Thanks! that's certainly my plan for the physical version (I'm thinking an OLED display in a murky jar) and I probably will dress up the UI for this web version at some point but for now I wanted to keep things simple... otherwise I'll procrastinate doing the tasks I need to get done by endlessly fiddling with this!
I made this for myself. My problem isn't doing tasks, it's choosing between them. Given a list I'll stall on the choice and drift off to something else. This removes the decision: you add tasks to a jar and it picks one at random, which you either do or skip. It works for me, and it might work for a few other people wired the same way.
The concept isn't novel. Simone Giertz's 3D-printed task picker [1] was the inspiration, and it turns out random task selection is a small genre I was unaware of when I started.
Build notes: it's Go, HTMX and SQLite, heavily AI-assisted. As a rule I try to build things small and decoupled enough that I don't mind throwing them away and starting again. It lets me move fast and experiment before things eventually crystallise, and AI-assisted development fits neatly with that because it reduces the cost of binning stuff off. The initial version took a couple of days, and I've spent longer since then using it daily and refining it.
You can use it with an ephemeral session, or sign in with an emailed magic link if you want your jar to persist and sync across devices. It also supports things like daily recurring tasks. It runs on a k3s cluster under my desk (a Turing Pi 2 with four RK1 nodes, if anyone's interested) and is exposed to the web with a Cloudflare tunnel.
Eventually I'd like to make a physical version. I do embedded hardware for a living, and a desk device that shows your next task at the press of a button appeals to me. This was the cheap way to test whether the mechanic sticks before committing to that.
Author here. Happy to answer questions on any part of this project whether that's the physics simulation, the RP2040 PCB design (including the rev 1 mistake that cooked a few chips), or the firmware optimisation journey.
The interactive simulations in the post run the same algorithm as the firmware if you want to poke at the parameters. GitHub has everything to build your own, and there's a small run of finished units on my store too.
Currently in the works are a digital sand timer which can be used to track pomodoros (or any sequence of time intervals), and a Jovian orrery which displays the positions of Jupiter’s moons on a strip of addressable LEDs.
I've been making and selling my electronic social battery pin badges for a while now (https://hortus.dev/products/social-battery) and I'm expanding the range with seasonal versions like a Christmas mood badge, and a halloween themed ghost badge that's coming soon. I'm lucky enough that these projects have gone down well and are making enough money to fund some more complicated (and expensive) projects that I wouldn't have otherwise had the guts to try. Currently I'm working on an RGB digital sand timer with customizable timing sequences so that you can use it for things like the pomodoro technique - I have a working prototype and at the moment I'm experimenting with interfaces for setting the sequences. I wanted to use a combination of buttons and an accelerometer for this but it's not as intuitive as I'd like so I may end up making a small smartphone app to configure it.
I'm making and selling a couple of LED pin badges on my site https://hortus.dev.
I wrote about my experience doing these last year (previous hn post here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38904255) and since then it has really taken off! Not enough to live off, but certainly enough to sustain itself and fund some more projects in the future.
I never expected it to turn into anything more serious than a novelty and I've learned a tonne about running a small business as a result. I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) learning how to grow this into something bigger over 2025!
Having said that, I may pay to send a couple of international orders tracked just so I can see how long it takes and if there are any hold-ups I should be aware of.
I haven't had any problems with it yet and I've sent enough abroad now that someone would have complained by now if there were issues (I hope!). I'm just using the basic Royal Mail international postage option which is DDU (delivery duty unpaid - something else I learned through doing this!) so tax is the responsibility of the buyer.
Customs is the part I found most stressful trying to work out. I have to attach a declaration which has an HS code[0] on it. Working out the 'correct' code was a bit of a guessing game. I've gone with '853120' which is for 'Indicator panels incorporating liquid crystal devices (LCD) or light-emitting diodes (LED)' and that seems to do the job!
I've had the store up since around the start of December and I've averaged a little over one sale per day since then. The bulk of these have come from the facebook ads and whilst the cost of these isn't great, I'm selling enough that I am making a profit still. I'm also trying to compete with all the results for regular enamel badges on Google by paying a small amount to promote my link. I've got some traffic but no sales yet via that channel - although I only started this week so it's early days. Over the course of the year I'm hoping to grow some consistent organic traffic and sales so that I can rely less on paid ads.
Something that took me by surprise is how much fun it is seeing people interact with my content on facebook. A lot of people are just comenting and tagging their friends because they think it's a funny idea. Whilst I am kind of paying for the ego boost it's really nice seeing people enjoying my project even though they don't necessarily follow through and buy one.
Hah, I did consider sticking a microphone on these and making them steadily tick down as people talk to you but I decided that might come across as being a bit passive aggressive... (although I have been told that pressing the button to reduce the level mid-conversation is a very effective way of getting people to leave you alone!)
Yeah I'd love to know. Although a part of me is glad that I wasn't able to follow the path of least resistance here. It was frustrating and dissapointing to be rejected with barely any explanation, but ultimately I've learned more by having to sell these by myself (and I get to keep a much bigger cut of the sales than I would have on Etsy!)