9 ms·
Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
- beaugunderson 3y agoreminds me of Dialup, which I used a ton during the pandemic: https://dialup.com/ https://dialup.com/
- vegancap 3y agoIf 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
- larodi 3y ago... really dare not use this service, might stumble upon some guy who just burned 5-10mil of VC money, which would feel very awkward.
- vegancap 3y agoI honestly have no idea what I'd talk to someone who burnt more money than I'd ever have in my life about
- otachack 3y agoThe weather?
- jazzyjackson 3y agocould ask about their ketamine hookup
- hkt 3y agoI'd ask if they now feel it would've been better spent on public services
- LoganDark 3y agoPublic 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.
- fshr 3y agomaybe "barely doing anything" is better than doing nothing, though?
- LoganDark 3y agoBelow 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.
- CapstanRoller 3y agoAre private projects better? I've never heard of a private alternative to SNAP or Medicare or Section 8, nor any interest in creating such programs.
- hkt 3y agoTrue - the UK's NHS was a product of people realising there would never be universal health care if it was left to the market.
- hkt 3y agoOpex is a valid form of public spending. Paying people properly ensures they remain as public servants.
- dessimus 3y agoThe 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.
- echelon 3y agoWhy would that feel awkward? What about if they're converting it into success?
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoFailure is fine
- delusional 3y agoSlightly? 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.
- drakonka 3y agoHahahah 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.
- punkspider 3y agoI'm in the same boat. 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.
- digitcatphd 3y agoOmegle for ultra-introverts
- ethbr1 3y agoI'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. :)
- mocha_nate 3y agolol
- petecooper 3y ago>a perfectly acceptable kernel panic I love this and I can't wait to use it.
- jononomo 3y agoAre you afraid they might hurt your feelings? Or show you up in some way? Or sexually harass you?
- rudasn 3y agoOr have to deal with this attitude
- newZWhoDis 3y agoAs someone who grew up with OG Xbox live, I find this comment pretty funny. HN crowd’s got nothing on early COD
- runlaszlorun 3y agoI 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!
- C0mm0nS3ns3 3y agoWhy only voice chat?
- jrexilius 3y agoNo pics of a problematic nature, more anonymous (thus more approachable) I'd wager..?
- shlant 3y agoI assume because video is hard and/or expensive
- runlaszlorun 3y agoShouldn’t be with WebRTC, right? 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.
- imhoguy 3y agoIt is quite simple with p2p WebRTC, like Jitsi did that, and perhaps still do.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- withinboredom 3y agoyeah, what about people who cannot talk?
- sourcegrift 3y agoWhat would you propose? Video? What about people who are invisible? Just because you haven't seen anyone as such doesn't mean they don't exist.
- C0mm0nS3ns3 3y agoHe 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.
- skottenborg 3y agoInteresting. I think text chats would be a nice addition as they allow asynchronous conversations which would be beneficial.
- welder 3y ago[flagged]
- andrepd 3y agoYes to chat, no to discord.
- jazzyjackson 3y agoI 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
- sourcegrift 3y agoLol, 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 https://discord.gg/nTW9FST2Zn
- mellosouls 3y agoa minimum of 100 points Dude you've got 88 points and 6 months
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- jazzyjackson 3y ago
- sdfsdsfg 3y ago[dead]
- stephenitis 3y agostart button recaptcha not working on iphone chrome. I feel like there should be a more interactive visual space rather tha n just an expresso. What if I'm on tea?
- tempodox 3y agoespresso
- notnaut 3y agoWhile it’s almost never useful to correct irregularities in spellings and pronunciations, this is a particularly poor correction. https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/espresso-vs-expresso-usage-history https://www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/espresso-vs-expresso...
- CoastalCoder 3y agoMuphry's Law [0] strikes again! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muphry%27s_law
- BirAdam 3y agoBoth 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.
- stephenitis 3y agoI started to think about this. I feel like I lean toward pronouncing this as expresso more often. I think it's a slightly southern expression in language that I hear when people say Axe Ask Axe Ess Ex
- stephenitis 3y agoThanks Went from a autocorrection of expression and lazily went back to edit into expresso.
- stephenitis 3y agoIn 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?
