Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?
Maybe you've created your own AR program for wearables that shows the definition of a word when you highlight it IRL, or you've built a personal calendar app for your family to display on a monitor in the kitchen. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it.
1,823 comments
A tool called "diff modulo base": https://git.sr.ht/~nhaehnle/diff-modulo-base
Given two version (old and new) of a Git change (i.e., individual commit or patch series from a pull request) it produces a diff that is actually useful for reviewing purposes, assuming you've already reviewed the old version of the change.
It's sort of like `git range-diff`, but where `git range-diff` produces a "diff of diffs" that is very hard to impossible to read, this tool gives you a direct diff between old and new versions, but filters out any irrelevant changes that were introduced because the author rebased on a more recent version of the target branch.
I hope that makes sense - I never know quite how to put it into words for somebody to understand who isn't intimately familiar with Git. It is very powerful though if you combine it with a minimal amount of setup e.g. for fetching all PR branches from a GitHub repository. I use it almost daily as part of my code review workflow.
Given two version (old and new) of a Git change (i.e., individual commit or patch series from a pull request) it produces a diff that is actually useful for reviewing purposes, assuming you've already reviewed the old version of the change.
It's sort of like `git range-diff`, but where `git range-diff` produces a "diff of diffs" that is very hard to impossible to read, this tool gives you a direct diff between old and new versions, but filters out any irrelevant changes that were introduced because the author rebased on a more recent version of the target branch.
I hope that makes sense - I never know quite how to put it into words for somebody to understand who isn't intimately familiar with Git. It is very powerful though if you combine it with a minimal amount of setup e.g. for fetching all PR branches from a GitHub repository. I use it almost daily as part of my code review workflow.
i haven't used git range-diff but when local master is behind origin/master and I am trying to diff, I use a `git changes` .gitconfig alias:
changes = !git diff $(git merge-base HEAD \"$REVIEW_BASE\")
git diff $(git merge-base HEAD origin/master)This sounds very cool! I recently moved from a FAANG company to a smaller one, and I'm _really_ missing the functionality their development tools provided (including this, which I agree is fantastic and sorely missing from the core GitHub experience).
If I understand correctly, this is like normal Git three way diff except you don't need the full source of the original base?
Maybe you can put a small example of code changes that illustrates this. The diagram helps but actual output based on a toy example would drive it home, I think.
I'm the author of DiffLens (https://www.difflens.com/). I initially built it for myself too (and use it everyday) and it's currently free for anyone to try. It's an attempt to use abstract syntax trees to make diffs more readable. Happy to see another diff project here!
This seems very similar to the "second-order diff" trick: https://blog.moertel.com/posts/2013-02-18-git-second-order-d...
I'm a big SNL nerd and have favorite sketches/memories going back over 30 years. I find it very rewatchable, but streaming services don't have full episodes, and even downloading full episodes wouldn't make it easy to find individual sketches. So I built a Plex library of over 500 individual sketches using some automation.
I used yt-dlp to download the metadata for over 6,000 videos on the SNL Youtube channel. I put it into a database, parsing out season/episode into fields where possible. Then I wrote a small Flask app to search or browse seasons/episodes, from which I could flag for download the sketches I wanted.
I used yt-dlp to download the metadata for over 6,000 videos on the SNL Youtube channel. I put it into a database, parsing out season/episode into fields where possible. Then I wrote a small Flask app to search or browse seasons/episodes, from which I could flag for download the sketches I wanted.
Chicken coop auto-door opener so I don't have to get up at 4AM in the summer. It was just a basic Arduino system but I learned that large canning jars make excellent enclosures: waterproof, reusable, easily modified and replacable lid.
Nice! Would you please share your code?
I did something similar, but gave up chasing parasitic electrical losses and didn't want to make the solar panel to power it huge.
I'm building a MIDI controller that has knobs (rotary encoders) displayed on top of a full hd display. I looked everywhere for something similar and I'm pretty sure that it does not exist. Did my first gig with the first prototype. It's basically a mix between the Electra One, the MP Midi Controller and the Stream Deck.
I'm working on this for months now, and I had to learn how to use tools like Fusion 360 and Kicad for this, which is incredibly fun!
I'm looking for a name for this product, current propositions are "a screen with holes" and "écran total" but ideas are welcome :)
I'm working on this for months now, and I had to learn how to use tools like Fusion 360 and Kicad for this, which is incredibly fun!
I'm looking for a name for this product, current propositions are "a screen with holes" and "écran total" but ideas are welcome :)
I wrote http://idaweather.com to get a better understanding of the local weather where I have a hobby farm.
It's mostly a toy but it has given me great insight into local weather patterns.
It's mostly a toy but it has given me great insight into local weather patterns.
Very cool. Was this to learn about websites and sql, or you just wanted to extremely accessibly data analysis?
I created it for the accessible data analytics. It's nice to be able to answer certain questions about the local weather.
Not all that interesting but I recently built a server for 2FA.
It mainly consists of a simple CLI utility that generates TOTP codes using an AES encrypted lookup table of secrets.
I piggybacked access to this off an unrelated web site and it is now readily available from any device if you can provide the decrypt and lookup key and know the URL.
It mainly consists of a simple CLI utility that generates TOTP codes using an AES encrypted lookup table of secrets.
I piggybacked access to this off an unrelated web site and it is now readily available from any device if you can provide the decrypt and lookup key and know the URL.
That's pretty nifty. Security first.
I suppose this counts: Although not that interesting, I have one of those AC units in my apartment that sits on the floor with an outlet tube terminating at a window to pipe out hot air. The internal reservoir for this unit is quite small so I hacked together a float valve that triggers a pump to offload the condensation water to a larger bin, that way I don't have to empty the reservoir as often.
Pretty simple, but saves lots of time and I don't have to worry about the air conditioner turning off in the middle of the night due to it's internal reservoir becoming full.
Pretty simple, but saves lots of time and I don't have to worry about the air conditioner turning off in the middle of the night due to it's internal reservoir becoming full.
> I have one of those AC units in my apartment that sits on the floor with an outlet tube terminating at a window to pipe out hot air
You might want to add an intake tube, to cool the compressor more efficiently: https://imgur.com/gallery/kA4Z0uV
You might want to add an intake tube, to cool the compressor more efficiently: https://imgur.com/gallery/kA4Z0uV
It's the little things in life.
Why not just have it drain into an ordinary condensate pump which is built for this purpose? Those roll around ACs usually have a spigot to attach a hose you can run into a drain.
Curious why not pump it out of the window? It’s only going to be a few dribbles every few hours.
My family is super into games, and as the resident programmer, they often ask me to build things related to them. Favorite two to build were
- an Unolingo solver that we used to figure out if there could ever by more than one solution to the puzzle (there can be!)
- a "killer" solitaire simulator that determined the optimal number of players for a max win rate. IDK if this is even a real game, but my family plays multi-player competitive solitaire with up to 8 people at a time. IIRC the optimal number for win rates is like 5-6(?) according to my simulation
- an Unolingo solver that we used to figure out if there could ever by more than one solution to the puzzle (there can be!)
- a "killer" solitaire simulator that determined the optimal number of players for a max win rate. IDK if this is even a real game, but my family plays multi-player competitive solitaire with up to 8 people at a time. IIRC the optimal number for win rates is like 5-6(?) according to my simulation
Is that like dutch blitz?
I grew up playing a multiplayer competitive solitaire with my family called Nerts. Sounds like a similar game: https://bicyclecards.com/how-to-play/nerts
Way back in the day before space was a non-issue I bought a used pioneer 720 disk DVD changer. Wrote a frontend to control it and mount the DVDs over iscsi for my media center.
Also many years back when I was traveling all the time I created a thing based off the what 3 words data where I could geo drop messages at a location. My friends and I used it for a while but then just forgot about it.
Also many years back when I was traveling all the time I created a thing based off the what 3 words data where I could geo drop messages at a location. My friends and I used it for a while but then just forgot about it.
That geolocation messaging sounds brilliant. I guess Pokemon Go stole your idea.
It was neat but I never thought it would go anywhere. The idea was kind of like being able to leave virtual graffiti. So anyone could leave their "Kilroy was here" but without actually defacing anything.
Fun idea, maybe I'll add something similar to my https://wherewords.id
That seems like a cool idea, a bit like web annotations (which never took off) but for real world locations.
Ideally you can subscribe to different databases unlike say Google Maps reviews.
Ideally you can subscribe to different databases unlike say Google Maps reviews.
Whoa, that DVD changer is almost as big as a server rack. I'd love to have that in my garage.
broca, a chatgpt powered dictionary + vocabulary book I'm working on.
https://github.com/shi-yan/broca
on each of the computers I use, I have a open sublime text tab documenting words I don't know.
they are scattering around, unorganized, get lost when the file tab is closed.
I want to synchronize my vocabulary on different devices using git.
broca saves to plain files that are git friendly. And using ChatGPT as a dictionary allows me to search for idioms/slang/phases with unlimited example sentences.
https://github.com/shi-yan/broca
on each of the computers I use, I have a open sublime text tab documenting words I don't know.
they are scattering around, unorganized, get lost when the file tab is closed.
I want to synchronize my vocabulary on different devices using git.
broca saves to plain files that are git friendly. And using ChatGPT as a dictionary allows me to search for idioms/slang/phases with unlimited example sentences.
I might actually use this. Always looking for vocab helpers.
After getting an EV many years ago (not a Tesla) which had a truly terrible phone app for checking charge status, starting charging and turning on the heater remotely, I reverse engineered the API and wrote my own web-based tool to control the car. It worked great until 3G was disabled last year.
I wrote an app to do that with my Tesla.
The Tesla app is great, but with one caveat: it won't let you turn on climate controls until the car has "woken up". Upon opening the app, this usually takes 5-15 seconds, but when I first got the car, sometimes took a full minute.
Someone else had already reverse-engineered the Tesla API, and I wrote a quick app that would just let me press a button and it would wait for the car to wake up and turn on the climate controls in the background.
The Tesla app is great, but with one caveat: it won't let you turn on climate controls until the car has "woken up". Upon opening the app, this usually takes 5-15 seconds, but when I first got the car, sometimes took a full minute.
Someone else had already reverse-engineered the Tesla API, and I wrote a quick app that would just let me press a button and it would wait for the car to wake up and turn on the climate controls in the background.
I wrote an app for reviewing and highlighting websites and most computer documents. I can drag the highlights into a built-in outliner and organize and comment them there. I can drag relevant highlights into a built-in report outliner where I can write the corresponding section of the final report. I knew I wanted it. I thought others would too. I was wrong on that. Sigh! I guess I built it just for myself after all.
I have definitely tried to build something similar after all. People are so particular with these things.
Smart RSS reader that, right now, ingests about 1000 articles a day and picks out 300 for me to skim. Since I helped write this paper
https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0312018
I was always asking "Why is RSS failing? Why do failing RSS readers keep using the same failing interface that keeps failing?" and thought that text classification was ready in 2004 for content-based recommendation, then I wrote
https://ontology2.com/essays/ClassifyingHackerNewsArticles/
a few years ago, after Twitter went south I felt like I had to do something, so I did. Even though my old logistic regression classifier works well, I have one based on MiniLM that outperforms it, and the same embedding makes short work of classification be it "cluster together articles about Ukraine, sports, deep learning, etc." over the last four months or "cluster together the four articles written about the same event in the last four days".
I am looking towards applying it to: images, sorting 5000+ search results on a topic, workflow systems (would this article be interesting to my wife, my son, hacker news?), and commercially interesting problems (is this person a good sales prospect?)
https://arxiv.org/abs/cs/0312018
I was always asking "Why is RSS failing? Why do failing RSS readers keep using the same failing interface that keeps failing?" and thought that text classification was ready in 2004 for content-based recommendation, then I wrote
https://ontology2.com/essays/ClassifyingHackerNewsArticles/
a few years ago, after Twitter went south I felt like I had to do something, so I did. Even though my old logistic regression classifier works well, I have one based on MiniLM that outperforms it, and the same embedding makes short work of classification be it "cluster together articles about Ukraine, sports, deep learning, etc." over the last four months or "cluster together the four articles written about the same event in the last four days".
I am looking towards applying it to: images, sorting 5000+ search results on a topic, workflow systems (would this article be interesting to my wife, my son, hacker news?), and commercially interesting problems (is this person a good sales prospect?)
this is cool, thanks for sharing
Do you have public source code for this? Looks great.
It's something I'm thinking about.
The system right now is highly reliable, I have no fear of doing a live demo of it, but live demos come off as strange because my feed is a strange mix of arXiv abstracts, Guardian articles about association football, etc. so it comes off as idiosyncratic and personal. (Oddly when I started this project I loved the NFL and hated the Premier League, when I started doing feature engineering as to "Why does it perform so well for arXiv papers and so poorly for sports" I started studying football articles in detail and started thinking "How would I feel if my team got relegated?" and "Wow, that game went 1-0 and it was an own goal" and next thing I knew I was hanging on every goal in every game Arsenal and Man City play -- it changed me.)
It's not even that hard for me to swap algorithms in and out but it should be easier, for instance I like the scikit-learn system for model selection mostly but there are some cases like SVC-P where I want to bypass it and I am not so sure how to comfortably fit fine-tuned transformer models into the system.
Another problem with it is that it depends on AWS Lambda and Suprfeeder for ingestion, it costs me less than $5 a month to run and about 10 cents per feed but (1) that's not cost-effective if I want to add a few hundred blogs like
https://www.righto.com/
and (2) I know many people hate AWS and other cloud services.
If somebody were interested in contributing some elbow grease that would help the case for open source, alternately a hosted demo of some kind would also be possible but I'm not ready to put my time and money into it. Contact me if you're interested in finding out more.
The system right now is highly reliable, I have no fear of doing a live demo of it, but live demos come off as strange because my feed is a strange mix of arXiv abstracts, Guardian articles about association football, etc. so it comes off as idiosyncratic and personal. (Oddly when I started this project I loved the NFL and hated the Premier League, when I started doing feature engineering as to "Why does it perform so well for arXiv papers and so poorly for sports" I started studying football articles in detail and started thinking "How would I feel if my team got relegated?" and "Wow, that game went 1-0 and it was an own goal" and next thing I knew I was hanging on every goal in every game Arsenal and Man City play -- it changed me.)
It's not even that hard for me to swap algorithms in and out but it should be easier, for instance I like the scikit-learn system for model selection mostly but there are some cases like SVC-P where I want to bypass it and I am not so sure how to comfortably fit fine-tuned transformer models into the system.
Another problem with it is that it depends on AWS Lambda and Suprfeeder for ingestion, it costs me less than $5 a month to run and about 10 cents per feed but (1) that's not cost-effective if I want to add a few hundred blogs like
https://www.righto.com/
and (2) I know many people hate AWS and other cloud services.
If somebody were interested in contributing some elbow grease that would help the case for open source, alternately a hosted demo of some kind would also be possible but I'm not ready to put my time and money into it. Contact me if you're interested in finding out more.
> If somebody were interested in contributing some elbow grease that would help the case for open source,
Sent you an email! I've been wanting such an ML powered RSS reader for quite some time. I'd love to help make it open source if possible.
Sent you an email! I've been wanting such an ML powered RSS reader for quite some time. I'd love to help make it open source if possible.
What do you mean by "outperform" in this context?
Area under https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receiver_operating_characteris... curve.
It's by no means perfect. For one thing if I have a choice of 0.78 ROC based on 40 days worth of data and 0.77 based on 10 days worth of data I'd take the later because I know the later one adjusts more quickly to my changing preferences. Also my selection algorithm breaks up the input into (say) 20 clusters and shows me the (say) 15 top results in each cluster and I know I like the results from that better than if I just take the highest ranking results.
It's by no means perfect. For one thing if I have a choice of 0.78 ROC based on 40 days worth of data and 0.77 based on 10 days worth of data I'd take the later because I know the later one adjusts more quickly to my changing preferences. Also my selection algorithm breaks up the input into (say) 20 clusters and shows me the (say) 15 top results in each cluster and I know I like the results from that better than if I just take the highest ranking results.
I too have an (private) RSS "laboratory" project!
It isn't the elegant machinery you describe here as I'm quite unfamiliar with the technique you describe.
If I'm actively using it the feed list grows to about 35-40 000 at which point I find as many new feeds as I lose old ones.
I maintain a dozen categories of badwords, if any of those are in the headline it will be removed.
With many subscriptions things look quite different, higher frequency publishers start dominating the top of the newest list. The faster they publish the higher the standards I hold them to.
What is quite amazing is that some really terrible news websites use long titles that are highly descriptive. I have a good few of those, they get to stay around because the badword filter purges so much I hardly ever see them. For every 2000 bad ones business insider has a great article. It's a terrible website but their use of descriptive words in article titles is the best in the world.
The key insight imho is that the internet is much more of an echo chamber than people think.
As soon as you get rid of Musk and a few hundred other people, a few hundred companies, a dozen countries and a few thousand other topics you are left with a world of infinite other subjects. People are writing about stuff no one else ever thought of.
If everyone in the world is reading and writing about FOO it is absolutely amazing to get rid of FOO. There is no such thing as an important football match. (joking sorry)
Everyone is praising normality but you should really wonder who creates these norms. If they are good of bad people is besides the point. Musk says 1 something interesting per day I'm sure. For every 100 000 topics inserted into the collective we chose 1 then, by the tens of millions, we talk about it. Every day is Musk day.
It doesn't matter how hard you resist participating, eventually you will learn that space x launched a rocket. There is no avoiding it.
Autonomy is something fucking amazing. I imagine millions of articles are published per day. 99% things said before. What part should I want to read? The 1% with the most traffic?
You should get on the train to nowhere just like everyone else - they say. Stop wandering around on your own, you should get on the train just like me!
I'm not usually telling anyone not to get on the train. If people want to discuss "rss is dead" for the ten thousandth time, let them. They think they chose the topic themselves.
There is 13 billion years of history, 6000 sq km of earth, 7.9 billion people alive, 100 billion dead, 8.7 million species of plants and animals, 350 thousand chemical compounds, 130 million books since the printing press, 100 billion stars in the milky way alone. What to spend my time on? The Trump investigations? Really?
I'm sorry for not being very technical.
It isn't the elegant machinery you describe here as I'm quite unfamiliar with the technique you describe.
If I'm actively using it the feed list grows to about 35-40 000 at which point I find as many new feeds as I lose old ones.
I maintain a dozen categories of badwords, if any of those are in the headline it will be removed.
With many subscriptions things look quite different, higher frequency publishers start dominating the top of the newest list. The faster they publish the higher the standards I hold them to.
What is quite amazing is that some really terrible news websites use long titles that are highly descriptive. I have a good few of those, they get to stay around because the badword filter purges so much I hardly ever see them. For every 2000 bad ones business insider has a great article. It's a terrible website but their use of descriptive words in article titles is the best in the world.
The key insight imho is that the internet is much more of an echo chamber than people think.
As soon as you get rid of Musk and a few hundred other people, a few hundred companies, a dozen countries and a few thousand other topics you are left with a world of infinite other subjects. People are writing about stuff no one else ever thought of.
If everyone in the world is reading and writing about FOO it is absolutely amazing to get rid of FOO. There is no such thing as an important football match. (joking sorry)
Everyone is praising normality but you should really wonder who creates these norms. If they are good of bad people is besides the point. Musk says 1 something interesting per day I'm sure. For every 100 000 topics inserted into the collective we chose 1 then, by the tens of millions, we talk about it. Every day is Musk day.
It doesn't matter how hard you resist participating, eventually you will learn that space x launched a rocket. There is no avoiding it.
Autonomy is something fucking amazing. I imagine millions of articles are published per day. 99% things said before. What part should I want to read? The 1% with the most traffic?
You should get on the train to nowhere just like everyone else - they say. Stop wandering around on your own, you should get on the train just like me!
I'm not usually telling anyone not to get on the train. If people want to discuss "rss is dead" for the ten thousandth time, let them. They think they chose the topic themselves.
There is 13 billion years of history, 6000 sq km of earth, 7.9 billion people alive, 100 billion dead, 8.7 million species of plants and animals, 350 thousand chemical compounds, 130 million books since the printing press, 100 billion stars in the milky way alone. What to spend my time on? The Trump investigations? Really?
I'm sorry for not being very technical.
Interested in your filters, or a link to your results!
On the one hand, "echo chambers bad", on the other hand, I'd be lying if I didn't acknowledge that what floods and outnumbers most other content is a form of signal-to-noise ratio manipulation, and is thus creating an artificial echo chamber by sheer volume.
Would love to know more. I'm a sucker for anything RSS.
Would love to know more. I'm a sucker for anything RSS.
Ok, ill tell you some of the funny parts... I've kinda enjoyed keeping the "secret" for long enough.
My aggregator is actually a giant grease monkey script. Grease monkey can just do xml requests cross domain. HTML is great for creating links that open in the browser and I don't want to be alt tapping from one window to the other. This also makes me uninterested in the <description> element which consumes a huge amount of space. I'm really discarding everything except [the pubDate, the headline, a link to the content chopped into the [sub] domain, and the rest of the path] It's a giant date sorted array of arrays. New entries are pushed into a temp array from which they are pop'ed and spliced into the right spot in the big one. I usually keep 5000 entries (2000 is enough tho) so nr 5001 is removed.
It stays small data that way! I can periodically post it to some simple php script that turns it into a static html document. If the oldest result is newer than the newest from the previous dump it dumps it again.
Every 20 seconds the table on the page is replaced with the updated results. I had it in real time but it moves to much to read and click on things. No need to preserve any dom, dom manipulation is slow, just feed a whole new table into the page as a string.
XHR requests must be async which is a terrible technology. You don't know how many responses you are going to get per second. It has some relationship with the number of requests you make but making a lot of requests there is no way to avoid receiving a lot simultaneously which, if you try do anything with the response text, freezes the browser. There is no time to do more than push them into an array.
Then I use a setInterval to parse them, how many depends on how far behind the parser is. setInterval delays if the browser is busy, parsing can be far behind. If it is to far behind the number of requests per second is dialed down.
Probably the funniest part is the parser
It starts with a regex exec in a do{}while() loop. It looks for things that look like pubDates, it compares up to 3 time stamps with the oldest pubDate in my result set. Most feeds never make it beyond that point.
Then it tries to parse the feed by the rules. It looks for the string <item>, if it finds that it looks for <title> etc
Lots of feeds are hilariously broken and invalid so I have an arsenal of alternative approaches in the correct order of likelyhood.
The funniest moment was when someone deleted their feed and redirected it to the website front page.... but I never noticed it. It tried to parse the "feed" in all ways it could and as a last resort looked for <a href=""> elements. Because it also couldn't find a pubDate of any kind, nothing that looked like a date, it took the /2023/01/03 part of the url and made a time stamp from that, inserted it into the result set and happily continued.
Feeds that are slow get suspended, lvl 1 is 24 hours, level 5 is a week, 5 weeks is the limit. I might try them again after a few more months.
In monitor mode each function has it's own tiny log window. The log() function is normally empty, modern js skips it efficiently regardless what kind of complex params are set.
At times I have benchmarking things inthere so that it choses the fastest approach automatically.
It can consume opml (any number pretty much) but I prefer using flat lists of feed urls.
Apart from the (optional) dumps the backend is just static files.
Because it runs in the browser it can also use credentials. It mixes in my gmail feed too. https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom
Not really something I want to share with the world.
I will share this http://salamisushi.go-here.nl
This is a greassemonkey script, it detects feeds linked in the web pages you visit, displays an edit box with the feeds it found and it lets you export the list as an opml file.
The web pages you visit are actually amazingly interesting to you personally. Much more so than one would expect. Unsubbing the garbage goes much faster than finding interesting feeds manually one by one. If there is a lot of garbage it is because you've visited to many garbage websites. It's funny to reflect on.
Thanks for your time
My aggregator is actually a giant grease monkey script. Grease monkey can just do xml requests cross domain. HTML is great for creating links that open in the browser and I don't want to be alt tapping from one window to the other. This also makes me uninterested in the <description> element which consumes a huge amount of space. I'm really discarding everything except [the pubDate, the headline, a link to the content chopped into the [sub] domain, and the rest of the path] It's a giant date sorted array of arrays. New entries are pushed into a temp array from which they are pop'ed and spliced into the right spot in the big one. I usually keep 5000 entries (2000 is enough tho) so nr 5001 is removed.
It stays small data that way! I can periodically post it to some simple php script that turns it into a static html document. If the oldest result is newer than the newest from the previous dump it dumps it again.
Every 20 seconds the table on the page is replaced with the updated results. I had it in real time but it moves to much to read and click on things. No need to preserve any dom, dom manipulation is slow, just feed a whole new table into the page as a string.
XHR requests must be async which is a terrible technology. You don't know how many responses you are going to get per second. It has some relationship with the number of requests you make but making a lot of requests there is no way to avoid receiving a lot simultaneously which, if you try do anything with the response text, freezes the browser. There is no time to do more than push them into an array.
Then I use a setInterval to parse them, how many depends on how far behind the parser is. setInterval delays if the browser is busy, parsing can be far behind. If it is to far behind the number of requests per second is dialed down.
Probably the funniest part is the parser
It starts with a regex exec in a do{}while() loop. It looks for things that look like pubDates, it compares up to 3 time stamps with the oldest pubDate in my result set. Most feeds never make it beyond that point.
Then it tries to parse the feed by the rules. It looks for the string <item>, if it finds that it looks for <title> etc
Lots of feeds are hilariously broken and invalid so I have an arsenal of alternative approaches in the correct order of likelyhood.
The funniest moment was when someone deleted their feed and redirected it to the website front page.... but I never noticed it. It tried to parse the "feed" in all ways it could and as a last resort looked for <a href=""> elements. Because it also couldn't find a pubDate of any kind, nothing that looked like a date, it took the /2023/01/03 part of the url and made a time stamp from that, inserted it into the result set and happily continued.
Feeds that are slow get suspended, lvl 1 is 24 hours, level 5 is a week, 5 weeks is the limit. I might try them again after a few more months.
In monitor mode each function has it's own tiny log window. The log() function is normally empty, modern js skips it efficiently regardless what kind of complex params are set.
At times I have benchmarking things inthere so that it choses the fastest approach automatically.
It can consume opml (any number pretty much) but I prefer using flat lists of feed urls.
Apart from the (optional) dumps the backend is just static files.
Because it runs in the browser it can also use credentials. It mixes in my gmail feed too. https://mail.google.com/mail/feed/atom
Not really something I want to share with the world.
I will share this http://salamisushi.go-here.nl
This is a greassemonkey script, it detects feeds linked in the web pages you visit, displays an edit box with the feeds it found and it lets you export the list as an opml file.
The web pages you visit are actually amazingly interesting to you personally. Much more so than one would expect. Unsubbing the garbage goes much faster than finding interesting feeds manually one by one. If there is a lot of garbage it is because you've visited to many garbage websites. It's funny to reflect on.
Thanks for your time
This commentary is even better than code :) Thanks!
This all reminds me of my friend, who doesn't really have a programming background, but uses Tasker (an Android app programmed through a UI) to automate tons of stuff and is incredibly happy with it. Meanwhile, I've had tons of ideas of things I'd like to automate, but never did, because Tasker is clunky and not "reliable" or "the right way", and a "proper" approach would be "better" or Tasker "might stop working / be unreliable". In the end, he has accomplished a lot more than I have, even though I supposedly have a much better foundation for accomplishing those sorts of things.
That is to say, I admire your approach here. I appreciate that you've just gone with it and did what many people on here would look at and say "that's insane".
