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Ask HN: What not-profit-seeking project are you tinkering with this week?

104 points by Meekro ↗ HN
Since we have an article about having fun by creating at #1 right now, I thought this would be a good time to ask: What cool project are you tinkering with this week? Please limit it to things that aren't seeking profit.

161 comments

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retrocryptid
Helping a friend hand code a lexxer and parser for a simple markdown alternative.
elviejo
Have you tried three notation? I allows you to create different languages easily.

In particular @breck has several that are simpler markdown.

Here is a starting point: https://scroll.pub/

retrocryptid
I'll check this out, thx. I think this project was created just to see what hand coding a lexxer and parser would be like. You know... just for fun. I want to go back afterwards and re-implement it with (f)lex and bison. Probably a good excuse to learn antler as well. I'll check out the tree notation stuff too.
amir734jj
I like lexer/parsers, would you mind sharing the repo?
retrocryptid
It's not published yet, but one of us will post is as a Show HN" feature when it is.
karmanyaahm
I'm working on improving the https://UnifiedPush.org explainer with more fancy CSS animations this weekend. Also improving the ntfy integration in matrix-docker-ansible-deploy (an ansible playbook to easily host a Matrix server).
tristanc
I’ve been having tons of fun messing around using the depth sensor data from a Kinect for Xbox to create procedural visuals.

It’s been growing and growing to the point of now having 4 or 5 different input methods and accidentally discovering new emergent effects based on different combinations of parameters.

Also threw in intel’s 3D rendering engine Embree because why not.

Anyways, this playlist documents the progress in chronological order...

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvzGE7O7DizdvCEOrwaVNcY_o...

canadaduane
I'm interested in making a "chat with yourself" program I'm calling Soliloquy [1].

The idea is to let you explore different sides of an argument, or different sides of your psyche. For example, you might choose the three characters, "optimist", "pessimist" and "judge" to hold a group conversation that looks like a mobile phone chat, as a way to work through a difficult challenge in life that needs reflection and long-form thought.

The reason I'm building this is I find that I often don't complete a thought before negating myself--I cut short embarrassing or superficially trivial feelings, but I believe they sometimes deserve more stage time. Sometimes it's exploring thoughts that relate to uncomfortable feelings that yield the highest return on time spent.

Soliloquy is being built with neutralinojs, so it will work on any desktop OS (Mac/Linux/Window). It is "local only"--no network connection, so you can rest assured your private conversations are your own. I intend to publish it with MIT license but haven't got around to that yet :)

[1] https://github.com/canadaduane/soliloquy

EarthLaunch
How cool, I’ve been wanting to try just such a conversation between two of my characters. I might give this a try!

That conversation will relate to my own project, in which I’ve lost the fun aspect of working on it. There’s something important about doing a thing purely for fun.

metadat
Neat idea, why not call it Siloquy? I like this name much more, and it's a bit more intuitive imho ;)
seibelj
I would be interested in something where I'm given a topic and position to argue for, and I argue against another person who has the opposite side, and then other people vote on who did it best. Obviously a lot of details there to work out to avoid sybil attacks but I think that would be stimulating.
nprateem
Check out the 6 thinking hats technique
milsorgen
I think you're really on to something there. It's quite along the lines of something I've been practicing the last 18 months or so, particularly not stopping short when uncomfortable feelings come up as I examine an issue or feeling and try gain a proper perspective. It's something I consider part of my own mindfulness techniques, which have really been powerful and profound mental exercises for me. I think something like Soliloquy could really not only help people with the intended goal of the project but even to just expose more people to the very idea of truly exploring things from different vantage points.
Diapason
could be an interesting feature to have as party of a Knowledge Management system like Roamresearch or Obsidian.
muzani
A tool that generates characters from tropes: https://random-character.com

Trying to add a shoutbox this month, to get feedback more easily than the survey. Happy to pay for one. I haven't found one I really like. Some feel a little glitchy/spammy.

elil17
I feel like a shoutbox is the wrong way to get feedback for this. Maybe adding a little more of a personal touch to your ask about the survey would help. Something like "I want to make this site awesome. Filling out this survey would help me do that. I read every response."
muzani
I've done shoutboxes in some other projects and they've worked amazingly. But in those cases, they were manually built and a lot of effort to maintain.

