[HN Gopher] Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with rand...
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Show HN: Coffeehouse, one-on-one voicechat with random HN users
Author : amadeuspagel
Score : 137 points
Date : 2022-02-02 16:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (coffeehouse.chat)
(TXT) w3m dump (coffeehouse.chat)
| ngngngng wrote:
| I'm confused why it would take any time at all to find a match.
| Sounds fun and weird and a little awkward, just how the internet
| should be. But I can't seem to be matched with anyone.
| openknot wrote:
| Yes, I've been waiting (still on) for about 10 minutes so far
| on Chrome (adblock disabled) to ensure browser compatibility. I
| started a timer for a different task at around the same time
| the wait started, so this measurement is fairly accurate.
|
| Update 1: A match didn't occur yet, 30 minutes total wait time.
|
| Update 2: Still no match. I entered the wait room for the
| original submitted link and left the tab open for 30 more
| minutes in the background (2:48 pm ET to 3:18 pm ET), with
| unmuted headphones on. 60 minutes total wait time across
| sessions.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I'm using deno deploy, which is split accross 25 regions, so
| you have to match with someone from the same region. (I tried
| to use my own server at first, but it crashed, so I switched to
| deno deploy in a hurry, without having figured out how to
| connect it accross regions.)
| em-bee wrote:
| seems the many regions spread the potential users to thin.
| you probably want a stronger single server because connecting
| chats across multiple servers only makes your code more
| complex when your actual problem seems to be that you just
| need more ram or cpu.
|
| alternatively consider using existing platforms like jitsi.
| the benefit of your site is not the implementation of the
| audio channels but the ability for HN users to find each
| other. you could create a frontend where HN users join but
| are redirected to a jitsi room once they are matched.
|
| unless of course part of the point is for you to experiment
| and learn webrtc and related technologies...
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > seems the many regions spread the potential users to
| thin. you probably want a stronger single server because
| connecting chats across multiple servers only makes your
| code more complex when your actual problem seems to be that
| you just need more ram or cpu.
|
| I checked ram and cpu with top when I was using a VPS, and
| it was basically nothing. (I didn't monitor it
| continuously, so maybe that was still the problem.) But
| you're right in principle, I should use one server.
|
| > alternatively consider using existing platforms like
| jitsi. the benefit of your site is not the implementation
| of the audio channels but the ability for HN users to find
| each other.
|
| But once people found each other, it's webrtc, it's p2p, so
| that shouldn't be a problem for the server.
| em-bee wrote:
| then i'd suggest to go back to a single server and find
| out what causes the crashes. you can keep the current
| version running in parallel and tell people to hit your
| single server for testing.
| sam0x17 wrote:
| I like the idea. Too bad it can't handle the load
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Try it again, it should work now.
| nickdothutton wrote:
| A decade ago this would have been art.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| It still is.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| What about typing instead of voice?
| [deleted]
| kertoip_1 wrote:
| Actually, I would really want something like that to happen
| sometime. There was a really fun April Fool's experiment on
| Reddit a few years ago called Robin. Gathered bunch of people
| in small groups, active groups would then merge if people in
| there were active. Conversations there were much more
| spontaneous then on typical IRC/discord groups in know. I hope
| someone will manage to do something similar at scale, ideally
| on HN.
| nwiswell wrote:
| Seems incomplete. Maybe let's add multi-user functionality, and
| upvotes, and... hey wait a minute.
| sailorganymede wrote:
| I wrote something similar (Lunchtime.io) as a way for the Open
| COVID-19 Initiative to relax with other members. One issue I
| found early on was that people would wait for ages to get into a
| call and leave. So we solved it by letting people pick times
| which suit them, showing how many people had picked that time,
| receive email reminders when that time approached and once the
| time came up, we'd give them a link. made things so much smoother
| and i had some incredible talks with people although... it was v
| awkward sometimes.
|
| That being said, project got sunsetted because open source
| projects always make way for priority so love to see people love
| this.
| slingnow wrote:
| How has this been voted so high up given that it:
|
| 1. Doesn't seem to work for anyone
|
| 2. Doesn't have anything specific to do with HN users. Since
| anyone can use it, it's just a random voice chat connection
| website.
| em-bee wrote:
| i am guessing to many users killed the initial server. the
| workaround of distributed servers doesn't allow people to
| connect if they are not on the same server.
|
| it's not easy to find a solution for that on the spot. give it
| time.
| openknot wrote:
| The idea was really interesting, though it's too bad the
| software didn't work for me.
|
| Still, I learned a lot from the comments (e.g. the problem of a
| server overload and fix of switching to a distributed server as
| a workaround; the jitsi platform; the importance of user
| statistics (e.g. number of people chatting right now, average
| time for connection) to encourage people to stay on; and the
| bug that another user found that may have caused the software
| to work locally, but not when deployed [0].