There's a lot of power in just doing something, in the environment that's most readily available to you, and not getting hung up on the best way to plan it out and do it and make sure it's reliable and durable. You're exactly where you want to be, and the other person is sitting back at the start still planning.
Thank you for sharing.
That is to say, I admire your approach here. I appreciate that you've just gone with it and did what many people on here would look at and say "that's insane".
There's a lot of power in just doing something, in the environment that's most readily available to you, and not getting hung up on the best way to plan it out and do it and make sure it's reliable and durable. You're exactly where you want to be, and the other person is sitting back at the start still planning.
Thank you for sharing.
Your post resonated with me a lot.
I'm jealous! Experiencing the world with all the garbage filtered out.
I'm jealous! Experiencing the world with all the garbage filtered out.
Nice approach! I added a very basic keyword filter in my rss reader (https://github.com/lallassu/gorss) to do some sort of "cleaning". But having a section in the reader that would filter out the articles more intelligent would be very nice, and maybe bundled them into clusters.
I do something similar for my personal news reader. [1]. Originally I had done it so I can read my tech news quickly. Now few of my friends also have started using it.
[1] https://embit.ca
[1] https://embit.ca
Amusing. I, too, wrote my own ML-powered newsreader. (Not linking here because I don't want to de-anonymize my HN handle.)
I guess this is a thing people do. ;)
I guess this is a thing people do. ;)
Does it use naive Bayes powered recommendations?
No. A DNN w/ BERT/nnlm embeddings (I'm between models right now). And a sort of context-based classifier so that it can react to new things you "like" without model retraining.
Cool!
I've been hacking on a related side project -- in my case, I wanted something like this but for Twitter. Right now it's using gpt-3.5-turbo to cluster related Tweets & rank based on my interests.
Source is here: https://github.com/kasrak/feedpaper
I've been hacking on a related side project -- in my case, I wanted something like this but for Twitter. Right now it's using gpt-3.5-turbo to cluster related Tweets & rank based on my interests.
Source is here: https://github.com/kasrak/feedpaper
I also wrote my own feed aggregator (https://mofeed.news) from scratch in Go. It can connect to twitter, reddit, spotify/itunes(podcasts), rss, medium, youtube, etc.It has a good search engine (meilisearch) and also supports newsletter (each user has an inbox).
I'm currently testing it and have a few test users for feedback. I hope I can open source it sometime this year, after integrating the feedbacks, and polishing the code.
It's not intelligent for now, but that's by choice. Instead, I prefer to have custom rules for filtering (e.g., adding tweets from user X to feed only if the likes are above a threshold). I may use GPT for summarization later, but honestly most of the posts are either short (e.g., tweets), or they come from websites that have description/summary in their meta tags.
Please shoot me an email to `[email protected]` if you want to test it :)
I'm currently testing it and have a few test users for feedback. I hope I can open source it sometime this year, after integrating the feedbacks, and polishing the code.
It's not intelligent for now, but that's by choice. Instead, I prefer to have custom rules for filtering (e.g., adding tweets from user X to feed only if the likes are above a threshold). I may use GPT for summarization later, but honestly most of the posts are either short (e.g., tweets), or they come from websites that have description/summary in their meta tags.
Please shoot me an email to `[email protected]` if you want to test it :)
How does the bit that determines if 2 articles are really about the same story work? How did you structure training data for that and get a training set?
https://github.com/piqoni/matcha can summarize feed articles with gpt3.5 , but not categorize yet
I wrote a hearthstone simulator when the game came out.
https://github.com/jleclanche/fireplace
It was used and referenced by a few scientific papers and phds since. It’s my little pride, even though it would really need a rewrite at this point to work properly with all the additions in the game.
It contains its own little python driven dsl for actions. I could talk about it for hours. All that work led to me starting a company around hearthstone (I have since left it behind but it eventually grew into other games).
https://github.com/jleclanche/fireplace
It was used and referenced by a few scientific papers and phds since. It’s my little pride, even though it would really need a rewrite at this point to work properly with all the additions in the game.
It contains its own little python driven dsl for actions. I could talk about it for hours. All that work led to me starting a company around hearthstone (I have since left it behind but it eventually grew into other games).
cool!
I wrote my own firmware for ESP-8266 IoT devices to connect them to Home Assistant. There are many like it, but this one is mine: https://github.com/thedanbob/mqtt_light
https://github.com/thedanbob/mqtt_garage_door
https://github.com/thedanbob/mqtt_power_cycle
A shortcut on my iPhone, that I can dictate a note to, and it transcribes it and puts it into my GTD inbox in Notion. It helps me not forget things. Lowers the friction and allows me to make note of fleeting ideas, thoughts, and things to get done.
I'm guessing this wasn't literally a shortcut
„Shortcuts“ are a feature in iOS
https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/welcome/ios
https://support.apple.com/guide/shortcuts/welcome/ios
Not very interesting, but used VB script to make Netflix sleep timer for the active tab. (looks for the browser process, makes the windows active,sends a ctrl+W to the window to close the video player, and finally sleeps the display.
This way I can fall asleep to noise that doesn't later wake me up.
This way I can fall asleep to noise that doesn't later wake me up.
I feel like there's a whole suite of tools that we need to be used with netflix to make our lives easier.
A website to see a map of the world's tides, and bidirectional predictions for individual stations (edit: worldwide too, forgot I added that). The UI/UX is... archaic, but that's just how I wanted it. It works fully offline. https://solunar.pages.dev
Most fun part was transcribing 70+ year old NOAA tide calculation mathematic/astronomic/hydrologic research papers into modern TypeScript. Approach is semi-documented here: https://github.com/JacksonKearl/solunar
Most fun part was transcribing 70+ year old NOAA tide calculation mathematic/astronomic/hydrologic research papers into modern TypeScript. Approach is semi-documented here: https://github.com/JacksonKearl/solunar
That's just cool.
that is cool, but I'm curious when the highest tide vs lowest tide of the year is.
It will change station to station, but if you open the station details page, adjust X Range to something like 28/180 days, then tune low pass to filter out all the high frequency (daily) fluctuations, you might get your answer. Some stations don't have strong Solar contributions, and won't change much on an annual basis, you can enable the Harmonics toggle and see if any show up on the outside in yellow (disable Sun).
I did consider adding a "max finding" mode of some sort, but that's never really been my use case.
I did consider adding a "max finding" mode of some sort, but that's never really been my use case.
That is really cool!
I’ve wanted to do this with Canadian data for years! My wife works for the organization which tracks our national tide data and builds our prediction models. It’s extremely fascinating stuff.
I’m looking forward to digging into your work. I haven’t really known where to start, but I can probably get a lot of inspiration here. Nice work!
I’m looking forward to digging into your work. I haven’t really known where to start, but I can probably get a lot of inspiration here. Nice work!
Cool! Would love to have some extra datapoints. This is what the raw data I use looks like https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/harcon.html?id=9410580#
If you are OK with R, there is some good code here that makes predictions from harmonics:
https://dankelley.github.io/oce/reference/tidedata.html
Of course, you can download the predictions from DFO too, e.g., https://api-iwls.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/swagger-ui/index.html
Of course, you can download the predictions from DFO too, e.g., https://api-iwls.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/swagger-ui/index.html
Hey, thanks! I didn’t realize they have a prediction API. I assumed I’d need to produce a lot of this data myself from a giant csv or similar. This is awesome!
I use MouseGestures so I often get fun surprises on projects like this when I right-click and then drag my cursor to close the tab. Yours might have been the best one yet!
It's a very nice, UI. The "viewing port" concept is very nice. A slider for timescale in the viewing window would be great!
Also would be great to see worldwide cities tides :)
edit: using the x-range view is an interesting time slider - I found the options toggle
Looks nice, would love something like that for Europe.
Unfortunately while US's NOAA provides all the data needed free of charge (with an API to boot), the UK government's equivalent charges an MSRP of £38.30 and requires finding and contacting an authorized distributor, though the data does seem to be more worldwide. I haven't seen other offerings.
https://www.admiralty.co.uk/publications/publications-and-re...
https://www.admiralty.co.uk/publications/publications-and-re...
time machine
go on...
I did the same thing, but not for myself, it was to send other people away that I didn't like
A webbapp that helps me remember names by showing them in a graph network. Super simple, use it constantly
A webapp for sharing files/text between two devices no matter the platform. Use this all the time. No more sending emails, Facebook message, dropbox link to yourself.
A webapp for sharing files/text between two devices no matter the platform. Use this all the time. No more sending emails, Facebook message, dropbox link to yourself.
MUDs are a great breeding ground for bespoke programs. I've made my own system of triggers and aliases in Rust, which interfaces with Mudlet (very popular MUD client) through JSON over stdio. Being written in Rust, it has enabled a publicly usable web tool (http://seurimas.github.io/topper/explainer/?/topper/explaine...), but the majority of the code is just for me.
The site you linked isn't loading for me. It's just a black page with a favicon
I had the wrong path for the demo file. It ought to work now.
https://hyperscript.org
I wanted to have a scripting language that was inspired by xTalk for some light front end work alongside htmx. Didn't expect it to go anywhere.
I wanted to have a scripting language that was inspired by xTalk for some light front end work alongside htmx. Didn't expect it to go anywhere.
Well that's what you get for building something no one wanted...
story of my life
That's actually pretty cool
I wrote a program in C++ to download massive amounts of stock data from a data provider. The binary itself is 2 MB, memory use rises to over 16 GB and it frees everything at the end, so there are no memory leaks (I'm particularly proud of that). Over the years I've found better and better ways of making it run faster because a daily run will take over 6 hours of downloading and writing to my database.
I also wrote a multi-threaded backtester in C++ because the program I was using was only single-threaded. I stopped using that several years ago but the act of writing it was a lot of fun.
I also wrote a multi-threaded backtester in C++ because the program I was using was only single-threaded. I stopped using that several years ago but the act of writing it was a lot of fun.
I should really give c++ a go...
If you're going for multi-threaded and "frees all memory at the end", it's probably going to be way easier to write it in Rust, and you should end up with essentially the same result.
Is the code public?
a soil moisture sensor using capacitors as the sensor. it's how i learned to code. i found a few different versions of the project online. couldn't get them to work very well but i was able to piece together enough knowledge of basic circuits to get the sensor to work well with my own circuit design.
once i got it to work, i left it on my desk for a few months and then cleaned it up/removed the circuit. only documented the circuit by a couple of bad photographs, so i'm not sure how to recreate it. i might could figure it out again if i spent the time, but i've been focused on other projects.
https://github.com/smcalilly/sensor
once i got it to work, i left it on my desk for a few months and then cleaned it up/removed the circuit. only documented the circuit by a couple of bad photographs, so i'm not sure how to recreate it. i might could figure it out again if i spent the time, but i've been focused on other projects.
https://github.com/smcalilly/sensor
Be nice to hook that up to some kind of watering system to always have the perfect moisture.
yep, that was the goal. my friend had a small organic farm but he lived an hour away and needed a good, cheap watering solution. led me to down a rabbit hole and now i'm a software developer. i'll probably revive it once i have some space to do more serious vegetable growing
Geeky misconception: the wet/dry cycle can be optimal.
https://ppg.report
Shows a nicely formatted weather report for flying my paramotor, pulling data in from many different sources :-)
Shows a nicely formatted weather report for flying my paramotor, pulling data in from many different sources :-)
I bought one of these LED screens (you get 64*32px, so not a lot!), and I wrote an app to view my local surf conditions on it (so I know what I'm missing out on while working). But because it doesn't support a way to run local apps that fetch from APIs, I had to add a way to show the forecast for other spots and make it "official". No idea how many people use it, but I saw it on instagram ads so that was some kind of validation haha. It looks like this: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMi996lVIAAQMI3?format=jpg&name=...
wicked, I love these display projects
> But because it doesn't support a way to run local apps that fetch from APIs, I had to add a way to show the forecast for other spots and make it "official".
I’m having difficulty parsing and understanding this sentence: how did this result in your display being posted on instagram without your knowing?
I’m having difficulty parsing and understanding this sentence: how did this result in your display being posted on instagram without your knowing?
About 8 years back, I was leading an engineering team which was the escalation path for customer support. We were sitting on a large corpus of support tickets but didn't have any insights. I was amazed when word2vec came out and blew my mind. So I built a language model that trained on support ticket data. I modeled system logs attached to support tickets as an NLP model to predict what was going to fail next and for which customer.
Never made it to prod but was a great tool for me to see where I want to budget my team's time.
This is way before all the LLM and Generator models, but it was such a fun project.
Never made it to prod but was a great tool for me to see where I want to budget my team's time.
This is way before all the LLM and Generator models, but it was such a fun project.
>This is way before all the LLM and Generator models, but it was such a fun project.
That means something more sophisticated has to exist today and should be commercially available. Can anyone explain to what extent companies use this stuff in their interaction with customers, and how successful is it? (Somehow I still see AI still as one-off things people do for fun or AI being used to hype up rather mundane software.)
That means something more sophisticated has to exist today and should be commercially available. Can anyone explain to what extent companies use this stuff in their interaction with customers, and how successful is it? (Somehow I still see AI still as one-off things people do for fun or AI being used to hype up rather mundane software.)
It should exist and would be super powerful considering all the recent advancements in language ML. Here was the mental model of my model: the canonical representation (i.e. a representation after taking out run-time populated fields) of a log line represents the smallest meaningful unit of this "log language": _a word_. Taking this analogy further, an event is a collection of logs that occur together (mostly in order)—just like words spoken together form _a sentence_. Finally, collections of events that occur in close proximity (in time) represent _paragraphs_, while paragraphs occurring in a certain order constitute _chapters_. Using this mental model opens the door to apply all the new AI techniques for text extraction, summarization and generation to extract the semantic structure of any "log language" and then learn and classify behaviors observed at run-time. The eventual objective function is not generation though--it's reasoning with the optimal FP-TP tradeoff on a ROC curve.
I haven't seen anyone do it yet. Maybe companies like Splunk and Elastic will take a lead here. I am happy to engage, advise and contribute if there is an open source project around this. Has anyone else seen something remotely close to this?
I haven't seen anyone do it yet. Maybe companies like Splunk and Elastic will take a lead here. I am happy to engage, advise and contribute if there is an open source project around this. Has anyone else seen something remotely close to this?
Very interesting, thanks!
We have a corpus or database of programs that follow logic but with no simulation, so it represents knowledge to solve a problem yet all we have control over is the parameters (inputs). In this case, input is functional logical content (a program), describing the resolution of corpus details. The model solves its integrated, corporate logic, and our output is an interpretation of that individual program.
Now our task is to swap out this entire database for something like it, but not exactly the same. The output becomes the input to this new matrix. The individual program persists, but everything is the next generation. With a little book-keeping, the programs do our will...
Now our task is to swap out this entire database for something like it, but not exactly the same. The output becomes the input to this new matrix. The individual program persists, but everything is the next generation. With a little book-keeping, the programs do our will...
Don't think I quite follow. Is the new program (operating on the output of the earlier program) supposed to reason about why you are seeing the result that you are seeing? Or is it doing more post processing to make the earlier output directly consumable by your corporate systems.
The new program’s purpose could be to do more post processing to make the interpretation of that earlier program directly consumable (inter-generationally), or it could simply start producing more problems to solve.
Gotcha! That makes sense. I would recommend looking at LangChain though, as it does a good job at modeling multi-stage learning / inference environments.
Integration API: https://thetaplane.com/ai/langchain/api
Inspired by: https://github.com/daveebbelaar/langchain-experiments/blob/m...
Inspired by: https://github.com/daveebbelaar/langchain-experiments/blob/m...
Wow... that was quick.
Would love to see what results you get.
There's a YC startup that's doing something along these lines. They recently posted something, don't remember if it was on front page or an "YC startup jobs" email.
Mendable.ai?
Nah... Mendable seems to be searching in documentation. This idea is to extract an execution model of every component in your system from the logs of that component. We can think of the prediction step as a complete separate machine model for now.
Anything else comes to mind?
Anything else comes to mind?
I created a text editor that was meant to be programmable like a spreadsheet but interactive like a IPython notebook.
There's screenshots here:
https://github.com/samsquire/liveinterface
The code is Angular 1 legacy codebase.
https://github.com/samsquire/live-interface
There's a screencast here https://github.com/samsquire/live-interface/blob/master/scre...
It's not buildable at this time due to dependencies...
There's screenshots here:
https://github.com/samsquire/liveinterface
The code is Angular 1 legacy codebase.
https://github.com/samsquire/live-interface
There's a screencast here https://github.com/samsquire/live-interface/blob/master/scre...
It's not buildable at this time due to dependencies...
I built a tool that auto-generates guitar chord-melody arrangements with tabs and chord diagrams, given a jazz leadsheet (melody + chord symbols) in MusicXML form:
https://chordmelody.io/
https://chordmelody.io/
A “note taking” app after spending years looking for “the right one”. Nothing ground breaking, similar to most other “connected notes” apps but with one small difference: everything is built for my brain workflow rather than the other way around.
https://nvartolomei.com/omniverse/
Maybe, one day, after I’m satisfied with its functionality I’ll make it open(-source). For now, in the interest of keeping friction low, moving fast and breaking things, it’s pretty private.
https://nvartolomei.com/omniverse/
Maybe, one day, after I’m satisfied with its functionality I’ll make it open(-source). For now, in the interest of keeping friction low, moving fast and breaking things, it’s pretty private.
I really like reading books, non-fiction, fiction, business, everything. But I always tended to have good reading momentum and then life/work happened that derailed the reading habit - and I forgot about it. Took months to pick up again...
To keep reading top of mind I built a Chrome "newtab" extension to show my "Currently Reading" list, and excites me about books I've put as "to-read". It has worked wonders on my reading! And it is pretty small and polished - no tracking, no credentials, just bare-bones.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/currently-reading/...
To keep reading top of mind I built a Chrome "newtab" extension to show my "Currently Reading" list, and excites me about books I've put as "to-read". It has worked wonders on my reading! And it is pretty small and polished - no tracking, no credentials, just bare-bones.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/currently-reading/...
That's smart, and there's so many very simple ways I could go about implementing that. Nice one, I might give that a go.
I've tried things like this but my future self feels zero allegiance to what my past self wanted it to read.
I built a cloud for my family to use.
It leverages containers and Docker Compose, mainly for it's tooling that makes it easy to deploy. I made a tool that correctly selects the right node based on the directory I'm in using Docker Profiles. The networking is both internal and external; I share some APIs externally, like to share photos or to run video game servers, while other services are entirely privileged. It, for the most part, implements mTLS, and has both public and private DNS. I have a single ingress node in my cloud provider that is connected to my home servers via Tailscale. It's been instrumental in building out things at my house and making my life easier and cheaper.
It leverages containers and Docker Compose, mainly for it's tooling that makes it easy to deploy. I made a tool that correctly selects the right node based on the directory I'm in using Docker Profiles. The networking is both internal and external; I share some APIs externally, like to share photos or to run video game servers, while other services are entirely privileged. It, for the most part, implements mTLS, and has both public and private DNS. I have a single ingress node in my cloud provider that is connected to my home servers via Tailscale. It's been instrumental in building out things at my house and making my life easier and cheaper.
a sub-ms trading platform written in Rust to try and do arbitrage across multiple FX brokers.
How's this one going?
worked for about a week on very specific brokers. Then they started slipping my trades. Slippage became a big issue. I still can't fathom why such a thing is legal
I built a pretty simple command line application (glorified python script) years ago that sends messages into a specified matrix room, and intended for use as a basic server notification system. Only recently posted to github (because a friend asked me to share); see: https://github.com/mxuribe/howler
Like other sys admins and devs, I had used email notifications for years to notify me whenever *stuff happens* on a server (like a job ran/completed, some storage device is low, etc.). But when matrix came out several years ago, i really liked the concept, became a bit of a matrix fanboy, and built a little script to leverage - nowadays, all of - my server notifications. Again, pretty basic/not sophisticated, but it scratches my itches.
Like other sys admins and devs, I had used email notifications for years to notify me whenever *stuff happens* on a server (like a job ran/completed, some storage device is low, etc.). But when matrix came out several years ago, i really liked the concept, became a bit of a matrix fanboy, and built a little script to leverage - nowadays, all of - my server notifications. Again, pretty basic/not sophisticated, but it scratches my itches.
* When RSS was a thing but in my country a lot of news/content websites hadn't adopted yet, I wrote a service to quickly define scrapers that turn those sites into RSS feeds.
* In one of my former workplaces I wrote (alongside another person) a gamified shared playlist app that allowed everyone to participate in being a DJ for our company hackathon (people getting more upvotes getting more playtime, songs getting many downvoted being skipped in the middle, etc). That was a lot of fun and surprisingly a very emotionally engaging experience for everyone.
* In one of my former workplaces I wrote (alongside another person) a gamified shared playlist app that allowed everyone to participate in being a DJ for our company hackathon (people getting more upvotes getting more playtime, songs getting many downvoted being skipped in the middle, etc). That was a lot of fun and surprisingly a very emotionally engaging experience for everyone.
The first build of DemoTime was for myself. Obviously it no longer is.
If you build for yourself, you never lose.
perfect example of how to say you are the founder without saying you are the founder?
Lots of things. But one I am coming back to is called Malten (https://malten.com). It was essentially a place for me to blackhole my thoughts anonymously rather than putting them on twitter. Recently as I've seen ChatGPT take off it's made me revisit the project and create an integration for it (not yet publicly hosted). Ideally I'd just be able to voice my thoughts to an AI now in a private manner. Let's see.
https://github.com/asim/malten for anyone who wants to run it themselves.
https://github.com/asim/malten for anyone who wants to run it themselves.
Out of curiosity, what do you hope the AI will do with your thoughts?
A cheaper form of therapy. Therapists are mostly mirroring your own thoughts or helping you see things you can't see. Ideally you have something that can just listen and echo your thoughts back or acknowledge them, without the need to pay $100/hour.
Wow, that's an application for AI that I never had thought about. Fascinating idea.
Thanks! Still trying to figure out the AI aspect, it was mostly just anonymous ephemeral messaging for a long time. So trying to understand the best way to add that in. Also whether I even care about charging for it tbh.
My ISP is total crap and charges a fortune for a miserable service that at this point should be nationalized, and I'm not a radical communist either. Anyway, I need to monitor my usage and the interface they provide is a dumpster fire so I created the most spectacular Rube Goldberg abstraction to get access to all my past data using damn epoch timestamps and a data scrapper and now I can forecast my usage, set SMS alerts, get usage on a Telegram bot and access all my data via API. I think other people might want to use it but I've always been too busy to polish the product for an audience.
I think all of Canada would be interested.
This started out as a password mangager. It evolved into a graph database coff after reading Linked - How Everything is Connected to Everything Else
https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Work/Interact/History.aspx
Still under development...
https://www.wittenburg.co.uk/Work/Interact/History.aspx
Still under development...
Probably boring to most people but I created a tool to nail exactly 40 hours a week contracting using the laziest possible inputs getting me out as early as possible on Friday:
https://github.com/cynoclast/time
Usage example:
tm 8.5 9.27 8.83 8.87 9:45-1:23 1:33-
14:11
54 minutes
Notice you don't have to give it AM/PM? Also don't have to give it any flags. It figures out what to calculate based on number of arguments alone. And it knows 9:45 to 1:23 is around 4 hours, not -8.
And during the week, decimal hours for timesheets:
tm 8:30-12:30 12:40-6:40
10.0
I used it 5x a week during my contracting days.
https://github.com/cynoclast/time
Usage example:
tm 8.5 9.27 8.83 8.87 9:45-1:23 1:33-
14:11
54 minutes
Notice you don't have to give it AM/PM? Also don't have to give it any flags. It figures out what to calculate based on number of arguments alone. And it knows 9:45 to 1:23 is around 4 hours, not -8.
And during the week, decimal hours for timesheets:
tm 8:30-12:30 12:40-6:40
10.0
I used it 5x a week during my contracting days.
This reminds me of Ben Franklin's one hand watch: https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-meistersinger-benjamin...
I built a VR environment for making and thinking about music, intuitively playing with alternate tuning systems, building instruments in space and livestreaming.
https://www.youtube.com/live/v4uHqdTr-bs?feature=share&t=426...
There are a few simple but powerful building blocks. One main feature is an egg shaped "note" which can be placed, resized, retuned and cloned on the fly. It's played by physics interactions with a "mallet" or sports balls, anything with a collider.
One of the instruments is a sine wave organ which has drawbars to control the amplitude of overtones. Unlike a classic organ, these overtones can be independently retuned and assigned envelopes to produce a range of timbres. Pitch is consistently mapped to a spiral - an isomorphism of pitch space.
It has a theremin which provides visual and tactile feedback and a voice with vocal formants controllable with a thumbstick.
It has a physics based sequencer of sorts which consists of "mallets" on a wheel which spins at a desired ratio of whatever BPM is set in a DAW. These wheels can be cloned and multiple mallets arranged around the circle using the Euclidean rhythm algorithm.
Since low latency audio in Unity is tricky, the VR app is really just a controller for synthesizers running in Max/MSP and IEM spatial audio VSTs running in REAPER. One day I'd like to package some portion of it into a mobile VR app for things like remote jamming or music lessons where models of the theoretic ideas are right there in front of us to tinker with. For now, it's just for me.
https://www.youtube.com/live/v4uHqdTr-bs?feature=share&t=426...
There are a few simple but powerful building blocks. One main feature is an egg shaped "note" which can be placed, resized, retuned and cloned on the fly. It's played by physics interactions with a "mallet" or sports balls, anything with a collider.
One of the instruments is a sine wave organ which has drawbars to control the amplitude of overtones. Unlike a classic organ, these overtones can be independently retuned and assigned envelopes to produce a range of timbres. Pitch is consistently mapped to a spiral - an isomorphism of pitch space.
It has a theremin which provides visual and tactile feedback and a voice with vocal formants controllable with a thumbstick.
It has a physics based sequencer of sorts which consists of "mallets" on a wheel which spins at a desired ratio of whatever BPM is set in a DAW. These wheels can be cloned and multiple mallets arranged around the circle using the Euclidean rhythm algorithm.
Since low latency audio in Unity is tricky, the VR app is really just a controller for synthesizers running in Max/MSP and IEM spatial audio VSTs running in REAPER. One day I'd like to package some portion of it into a mobile VR app for things like remote jamming or music lessons where models of the theoretic ideas are right there in front of us to tinker with. For now, it's just for me.
Wow.
I've often wanted a 3d grid for exploring alternate tunings, which would only be feasible in VR. (On the other hand, since buying a Lumatone hex-grid keyboard last year, not so much.)
I've often wanted a 3d grid for exploring alternate tunings, which would only be feasible in VR. (On the other hand, since buying a Lumatone hex-grid keyboard last year, not so much.)
I built some groundbreaking technology to make it easier to browse torrents on the RARBG website.
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/36751-rarbg
https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/36751-rarbg
Eh, at the moment a universal remote control app for my home theater. I expanded it somewhat for many other devices than I need, for friends and people on the AVSForums who requested things.
https://github.com/nicko88/HTWebRemote
It's not all that impressive per say, but a number of people seem to really like it.
Also an app to add a "wind" effect to a home theater as well.
https://github.com/nicko88/HTFanControl
https://github.com/nicko88/HTWebRemote
It's not all that impressive per say, but a number of people seem to really like it.
Also an app to add a "wind" effect to a home theater as well.
https://github.com/nicko88/HTFanControl
Nice setup! I was about to start ordering parts to create some hacky IR sensor for mine, that it before I read about HDMI-CEC.