The main issue with the survey is that it's incredibly one way too. The most frequent feedback is that outputs are conflicting. They're designed not to conflict. Some of it might be poorly explained (e.g. tsundere, mean on the outside, secretly nice when you get to know them). Most are edge cases, and it would be good to know more details.

all2
There's something built on top of matrix, here it is: https://cactus.chat/

I don't know if that's "shoutboxy" enough, but it does exist.

muzani
Oh this is nice. Demo seems a bit slow, but I'll try it out.
norwalkbear
I'm working on a stable diffusion type ai for 3d models
joshxyz
A supabase alternative. Partly non-profit. There's just a handful of edge cases they prefer not to deal with. Working on it for weeks now and it's kinda fun.
SOLAR_FIELDS
Cool project. A fork or what? I run the full Supabase FOSS stack on my own stuff and I’m kinda curious what a new stack would offer above and beyond what Supabase already does.
joshxyz
Some parts were taken from their repo. Others are added like app-level authorization, a realtime engine using a c++ lib used by trading platforms, an option to sync some tables to a search database. edge functions are way down the roadmap but i plan to replace it with a js/ts one instead of a deno one.

I want it to be easily deployable to other cloud providers. Initially as monoliths which is ideal for small projects, then eventually as microservices that scale well for larger projects.

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tverbeure
I’m trying different algorithms to optimize DRAM access patterns to make parallel processing by a GPU of nodes in a graph faster.

My biggest takeaway so far is that you first need to check whether or not your dataset fits into the L2 cache…

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gibbonsrcool
I recently implemented a feature for a client that I believe would be a nice little open source tool for Android apps that use the Google Maps SDK. If they give me permission I will hopefully build it, and I’m optimistically sketching it out.

The feature is a way to move info windows into view when they are rendered partially offscreen. Default behavior is to move the marker that was clicked to open the info window to the center but that can be jarring IMO. I liked the iOS Maps SDK behavior that just pans enough to bring the info window into view, so I duplicated that.

bugfix-66
https://BUGFIX-66.com (a puzzle game for hackers, just for fun/education)

Site is intended to be like the book Hacker's Delight, but recast into a game.

Or maybe like professional programming, where you're mostly trying to understand/modify other people's code.

Or maybe like programming in a post-GPT3 world where you're checking/fixing a transformer language model's plagiarized/regurgitated code. Our dystopian future.

Later this week I'll add a Hash Treap puzzle (the fastest and simplest balanced binary tree) following up on the reroot and remove-root puzzles (amazing little algorithms that allow treap insertion and removal, top-down, no rotations).

I'll launch the site properly once I have enough puzzles, maybe early next year.

metadat
+1 for bugfix-66 - the puzzles are fun and the engineer behind them is smart and kind.
egberts1
C-ification of bash-based open tmp files package.
simanyay
Recently bought a used 10 year old MacMini to use as a home server behind Tailscale. So now writing small apps here and there for myself. Latest is bland, it's like del.icio.us but you can host it yourself: https://github.com/valueof/bland.
SOLAR_FIELDS
If you want to FOSS it up as an alternative to Tailscale, I’ve had pretty good experiences with Netmaker. Though Headscale seems to also be gaining traction as well
schreiaj
I spent the weekend writing some code to generate pdf templates to send to my laser cutter for making custom boxes for minis. Downside - someone saw them and wanted some too and offered to pay. Upside - no way it generates profit once I account for dev time, material costs, and the cost of the laser cutter.

Other than that - working on some designs for a few small robots. One combat related the other education.

liquidise
Stictionary[1] is my free, no-ads, offline dictionary that remembers the words you look up. It gives words of the day and flash cards for words you have looked up before.

I built it after years of manually tracking words i looked up in hopes that i'd retain them better. After having it on my phone for months, i can say it works great.

