map and enter a text prompt such as "swimming pools", "oil tanks", or "buses". The system scans the selected area tile-by-tile and returns detections projected back onto the map as GeoJSON.

Pipeline: select area and zoom level, split the region into mercantile tiles, run each tile with the prompt through a VLM, convert predicted bounding boxes to geographic coordinates (WGS84), and render the results back on the map.

It works reasonably well for distinct structures in a zero-shot setting. occluded objects are still better handled by specialized detectors like YOLO models.

There is a public demo and no login required. I am mainly interested in feedback on detection quality, performance tradeoffs between VLMs and specialized detectors, and potential real-world use cases.
by edf13 | 2026-03-09 07:54:00+00:00
Building grith — OS-level syscall interception for AI coding agents.

The problem: every agent (Cline, Aider, Codex, Claude Code) has unrestricted access to your filesystem, shell, and network. When they process untrusted content — a cloned repo, a dependency README — they’re prompt injection vectors with full machine access. No existing tool evaluates what the agent actually does at the syscall level.

grith wraps any CLI agent without modification. OS-level interception captures every file open, network call, and process spawn, then runs it through 17 independent security filters in parallel across three phases (~15ms total). Composite score routes each call: auto-allow, auto-deny, or queue for async review. Most will auto approve - which eliminates approval fatigue.

Also does per-session cost tracking and audit trails as a side effect of intercepting everything.

https://grith.ai
by agile-gift0262 | 2026-03-09 07:55:28+00:00
did you try with the recommended settings? the ones for thinking mode, general tasks, really worked for me. Especially the repetition_penalty. At first it wasn't working very well, and it was because I was using OpenWebUI's "Repeat Penalty" field, and that didn't work. I needed to set a custom field with the exact name
by FiniteIntegral | 2026-03-09 07:55:39+00:00
It's not that things get more expensive as they get smaller. As long as you're within reasonable tolerances it can be more cost effective. There is very little reason in a consumer-grade product, especially a devboard, to push any major fabs' tolerances. SMD components are grain-sized and you can make traces pretty thin.

For example, this project is a 2-layer PCB. Those are bog standard. With this small of a footprint it can be printed on a single surface and cut out. The schematic they posted keeps everything on a single surface for print. This is also an operation any fab can easily perform. If you order from China, even cheaper (even accounting for duty cost + S&H).

I'd be more concerned about the MCU and the components rather than the cost of a custom PCB.
by pjmlp | 2026-03-09 07:55:52+00:00
I already given up on dual booting around 2010.

The only difference bettween 2010 and 2026, it that nowaday instead of having a mix of Virtual Box/VMWare Workstation depending on my work system, I have WSL 2.

However my Windows develoepr experience goes back to Windows 3.1, thus I mix and match my needs, between Windows and Linux sides.

WSL 2.0, and Virtualisation Framework are really the Year of Linux Desktop. /s
by Intermernet | 2026-03-09 07:56:01+00:00
As someone who has done physical work at the sites of Australian diesel reserves, they aren't designed to last that long.

I do still feel we're better off than most. We can actually offset the price of fuel by reducing the government excise, and even subsidising it. We've done it before. 2 gulf wars, a global oil crisis, general middle east chaos? Australia has typically done better than most.

Would still be good if we had an actual sovereign mineral fund and hadn't sold our gas rights to everyone else, but I suppose we have to live with the stupid shit the previous governments have done.
Show HN: Word Clouds as an LLM Tool – MCP/REST API
by osherse | 2026-03-09 07:56:41+00:00
I wanted to be able to ask an LLM to “create a word cloud on [topic]” — LLMs are great at research, less great at layout.

So I built a purpose-built layout engine. It runs in the browser, and I’ve also wrapped it in a small Go/Fiber server using @napi-rs/canvas to expose it as an MCP server and REST API — so any LLM tool can call it directly.

Instructions are at https://word-cloud.net/ai.html

Feedback welcome at https://github.com/pilotso11/word-cloud-net/
by FrozenSynapse | 2026-03-09 07:57:35+00:00
Gemini can watch youtube videos.

