March 2023
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March 31, 2023
Show HN: StratusGFX, my open-source real-time 3D rendering engine
457 by ktstephano | 78 comments on Hacker News.
It's been closed source for a long time while I worked on it on and off as a hobby research project, but yesterday the repo was made public for the first time under the MPL 2.0 license. A feature reel showing its capabilities can be found here: https://ift.tt/1MTOItN... A technical breakdown of a single frame can be found here: https://ift.tt/4Hd6OQB... It's still in a very beta state (bugs and instability expected), but I felt like it was a good time to make it public since a lot of its core features are mostly presentable. I plan to continue working on it in my spare time to try and improve the usability of the code. Two main use cases I could see for it: 1) People using it for educational purposes. 2) People integrating it into other more general purpose engines that they're working on since Stratus is primarily a rendering engine. Any extensions to the rendering code that are made public would then further help others. So I think it will remain very niche but I'm hoping it will still be helpful for people in the future.

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March 29, 2023
Launch HN: Play.ht (YC W23) – Generate and clone voices from 20 seconds of audio
449 by hammadh | 455 comments on Hacker News.
Hey HN, we are Mahmoud and Hammad, co-founders of Play.ht, a text-to-speech synthesis platform. We're building Large Language Speech Models across all languages with a focus on voice expressiveness and control. Today, we are excited to share beta access to our latest model, Parrot, that is capable of cloning any voice with a few seconds of audio and generating expressive speech from text. You can try it out here: https://ift.tt/h5PDZxk . And there are demo videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL_hmxTLHiM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdEEoODd6Kk . The model also captures accents well and is able to speak in all English accents. Even more interesting, it can make non-English speakers speak English while preserving their original accent. Just upload a non-English speaker clip and try it yourself. Existing text to speech models either lack expressiveness, control or directability of the voice. For example, making a voice speak in a specific way, or emphasizing on a certain word or parts of the speech. Our goal is to solve these across all languages. Since the voices are built on LLMs they are able to express emotions based on the context of the text. Our previous speech model, Peregrine, which we released last September, is able to laugh, scream and express other emotions: https://ift.tt/cQfb6NR... . We posted it to HN here: https://ift.tt/RPbd2u3 . With Parrot, we've taken a slightly different approach and trained it on a much larger data set. Both Parrot and Peregrine only speak English at the moment but we are working on other languages and are seeing impressive early results that we plan to share soon. Content creators of all kinds (gaming, media production, elearning) spend a lot of time and effort recording and editing high-quality audio. We solve that and make it as simple as writing and editing text. Our users range from individual creators looking to voice their videos, podcasts, etc to teams at various companies creating dynamic audio content. We initially built this product for ourselves to listen to books and articles online and then found the quality of TTS is very low, so we started working on this product until, eventually we trained our own models and built a business around it. There are many robotic TTS services out there, but ours allows people to generate truly human-level expressive speech and allows anyone to clone voices instantly with strong resemblance. We initially used existing TTS models and APIs but when we started talking to our customers in gaming, media production, and others, people didn't like the monotone robotic TTS style. So we doubled down in training a new model based on the new emerging architectures using transformers and self supervised learning. On our platform, we offer two types of voice cloning: high-fidelity and zero-shot. High-fidelity voice cloning requires around 20 minutes of audio data and creates an expressive voice that is more robust and captures the accent of the target voice with all its nuances. Zero-shot clones the voice with only a few seconds of audio and captures most of the accent and tone, but isn’t as nuanced because it has less data to work with. We also offer a diverse library of over a hundred voices for various use cases. We offer two ways to use these models on the platform: (1) our text to voice editor, that allows users to create and manage their audio files in projects, etc.; and (2) our API - https://ift.tt/temPnWa . The API supports streaming and polling and we are working on reducing the latency to make it real time. We have a free plan and transparent pricing available for anyone to upgrade. We are thrilled to be sharing our new model, and look forward to feedback!

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March 27, 2023
Show HN: Apple Notes Liberator – Extract Notes.app Data and Save It as JSON
527 by kello | 95 comments on Hacker News.
Hey there! I just released the first version of a project I’ve been working on solves a very specific problem that perhaps only I have. I welcome any and all feedback, even if you just want to drop in to say that this is a hot piece of garbage!

