HN Explorer

Ask HN: What project are you currently working on?

54 points by sideproject ↗ HN
It's that time of the month again to share what HN'ers are working on! Have you taken on new side projects that you'd like to share with the community? How is your current side project going?

I'm currently re-designing one of my side projects - sideprojectors (http://sideprojectors.com) - yeah really. What can I say, I love side projects.

FYI, here's the previous month's https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9696274

133 comments

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monroepe
I am working on a habit building app in Meteor. It's really an excuse to get my hands dirty with Meteor, which I am loving.
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jakiestfu
Working on something called Diamonds - a math worksheet generator for Teachers and Tutors. The google docs of math sheets, if you will.

Also just made off-the-rip, a command line & JS soundcloud audio downloader that embeds metadata like artist, title, and artwork. https://github.com/jakiestfu/off-the-rip

mhink
I'm working on a small visualization article about the different methods of generating normally-distributed random numbers, given only a stream of bytes. It's been somewhat hampered by the fact that one small aspect of the Box-Mueller Transform still eludes me. :)
jblok
I'm working on a mobile app built with the Ionic framework. It's called Tripfix (http://www.tripfixapp.com) and is a tool to help you plan things to see and visit on a trip away.

The Ionic framework is great, and I found it really easy to get going with. So far it also hasn't yet hampered me by being a hybrid framework, so it's been a lot of fun :) (http://ionicframework.com/)

louden
I'm working on a browser based set of study design calculators (samples size and randomization lists). I'm using flask and scipy.

It is a lot of fun and keeps my theory sharp (I'm a statistician by trade).

hashexclamation
Been working for a couple of months on a League of Legends stats site (http://carry.gg). Development is going well, and I've got a dedicated userbase. But I'm still exploring ways to grow.
rayalez
I'm working on http://rationalfiction.io - an awesome place for people to post and discuss rationalist fiction/fanfiction stories.

(You can read about what rationalist stories are over here: http://rationalfiction.io/wiki/rational-fiction)

magic_beans
Wow, this looks great! What did you use to build?
rayalez
Thanks! =)

It is built with Django. By the way, the project is open source:

https://github.com/raymestalez/fictionhub

(code is a bit messy right now, I have just finished building the basic functionality and now refactoring and cleaning everything up)

andrewljohnson
Open source Hearthstone-like game, except it's real-time (no turns), and it's space-themed: https://github.com/lacker/cardkit

It's an effort to learn more about react.js, Webpack, babel, and ES6. Contributors welcome. It should be easy to build and run. We have a Slack channel for people who have contributed.

You can play the basic game (if you have an opponent) at http://spacetime.tv (very much a work in progress)

zerego
Not working for me.

- Uncaught InvalidStateError: Failed to execute 'send' on 'WebSocket': Still in CONNECTING state.

- WebSocket connection to 'ws://spacetime.tv:9090/' failed: Error in connection establishment: net::ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

andrewljohnson
Hmmm... Spacetime.tv works for me when I connect two browser windows to make a game.

a) What browser/OS are you running?

b) Maybe your firewall is blocking sockets?

juandazapata
I'm working on www.homesquad.co, it's a HomeJoy for Mexico and Colombia. I started this as an excuse to get in the deeper sands of marketing and customer acquisition, and surprisingly, we're making some extra bucks. It's been very fun, and I hope that eventually, we build a real business out of this.
ThomPete
Working on adding team notes to my contextual app https://www.Ghostnoteapp.com so you can share notes on files, folders etc with others using ex. Dropbox or Box or some other cloud service.

And I am working on finding a better way to formulate whats unique about Ghostnote. Its easy to see when you show the video. But my attempts at explaining it in words falls short somehow I think mostly because the concept is so new.

Right after Evernote integration that was one of the most popular requests.

Privious discusison on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145007

glasz
starve.de - one of many feed readers

cocktailiciousapp.com - something for cocktail lovers

carbeewo
Mine helps travelers find hostels where there are lots of other people staying (https://hostelhawk.com). It's been a side project since I started working as a digital nomad over 1.5 years ago and has helped me find sociable hostels to stay in so I never get lonely. Uses Ionic framework + Angular.js. Still very much a work in progress, so any feedback is appreciated!
Nicholas_C
How does this work? The about button isn't working for me.
carbeewo
Right now the About button just shows the same Hostel Hawk popup from when the site loads; clicking it while it's already displayed does nothing. But I'll add more info about the site soon and fix that.