In this video, Tech Tangents reviews the Andonstar AD246S-P digital microscope and uses it to achieve a "world's first" by capturing clear images of video data and text directly from the surface of LaserDiscs and CEDs (Capacitance Electronic Discs).

Microscope Overview and Setup
Purpose: The creator purchased the microscope specifically to document the microscopic structures of obsolete media like CEDs for the public domain [00:14].

Features: It features a 1080p sensor, HDMI output, and a flip-down display [02:41]. He notes the importance of the included remote control to prevent camera shake at high magnification [04:10].

Build Quality: He highlights thoughtful design choices, such as captive plastic inserts in the screws to prevent them from biting directly into the metal support tubes [05:51].

Initial Testing and Performance
Coins and Wafers: The microscope provides impressive clarity when viewing historical coins and silicon wafers, where individual dies and traces are easily visible [11:30].

Magnification Concerns: He expresses skepticism regarding the "ridiculous magnification claims" often found on these products, finding that the high-magnification lens can sometimes be hazy [13:07].

Visualizing Video Data on Physical Media
The core of the video focuses on using light refraction (diffraction grading) to see the physical encoding of video signals.

LaserDisc (CAV): Using a "The Mind's Eye" LaserDisc, he successfully identifies horizontal blanking pulses and color bursts in the disc's pits and lands [16:27].

Reading Text on a LaserDisc: In a major breakthrough, he discovers that by positioning a flashlight at a specific angle, he can actually read the end-credit text (e.g., the word "Keyboard") directly off the disc surface [22:54].

CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc): He examines a damaged CED of the movie True Grit. He manages to capture a remarkably clear image of the film's credits etched into the disc's microscopic grooves [25:57].

Additional Observations
Optical Media Tracks: The microscope is used to visualize the distinct data sessions and track separators on a CD and a CDRW [27:00].

Smartphone Sub-pixels: A close-up of a Samsung S24 Ultra display reveals the sub-pixel arrangement of its OLED screen [28:37].

Conclusion: The creator concludes that the Andonstar AD246S-P is highly effective for technical documentation and hobbyist use, especially given its ability to resolve the fine details of analog video media [28:57].
by joe_mamba | 2026-03-09 07:58:21+00:00
Yeah I dislike this disingenuous argument that "we're not in a recession because this random graph is up". More people can struggle to pay bills even if the DOW and S&P is up.

The economy != the stock market. I wish HN would get that, but since a lot of people here are millionaires they're way too out of touch.
by ulrikrasmussen | 2026-03-09 07:58:22+00:00
I highly doubt that. Monopolies do not tend to develop what is best for consumers, but what is best for their bottom lines.

It also depends on the criteria on which you judge it. I may be better in terms of compatibility because everything would be an expensive walled garden like Apple's. It would be worse in terms of choice because niche peripheral makers might not be able to enter the market at all. And it would certainly, almost guaranteed, be much much worse in terms of personal freedom because no-one would be allowed to modify any parts of any piece of software without some cryptographic hardware module stopping them. Imagine that situation, and then imagine how a government would use that to impose surveillance on all personal computing devices.
by paganel | 2026-03-09 07:58:23+00:00
Try to do your best and “invade” the still existing third spaces, no matter if that involves some extra money that otherwise you wouldn’t have spent. The best example for that are coffee shops, pick two or three of them and try to go there almost every day, by rotation, even for work (if during the week), or just for reading/browsing your phone. Be sure to bring your dog with you.

There are also parks, not sure if there are any of those in your general area, but make sure to make a routine out of walking your dog through them. Also make sure to sit on a bench for 5, 10, even 30 minutes, people-watching, even if it’s the middle of the day and work is waiting. Let it wait.
by nottorp | 2026-03-09 07:59:11+00:00
I'm never clear if this Ask HN is for posting about what you're messing with or for promoting organized projects that chase github stars or are commercial.

But anyway, I've started to learn Go. By doing a vertical scrolling shooter with embiten. No, it's not public and will probably never be.