I wrote a few things I use all the time.
1. A youtube bookmark manager for Emacs using Sqlite as a back end. - You can keep track of individual videos. - Manage series that span multiple videos. - remember interesting moments.
2. A system to help manage my finances by tracking what percent of my assets are in a given category. This helps with maintaining, say, a 60%-40% stock vs bond split across multiple financial institutions.
1. A youtube bookmark manager for Emacs using Sqlite as a back end. - You can keep track of individual videos. - Manage series that span multiple videos. - remember interesting moments.
2. A system to help manage my finances by tracking what percent of my assets are in a given category. This helps with maintaining, say, a 60%-40% stock vs bond split across multiple financial institutions.
A custom, DIY smart monocle from off-the-shelf parts, 3d printing, and custom electronics: 1080p60hz, 8-11hrs of battery life on a belt-clip battery + computer combo, has wifi & lte/cellular, can run ML models on device. One third the weight of upcoming Apple AR/VR glasses and one-sixth the cost. Just having it working has increased my efficiency a ton without obstructing vision or requiring me to look at secondary monitors or phone.
Working on replacing my wireless keyboard and trackpad with some "gloves" so I can use it while on hikes or just generally outside. Then, gonna integrate some custom AR and ML/GPT.
Working on replacing my wireless keyboard and trackpad with some "gloves" so I can use it while on hikes or just generally outside. Then, gonna integrate some custom AR and ML/GPT.
Care to share more details on how you're achieving that?
Which part? The glass is an Epson BT-40 cut in half with some soldering to bypass needing both eyepieces; this cuts the weight & power consumption by ~40%. Mounted onto a printed carbon-fiber nylon frame similar to bone conduction headphones. The computer is a single-board computer I had lying around, but I will upgrade to 12-core 30W SBC next week. The battery is one made for video cameras, and I gave it a belt clip and strapped the SBC onto it. The SBC has camera & mic inputs as well as GPIO for whatever I want to add.
Zak ?
Edit: my bad... the cut in half BT-40 reminded me of someone else...
Edit: my bad... the cut in half BT-40 reminded me of someone else...
I built carefulwords.com simply because I wanted to type a word into the address bar and get a large list of synonyms and some historical quotes using the word quickly. For example:
https://carefulwords.com/solitude
https://carefulwords.com/think
etc. Also unlike thesaurus.com, the search bar actually focuses so you can just start typing!
It's not perfect, I need to do a lot of editing, but nonetheless I use it almost every time I write, now.
The site is a little over 30,000 static HTML pages built with a number of TypeScript scripts that compile some sources for synonyms, parts of speech, and the quotes.
https://carefulwords.com/solitude
https://carefulwords.com/think
etc. Also unlike thesaurus.com, the search bar actually focuses so you can just start typing!
It's not perfect, I need to do a lot of editing, but nonetheless I use it almost every time I write, now.
The site is a little over 30,000 static HTML pages built with a number of TypeScript scripts that compile some sources for synonyms, parts of speech, and the quotes.
This is wonderful, and fast too (because it’s static I guess)! Thanks for building it. I’ll be checking it when I need some inspirational quotes surrounding a word.
I don't particularly care about synonyms (when I consulted a thesaurus too much my writing became too flowery) but the historical quotes feature was just great! I can imagine downloading the full text of several of my favorite authors and index the words from that corpus.
Sometimes I know that a precise word for what I want to say exists, and I'll know it when I see it, but I can't quite remember it in the moment. In those cases I search thesaurus for synonyms to related words; or maybe ask ChatGPT these days.
Slightly similarly, I made a searchable word list to help with doing or compiling puzzles: https://jawj.github.io/wordtools/ (the ‘anagrams’ link does nothing yet).
this is lovely!! neat, clean and useful. I'm gonna use it, thanks for making it!
This is really cool!
Could you please add a keyboard shortcut for focusing the input field? (perhaps a forward slash '/' like on Youtube or Github)
Sure thing, I'll add that tonight.
This is awesome! I'll definitely use it.
It'd be a one time stop for me if it supported definitions (similar to Collins Dictionary) but beggars can't be choosers.
It'd be a one time stop for me if it supported definitions (similar to Collins Dictionary) but beggars can't be choosers.
Added as a Kagi bang! Love it.
I like it, especially the quotes. Reminds me of linguee.fr, which I use often while learning French.
It's worth noting the best thesaurus I've found is onelook. Compare to the solitude results
https://onelook.com/thesaurus/?s=solitude
This is by datamuse who also does rhymezone (https://datamuse.com/)
https://onelook.com/thesaurus/?s=solitude
This is by datamuse who also does rhymezone (https://datamuse.com/)
Onelook is incredible. Indispensable for any art of writing.
Old School Runescape recently released a feature called "group ironman" that lets you play the game while only being able to trade with or assist others in your small >=5 man group. I made a small service that periodically scrapes the game's hiscore data and generate reports and metrics about the group's progress. And then a Discord bot to interact with the service
80% of a basketball simulation engine
80% of a Teamfight Tactics simulation engine
80% of a data analytics platform for sports data
40% of a PaaS to manage common open source software deployments to the cloud
I don't finish much. It's my absolute greatest flaw.
80% of a Teamfight Tactics simulation engine
80% of a data analytics platform for sports data
40% of a PaaS to manage common open source software deployments to the cloud
I don't finish much. It's my absolute greatest flaw.
Hey hey! I also let a sports analytics platform flail until I got tired of paying for the server. projectbaseball.org, frontend still up but the backend is gone.
In 2011 and 2012 in between jobs I wrote a few bits of software, of which
- one was a SQLite3-based, all-SQL reimplementation of a subset of UName*It (an object-oriented database from the 90s meant for storing NIS/DNS/etc. data)
- another was an RCU-like lock-less, very fast user-space data structure written in C, born of frustration with read-write locks in Solaris
Of those the latter ended up being useful to me about 5 years later, and I still use it in production, though I originally wrote it for myself.
- one was a SQLite3-based, all-SQL reimplementation of a subset of UName*It (an object-oriented database from the 90s meant for storing NIS/DNS/etc. data)
- another was an RCU-like lock-less, very fast user-space data structure written in C, born of frustration with read-write locks in Solaris
Of those the latter ended up being useful to me about 5 years later, and I still use it in production, though I originally wrote it for myself.
Over the past 3 years, I've been building "FreeCRT", a 24/7 Twitch streaming setup dedicated to casual Smash matches. Since I don't have a coding background, I used Node-RED to create custom flows that help manage the stream by connecting a MSI Gaming Laptop, Intel NUC, and Raspberry Pi 4. OCR and Node-RED extract text from the switch, while performing arena error logic, which connects to the Raspberry Pi to run macros to reset the open arena if it's closed. I just recently whipped up a Twitch Chatbot called FreeGPT that hosts the arena anytime. I've built it up slowly but it's been such a fun long term project.
I made a small 4 digit LED display that syncs to my work calendar and counts down the hours/minutes or minutes/seconds to my next meeting, depending on how close it is to starting.
Currently working on moving the ICS calendar parsing part from a python script down to the microcontroller itself, then I can release.
Currently working on moving the ICS calendar parsing part from a python script down to the microcontroller itself, then I can release.
What's your target language for the microcontroller? I built a 'smart alarm clock' with what sounds like a bigger screen, that fetches iCalendar files and shows the next appointment/beeps at the appointed time.
I'm running on an esp32, with platform.io, and esp-sdk + Arduino. Overall project: https://github.com/russor/ClockThing
iCal library: https://github.com/russor/uICAL (if I had know how much work I'd need to do to make this library work for me... I might have left it with my hacky solution of processing on my own server in perl in a cron... But I had too many messups with that)
FWIW, Google Calendar recently stopped including real Timezone information in the calendar urls for newly created calendars. I ended up doing something gross to manage that (got a dump of all the tzurl 'outlook' calendar files, and load that before loading the user calendar; it's sketchy, but it works)
I'm running on an esp32, with platform.io, and esp-sdk + Arduino. Overall project: https://github.com/russor/ClockThing
iCal library: https://github.com/russor/uICAL (if I had know how much work I'd need to do to make this library work for me... I might have left it with my hacky solution of processing on my own server in perl in a cron... But I had too many messups with that)
FWIW, Google Calendar recently stopped including real Timezone information in the calendar urls for newly created calendars. I ended up doing something gross to manage that (got a dump of all the tzurl 'outlook' calendar files, and load that before loading the user calendar; it's sketchy, but it works)
haha I've had uICAL in a tab open for a week now, anticipating the plunge. ty for the experience :) guess i'll just hack the parser myself...
I'm also on esp32, and have been wanting to write more using the native esp-idf tooling. I'm comfortable with Arduino but now that I'm getting into things like sleep modes and low-level IO, my code is becoming a patchwork of Arduino pinMode and ESP-IDF gpio_hold_dis functions...
I'm also on esp32, and have been wanting to write more using the native esp-idf tooling. I'm comfortable with Arduino but now that I'm getting into things like sleep modes and low-level IO, my code is becoming a patchwork of Arduino pinMode and ESP-IDF gpio_hold_dis functions...
> ty for the experience :) guess i'll just hack the parser myself...
Well, if you use my branch, I think I cleaned up everything, I think. Reccurance rules are pretty weird anyway.
I definitely recommend using platform.io though, if nothing else, it's easier to pull in forked libraries with.
Well, if you use my branch, I think I cleaned up everything, I think. Reccurance rules are pretty weird anyway.
I definitely recommend using platform.io though, if nothing else, it's easier to pull in forked libraries with.
ah I didnt realize you linked your fork! ty again :)
I have a music playlist program which deals with the problem of getting used to music. It's effective because I seldom want to choose a track to play, and I don't find myself skipping a lot consecutively.
I have a dedicated key for skipping (and I keep adding meta keys to make it skip more (each meta key is x2)). The next track to play is automatically selected based on the combination of two factors: being skipped less and being played less.
I get to hear my whole collection in a way that's far more enjoyable than an unweighted shuffle.
I have a dedicated key for skipping (and I keep adding meta keys to make it skip more (each meta key is x2)). The next track to play is automatically selected based on the combination of two factors: being skipped less and being played less.
I get to hear my whole collection in a way that's far more enjoyable than an unweighted shuffle.
Definitely my HN moderation browser extension, which lets me flip through HN super fast and do routine mod tasks without gruntwork.
If I live long enough, I will factor out a general-reader version of this that will bring joy to HN power users everywhere.
It requires a keyboard, though. Do the kids still use those?
If I live long enough, I will factor out a general-reader version of this that will bring joy to HN power users everywhere.
It requires a keyboard, though. Do the kids still use those?
I for one would happily use a keyboard to browse... If only...!
not a kid! but I use keyboard as my main interface!
Maybe you’re overthinking it? Just push it to GitHub and call it a day. Someone else will turn it into the general-reader version.
Unless it has a bunch of secret stuff in it. Then I guess you’d have to.
Don’t underestimate the tenacity of HN readers though. Lots of us would do that kind of thing just for fun. You don’t have to do it all yourself.
Unless it has a bunch of secret stuff in it. Then I guess you’d have to.
Don’t underestimate the tenacity of HN readers though. Lots of us would do that kind of thing just for fun. You don’t have to do it all yourself.
There's a bunch of secret stuff in it, in the sense of moderator-only.
I don't think there's anything sinister, but it wouldn't be very nice to release in the current form.
I don't think there's anything sinister, but it wouldn't be very nice to release in the current form.
Eh, just backspace the mod-only stuff and push it to GitHub. We’ll clean it up.
Easier said than done maybe, but please don’t feel like you need to get it perfect. We’ll do a lot of the legwork for you.
Also don’t underestimate how cool it is to get to see what you use in its current form, even if it’s rough. There’s an archaeological component to this that’s quite gratifying.
Easier said than done maybe, but please don’t feel like you need to get it perfect. We’ll do a lot of the legwork for you.
Also don’t underestimate how cool it is to get to see what you use in its current form, even if it’s rough. There’s an archaeological component to this that’s quite gratifying.
Ah, browser extensions and user scripts are so great for improving websites.
Most of my current user scripts:
• Hold z to make a currently-playing audio or video go at 4× (the fastest you can go before Firefox cuts off the audio).
• Auto-admit in Google Meet (wish they’d implement this themselves). There were a couple of browser extensions to do that, but I looked at their source and was appalled at how badly and/or stupidly they implemented it, and so wrote this, which is better (… so long as you use English—one of them supported I think it was Japanese as well) and more efficient: new MutationObserver(() => { document.querySelector("[aria-modal='true'][aria-label*='join'] [data-mdc-dialog-action='accept']")?.click(); }).observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true });
• Retitle a few web apps that have consistently useless document titles, by pulling in actual document contents. I gave this to my sister, who regularly has hundreds of VicFlora tabs open, which used to be all titled “VicFlora”; last year they fixed that but got the endianness wrong, “VicFlora – ‹Page title›”, so I fixed that to “‹Page title› – VicFlora” so you can actually see the useful part in the tab bar. (Document titles should be little-endian.)
• Find <video autoplay> and turn on controls (since I have autoplay blocked—incidentally, this is something disabling autoplay should probably automatically do, at least until you start the video).
• Kill aos-* animations on pages, which stupidly tend to make the page invisible until their JavaScript loads. (This is important for me because I disable JavaScript, but those “fade in when the page loads or as you scroll” animations are really annoying even when they work, killing them makes things better.)
• Fix Cloudflare “[email protected]” stupidity without having to run the page’s arbitrary JavaScript. (Basically: take their deobfuscator script and just run it myself if it gets used. Only people that deliberately block JavaScript are likely to have seen this, but it’s quite common. The filter they use is evidently very dumb, obfuscating quite a few things that are not email addresses, including things like “[email protected]” (not even valid—IP address hosts have to be in square brackets, and DNS doesn’t use numeric TLDs) and “user@host” in console logs.)
• Put the current weather into the favicon on weather.bom.gov.au (… except that they this shut down last month for no obvious reason, with no equivalent replacement unless you run Google Android 6+ or iOS, which I don’t on any device, let alone my laptop; so I’m stuck with just their old site which completely lacks a lot of the information this other thing had exposed, and is served over HTTP only but their server accepts HTTPS connections in order to 307 redirect to a different path on http: scheme as well in order to say “we don’t support HTTPS”, which interacts horribly with “HTTPS Only” mode (because even when you add an exception for the duration of the session, you lose the path part of the URL), and is the only site I’ve ever encountered doing such a stupid thing, and in all this they have never responded to my enquiries like they claim they will).
Most of my current user scripts:
• Hold z to make a currently-playing audio or video go at 4× (the fastest you can go before Firefox cuts off the audio).
• Auto-admit in Google Meet (wish they’d implement this themselves). There were a couple of browser extensions to do that, but I looked at their source and was appalled at how badly and/or stupidly they implemented it, and so wrote this, which is better (… so long as you use English—one of them supported I think it was Japanese as well) and more efficient: new MutationObserver(() => { document.querySelector("[aria-modal='true'][aria-label*='join'] [data-mdc-dialog-action='accept']")?.click(); }).observe(document.body, { childList: true, subtree: true });
• Retitle a few web apps that have consistently useless document titles, by pulling in actual document contents. I gave this to my sister, who regularly has hundreds of VicFlora tabs open, which used to be all titled “VicFlora”; last year they fixed that but got the endianness wrong, “VicFlora – ‹Page title›”, so I fixed that to “‹Page title› – VicFlora” so you can actually see the useful part in the tab bar. (Document titles should be little-endian.)
• Find <video autoplay> and turn on controls (since I have autoplay blocked—incidentally, this is something disabling autoplay should probably automatically do, at least until you start the video).
• Kill aos-* animations on pages, which stupidly tend to make the page invisible until their JavaScript loads. (This is important for me because I disable JavaScript, but those “fade in when the page loads or as you scroll” animations are really annoying even when they work, killing them makes things better.)
• Fix Cloudflare “[email protected]” stupidity without having to run the page’s arbitrary JavaScript. (Basically: take their deobfuscator script and just run it myself if it gets used. Only people that deliberately block JavaScript are likely to have seen this, but it’s quite common. The filter they use is evidently very dumb, obfuscating quite a few things that are not email addresses, including things like “[email protected]” (not even valid—IP address hosts have to be in square brackets, and DNS doesn’t use numeric TLDs) and “user@host” in console logs.)
• Put the current weather into the favicon on weather.bom.gov.au (… except that they this shut down last month for no obvious reason, with no equivalent replacement unless you run Google Android 6+ or iOS, which I don’t on any device, let alone my laptop; so I’m stuck with just their old site which completely lacks a lot of the information this other thing had exposed, and is served over HTTP only but their server accepts HTTPS connections in order to 307 redirect to a different path on http: scheme as well in order to say “we don’t support HTTPS”, which interacts horribly with “HTTPS Only” mode (because even when you add an exception for the duration of the session, you lose the path part of the URL), and is the only site I’ve ever encountered doing such a stupid thing, and in all this they have never responded to my enquiries like they claim they will).
> • Fix Cloudflare “[email protected]” stupidity without having to run the page’s arbitrary JavaScript. (Basically: take their deobfuscator script and just run it myself if it gets used. Only people that deliberately block JavaScript are likely to have seen this, but it’s quite common. The filter they use is evidently very dumb, obfuscating quite a few things that are not email addresses, including things like “[email protected]” (not even valid—IP address hosts have to be in square brackets, and DNS doesn’t use numeric TLDs) and “user@host” in console logs.)
> • Hold z to make a currently-playing audio or video go at 4× (the fastest you can go before Firefox cuts off the audio).
Are these open-source by any chance?
> • Hold z to make a currently-playing audio or video go at 4× (the fastest you can go before Firefox cuts off the audio).
Are these open-source by any chance?
I haven’t got round to publishing them properly (z = fast-forward in particular I have in mind to write a blog post about, on how to write user scripts for things you want), but the fast-forward one is at https://temp.chrismorgan.info/z%20=%20%E2%8F%A9.user.js. For the Cloudflare one, I won’t list its full source, but it’s this:
if (document.querySelector("script[src$='/cloudflare-static/email-decode.min.js']")) {
{The source of that JavaScript file, minus the “remove the email-decode.min.js script tag” thing.}
}> It requires a keyboard, though. Do the kids still use those?
I'm sure your server logs will tell you what percentage of visitors are NOT mobile.
I'm sure your server logs will tell you what percentage of visitors are NOT mobile.
My own gpu accelerated neural network trainer using backpropagation: https://github.com/zbendefy/machine.academy
not sure how interesting but definitely useful :D I like to listen to Albums and I missed the "Give me a random album from my collection" functionality in Spotify so built a tiny webapp to do exactly that - https://shuffle.ninja.
It uses the Spotify web APIs to fetch your album collection and gives back a random album from it. I use it daily.
It uses the Spotify web APIs to fetch your album collection and gives back a random album from it. I use it daily.
I love this idea! Thanks for sharing, I'm looking forward to trying this out day to day.
This is great!
I’ve always wished for a replacement Spotify UI that’s entirely album focused.
I’ve always wished for a replacement Spotify UI that’s entirely album focused.
I was playing a MMO with a market. Sometimes people would make mistakes, e.g. selling 100 iron for $1,000,000 instead of selling 1,000,000 iron for $100. I made a little tool that polls the API and sends a notification when someone made a mistake.
Eventually I got bored of grabbing these mistakes and left the tool with my clan. It had the side effect of getting people active on Discord, and making people more actively involved in countering raids. We ended up building one of the most elite clans in the game until some other whiz kid built a better bot.
There was also this little augmented browser tool that calculates the best order and timing to attack in the game, and the statistically likely result.
We'd joke that all the tools we built for that game were probably well worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's around the time I decided to quit and spend my time on something more useful.
Eventually I got bored of grabbing these mistakes and left the tool with my clan. It had the side effect of getting people active on Discord, and making people more actively involved in countering raids. We ended up building one of the most elite clans in the game until some other whiz kid built a better bot.
There was also this little augmented browser tool that calculates the best order and timing to attack in the game, and the statistically likely result.
We'd joke that all the tools we built for that game were probably well worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and that's around the time I decided to quit and spend my time on something more useful.
As it happens, I just built the minimal, hackable tool for drawing boxes and arrows that I've always wanted.
https://git.sr.ht/~akkartik/snap.love
https://git.sr.ht/~akkartik/snap.love
My townhome complex had one of those call boxes at the front gate. When Doordash/FedEx/the cleaners/the in-laws/etc arrived they would have to call me from the call box and I'd have to answer it and listen to garbled audio to figure out who it was and press 9 to open the gate. It was kind of a pain, so I made a Twilio app to answer calls from the call box.
I set up custom entry codes that I could hand out to anyone. Everyone got their own code, and it would text me whenever someone used a code so I'd instantly know who was coming. The text conversation was my timestamped access log. I also put time constraints on some codes so e.g. Doordash couldn't open the gate in the middle of the night, or I could set up a temporary access code for a party, and I rotated codes too, with text notifications if an outdated code was used.
I thought about making a paid app out of it, but it just didn't seem worthwhile. I didn't expect that many people would want to pay for it. For a while I was excited about a YC startup called Doorport that was going to make a hardware device that you'd install inside those dumb call boxes and make them smart with all sorts of cool features, better than my Twilio hack. But I think they pivoted to a much less interesting pure software thing and then got acquihired.
I set up custom entry codes that I could hand out to anyone. Everyone got their own code, and it would text me whenever someone used a code so I'd instantly know who was coming. The text conversation was my timestamped access log. I also put time constraints on some codes so e.g. Doordash couldn't open the gate in the middle of the night, or I could set up a temporary access code for a party, and I rotated codes too, with text notifications if an outdated code was used.
I thought about making a paid app out of it, but it just didn't seem worthwhile. I didn't expect that many people would want to pay for it. For a while I was excited about a YC startup called Doorport that was going to make a hardware device that you'd install inside those dumb call boxes and make them smart with all sorts of cool features, better than my Twilio hack. But I think they pivoted to a much less interesting pure software thing and then got acquihired.
That sounds neat. When you say everyone got their own code, do you mean that each person had a separate code for the call box, and the call box would call one of many separate Twilio phone numbers? Or did the call box always call the same Twilio number, and you instructed each person to then input their special code via the call box? My apartments have always just asked me for a single phone number which they program into the call box, so I’m guessing the latter, although it never occurred to me that the guest might be able to press more buttons after the phone call has been connected.
You're right, it's the latter. Yeah, you can still use the keypad after the call is started. But it's a little clunky. The instructions you have to give people are like "first dial 542, then wait until you hear the prompt, then enter code 867". Which as it turns out is a little too complex for a lot of people. Another reason why it wouldn't have been great as a paid product.
You could also have a fallback that forwards the call to your cell phone after a failed attempt at entering the code. But most of the reason I built this was so it would stop calling me at random times, so I didn't really want that.
You could also have a fallback that forwards the call to your cell phone after a failed attempt at entering the code. But most of the reason I built this was so it would stop calling me at random times, so I didn't really want that.
Yeah, the call box in general is just not a great system in my experience. I often just tell guests and delivery people to text or call me when they get there, which works for me because my apartment is very close to the lobby. It’s just easier than hoping they figure out how to use the call box and follow my directions to get to my apartment.
I think FreshBuzzer is a similar idea: https://freshbuzzer.com/
You're right, this looks like almost exactly the product I would have made if I decided to turn it into a product. I think they started around the same time I did. I wonder how much money they're making on it? Could be a nice little lifestyle business if they get enough users. I bet their Airbnb-focused features would be the real moneymaker, I didn't consider that as a potential market.
https://www.indiehackers.com/product/buzzmein
for people that don't want to click... $450/month and also buzzmein was the old name
for people that don't want to click... $450/month and also buzzmein was the old name
Wow cool, thanks for finding that! Interesting to see how my idea of revenue potential matched with reality. I guess it matched pretty well, however I see he hasn't done any advertising and I feel like revenue could grow 10x or more if more people knew about it. At that point it seems like it would be a worthwhile project. Tricky to market though as it's one of those things that people don't know they want until it's explained to them.
yeah certainly possible to get the word out and likely get the numbers up. to hit that target with their prices you'd need about 1500 people using it every month. definitely not unreasonable but not easy since it's in a tiny niche that people don't really think about.
Nice! I built the same thing for a gate at our vacation house at a lake. The home-owners have to register their mobile number so that if you call a certain number the gate opens based on number recognition. Every time new people were at the gate (deliveries, guests, renters) they would need to call the owner, who had to hang up and call the gate’s number.
I use twilio to make outbound calls to that number using my registered phonenumber. I put a Django app in front for home owners so they can add authorized phone numbers with a expiration date.
Whenever someone is a the gate they call a twilio number, my django app checks the validity, opens the gate by calling the gate’s number with my number as ID, plays back some welcome message “hello chris, welcome to…” and sends the owner a push notification that person X is en route.
Todo: add a feature to redirect an unknown number directly to the owner and open the gate after manual verification.
I use twilio to make outbound calls to that number using my registered phonenumber. I put a Django app in front for home owners so they can add authorized phone numbers with a expiration date.
Whenever someone is a the gate they call a twilio number, my django app checks the validity, opens the gate by calling the gate’s number with my number as ID, plays back some welcome message “hello chris, welcome to…” and sends the owner a push notification that person X is en route.
Todo: add a feature to redirect an unknown number directly to the owner and open the gate after manual verification.
Cool. I did the same thing for my office building except I had Twilio post to our work slack with buttons that we could click to let them in or not. It was a really fun little afternoon project one day.
How did this work exactly? Twilio would answer the call, listen for a number, and "press" 9 if the number was in an allow list?
That's right. And simultaneously send a text like "FedEx opened the gate" or "Doordash failed to open the gate after hours" to my and my wife's phones.
Have you gotten any 'failed' people trying to come in unexpected?
I don't think so. The only time expired codes were used was legit delivery people using outdated codes. Sometimes they would even try multiple old codes. They must have ways of saving old codes that worked once.
Thieves didn't bother with codes, they would just climb over the gate or tailgate someone else.
Thieves didn't bother with codes, they would just climb over the gate or tailgate someone else.
The product should be a LLM learning from each interaction globally. So you walk up to the door and it says Hello Jim, I see you work for fedex now. Could you please show me the label on the package?
With triggers like: If the cleaner is more than 15 min late 5 times in a period of 3 months and there are more than 5 resumes posted for cleaning positions do not open the door and fire them.
With triggers like: If the cleaner is more than 15 min late 5 times in a period of 3 months and there are more than 5 resumes posted for cleaning positions do not open the door and fire them.
> With triggers like: If the cleaner is more than 15 min late 5 times in a period of 3 months and there are more than 5 resumes posted for cleaning positions do not open the door and fire them.
I hope what you’re describing never becomes a reality. People aren’t disposable tissues for your convenience.
I hope what you’re describing never becomes a reality. People aren’t disposable tissues for your convenience.
The joke was that this is already the reality. If it is a letter, a text message or a friendly boss changes nothing to the fact. One cant pay bills with politeness. It might actually be hilarious in how clearly defined it is in advance! If you are rarely late no one will complaint when it happens, if there is a lack of resumes posted you can be late every day and if it is less than 15 min its never an issue. The option to call the employer is still there. Remember when I said I wasn't going to make it in time today? Well, the doorbell fired me.
Haha, I also built exactly this!
I had mine integrated with Home Assistant and got notifications via a telegram integration.
I also had mine setup so me or my room-mate in our apartment telegram group could register new codes, or generate single-use codes.