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March 27, 2023
Ask HN: How are you using GPT to be productive?
579 by yosito | 703 comments on Hacker News.
With GPT so hot in the news right now, and seeing lots of impressive demos, I'm curious to know, how are you actively using GPT to be productive in your daily workflow? And what tools are you using in tandem with GPT to make it more effective? Have you written your own tools, or do you use it in tandem with third party tools? I'd be particularly interested to hear how you use GPT to write or correct code beyond Copilot or asking ChatGPT about code in chat format. But I'm also interested in hearing about useful prompts that you use to increase your productivity.

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March 15, 2023
Launch HN: Pynecone (YC W23) – Web Apps in Pure Python
532 by picklelo | 310 comments on Hacker News.
Hi! We’re Nikhil and Alek, founders of Pynecone ( https://pynecone.io ), an open source framework to build web apps in pure Python. This can be anything from a small data science/internal app to a large multi-page web app. Once your app is built, you can deploy your app with a single command to our hosting service (coming soon!), or self-host with your preferred provider. Our Github is: https://ift.tt/2is05Ly Python is one of the most popular programming languages in the world. Webdev is one of the most popular applications of programming. So why can’t we make full-stack web apps using just Python? We worked in the AI/infra space and saw that even skilled engineers who wanted to make web apps but didn’t know traditional frontend tools like Javascript or React found it overwhelming and time consuming to learn. On the other hand, no code and low code solutions that save time in the development process lack the flexibility and robustness of traditional web development. These tools are great for prototyping, but they can be limiting as your app becomes more complex. We wanted to build a framework that is easy to get started with, yet flexible and powerful enough so you don’t outgrow it. Our main website is fully built with Pynecone and deployed on our hosting service. In Pynecone, the frontend compiles down to a React/NextJS app, so from the end-user’s perspective it looks like any other website. We have 60+ built-in components ranging from forms to graphing. Components are defined as Python functions. They can be nested within each other for flexible layouts, and you can use keyword args to style them with full CSS. We also provide a way to easily wrap any existing React component. Our goal is to leverage the existing webdev ecosystem and make it accessible to Python devs. The app state is just a class. State updates are functions in the class. And the UI is a reflection of the state. When the user opens the app, they are given a unique token and a new instance of the state. We store user state on the backend, and use Websockets to send events and state updates. When a user performs an action, such as clicking a button, an event is sent to the server with the client token and the function to handle the event. On the server side, we retrieve the user's state, execute the function to update the state, then send the updated state back to the frontend for rendering. Since Pynecone is 100% Python, you can easily integrate all your existing Python libraries into your app. In the future, we hope to leverage WebAssembly to offload many operations to the client. Once your app is built, the next big challenge is deploying it. We’re building a single-line deploy, so you can type pc deploy and get a URL of your live app in minutes. Since we specialize in hosting a single type of app, we aim to provide a zero configuration deployment process. We are still working on releasing the hosting service, but you can sign up for its waitlist on our homepage. Alternatively, you can choose to host your app with your preferred cloud provider. Things users have built with Pynecone so far include internal apps ranging from CRM to ML tools, UIs for LLM apps, landing pages, and personal websites. If you use Python, we would love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments!