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30183557
| jorgesborges wrote:
| Cool idea. I spent a few minutes waiting for a match but no luck,
| so I'll try again later. If this link was shared to say, Reddit
| or 4chan, would it be fair to say we wouldn't pair with random HN
| users?
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Of course I have no way to know who really is an HN user. But
| why would anyone who isn't use an app that's marketed as
| voicechat with random HN users?
|
| In the long term, I want to make it possible for everyone to
| have their own coffeehouse ... voicechat with random people
| from your favorite subreddit, readers of your favorite blog,
| etc..
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| Why would a user ever use a product in a way we didn't
| intend?
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I'm not sure what exactly your concern is. Someone just
| trolling? The nice thing about this concept is that no one
| can waste more time then they're willing to spend
| themselves. But if people just want to talk to HN users,
| even though they don't use it themselves, I think that's
| fine?
| tmp_anon_22 wrote:
| My answer is tongue-and-cheek. Users will frequently find
| innovative ways to use open products in unintended ways
| if there is a value proposition - even if the only value
| proposition is to troll a random stranger on the
| internet.
|
| Maybe they work out the matching algorithm to
| consistently connect with exactly who they want to
| connect with. Maybe they can get IP addresses or PII or
| social engineering returns from meeting people.
|
| All that said, that doesn't mean this project isn't
| valid, fun, cool, innovative, or has potential. Its an
| impossible expectation to want every side project to have
| perfect security, authentication, and user-
| verification/moderation.
|
| I just want to make the point that there's a very high
| likelihood people will do weird shit with it.
| tomjakubowski wrote:
| It might be fun to use the referer (sic) to match users coming
| from the same site.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I thought about that, but many people use HN via RSS, via
| other sites that scrap it, etc.. And of course people might
| want to use it from the address bar.
| Stammon wrote:
| Cool idea. I'm stuck waiting for a match for a few minutes.
|
| It would be great if it could show how long it takes on average
| until one is matched with a partner. Maybe it could also show how
| many people are chatting right now.
| 2Gkashmiri wrote:
| looking for a match
| bagels wrote:
| If there aren't enough simultaneous users, consider running chats
| on-the-hour or the ability to schedule.
| RIMR wrote:
| A look at the source code, and I'm not entirely sure how this
| thing is supposed to work at all.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| Really cool! Are headphones a must for now...?
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| No. It just says that because if you do you use headphones, it
| would awkward if you take them off and then you don't hear it
| when you're matched someone wants to talk to you.
| ElectronShak wrote:
| Okay, thanks.
| HHalvi wrote:
| I liked the idea, wanted to give it a go.
|
| At first try the website did not load, a few refreshes later I
| can now see the home screen but nothing happens when I click
| anywhere on the page.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Try it again, it should work now.
| jorgesborges wrote:
| For anyone else troubleshooting I learned Firefox on iOS isn't
| allowed to use the Web Audio API, so things seem broken when
| trying to connect to a recording device. You'll have to use
| Safari.
| phpisatrash wrote:
| Why?
| dmead wrote:
| so people can say that got jobs through random connections.
| throwhauser wrote:
| Why not?
| [deleted]
| noah_buddy wrote:
| Fun. Profit. Boredom. Curiosity.
|
| I know many people that go through Omegle when bored and meet
| new folks. Seems like the same concept.
| wbazant wrote:
| I've not tried it because the site is down, but a requirement
| for paired users to have something in common - like being a hn
| reader - works really well for these things! Omegle's main chat
| is really spammy, but if you add "gardening" or whatever as a
| requested common topic, you're likely to get an actual
| conversation.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Try it again, it should work now.
