Show HN: HackerTV – HN's most-recommended Youtube videos as 24/7 TV channels

Posted by dsalzman 3 days ago

Counter485Comment82OpenOriginal

I saw HackerTube (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50319510) a few days ago, the YouTube videos HN keeps recommending, pulled from 19 years of comments. It made me want to flip through them instead of picking, so I built a TV for it. I have Algo fatigue.

Each topic area is a channel (DEVTV, SOLDER, RETRO, ORBIT, ...), plus HN Prime (the top 400), a music channel, and Late Night on ch 99, which only broadcasts 11pm-5am your local time and shows color bars otherwise.

Similar to HackerTube it was built with Claude Code in a few hours.

All credit for the data goes to HackerTube. Happy to hear channel ideas.

Comments

Comment by spditner 2 days ago

What I would like to see for vibe coded novelty apps that are not realistically going to see updates are the prompts-as-source. For instance, I one-shotted a Roku app to play the HackerTube listings, and it works good enough:

  Build a sideloadable Roku channel/app for browsing and playing videos from
  https://hackertube.org/. Inspect HackerTube's API or video pages and use Roku
  BrightScript/SceneGraph. Deliver a complete zipped Roku channel with source,
  setup instructions, and any necessary metadata/proxy details. Aim for Roku
  Developer Mode sideloading.

Comment by ozim 2 days ago

I would rather have it the other way around.

Source for one-shotted apps so LLM gives you repo back and template to build on instead of burning electricity on ideations from scratch.

I imagine 90% of stuff could be just that.

But I also imagine people just cloning repo don’t feel it truly belongs to them, but when agent slops out code for them somehow they feel like they did the work themselves.

Comment by TomGarden 2 days ago

Agreed! We desperately need an OSS framework of basic modular building blocks for the new generation of vibecoders, if nothing else just to stop the massive waste of resources of having all the models build the same thing hundreds of thousands of times.

Comment by ada1981 2 days ago

A good rule for agents is to 1. Search GitHub for existing or related projects to pull from and 2. Publish code as share a like.

It’s also good practice since SAAS is dead anyway, so it helps kill the fantasy your vibe coded app is somehow going to live on code alone.

Comment by ozim 2 days ago

SaaS is only dead if you believe you paid only for software there is still part “as service” because running and maintaining software still takes time even if slopping out software is virtually free.

Comment by demberto 2 days ago

SaaS is not dead.

Comment by rickydroll 2 days ago

This Saas is no more! It has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to github 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is CI/CD processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible!! THIS IS AN EX-SAAS!!

Comment by feearent 1 day ago

I think it's the future for prompt-based engineering honestly. I employ it myself too. I Keep a prompts file, either for sharing or looking back at it. I think Open Source Software should adopt it in their repos for a. transparency and b. learning material for the future.

Comment by mh- 2 days ago

It'd be neat if (for web stuff) people put them at like /.well-known/prompt.md.

Comment by orbis-tertius 1 day ago

[dead]

Comment by maaaaattttt 2 days ago

I'm thinking that if somehow we could force temperature to 0, it could even be "prompt as compressed source". In the sense that you know if you run a given prompt through a given model version you would get the exact same results. This could have some space applications. You send a powerful model to space, iterate with the same model on earth and once the results are good only send the prompt to the remote model... Well, now that I'm typing it, I guess if the model is good enough you don't even need that and only give it a goal before leaving.

Comment by hdb2 2 days ago

I hadn't thought of that, but that's a really good idea - prompts as source code. you're right, most of them will never see a formal update, so the prompt is a great way to hand off some control.

Comment by invaliduser 2 days ago

Yes. Open prompts.

Comment by 5555watch 2 days ago

Oh damn this is much cooler than I expected! For some reason skimming through channels is more enjoyable than click a video I'd probably wouldn't click on

Comment by kreelman 2 days ago

Indeed... Only problem is that it's so entertaining and diverting.

Comment by richardw 2 days ago

Love the multitude of ideas! Upvoted. I did repo’s a couple days ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50342272

It has some cool stuff if you click around some. Feedback very welcome!

Comment by vavooom 2 days ago

This did scratch a nostalgic itch honestly! Great execution of interluding into the middle of episodes as well to feel organic and live.

