HN Explorer

Ask HN: What are your side projects?

63 points by kmccarth ↗ HN
Hey all,

My name is Kevin and I write for BostInnovation, a Boston-based innovation publication.

I am organizing a piece about interesting side projects.

If you are currently working on a side project and would like to be consider for inclusion in the piece, please leave a brief description of your side project(s), a link (if you have one) as well as the best method to contact you if follow-up is required.

Thanks!

EDIT: here is the URL to BostInnovation: http://bostinnovation.com/. Here is the URL to our programming section: http://bostinnovation.com/tag/programming/

EDIT (x2): I loosely define a side project as something you work on but you do not spend most of your time doing so. The focus of the side project is of no concern to me just yet. If there is a way to group the responses by type of side project, I will probably do so in subsequent pieces. (ex, "Gaming-based side projects" or "Javascript-based side projects".)

115 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 271 ms ] thread
jcr
Kevin, you should probably search HN for "rate" (from "rate my ...") and for "show" (from "Show HN: ...") to discover recent projects. Also, if you could be a bit more clear on your definition of "side project" versus front, back, top, bottom or any other type of project, it might prove helpful (i.e. are you looking for startup projects? hobby projects? ...).
kmccarth
thanks jcr, will do.

As opposed to a front project or a back project, a side project is one that someone works on outside of their main job/project. A main job/project is one that someone puts most of their time into.

Does this help?

jcr
Not really. I should have been more clear rather than try to be humorous. With a name like BostInnovation (and no url for your site?), it makes me wonder what kinds of innovations you're looking for?

Some of the people working on "projects" here on HN do it full time (in addition to doing other full time / paid work), and what they are doing is innovative. Some of the good stuff may not quite qualify as a "side project," well, at least it might not in the eyes of the people doing them.

kmccarth
good points, jcr. check my edits on the original post
kilian
My latest side project is http://laserey.es, a webapp that you drag photo's onto, finds your eyes and draws lasers from them. There's an email and twitter on that site for contact :)
nedwin
still loving this project. both my FB and Twitter account have laser eyes.
kilian
Thanks :) I have so many things I still want to add! Alas, the time for side projects is always limited.
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duck
Hi Kevin! You already know about this one since you're a subscriber :), but would love to have my side project Hacker Newsletter (http://www.hackernewsletter.com) included. Also, I make a point of collecting the best side-projects each week in a specific section of the newsletter so if you look through the archives you will find a lot more.
malu
At first, I didn't notice the larger part of the page is an image and was rather confused. I think you should make that more prominent.
duck
Thanks for the feedback and will do. I'm currently doing some a/b testing on the design.
kovar
I run an all volunteer, international response search and rescue team on the side. Http://www.1srg.org. Dkovar at gmail
tantadruj
http://popify.me for creating coupons for websites and social networks. It's also a great tool for measuring users curiosity. We have some more in the oven, but focusing mostly on the main thingg.
windsurfer
In my spare time, I'm working on a game library for Processing that I call Laser Sea Destruction ( http://abielinski.com/lsd ). It's got some fancy features I wish Processing had by default. It's still in development, so there's only 1 working demo, and you have to download the package to see it.

Email is in profile :)

geekam
I am actually looking for a good new project. I have been learning Python/Django and I love it.
kilian
You should contact me, email in my profile :)
latch
http://mogade.com provides free services for game developers (leaderboard, achievements...) Wrote it largely because I believe in gaming, and I wanted something real to push my knowledge of Rails.

Been a little sidetracked with work on mongly.com lately and a few other things, but I still consider mogade.com my main project.

email in profile

Refringe
I'm currently working on a custom written Photoblog hashed out in PHP using the Codeigniter framework. Photography is a just a hobby of mine and I refuse to use services like Flickr to share photos; for some reason it just don't sit right with me.

I've also been working on a website that indexes and categorizes usenet NZB files.

Both projects haven't been launched and are currently at a standstill because of wedding planning. :)

Sorry I couldn't have been more help.

sushi
I am starting a UX newsletter at http://www.uxready.com/ . Currently, I am collecting feedback from friends on what kind of news they'd like to receive. Once the subscribed number reaches 100 I will start sending it.
kilian
Interesting, I subscribed.
petewailes
Signed up. I'd like to see interesting content on data-driven design (split testing etc)
petewailes
Currently creating an FP PHP framework for my own projects, designed for performance over everything else.

Also just finishing up a CSS framework for adaptive screen resolutions, including the ability to show/hide elements based on particular resolutions.

gohat
I've been working on niche ecommerce sites. It seems like an interesting area. If you can get 10,000 visits a month who are highly targeted you should in theory be able to make decent revenue.
bsdman
Interesting. I have been doing something similar with services with excellent results.
triviatise
I run a consulting company, on the side Im working on www.triviatise.com which is a platform which helps advertisers get users to remember their message by giving away prizes when users answer questions about the message.
lux
Just released mine not long ago, it's an interactive video library using HTML5 video and canvases:

http://www.cacophonyjs.com/

Realized my main projects are taking all my time so I finally put it out minus much of a launch just so it's public and open for others to use :)

You can contact me at john.luxford at gmail.

edw519
1. A Business Intelligence/Data Warehouse that sits on top of all of my gmail data.

2. A utility that turns a spreadsheet into a web app.

3. An app that turns my Hacker News comments into an ebook.

4. A bridge hand dissector that helps intermediate players become expert players.

raganwald
> A bridge hand dissector that helps intermediate players become expert players.

Do you know Fred Gitelman, the creator of Bridge Base? If not and you'd like an introduction, please ping me.

edw519
I don't know him, and I may take you up on your offer. Thanks, raganwald.

I loved this excerpt from his wikipedia entry:

"Gitelman is sometimes recognized for his creativity at the bridge table. In one tournament he discarded an Ace, as a signal to his partner to not lead that suit. His partner didn't, but led the remaining logical suit which Gitelman, being void, ruffed."

If that had been written about me, it probably would have been more like:

"edw519 is sometimes recognized for his lack of patience at the bridge table. In one tournament he discarded an Ace, as a signal to his partner to not lead that suit. When his partner led that suit anyway, edw519 threw his cards at him and was 86'ed from the tournament for life."

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DanLivesHere
I have a daily email "learn something new every day" newsletter, at http://dlewis.net/nik -- facts like carrot used to be purple, Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service on the day he was shot, there's an island of hyper-poisonous snakes off the coast of Brazil.

4,000 subscribers. Contact info off the URL :)

delparnel
This newsletter is fantastic. I heard about it a few weeks ago and have passed it on to many friends who are also enjoying it. Highly recommended.
JonAtkinson
Django Weekly. It's a newsletter with interesting Django articles, code, and job vacancies. It grew explosively in the first few weeks in January, but the growth has levelled off at around +10 signups/week.

http://djangoweek.ly/

MPiccinato
I have had one of mine up for a little while now.

Faveone - http://faveone.com - A this or that site which is fun to waste some time on :)

My other side project I have been hacking at for a while now is Had That Beer, http://www.hadthatbeer.com It is a beer check list app

Not up yet, but it is getting there :)

earlyriser
http://rrrewind.com a wayback machine for collective trends.
bryanhun
Very cool - I'm working on a similar project showing current trending content: http://trendn.com
earlyriser
Trendn is also cool. How do yo determine what is trending?
bryanhun
Thanks! Still a work in progress but the scoring is based on social sharing data as well as how long ago it was determined to be trending. Social sharing data includes facebook (likes, comments, shares), tweets including the URL, diggs, votes on reddit, delicious bookmarks, HN (points, comments), and a few other metrics.