Ask HN: What are you working on? (March 2025)

Really interesting. I'm bookmarking your comment for later.

One thing you can do is separate the information fetching from your bar completely. I have a service that runs every minute or so to fetch available updates from the arch repositories (including aur), it writes its output to a file and then my bar regularly updates it's displayed information based on that file.

I don't have the service definition uploaded anywhere, but you can see how simple it is to then integrate it with anything here [1]. This is a status bar I'm building with qml. It's not ready to be released yet, I'm at 0.7.0. Only tested on x11/i3wm so far. Last time I launched it in wayland/sway, there were some issues but it's been a while since. Since it's built with qt complex and non-blocking interactions are available out of the box. For example, switching workspace by clicking an icon in the bar, or switching the format of the displayed date time.

[1] https://git.sr.ht/~hantz/buffalo/refs/0.7.0

I‘m building a Duolingo for Jazz Language.

A reactive computational notebook with an effect system. Kinda like a "factorio for workflow processes." I want to use it to build backend pipelines or AI RAG pipelines. I'd be able to replay network effects for debugging. It is multiplayer and can be easily deployed to a server.

I'd always found web app backends to eventually need something that chained background jobs together. And inevitably, it was something bespoke without a lot of observability. It was always frustrating to maintain. And while building AI RAG pipelines, I've run into the same problems.

I'm writing a fictional spy thriller book that takes place in the early 1990s in two countries. I'm about 100 pages in, and expect the end product to be about 200 pages long. Not sure how I'm going to publish it yet; suggestions welcome!

Here's a synopsis of the plot, redacted since I've already revealed too much :)

-----, a college student from ----- majoring in -----, graduates from university and is recruited to work for a mysterious company that has links to -----. Initially hired as a translator, his talent with electronics get noticed quickly and his superiors begin training him for a covert overseas operation in which he will visit ----- as an exchange student while really serving as a spy.

With a soft spot for ----- culture, he is excited to visit ----- for the first time. Although he is fully aware he could be killed or imprisoned there, his confidence in his ----- language skills, plus a bit of youthful naiveté, make him jump at the chance. As he carries out his mission in -----, he uncovers a tangled web of family secrets.

Thank you!