1001 Things To Hack Before You Die

105 points by andre ↗ HN
There's already 1001 (places to visit|books to read|movies to see|{insert other activities}) before you die. Why not 1001 to hack/make/develop/design/start/attempt before you die that's more HN friendly:

97 comments

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1 - register YourName.com

2 - start a blog

3 - learn *SQL

4 - develop a javascript site, (gmail.com)

5 - write your own planning/todo program (because others just don't work)

6 - read, sign up, make at least one post on HN

7 - start an open source software project

8 - set up twitter account

9 - poke somebody on facebook

10 - comment on techcrunch story

11 - Write a book

12 - Fall in love

13 - Donate

13a - Donate to EFF
13b - do something that warrants the eff coming to your rescue
14 - Get a patch accepted to an open source project.

15 - Version your dotfiles and put them up online for others to learn from.

16 - Write and open source a plugin for your favorite text editor.

17- Get some sleep
lol, good one, or a way to lower the requirement for so much sleep
- Finish "The Art of Computer Programming."

- Use the fixed point combinator in Javascript for something.

- Make your own bike lights.

- Figure out how the monad laws really work.

- Write something that makes more than $100 on the App Store.

- Figure out how to get the plants in the garden to not die.

18 - Learn proper use of a version control system.
- Learn Forth

- Learn Erlang

- Learn to play the panflute

Of all the things arbitrary, why a pan flute?
- Learn to play the electric cello
- Write a video game emulator (any old console or computer platform)

- Create a programming language

- Restore an old broken down pinball machine

- Build a mame arcade cabinet

- Write some Interactive Fiction

- Learn to make awesome programmatic artwork with something like Processing or Nodebox

- Create a roguelike

It's like your read from my personal list.
- Create an editor.

- Create an os in the language you designed above.

-Switch from vim to emacs
-Switch from emacs to vim
- start using emacs or vim
Then say "ah, screw it!" and code your own editor.
And call it the BestOfBothWorlds Editor.
I thought adding more features to emacs still made it emacs.
Ignore the haters and promote nano!
I've always wanted to switch emacs from elisp to perl. :)
- compile a linux kernel - overclock/underclock your cpu
- Program a microcontroller, interface it to both a packet network and some analog sensors.
(comment deleted)
Well, it looks like the 9 Things To Hack Before You Die are already posted.
- Repair something that isn't meant to be repaired - Make a disposable consumer product into something more useful and enduring - Use something old to create something meaningful for someone you love
-initiate new item freeze on your todo list in order to check everything off
Some of this is hacking in a technical sense, some of this is hacking in terms of modifying your life to get it to be what you want it to be, or to grow yourself.

19 - Harness Zero Point Energy

20 - Publish a paper in a journal

21 - Present at a conference

22 - Hack food, make something new

23 - Modify your body (with something cool like magnets)

24 - Do something legally/morally questionable and get away with it, just enough to make you rethink boundaries but not enough to hurt someone.

25 - Modify your brain chemistry in an expansive way

26 - Build a great group of friends

27 - Put your projects down and spend some time with your family

28 - Learn assembly language

29 - Code an old school demo

30 - Write a cool program on an 8-bit computer

31 - Travel to another continent with a completely different culture and immerse yourself in it.

32 - Learn how to crack (i.e. break into) applications

33 - Learn how to crack (i.e. break copyright and write keygens) software

(comment deleted)
Output Mandelbrot. Make it interactive.

Enter a hacker/code competition.

Predict the outcome of a sporting event.