I also considered building it into a paid app, but came to the same conclusion :-)
I had mine integrated with Home Assistant and got notifications via a telegram integration.
I also had mine setup so me or my room-mate in our apartment telegram group could register new codes, or generate single-use codes.
I also considered building it into a paid app, but came to the same conclusion :-)
ButterflyMX is used a lot in Seattle buildings and does quite a bit similar to that: https://butterflymx.com/
I used to have this when I lived in Seattle! It’s pretty cool tech
My related story: we have door phone system in our apartment house and I wanted to get a notification whenever our flat got buzzed. I hacked the phone in our flat - attached a circuit directly to the wires leading to the coil of the buzzer and through arduino to the pc. Then I stitched together some code utilizing firebase to send notifications. Worked like a charm until google began to require credit cards for the free stuff.
You could do that through Slack or Home Assistant too. Nice work, you’ve given me a few ideas.
I had a buzzer that was basically a button on the handset of a phone which would
Open the door, I wasn’t allowed to open it up to wire directly into it so I slapped together a node red script on a rpi with a servo that would push the button to buzz open the door anytime I said “open seasame” with Siri via an iOS automation thingy. Never needed to carry keys again while we lived there.
I made something similar for an old nyc apartment intercom buzzer.
Also Hooked it up to Twilio so I could text a number and it would let me in.
Added passwords and such so I could share it with friends.
Also Hooked it up to Twilio so I could text a number and it would let me in.
Added passwords and such so I could share it with friends.
That’s actually some very cool hacking together! Love it.
That sounds like a fantastic tool. You didn’t happen to open source any of your efforts did you? I’m planning to do something like this and any head start would be greatly appreciated.
No code actually, I made it all in Twilio Studio which is their visual programming "no-code" tool for phone trees. Clunky to work with but trivial to set up and had enough functionality for this very simple application.
Obviously to make a real app out of it I would have redone it in a real programming language and made some frontends for web/Android/iOS.
Someone else pointed out https://freshbuzzer.com which looks like a real product that does the same thing.
Obviously to make a real app out of it I would have redone it in a real programming language and made some frontends for web/Android/iOS.
Someone else pointed out https://freshbuzzer.com which looks like a real product that does the same thing.
Hah, I also built this for myself, and also considering productizing it, except I realized that there's absolutely no way I want to be responsible for the situation where my service is down and people cannot get into their houses.
I imagined standing there calling you to open my door but it seems an interesting security feature. You could even have a second front door and trap people. When one leaves they have to close the living room door before opening the front door. Say someone walks you up to your door at gun point to rob you or they attempt to force their way in. You can just tell them you cant prevent the call to the police and that the door wont open, we will be trapped in the hallway, I have no control over it.
I just give out the real code
I built a cross of React + Wiz (a fantastic frontend framework at Google): https://github.com/aschleck/trailcatalog/tree/main/js/corgi . Totally irresponsible and probably full of bugs, but I was so tired of writing business logic in the same place as my view logic with React and now I'm free of it!
I don't know if it qualifies as the "most interesting" but as a travel bug I wrote a little airfare scraper that I got plenty of value out of.
Basically it's a script that scrapes several places for flight deals and "mistake fares" and notifies my phone if it matches with my city. No searching like other flight apps, you basically just set it up and wait, and various places will pop up. Helps if you're in a hub city e.g. NYC.
The phone notification was crucial because such deals sold really fast. In case the booking didn't work out I was usually covered by the 24 hour cancellation rule [0][1].
I started off running it on my own server but later I learned IFTTT handles device notifications without paying the Apple Developer tax, so I migrated things there. Used it more when I was single but nevertheless it's helped me land some killer deals e.g. NYC-Dublin RT for $300, NYC-Paris RT for ~$400.
Thought about making a paid app out of it but the limited seating and time-sensitive nature of these deals is tricky.
[0] https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/notice-24hour-res...
[1] I believe this rule, which is not so broadly known, was imposed on air carriers in response to certain fraudulent online marketing practices going on at the time.
Basically it's a script that scrapes several places for flight deals and "mistake fares" and notifies my phone if it matches with my city. No searching like other flight apps, you basically just set it up and wait, and various places will pop up. Helps if you're in a hub city e.g. NYC.
The phone notification was crucial because such deals sold really fast. In case the booking didn't work out I was usually covered by the 24 hour cancellation rule [0][1].
I started off running it on my own server but later I learned IFTTT handles device notifications without paying the Apple Developer tax, so I migrated things there. Used it more when I was single but nevertheless it's helped me land some killer deals e.g. NYC-Dublin RT for $300, NYC-Paris RT for ~$400.
Thought about making a paid app out of it but the limited seating and time-sensitive nature of these deals is tricky.
[0] https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/notice-24hour-res...
[1] I believe this rule, which is not so broadly known, was imposed on air carriers in response to certain fraudulent online marketing practices going on at the time.
You still got this? I'd love to use it myself.
Great idea! Would love to give the script a spin myself..
Scott’s cheap flights (going.com now) has basically implemented this in a nice little paid service. I got sub-$400 roundtrip direct from Seattle to Dublin. If you can snag even just a deal a year, it’s well worth the small yearly price!
I know that you don't want when more competition for the flights, but that sounds very useful!
Been traveling a lot this year - this would've saved me a ton of money. If you've still got the script lying around, I'd love to check it out
I create a bunch [1] of [2] stuff [3] pretty much non stop [4] and I like rolling my own, in NIH syndrome therapy.
[1] https://noben.org/boomwrist/ [2] https://noben.org/boomdeck/ [3] https://noben.org/tvmaster/ [4] ... https://noben.org
[1] https://noben.org/boomwrist/ [2] https://noben.org/boomdeck/ [3] https://noben.org/tvmaster/ [4] ... https://noben.org
Not really sophisticated but I wrote a ~200 line Python script to trawl a few data sources like USPTO and Reddit and aggregate that info into an e-mail for me to review daily. It was extremely helpful in getting me up to speed in a new job that I lacked the background for.
I'm using ChatGPT to build a note taking app just for myself. Haven't completed it yet but plan to open source it once it is done.
what does AI add to a note taking app?
No, I'm a game developer. The app I'm making is a web app that I don't have much experience with. I'm using ChatGPT as a tool to cut down coding time and it is working great so far. I should have worded my comment better.
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The most interesting tech I made for myself is rather mundane, but it's one I use every day, it's the FinalKey password manager.
A recipe manager for our family that strips all the SEO text out using the OpenAI API. I built this after someone in our family got diagnosed gluten intolerant and we had to make changes to our usual recipes.
Normal recipe sites tend to be full of irrelevant (SEO optimized) text, ads and tracking, and I wanted something to just get the recipe in a clean form.
It’s a basic web application (mostly in Go) to manage recipes. New recipes are imported from an URL, after which it extracts the plain text from the site and uses GPT to get a markdown formatted recipe and list of ingredients.
This would’ve been much harder pre-GPT, but now was trivial to implement.
Normal recipe sites tend to be full of irrelevant (SEO optimized) text, ads and tracking, and I wanted something to just get the recipe in a clean form.
It’s a basic web application (mostly in Go) to manage recipes. New recipes are imported from an URL, after which it extracts the plain text from the site and uses GPT to get a markdown formatted recipe and list of ingredients.
This would’ve been much harder pre-GPT, but now was trivial to implement.
That already exists as a browser extension afaik. Not sure about gluten part though
Oh for sure. I think Paprika (?) does a decent job. To be fair, it started as a learning project for myself.
As a minor detail I also translate everything to the same language as part of the transformation. Just a bit of prompt experimentation.
As a minor detail I also translate everything to the same language as part of the transformation. Just a bit of prompt experimentation.
The mobile app Paprika does this and works great, in case anyone wants to use something like this.
Paprika is excellent, it's also something you pay for and just get the app - no subscription.
On the downside, you'll need to purchase each version separately. I bought it on Apple and then moved to Windows. I'm considering buying it again but I'm curious how well Obsidian would work for it considering it's free and has the rest of my life.
I love Paprika, one of my favorite apps I use. It even syncs a grocery list between my phone and my Mac.
> This would’ve been much harder pre-GPT, but now was trivial to implement.
I wonder how close looking for a group of lines that start with a number, then taking all the text following that group of lines would get you. I bet that would get you pretty close to the desired effect most of the time.
I also wonder if more standard NLP methods might work here, rather than using the full power of an LLM. Instructions are grammatically constructed as commands, so if you start with doing what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, then parse each sentence following the group of lines starting with numbers, you should be able to determine which ones are commands. If a paragraph contains no commands, it's obviously not directions.
Just some random thoughts. I do see what you mean, though: definitely not trivial sans assistance from an LLM.
I wonder how close looking for a group of lines that start with a number, then taking all the text following that group of lines would get you. I bet that would get you pretty close to the desired effect most of the time.
I also wonder if more standard NLP methods might work here, rather than using the full power of an LLM. Instructions are grammatically constructed as commands, so if you start with doing what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, then parse each sentence following the group of lines starting with numbers, you should be able to determine which ones are commands. If a paragraph contains no commands, it's obviously not directions.
Just some random thoughts. I do see what you mean, though: definitely not trivial sans assistance from an LLM.
Was thinking the same thing initially, but it would have been quite a time investment. In this case I just make an API call and it’s done.
I prompt GPT to return what I want in JSON format and that works surprisingly well, so it turned out easy to parse too.
I prompt GPT to return what I want in JSON format and that works surprisingly well, so it turned out easy to parse too.
Created a query builder for microsoft's KQL for making my life easier for a client project. Turned out that this company still uses this library after 5 years :).
Probably the best feeling ever in work.
Probably the best feeling ever in work.
What are your thoughts on KQL? I’m biased, but I love it. Kusto/ADE as a whole is an amazing platform - it’s a shame how poorly it has been marketed outside of Microsoft
Not sure if this counts:
A lighting desk for my hobby of lighting live music. For reasons I like doing live control along with the music (known as busking). Existing things are either limited and can't control moving lights, or don't have the flexibility to busk the way I want. so, having worked a long time ago for a crowd that built what were at the time the best lighting desks in the world, I built my own
It has 36 motorised faders and a bunch of other boards with buttons, that each ave their own AtTiny to run the function, they talk to a BeagleBone Black which runs the main code loop and uses its on board realtime processors to generate DMX, and a raspberry Pi to run the GUI for configuration.
Worked a treat most of the time, and I've done hundreds of shows with it, with crowds of up to 400 people, Sadly, I made a dumb decision on the protocol for the fader and button boards to talk to the BeagleBone and every now and then it causes a kernel panic on the Beaglebone, which means at best you lose control of the lights and at worst it goes dark on stage.
I started a redesign using a more sensible protocol but got hit by a double whammy of Covid killing the live music scene for a couple of years, plus the all the supply chain issues, so it's on hold now.
A lighting desk for my hobby of lighting live music. For reasons I like doing live control along with the music (known as busking). Existing things are either limited and can't control moving lights, or don't have the flexibility to busk the way I want. so, having worked a long time ago for a crowd that built what were at the time the best lighting desks in the world, I built my own
It has 36 motorised faders and a bunch of other boards with buttons, that each ave their own AtTiny to run the function, they talk to a BeagleBone Black which runs the main code loop and uses its on board realtime processors to generate DMX, and a raspberry Pi to run the GUI for configuration.
Worked a treat most of the time, and I've done hundreds of shows with it, with crowds of up to 400 people, Sadly, I made a dumb decision on the protocol for the fader and button boards to talk to the BeagleBone and every now and then it causes a kernel panic on the Beaglebone, which means at best you lose control of the lights and at worst it goes dark on stage.
I started a redesign using a more sensible protocol but got hit by a double whammy of Covid killing the live music scene for a couple of years, plus the all the supply chain issues, so it's on hold now.
This is very interesting! I am a bit new to the hobby (I worked in a relatively small venue for 200 people a couple of times). Till now I used only QLC+ and keyboard+mouse control, which gets really boring and hard to use very soon.
Now I'm starting with designing a small controller on a protoboard with an ESP8266 -- 12 faders, 34 buttons, 4 encoders, 26 RGB LEDs. By sending raw 802.11 frames I may be able to get this thing to work wirelessly.
I'm interested in your design, would you be willing to uplaod some pictures?
Now I'm starting with designing a small controller on a protoboard with an ESP8266 -- 12 faders, 34 buttons, 4 encoders, 26 RGB LEDs. By sending raw 802.11 frames I may be able to get this thing to work wirelessly.
I'm interested in your design, would you be willing to uplaod some pictures?
Cool stuff. I've got the same hobby / part-time job (mostly on GrandMA consoles). I have done two-three experiments on custom software to emit DMX which I used for something like four events. For the physical interface I'm relying on MIDI controllers; I first want a software stack I can trust before going into hardware design.
Would love to discuss the topic some more! I don't often meet people with that same interest in lighting that want to build their own tools.
Would love to discuss the topic some more! I don't often meet people with that same interest in lighting that want to build their own tools.
If you're ever interested in publishing anything about this to aid others in recreating it, I'm sure there'd be ample interest (for better or worse). Professional controllers are hilariously expensive for many hobbyists and the options for DIY control surfaces tend to be limited (especially with motorized faders).
I'd certainly be interested in reading about how it works, even without anything approaching build documentation.
I'd certainly be interested in reading about how it works, even without anything approaching build documentation.
I'm interested in this as well. Would love to collaborate.
What gratifying interest. to anyone interested in chatting about this, my email address is in my profile, so drop me a line
Where did you get 36 motorized faders without going bankrupt? Even AliExpress ones are $15/each or more!
Easy. bankruptcy. Well, not quite. I got my first lot from a crowd called Top Up indstries in Taiwan (http://www.top-up.com.tw). I think they were around $12 in 2017. I got the next lot as a good deal on Bourne faders from digikey, about $17 NZ, maybe three years ago
I built an image viewer application in winforms that allows
- infinitely big or small resizing
- has no visible borders
- has a close all button
- windows size enforces image aspect ratio
- taskbar item thumbnail is the image
- can be moved by clicking and pulling it anywhere (besides resize borders)
- can be moved beyond the edges of the screen (no kind of snapping, like pushing windows below the top border)
I used it for more effeciently using and managing my screen space during masturbation to images and it was a testiment to my almost complete mastery over winforms and p/invoke and the low level windows window api at the time.
- infinitely big or small resizing
- has no visible borders
- has a close all button
- windows size enforces image aspect ratio
- taskbar item thumbnail is the image
- can be moved by clicking and pulling it anywhere (besides resize borders)
- can be moved beyond the edges of the screen (no kind of snapping, like pushing windows below the top border)
I used it for more effeciently using and managing my screen space during masturbation to images and it was a testiment to my almost complete mastery over winforms and p/invoke and the low level windows window api at the time.
I built https://pinggy.io for myself initially. But after some years I thought others might also find it useful.
It gives me "instant" public URLs to localhost without any downloads/configs. I use to to quickly send files, share and check frontend on my mobile device.
It gives me "instant" public URLs to localhost without any downloads/configs. I use to to quickly send files, share and check frontend on my mobile device.
This is very cool... Love the simplicity. Do you have enough customers to make it worthwhile and ensure the service stays up?
I wanted a Markdown notes app that I could access over the internet, and stored files in a files-on-s3 structure that would makes sense if I accessed it directly and would be stupidly simple to backup/restore.
Ended up with an Amplify app that had basic login, file upload with image thumnbnails, indexing of frontmatter, some query macros to list pages matching specific criteria, autocomplete for frontmatter and macros, and ability to make specific pages public if I want to. Apart from login, it only uses direct S3 calls, so I'm effectively only paying for S3 storage costs.
Ended up with an Amplify app that had basic login, file upload with image thumnbnails, indexing of frontmatter, some query macros to list pages matching specific criteria, autocomplete for frontmatter and macros, and ability to make specific pages public if I want to. Apart from login, it only uses direct S3 calls, so I'm effectively only paying for S3 storage costs.
A browser extension to help me rate science fiction stories for compellingsciencefiction.com. It triggers an AWS Lambda-backed API to store my ratings and some story metadata, makes things way less tedious!
I created an AI foot generator. Whenever I had someone take a photo of me, they would often cut off my foot. My program would generate an artificial foot for the photo. To be honest, it had some hilariously bad results sometimes.
I've built my own small embeddable functional language with structural record unions and effect types.
By focusing on making the language tiny I have been able to embed it in arduino, web and server projects. The aim is to eventually use it for every side project I make.
https://petersaxton.uk/log/
This looks really cool!
Your site triggered the iOS Safari prompt to allow your site access to my microphone
oh yeah. I also made an voice assistant called Colin on the homepage
Machine-learning predictions for Draft Kings (NBA) :)
It scraped basically every single player's performance in every single NBA game ever. I tried XGBoost and Keras, and the Keras model outperformed the XGBoost model. Was about to incorporate real-time injury data, so if a player was injured or out that game it would not select them.
In the end it didn't perform too well. I think the limitation was my lack of domain knowledge, and not really knowing what features to select that would predict a players performance. Also data. I hear MLB is more consistent than NBA because there's just more data.
It scraped basically every single player's performance in every single NBA game ever. I tried XGBoost and Keras, and the Keras model outperformed the XGBoost model. Was about to incorporate real-time injury data, so if a player was injured or out that game it would not select them.
In the end it didn't perform too well. I think the limitation was my lack of domain knowledge, and not really knowing what features to select that would predict a players performance. Also data. I hear MLB is more consistent than NBA because there's just more data.
I'm sitting on MLB data (converting it to a BigQuery warehouse), am also interested in this space. The challenge w/ MLB is randomness plays a larger element - most folks in the MLB gambling space prefer other leagues where an information advantage more directly translates to profits.
Almost one year ago, I’ve built a personal diary app with gamificatiin features: streaks and email reminders.
My current streak is 347 days! It really made ME journaling daily. A number of folks who have also registered maxed at 61 only :(
https://5yearsback.com
My current streak is 347 days! It really made ME journaling daily. A number of folks who have also registered maxed at 61 only :(
https://5yearsback.com
Kirby's Adventure for the NES, one of my favorite games, ignores your controller inputs sometimes. I dove into the ROM, figured out the problem and fixed it: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/7595/
I'm currently hacking the SNES mouse into Sim City.
I'm currently hacking the SNES mouse into Sim City.
That’s great! I really appreciate these rom hacks that fix errors in the original game to allow for an ideal version. How do you go about hacking a SNES rom? What tools and language do you use?
Right now, i'm using the assembler WLA-DX to inject the SimCity base ROM with code changes, and using the SNES emulator Mesen with it's wonderful debugging tools to figure out what the hell i'm doing. I have a keyboard shortcut in Notepad++ that activates a .bat file, injects the base ROM, checks if it built properly, uses a powershell script (written by ChatGPT!) to convert WLA-DX generated labels (.sym) to Mesen debugger (.mlb) format, and if all is well, it starts the emulator with the built ROM and label file. I'm coding in raw 65c816 ASM.
My setup looks something like this:
https://nesblast.com/img/snes_hacking_setup.png
If you have basic ASM experience, the SNESdev wiki will tell you everything you need:
https://snes.nesdev.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you don't have basic ASM experience, i would start here:
https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/
My setup looks something like this:
https://nesblast.com/img/snes_hacking_setup.png
If you have basic ASM experience, the SNESdev wiki will tell you everything you need:
https://snes.nesdev.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you don't have basic ASM experience, i would start here:
https://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/
Thanks for sharing. I really admire what you're doing. Keep up the good work!
This reminds me of the person who fixed the infamous Atari ET game: http://www.neocomputer.org/projects/et/
SNES Sim City is one of my fav games to emulate. When your mouse hack works, want a copy of the patch!
A PDP11/40 emulator for the Teensy 4.1 development board.
https://github.com/gounselor/Teensy11
https://github.com/gounselor/Teensy11
Proxy server with full mitm support for removing / blocking ads, modifying cookies to per session cookies, injecting of anti-fingerprinting javascript into pages, caching, various blocking lists, cname resolving, ASN blocking,...
It was written as I got sick of particularities of squid proxy. Using it for 5 years for home network as transparent proxy, never released it.
"A picture is worth a thousand words":
Application Options:
It was written as I got sick of particularities of squid proxy. Using it for 5 years for home network as transparent proxy, never released it.
"A picture is worth a thousand words":
Application Options:
--listen= Listening ip and port (format "address:port") (default: 127.0.0.1:8080)
--ini= Path for .ini file, if not there it will be created with defaults
--id= Unique id, used for caching and avoiding detection of injected js. (default: machineid)
--cakey= CA Private Key for MITMing https connections (default: ca.key)
--cacrt= CA Certificate for MITMing https connections. It must be imported into client(browser) as trusted CA (default: ca.crt)
--cagen=[512|1024|2048|4096] CA Private Key (and CA Certificate) generation, keysize. (default: 1024)
--upstream.proxy= Upstream proxy (format "address:port")
--upstream.cacrt= Upstream proxy CA certificate
--list.update= Update databases interval for https paths (default: 24h)
--list.path= Path for caching downloaded lists (default: lists)
-D, --domain.blacklist= File/url paths with domain blacklist
--domain.whitelist= File/url paths with domain whitelist
-U, --url.blacklist= File/url paths with url blacklist
--url.whitelist= File/url paths with url whitelist
-A, --adblock.blacklist= File/url paths for adblock rules
--adblock.whitelist= File/url paths for adblock whitelist rules
-N, --cname.blacklist= File/url paths for cname masked domain blacklist
--cname.whitelist= File/url paths for cname masked domain whitelist
-S, --asn.blocklist= ASN address ranges to block (macros:"facebook", "google", "microsoft", "apple", "amazon")
--asn.whitelist= ASN address ranges to whitelist (macros:"facebook", "google", "microsoft", "apple", "amazon")
-R, --regexp= File/url paths for regular expression replace rules
--inject.list= File/url paths with js injection rules
--inject.cache Inject into cache, faster, updating script require cache invalidation
--cdn.whitelist= File/url paths for cdn whitelist
--cdn.expires= Defines expiration for CDN cache (default: 30d)
--dns= File/url path to list of dns servers to use
--dns.change= Defines timeout for changing the dns (default: 10s)
--dns.timeout= Defines timeout for dns to respond, if exceeded it will be excluded (default: 250ms)
--user-agents= File/url paths to list of user-agents used
--user-agents.random= Generate specified number of random user agents
--user-agents.change= Defines timeout for user-agent randomization (default: 300s)
--header.cspreport Allow CSP reporting
--header.cache Allow cache headers reach clients
--header.expectct Allow Expect-CT header
--header.etag.remove Enable removing of ETag used for cookieless tracking
--header.hsts.remove Enable removing of HSTS header (we are doing mitm anyway)
--header.dnt.enable Set Do-Not-Track header
--image.reencode Enable re-encoding of images to remove hidden tagging
--amp.allow Allow AMP redirection
--cookie.validity= Change domain cookie validity ('0' is per-session cookie, off for disabled) (default: off)
--cookie.validity.3rd= Change 3rd party domain cookie validity ('0' is per-session cookie, 'off' disabled) (default: 1h)
--man Generate man page
--txt Generate text documentation
--cache.compression.disable Disable all compression
--cache.sharing.clients Enable clients share same cache
--cache.sharing.xsite Allow cache sharing for 3rd party domains
--cache.media.enable Cache media content (disk & memory impact!)
--cache.mem.disable Disable caching
--cache.mem.size= Maximum size, if reached expire oldest entries (default: 512mb)
--cache.mem.expires= Maximum time before it expires (default: 24h)
--cache.mem.nocompression Disable memory cache compression
--cache.mem.min= Minimum content size to cache (kb, mb, gb) (default: 512)
--cache.mem.max= Maximum content size to cache (kb, mb, gb) (default: 2mb)
--cache.disk.disable Disable caching
--cache.disk.path= Path for on disk caching (default: webcache)
--cache.disk.size= Maximum cache size in megabytes (default: 1024mb)
--cache.disk.expires= Maximum time before cache expires (default: 30d)
--cache.disk.ttlexpire= Timeout to execute task for expiring cache values (default: 10m)
--cache.disk.nocompression Disable disk cache compression
--cache.disk.min= Minimum size to cache (kb, mb, gb) (default: 512)
--cache.disk.max= Maximum size to cache (kb, mb, gb) (default: 10mb)
--log.level=[trace|debug|info|error|fatal|panic|off] Logging level (default: error)
--log.output= Logging output filename or stdout, stderr (default: stderr)
--log.json Logging is formatted as json
--header.debug Enable sending debug headers to clients
--db.optimize Enable statistic database optimizations
--threadpool.size= Size of thread pool (0 disables thread pooling) (default: 200)
--threadpool.proxy.disable Disable thread pool for proxying
--threadpool.filter.disable Disable thread pool for filtering
--threadpool.tools.disable Disable thread pool for tools
--domain.resources= Proxy resource access domain (default: my.proxy)
I made a visual programming / node editor environment similar to TouchDesigner, vvvv, Unreal Blueprints, etc, on top of Unity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyDpnzfSg_o
It was originally created to drive a particular large LED installation I work on, but I've generalized it to the point of being able to drive other installations as well. It passes texture data between nodes running compute shaders to chain together patterns/effects, which is a fun and powerful paradigm for creating visuals. Not as powerful or featureful as "real" solutions like TouchDesigner, (which, if I'd known about when starting out, I probably would have just used), but I do know all its ins and outs and can change it exactly how I want, which is nice.
It was originally created to drive a particular large LED installation I work on, but I've generalized it to the point of being able to drive other installations as well. It passes texture data between nodes running compute shaders to chain together patterns/effects, which is a fun and powerful paradigm for creating visuals. Not as powerful or featureful as "real" solutions like TouchDesigner, (which, if I'd known about when starting out, I probably would have just used), but I do know all its ins and outs and can change it exactly how I want, which is nice.
I made an app to control my pedalboard via WebMIDI
https://github.com/rajangdavis/macrocosm_js
Was inspired by some existing editors so I made my own and extended it to create macros for sending sysex/PC messages to multiple devices.
https://github.com/rajangdavis/macrocosm_js
Was inspired by some existing editors so I made my own and extended it to create macros for sending sysex/PC messages to multiple devices.
Built a compilation of local happy hours, lunch specials, and other cheap eats at https://fullprice.no (as in, "do you want to pay full price? No."). The idea isn't all that original but I thought my layout and presentation was rather unique, for example the 24-hour slider as opposed to a clock interface.
I thought it would be easier post-launch to get restaurants to participate and add their own information (nearly-free marketing), but that was a faulty assumption. The admin interface is also pretty cool, very simple to specify blocks of time when the specials are active.
Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in 4 or 5 years. When Covid first started, I launched a sister site just to list restaurants that were open, I took that down about 6 months ago.
I thought it would be easier post-launch to get restaurants to participate and add their own information (nearly-free marketing), but that was a faulty assumption. The admin interface is also pretty cool, very simple to specify blocks of time when the specials are active.
Unfortunately it hasn't been updated in 4 or 5 years. When Covid first started, I launched a sister site just to list restaurants that were open, I took that down about 6 months ago.
It's a Firefox extension for just me. [0] I've posted it here before, and one user said they'd start using it. I hope someone else finds it useful again. The problem: I wanted to be able to mute League of Legends streams in between games with a hotkey, and without changing visibility of any windows in the process of doing so. This is a much harder problem than you'd think, even with the existence of Autohotkey, and NirCmd, and ControlSend, because Firefox is really annoying. [1] It ended up requiring me to write an entire Firefox extension as well as use an AHK that uses ControlSend.