1: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/stictionary/id1613214660

abakker
I made some toolbox organizer trays out of 2x12s, using a homemade CNC router to carve out the pockets. when the creative wells run dry, it's nice to just make functional, non aesthetic, basic projects to get organized.
socialismisok
Building automation to do drone mapping.

I want to be able to make maps with an absolutely minimal amount of effort.

defrost
Nice project, lots of edges to it.

- multi sensor (lidar, mag, video, multi-spectral (with calibrations(?))

- auto docking + recharging (?)

- 3D environment mapping (?), collision avoidance (?)

I spent a decade or so writing | field running geophysical mapping software.

Currently I'm mucking about 'teaching' high school kids (W.Australia) to swarm drone clouds about tractors and such things.

socialismisok
Plus all the orthophoto generation, tiling, and web prep to make it easy to whip out a map website quickly.
qchris
Hey, this is one of my projects too! I use a DJI Mini 2 along with the Litchi flight control app, which allows doing things like building up waypoint missions for covering a large area. I tried doing post-processing myself with OpenCV image stitching, but found that OpenDroneMap's NodeODM program was really nice to use and produced better results. I then wrote a program[1] to parse the output of the NodeODM results package, and upload it onto my website[2] that displays them using MapLibre.

At this point, I can lay out my waypoint missions ahead of time, grab my drone bag and some coffee, walk out the site, and get the vehicle up within a few minutes. I have three batteries, so that usually translates to somewhere around an hour of flight time with reserves, and over 100 images. When I'm done, I can pull out my computer, upload the day's images to the locally-run Docker container instance of NodeODM, wait for the results to get spit out a bit later, then run my post-process script, scp them up to the VPS hosting my site, and there's the map! The automation has made the process a lot more enjoyable. I'm still hoping to tinker with things making the images separate layers so I can do a time-series of orthophotos made in the same location, but it's still been fun in the interim. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat--I don't see many other people that are also interested in the area!

[1] https://github.com/quietlychris/odm-postprocess

[2] https://cmoran.xyz/geospatial

socialismisok
Nice! I use Dronelink (I'm flying an Air 2 S), and open drone map as well. But I'm mapping hundreds of acres, so I end up throwing my images into S3 and processing them on a spot instance.

I'm also working on a time series. I'll check out your projects, thanks for sharing.

qchris
Oh, interesting! I've thought about going for larger areas, but most of the places I've been interested in looking at so far (kelp forests, wetlands) are fairly small, and it's lower anxiety to do low and slow flights where I don't have to worry about local air traffic. As a result, I've tried mostly aiming at high-resolution rather than large area. Of course, that helps with the size overhead as well--my existing computing setup is almost never the bottleneck. If you end up making any of your work public, I'd definitely be interested in taking a look--I've been starting to think about larger area surveys as well.
socialismisok
I usually fly at 350 feet above ground level, which results in fairly good details.

I definitely recommend getting the commercial drone pilots license if you haven't already.

qchris
Gotcha--I'll have to run the numbers on pixel sizes between the Mini 2 and Air 2S at various heights; I'm sure that the Air has a much nicer camera, but it would be interesting to see how big the difference is.

I've actually got my commercial license test scheduled for the end of the month! I'm hoping that it might help me get permission to run surveys in areas like national forests or parks that are otherwise pretty much off-limits to recreational flyers.

totemandtoken
There's two

1) I used to be an energy engineer, so I'm taking some of the most common energy saving calculations I used to do and making a python library of them. And then maybe a quick flask calculator to show the energy saving methods and how much energy they save

2) Trying to learn the basics of font making so I can make a font based on the golden ratio, mostly for personal use

joshmarinacci
I like the tutorials that teach you how to make your own programming language like Lisp and Haskell. I’m working on the same for Smalltalk
cdubzzz
Baby Buddy[0] just turned five and I’m still hacking away on it! Well mostly reviewing PRs and helping contributors. I get a great deal of enjoyment out of interacting with its users and contributors.

[0] https://github.com/babybuddy/babybuddy

frogpelt
It's past the toddler stage! Congrats!