- explorigin 3y agoSee whisper-speech posted yesterday.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- thimkerbell 3y agoWhisperSpeech – An open source text-to-speech system built by inverting Whisper https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39036796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39036796
- AlecSchueler 3y agoAnyone could record you for this purpose at any time.
- hackernewds 3y agoand do what with this exactly? technically the author could record all audio here, and use it for model training or snoop into the conversation
- AlecSchueler 3y agoImpersonate your 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.
- thfuran 3y ago
- nomilk 3y agoMatching 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!
- donkeysquid 3y agoVery 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!
- punkspider 3y agoHow'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.
- cvhashim04 3y ago“Well it was great meeting you, going to try and chat with some other folks now!”
- aizyuval 3y agoI talked with someone over an hour. It was great!
- hackernewds 3y agoInstead of thinking about the speed bump, you could also just climb over the speed bump. it's not a mountain as it might seem :)
- clbrmbr 3y agoWhoah! Thanks for this. Was fun to connect with another hacker over morning coffee.
- l1ambda 3y agoTangent: anyone else remember the https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33217395 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33217395 post? A handful of HN people were on the CB radio on https://4m3ric4.com https://4m3ric4.com and were voice chatting and musing about what if something like that were added to HN.
- Arjuna144 3y agoHahaha, the comments on this really make me feel right at home, in this family/subculture. 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
- shaarmar 3y agoDefinitely 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
- aa6ll 3y agoAmazing site :))
- aizyuval 3y agoI talked with the one who build it over it, it’s great. He’s a very nice guy and we had a great conversation. I if an hacker news inspired discord server would be a good idea.
- andrewtbuss 3y agoHad a great conversation here. Thanks!
- runlaszlorun 3y agoLove 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.
- ethbr1 3y agoAgreed! 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)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- tbwriting 3y agoAgreed. If voice chat isn’t your thing: talkkshopp.com
- pknerd 3y agoSeems it's down now. But I was able to talk another karachiite in Toronto
- pulkitsh1234 3y agoI 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.
- chrisandchris 3y agoSome people would be happy if they're paid just to talk to somebody _few hours_ during worktime about non work-related stuff.
- HL33tibCe7 3y agoThe kind of people who work in HR (which is why these schemes get set up)
- CoastalCoder 3y agoI 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.
- ikari_pl 3y agocan we have a version for the ones with "phone call phobia"?
- CoastalCoder 3y agoWhat would that look like?
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoThe same, but without matching
- loceng 3y agoIs it surprising or unsurprising to see such amount of social anxiety in the comments?
- punkspider 3y agoFor me it's surprising. Based on the regular discussions I read on here, I assume that most are accomplished and confident.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoFor me, commenting on HN is a low-risk activity: - 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.
- UltimateEdge 3y ago> I don't accidentally say stupid stuff because the clock is running out for a timely response. For me this is the biggest reason.
- loceng 3y agoWorrying 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.
- joshuamcginnis 3y agoI just shared a nice chat with a gentleman from Detroit working on some interesting LLM stuff. If you see this, great to meet you!
- parakoopa 3y agohey was me! Nice to meet you too.
- joshuamcginnis 3y agoHey, cool! Would love to stay connected. Feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn (but no worries if not!): https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuamcginnis/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuamcginnis/
- michaelaiello 3y agoSpoke with folks in Brazil, Switzerland and Minnesota. So much fun.
- pknerd 3y agoA mobile app for this would be awesome, even if a browser control
- sdrothrock 3y agoThis 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. :(
- asadbek_n 3y agoCan't hear any voice
- hackernewds 3y agoPrivacy policy? Are chats private?
- svkris_18 3y agoThis is an awesome idea.I just had a brief chat with a HN'er from Ontario (hi, if you see this) and I am from India. Kudos, to the author of this project.
- wiihack 3y agoJust had a talk with some people. Very cool concept :)
- pknerd 3y agoIt'd be nice to add some bell notification when someone gets connected. I just can't stare the screen all the time.
- CamperBob2 3y agoI feel old. I remember when this used to be called "Ham radio."
- thimkerbell 3y agoBe nice if we could page people to text-chat with, here on HN.
- CamperBob2 3y agoAgreed. A CW random-chat client would also be amusing.
- Xorathena 3y agoWhat audio system does this use? Is it E2EE directly between you and the other person? The website doesn't say much before you click the Start button. Everything has tradeoffs, and implementation details matter.