Anyway, yeah, that FF extension. It represents the culmination of about 5 years of me trying to solve this problem with progressively more complex and incrementally better solutions until I finally arrived at a ridiculously over-engineered version that actually works as it should.
[0] https://github.com/RheingoldRiver/MuteTabsMatchingPattern
[1] https://river.me/blog/global-hotkey-mute-firefox-stream/
Anyway, yeah, that FF extension. It represents the culmination of about 5 years of me trying to solve this problem with progressively more complex and incrementally better solutions until I finally arrived at a ridiculously over-engineered version that actually works as it should.
[0] https://github.com/RheingoldRiver/MuteTabsMatchingPattern
[1] https://river.me/blog/global-hotkey-mute-firefox-stream/
I have been working on a note taking app with a fully open API since 2008 on and off. I intended to open it to the public around 2010 but SimpleNote popped up and drank my milkshake. I even switched over myself.
Since then however they've closed their formerly open API. This inspired me to pick it back up.
I've got a mobile friendly webapp, an official SDK, a basic cli for scripting. Basically everything I wanted.
The UI of the webapp is pretty spartan as I prefer, so I'm scared it doesn't have mass appeal. It's super fast however.
I have hundreds of notes in it, use it for all my note keeping. I am it's only user. My friends have access, but they don't use regularly.
I want to open up to the public eventually, but these days I'd really want to get e2e encryption working before doing so and just have not found the time.
Since then however they've closed their formerly open API. This inspired me to pick it back up.
I've got a mobile friendly webapp, an official SDK, a basic cli for scripting. Basically everything I wanted.
The UI of the webapp is pretty spartan as I prefer, so I'm scared it doesn't have mass appeal. It's super fast however.
I have hundreds of notes in it, use it for all my note keeping. I am it's only user. My friends have access, but they don't use regularly.
I want to open up to the public eventually, but these days I'd really want to get e2e encryption working before doing so and just have not found the time.
I founded 2 photo startups (2004 and 2012). My second startup was focused on data portability and was open source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trovebox
After failing to integrate the software into Western Digital's MyCloud NAS line of productions, I left and decided to try something different. I created a photo management tool that could feed into other photo programs. It's open source and available on github.
https://getelodie.com
https://github.com/jmathai/elodie
I started off using it with Google Photos. Explained here, https://medium.com/swlh/my-automated-photo-workflow-using-go...
I've since switched to using it with Synology Photos.
8 years and counting.
After failing to integrate the software into Western Digital's MyCloud NAS line of productions, I left and decided to try something different. I created a photo management tool that could feed into other photo programs. It's open source and available on github.
https://getelodie.com
https://github.com/jmathai/elodie
I started off using it with Google Photos. Explained here, https://medium.com/swlh/my-automated-photo-workflow-using-go...
I've since switched to using it with Synology Photos.
8 years and counting.
It’s a tool that helps me generate code examples for multiple JavaScript frameworks.
Input is a JSON string describing the code, out comes code examples in plain JavaScript, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, and jQuery.
Helps me generate extensive docs on my own.
Input is a JSON string describing the code, out comes code examples in plain JavaScript, React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, and jQuery.
Helps me generate extensive docs on my own.
My company has a budget for health and wellness that I use for my GoodLife gym membership. GoodLife doesn’t send receipts and instead makes you go to their website, fill in a bunch of information, and request the receipt be emailed to you. So I made a little app that simply fills in the form automatically every two weeks. I set it up on GitHub actions and now I don’t have this annoyance to deal with. It’s pretty small but made my life better.
Not much for instructions but it’s here is anyone is interested. https://github.com/jpatters/goodlife-receipts
Not much for instructions but it’s here is anyone is interested. https://github.com/jpatters/goodlife-receipts
I love stuff that makes life just a little bit more easier
I’ve implemented a Bayesian optimizer for stable diffusion model merging [0]. This is because I do not have patience and/or time to try all different block combinations by hand. It started as a personal thing but now multiple people are working on it and a small community was born.
[0] https://github.com/s1dlx/sd-webui-bayesian-merger
[0] https://github.com/s1dlx/sd-webui-bayesian-merger
I always loved listening to music. However, the past few years I started more actively exploring new (old) music around the world and actually listening to whole albums. (I'm always amazed by the vast amount of good music that exists out there, waiting to be discovered and experienced)
I've a few friends that have the same itch and so we were constantly exchanging recommendations via different communication channels (Signal, email, Slack etc.)
So I started building a website that's "like Goodreads, but for music releases". You can mark albums as "want to listen", "listened" and "dig" (loved), organizing your lists with tags and notes and share them with others. You then have a public activity profile and you can add other users as friends and see their own activity.
Original Show HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32551862
I've a few friends that have the same itch and so we were constantly exchanging recommendations via different communication channels (Signal, email, Slack etc.)
So I started building a website that's "like Goodreads, but for music releases". You can mark albums as "want to listen", "listened" and "dig" (loved), organizing your lists with tags and notes and share them with others. You then have a public activity profile and you can add other users as friends and see their own activity.
Original Show HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32551862
My mom digitized many many old family videos, and wanted them online for sharing with family (including elderly & not-super-tech-savvy relatives). She asked me “should I just upload them all to a YouTube channel?”
Thankfully it was a phone call so my mom didn’t see my aghast expression. I prefer that big tech not index this stuff! Better to keep “in the family”
Seriously why does big tech deserve this free & super-private window into me & my ancestors lives?
So I wrote something[1] where:
* it’s fully free & open source
* cloud native
* plays on any device, any bandwidth, even if shitty
* yes my 90+yo Aunt Loretta (w00t to you Aunt Lo!) can use it on her phone & computer
* all data can be always encrypted, both source videos and derived/optimized assets
* and there’s more. please have fun
Basically point it at a source bucket on S3 or B2, and get your own private YouTube.
What I’ve built is very limited in functionality atm, but I believe the foundation is solid and plan to extend media support to photos and audio.
This can be a nice alternative to Plex/Google Photos/YT/etc.
It’s for when you don’t care about “building an audience” and in fact prefer that big tech can only see encrypted bytes from you.
Try it out and lmk!
[1] https://github.com/cobbzilla/yuebing
Thankfully it was a phone call so my mom didn’t see my aghast expression. I prefer that big tech not index this stuff! Better to keep “in the family”
Seriously why does big tech deserve this free & super-private window into me & my ancestors lives?
So I wrote something[1] where:
* it’s fully free & open source
* cloud native
* plays on any device, any bandwidth, even if shitty
* yes my 90+yo Aunt Loretta (w00t to you Aunt Lo!) can use it on her phone & computer
* all data can be always encrypted, both source videos and derived/optimized assets
* and there’s more. please have fun
Basically point it at a source bucket on S3 or B2, and get your own private YouTube.
What I’ve built is very limited in functionality atm, but I believe the foundation is solid and plan to extend media support to photos and audio.
This can be a nice alternative to Plex/Google Photos/YT/etc.
It’s for when you don’t care about “building an audience” and in fact prefer that big tech can only see encrypted bytes from you.
Try it out and lmk!
[1] https://github.com/cobbzilla/yuebing
nit: The language in the readme is called 'Marathi' instead of 'Maranthi'. It's my native language, and not a ton of people speak it online. Nice to see it here :)
Thank you! My mistake, updated. cheers! :)
PS-- I also wanted my docs in any language, but also that anyone else could translate their app/docs easily, so I made this other thing[1], which is why these docs are available in so many languages
[1] https://github.com/cobbzilla/hokeylization / https://www.npmjs.com/package/hokeylization-lite
PS-- I also wanted my docs in any language, but also that anyone else could translate their app/docs easily, so I made this other thing[1], which is why these docs are available in so many languages
[1] https://github.com/cobbzilla/hokeylization / https://www.npmjs.com/package/hokeylization-lite
Huh, interesting. Apparently, Marathi is the 13th largest language in the world by population of native speakers, yet I've never heard of it. TIL.
Is there anything you know of that's linguistically interesting about it besides what I can learn from Wikipedia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathi_language
Is there anything you know of that's linguistically interesting about it besides what I can learn from Wikipedia?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathi_language
Simpson’s quote:
Reverend Lovejoy: No, but He was working in the hearts of your friends and neighbors when they came to your aid, be they [points to Ned] Christian, [Krusty] Jew, or [Apu]... miscellaneous.
Apu: Hindu! There are 700 million of us.
Reverend Lovejoy: No, but He was working in the hearts of your friends and neighbors when they came to your aid, be they [points to Ned] Christian, [Krusty] Jew, or [Apu]... miscellaneous.
Apu: Hindu! There are 700 million of us.
Hey, sounds like a very cool project.
I'm wondering: have you considered setting up a Peertube instance and what were the reasons for not doing it?
Other question about not giving away your private data to big tech: Why is S3 better than a private YouTube channel?
I'm wondering: have you considered setting up a Peertube instance and what were the reasons for not doing it?
Other question about not giving away your private data to big tech: Why is S3 better than a private YouTube channel?
I like S3/B2 because the vendor only ever sees encrypted bytes. All decryption/plaintext is on the device. YouTube does not get you there. In fact their entire model is predicated on watching your every move.
As far as Peertube, I don't know enough about it. If I put a massive-bitrate video in some weird format on it, and then try playback on a crappy phone, will it work? If I go through a short tunnel, will it buffer or degrade quality gracefully? I don't want to worry about it.
As far as Peertube, I don't know enough about it. If I put a massive-bitrate video in some weird format on it, and then try playback on a crappy phone, will it work? If I go through a short tunnel, will it buffer or degrade quality gracefully? I don't want to worry about it.
> S3/B2 because the vendor only ever sees encrypted bytes
Got it, thanks!
> questions about Peertube
I don't know either. So far my experience with existing instances has been rather good but I didn't consciously test the use cases you mentioned. I've wanted to publish educational videos for a while but the idea of feeding the big nasty beast just breaks my heart.
Got it, thanks!
> questions about Peertube
I don't know either. So far my experience with existing instances has been rather good but I didn't consciously test the use cases you mentioned. I've wanted to publish educational videos for a while but the idea of feeding the big nasty beast just breaks my heart.
Have you considered just hosting mp4s in <video> tags on a simple web host? I think it'll work a lot better than you'd think.
This uses video.js which wraps <video> and adds a lot more goodies.
You're right, thanks for reminding me of the simple, straightforward way!
I actually did try hosting the raw videos first. Playback is kind of terrible when the source bitrate is >20MB/s. You really need adaptive-bitrate streaming.
Thankfully ffmpeg support for DASH and HLS is very good. It’s not hard to transcode, this does all the right incantations. It can take a lot of CPU/time, but it’s a one-time thing.
Thankfully ffmpeg support for DASH and HLS is very good. It’s not hard to transcode, this does all the right incantations. It can take a lot of CPU/time, but it’s a one-time thing.
If it's old pristine video, might be worthwhile for anything without identifiable info on YT. Never know who this helps or brings backs memories.
> Seriously why does big tech deserve this free & super-private window into me & my ancestors lives?
I don't think anyone's claiming it deserves anything?
I don't think anyone's claiming it deserves anything?
Yeah it's a bizarre attitude
Not saying you shouldn't do this, but by publishing under AGPL plus
If you are an individual person or a not-for-profit organization, and your usage of this software is entirely non-commercial, you may use this software under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, summarized below and reprinted in full thereafter.
you have effectively created a new license and it's not completely clear to me what that new license even means exactly, except that obviously a company should stay far away from it.
With regular AGPL, there is not a problem for a company to use the AGPL licensed software, it "just" can't offer Tivo-ised experiences or a website running modified AGPL code.
If you are an individual person or a not-for-profit organization, and your usage of this software is entirely non-commercial, you may use this software under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License, version 3, summarized below and reprinted in full thereafter.
you have effectively created a new license and it's not completely clear to me what that new license even means exactly, except that obviously a company should stay far away from it.
With regular AGPL, there is not a problem for a company to use the AGPL licensed software, it "just" can't offer Tivo-ised experiences or a website running modified AGPL code.
AGPL has language to cover such things, e.g.
> All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further restrictions" within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.
So it seems at best there is a need for a middle man who gets the AGPL licensed version that can then propagate it further under pure AGPL.
> All other non-permissive additional terms are considered "further restrictions" within the meaning of section 10. If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term.
So it seems at best there is a need for a middle man who gets the AGPL licensed version that can then propagate it further under pure AGPL.
This doesn’t make sense to me. If one clause says another clause can be removed, then doesn’t that create a contradiction where legally it’s unclear which of the two clauses “wins” the fight - the one adding additional restrictions or the one removing that clause?
I think that language is meant for the case where someone takes an AGPL programs, slaps another restriction on it, and sends it along.
The last person in the chain can disregard the extra "conditions".
But this only works if someone distributed it under (only) the AGPL in the first. In the specific case with the software we are talking about now, that is not the case. It was originally distributed under this almost-AGPL.
But yes, the wording inside the AGPL makes it extra confusing exactly. It reads like those test where the instruction is "before you do anything, read all the questions".
The last person in the chain can disregard the extra "conditions".
But this only works if someone distributed it under (only) the AGPL in the first. In the specific case with the software we are talking about now, that is not the case. It was originally distributed under this almost-AGPL.
But yes, the wording inside the AGPL makes it extra confusing exactly. It reads like those test where the instruction is "before you do anything, read all the questions".
Use the AGPL. I promise not to sue any individual person or non-profit org.
And you’re right, for-profit companies should either stay away for safety or contact me for terms.
And you’re right, for-profit companies should either stay away for safety or contact me for terms.
The danger here is that your additional terms might be ineffective. The problem is, if you distribute it to an individual or a non-profit organization under the terms of the AGPL, then that individual or non-profit organization has the right to redistribute the software to anyone, including for-profit organizations, under the terms of the AGPL. It says so in the very first sentence after the copyright notice!
So if you do not want to allow this, then you must use something other than the AGPL. (Or maybe you could do some funky patching of the AGPL's terms, but you'd have to be careful to only do so by reference, since its text is copyrighted by the FSF, who only permit distribution of verbatim copies.)
Also, you should probably avoid calling it "fully free & open source" as you did in your original comment, since you intend for it to be neither Free nor Open Source in the sense ordinarily meant by FOSS.
So if you do not want to allow this, then you must use something other than the AGPL. (Or maybe you could do some funky patching of the AGPL's terms, but you'd have to be careful to only do so by reference, since its text is copyrighted by the FSF, who only permit distribution of verbatim copies.)
Also, you should probably avoid calling it "fully free & open source" as you did in your original comment, since you intend for it to be neither Free nor Open Source in the sense ordinarily meant by FOSS.
Plenty of FOSS is dual licensed, this really isn’t as hard or complicated as some are making it out to be.
In all dual-licensed FOSS projects which require licensees to comply with the terms of both licenses, both of them include an unlimited right to redistribution. Also, roughly no projects do that with the AGPL, since the AGPL includes the right to cast off any additional terms when redistributing.
But your intent, if you want to avoid for-profit organizations using your software, is to impose a restriction on users not to redistribute the software in certain ways. It is your right to add such a restriction to your software, but it is no longer FOSS, since that term necessarily implies an unlimited right to redistribution (within the law).
But your intent, if you want to avoid for-profit organizations using your software, is to impose a restriction on users not to redistribute the software in certain ways. It is your right to add such a restriction to your software, but it is no longer FOSS, since that term necessarily implies an unlimited right to redistribution (within the law).
Your first claim is provably wrong; look at the license for MySQL as an example of a dual license where the licensee chooses which terms to follow based on their usage.
Redistribution is unlimited for all non-commercial use. This has been through legal review.
If you’re still confused, please contact me directly and I’ll be happy to answer any other questions.
Redistribution is unlimited for all non-commercial use. This has been through legal review.
If you’re still confused, please contact me directly and I’ll be happy to answer any other questions.
[deleted]
>it's not completely clear to me what that new license even means exactly, except that obviously a company should stay far away from it
And that is his problem because?
And that is his problem because?
It’s only a problem if confusion is a problem.
Personally, I don’t think I would contribute as a private individual either, since the Software effectively isn’t Open Source.
Personally, I don’t think I would contribute as a private individual either, since the Software effectively isn’t Open Source.
> With regular AGPL, there is not a problem for a company to use the AGPL licensed software, it "just" can't offer Tivo-ised experiences or a website running modified AGPL code.
Nitpick: the company can use AGPL code wherever, it only needs to make the updated source code available to users. In many shops, devs would be perfectly ok with that, where legal depts are still mostly living in the world of "opensource it with MIT/Apache to make sure we can take it down tomorrow, just in case".
Nitpick: the company can use AGPL code wherever, it only needs to make the updated source code available to users. In many shops, devs would be perfectly ok with that, where legal depts are still mostly living in the world of "opensource it with MIT/Apache to make sure we can take it down tomorrow, just in case".
I did a similar thing a while back. https://github.com/maxibenner/cardboard
The goal was to have a platform that ingests the commonly enormous video files from old tapes, automatically cuts them, tags them based on content to make them easily searchable. My focus was on discoverability of scenes hidden in those long video files. The search bar would also randomly suggest tags to search for.
At some point I tried to work with a large video digitization provider and the video splitting ended up being too expensive to be viable for the proposed business model. Now it just auto generates thumbnails and lets you tag videos manually.
The project includes a business dahsboard that allows digitization businesses to send videos directly to customer accounts (deliveries need to be accepted).
Currently, I only use it for my own videos as well as for my MIL.
The goal was to have a platform that ingests the commonly enormous video files from old tapes, automatically cuts them, tags them based on content to make them easily searchable. My focus was on discoverability of scenes hidden in those long video files. The search bar would also randomly suggest tags to search for.
At some point I tried to work with a large video digitization provider and the video splitting ended up being too expensive to be viable for the proposed business model. Now it just auto generates thumbnails and lets you tag videos manually.
The project includes a business dahsboard that allows digitization businesses to send videos directly to customer accounts (deliveries need to be accepted).
Currently, I only use it for my own videos as well as for my MIL.
I wrote something like this, but for photos. I was tired of not being able to share photo albums with my family and friends.
And then I realized that there is a certain group of people who really need a private photo-sharing service without any oversight, and that not only do I want nothing to do with that despicable group, I don't ever want to realize that I helped them in any way.
So I decided to never release the code and never make it available.
And then I realized that there is a certain group of people who really need a private photo-sharing service without any oversight, and that not only do I want nothing to do with that despicable group, I don't ever want to realize that I helped them in any way.
So I decided to never release the code and never make it available.
If you discovered a new way to make a secure locking cabinet, and then found out that bad people would lock bad things in the cabinet, you’d stop working on the cabinet?
OK then, that’s entirely your choice. Just don’t forget you started working on this cabinet for your own legitimate use, and there are many more people who share your same legitimate problem, but who can’t write software, and they will be SOL.
OK then, that’s entirely your choice. Just don’t forget you started working on this cabinet for your own legitimate use, and there are many more people who share your same legitimate problem, but who can’t write software, and they will be SOL.
Counterpoint: the bad people are already doing bad things. There is already plenty of secure communication technology, it’s just not super convenient. The highly motivated weirdos don’t mind that though.
There is a much larger group of people (parents) who need a secure and convenient way to share photos. They are not as driven as the perverts, so they need all the support and user-friendliness that we can provide.
We should build the tools that help the parents protect their kids, and let law enforcement deal with the other group.
There is a much larger group of people (parents) who need a secure and convenient way to share photos. They are not as driven as the perverts, so they need all the support and user-friendliness that we can provide.
We should build the tools that help the parents protect their kids, and let law enforcement deal with the other group.
Awhile ago I made an remote infrared sending tool so a raspberry pi can control my A/C unit
https://blog.bschwind.com/2016/05/29/sending-infrared-comman...
Since then I made a much slimmer, cheaper, more efficient version based on the ESP32 but I haven't written up much about that.
I also created my own keyboard with firmware in Rust
https://github.com/bschwind/key-ripper
I've done a bunch of other small one-off projects too.
https://blog.bschwind.com/2016/05/29/sending-infrared-comman...
Since then I made a much slimmer, cheaper, more efficient version based on the ESP32 but I haven't written up much about that.
I also created my own keyboard with firmware in Rust
https://github.com/bschwind/key-ripper
I've done a bunch of other small one-off projects too.
Please do, if possible, a writeup on ESP32 version too - i have exactly the same need for one AC unit (daikin) and PI seems an overkill - but i have some esp32-cam's lying around...
I wrote tweetscreenr.com to fetch articles from my twitter feed, and convert it into an RSS feed. The initial use case was to follow AI researchers on twitter and get notified whenever they post a link to an arxiv.org paper. Works well for me - I get all the news from Twitter, minus all the politicized/opinionated crap.
I originally built OnlineOrNot (https://onlineornot.com) to have a convenient way to convince my contracting clients that their hosting sucks.
They'd be like "Oh but I pay $5/mo for this wordpress host, it's fine?" and I'd send them a report saying their website was offline for say 10 hours that week, and to calculate how much being offline for 10 hours would cost them.
Eventually a client asked to be setup with their own account, so I took the time to go full-SaaS.
They'd be like "Oh but I pay $5/mo for this wordpress host, it's fine?" and I'd send them a report saying their website was offline for say 10 hours that week, and to calculate how much being offline for 10 hours would cost them.
Eventually a client asked to be setup with their own account, so I took the time to go full-SaaS.
How frequently does it ping the target site?
It can do a check every 30 seconds, but users configure it as needed
https://github.com/luciano-fiandesio/beanborg
A set of Python scripts to automate the importing of financial transactions into Beancount. Been using it consistently for ths last 3 years to manage my finances.
A set of Python scripts to automate the importing of financial transactions into Beancount. Been using it consistently for ths last 3 years to manage my finances.
A few weeks ago, I built myself a web based IDE and deployment solution (like Replit) for quick experiment projects. It's built on Docker and designed to be self-hostable - I run it on a pair of servers at home.
It's called Dock'n'Roll https://youtu.be/nITIMrND0Z0
It's called Dock'n'Roll https://youtu.be/nITIMrND0Z0
I built a wifi controlled led strip controller with an ESP8266. I had it connected to an Android sleep tracking app (sleep as android), so that at some point I had the lights in my room go from 0 to 2500 lumens smoothly (following a log curve so that it's perceptually linear) over 5min or so in the morning at the optimal detected time for my sleep cycle. It was pretty awesome. I scrapped the entire thing since I last changed appartement though...
I built an ice cream pail drum machine interface as a kid using cheap piezoelectric speakers (in reverse to generate a signal). This was amplified and brought into a micro-controller to generate a MIDI signal for the drum machine. It actually worked pretty well.
I have glued BLE beacons onto my trash cans in the backyard and written a Python program for a Raspberry Pi that uses its Bluetooth interface to detect the beacons and keep track of whether they are present or not. It also downloads the trash collection calendar from the local utility provider responsible for collecting them and produces an overview over all four types of trash cans with info on their whereabouts (in the backyard or next to the street, based on whether the beacons are visible or not) and number of days until they are collected. If collection is imminent (tomorrow) and the location is still "the backyard", a big flashing warning is shown, requesting whoever reads it to move the trash can to the street so it can be collected.
The Python program produces a regularly updated XML document, which references some XSLT so that when it's loaded in a browser it'll render a nice HTML page with styling and images and stuff. The Raspberry Pi serves that over an HTTP server in the local WiFi, and in the kitchen there's an old Amazon Fire 7 tablet stuck to the wall where a Kiosk browser keeps that page on fullscreen display and regularly updated. The tablet also has all sleep modes deactivated so it is on all the time.
This way we never forget to move out the trash for collection, which we did regularly before I had this solution in place (built it about 5 or 6 years ago). It's horrible in a family of four if the trash is overflowing just because you forgot to move the trash cans to the street so they can be picked up.
2 years ago the solution (called "Internet of Trash") was extended by a little Bluetooth label printer located next to the tablet in the kitchen and some UI on the web page allowing to quickly print sticky labels with two lines of text, usually used to label boxes with food leftovers and pre-cooked ingredients (such as sauces for example) with what's in the box and the date when it was cooked. The UI has easy quick-choice buttons for the common food items we usually have and the last few days for the second line, but also allows free-form entry. It relays all input via the Raspberry Pi which sends it over Bluetooth to the printer. The labels help us immensely to keep track of leftovers stored in the fridge or the freezer - not just to know the exact type of food in the boxes, but also to determine when stuff has to be thrown away or which to use first when multiple boxes contain the same food ingredient.
The Python program produces a regularly updated XML document, which references some XSLT so that when it's loaded in a browser it'll render a nice HTML page with styling and images and stuff. The Raspberry Pi serves that over an HTTP server in the local WiFi, and in the kitchen there's an old Amazon Fire 7 tablet stuck to the wall where a Kiosk browser keeps that page on fullscreen display and regularly updated. The tablet also has all sleep modes deactivated so it is on all the time.
This way we never forget to move out the trash for collection, which we did regularly before I had this solution in place (built it about 5 or 6 years ago). It's horrible in a family of four if the trash is overflowing just because you forgot to move the trash cans to the street so they can be picked up.
2 years ago the solution (called "Internet of Trash") was extended by a little Bluetooth label printer located next to the tablet in the kitchen and some UI on the web page allowing to quickly print sticky labels with two lines of text, usually used to label boxes with food leftovers and pre-cooked ingredients (such as sauces for example) with what's in the box and the date when it was cooked. The UI has easy quick-choice buttons for the common food items we usually have and the last few days for the second line, but also allows free-form entry. It relays all input via the Raspberry Pi which sends it over Bluetooth to the printer. The labels help us immensely to keep track of leftovers stored in the fridge or the freezer - not just to know the exact type of food in the boxes, but also to determine when stuff has to be thrown away or which to use first when multiple boxes contain the same food ingredient.
For those of us thinking of putting beacons on everything, have you found a cheap open device that you like? Tile and Chipolo are too expensive for certain near-frivolous use cases.
This is great— do you have a writeup anywhere?
XML + XSLT brings back memories :D
It's a great tech that was sadly mostly forgotten when JSON took over because it was way easier to parse with Javascript.
It's a great tech that was sadly mostly forgotten when JSON took over because it was way easier to parse with Javascript.
Something I've recently worked on is building an SQLite database of all the dependencies my organisation uses, which makes it possible to write our own queries and reports. The tool is all Open Source (https://dmd.tanna.dev) and has a CLI as well as the SQLite data.
Ive used it to look for software that's out of date (via https://endoflife.date), to find vulnerablilities (via https://osv.dev) and get license information (via https://deps.dev)
It's been hugely useful for us understanding use of internal and external dependencies, and I wish I'd built it earlier in my career so I could've had it for other companies I've worked at!
Ive used it to look for software that's out of date (via https://endoflife.date), to find vulnerablilities (via https://osv.dev) and get license information (via https://deps.dev)
It's been hugely useful for us understanding use of internal and external dependencies, and I wish I'd built it earlier in my career so I could've had it for other companies I've worked at!
Sounds really cool. We're looking into building something similar, but hoping to use Renovate to do the dependency analisys for us.
Nice, this does actually use Renovate as the primary datasource would love to chat more to see if this setup would work for your needs?
A Bluetooth dongle for my standing desk that lets me control it from my Mac. I kept bumping the wired remote with my chair when it was mounted under the table and since it had a fat Cat5 cable, it was too ugly to have on the table.
So I hooked the remote up to an oscilloscope, figured out the signals it uses and used a nRF52 dev kit plus a small custom PCB shield to be able to control it over BLE. A small toolbar utility for the Mac and it’s more convenient than it’s ever been.
