2026년 2월 16일의 Show HN

He and I used to "computer code" together in IPython: typing words to see emojis, mixing colors, making sounds. Eventually he wanted his own computer. So I took an old laptop and made him one.

That IPython session evolved into Explore mode, a REPL where kids type things and something always happens: "cat * 5" shows five cats, "red + blue" mixes colors like real paint, math gets dot visualizations. Then came Play mode (every key makes a sound and paints a color) and Doodle mode (write and paint). The whole machine boots straight into Purple. No desktop, no browser, no internet.

It felt different from "screen time." He'd use it for a while, then walk away on his own. No tantrum, no negotiation.

Some technical bits: it's a Python TUI (Textual in Alacritty) running on Ubuntu, so even very old laptops run it well. Keyboard input bypasses the terminal entirely via evdev for true key-down/key-up events, which lets me do sticky shift and double-tap capitals so kids don't have to hold two keys. Color mixing uses spectral reflectance curves so colors actually mix like paint (yellow + blue = green, not gray).

Source is on GitHub: https://github.com/purplecomputerorg/purplecomputer

I have a blog post that gives a little more context: https://adaptive-machine-patterns.com/blog.html#einstein [alt. link: http://archive.today/381Pl] I am new to blogging, so advice welcome.

The preprint is hosted at CULA repository (many thanks) https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/398349 and it has a DOI: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.127224

But, I do believe this is very much worth your time to check out, I am not aware of anything else very much like it.

I won’t repeat what is already written on the github README here, but some info:

I am a successful semi-retired solo game developer, I have been making my own bespoke game engines since 2003 for all of my games across a number of platforms and languages. Last year, I ripped out the engine of my latest game, and stripped it back with the goal to start a new project, as I have done a number of times before.

But this time, I decided to ditch lua and make my own programming language, and that was sort of the tipping point. Once I thought about multiplayer, and realized I wanted a general purpose network that didn't exist, I was on my way down this extremely deep rabbit hole.

I want to just make a few things clear, then I hope that some of you might have some questions or feedback.

- I'm disillusioned by capitalism and the AI transition, and that influences my motives

- I have made all of this open source and free not because I am overly altruistic, but because it is the only way something like this can succeed

- I don’t think it can or should replace the internet, I see it as a cycleway alternative to the internet highway, they have different purposes

- I have no real desire to run an open source project or lead anyone, I mostly just want software that works for me and my family and friends. I love coding and I like to make nice things and share them.

- There is still a lot to do, I'm very excited about messaging and the whole client-side data thing in particular, but for now there are only a few weeks of work to go until a bare bones browser will be functional enough to release and ship.

You can have a play and build it all yourself though right now, host sites, and build apps.

They scrape, paste, and forget. I built Oitii to actually analyze the data before showing it to users.

I developed a scoring system (0-100) to filter out low-effort and ghost listings.

1. Hiring Freeze Cross-Check We verify the company's current financial health against real-time layoff data and hiring freeze trackers before indexing the job. If they just laid off 20% of engineering, we warn you.

2. Smart Salary Synthesis We never show "Undisclosed." If the DB has gaps, we parse job.title for seniority keywords (e.g., "Staff" vs "Mid-Level") and synthesize high-fidelity estimates based on current market rates.

3. The "Trap" Detector Our engine flags logical fallacies in the JD. For example, if the Title says "Entry Level" but the Description demands "3+ years of experience," it gets a massive quality penalty.

4. Active Ping & Honeypots. We don't just trust the post. We use proxy applications to track if resumes are actually being opened (pixel tracking). If the "View Rate" is 0% over 2 weeks, the job is marked as dead.

5. The "Growth Signal" Audit (Cross-Platform Fingerprinting). We cross-reference the listing against the company's direct career page and historical aggregator data to catch "investor fluff."

The Logic: We identify jobs that are reposted on aggregators (to look like the company is growing for VCs) but have been removed or never existed on the company's main ATS.

Zombie Detection: If a role has a high repost velocity (e.g., refreshed every 10 days) but no interview movement, it is flagged as a marketing asset, not a job opening.

It’s built with [Python, Next.js, Supabase].

I’d love feedback on the scoring weights.

ICE, the company that owns the NYSE, just started selling "Reddit Signals and Sentiment" to institutional investors. Structured Reddit data for hedge fund money.

I built the same thing in 9 days. 165k lines. 6,916 tests. Zero CodeQL alerts. Yes I used AI to build it. No I'm not sorry about it.