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ctas

262 karma · joined November 3, 2018

Email: cihan@tas.fm YC Badge: 0xbb1b59eD2c9C0f921ed8313610C251766FE23c2e
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ctas··on Transcribe.cpp
Feel free to add @cihantas. I'm also developing my own Wayland DE, so hopefully I can give better feedback than just "it doesn't work". :-)
ctas··on Transcribe.cpp
Really appreciate your work.

Is there any way people can help? From your last sentence, it sounds like another PR isn't it and the opposite might be needed. But would love to contribute with testing if helpful. I'm regularly jumping between XFCE, KDE, GNOME, Niri, etc..

ctas··on Transcribe.cpp
I'm using Handy on macOS and love it. Unfortunately, hotkeys still doesn't seem to work on Wayland, which make it unusable.
ctas··on Show HN: Needle: We Distilled Gemini Tool Calling into a 26M Model
Can you also share the base model before fine-tuning on tool calls? Might be a great foundation for various fine-tuning jobs.
ctas··on Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep
Thank you. Not all parts are open-sourced yet. I published the first repo yesterday: https://github.com/cihantas/applib

Going to launch a few apps powered by AppLib in the next few weeks and then continue with the DE.

ctas··on Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep
I agree that displays and input changed. But if you think in fundamentals, like clarity, readability, affordances, you tend to arrive at the right answers anyway.

Those principles survived CRTs, TN panels, Retina, touch, trackpads. They’re not tied to a specific technology.

Can you give me an example of a change in todays UI that was motivated by change in display quality?

ctas··on Gershwin-desktop: OS X-like Desktop Environment based on GNUStep
I’m working on something similar for Linux. Would love to chat if this is interesting to you.

The idea is to bring the UX of OSX Snow Leopard back, adjusted for today’s possibilities (better developer experience, AI, etc.). I’m developing a DE, SwiftUI/AppKit-equivalent, and a bunch of reference apps I‘m personally missing in terms of quality (e.g. Raycast/Spotlight, Mail).

ctas··on Evaluating the Infinity Cache in AMD Strix Halo
Can you share a bit more on the small LLMs you've trained? I'm interested in the applicability of current consumer hardware for local training and finetuning.
ctas··on AMD signs AI chip-supply deal with OpenAI, gives it option to take a 10% stake
Are consumer cards also benefiting from the improvements or only datacenters?
ctas··on Google AI Overview made up an elaborate story about me
I've shared this example in another thread, but it fits here too. Few weeks ago, I talked to a small business owner who found out that Google's AI is telling users his company is a scam, based on totally unrelated information where a different, similarly named brand is mentioned.

We actually win customers who's primarily goal is getting AI to stop badmouthing them.

ctas··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)
The goal is not to use a similar tech stack e.g. GNUstep. Instead I'm focusing more on outcome - a desktop environment with a similar degree of polish and functionality without the need for third party tools.

To stay competitive and iterate fast I'm adding a high-level JS/CSS API on top of Wayland, think AppKit + SwiftUI. If you look over my shoulder it might look like I'm making a webapp, but on a custom browser.

ctas··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)
A desktop environment for Linux, visually inspired by OSX Snow Leopard with a touch of contemporary. Coming with compositor, apps like dock, finder, status bar, and a UI framework like AppKit. Scratching my own itch and would love to see if it can gain traction. Still in the early innings though.
ctas··on AI overviews cause massive drop in search clicks
We (Geostar.ai) work with many brands and companies that have experienced near-death situations caused by Google's AI Overviews. The negative impact this feature has had on people's livelihoods is heartbreaking to witness.

Just today, I met with a small business owner who showed me that AIO is warning users that his business is a scam, based on bogus evidence (some unrelated brands). It's a new level of bullshit. There's not much these businesses can do other than playing the new GEO game if they want to get traffic from Google.

Who knows if Google will even present any search results other than AIO a few years from now.

ctas··on Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (June 2025)
A desktop environment for Linux, inspired by macOS. Coming with compositor, apps like dock, finder, status bar, and a UI framework like AppKit.
ctas··on Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?
Would be interested to learn more about how and why this was coded in Common Lisp, in particular which value it provides specific to the problem being solved compared to other languages.
ctas··on Bluesky Exploits
Please take into account that Bluesky is still young and run by a small team which is moving fast. Ignoring a few reports that they consider non-critical is not a strong negative signal, especially not during a time of rapid growth and while they're in beta and invite-only. They just cracked the million users and are probably navigating through a lot of chaos on a daily basis. Those of us who've been in similar situations know that this is normal.
ctas··on An Internet of PHP
> Slack uses PHP for most of its server-side application logic […].

Slack migrated to Hacklang in 2016 [1].

