This is timely for the "Find a Freelancer on HN" thread :)
Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
71–80 of 130 posts
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#72How has this been voted so high up given that it:
1. Doesn't seem to work for anyone
2. Doesn't have anything specific to do with HN users. Since anyone can use it, it's just a random voice chat connection website.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#73How has this been voted so high up given that it: 1. Doesn't seem to work for anyone 2. Doesn't have anything specific to do with HN users. Since anyone can use it, it's just a random voice chat connection website.
i am guessing to many users killed the initial server. the workaround of distributed servers doesn't allow people to connect if they are not on the same server.
it's not easy to find a solution for that on the spot. give it time.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm using deno deploy, which is split accross 25 regions, so you have to match with someone from the same region. (I tried to use my own server at first, but it crashed, so I switched to deno deploy in a hurry, without having figured out how to connect it accross regions.)
seems the many regions spread the potential users to thin. you probably want a stronger single server because connecting chats across multiple servers only makes your code more complex when your actual problem seems to be that you just need more ram or cpu. alternatively consider using existing platforms like jitsi. the benefit of your site is not the implementation of the audio channels but the ability for HN users…
> seems the many regions spread the potential users to thin. you probably want a stronger single server because connecting chats across multiple servers only makes your code more complex when your actual problem seems to be that you just need more ram or cpu.
I checked ram and cpu with top when I was using a VPS, and it was basically nothing. (I didn't monitor it continuously, so maybe that was still the problem.) But you're right in principle, I should use one server.
> alternatively consider using existing platforms like jitsi. the benefit of your site is not the implementation of the audio channels but the ability for HN users to find each other.
But once people found each other, it's webrtc, it's p2p, so that shouldn't be a problem for the server.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#75This would be awesome if it works. Though I tried and waited for a while with no match - I suspect it’s a proof of concept to judge demand. Would be better if I could actually read HN while waiting, might make people willing to keep waiting longer on mobile.
> I suspect it’s a proof of concept to judge demand. No it actually is meant to work, though, I admit, it doesn't seem to. > Would be better if I could actually read HN while waiting, might make people willing to keep waiting longer on mobile. Interesting idea.
you could also add some statistics of how many users there have been in the past hour. or how long people have been talking. (just add up all the talk time for the past hour)
just to get an idea how active the service is.
later also show stats for 24 hours to see which daytimes are busiest and more likely to meet find someone online.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
seems the many regions spread the potential users to thin. you probably want a stronger single server because connecting chats across multiple servers only makes your code more complex when your actual problem seems to be that you just need more ram or cpu. alternatively consider using existing platforms like jitsi. the benefit of your site is not the implementation of the audio channels but the ability for HN users…
> seems the many regions spread the potential users to thin. you probably want a stronger single server because connecting chats across multiple servers only makes your code more complex when your actual problem seems to be that you just need more ram or cpu. I checked ram and cpu with top when I was using a VPS, and it was basically nothing. (I didn't monitor it continuously, so maybe that was still the problem.) Bu…
then i'd suggest to go back to a single server and find out what causes the crashes. you can keep the current version running in parallel and tell people to hit your single server for testing.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#77This would be awesome if it works. Though I tried and waited for a while with no match - I suspect it’s a proof of concept to judge demand. Would be better if I could actually read HN while waiting, might make people willing to keep waiting longer on mobile.
> I suspect it’s a proof of concept to judge demand. No it actually is meant to work, though, I admit, it doesn't seem to. > Would be better if I could actually read HN while waiting, might make people willing to keep waiting longer on mobile. Interesting idea.
> Would be better if I could actually read HN while waiting, might make people willing to keep waiting longer on mobile.
It actually would be really interesting if there was a functionality to chat with other people viewing the same article. Or still one-to-one, but with someone else also looking at the article.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#78From about:WebRTC in Firefox,
> iceServers:
> urls: ["stun:stun.l.test.com:19000"]
With such a STUN server URL, no wonder nobody ever gets a match…
And it's kind of a nasty bug: it doesn't appear anywhere in the JS console, or in the network tab of the browser, and it's likely to work when testing locally (I haven't tested, but you should not need stun to generate local ICE candidate) so the dev could have tested in local, seen it was working and posted it on HN. Just to discover it was not working after reaching the front page… Sad day for the poor dev.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#79I wrote something similar (Lunchtime.io) as a way for the Open COVID-19 Initiative to relax with other members. One issue I found early on was that people would wait for ages to get into a call and leave. So we solved it by letting people pick times which suit them, showing how many people had picked that time, receive email reminders when that time approached and once the time came up, we’d give them a link. made things so much smoother and i had some incredible talks with people although… it was v awkward sometimes.
That being said, project got sunsetted because open source projects always make way for priority so love to see people love this.
Re: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
#80What about typing instead of voice?
Actually, I would really want something like that to happen sometime. There was a really fun April Fool's experiment on Reddit a few years ago called Robin. Gathered bunch of people in small groups, active groups would then merge if people in there were active. Conversations there were much more spontaneous then on typical IRC/discord groups in know. I hope someone will manage to do something similar at scale, ideally on HN.