Studying how do do a memory pool for actors, since it doesn't look like garbage collection and hundreds of short lived bullet objects will mix well.
by hinkley | 2026-03-09 08:00:35+00:00
On the Reddit thread it was said that underwood hasn’t quite exactly nailed the, I guess viscosity because “consistency” has other connotations and if anything they seem to be more consistent.

I love that they had to buy chilis on the open market because their supplier fired the customer. Mostly because I’ve hardly ever gotten to fire a customer. Even when they really should have.
by Mackser | 2026-03-09 08:00:53+00:00
Cakedesk: Fast & simple invoicing app for small businesses (Windows & Mac).

Been working on this for about 4 years. It has some cool features, like letting you create your own PDF templates with HTML/CSS. Most users love that it's so simple and just a one-time purchase.

Currently thinking about how to implement an Obsidian-style cloud sync feature since that gets requested a lot.

https://cakedesk.app
by hasukimchi | 2026-03-09 08:01:43+00:00
I am working on two small apps for my dungeons & dragons group.
We're playing inperson and I really like to give them printed out cards for magic items they receive and also for spells, because they are quite new to the game.

So I build these two app to create items and spell cards and print them out.

https://www.item-forge.org/

https://www.spell-forge.org/
by nephihaha | 2026-03-09 08:01:47+00:00
Within volunteering, I think it is worth shopping around. Some organisations do not treat volunteers well, and some are great social experiences.

I would try and get something where you can see the results in front of you. I worked years ago at a soup kitchen for the elderly and felt much better for it, than working in a charity shop on a till and feeling like I was just a worker unpaid.
by qnleigh | 2026-03-09 08:01:56+00:00
> If you decline the new contract, you're entirely welcome to continue on the old T&C.

I think the point of contention here is that in practice, there is no way to continue on the old terms of service/contract. Suppose you're using a note taking app, and one day they update their terms of service to say that they can use your notes to train their AI. "Continued use implies consent," so you are locked into the new terms of service unless you stop using the app right then and there. You are not afforded the opportunity to decline the new terms of service and continue on the old ones.
by rob74 | 2026-03-09 08:02:43+00:00
I can't read the article because of the paywall (signup-wall?), but I can think of at least one (more?) reason for this state of affairs: in animation, at least some of the films still have original ideas. Whereas live-action movies designed with mass appeal in mind are mostly continuations or reboots of long-established (and tired) franchises (MCU/DC Comics, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Star Wars, Mission Impossible, Jurassic Park etc. etc.), or adaptations of video games, musicals or (if you're lucky) books.
by shakna | 2026-03-09 08:03:09+00:00
Clauses existing, have very little to do with it being enforceable.

Vader might say he can change the deal at any point, but consumer law generally requires that what is purchased reflects what is advertised.

If you don't agree to a new set of terms, because the service is changed from what you purchased, then both parties generally should still be party to the previous.

Notification alone, is not enough. Agreement is required.
by fc417fc802 | 2026-03-09 08:03:42+00:00
We were never making an exact comparison though. The point you've been arguing against (unless I misunderstand) is that creatures such as birds and fish have some special hardcoded behavior that the rest of us don't. I don't think spacing the humans out a bit more is going to solve the problem here; the aircraft example makes that point nicely.

In fact even your objection about visible gaps serves as a case in point. A flock of hundreds of thousands of starlings somehow avoids such dangerous densities even in the face of transient "pressure" waves traveling through it. Meanwhile human groups appear to willingly form such densities without thinking twice. Sounds like a hardcoded behavior to me.

If you really want an example with more density then consider schools of fish. Of course unlike birds it's not so easy for most people to observe fish. I don't actually know for certain that they never collide or get injured by being crushed. I seriously doubt it though.
by cl42 | 2026-03-09 08:04:20+00:00
I'm building AthenaOS: https://athena-os.ai/

Basically OpenClaw but with investing dashboards for my portfolio, additional tools specifically for investing, and exploring an AI-Human collaboration on researching economics (check the 'community' tab).

The data models are all in markdown and Excel so that there's no lockin and you can manually edit positions, personalities, etc.