Comment by smokel 3 days ago

Is someone working on HackerTldr? Three sentences that describe the target page would save me a lot of time.

Edit: HackerTV looks great, well worth the click :)

Comment by freedomben 3 days ago

I'm looking forward to hacker games personally. I'd love to see what games are commented on here, other than factorio

Comment by duck 3 days ago

Here is one version someone already made: https://hnarcade.com/

Comment by nomilk 2 days ago

This is cool. It would be better if it linked to the hn comment/s and showed some gameplay on hover (also the splash page is unnecessary, ideally https://hnarcade.com/games/category/games should be the home page)

Comment by duck 2 days ago

Speaking of... I should of linked to the actual Show HN page instead: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46793693

Comment by iltk 2 days ago

This sent me down a rabbit hole which led to 3 in-game days spent as a peon wageslave.

https://cauldron.itch.io/wageslave

Comment by smokel 3 days ago

I can highly recommend the board game, not the programming language, Go.

Comment by dreambigwrkhard 3 days ago

Someone made that already...... Was on Show HN last month.

Comment by LelouBil 2 days ago

All Zachtronics games

Comment by Barbing 2 days ago

Five of them https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50347818

Comment by wmchen 3 days ago

HackerSentiment, which tracks current sentiment of the frontpage of HN, coming soon, which will show total ambivalence to AI.

Comment by pwython 3 days ago

I've had the idea for years for a browser extension that showed positive/negative sentiment scores next to each post, based on comments. Mostly because often the top comment on posts are "ackchyually..."

Comment by jdthedisciple 3 days ago

you don't need an app for that anymore

your dot or muse will happily do it for you and in fact even send you a notification about it right on your phone

Comment by s_dev 2 days ago

Oh I built something recently like this as well. I was inspired by this HN thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247023 so made it in to a Jellyfin plugin.

https://xn--teilifssen-04a4l.ie/

Channel surfing your own Jellyfin library.

Comment by pentakkusu 2 days ago

Installing it rn

Comment by asimjalis 2 days ago

Nice. I like this. One minor usability issue I saw. In the guide, the channels start with the lowest on top and then go down to the higher ones. But the up and down arrows work the opposite way. For example, the down arrow moves me to a lower channel, which is the opposite direction of the guide. Maybe there is no elegant solution to this.

Comment by Bluestein 1 day ago

This is great for discoverability, untightening the bounds of the algos.-

PS. Only nit, there might be a reason for this though: The "info" function shows a salient comment for each feature, which should be attributed to a particular user and not just "HN, [year]" as is now - methinks.-

Comment by surya_waters 2 days ago

Love it ! Thank you for creating this. I am in the process of minimizing my digital consumption and was looking for something like this to live like if it's the 70s. Shameless plug: i have two chrome plugins to reduce digital distractions if anyone is interested. Sanctum : https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/sanctum-its-time-to...

FlowTube : https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/flowtube-%E2%80%93-...

Comment by ks2048 2 days ago

Does Youtube try to block third-party front-ends, or no?

Comment by thechairman12 2 days ago

Okay, this is the best one I have seen. Thank you.

Comment by cs02rm0 2 days ago

I'm tempted to leave a TV on with this for my kids. Force them to learn a thing or two. :)

Comment by low_tech_punk 2 days ago

I'm wondering how come there is no ads? Why would YouTube allow this type of embedded player?

Comment by freakynit 2 days ago

Google runs on ads. Ads need data. Embeds give data.

Comment by dsalzman 2 days ago

Creator here - thankful and appreciative of all the positive comments. I hope people enjoy!

Comment by oever 2 days ago

I think it's weird to limit the chosen content by publication site instead of by content type: video.

My personal HackerTV is media.ccc.de and I always appreciate when good content is hosted with simple <video/> tags or peertube.

Comment by richardw 2 days ago

Very cool! I love the effort to give it a personality.

Comment by dsalzman 2 days ago

Thanks!

Comment by flavius37 2 days ago

Here comes the hacker of hackers of hackers... : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50362372

Comment by orbis-tertius 2 days ago

[dead]

Comment by unquietwiki 3 days ago

This reminds me of https://spelunkr.tv/, except without the 90s channel guide. That effort is using Internet Archive videos to populate channels.