| krtwllndr wrote:
| no, still doesn't work for me though.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| Do you have a minute to talk about our lord and saviour, VC
| Money?
| lambic wrote:
| Reminds me of https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
| way/2016/04/07/473438101...
| powerset wrote:
| I'm seeing an error:
|
| DOMException: Failed to construct 'RTCPeerConnection':
| 'stun.l.google.com' is not one of the supported URL schemes
| 'stun', 'turn' or 'turns'. at createPeerConnection
| (https://coffeehouse.chat/hn:70:40) at startChat
| (https://coffeehouse.chat/hn:56:42)
| belkarx wrote:
| Has anyone actually gotten a match? How long did it take?
| openknot wrote:
| Still no match yet. I was waiting for 10 minutes on the
| submitted link, but didn't get a match. I then waited 20
| minutes on https://coffeehouse.deno.dev/hn recommended by the
| developer in the comments, but also haven't found a match yet.
|
| Update: No match yet, after another 30-minute session. I opened
| the wait room for the original submitted link and left the tab
| open for 30 more minutes in the background (2:48 pm ET to 3:18
| pm ET), with unmuted headphones on.
| karimf wrote:
| I haven't used this, but there was a submission recently for
| adding LoginWithHN functionality. Maybe this could be used to
| verify HN users.
|
| https://loginwithhn.com/
| boringg wrote:
| How does it discern that its a HN user?
| littlestymaar wrote:
| From _about:WebRTC_ in Firefox,
|
| > iceServers:
|
| > urls: ["stun:stun.l.test.com:19000"]
|
| With such a STUN server URL, no wonder nobody ever gets a
| match...
|
| And it's kind of a nasty bug: it doesn't appear anywhere in the
| JS console, or in the network tab of the browser, and it's likely
| to work when testing locally (I haven't tested, but you should
| not need stun to generate local ICE candidate) so the dev could
| have tested in local, seen it was working and posted it on HN.
| Just to discover it was not working after reaching the front
| page... Sad day for the poor dev.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Thanks. I replaced that with an array of servers.
| gregd wrote:
| "We've been trying to track you down regarding your cars extended
| warranty..."
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I'm pretty sure I've shared this anecdote before - when I was
| working at Thomson Reuters at one point HR was doing some sort of
| reach out to accountants that used our services and doing like
| socializing stuff with them and at one of these social get
| togethers where HR was doing their best to get the accountants to
| be sociable one of them stood up and said "You do realize we
| didn't become accountants because we like people?"
|
| When I heard about it I really felt a deep connection to that
| accountant. Sure hope I never meet him.
| [deleted]
| anoojb wrote:
| Do you use voice verification with any of the institutions you do
| business with? Then you ought to never allow some random domain
| access to your microphone.
| playcache wrote:
| I can just imagine how uncomfortable half the conversations will
| be.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I've just changed the DNS settings to a deno deploy instance,
| rather then my own server. (I initially used my own server,
| because in deno deploy it's split accross regions, so you have to
| find a match in your region.)
|
| If that doesn't work it might be that the DNS change didn't
| propagate yet to you, please use https://coffeehouse.deno.dev/hn.
| em-bee wrote:
| while that does make sense, i am in a pretty isolated region
| and i'd like to pick a specific different region.
|
| also, while i am at it, i'd prefer a small group rather than
| one on one.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > while that does make sense, i am in a pretty isolated
| region and i'd like to pick a specific different region.
|
| Really, people shouldn't have to be aware of regions at all,
| which is why I initially wanted to use just one server,
| rather then deno deploy. (I still plan to realize that with
| deno deploy, it's just harder.)
|
| > also, while i am at it, i'd prefer a small group rather
| than one on one.
|
| Thought about that, but one-on-one seems simpler in many
| ways. There's never the question of who starts speaking. If
| one person stops, the other starts. It's also easier for two
| people to find a common interest then for more.
| em-bee wrote:
| right, no region is better than being tied to a specific
| region.
|
| one-on-one requires everyone to speak. with more people
| some can listen and only speak when they have something
| interesting to add.
|
| if the two people don't have a topic then there will be an
| awkward silence. with more people it is also easier to find
| any topic to talk about.