So I hooked the remote up to an oscilloscope, figured out the signals it uses and used a nRF52 dev kit plus a small custom PCB shield to be able to control it over BLE. A small toolbar utility for the Mac and it’s more convenient than it’s ever been.
Reminds me of a prank I pulled with a mate on a colleague. They recently got standing desks and of course a bit of fun ensued with them. Over one weekend we build a remote control for it based on an ESP32, of course fully MQTT compatible. We hid it as best as we could and it was not visible unless you crawled under the desk. Fun was had, because you could just program the behavior via a small python script and override the physical buttons. It also was briefly hooked up to my Home Assistant for voice control.
We used nothing as fancy as an oscilloscope, bought a new RJ11 cable, cut it in half and interposed the connection from the remote to the controller. We also used relays, just for the nice clicking sound :)
We used nothing as fancy as an oscilloscope, bought a new RJ11 cable, cut it in half and interposed the connection from the remote to the controller. We also used relays, just for the nice clicking sound :)
My plan was to get my setup super fancy to also display the current height and memory functions from within the Mac utility, so it had to read the full protocol that the remote used. Up/down alone was supposed to be the proof of concept, but once I got it working, it was good enough that I didn't really care about the rest.
I made a robot location tracking system specifically for use on the carpet at my office.
The carpet was an arrangement of 4 particular colors tiled in squares, so I manually made a carpet map (a few hours in excel!), wrote a carpet color classifier to run from under-robot camera data, then integrated with a particle filter for location tracking. Write up is here:
https://github.com/tim-fan/carpet_localisation/wiki/Carpet-L...
I wrote it only ever expecting usage in this particular office, but if anyone has a similar carpet and a robot that needs localizing, please reach out!
The carpet was an arrangement of 4 particular colors tiled in squares, so I manually made a carpet map (a few hours in excel!), wrote a carpet color classifier to run from under-robot camera data, then integrated with a particle filter for location tracking. Write up is here:
https://github.com/tim-fan/carpet_localisation/wiki/Carpet-L...
I wrote it only ever expecting usage in this particular office, but if anyone has a similar carpet and a robot that needs localizing, please reach out!
Built some systems, simulations, universes, automata or whatever you'd like to call them.
https://github.com/churchofthought/HexagonalComplexAutomata
https://github.com/churchofthought/ScatterLife
Was working on a new one based off of Gerard Hooft's beable theory, a superdeterminism of sorts.
But then WebGL 2.0 Beta got replaced by WebGPU. So it doesn't run anymore: https://github.com/churchofthought/Grautamaton
But here is a video of it used for a non-abelian sandpile system, when Google Chrome Beta could run it:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NE1XU1tcdKS4ySLa9
and the resultant "cooled" equilibrium universe: https://photos.app.goo.gl/dn5jpUW9y3JMrxJi6
https://github.com/churchofthought/HexagonalComplexAutomata
https://github.com/churchofthought/ScatterLife
Was working on a new one based off of Gerard Hooft's beable theory, a superdeterminism of sorts.
But then WebGL 2.0 Beta got replaced by WebGPU. So it doesn't run anymore: https://github.com/churchofthought/Grautamaton
But here is a video of it used for a non-abelian sandpile system, when Google Chrome Beta could run it:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/NE1XU1tcdKS4ySLa9
and the resultant "cooled" equilibrium universe: https://photos.app.goo.gl/dn5jpUW9y3JMrxJi6
I have a bunch of these. They are my favorite things to make. I've been making things like this for a long time but I only recently started to appreciate them after discovering this article. https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/home-cooked-app/
- I have a disability and require daily personal care so I made a system for recruiting and hiring caregivers. (https://blakewatson.com/journal/a-home-cooked-app-for-hiring...)
- I need to track those caregivers' hours so I can make sure timesheets are accurate, and I wanted to do it with minimal effort. So I created a plain text syntax readable by a web app I created that takes that syntax and outputs exactly what should go on the timesheets.
- Sometimes the government agency that runs the program doesn't send me enough timesheets, so I created a "forgery" of their timesheets in CSS where all of the values are interchangeable via JavaScript. Now I can print any timesheet for any one of my caregivers for any time period on demand.
- I made my own web-based bookmarking tool to replace my Pinboard account. It automatically sends every bookmark to the Wayback Machine. (I wrote about that one and a couple of others https://blakewatson.com/journal/the-joys-of-home-cooked-apps...)
- Sadly I'm no longer able to use this one because of decreasing strength, but I once created a custom mobile-based keyboard for typing on my Mac. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pre6EQGIuKY
- I wanted to be able to share my plain text notes so I made a CLI for selectively publishing notes to the web.
Really most everything I make outside of my day job is for me/family initially, but a lot of it I end up publishing. For example my main side project is A Fine Start (https://afinestart.me/). It actually started as an assistive technology just for me—typing is difficult so I wanted a new tab page with just clickable text links. I used it for a while myself before eventually turning it into a browser extension and service for other people.
- I have a disability and require daily personal care so I made a system for recruiting and hiring caregivers. (https://blakewatson.com/journal/a-home-cooked-app-for-hiring...)
- I need to track those caregivers' hours so I can make sure timesheets are accurate, and I wanted to do it with minimal effort. So I created a plain text syntax readable by a web app I created that takes that syntax and outputs exactly what should go on the timesheets.
- Sometimes the government agency that runs the program doesn't send me enough timesheets, so I created a "forgery" of their timesheets in CSS where all of the values are interchangeable via JavaScript. Now I can print any timesheet for any one of my caregivers for any time period on demand.
- I made my own web-based bookmarking tool to replace my Pinboard account. It automatically sends every bookmark to the Wayback Machine. (I wrote about that one and a couple of others https://blakewatson.com/journal/the-joys-of-home-cooked-apps...)
- Sadly I'm no longer able to use this one because of decreasing strength, but I once created a custom mobile-based keyboard for typing on my Mac. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pre6EQGIuKY
- I wanted to be able to share my plain text notes so I made a CLI for selectively publishing notes to the web.
Really most everything I make outside of my day job is for me/family initially, but a lot of it I end up publishing. For example my main side project is A Fine Start (https://afinestart.me/). It actually started as an assistive technology just for me—typing is difficult so I wanted a new tab page with just clickable text links. I used it for a while myself before eventually turning it into a browser extension and service for other people.
Would love to see the timesheet and its syntax and stuff:)
Hey, godspeed to you and your health issues.
Concerning the video/custom mobile-based keyboard: If interested you could look at how kde-connect implements the remote pointer control you mention at the end of the video. kde-connect is also available for macOS, though not fully supported (per https://github.com/KDE/kdeconnect-kde) and the last macOS builds seem to fail (https://binary-factory.kde.org/view/MacOS/job/kdeconnect-kde...). But i can attest that it works great on Ubuntu via GSConnect with Android.
Concerning the video/custom mobile-based keyboard: If interested you could look at how kde-connect implements the remote pointer control you mention at the end of the video. kde-connect is also available for macOS, though not fully supported (per https://github.com/KDE/kdeconnect-kde) and the last macOS builds seem to fail (https://binary-factory.kde.org/view/MacOS/job/kdeconnect-kde...). But i can attest that it works great on Ubuntu via GSConnect with Android.
Currently i think my markdown to html converter, which i wrote without any dependencies and completely from scratch (except for a websocket lib). It supports watching for file changes and creating a live preview in the browser.
Source: https://github.com/xNaCly/fleck
Source: https://github.com/xNaCly/fleck
My brother and I built a mini webapp that takes data from the Strong app for workouts, and shows you a list of all your muscle groups and filters it with color based on how much fatigue each muscle has accrued over the week. It also gives you recommendations of how much weight you should lift for your next workout. It's a nice way to make sure each muscle group is getting exercised enough each week!
VLF (polar) heart rate monitor receiver. stress reaction feedback to the wearer via audio.
A little buzzer/led you can plug into an épée to detect hits without a scoring box, there's no grounding so it still triggers on hitting the opponents weapon but was more than good enough for practices.
It was very simple, using a 555 timer and took almost no time to make, but it was among the best returns of effort I put in vs value I got out of it. It also stands out as one of my few personal projects that was something physical since most of them are only software now, and more tools than things purely for fun.
It was very simple, using a 555 timer and took almost no time to make, but it was among the best returns of effort I put in vs value I got out of it. It also stands out as one of my few personal projects that was something physical since most of them are only software now, and more tools than things purely for fun.
I've been working on https://instellar.app. It's a SaaS product that will enable anyone to turn their own infrastructure into a PaaS without needing to hire a DevOps.
I did this because I've had problems hiring DevOps (lack of resource / lack of people to hire / and kubernetes was just too complex). I decided that I need a tool let's me have my own heroku on my own infra and here we are.
I did this because I've had problems hiring DevOps (lack of resource / lack of people to hire / and kubernetes was just too complex). I decided that I need a tool let's me have my own heroku on my own infra and here we are.
Reminds me of https://tsuru.io/ :)
Nice! Good to see others are tackling the same problem!
I'm building an automatic file ingestion and processing pipeline which will run on a Raspberry Pi 3. It'll do some mundane tasks like renaming, and/or converting video files and sending to relevant people.
It's like Node Red, but simpler and less resource intensive.
The idea is to get the file to the "Inbox" of the system, and rest is automagically handled.
It's like Node Red, but simpler and less resource intensive.
The idea is to get the file to the "Inbox" of the system, and rest is automagically handled.
Nothing special, but I didn't want to share my dietary habits with an unknown number of third parties, so I built my own calorie tracker. I didn't use anything fancy, I just ran Grist on my home server with a half dozen tables. Had to rewrite it a couple of times to support stuff like recipes, but it's good enough for my purposes. Didn't even need to add auth to it, I just use Tailscale on my personal devices to access the server from anywhere without exposing it to the internet.
That's very neat, any chance you'd be willing to open source it?
There isn't much there to open source, just a bunch of Excel-like formulas that progressively roll up data from ingredients to the final results for the day.
Made a desktop app for homebrew beer recipes.
There are plenty of brewing tools out there, but ito data model and workflow they are all basically descendants of ProMash. I wanted something that approached home brewing with a focus on process instead of ingredients.
My data model of a "recipe" is a DAG of typed process steps each of which can have ingredients attached. Liquid volumes move through the DAG and are modified at each step. Outputs of the recipe are at the leaf nodes. This model can represent any wacky brew day you can dream up - including and not limited to multiple mashes, splitting or combining volumes pre or post mash/sparge/boil/cool/ferment/whenever, packaging wort, etc. The regular tools usually can't even represent a partigyle batch properly.
Honestly for my regular 20L single-infusion no-sparge brew day it is probably slightly less convenient than say Beersmith. But for unusual situations it shines. For eg this past festive season I found myself needing to stock up quickly. Designing a 40L "one mash, one boil, two different beers [1]" double batch brew day was easy, and hitting all the numbers along the way for such a mad-hatter exercise was incredibly cool.
[1] Scottish Export and Sweet Stout
There are plenty of brewing tools out there, but ito data model and workflow they are all basically descendants of ProMash. I wanted something that approached home brewing with a focus on process instead of ingredients.
My data model of a "recipe" is a DAG of typed process steps each of which can have ingredients attached. Liquid volumes move through the DAG and are modified at each step. Outputs of the recipe are at the leaf nodes. This model can represent any wacky brew day you can dream up - including and not limited to multiple mashes, splitting or combining volumes pre or post mash/sparge/boil/cool/ferment/whenever, packaging wort, etc. The regular tools usually can't even represent a partigyle batch properly.
Honestly for my regular 20L single-infusion no-sparge brew day it is probably slightly less convenient than say Beersmith. But for unusual situations it shines. For eg this past festive season I found myself needing to stock up quickly. Designing a 40L "one mash, one boil, two different beers [1]" double batch brew day was easy, and hitting all the numbers along the way for such a mad-hatter exercise was incredibly cool.
[1] Scottish Export and Sweet Stout
I built myself an automated hydroponic grow tent.
It measures and corrects pH, electrical conductivity, oxidation reduction potential, temperature of the air and water, water level, and humidity. It also automates pumps, lights, and fans (I know people normally advise against this). None of it is particularly sophisticated, but I’m really proud of it.
I initially used a deep water culture and later moved on to the nutrient film technique. It produces a lot of greens and herbs — way more than I ever expected — and it’s remarkably hands off. I recently left it to do its thing for almost 3 months before I had to intervene, and the problem wasn’t the water, nutrients, or the system failing explicitly. The plants just got too big for their channels and as they became stressed, they developed some pest issues. It was such a cool and empowering experience to see real world automation Just Work.
The whole thing is powered by an Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect. It’s a great little controller.
I’m currently designing my first PCB to consolidate the system onto a single board so my friends can easily build their own. It’s not extremely cheap, but it’s not too expensive either and you get a tremendous amount of food from it. It’s such a fun hobby.
It measures and corrects pH, electrical conductivity, oxidation reduction potential, temperature of the air and water, water level, and humidity. It also automates pumps, lights, and fans (I know people normally advise against this). None of it is particularly sophisticated, but I’m really proud of it.
I initially used a deep water culture and later moved on to the nutrient film technique. It produces a lot of greens and herbs — way more than I ever expected — and it’s remarkably hands off. I recently left it to do its thing for almost 3 months before I had to intervene, and the problem wasn’t the water, nutrients, or the system failing explicitly. The plants just got too big for their channels and as they became stressed, they developed some pest issues. It was such a cool and empowering experience to see real world automation Just Work.
The whole thing is powered by an Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect. It’s a great little controller.
I’m currently designing my first PCB to consolidate the system onto a single board so my friends can easily build their own. It’s not extremely cheap, but it’s not too expensive either and you get a tremendous amount of food from it. It’s such a fun hobby.
Would love to see a blog post on this or something!
Same!
Same here.
Same!
Same!
Not OP and not OP's project, but I saw a fantastic automated hydroponic project on YT a few years back that is very similar. YT: [0] Blog Post [1] GitHub for the environmental control system [2]
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyqykZK2Ev4
[1] https://kylegabriel.com/projects/2020/06/automated-hydroponi...
[2] https://github.com/kizniche/Mycodo
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyqykZK2Ev4
[1] https://kylegabriel.com/projects/2020/06/automated-hydroponi...
[2] https://github.com/kizniche/Mycodo
I built a system like Kyle Gabriel's (using his tutorial) and I grow mushrooms with it in a small tent, running Mycodo on a Raspi. This has probably been my most interesting tech I built just for myself, and my sanity. But credit where it's due: thanks Kyle!
Kyle is amazing. He’s still very active and supporting people with Mycodo. I learned a lot from him.
One of these days I would really like to.
It’s funny, I used to write all the time and I loved it. I think I became a bit too critical of myself as I saw my site getting more traffic, and I got a bit too anxious to hit publish.
I should get back to it. I’ve been working on a visual editor which generates code you can flash on an arduino with the idea that eventually this could evolve into a little automated gardening platform, but I’m not fully convinced it would be received the way I hope it would. I know a lot of people are into automated gardening, but they might not be the people who would want to use this kind of platform. In any case, I might find out faster if I write about it and see what people think. My friends are certainly into it, but, they’re my friends! Haha. I need some strangers to laugh at my ideas, maybe.
It’s funny, I used to write all the time and I loved it. I think I became a bit too critical of myself as I saw my site getting more traffic, and I got a bit too anxious to hit publish.
I should get back to it. I’ve been working on a visual editor which generates code you can flash on an arduino with the idea that eventually this could evolve into a little automated gardening platform, but I’m not fully convinced it would be received the way I hope it would. I know a lot of people are into automated gardening, but they might not be the people who would want to use this kind of platform. In any case, I might find out faster if I write about it and see what people think. My friends are certainly into it, but, they’re my friends! Haha. I need some strangers to laugh at my ideas, maybe.
I am intrigued and would like to subscribe to your newsletter
How do you keep water touching sensors working long term? I tried similar sensors but they all get rusted / oxidized to work properly after a certain time.
not OP, but one of the tricks is to activate the sensors only when measuring, so there's no constant DC applied to the sensor wires/pads. once you have that, reduce measurement frequency, so to mainimise the time when voltage is applied to the sensors. for example once every hour for moisture is sufficient, and 1/sec isn't really going to help much.
Would alternating the polarity work?
Off-topic but perhaps interesting:
That's what they do when performing catheter ablation (a medical procedure for curing cardiac fibrilation by destroying minute parts of muscle with electric current).
DC would work just as fine on this procedure, but due to electrolysis of water, oxygen and hydrogen bubbles would form, which could get stuck somewhere. Using a square wave AC quickly reverses the reaction every period, like you suggested for the moisture meter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catheter_ablation#Technique
I don't know the answer to your question, but it would be worth trying.
That's what they do when performing catheter ablation (a medical procedure for curing cardiac fibrilation by destroying minute parts of muscle with electric current).
DC would work just as fine on this procedure, but due to electrolysis of water, oxygen and hydrogen bubbles would form, which could get stuck somewhere. Using a square wave AC quickly reverses the reaction every period, like you suggested for the moisture meter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catheter_ablation#Technique
I don't know the answer to your question, but it would be worth trying.
I've seen a clever setup with the sensors in a dry container above the water tank. There is a hole in the bottom.
Before testing, a pump fills the container up with the tank water, flooding the sensor probes. When the pump stops, the water drains back out into the tank.
The ph sensor will die fast if it the membrane is kept dry.
You’d need to wash the sensors and return their caps with protective fluids. It would be totally possible to automate, but perhaps the same overall cost as buying industrial grade sensors which can handle long term submersion.
You’d also need to ensure the caps contained enough storage solution at the right concentration. Over time the probes would introduce drops of nutrient solution (unless you rinsed them with distilled water, in which case you’d dilute the storage solution), and you’d need to replenish it.
You’d also need to ensure the caps contained enough storage solution at the right concentration. Over time the probes would introduce drops of nutrient solution (unless you rinsed them with distilled water, in which case you’d dilute the storage solution), and you’d need to replenish it.
You need industrial level sensors and the water needs to be flowing constantly through them. I built something similar about 15 years ago and tested many sensors. In the end I had to pay about 1000 dollars for ph and ec meters that did the job reliably. To be honest there is nothing new here. This is how big greenhouses have been operating for decades.
In small scale there is more work maintaining the automated setup and calibrating the sensors than it would take to do the measurements and dosing manually.
In small scale there is more work maintaining the automated setup and calibrating the sensors than it would take to do the measurements and dosing manually.
I think it can cost quite a bit less now, but you’re right — it isn’t cheap.
You can use capacitive water sensors taped to the outside of non-capacitive containers (aluminum foil, a resistor, an arduino, and a plastic 5 gallon container), but honestly all you need are DNI timers to "automate" any grow operation. Put your lights and pumps on a schedule and there is absolutely no reason to get more creative. If you do anything besides low-level timers you're making it complicated and brittle with no added benefit.
These sensors are designed to withstand contact with water and to minimize hydrolysis, and I haven’t had issues with that so far. I’ve been running this system for close to a year and they still seem to calibrate just fine.
I’m very interested, is it possible for you to open-source it? Also, what are its absolute dependencies? Does it depend on daylight? Fresh air from outside? Stored chemicals? Is water/air recyled? What is the reason behind you making this? I’m preparing for Collapse and want to do such a thing soon. If you can open-source it, it would be very cool and helpful.
> is it possible for you to open-source it?
Absolutely, I’d like to work towards contributing useful things to open source gardening technology. Once I have something useful to put into the world I definitely will.
> Does it depend on daylight?
No, this particular system is totally isolated apart from fresh air pulled in to regulate humidity and temperature. The lights are the most expensive aspect of the system by a wide margin, but they do work extremely effectively. The plants are very happy.
I have an older iteration of the system working in an outdoor greenhouse without artificial lighting. It uses fans to regulate air temperature and humidity, but it gets light from the sun. It’s doing fine so far, but the temperature is still relatively lower so growth is slower than in the tent. I’m excited to see what the results are like over summer.
> Is water/air recycled?
This is an interesting question because at the moment the answer is no, but I have the beginnings of plans to recycle the water. I use a reverse osmosis system to feed into the system gradually (this ensures my water sensors provide reliable readings), and I’m fairly sure I could add a secondary tank to drain old solution into, filter it, and use it as the source for the feed into the RO system and then back into the active tank. Though it’s not necessary now, I think that level of efficiency could be incredible.
I’d love to be recycling nutrients as well. I know there’s plenty leftover when a grow is done, but I can’t know what the ratio of each nutrient is in order to rebalance it for the crop I’m growing. I’m sure some growers are able to do this, but I have a feeling it’s a bit beyond me. It seems like a job for a mass spectrometer. That’s possible to DIY in a sane price range, but I will likely need to wait until my kids move out to take that on. I do love the idea in any case — utilizing all of the nutrients and reusing them when possible would be a major accomplishment for me.
> What is the reason behind you making this?
There are several reasons. One, I eat a lot of greens and they’re getting more expensive. I kept a sheet in Soulver (a sort of natural language math program) which outlines a cost breakdown of a head of lettuce grown hydroponically vs from a store. It eventually hit a point where I could grow it for less than I could buy it for, and it justified jumping in and making it happen. My ROI has worked out fine, so the sheet was correct and it’s not crazy to grow with a system like this (so long as you don’t mind the maintenance, harvesting, trial and error, etc). It has actually worked in favour of growing it myself quite a bit more since I first started and hasn’t shown signs of tilting the other way for a while now.
Two, I love learning. The more I learn the more reasons I find to be in awe of the world. Seeing the way the plants grow, understanding the chemistry and biology of the system, accomplishing new things with technology — I find it incredibly fulfilling. It shows my kids that the distance between here and making something interesting or useful happen is simply doing it. First we had an idea, then we had real plants growing almost magically in a system built from scratch. All of that is awesome.
Three, like you I see some instability in the world and I want to have a grasp on how I might ease tasks like finding reliable nutrition. I have bags of fertilizer because they’re not terribly expensive and they can help generate good nutrition quickly, easily, and very reliably. Something like the kratky method can actually work really well even without stable power, so long as light and temperature are reasonable. I also have a lot of seeds for sprouting, as they’re an incredible source of easy nutrition in emergencies too. I don’t really want to need these skills for that, but I do want to have practical skills for producing as much food as possible if something were to happen.
As far as open sourcing goes, I hope to get a sense for how easy or difficult it is to get up and running with this stuff once I can get it in my friends’ hands. I plan to add a crude web interface for managing environment and automation parameters, and I’d like to figure out a way to sensibly scale out the system. For example, not everyone I’ll be giving it to cares about pH or EC, so they don’t need those components. I could simply not solder things onto their boards, but I’d rather figure out something like using standoffs to join the boards in a stack and gradually add features that way. Kind of like hats on an arduino I guess.
As I iron this stuff out I definitely want to put it out in the world. At the moment there are so many superior options in ecosystems like raspberry pi, I feel like I’d be wasting people’s time. I do think a pi is overkill (though potentially complimentary) for this kind of thing though, and the power of a connected microcontroller with MQTT and simple RPC services is way beyond what most people expect.
Absolutely, I’d like to work towards contributing useful things to open source gardening technology. Once I have something useful to put into the world I definitely will.
> Does it depend on daylight?
No, this particular system is totally isolated apart from fresh air pulled in to regulate humidity and temperature. The lights are the most expensive aspect of the system by a wide margin, but they do work extremely effectively. The plants are very happy.
I have an older iteration of the system working in an outdoor greenhouse without artificial lighting. It uses fans to regulate air temperature and humidity, but it gets light from the sun. It’s doing fine so far, but the temperature is still relatively lower so growth is slower than in the tent. I’m excited to see what the results are like over summer.
> Is water/air recycled?
This is an interesting question because at the moment the answer is no, but I have the beginnings of plans to recycle the water. I use a reverse osmosis system to feed into the system gradually (this ensures my water sensors provide reliable readings), and I’m fairly sure I could add a secondary tank to drain old solution into, filter it, and use it as the source for the feed into the RO system and then back into the active tank. Though it’s not necessary now, I think that level of efficiency could be incredible.
I’d love to be recycling nutrients as well. I know there’s plenty leftover when a grow is done, but I can’t know what the ratio of each nutrient is in order to rebalance it for the crop I’m growing. I’m sure some growers are able to do this, but I have a feeling it’s a bit beyond me. It seems like a job for a mass spectrometer. That’s possible to DIY in a sane price range, but I will likely need to wait until my kids move out to take that on. I do love the idea in any case — utilizing all of the nutrients and reusing them when possible would be a major accomplishment for me.
> What is the reason behind you making this?
There are several reasons. One, I eat a lot of greens and they’re getting more expensive. I kept a sheet in Soulver (a sort of natural language math program) which outlines a cost breakdown of a head of lettuce grown hydroponically vs from a store. It eventually hit a point where I could grow it for less than I could buy it for, and it justified jumping in and making it happen. My ROI has worked out fine, so the sheet was correct and it’s not crazy to grow with a system like this (so long as you don’t mind the maintenance, harvesting, trial and error, etc). It has actually worked in favour of growing it myself quite a bit more since I first started and hasn’t shown signs of tilting the other way for a while now.
Two, I love learning. The more I learn the more reasons I find to be in awe of the world. Seeing the way the plants grow, understanding the chemistry and biology of the system, accomplishing new things with technology — I find it incredibly fulfilling. It shows my kids that the distance between here and making something interesting or useful happen is simply doing it. First we had an idea, then we had real plants growing almost magically in a system built from scratch. All of that is awesome.
Three, like you I see some instability in the world and I want to have a grasp on how I might ease tasks like finding reliable nutrition. I have bags of fertilizer because they’re not terribly expensive and they can help generate good nutrition quickly, easily, and very reliably. Something like the kratky method can actually work really well even without stable power, so long as light and temperature are reasonable. I also have a lot of seeds for sprouting, as they’re an incredible source of easy nutrition in emergencies too. I don’t really want to need these skills for that, but I do want to have practical skills for producing as much food as possible if something were to happen.
As far as open sourcing goes, I hope to get a sense for how easy or difficult it is to get up and running with this stuff once I can get it in my friends’ hands. I plan to add a crude web interface for managing environment and automation parameters, and I’d like to figure out a way to sensibly scale out the system. For example, not everyone I’ll be giving it to cares about pH or EC, so they don’t need those components. I could simply not solder things onto their boards, but I’d rather figure out something like using standoffs to join the boards in a stack and gradually add features that way. Kind of like hats on an arduino I guess.
As I iron this stuff out I definitely want to put it out in the world. At the moment there are so many superior options in ecosystems like raspberry pi, I feel like I’d be wasting people’s time. I do think a pi is overkill (though potentially complimentary) for this kind of thing though, and the power of a connected microcontroller with MQTT and simple RPC services is way beyond what most people expect.
Thank you very much! I'll start building a Biosphere 2-like [1] system for climate and weather independent food production later this year inshaAllah. So I'm interested in such projects. I also want to open-source mine because I can't see how I can accomplish it all by myself.
Input: sunlight and (optionally, if not contaminated by nuclear fallout) air. Output: meat, dairy and crops.
> I have an older iteration of the system working in an outdoor greenhouse without artificial lighting.
I think this should be possible with such a system, with full composting (including every biological waste, even human excrement), air-to-water devices, underground temperature and solar utilizing temperature control system and many more things, all in one massive greenhouse. I don't think hydroponics is the answer as it is highly fragile (system exists in sensitive equilibrum) or require chemicals (requiring global supply chain) or depend on complicated tech (many failure vectors).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
Input: sunlight and (optionally, if not contaminated by nuclear fallout) air. Output: meat, dairy and crops.