This comes from frustration around most investing tools basically scraping your personal data + forcing you to lock into subscriptions. I think it's now possible to just vibe code most of what one needs, aside form raw data subscriptions.

It's all open source, too: https://github.com/wgryc/athena-os
by mpweiher | 2026-03-09 08:04:23+00:00
Good grief.

The exact opposite of what you write is true. Please inform yourself.

They are currently buying up all the nuclear they can get their hands on, reactivating shut down plants, investing both in startups and in existing players to build as much nuclear as they can:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2026/02/19/why-microsof...

https://neutronbytes.com/2025/11/20/terrapower-natrium-react...

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/google-to-fund-e...

https://www.ans.org/news/2025-12-10/article-7608/vc-summer-u...

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/palisades-receiv...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/westinghouse-and-f...

https://highlandscurrent.org/2026/03/07/lawler-announces-pla...
by ChadNauseam | 2026-03-09 08:04:38+00:00
You didn't mention parametric polymorphism, which is incredibly useful and important to the language. I'm guessing you intentionally excluded async, but to describe it as "not that useful" would just be wrong, there is a large class of programs that can be expressed very simply using async rust but would be very complicated to express in sync rust (assuming equivalent performance).
by mort96 | 2026-03-09 08:05:13+00:00
Why would terraform leave transitive steps around? To my knowledge, Docker doesn't record a log the IO syscalls performed by a RUN directive, the layer just reflects the actual changes it makes. It uses overlayfs, doesn't it? If you create a temporary file and then delete it within the same layer, there's no trace that the temporary file ever existed in overlayfs, correct?

I'd get your worry if we were talking about splitting up a terraform config and running it across multiple RUN directives, but we're not, are we?
by BlackFly | 2026-03-09 08:06:11+00:00
My personal preference is for laws that promote reasonable limits on "Standard terms and conditions" and then recognizing that nobody reads them and making them applicable regardless of whether people read them or not. Then companies can stop pretending like people are reading the standard terms and unfair terms are just unenforceable. This does require that your civil law defines what unfair terms look like (generally that they are too one sided in favor of the contractor or are surprising given the service provided).

Obviously, this doesn't exist in the USA but does exist in (for example) the Netherlands. I would recommend lobbying in your country for such laws since in practice the vast majority of contracts like these that people face aren't actually negotiated nor negotiable.
by dwedge | 2026-03-09 08:06:16+00:00
On a much smaller scale I did the same thing with a consulting contract. They sent it me and said to full in my own job description and "check the contract". The laziness annoyed me, so I altered the payment terms from 30 days to 7. Every month they paid after around 15 days and I let it go, but one month they hadn't paid after 31 days and I sent them an invoice for late payment for every single invoice to that date (only 4 or 5). I didn't think they'd pay it but they did
by Intermernet | 2026-03-09 08:07:04+00:00
Australia has fairly short fixed term mortgages. There are people who are barely recovering from covid effects on the interest rates. There are many who lost everything. Another bout of "high interest rates are a blunt instrument" could cause serious problems.

Note. This doesn't affect me, and I have strong opinions on the property market in Australia, but I'm pointing out that many people will go to the wall if interest rates are increased again,despite how much I think they may deserve it.
by ponyous | 2026-03-09 08:07:35+00:00
3D AI Modeling software intended for 3D printers.

https://grandpacad.com

Originally I made it for my grandpa, but I got a lot of interest so I made it into a full commercial product.

Just yesterday I published a set of 3 mini tutorials if you want to see how it works - https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKt1F5TvOjAHE07oBDlPXcrHc...
by elihu | 2026-03-09 08:07:59+00:00
Sure, that's basically just intonation (JI). You pick what key you want to play in and a scale, and then you build an instrument around that scale.

(Though something that happens in just intonation is that you often find out you need more notes than you might have originally thought, because JI makes distinctions between notes that are treated as the same in 12-TET. For instance, you might have 10/9 or 9/8 as your major second, or your minor seventh might be 9/5, 16/9, 7/4, or 12/7 depending on context.)