|
| for introverts getting started is difficult, but ending a
| conversation equally so.
|
| in small groups people can join, wait until they are asked
| to introduce themselves, listen until they have something
| to say and leave whenever they need to without
| inconveniencing anyone else who wants to continue to talk.
| paxys wrote:
| This is my nightmare
| adventured wrote:
| I tried four of these chats.
|
| The first just rambled about how much PHP sucks and how great
| Postgres is, for no apparent reason.
|
| The second touted how amazing Kubernetes is, and then asked if
| I could help them configure it for their small project.
|
| The third went on a long rant about how they could build Zoom
| as a weekend MVP.
|
| The fourth tried to explain how we should run the entire world
| on SQLite.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| On the plus side, you didn't get any Covidiots or
| transphobes, so you got the wholesome end of the HN user
| base.
| scubakid wrote:
| Impossible to distinguish if this is satire or reality.
| boringg wrote:
| The sign of a great writer
| [deleted]
| hartator wrote:
| Lol came here to just say that. The microphone auth prompt
| results in stress going waaay up.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| This comment is giving me such a laugh. Mine too. When I
| visited the site out of morbid curiosity I saw that all I had
| to do to realise my nightmare was to click. Click anywhere.
| Click anywhere to start.
|
| I had to hurl my computer off the bridge into the river to
| ensure I didn't click anywhere to start.
| openknot wrote:
| Even if you click, the text changes to say: "looking for a
| match ...
|
| keep this tab open and your headphones on for a while ..."
|
| There's no indicator for how long the queue is, so a match
| could happen at any time. The serif font, lack of sentence
| capitalization, and repeating stock photos of the espresso
| cup also create an emotional atmosphere reminiscent of the
| SCP Foundation and nosleep fictional horror stories involving
| the exploration of the internet.
| chrisshroba wrote:
| Presumably there should never be a queue of more than one,
| right? Unless they have very limited server capacity...
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| That's right.
| gregd wrote:
| My curiosity got the better of me. Now I must chuck my Mac into
| an active volcano just to be safe.
| donw wrote:
| This is the way.
| angryGhost wrote:
| This is the way.
| sugaroverflow wrote:
| hahahaha. Mine too! I'm really glad it doesn't just throw you
| into a conversation. That "click anywhere to start" is
| critical.
| Minor49er wrote:
| This site could implement LoginWithHN if it wants to cater to
| only Hacker News users
|
| https://loginwithhn.com/
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29923736
| immy wrote:
| Well that's a proper Show HN
| dzink wrote:
| This would be awesome if it works. Though I tried and waited for
| a while with no match - I suspect it's a proof of concept to
| judge demand. Would be better if I could actually read HN while
| waiting, might make people willing to keep waiting longer on
| mobile.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > I suspect it's a proof of concept to judge demand.
|
| No it actually is meant to work, though, I admit, it doesn't
| seem to.
|
| > Would be better if I could actually read HN while waiting,
| might make people willing to keep waiting longer on mobile.
|
| Interesting idea.
| em-bee wrote:
| you could also add some statistics of how many users there
| have been in the past hour. or how long people have been
| talking. (just add up all the talk time for the past hour)
|
| just to get an idea how active the service is.
|
| later also show stats for 24 hours to see which daytimes are
| busiest and more likely to meet find someone online.
| cjsturgess wrote:
| > Would be better if I could actually read HN while waiting,
| might make people willing to keep waiting longer on mobile.
|
| It actually would be really interesting if there was a
| functionality to chat with other people viewing the same
| article. Or still one-to-one, but with someone else also
| looking at the article.
| agumonkey wrote:
| it seems no one is able to match on HN.. is this a glitch or
| the original goal ?
| werds wrote:
| Hack Roulette
| wolfgang000 wrote:
| It didn't work, I tried a couple of times and even got a mach but
| nothing happened. maybe It has something to do with a js error in
| the console
|
| hn:78 Uncaught (in promise) DOMException: Failed to execute
| 'send' on 'WebSocket': Still in CONNECTING state. at
| RTCPeerConnection.peerConnection.onnegotiationneeded
| (https://coffeehouse.chat/hn:78:29)
| agumonkey wrote:
| This is timely for the "Find a Freelancer on HN" thread :)
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