> I have an older iteration of the system working in an outdoor greenhouse without artificial lighting.
I think this should be possible with such a system, with full composting (including every biological waste, even human excrement), air-to-water devices, underground temperature and solar utilizing temperature control system and many more things, all in one massive greenhouse. I don't think hydroponics is the answer as it is highly fragile (system exists in sensitive equilibrum) or require chemicals (requiring global supply chain) or depend on complicated tech (many failure vectors).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2
You’re absolutely right — hydroponics is a dead end if you’re mostly or entirely off grid with no supply chain.
I’m very interested in soil-based gardening and cyclical systems too, but I don’t have enough space to really experiment. However, if I did have the space, I’d love to explore an aquaponic system in a large enclosed area. Perhaps a large geodesic dome partly dug into the earth to help stabilize temperature. The ability to generate a nutrient solution from a biological system is absolutely inedible to me.
Thanks for the link to Biosphere 2, this is really interesting.
I’m very interested in soil-based gardening and cyclical systems too, but I don’t have enough space to really experiment. However, if I did have the space, I’d love to explore an aquaponic system in a large enclosed area. Perhaps a large geodesic dome partly dug into the earth to help stabilize temperature. The ability to generate a nutrient solution from a biological system is absolutely inedible to me.
Thanks for the link to Biosphere 2, this is really interesting.
Thanks for the confirmation on hydroponics. On human manure, Humanure Handbook: https://humanurehandbook.com/
The main resource that you need in steady state is always electricity. For light, heat, pumps. And a lot of it, especially in winter time. The rest is mostly closed loop.
If you are preparing for Collapse, ensure you have multiple independent sources of electricity available. Solar, hydro, wind. If you are in a city you are better off with a storage room full of canned food since your hydroponic plants wont give you much food after power goes out.
If you are preparing for Collapse, ensure you have multiple independent sources of electricity available. Solar, hydro, wind. If you are in a city you are better off with a storage room full of canned food since your hydroponic plants wont give you much food after power goes out.
Thanks. I don't want to be anywhere near any population centre, the biggest threat by far is masses of hungry people imo. I'll build an open-source food production system with only dependency being sunlight later this year inshaAllah, everything else will be closed loop. I don't think any amount of canned food will cut it either, this is Collapse of the entire civilization we are talking about. Maybe 10 years of canned food will let me and my family ride out the initial population decline, but there's always the possibility that armed groups will take it, not to mention I can't not share it with those in need (read: everybody) as a muslim.
I can’t not share with others, either. To me a collapse means bringing everything I’ve got to the table for my family and community — no hoarding, no hiding. I really believe these skills (hydroponics, basic automation, growing food) will matter if something happens.
People who can help and provide actually stepping up to support less able people is the best thing we can use to prevent real catastrophe, I think.
People who can help and provide actually stepping up to support less able people is the best thing we can use to prevent real catastrophe, I think.
> to prevent real catastrophe
I guess we'll agree to disagree on this, I don't think we can prevent real catasthrophe. We can prevent some (relatively small) amount of suffering though, and all that matters is we do the best we can. A mind-opening must-read imo article on Collapse: https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-alrea...
I guess we'll agree to disagree on this, I don't think we can prevent real catasthrophe. We can prevent some (relatively small) amount of suffering though, and all that matters is we do the best we can. A mind-opening must-read imo article on Collapse: https://medium.com/@CollapseSurvival/overshoot-why-its-alrea...
> It produces a lot of greens and herbs
If that were NL at this point your whole audience would be on the floor laughing. 'Suuuure...'. What some people won't do to get decent tomatoes.
If that were NL at this point your whole audience would be on the floor laughing. 'Suuuure...'. What some people won't do to get decent tomatoes.
Not from NL, but already started smiling at "hydroponic" :).
Hey don't judge my pursuit of dank tomatoes
Fingers crossed for full legalization in Minnesota today. Including grow your own!
Tomatoes are already legal i've no idea what you're talking about.
Tomacco!
Sorry for my ignorance, but is NL Netherlands? Also, could you give me some more context on why the people would be laughing?
NL is meant as Netherlands here and the context is that since you can't talk about growing cannabis in the open, people talk about their "vegetable" gardens or "herbs" instead. The comment you're responding to is implying that the grow tent is used to grow cannabis but he's covering it up by saying it's a vegetable garden.
Almost: if it were NL I would imply that it is to grow cannabis but since the OP is obviously 100% sincere I don't doubt they're doing the legit thing.
You joke, but I have heard radio ads for hydroponic supplies in Canada, which very much had the tone of "wink, wink y'know for your veggie garden".
There was even a chuckling group of people in the background when they mentioned "veggies". This was in Toronto around 2011.
There was even a chuckling group of people in the background when they mentioned "veggies". This was in Toronto around 2011.
Haha, I forget sometimes that I’ve totally normalized growing greens and other people associate it with cannabis. I’ve had a couple people come into my workshop and end up looking suspiciously at the grow tent humming along on the corner. When they see that it’s actually just lettuce I think they’re kind of surprised.
Np, I just thought it was very funny. I've had a similar thing here where I ordered 500 ziplock backs and the guy on the other side goes '5 gram or 25 gram'? So I asked why the bags are so heavy and hilarity ensued. I needed them as parts bags for Lego... but it turns out they almost exclusively sell to gardeners.
Likewise! You should have seen the look on the landlord's face before I opened it up to show them the mess of cucumber plants in space buckets (sidenote: do not grow vining plants in a grow tent!)
Do you know of a good source of information on how to recognize any plant's nutrient deficiencies accurately?
Unfortunately no, there’s a lot of misinformation everywhere I look. I try to record my own experiences and stay on top of tracking results so I can know what helps under which conditions. Hydro seems to have mostly eliminated those concerns for me, though my outside garden still runs into all kinds of problems that are tricky to diagnose.
Check out Bunnie Huang's post from Covid lockdown:
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=6481
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=6481
This is awesome, thank you!
Can you please share a list of the sensors you use? I am very interested in this.
I’ve been collecting them over time so I don’t have everything handy, but here are some:
pH: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2069.html
EC: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2565.html
Water temperature: https://www.adafruit.com/product/381
CO2: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5190
Air temp and humidity: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3251
There are others but I’ll have to dig into it! I think you could spend less on alternatives, too.
pH: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2069.html
EC: https://www.dfrobot.com/product-2565.html
Water temperature: https://www.adafruit.com/product/381
CO2: https://www.adafruit.com/product/5190
Air temp and humidity: https://www.adafruit.com/product/3251
There are others but I’ll have to dig into it! I think you could spend less on alternatives, too.
thank you! i am also super interested in something like this
You should absolutely go for it. Start even simpler and with lower investment if you want, too. These systems are easy to get running and you can gradually add sensors and automation as you go.
I wish I started a lot earlier, but I was constantly trying to have the right stuff, or enough stuff to get started with the perfect setup. It turns out that makes no sense. You’re going to make mistakes, learn stuff, figure out what you like and don’t like, etc.
Starting with a bare bones setup using NFT, not even in a grow tent necessarily, you’ll figure out really quickly what you want to do with it and how to move forward.
Something I also didn’t really understand or consider is how easy it is to add sensors or update firmware gradually. Each of the sensors I use is useful independently or together; it’s totally fine to start with just one. Though most important is arguably water and air temperature; you’ll use those to accurately adjust other sensor readings, and in the short term, they’re immediately critical to plant health.
I’ve got a small system running on my old deep water culture equipment in my outdoor greenhouse, and I actually check its pH with plain old pH testing drops, a vial, and a card with the colours to match against. It works totally fine. While it won’t teach you about automation, it’ll get you familiar with how your system responds to different conditions, what the pH tends to do with the plants you’re growing, and so on. This is all invaluable and I wish I knew it before I started automating. I would have written better code from the beginning.
I wish I started a lot earlier, but I was constantly trying to have the right stuff, or enough stuff to get started with the perfect setup. It turns out that makes no sense. You’re going to make mistakes, learn stuff, figure out what you like and don’t like, etc.
Starting with a bare bones setup using NFT, not even in a grow tent necessarily, you’ll figure out really quickly what you want to do with it and how to move forward.
Something I also didn’t really understand or consider is how easy it is to add sensors or update firmware gradually. Each of the sensors I use is useful independently or together; it’s totally fine to start with just one. Though most important is arguably water and air temperature; you’ll use those to accurately adjust other sensor readings, and in the short term, they’re immediately critical to plant health.
I’ve got a small system running on my old deep water culture equipment in my outdoor greenhouse, and I actually check its pH with plain old pH testing drops, a vial, and a card with the colours to match against. It works totally fine. While it won’t teach you about automation, it’ll get you familiar with how your system responds to different conditions, what the pH tends to do with the plants you’re growing, and so on. This is all invaluable and I wish I knew it before I started automating. I would have written better code from the beginning.
How practical is it to do any of this in an apartment, and in a living space? I’m very interested but don’t have any space outside the apartment I live in.
Totally practical in my opinion. I used to have a small tent in a closet, and while it needs ventilation, decent air and water pumps are not that loud at all these days. Some people even build cabinets to hold their systems, so they can go in a laundry room or similar space and be easier to access and vent:
https://youtu.be/EAzsdVAjTWU
https://youtu.be/EAzsdVAjTWU
Have you checked out flux.ai for PCB design?
Yes actually, that’s what I’m using to learn along with YouTube. I tried other software, but flux kind of hits a sweet spot for me.
I'm assuming you have several tanks with ph+ and ph- solutions? Are you using off the shelf ph sensors? How about EC?
That’s right, I’ve dissolved sulphur and potassium bicarbonate into separate containers, and peristaltic pumps dose a small amount every 15 minutes when the nutrient solution goes beyond the acceptable parameters for an hour. 15 minutes is enough time for one dose to register on a read of the pH level so that it doesn’t go too far.
As for EC, I can only correct it if it’s too low. If it’s 100 points below where I want it, I dose from two containers of pre mixed nutrient concentrate. They’re in separate containers because they’ll actually precipitate some of their constituents if they’re combined at high concentrations, which is too bad (it would be nice to use only one container).
The pH sensor I use is apparently lab grade, but only cost around $70 CAD. It has been holding up just fine for close to a year now. If I were doing this on a larger scale, I think I’d go for one that’s a bit more expensive from atlas scientific. They seem to stand by their products and claim their pH probes will operate for years if taken care of.
My EC sensor was quite a bit more — something like $150. I forget where I got it, because I had the idea to build this maybe 10 years ago and that was one of the first components I picked up! Looking around it seems like you can spend quite a bit less now, and it seems like they’re durable.
As for EC, I can only correct it if it’s too low. If it’s 100 points below where I want it, I dose from two containers of pre mixed nutrient concentrate. They’re in separate containers because they’ll actually precipitate some of their constituents if they’re combined at high concentrations, which is too bad (it would be nice to use only one container).
The pH sensor I use is apparently lab grade, but only cost around $70 CAD. It has been holding up just fine for close to a year now. If I were doing this on a larger scale, I think I’d go for one that’s a bit more expensive from atlas scientific. They seem to stand by their products and claim their pH probes will operate for years if taken care of.
My EC sensor was quite a bit more — something like $150. I forget where I got it, because I had the idea to build this maybe 10 years ago and that was one of the first components I picked up! Looking around it seems like you can spend quite a bit less now, and it seems like they’re durable.
Do you use fish as well to balance the system or you do it directly using the right chemicals?
I’d love to try using fish some day. I use some buffers I mixed from sulphur and potassium bicarbonate. I get them to an approximate pH and then let the system measure gradually as small amounts are dosed into the system.
Amazing idea. Saved for later.
A few projects:
- a in car audio system that has physical buttons and text to speech output instead of a distracting display panel. Worked really well for a few months but my soldering wasn’t (then) up to par so it eventually fell apart.
- a Bash replacement shell, which I later open sourced and now have a few users beyond myself. But it started out as a personal project not intended to be used by anyone but myself. like is in my profile (if anyone is interested)
- home automation software which manages everything from internet management through to some physical stuff like lights. At one stage I did also have Alexa skills and an Android app written to interact with it but I rarely ever use them so didn’t bother keeping those Alexa skills nor Android app up to date and just use the web portal (or SSH) the very few times I need to override any default automation.
- back in the Windows 95 / 98 era I wrote a desktop shell to replace the standard one. It was inspired by Linux desktop environments though I probably didn’t realise it at the time.
- currently I’m building a robot with my son. It has object detection, wheels, speakers and will have some rudimentary Alexa-like voice control.
- a in car audio system that has physical buttons and text to speech output instead of a distracting display panel. Worked really well for a few months but my soldering wasn’t (then) up to par so it eventually fell apart.
- a Bash replacement shell, which I later open sourced and now have a few users beyond myself. But it started out as a personal project not intended to be used by anyone but myself. like is in my profile (if anyone is interested)
- home automation software which manages everything from internet management through to some physical stuff like lights. At one stage I did also have Alexa skills and an Android app written to interact with it but I rarely ever use them so didn’t bother keeping those Alexa skills nor Android app up to date and just use the web portal (or SSH) the very few times I need to override any default automation.
- back in the Windows 95 / 98 era I wrote a desktop shell to replace the standard one. It was inspired by Linux desktop environments though I probably didn’t realise it at the time.
- currently I’m building a robot with my son. It has object detection, wheels, speakers and will have some rudimentary Alexa-like voice control.
A desktop application with double countdown timer, styled as a digital clock. One counter measured the days until a friend's farewell party before they move abroad, the other was going towards a festival's opening date at a later time (when we would see this friend again).
I didn't really plan this part, but since going past their target date they started counting upwards and have accumulated 4500 days or so.
I didn't really plan this part, but since going past their target date they started counting upwards and have accumulated 4500 days or so.
- A ChatGPT shell that integrates well into my editor of choice https://xenodium.com/chatgpt-shell-available-on-melpa
- A scriptable screenshot/video capture utility https://xenodium.com/recordscreenshot-windows-the-lazy-way
- An iOS habit tracker that's neither cloud-based, nor needs an account, social, wants my attention, data, etc. https://flathabits.com
- An iOS scratch pad that removes further friction than typical note apps https://xenodium.com/scratch-a-minimal-scratch-area
- An iOS org mode app 'cause there are lots of Markdown ones but almost no org mode ones https://plainorg.com
- A way to easily record more complex commands (ie. ffmpeg) and make them reusable for the future https://xenodium.com/seamless-command-line-utils
- A scriptable screenshot/video capture utility https://xenodium.com/recordscreenshot-windows-the-lazy-way
- An iOS habit tracker that's neither cloud-based, nor needs an account, social, wants my attention, data, etc. https://flathabits.com
- An iOS scratch pad that removes further friction than typical note apps https://xenodium.com/scratch-a-minimal-scratch-area
- An iOS org mode app 'cause there are lots of Markdown ones but almost no org mode ones https://plainorg.com
- A way to easily record more complex commands (ie. ffmpeg) and make them reusable for the future https://xenodium.com/seamless-command-line-utils
Hey wanted to say I love the styling on your blog!
Thank you!
It started as a single org file for personal notes (and still is) exported to HTML. These days, it's a chunky org file, but hey if it works...
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xenodium/xenodium.github.i...
It started as a single org file for personal notes (and still is) exported to HTML. These days, it's a chunky org file, but hey if it works...
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/xenodium/xenodium.github.i...
Flathabits looks great. I used to use a paid iOS app until they pushed enough UI changes and buggy updates to motivate me to create my own bare bones solution. Wish I had seen your app before that.
(Mine is just a personalized spreadsheet, https://pasteboard.co/PB1theDENEu7.jpg)
(Mine is just a personalized spreadsheet, https://pasteboard.co/PB1theDENEu7.jpg)
Thank you! Hey, looks like you found what works for ya, which enables you to stick to your habits. Well done! I was initially tracking in an org file, but relying on my laptop for tracking was too much friction. Mobile did the trick for me.
Ported X11 to iOS
https://maxleiter.com/blog/X11
https://maxleiter.com/blog/X11
Most "useful" thing I've lego'd together from parts was RSS feed of TV show torrents and multi-threaded torrent library that would then push the shows into Plex server and send a notification to my phone, but none of this was actually created by me. I was just integrating ready made software. Although this has been dismantled for years now ever since I started earning money and was able to pay for the streaming services.
Most "created" thing was a fishing bot for a MMORPG that used computer vision to navigate the interface and detect when you had caught a fish and reel it in.
Most "created" thing was a fishing bot for a MMORPG that used computer vision to navigate the interface and detect when you had caught a fish and reel it in.
Radarr and sonarr stacks basically manage your torrenting for you if you haven’t been in the space for a while. Nice Lego bricks in your stack.
At work we have a perk where we can expense $x,000 a year for assorted benefits such as gym memberships, public transit tickets etc. The pain point is that you need to submit receipts for them to reimburse you, which doesn't take too long, but is a pain if you forget.
I made a small service which aggregates receipts from assorted sources (usually webpages, pdfs), takes a screenshot of them, parses the information out, and uploads them automatically for reimbursement.
I made a small service which aggregates receipts from assorted sources (usually webpages, pdfs), takes a screenshot of them, parses the information out, and uploads them automatically for reimbursement.
Detect garage door opened or closed using ordinary magnetic sensor.
Browser extensions that I use everyday.
Emacs packages that I use everyday.
Browser extensions that I use everyday.
Emacs packages that I use everyday.
- Desktop app for creating a static blogs. Electron and React: https://www.project-daily.com
- Instagram-like, private photo feed, where my partner and me can share pictures of our kids with relatives and friends. Posting works via e-mail, cron job generates the feed html. Imagemagick output multiple image formats, supports iOS live photos too. The feed isn't paginated, but with lazy loading the images it's still very performant.
- Most recently and still ongoing: A recipe clean-up tool. Removes all the gunk and fluff from online recipes. Shows just the ingredients and instructions. Also understands units and quantities, so unit conversion is up next. Here it is: https://pretty-recip.es/recipe?recipe-url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww....
- Instagram-like, private photo feed, where my partner and me can share pictures of our kids with relatives and friends. Posting works via e-mail, cron job generates the feed html. Imagemagick output multiple image formats, supports iOS live photos too. The feed isn't paginated, but with lazy loading the images it's still very performant.
- Most recently and still ongoing: A recipe clean-up tool. Removes all the gunk and fluff from online recipes. Shows just the ingredients and instructions. Also understands units and quantities, so unit conversion is up next. Here it is: https://pretty-recip.es/recipe?recipe-url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww....
Tell me more about private photo feed system.. thanks..
It's nor entirely cool, nor revolutionary, but I use this many times a day, so I thought that it could maybe fit in. I've built dew (https://github.com/efrecon/dew). It's a glorified way of running a docker container as yourself with the current directory mapped as itself inside the container. Sometimes you will also need some access to the XDG directories.
I got tired of installations that would break others and of project requirements that would differ from others in tooling. So I use dew to run most of the CLI tools that I need and to build development environments that fit the (sub-)project at hand. When things go mad or disk space has become short, it is only a matter of cleaning the set of docker images to recover.
You don't need dew to do all this, aliases will do in most cases. They would all be mostly the same and you would have to remember how to solve problems for each tool at hand. So dew groups those under a few concepts that you can turn on and off for the specific tool/environment to run. It hides all those ugly CLI parameters behind configuration variables, and finds the set of necessary variables for a given tool/environment under a .env file automatically. dew is quick enough. In most cases there is little difference between running "dew yourfantastictool" compared to running yourfantastictool installed directly on the host.
The code has grown with time so I have used dew as an exercise in trying to write readable code and organise it, even though it's written in good old shell and has long passed the size of what should be written in shell...
Things that perhaps are a little cool with dew: - It can rebase a barebone image on top of another one, so that you can use the tool from the barebone image and perhaps rebase on something that has coreutils or similar. This is remembered as a local image for next time. - It can inject commands to be run before becoming "you" in the shell, so you can install more (as root inside the container) before switching to a gentle user. This is remembered as a local image for next time. - It can use a local Dockerfile for complex scenarios. This can replace the two cases above. - You can have access to docker from inside the container, and it downloads the latest version of the docker client for you (by default: this can be turned off). - It can create files and directories, possibly with initial content for you before running the container. This is because -v xxx:xxx will always create a directory if xxx did not exist, and because some tools require a minimal configuration file to run. - It has initial support for podman, but I still haven't given this as much love than the rest so your mileage may vary...
I got tired of installations that would break others and of project requirements that would differ from others in tooling. So I use dew to run most of the CLI tools that I need and to build development environments that fit the (sub-)project at hand. When things go mad or disk space has become short, it is only a matter of cleaning the set of docker images to recover.
You don't need dew to do all this, aliases will do in most cases. They would all be mostly the same and you would have to remember how to solve problems for each tool at hand. So dew groups those under a few concepts that you can turn on and off for the specific tool/environment to run. It hides all those ugly CLI parameters behind configuration variables, and finds the set of necessary variables for a given tool/environment under a .env file automatically. dew is quick enough. In most cases there is little difference between running "dew yourfantastictool" compared to running yourfantastictool installed directly on the host.
The code has grown with time so I have used dew as an exercise in trying to write readable code and organise it, even though it's written in good old shell and has long passed the size of what should be written in shell...
Things that perhaps are a little cool with dew: - It can rebase a barebone image on top of another one, so that you can use the tool from the barebone image and perhaps rebase on something that has coreutils or similar. This is remembered as a local image for next time. - It can inject commands to be run before becoming "you" in the shell, so you can install more (as root inside the container) before switching to a gentle user. This is remembered as a local image for next time. - It can use a local Dockerfile for complex scenarios. This can replace the two cases above. - You can have access to docker from inside the container, and it downloads the latest version of the docker client for you (by default: this can be turned off). - It can create files and directories, possibly with initial content for you before running the container. This is because -v xxx:xxx will always create a directory if xxx did not exist, and because some tools require a minimal configuration file to run. - It has initial support for podman, but I still haven't given this as much love than the rest so your mileage may vary...
A service that ran on a Pi in my basement and periodically checks Oregon’s liquor site (OLCC) for bottles of bourbon I was interested in, and which liquor stores got new shipments. It would use mailchimp’s api to email me when inventories changed.
https://github.com/dclowd9901/olccChecker
It updated itself against the remote repo and ran on a daemon.
https://github.com/dclowd9901/olccChecker
It updated itself against the remote repo and ran on a daemon.
Thanks for the post. Is this repo now private?
My MIL is 93, and the only tech she can really deal with is turning on the radio and TV and changing channels.
She is fond of music from old classics (from the 60's and earlier), so I hooked up a Raspberry PI with an FM transmitter and created her own private radio station. She tells me what songs she likes and I create different playlists that get broadcast on her station. It preserves the surprise element of radio, and there is nothing in there she doesn't like.
The tiny FM transmitter is surprisingly powerful. Her neighbours (of similar vintage) are very happy too, so their requests have also started coming in :)
EDIT: I wanted to add that I am the UI ... she doesn't get to choose the playlist. To make my life easier, I just created different playlists for different times of the day ... calm/spiritual/slower numbers in the early and late hours, peppy during the late morning and evening etc.
She is fond of music from old classics (from the 60's and earlier), so I hooked up a Raspberry PI with an FM transmitter and created her own private radio station. She tells me what songs she likes and I create different playlists that get broadcast on her station. It preserves the surprise element of radio, and there is nothing in there she doesn't like.
The tiny FM transmitter is surprisingly powerful. Her neighbours (of similar vintage) are very happy too, so their requests have also started coming in :)
EDIT: I wanted to add that I am the UI ... she doesn't get to choose the playlist. To make my life easier, I just created different playlists for different times of the day ... calm/spiritual/slower numbers in the early and late hours, peppy during the late morning and evening etc.
Would love to see a blog about this setup. I, not old, always want to dump much of my music & simply want to listen whatever is next (& miss it if I don't listen) just like radio.
Have you seen Icecast [1]? You create playlists of local music, then play them with something like mpd. Icecast then streams them out and clients like VLC, xmms2, and even older versions of Winamp can stream it.
I set this up for all my music in shuffle mode for my own radio-like always on streaming service via Tailscale.
1. https://icecast.org/faq/
I set this up for all my music in shuffle mode for my own radio-like always on streaming service via Tailscale.
1. https://icecast.org/faq/
I’ve wanted to try something like this with a Pi or something else running Linux. Is mpd a good choice for that scenario? Does it support being able to use custom events eg a button on the gpio for play/pause?
mpd is a great choice, there are lots of things built around it. Essentially, you'd have the GPIOs trigger mpc commands. mpc talks MPD over the network back to the mpd server, so you could have physical controls all around the place.
There are lots of examples online of people doing this sort of thing. There's a simple example at https://github.com/pablodo/mpd_gpio/blob/master/main.py
Even a chapter of a book about it: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4842-2406-9_... (I just found this, no idea if it's any good).
And also an IR version at https://www.ziemski.net/rcmpd/
There are lots of examples online of people doing this sort of thing. There's a simple example at https://github.com/pablodo/mpd_gpio/blob/master/main.py
Even a chapter of a book about it: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4842-2406-9_... (I just found this, no idea if it's any good).
And also an IR version at https://www.ziemski.net/rcmpd/
I love this for her and for me. Best gift you can give to a music lover
Very cool. Do you connect it to Spotify or to an MP3 collection?
From my MP3 collection. I buy the songs or albums she likes and broadcast them. For some that are not on sale anywhere, I scrape them off youtube, but usually send a note to that channel for original sources where I can pay for it.
Cool! I asked because there are many niche playlists on Spotify you can find for oldies, for example some very specific for the 60s, 50s, 40s, etc. Perhaps it could help her discover similar, but new, music.
What transmitter did you use?
I forget. But just search for "kit FM transmitter". I'd fully intended to build a "proper" transmitter, and was keenly disappointed that you could just buy a cheap single-chip board.
Nowadays you don't even need that. You can turn the RPi itself into an FM transmitter. Search "how to FM broadcast on raspberry pi"
Nowadays you don't even need that. You can turn the RPi itself into an FM transmitter. Search "how to FM broadcast on raspberry pi"
You do still need that.
The broadcast from gpio thing is very low quality and produces square waves which interfere with everything
Pico caps and appropriate impedance miss-match can be used to round-off square waves.
But yes, if you look at high-speed Pi GPIO with a Rigol it looks more like an EKG readout than the thing you might see on a logic analyser. Smoothing it enough to feed a line-amp is very lossy.
But yes, if you look at high-speed Pi GPIO with a Rigol it looks more like an EKG readout than the thing you might see on a logic analyser. Smoothing it enough to feed a line-amp is very lossy.
You might want to improve your probing technique, then. :)
GPIO's usually looks quite squarey if you don't introduce parasitic reactances into the circuit with your test setup.
GPIO's usually looks quite squarey if you don't introduce parasitic reactances into the circuit with your test setup.
Pi for audio frequencies is lovely and square, Pi at radio frequencies has distinct rise and fall and "just taking a moment to think about it" segments.
A spectrum analyser has probes!?!? This might be where I am going wrong... But the bench scope is largely in agreement about the distinct phases of a cycle at RF freq.
A spectrum analyser has probes!?!? This might be where I am going wrong... But the bench scope is largely in agreement about the distinct phases of a cycle at RF freq.
> You can turn the RPi itself into an FM transmitter.