Basically you can explore the map and see what cities are most popular with travelers right now. You can zoom in and check out how many travelers are staying (approximately) at the tops hostels. The app also displays ratings weighed by number of reviews, so a hostel with only one review and a high rating won't outrank another one with thousands of reviews but a slightly lower rating.

My ultimate goal is to make finding popular sociable hostels super easy and ultra quick.

Nicholas_C
>You can zoom in and check out how many travelers are staying (approximately) at the tops hostels.

I understand the gist and it sounds useful, but how are you determining (approximately) how many travelers are staying at the top hostels?

provost
The weighting concept sounds great. I'll use this for my next Euro-trip! Thanks!
the-dude
I am working on my meCoffee espresso 1kW+ boiler controller with Bluetooth, pressure control and so much more ( https://mecoffee.nl )
tonyarkles
Awesome! Reading through this thread, I'm so happy to see that other people are working on things that I've had in my "Someday Maybe" list for a while. Too many cool things I'd like to have exist, and it's just wonderful that someone else is going to do it first!
axemclion
I am working on a site to monitor performance changes in popular frameworks like React, Ember, Bootstrap, Ionic etc. - http://web-perf.github.io.

Have seen some interesting trends with these frameworks, like how Ember's new rendering engine is 25% faster, etc.

meesterdude
working on The Rebolder (rebolder.com) a social news site. So far no real activity, but it's cool having a site out on the net that others can use.
jbfr
Trying to get a learning project off the ground that revolves around providing Dev Ops for Front End Developers. Goal is to create a solution for product teams that integrates Front End Dev Ops services into a product with minimal infrastructure integration. Overview: https://gist.github.com/joshblack/64e7c31aa47e19cfb3e5 , if anyone is interested in helping out feel free to reply or leave a comment on the gist.
waiquoo
I'm working on a molecular sensor. Basically it's a novel sensor (hardware) that uses machine learning techniques (in software) to identify single molecules. I just finished a doctorate were I showed that the technology could compete with mass spec and has applications in high accuracy bio-molecule characterization.
moron4hire
What's the interface like for testing samples? If there is any chance to do it at-range, such a tool would be amazing coupled with a camera and built into an augmented reality system.
waiquoo
Ha, that would be cool. Unfortunately, to get molecular and sub-molecular resolution on single molecules you have be pretty close to the target (nanometers/Angstroms). You basically load a liquid containing the analyte into the device and push go.
moron4hire
Maybe one just needs to put it on a drone!

EDIT: I wasn't trying to be snarky. I get excited by certain ideas and was just riffing.

1rst_alex
wow this sounds really cool. Any way you can post the link for more info/send it to me?
waiquoo
Working on getting publications out, so I don't have a link just yet. So far the research has been reviewed by my committee and I'm working with a couple genomics and metabolomics groups to validate applications. I will start pursuing funding for the business side within a year.
OopsCriticality
If you're intending to use it for biological samples, how are you intending to address biofouling?
[dead] hockeybias
(On the side) I am working on a bill-splitting app for a group of friends (for weekend house parties, trips, etc). Kinda similar to SplitWise. I am mainly using TypeScript and hope to use Angular2 for the relatively simple UI, but it is not ready yet nor am I.
mkeeter
My perpetual side project is Antimony: a open-source CAD package that mixes Python scripting, dataflow graphs, and click-and-draggable UI features.

http://www.mattkeeter.com/projects/antimony

I'm currently rewriting the dataflow graph engine. The existing engine is held together with Qt signals/slots and duct tape; I'm switching to a C++11 design that tracks dependencies explicitly (which should be faster and nicely decoupled from the rest of the application).

Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9623609

folli
I'm working on a web app that helps biologists perform common tasks on DNA and protein sequences (http://genewarrior.com).

It's a side project since more than a year, I started it to learn more about Javascript and Java Servlets. It's grown into a quite useful tool.