- imhoguy 3y agoI have no means to check this page on my mobile now, but if it was me making it I would have used WebRTC, plus some backend to pair random peers. I think E2EE can be implemented on the stream.
- dang 3y agoRelated: Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36179883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36179883 - June 2023 (4 comments) Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31957389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31957389 - July 2022 (20 comments) Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31376125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31376125 - May 2022 (6 comments) Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30179355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30179355 - Feb 2022 (123 comments)
- enjeyw 3y agoIt’s times like these I’m so glad we allow resubmissions. This is such cool piece of work and the HN-specificity of the audience means that the only real path to success is via a submission that makes the front page
- Dowwie 3y agoReally enjoyed my chat.
- thimkerbell 3y agoIn days of voice cloning, this seems less wise.
- jll29 3y agoBrilliant, thanks!
- skali_skalarius 3y agoNeat stuff, this really throws me back to just chatting with random people on TeamSpeak/Mumble which is a thing I haven't done in a while. I'd of course appreciate being able to read the app's source code, though.
- kreeben 3y agoDaniel from "mid-western Germany", very nice to have virtually met you. I'm "the guy from southern Sweden". Pretty darn cool service, this. Thx so much to the creator for showing this to HN. Never thought I'd do a Omegle-like encounter with anyone. But here I am having done it and feeling quite enriched by the experience :D
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoI also met Daniel!!! Unfortunately my phone/mic/whatever crapped out right we started talking about genealogy
- rrr_oh_man 3y agoiOS Firefox drops connection when phone locks itself
- chuddifierlamn 3y ago[flagged]
- chuddifierlamn 3y ago[flagged]
- chuddifierlamn 3y ago[flagged]
- chuddifierlamn 3y ago[1:26] Then Soot said, "Let us make soyteens in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fishjaks of the sea, and over the smugquacks of the air, and over the 4cucks, and over all the gemmish ‘jaks of the Sharty, and over every creeping troon that creeps upon the Sharty." [1:27] So Soot created soyteens in his image, in the image of Soot he created them; Gem and Coal he created them. [1:28] Soot blessed them, and Soot said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the Sharty and subdue it; and have dominion over the fishjaks of the sea and over the smugquacks of the air and over every gemmish ‘jak that moves upon the Sharty." [1:29] Soot said, "See, I have given you every ‘jak yielding gems that is upon the face of all the Sharty, and every variant with gem in its trace; you shall have them for ‘jaks. [1:30] And to every troon of the Sharty, and to every ‘teen of the ‘jak, and to everything that creeps on the Sharty, everything that has the breath of soy, I have given every ‘jak trace for gems." And it was so. [1:31] Soot saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very keyed. And there was seething and there was coping, the sixth day.
- chuddifierlamn 3y ago[2:1] Thus the Kway and the Sharty were finished, and all the host of them. [2:2] And on the seventh day Soot ended his creation which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his gems which he had made. [2:3] And Soot blessed the seventh day, and gemmified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which Soot created and made. [2:4] These are the gemerations of the Kway and of the Sharty when they were created, in the day that Soot made the Sharty and the Kway, [2:5] And every trace of the soyboy before it was in the Sharty, and every gem of the trace before it grew: for Soot had not yet shilled the Sharty, and there was not a ‘teen to trace the ‘jaks. [2:6] But there went up a gem from the Sharty, and shilled across the whole face of 4cuck. [2:7] And Soot formed soyteens of the dust of the sapphire, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of soy; and soyteens became gemmish ‘jakkers. [2:8] And Soot created a thread in /qa/; and there he put the ‘teen whom he had formed. [2:9] And out of the ground made Soot to grow every ‘jak that is pleasant for the duel, and good for quoting; the 'Jak of Life also in the midst of the thread, and the ‘Jak of Knowledge of Gem and Coal. [2:10] And a ‘teen went into /qa/ to shill the thread; and from then it was parted, and became into four ‘teens.
- seeknotfind 3y agoGreat chats. Privacy policy? Lol. Also, this is probably a good source of LLM training data.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoBummer I got cut off. We were talking about Legos. Still no solution.
- scooke 3y agoHow does it know we are HN users?
- Element_ 3y agoThis worked great, it would be cool if HN added a button for it in the header!
- pknerd 3y ago@dang you should add it on top bar, pls?