Comment by boltzmann64 2 days ago

https://ytch.tv/

reminds me of

Comment by indigodaddy 3 days ago

This is amazing!

Comment by redbell 2 days ago

Well done, love it. It, somehow, reminded me of this Show HN from two years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41247023

Comment by looksjjhg 2 days ago

I appreciate the little sound when you change the channel.

Comment by nomilk 3 days ago

A version of this that's only live videos would be cool.

Comment by tesnorindian 2 days ago

Looks really cool. Got me back to my old TV days.

Comment by gavmor 2 days ago

Yup, exactly what I wanted as soon as I saw Hackertube

Comment by heysrb 2 days ago

This is cooler than Karpathy's!

Comment by jimmiles 3 days ago

This one is the best of the bunch so far (I loved the books one, too, though!). This one has potential! May it never be vibe-abandoned!

Comment by ciex 2 days ago

Oh that's nice, would like to have that as a webOS app without the TV chrome around it.

Comment by nunclieh 2 days ago

Maybe I didn't see it, but have you published the source code? If so, where can I find it?

Amazing idea btw.

Comment by sportsracersss 2 days ago

This is great! Can you get it onto the LG App Store? I'd actually tune in.

Comment by the_sleaze_ 2 days ago

I would like to get this up and running on my Roku, does anyone know how I could manage that?

Comment by thoughtpeddler 2 days ago

I kept flipping channels until I got to a clip of Zuck in 2005 saying:

> "We're trying to figure out what to do with Apple. We're obviously sensitive to people's privacy."

Wow.

Comment by joaobotelho423 3 days ago

I found it a very cool concept

Comment by letmeindude 2 days ago

Nice. I like this.

Comment by sebastianconcpt 3 days ago

I love the skeumorphism you put on it!

Comment by krat0sprakhar 2 days ago

Haha this is so well done! Love it!

Comment by iAMkenough 3 days ago

Now we need HackerRadio to run in the background.

Comment by frangonf 3 days ago

It's on channel 24.

Comment by iAMkenough 3 days ago

I was expecting talk radio, but I'm enjoying the music too!

Comment by 101rakibulhasan 2 days ago

Finally a competitor

Comment by minimaxa 3 days ago

Love it, you missed a real opportunity with channel 42?

We did a combo books/video HN remix a few days ago: https://vektormemory.com/blog/v2-0-4-hacker-news-books-video...

Comment by tudorw 2 days ago

can you add a Micheal Levin channel, no 42 :)

Comment by entropie 2 days ago

Very well done.

Comment by sourcecodeplz 2 days ago

how come i dont get youtube ads?

Comment by thefourthchime 3 days ago

Hah, nice

Comment by imzadi 3 days ago

Now turn the comments into an MST3K style overlay

Comment by flanked-evergl 2 days ago

History channel (ch11) has Joe Rogan. Must be some kind of joke, but it's not a funny one.

Comment by TuxedoBuddy 3 days ago

No channel ⁶ ⁷ highly disappointed

Comment by ajairaj 2 days ago

now i need a apple tv app for this

Comment by roguemonkey1976 2 days ago

Oh my god yes please! YouTube is a bad time waster for me. That would at least ensure a level of quality

Comment by cpan22 2 days ago

now we just need this on Google TV!

Comment by slukmbr 1 day ago

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Comment by init0 2 days ago

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Comment by howtageek 2 days ago

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Comment by ls-a 2 days ago

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Comment by autoventure 2 days ago

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Comment by RetardedBastard 2 days ago

[dead]

Comment by irfanhasnani 2 days ago

[flagged]

Comment by 2 days ago

Comment by i_love_retros 3 days ago

I guarantee all these vibe coded hacker* sites will be abandoned in a few months. Easy to make, easy to get bored of maintaining and paying for.

Gonna be a wasteland of vibe coded shit that meant nothing.

Comment by mesh 3 days ago

Apps are just becoming content. Get your 15 seconds of engagement, and then move on to the next thing.

Comment by MarchApril 2 days ago

No doubt. I just checked my bookmarks and removed tons of bloat.

Comment by 2 days ago