If the thought of voice chats with randomly selected strangers didn't terrify me slightly, I think this would be an awesome idea. For the more out-going among us, can imagine some cool conversations and ideas coming out of this
Public services will eat millions and barely do anything with the money except line people's pockets. For some reason it's just more expensive when the government does it.
Below a certain threshold, throwing money at public services is just going to get it diluted. This may not necessarily be a bad thing on its own, but when even the smallest public project seems to cost way more, you're never going to know if your $10M investment helped, or if it just went into someone's paycheck.
The VC is never going to spend the money on services for the public good. They will always gamble 1x money on a handful of startups, hoping that 1 hits and returns 10x, rinse and repeat. So one can choose to take the money for a chance at success, or not, but public services was never the opportunity cost.
Slightly? I opened the page before completely processing the title and panicked like a boy forgetting to close his porn before bringing his laptop to school. Don't just invade my personal space like that.
Hahahah same exact experience here. Clicked the tab and it was like touching a stove as my brain caught up with the title - noped out immediately. Now reading through comments while trying to work up the guts to try it.
Edit: I did it. I spoke with three people and it was really cool actually; thanks for sharing this.
I'm also very interested in talking to random HN users, but my hesitation comes from the fact that if I start a chat I'll really commit because I want to make it meaningful.
I guess now I'm doing a cost-benefit analysis whether I should try this out while it's gaining popularity, or I should continue what I was working on.
I'll just put it out there that if you start talking with a random stranger, "... okay, I've got to go now. It's been nice talking with you!" is a perfectly acceptable kernel panic. :)
I went to the site, and backed out too. But after reading all these comments took it as a challenge. :)
I’ll admit that I’m prob more extroverted than the norm on here but it was great. I meant to just jump on, say hi, and jump off. But ended up chatting for a while. It was great!
He probably meant text. Which is what I had in mind when I asked the question too. Text is way cheaper than audio and you can opt in audio after an text ice breaker.
I was just replying to comments on a thread i didn't realize was a day old and it occurred to me, no one's here, they're all on the front page
HN is already a chat room, kind of swarming from one topic to the next, but there's a few hundred people just sitting around talking, roughly guided by a stream of crowdsourced bookmarks
don't really know what the benefit of dropping the topics and just having a free for all chat would be
Lol, I quickly spun one up, will need HN profile verification with a minimum of 80 points. Come over. Will delete this if less than 20 people after a week. https://discord.gg/nTW9FST2Zn
Honestly I wouldn't mind a good ol' fashioned global group chat. I know there are moderation issues there, but I miss IRC and want more of that feeling elsewhere.
There is a #hackernews on Libera.chat, and I believe I've seen a #ycombinator (or something similar) somewhere. No idea how official they are. But every HN-based community I've seen was a ghost town outside HN itself.
I agree partially but I think a lot of people - myself included - don’t necessarily check back to their own comments. And there’s no notification- which I’m sure is a feature more than a bug.
I guess your texts being public is a matter that affects the nature of conversation. But I'm sure we could hack this together with a "post your phone numbers" post
Both versions find their origins in Latin: exprimere. Both have the same meaning. More importantly, the purpose of language is communicate. If the sender and recipient achieve mutual understanding then language has been used effectively.
Spelling and grammar are meant to be descriptive and not prescriptive.
In the age of replicated AI voices and security it seems like this would be a bad idea. How much voice sample is needed to decently replicate someone's voice?
Think of the old scam where someone texts you and says they're your granddaughter and they're stuck somewhere and need an urgent money transfer. In the old days the advice would be: call your granddaughter and have get confirm the story. But now with AI tech your granddaughter could call you up and deliver the scam in her own voice.
Matching was fast (almost instant). I just had a brief chat with a HN'er from China who is currently in Japan. I am in Australia. That was fun. Well done to the author of this project!
Very cool - I chatted with someone in NYC, another in Switzerland, and a third in Mumbai, and a few others I didn't ask where they were - there are fascinating people everywhere!
How'd you guys end the conversations & after how much time?
I find it difficult to break off conversations because if I meet a new human being I'm interested in I'll want to meaningfully connect and perhaps form a light friendship.
Definitely skeptical at first but I can attest that I've had some interesting conversations already. Have to say I prefer this over to text chats by a mile. Very fun start to my morning
Love this. I do think there should be more opportunities to connect people across the world. I think if more people connected directly there be less faith in the filtered messages we get from our media and politicians.
To the creator of this:
- Thanks for creating!
- A small recommendation: maybe a little text paragraph on the landing page explaining it might warm people up a bit as to what to expect. Doesn’t need to be much and doesn’t need to be paragraphs of marketing babble. Actually, please def no to marketing babble… lol. But I think we’re conditioned to get a little explanation before jumping in.
Not a critique at all! I love this. And its just my 2 cents.
Agreed! I ended up talking with someone halfway around the world for an hour.
We discussed what we did, some interesting differences... and it also turned out that everyone everywhere has at least a few gripes about their project management system (whatever it is).
We're all more alike than we are different. :) Thanks to author for making this!
PS: If HNers are uncomfortable talking to strangers via voice, maybe write out a script with some discussion prompts. It's a learnable skill, and something you can absolutely get better at! (Said as someone who started with crippling fear of talking to strangers, into my 20s)
I am absolutely terrified of informal "coffee chats"... One company I worked for had a policy to do it "few hours every week" with some random person.. completely hated that.