[1] https://slack.engineering/hakana-taking-hack-seriously/ "We started migrating to a different language called Hack in 2016."

ctas··on Tell HN: Gmail rate limiting emails from AWS SES
Shameless plug: I've recently started my own transactional email service (https://www.markix.com), primarily targeting small senders, after having been a very happy Postmark customer for a long time. Our service is still in closed beta but delivering live emails.

I run a couple other businesses and moved all of my transactional email sending over to Markix.

Would love to have a chat with anyone that might be starting a new project and is open to try out a new mail service (mail in bio).

ctas··on Tell HN: Gmail rate limiting emails from AWS SES
Do you have a custom return-path configured? Using a custom return path might help, because it ties your reputation primarily to your domain.

ESPs check multiple factors. Both IP and domain reputation play a role. They will check your return path / envelope sender domain reputation and your IP. Your domain will start with it's own reputation, but can be boosted with a good IP reputation. But if your domain had bad sending behaviour in the past, that might be an issue.

Source: I'm running a transactional mail service that solely works with shared IPs: https://www.markix.com.

ctas··on Ask HN: Tell us about your project that's not done yet but you want feedback on
I'm building https://www.markix.com, a transactional email service that's meant to be boring and reliable.

At this stage, I'm primarily targeting small senders that need great reputation. There are no dedicated IPs. Emails are delivered from a pool of shared IPs that have great time-to-inbox and deliverability.

In contrast to other providers, I do not plan to support click and open tracking to protect recipients privacy. I'd appreciate feedback on that though.

Always happy to chat about email in general if there are any questions.

ctas··on Ask HN: I desperately want a solo business
Is the solo part non-negotiable or would you consider working as a duo? I started multiple businesses alone for the past 10 years with a few successes and even more failures. While I wouldn't want to grow too large as a team, it can be quite depressing at times and that one time I worked with someone else has been immensely rewarding (and the business was a success!). If you were both aligned on your goals, your partner could hold you accountable right now and propose ideas to work on.

> How do I get an idea to start?

I usually check marketplaces where businesses are sold. Not to acquire one, but to get an idea of what makes money. Then start assessing each business from your point of view: Is it easy to build a similar product? Do you have ideas for a improvement? Do you have a strategic advantage through your network or knowledge?

ctas··on Plane – Open-source Jira alternative
What are the unique features or approaches of Bugzilla compared to Jira? Before Jira was a thing, Redmine was (is?) very popular and often received better reviews than Bugzilla, so I was a bit surprised you mentioned Bugzilla.
ctas··on Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React
It's called Markix. There's currently no public website, because it's invite only, but if you're interested you can mail me at tas@markix.com.
ctas··on Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React
There's no one-size-fits-all-solution to ensuring good deliverability. Dedicated IPs are often (not always) a sign of weakness as they indicate that the shared IP pool lacks good reputation.

We run an exclusive transactional email service, meaning customers go through an approval process before they can send live emails. Transactional emails by definition are sent as a reaction to a users' action and _should_ therefore have a low spam-rate and fast time-to-open. If you can ensure that your customers are good email citizens and actually send only transactional emails, you don't even need to upsell dedicated IPs to your customers, as the deliverability of a high-quality, shared IP pool is better than that of an isolated IP address.

Email is in my bio, if you have other questions.

ctas··on Launch HN: Resend (YC W23) – Email API for developers using React
Looks like they're using AWS SES. From personal experience, none of them (SES, Mailgun, Sengrid) are suited for critical, transactional emails. I'm working in the same space and we're running our own backend.
ctas··on Tell HN: Missing service – StackOverflow, but with monetary rewards
There were a few attempts at this in the past, even before StackOverflow existed and they always failed. I remember listening to a podcast which dissected the success story of StackOverflow and how it improved on its predecessors. One point I remember taking away was that all predecessors that used money to attract answers were less effective than the counterparts that solely relied on non-monetary rewards such as upvotes, karma, a simple "thank you" and other kinds of social approval.

Sorry for not being able to back this with the original sources.

ctas··on Zig, the Small Language
Also, if you're a company looking to hire Zig devs check out zigjobs.org. (Disclaimer: I made it.)
ctas··on Show HN: Versioning Filesystem for SQLite
Is there a way to provide the same functionality via extensions instead of VFS? Recently, there's been a few other interesting projects adding backup and replication to SQLite, but they all use VFS. AFAIK only one VFS can be active at a time.
ctas··on The History of User Interfaces
Agreed. If anybody knows such a site, I'd like to see it.

I just recently collected old screenshots of Facebook, Twitter, and other popular sites from 2010 and before. Looking back, all of them have a certain charm I would like to bring back in future personal projects.

ctas··on Give me /events, not webhooks
Thanks for the input. We're currently working on a similar solution, so I was really curious to learn more.

One thing I really admire is how Stripe makes it transparent which events were fired both in general through the Developer area, and on specific objects like customers, subscriptions, etc..

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