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March 13, 2023
Launch HN: Electric Air (YC W23) – Heat pump sold directly to homeowners
571 by cmui | 527 comments on Hacker News.
Hi HN! I’m Chris Mui, founder of Electric Air ( https://electricair.io ). We’re building a residential heat pump system. This will be an all-electric replacement for your home’s furnace and air conditioner that enables more centrally ducted installs, manages your indoor air quality, and saves you money on monthly energy bills. We also streamline purchase, finance and install by selling directly to homeowners. You can place a preorder today at https://electricair.io . Heat pumps work by using refrigerant and a compressor to move energy against a temperature gradient. If you put 1 kWh of energy into a heat pump, you get 3-5 kWh of heating in your home. But this isn’t breaking the laws of physics because heat pumps don’t make heat, they move it around. The extra 2-4kWh gets absorbed from the outdoors, even when it is cold outside. The low pressure refrigerant in the outdoor heat exchanger is colder than the outdoor air, so it has to absorb energy. After the compressor the refrigerant in the indoor heat exchanger is hotter than the indoor air, and energy flows into your home. This happens in a continuous cycle. A great feature in this system is a reversing valve that allows the flow of refrigerant to be flipped and your heat pump becomes an air conditioner. There’s a big push to end fossil fuel use in US homes by electrifying all end-uses, and heat pumps are a critical part of this. Space heating is 50% of the average homeowners energy consumption, and makes up 10% of overall US energy use. Recognizing the importance of heat pump adoption, the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act contains $4.3B in heat pump rebates for low and middle income families, and a $2000 tax credit that applies to everyone. Heat pumps can also save homeowners on their monthly utility bills vs. heating with natural gas, propane, fuel oil, and electric resistance. And thanks to the popularity of vapor injection systems, heat pumps now work well even in the cold climates of the Northeast. Quick technical aside on vapor injection systems - this is an improvement to the basic vapor compression cycle. Gas from the condenser outlet is injected halfway into the compression process. This increases the compressor efficiency, increases the mass flow rate of refrigerant through the compressor, and also lowers the discharge temperature. The result is higher system efficiency, higher heating capacity, and the ability to operate across large temperature gradients (say -15F outside temp to 72F in your home) without exceeding the discharge temperature limit and damaging the compressor. I’ve spent my career building and designing thermal systems—first in aerospace, then at Tesla working on Model 3 and Semi Truck, and most recently in vertical farming. I got really excited about residential heat pumps when I realized that we’re about to go through a huge transition where the 80M single family homes in the US replace their furnaces with heat pumps. But the products on the market today have a number of shortcomings. The homeowner experience sucks because the integration of thermostat, heat pump equipment and air quality systems is terrible. Nothing works together well, and the best thermostats are not fully compatible with inverter driven heat pumps. In addition the process of getting a heat pump is painful, including finding a trustworthy contractor, sorting out financing, and wading through rebates. And finally contractors struggle with installs because of the difficulty of properly sizing the system, and understanding if your duct work is compatible with a heat pump I wanted to approach home heating and cooling from a product design approach, improve the end-to-end experience for homeowners and make a product that was compelling beyond its climate motivations. Electric Air is building a thermostat as well as heat pump equipment (air handler and condenser) and a contractor web-app. Better air quality is achieved through a thermostat with PM2.5 and CO2 sensors, as well as an air quality module on the air handler that controls HEPA filtration, fresh air intake and modification of the home’s humidity. The thermostat algorithm combines demand-response with weather and time-of-use rate plans to reduce monthly utility bills through pre-cooling and pre-heating. Unlike a Nest or Ecobee, the thermostat will be able to run the heat pump in variable speed mode. A more powerful air handler blower and contractor software enables more ducted installs - no wall units required. The most common heating system in the US is a natural gas furnace connected to ductwork, with the hot air ultimately coming out of vents in each room. This heat pump is a great replacement for the furnace and air conditioner in these ducted systems. The same software used for ducts also helps contractors perform simple load disaggregation (turn a utility bill into a thermal load calculation) to properly size a heat pump system. In addition there’s actually some industrial design going into the outdoor condenser, meaning you don’t have to hide it in an alley. And finally homeowners can purchase this system online. We help with financing and rebates, and connect them with a contractor to do the actual install. How come no one’s doing this? Heat pump manufacturers are bad at making consumer products like thermostats and the thermostat manufacturers are IOT companies that don’t have the know-how to wade into heat pump equipment manufacture. For heat pump manufacturers, their end customer is largely HVAC contractors, and not homeowners. Also selling direct means disrupting their current distribution strategy which normally involves selling to regional distributors, and sometimes straight to contractors. Getting this right is a big systems integration problem that the current players are ill equipped to handle. While we don't have any physical prototypes at the moment, we have the industrial design and also largely understand how this will be built. The core technology risk is quite low, it's really about executing the scope well and also finding the right product that homeowners find compelling. I'm working on building traction via preorders ( https://electricair.io ), and will start building hardware once fundraising is complete, likely in the next few weeks. What issues have you had with your existing heat and cooling, and do you have any interesting stories around a heat pump install or use? I would love to hear your ideas, experiences, and feedback on any and all of the above!

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March 03, 2023
Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2023)
412 by whoishiring | 522 comments on Hacker News.
Please state the location and include REMOTE, INTERNS and/or VISA when that sort of candidate is welcome. When remote work is not an option, include ONSITE. Please only post if you personally are part of the hiring company—no recruiting firms or job boards. One post per company. If it isn't a household name, explain what your company does. Commenters: please don't reply to job posts to complain about something. It's off topic here. Readers: please only email if you are personally interested in the job. Searchers: try https://hnhired.fly.dev , https://ift.tt/2N60jXu , https://ift.tt/Q8cFpBW , https://ift.tt/EzM4Ac3 . Don't miss these other fine threads: Who wants to be hired? https://ift.tt/aOv1f5h Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? https://ift.tt/OQBTVIH

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