I get the impression that many extroverts see introversion as a flaw / limitation that should be corrected, rather than an equally valid personality type that they should accommodate.
Apologies if I'm painting with an unfair or inaccurately broad brush. I may be vastly overestimating the prevalence of that attitude.
You'd probably call me accomplished and maybe even confident (I learned to muster enough confidence to give a public talk) but I still have phone phobia.
Worrying about reputation rather than character then? Do you give other people such considerations when they're speaking but not yourself, or do you judge other people (like you judge yourself) if you don't get everything 100% clear to someone even when there's inadequate time to do so?
Perhaps needing to learn to forgive yourself for "looking stupid," when there's a reasonable reason that you realize if having enough time you could correct or clarify it; part of the extreme difficulty and hard work to grow when being a conscious individual who feels things strongly-cares a lot.
This is really neat! I thought I'd try it out before bed (in Japan) and I was talking to someone from Dallas (hi, if you see this!), but it disconnected us. :(
161 comments
[ 379 ms ] story [ 3909 ms ] threadWhat about if they're converting it into success?
Edit: I did it. I spoke with three people and it was really cool actually; thanks for sharing this.
I'm also very interested in talking to random HN users, but my hesitation comes from the fact that if I start a chat I'll really commit because I want to make it meaningful.
I guess now I'm doing a cost-benefit analysis whether I should try this out while it's gaining popularity, or I should continue what I was working on.
I love this and I can't wait to use it.
I’ll admit that I’m prob more extroverted than the norm on here but it was great. I meant to just jump on, say hi, and jump off. But ended up chatting for a while. It was great!
I haven’t used it a lot but the scalability issues I’ve heard of with are due to the fact that p2p _group_ video is an n^2 problem by its nature.
HN is already a chat room, kind of swarming from one topic to the next, but there's a few hundred people just sitting around talking, roughly guided by a stream of crowdsourced bookmarks
don't really know what the benefit of dropping the topics and just having a free for all chat would be
Dude you've got 88 points and 6 months
call it the 13k club, i'll meet you there in a few years
I should just go reinstall my IRC setup...
But I do think a chat would be a nice addition.
I guess your texts being public is a matter that affects the nature of conversation. But I'm sure we could hack this together with a "post your phone numbers" post
I feel like there should be a more interactive visual space rather tha n just an expresso. What if I'm on tea?
https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/espresso-vs-expresso...
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law
Spelling and grammar are meant to be descriptive and not prescriptive.
I think it's a slightly southern expression in language that I hear when people say Axe
Ask Axe Ess Ex
Went from a autocorrection of expression and lazily went back to edit into expresso.
technically the author could record all audio here, and use it for model training or snoop into the conversation
Think of the old scam where someone texts you and says they're your granddaughter and they're stuck somewhere and need an urgent money transfer. In the old days the advice would be: call your granddaughter and have get confirm the story. But now with AI tech your granddaughter could call you up and deliver the scam in her own voice.
The human voice isn't as unique as you might think, though. You can encode a lot of information about a voice in about 100Kb.
I don't want to miss life's nice opportunities just because I was too worried about this kind of thing. But I don't want to be too lax either.
I'd rather not sit down with a stranger without knowing them and in a format where I can be recorded. so Omegle would've been out.
That said if this site had less anonymity and maybe a registration I would be more comfortable with it.
I find it difficult to break off conversations because if I meet a new human being I'm interested in I'll want to meaningfully connect and perhaps form a light friendship.
We all long for such kind of close interaction with like-minded and bright people, but are a bit of the socially awkward kind :))) luv u guys
I if an hacker news inspired discord server would be a good idea.
To the creator of this: - Thanks for creating!
- A small recommendation: maybe a little text paragraph on the landing page explaining it might warm people up a bit as to what to expect. Doesn’t need to be much and doesn’t need to be paragraphs of marketing babble. Actually, please def no to marketing babble… lol. But I think we’re conditioned to get a little explanation before jumping in.
Not a critique at all! I love this. And its just my 2 cents.
We discussed what we did, some interesting differences... and it also turned out that everyone everywhere has at least a few gripes about their project management system (whatever it is).
We're all more alike than we are different. :) Thanks to author for making this!
PS: If HNers are uncomfortable talking to strangers via voice, maybe write out a script with some discussion prompts. It's a learnable skill, and something you can absolutely get better at! (Said as someone who started with crippling fear of talking to strangers, into my 20s)
If voice chat isn’t your thing: talkkshopp.com
Apologies if I'm painting with an unfair or inaccurately broad brush. I may be vastly overestimating the prevalence of that attitude.
- Nobody knows who I am
- If I'm attacked, I can usually write it off as random Internet people being jerks or having bad days.
- I don't accidentally say stupid stuff because the clock is running out for a timely response.
- If I say something rash or nasty, I can often delete it before many people read it.
For me this is the biggest reason.
Perhaps needing to learn to forgive yourself for "looking stupid," when there's a reasonable reason that you realize if having enough time you could correct or clarify it; part of the extreme difficulty and hard work to grow when being a conscious individual who feels things strongly-cares a lot.
In general, I just do not like a lot of situations which are time-limited. I have been this way for many years.
Also, when I have nothing interesting to say, I would prefer to not say anything and listen instead.
In real-life situations, I much prefer one-on-one conversations to groups. Not sure if that is a consequence of any of the above.