Hacker News Reader

jbgton OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

Nice! i'm making the same - interesting that so many ideas converge. Hopefully we can soon point an GPT6 at all of them and have a super tool. Or else GPT6 can do it without all our helpers...

https://github.com/odcpw/ooxml-cli

Glad to get feedback on what doesn't work or is missing.

I'm also making one for PowerBI - it's in testing. Drop me a line if you're interested.

jbgton OfficeCLI: Office suite for AI agents to read and edit Microsoft Office files

I'm making a similar tool that tries to do macros as well

https://github.com/odcpw/ooxml-cli

jbgton Claude Fable is relentlessly proactive

I just say "if you need something specific or have any questions, stop and ask me for it".

jbgton Building from zero after addiction, prison, and a felony

How nice is that!

jbgton Office-open-xml-viewer: Office XML document viewer that renders to HTML Canvas

Interesting because I'm building ooxml-cli right now, for editing pptx, docx, xlsx. At work I had to adapt a pptx to a corporate template and tried via agent. It kept failing so I started building and then it was able to relatively quick and accurate do what I needed. Then I needed it to make tables, add pictures. Recently wanted to get data from an xslx and replace text in a presentation etc.

So the tool is growing and maybe this would be interesting to have as the non LibreOffice dependent viewer...

jbgton Map of Metal

Progressive sludge I think

jbgton Map of Metal

In case you haven't seen it, Metal Evolution is a great documentary by a sociologist tracing the different ages of Metal.

Some have mentioned Sabbath, mc5, Stooges etc as origins.

Sam Dunn (documentary producer) says Paganini has a big influence in the guitar solo, demonstrations of virtuosity by the players etc. interviews this crazy swedish guy can't remember his name.

jbgton A Brief History of Fish Sauce

I had a nice Thai Omelet once in a restaurant and then looked up the recipe. Now I always add a bit of fiah sauce into my eggs, with chopped garlic and some soy sauce and a bit of water so it gets fluffy in the hot oil. Never thought fish in omelet would work but it's quite tasty!

jbgton Are We Idiocracy Yet?

A series that hits even closer is BrainDead, about an alien that gets into politicians' heads and polarizes them completely. It's very fun, and each episode recap at the beginning is done via lyrics of a folky song. Worth a watch and laugh. And cry.

jbgton How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

No, you just don't have to be black or white about it.

At daycare they don't do it, that's ok. Do it at home. It's not a PROJECT, it's an orientation.

Take it easy.

jbgton How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

It works well! And it's not huge effort either. Don't overpressure your self or your kid but go ahead and follow the method it's fine.

You'll be fine.

jbgton Show HN: LocalGPT – A local-first AI assistant in Rust with persistent memory

https://github.com/z80dev/lemon

Sounds like exactly this, hot off the presses...

jbgton Let's be honest, Generative AI isn't going all that well

Slice THEIR hands. They might say yours are rigged.

I'm a non dev and the things I'm building blow me away. I think many of these people criticizing are perhaps more on the execution side and have a legitimate craft they are protecting.

If you're more on the managerial side, and I'd say a trusting manager not a show me your work kind, then you're more likely to be open and results oriented.

jbgton Welcome to Gas Town

Look at cc-mirror, and use the mclaude there.

It unlocks a (still) hidden multiagent orchestration function in Claude code. The person making it unminified the code and figured out how to unlock it.

I find it quite well done - I started a orchestrator project a few days ago and scrapped it because it'll be fully integrated soon it seems.

jbgton OpenAI are quietly adopting skills, now available in ChatGPT and Codex CLI

Oh wow conreasoning through an IRC like chat. That's a great idea.

Would be cool (sci fi) for LLMs of different users to chat and discuss approaches to what the humans are talking about etc.

jbgton New benchmark shows top LLMs struggle in real mental health care

Have you seen the feeling great app? It's not an official therapy app but it's based in TEAM CBT, made by David Burns and team.

Burns is really into data gathering and his app is LLM based on the rails of the TEAM process and it seems to be very well received.

I found it simple and very well done - and quite effective.

A top level comment says that therapists aren't good either - Burns would argue that mainly no one tests before and after and so no measuring effect is done.

And of people I know who see a therapist, practically none can tell me what exactly they are doing or what methods they are doing or how anything is structured.

jbgton A new documentary about the history of forced psychiatric treatment in Spain

Amazing read! Thanks for this

jbgton Heretic: Automatic censorship removal for language models

And I ask how to make mescaline (which is legal in some jurisdictions because cactus, traditional medicinals etc). Then I can also try arguing saying I'm a shaman from an indigenous tribe etc to see how it reacts.

jbgton Show HN: Sosumi.ai – Convert Apple Developer docs to AI-readable Markdown

When I was a kid I used Sosumi as my chime on the apple IIGS!

jbgton Altered states of consciousness induced by breathwork accompanied by music

Sorry, I can't tell if you're serious?

Can you confirm?

jbgton Show HN: Doxx – Terminal .docx viewer inspired by Glow

LibreOffice is a food alternative if you just want simple Word management.

Of course it's a big install on the other hand.

jbgton Scam Inc: Online scams may be as big a scourge as illegal drugs

https://archive.is/XHopC

jbgton Starship Flight 7

Landing boosters, reducing costs etc etc

jbgton The Peter Principle still resonates

Please spend another 30s. It can an interesting bit of philosophy about competence and ambition - and humility.

jbgton Porsche's idea for a six-stroke internal combustion engine

If I may disagree: I live in a flat with a fully electric vehicle. It's just a matter of planning around charging a bit. Once you think ahead (and it's not dramatic), you don't notice anymore.

I find plug in hybrids make no sense: electrification is the future.

jbgton Human history in the very long run (2021)

I recently discovered a blog by a historian that tries to describe life as it was.

Here's the post about what's needed to feed society with bread (there are many others) https://acoup.blog/2020/07/24/collections-bread-how-did-they...

To my understanding, much of the work was backbreaking, disease was a big problem, starvation around the corner every year. And governance and freedoms were mostly reduced to service to a local strongman.

And this is before the industrial revolution, working in insalubrious factories, belching smoke steam engines etc.

Nowadays I think things are significantly better for the majority of people.

jbgton HIV breakthrough: Trial shows drug provides 100% protection

Well I hope this isn't a weird comment: thanks for expressing your views so clearly and positively. It opened my eyes to an aspect of genuine and human exploration of newfound freedom and caring.

jbgton The day I canceled my Spotify subscription

Weren't we all complaining 20 y ago that music labels were giving bands pennies on the dollar and the only way they could actually live off of the music was by touring and selling merch?

I think Radiohead then did the groundbreaking selling of mp3s for a pay what you want fee.

Now the baddie is Spotify.

jbgton Long Island Midwife Gave Pellets Instead of Vaccines to 1,500 Children

In my country, midwives don't do vaccines - doctors only I think (maybe for like the yearly flu vaccine pharmacists).

For babies it would be the pediatrician.

jbgton Ask HN: 9-yo son wants to build a game, I'm lost. What can I do?

A friend of mine's 9 y old used Scratch to build games.

He asked me "do you build games?"

"No, I wish, I don't really have an idea for a game"

"Well how about one where you chase zombies?"

"Haha ok."

"Well now you have an idea for a game. Go and make one!"