Hacker News: ianmabie

New comment by ianmabie in "Meta is reportedly developing an AI pendant"

ianmabie — Sun, 31 May 2026 00:57:30 +0000

They acquired Limitless AI in 2025 which had pivoted from “record and rewind anything on your Mac” to a hardware pendant “granola for everything” product. It was not in market for very long prior to the acquisition.

Hardware was very nice & sorry to see they sold. Mine sits in my desk now :/

New comment by ianmabie in "California DMV approves map increase in Waymo driverless operations"

ianmabie — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 15:07:08 +0000

Uber has over time had to relax a lot of the marketplace management practices that reduce the incidence of experiences like this. Can’t penalize drivers for cancelling / ignoring requests because it starts to erode their argument around drivers being independent contractors. So of course the quality of the product degrades to the point where now it’s going to accelerate the move away from human drivers.

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"

ianmabie — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 00:46:31 +0000

I have two side projects I continue to make some headway on: a practice call platform (practicecallai.com) and an iOS baby tracker / newborn app (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lil-baby-tracker-newborn-log/i...).

The last month has had its ups and downs.

Ups = some local-area doulas have started sharing the baby app in a big WhatsApp group & growth is starting to pick up.

Downs = my first vibe-coding horror story. For PracticeCallAI, the subscription flow was failing and somehow outside my test coverage, so I've been missing out on new subscribers for the last two months. In an effort fix it, Replit Agent - which I have been loving otherwise - truncated the table that stores all of the user calls. and their database rollback is throwing errors. So that's been fun.

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2025)"

ianmabie — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 22:27:07 +0000

Working on https://practicecallai.com/ - simple saas that lets users run practice calls / role play against a custom AI partner. Goal is to make it the easiest to use & fastest to get started with in the market.

It’s been a fun, practical way to continuously evaluate the latest models two ways - via coding assistance & swapping between models to power the conversational AI voice partner. I’ve been trying to add one big new feature each time the model generation updates.

The next thing I want to add is a self improving feedback loop where it uses user ratings of the calls & evaluations to refine the prompts that generate them.

Plus it has a few real customers which is sweet!

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (March 2025)"

ianmabie — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 00:31:39 +0000

I was getting stuck in some manager <> direct report situations and wanted to figure out a way to practice tough conversations, so I started putting together https://practicecallai.com/.

You can choose from common difficult scenarios or create a custom one and get connected with a conversational AI voice agent to practice. Started out with just manager use cases but now testing out sales calls, interviews, pitches, etc.

Mostly built on Replit (would recommend - is amazing & keeps getting better) and relying on a mix of ElevenLabs / OpenAI / Anthropic for the voice & LLM tech.

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?"

ianmabie — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 15:57:57 +0000

Thanks! Let me know what you think!

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?"

ianmabie — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 11:06:31 +0000

Where specifically would you want to send them?

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?"

ianmabie — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 02:00:58 +0000

I've been working on an iOS app called snapmail: lets you take any photo on your phone, filter / sticker it, and send it as a 4x6 postcard anywhere in the U.S. for $2.99. Fun way to stay in touch with friends & fam. One of a few no-account-needed, single use iOS apps I've been working on.

TestFlight for now - try it out here: https://testflight.apple.com/join/wKY4eYV8

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: Is there a site where a crowd can vote on which A/B site looks better?"

ianmabie — Fri, 05 Aug 2022 21:15:24 +0000

https://www.usertesting.com - you can upload screenshots / prototypes / the actual webpages (if they exist) and have users go through a series of questions. You can also set it to scramble the order to see how that (if at all) changes preferences.

As other folks called out, this can give you a sense of customer comprehension / stated preferences & reasons why, but may not give you the level of confidence a true A/B test would (launching both iterations & splitting traffic amongst & measuring conversion difference)

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: How to contact Uber about a rider safety exploit being used in the wild?"

ianmabie — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 03:25:20 +0000

Which market are you in and who did you end up getting in touch with in support? Did you try the Safety Incident Support Line? At least in the US that is 1 (800) 285-6172.

Without getting into specifics they absolutely do have a way to track down the driver regardless of the state of the trip / who cancelled.

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: Team fun event ideas during WFH?"

ianmabie — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 19:31:03 +0000

I have a good friend who runs http://barnonetrivia.com - they have professional hosts who lead ~hour long live zoom trivia games. Questions are creative and original. Can't recommend enough - very fun!

New comment by ianmabie in "Mainvest – Invest in brick and mortar businesses"

ianmabie — Fri, 26 Jun 2020 14:48:15 +0000

I know Nick, Bob, and Strader from early Uber Boston days - they are great people and very hard workers. I'm really happy to see ex-Uber folks going after an opportunity to strengthen local communities vs. so many others who tried to hop on the next scooter / marketplace / fintech 'rocketship'

I don't know enough about the investment model they support, but any company that is trying to help grow important community businesses like Great Scott in Allston deserves attention.

I also thought Nick's message on internal diversity was one of the better takes (blunt & honest) I'd seen from a CEO: https://medium.com/@nick_97468/our-team-is-all-white-and-its...

Wish them the best of luck!

New comment by ianmabie in "Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?"

ianmabie — Thu, 14 May 2020 12:23:32 +0000

https://www.higifter.com/ It's an SMS-based chatbot that helps you remember special occasions (birthday, anniversary, mother's day), recommends gifts, and purchases them for you automatically.

Working on this with my girlfriend, mostly for fun and to learn something new. We're using Webflow for the site, Airtable as the backend, Zap to help stitch a few parts together, and Twilio for SMS support.