I don't think any just intonation guitar has been mass produced, but you can definitely build one or modify an existing guitar if you have the right tools and are willing to do a bunch of math and learn how to install frets.

This page is about a JI keyboard I built a while back, but there's also a few pictures of a couple old Harmony guitars I adapted to JI: https://jsnow.bootlegether.net/jik/keyboard.html

Here's a so-so performance of myself playing a Bach piece on a newer and vastly improved version of that just intonation keyboard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqbWnDhip0A

In 12-EDO the song has 11 distinct pitch classes. (Bach used the tritone, but not the minor second.) In my straightforward JI interpretation, I use 15 pitch classes. (I would have used 16, but my keyboard simply doesn't have a key for that note.)
by benvan | 2026-03-09 08:08:11+00:00
Nice project! I've been working on something very similar here https://github.com/max-hq/max

It works by schematising the upstream and making data locally synchronised + a common query language, so the longer term goals are more about avoiding API limits / escaping the confines of the MCP query feature set - i.e. token savings on reading data itself (in many cases, savings can be upwards of thousands of times fewer tokens)

Looking forward to trying this out!
by gerlv | 2026-03-09 08:08:58+00:00
Building DynoWizard [1] - tool for designing single table DynamoDB tables.

I first used DynamoDB 8 years ago and have been designing single-table schemas heavily since. For me, the best way to create drafts was always pen and paper (and then excel/confluence tables), but in reality it's a process (based on The DynamoDB Book) that can be automated to an extent.

Decided to build an app while on paternity leave. You define entities and access patterns, create (or get suggested) key and GSI design, and generate code for access patterns (TypeScript and Python), infrastructure (CDK, CloudFormation, Terraform), and documentation you can share with stakeholders.

There's more I want to build beyond the MVP - things around understanding and validating designs that you can't get from a chatbot - but for now focusing on the core.

If anyone wants to try it out, sign up for the waitlist on the landing page. MVP should be ready in the next few weeks.

[1] https://www.dynowizard.com
by czhu12 | 2026-03-09 08:09:39+00:00
I notice I’m a huge hypocrite in this area. I always complain to people that there are too many remakes but then given a line up of movies in theatres, I end up begrudging paying for the remake.

Sometimes due to peer pressure of the group I’m with, sometimes due to the fact that they’re guaranteed to be an okay time.

The most recent non remake I watched was hamnet, and basically the whole thing went over my head.
by carderne | 2026-03-09 08:10:18+00:00
There is sandbox-runtime [1] from Anthropic that uses bubblewrap to sandbox on Linux (and works the same as OP on macOS). You can look at the code to see how it uses it. Anthropic's tool only support read blacklist, not a whitelist, so I forked it yesterday to support that [2].

[1] https://github.com/anthropic-experimental/sandbox-runtime
[2] https://github.com/carderne/sandbox-runtime
by Dylan16807 | 2026-03-09 08:10:24+00:00
Even if a Chinese room isn't a real boy, if it can do basically all text tasks at a human level I'm going to say it's capable of thinking. The issue of "understanding" can be left for another day (not that I think the Chinese room is very convincing on that front either).

I see no reason to disqualify p-zombies from being AGI.
by Phlogistique | 2026-03-09 08:10:32+00:00
The point is authorization. With full web access, your agent can reach anything and leak anything.

You could restrict where it can go with domain allowlists but that has insufficient granularity. The same URL can serve a legitimate request or exfiltrate data depending on what's in the headers or payload: see https://embracethered.com/blog/posts/2025/claude-abusing-net...

So you need to restrict not only where the agent can reach, but what operations it can perform, with the host controlling credentials and parameters. That brings us to an MCP-like solution.
by lebuin | 2026-03-09 08:10:58+00:00
I'm building web-based CAD software for woodworkers. Not a plugin, I'm starting from scratch. I'm aiming for it to be intuitive for non-technical users (think SketchUp), while also offering some of the more powerful tools of "proper" CAD tailored for woodworking: simple parametric workflows, cutting layout optimization, built-in tools like chamfers and joints,...

https://maqet.app