Never tried it, but given the way it works, you definitely need some output filtering unless you accept to pollute all harmonics of your channel (which might be licensed spectrum too, and interfere with services you don't want to interfere with in the first point)
Never tried it, but given the way it works, you definitely need some output filtering unless you accept to pollute all harmonics of your channel (which might be licensed spectrum too, and interfere with services you don't want to interfere with in the first point)
One can go on Amazon and order himself a high powered FM transmitter direct from China. Stick an antenna in the attic and you'll be heard for miles. If you don't gaf about spurious emissions or laws or anything like that you too can be Christian Slater in Pump Up the Volume. The fines for this in the US can be pretty severe but Amazon is happy to sell you the rope to hang yourself with free shipping.
I love it. Not only is this wholesome, it's pretty cool too
OP seems from India and AFAIK its illegal to transmit on FM frequencies without a license. I understand it might be low powered but theres a chance of Police coming knocking on the door. Whats worse is it might interfere with emergency services. There is a reason we have spoctrum licences.
I know. It is illegal in most parts of the world. I'm taking over a commercial FM channel that my MIL won't listen to, and the transmitter has about a 20m radius.
If the police come, I'll use the Constanza "Was that wrong?" defence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RvNS7JfcMM
If the police come, I'll use the Constanza "Was that wrong?" defence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RvNS7JfcMM
I hope they don't know how to use Google and if they do that that is a pseudonym you're posting under here or you might be in bigger trouble than you started with ;)
Anyway, cool to see you hack this, maybe try to tweak the power levels a bit so the neighbors don't have a reason to talk about it.
Anyway, cool to see you hack this, maybe try to tweak the power levels a bit so the neighbors don't have a reason to talk about it.
The FCC allows personal FM transmitters to operate with a maximum power output of 250 microvolts per meter at a distance of 3 meters.
Other countries are more permissive, so this is not a problem. As long as you don't interfere with anyone and emit in a band that's not used in the area, it's perfectly fine.
I was curious what kind of range that might have, so I put what you said into chatgpt and asked what the range of a typical car or home stereo would be, and it gave me this (not sure if it's correct). FWIW, much less than 20 miles, haha.
-- The maximum power output of a personal FM transmitter allowed by the FCC is 250 microvolts per meter at a distance of 3 meters. The range of the transmitter depends on various factors such as terrain, obstructions, and interference.
Assuming ideal conditions, such as no obstructions or interference, the range of the transmitter can be calculated using the inverse square law. This law states that the strength of a signal decreases with the square of the distance from the source.
At a distance of 3 meters, the signal strength would be 250 microvolts per meter. At a distance of 6 meters, the signal strength would be 62.5 microvolts per meter (250/4). At a distance of 9 meters, the signal strength would be 27.8 microvolts per meter (250/9).
Typical car and household stereos have a sensitivity of about 2 microvolts per meter. Using this sensitivity value, we can calculate the range of the transmitter for these devices.
For a car stereo, the transmitter would have a range of about 26 meters (square root of 250/2). For a household stereo, the transmitter would have a range of about 63 meters (square root of 250/0.5).
However, in reality, the actual range of the transmitter may be shorter due to various factors such as interference and obstructions.
-- The maximum power output of a personal FM transmitter allowed by the FCC is 250 microvolts per meter at a distance of 3 meters. The range of the transmitter depends on various factors such as terrain, obstructions, and interference.
Assuming ideal conditions, such as no obstructions or interference, the range of the transmitter can be calculated using the inverse square law. This law states that the strength of a signal decreases with the square of the distance from the source.
At a distance of 3 meters, the signal strength would be 250 microvolts per meter. At a distance of 6 meters, the signal strength would be 62.5 microvolts per meter (250/4). At a distance of 9 meters, the signal strength would be 27.8 microvolts per meter (250/9).
Typical car and household stereos have a sensitivity of about 2 microvolts per meter. Using this sensitivity value, we can calculate the range of the transmitter for these devices.
For a car stereo, the transmitter would have a range of about 26 meters (square root of 250/2). For a household stereo, the transmitter would have a range of about 63 meters (square root of 250/0.5).
However, in reality, the actual range of the transmitter may be shorter due to various factors such as interference and obstructions.
Makes sense. I’ve seen Bluetooth fm dongles for cars to this effect. The dongle connects to your phone on Bluetooth and the old car can listen to your Spotify via the radio.
I'll tell them it was me to protect Spartacus.
Yeah no one will bother with such a low-powered device. I used an in-car bluetooth-to-FM tranmitter bought from Amazon India for years. They've been sold openly since forever. Like this one: https://www.amazon.in/Portronics-AUTO-10-Bluetooth-Car/dp/B0...
Ha ha, I must have pulled up along side you the other day.
Just kidding, I'm in the U.S. But more than a few times I have suddenly got Mexican musical content on my radio in the car when passing close to another car.
Just kidding, I'm in the U.S. But more than a few times I have suddenly got Mexican musical content on my radio in the car when passing close to another car.
I love these things, it's so simple and it's often a better UX than any car bluetooth provides. You also used to be able to buy aux adapters that went in your cassette deck!
edit: Halfords still stocks these! https://www.halfords.com/technology/mobile-phone-accessories...
edit: Halfords still stocks these! https://www.halfords.com/technology/mobile-phone-accessories...
... I've always been amazed how often "Was that wrong?" works.
I guess I shouldn't be. Even letting them know you were fully aware you were breaking the law, most people would see its intended purpose -- to bring a little peace and comfort to a very old woman -- and have their own compassion kick in.
YMMV but I'm guessing you'd hear something along the lines of "Oh,... well,... (shuffles feet) ... just turn it off, then". Many of us have elderly people in our lives we wish we could provide some comfort to and most of us know we're headed there (if we're lucky to live that long). You know, assuming your 20m radius FM transmitter didn't, say, cause some cataclysmic event/knock emergency services offline for several city blocks, etc.
Put another way, while some police actually will pull you over and write you a ticket for going a couple of miles (km) per hour over the speed limit, most won't waste the brain power/physical energy/thermal paper to bother enforcing it.
I guess I shouldn't be. Even letting them know you were fully aware you were breaking the law, most people would see its intended purpose -- to bring a little peace and comfort to a very old woman -- and have their own compassion kick in.
YMMV but I'm guessing you'd hear something along the lines of "Oh,... well,... (shuffles feet) ... just turn it off, then". Many of us have elderly people in our lives we wish we could provide some comfort to and most of us know we're headed there (if we're lucky to live that long). You know, assuming your 20m radius FM transmitter didn't, say, cause some cataclysmic event/knock emergency services offline for several city blocks, etc.
Put another way, while some police actually will pull you over and write you a ticket for going a couple of miles (km) per hour over the speed limit, most won't waste the brain power/physical energy/thermal paper to bother enforcing it.
Well put. Exactly my thoughts. And given my MIL's attitude towards any visitor, the cops will be plied with food and chai till they burst. They will forget what they came for :)
> I've always been amazed how often "Was that wrong?" works.
This is in line with Peelian principles of policing. It was explained to me by a policeman and it was fascinating. He had worked in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
In his view, Australia was considerably harsher in its policing and NZ was at the other end of the spectrum, UK in the middle.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
This is in line with Peelian principles of policing. It was explained to me by a policeman and it was fascinating. He had worked in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
In his view, Australia was considerably harsher in its policing and NZ was at the other end of the spectrum, UK in the middle.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_principles
I’ve had much better luck with 100% honesty. Just say you set up a 20m transmitter to improve the life of a 93 year old woman.
I bought a house in my very early 20s. Roommates of mine finished the third floor with no permits. Went to sell the house ten years later and the location it was in required a U&O inspection. My realtor told me to lie, apply for a permit and pretend I just did the work.
Instead I called the local building inspector and said, “Hello my name is xxx and I’m calling to confess.” He cracked up laughing, came to the house immediately to look at everything and told me I was fine.
I bought a house in my very early 20s. Roommates of mine finished the third floor with no permits. Went to sell the house ten years later and the location it was in required a U&O inspection. My realtor told me to lie, apply for a permit and pretend I just did the work.
Instead I called the local building inspector and said, “Hello my name is xxx and I’m calling to confess.” He cracked up laughing, came to the house immediately to look at everything and told me I was fine.
Yes, technically it is illegal. But I've seen all kinds of gizmos that would inject a signal into the FM band to allow the use of car stereos that didn't have an 'aux' input. At those power levels the FCC isn't going to be bothered unless someone lodges a complaint, and even then they'll have a hard time finding the source unless they're practically standing on top of it. OP may want to turn down the radiated power until it just works for his MIL but no longer for the neighbors.
But quaintdev is right in that Indian Police for some reason takes this somewhat seriously. For highway patrol, I suspect it's boredom and this gives them something to chase. I remember in the late 90s when I was in college, the police showed up a couple of times when students were transmitting from one of the hostels. They'd let it go, but they did show up.
At what levels of power was this?
I suspect the OPs transmitter is hard to detect even at close (< 100 meters > 30 meters) range. Anything more powerful and you would definitely attract attention.
I suspect the OPs transmitter is hard to detect even at close (< 100 meters > 30 meters) range. Anything more powerful and you would definitely attract attention.
> Yes, *technically* it is illegal.
The law is an interesting beast. I know nothing about the law in India as it relates to FM band transmitters but I suspect that the law predates the common availability of adapters that one might use in ones car to add an input to a stereo that lacks such a highly technical circular hole for such purposes[0]. Once these devices gained wide adoption due to both their utility and -- more generally -- the fact that operating one is usually so benign that they can be difficult to discover let alone actually cause enough interference to warrant them to be seized.
The intention of the law was to prevent someone from operating a pirate radio station/give exclusivity to a single license-holder for that frequency. Since these devices don't violate the spirit of the law, the governing body finds it easier to carve out an informal exemption rather than explicitly write one in. It can also be tricky to correct a law that has a very valid reason for existing but may have cases where total enforcement isn't realistic[1].
The law may not have caught up to the reality on the ground and the legislatures answer to it is "enforce it when the interference is enough that someone notices." One might imagine a world where something akin to TV Detector-like Vans[2] drape the country-side in a dragnet to catch all of those pirate FM-input-devices but that usually only happens if there's a substantial amount of tax revenue to be gained ... to pay for the vans.
[0] I had one of these in the 90s (in the US, where it's not illegal if designed correctly) that connected my Discman to my ridiculously sad factory radio which lacked both external input and even a cassette deck.
[1] I do very little with regard to radio communication (if that isn't obvious) but I'd imagine most lawmakers do even less, so now you have to bring in experts to figure out "what's an acceptable amount of interference in this specific use case" and "how should a device like this be restricted." Not that government isn't famous for wildly wasting money or anything but I'd imagine the thinking is that it's not worth the effort to correct.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van
[0] I had one of these in the 90s (in the US, where it's not illegal if designed correctly) that connected my Discman to my ridiculously sad factory radio which lacked both external input and even a cassette deck.
Heh. I drive a 2002 Chevy Suburban (don't laugh, I have a strong aversion to spending money on new vehicles) and it lacks an AUX input, so to this day I use one of those low-power FM transmitter adapters to pipe my phone's audio output to the vehicle stereo. They are amazingly handy little gadgets.
Heh. I drive a 2002 Chevy Suburban (don't laugh, I have a strong aversion to spending money on new vehicles) and it lacks an AUX input, so to this day I use one of those low-power FM transmitter adapters to pipe my phone's audio output to the vehicle stereo. They are amazingly handy little gadgets.
When I had a cassette deck in my car, I added an AUX input by soldering a cable to a chip on the PCB, and running it out through the cassette slot.
That's a product they sell. It looks like an audio cassette with an aux cord coming out of it. I used one for years in my old grand Marquis.
That just wires the speaker output of the device to a set of coils sitting right in front of the tape playback head. GP did an end run around that by wiring straight into the trace in between the head pre-amp and the main amp.
Technically, it's perfectly legal under FCC regulations.
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-info...
Looks like India doesn't permit it, but is looking at doing so (at least, for some purposes):
https://trai.gov.in/notifications/press-release/trai-release...
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-info...
Looks like India doesn't permit it, but is looking at doing so (at least, for some purposes):
https://trai.gov.in/notifications/press-release/trai-release...
It is Hacker News after all. And that's probably like jaywalking of RF violations. I'd be more afraid of the copyright people.
Where I live, this is absolutely not the jaywalking of RF violations. In Germany, if it is proven that your signal was potentially interfering with emergency services, you will be liable for any damage to victims in civil courts. And if somebody dies in your area because the emergency services couldn't get there on time, you will be criminally charged for "negligent manslaughter."
I wouldn't play at all with non-approved RF frequencies personally.
I wouldn't play at all with non-approved RF frequencies personally.
hasseldahoff(1)
like the Indians said, you want to buy the sky too?
In Germany (like afaik all the EU), you can also freely buy and use small low-power FM transmitters for exactly the use case of sending your own music to radios...
If a low power FM transmitter on commercial frequencies can interfere with your emergency services, you may have bigger problems. IIRC they have their own specific frequencies.
"RF violations"
In germany its also legal to use plenty of bands in the RF Spectrcum with up to 750Watts (and potential more).
We are also allowed to do CB Funk in Channels 1-40 without anything and up to 80/85 (forgot details) when you register with Germany.
So your statement reads more like you are not allowed to do anything in germany. Its hard to believe to disturb stable systems just because someone is doing a little bit of FM on some known frequencies.
In germany its also legal to use plenty of bands in the RF Spectrcum with up to 750Watts (and potential more).
We are also allowed to do CB Funk in Channels 1-40 without anything and up to 80/85 (forgot details) when you register with Germany.
So your statement reads more like you are not allowed to do anything in germany. Its hard to believe to disturb stable systems just because someone is doing a little bit of FM on some known frequencies.
It literally took a single google search to find out that you’re wrong.
FM transmitting for private use is completely legal for UKW frequencies between 87.5 and 105 MHz and transmission powers lower than 50nW [1]. You can buy perfectly FM transmitters for your car, etch
[1] (German) https://www.autozeitung.de/fm-transmitter-bluetooth-nachrues...
FM transmitting for private use is completely legal for UKW frequencies between 87.5 and 105 MHz and transmission powers lower than 50nW [1]. You can buy perfectly FM transmitters for your car, etch
[1] (German) https://www.autozeitung.de/fm-transmitter-bluetooth-nachrues...
What would happen if you delayed an ambulance responding to an emergency by jaywalking in front of it? Could you be charged if someone died as a result?
In Switzerland they can (and often will) at least fine you if you neglect to dirve to the side when encountering traffic on a highway (to form a "Rettungsgasse"[0]) to allow emergency cars to pass in the middle.
[0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rettungsgasse?wprov=sfla1
[0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rettungsgasse?wprov=sfla1
In the UK, if you break the law, they'll confiscate anything physically wired to it, computer included.
If we ever have a world apocalypse and I’m alone, I know I can at least conjure one companion by suggesting I would use spectrum without a license and a ham enthusiast will appear.
<Dusts off Ham Licence> Anyone can use amateur frequencies in a genuine “no other communication options available” emergency, if I remember the regulations correctly.
Edit: “§ 97.403 Safety of life and protection of property. No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radio communication at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available.”
Edit: “§ 97.403 Safety of life and protection of property. No provision of these rules prevents the use by an amateur station of any means of radio communication at its disposal to provide essential communication needs in connection with the immediate safety of human life and immediate protection of property when normal communication systems are not available.”
Worth noting that there already exists a product in the Indian market by a big music label that addresses this exact issue. I’ve bought my grandfather one of those and he’s very happy with it!
Do you mean the saregama Caravaan? If so, I bought her one of those and it just didn't cut the mustard.
The built-in collection either didn't have songs that she liked (from the '40s), or they weren't clustered together, or were mixed up with other songs.
I could load a flash disk with her playlist to plug into that player, but it wouldn't know what to play at what time (calm songs in the early and late hours, peppier numbers on other days, festival specific numbers on some days). This was a big deal. I can even change the playlist from elsewhere (a script automatically mirrors the playlist that I maintain on a server)
Bluetooth streaming is possible with the device, but not an option for my MIL ... that would require her to learn to use a cellphone.
The built-in collection either didn't have songs that she liked (from the '40s), or they weren't clustered together, or were mixed up with other songs.
I could load a flash disk with her playlist to plug into that player, but it wouldn't know what to play at what time (calm songs in the early and late hours, peppier numbers on other days, festival specific numbers on some days). This was a big deal. I can even change the playlist from elsewhere (a script automatically mirrors the playlist that I maintain on a server)
Bluetooth streaming is possible with the device, but not an option for my MIL ... that would require her to learn to use a cellphone.
Illegal in India maybe. In the US: "In the United States, Part 15 of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission rules specifies that no license is needed if range of the transmitter does not exceed 200 feet (61 meters), although the Part 15 rules specify that the field strength should not exceed 250 µV/m (48db) at 3 meters"
I haven't found the exact law in India, but looks like maybe it's legal for personal usage of FM provided power of transmitter is under 500 mW?
I haven't found the exact law in India, but looks like maybe it's legal for personal usage of FM provided power of transmitter is under 500 mW?
Post a reference to the legislation or its not real
Its not that limited. Check out fm transmitters on amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=fm+transmitter&ref=nb_sb_noss
This is what he means, not some bigger pirate radio situation
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=fm+transmitter&ref=nb_sb_noss
This is what he means, not some bigger pirate radio situation
Killjoy.
I don't know if you are from India but our laws are so complicated that I am sure every moment we are breaking one or the other. If we constantly worried about which ones we are breaking we would never get anything done!
Cool.
For the others: You don't even need a transmitter to do some experiments, you can use just one IO Pin for this:
https://nerdiy.de/en/raspberrypi-send-fm-signals-by-gpio-pin...
Furthermore, you can use something like https://volumio.com/en/ build an RFID Box https://pilabor.com/projects/labelmaker/#products-to-build-t... (my daughter used this when she was 2 years old)
For the others: You don't even need a transmitter to do some experiments, you can use just one IO Pin for this:
https://nerdiy.de/en/raspberrypi-send-fm-signals-by-gpio-pin...
Furthermore, you can use something like https://volumio.com/en/ build an RFID Box https://pilabor.com/projects/labelmaker/#products-to-build-t... (my daughter used this when she was 2 years old)
Phoniebox is a great project, based on mpd and Mopidy. Hopefully Spotify playback will be fully supported again soon.
I am absolutely LOVING Volumio. It's running in a VM in my garage computer that does various other things. At the time, Volumio didn't have a clean way to do this so I just hacked away until it booted and played music.
A little USB sound card is passed through to the VM and it's been rock solid for about 2 years now. I use it exclusively as a Spotify chromecast type thing that cost me about $3.50 in parts.
A little USB sound card is passed through to the VM and it's been rock solid for about 2 years now. I use it exclusively as a Spotify chromecast type thing that cost me about $3.50 in parts.
Any clue how powerful the "one IO pin" approach is compared to a dedicated FM transmitter?
No, I'm using this in my car just for a very short range (< 200mm)
A standard 3.3V GPIO can typically push something like 30 to 60 mW. You won’t get all of that as transmitted signal — it will depend on how well your random antenna wire matches the impedance of the gpio and the frequency. I’m really not sure the audio quality is going to be anything more than just intelligible, but I’d guess you’d get at least 10 mW or so of useful power, which means it should generally work within a small house.
You should know this is heinously irresponsible and very illegal unless you apply proper filtering. Bashing the GPIO pin adds a ton of harmonics that fall outside the broadcast band, up into aircraft and military and who-knows-what other frequencies.
The README goes over this, but if people keep blindly ignoring it, expect regulators to figure out a way to make our lives a lot less fun.
The README goes over this, but if people keep blindly ignoring it, expect regulators to figure out a way to make our lives a lot less fun.
This has a range of around ten feet, so I think people are fine to tinker a bit.
Unfortunately that's not that simple. Your observation may well be the case, but that has nothing to do with whether it's going to interfere with someone else. Here's why:
(tl;dr: The output of these "transmitters" contains spurs you're not equipped to detect but which can indeed be problematic for others. Transmitters are regulated for sound physical reasons, some which are enumerated here.)
The range at which your FM receiver can pick up an FM signal may indeed be ten feet, but that's a product of the transmitter power, the transmit antenna gain, the path loss, the receive antenna gain, and the receiver sensitivity. To infer anything about one of those parameters (for this discussion, the transmit power), you have to know the other four, and you don't. (And neither do I. Even the measurements I'm equipped to make require a lot of assumptions and have significant uncertainty.)
Secondly, FM (radio folks would call this wide-FM) is particularly power-hungry because it occupies a relatively wide swath of bandwidth. Typically limited to 75kHz and in practice somewhere around 50 for analog stereo or just shy of 60 with RDS (which pifmrds can do). For example, a 104.3MHz station is actually transmitting anywhere between 104.225 and 104.375 at any given instant. This means that the receiver has to demodulate the carrier which may be varying all over that range, and it requires a fairly strong signal to do that. If the FM receiver loses lock, it doesn't mean the signal doesn't exist, merely that it's below the receiver's sensitivity.
Other spectrum users, like radar for example, may be dramatically more sensitive, and pick up a signal of the same strength many miles away. A mode that occupies less spectrum generally requires less power. They may also have better antennas (radar dishes tend to be tightly focused, that's the whole point), better receivers (local self-noise can be minimized through careful-but-costly engineering), et cetera.
They may also be above you, so while you see the signal disappearing as soon as you get on the other side of some hedges, there's no foliage between you and an airplane.
So while _for you_, the effective range may be ten feet, but for someone else, the signal may be a problem dozens of miles away.
Furthermore, and the whole point here, is that you're not just interfering with other users in the 88-108MHz FM broadcast band. (If you were, frankly, I wouldn't care one bit; there's little actual harm to be done.) It's that as a digital pin being bashed up and down at those frequencies, the resulting signal is profoundly not sinusoidal. It has much faster rising and falling edges, which mean the signal has plenty of energy in harmonics, not just the fundamental frequency of the carrier. My spectrum analyzer only goes to 2.7GHz and I was able to see (admittedly diminishing) energy up beyond 1GHz, which is both impressive in that the BCM chip's GPIOs can slew that fast, and terrible in that you're interfering with _everyone_ when you do it.
So, say you've told pifm to transmit at 88MHz, right at the bottom of the broadcast band where off-the-shelf receivers can pick it up. Your little Pi and random-wire antenna are also producing quite a bit of energy at 176Mhz (maritime VHF ship-to-shore and stuff), 264MHz (military air-band, adjacent to a satellite-earth-station band), 352MHz (more military), 440MHz (amateur UHF), etc. All the way up.
This may be counterintuitive, but that's why radio is governed by regulations rather than YOLO, and why even unlicensed toy transmitters still have to comply with harmonic-content rules.
Filter your Pi to knock out all those harmonics, and the odds of the Coast Guard or Air Force knocking on your door will plummet.
(Also, I've measured the power coming out of one of these things, and if you can only pick it up ten feet away, either your antenna is total crap, your receiver is deaf as a post, or both. Even after applying proper filtering which eats some power, I was able to receive mine on a pocket radio out to about 200 feet, which surprised the heck out of me and I added lots more attenuation until my most sensitive receiver could no longer see it at the property line. It's a fantastic toy for exercising RDS/RBDS receiver and parser code, but it requires a little care and knowledge to use it responsibly.)
Anyone can learn this stuff, and everyone should, especially if they're going to put it on the air.
(tl;dr: The output of these "transmitters" contains spurs you're not equipped to detect but which can indeed be problematic for others. Transmitters are regulated for sound physical reasons, some which are enumerated here.)
The range at which your FM receiver can pick up an FM signal may indeed be ten feet, but that's a product of the transmitter power, the transmit antenna gain, the path loss, the receive antenna gain, and the receiver sensitivity. To infer anything about one of those parameters (for this discussion, the transmit power), you have to know the other four, and you don't. (And neither do I. Even the measurements I'm equipped to make require a lot of assumptions and have significant uncertainty.)
Secondly, FM (radio folks would call this wide-FM) is particularly power-hungry because it occupies a relatively wide swath of bandwidth. Typically limited to 75kHz and in practice somewhere around 50 for analog stereo or just shy of 60 with RDS (which pifmrds can do). For example, a 104.3MHz station is actually transmitting anywhere between 104.225 and 104.375 at any given instant. This means that the receiver has to demodulate the carrier which may be varying all over that range, and it requires a fairly strong signal to do that. If the FM receiver loses lock, it doesn't mean the signal doesn't exist, merely that it's below the receiver's sensitivity.
Other spectrum users, like radar for example, may be dramatically more sensitive, and pick up a signal of the same strength many miles away. A mode that occupies less spectrum generally requires less power. They may also have better antennas (radar dishes tend to be tightly focused, that's the whole point), better receivers (local self-noise can be minimized through careful-but-costly engineering), et cetera.
They may also be above you, so while you see the signal disappearing as soon as you get on the other side of some hedges, there's no foliage between you and an airplane.
So while _for you_, the effective range may be ten feet, but for someone else, the signal may be a problem dozens of miles away.
Furthermore, and the whole point here, is that you're not just interfering with other users in the 88-108MHz FM broadcast band. (If you were, frankly, I wouldn't care one bit; there's little actual harm to be done.) It's that as a digital pin being bashed up and down at those frequencies, the resulting signal is profoundly not sinusoidal. It has much faster rising and falling edges, which mean the signal has plenty of energy in harmonics, not just the fundamental frequency of the carrier. My spectrum analyzer only goes to 2.7GHz and I was able to see (admittedly diminishing) energy up beyond 1GHz, which is both impressive in that the BCM chip's GPIOs can slew that fast, and terrible in that you're interfering with _everyone_ when you do it.
So, say you've told pifm to transmit at 88MHz, right at the bottom of the broadcast band where off-the-shelf receivers can pick it up. Your little Pi and random-wire antenna are also producing quite a bit of energy at 176Mhz (maritime VHF ship-to-shore and stuff), 264MHz (military air-band, adjacent to a satellite-earth-station band), 352MHz (more military), 440MHz (amateur UHF), etc. All the way up.
This may be counterintuitive, but that's why radio is governed by regulations rather than YOLO, and why even unlicensed toy transmitters still have to comply with harmonic-content rules.
Filter your Pi to knock out all those harmonics, and the odds of the Coast Guard or Air Force knocking on your door will plummet.
(Also, I've measured the power coming out of one of these things, and if you can only pick it up ten feet away, either your antenna is total crap, your receiver is deaf as a post, or both. Even after applying proper filtering which eats some power, I was able to receive mine on a pocket radio out to about 200 feet, which surprised the heck out of me and I added lots more attenuation until my most sensitive receiver could no longer see it at the property line. It's a fantastic toy for exercising RDS/RBDS receiver and parser code, but it requires a little care and knowledge to use it responsibly.)
Anyone can learn this stuff, and everyone should, especially if they're going to put it on the air.
For the true feeling of radio, you might throw some episodes of The Big Broadcast on there as well - I believe archive.org has some but they're easily findable elsewhere. Donate some money to WFUV[1] or buy some of the collections[2] if you just want the music.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WFUV
[2] https://rivermontrecords.com/search?type=product&q=big+broad...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WFUV
[2] https://rivermontrecords.com/search?type=product&q=big+broad...
Like this site: https://oldtime.radio
Thanks for the link! I've enjoyed radio classics on satellite radio, so having an on-demand for specific genres is a welcome option.
> The tiny FM transmitter is surprisingly powerful. Her neighbours (of similar vintage) are very happy too, so their requests have also started coming in :)
Sounds like you're about to start a Radio station for the nation.
Sounds like you're about to start a Radio station for the nation.
Or it'll be enough only for local area. We don't need everything to be nation-scale, local-community activities need to be promoted more.
Based on how you're asking I assuming that "Radio station for the nation" is a quote from a movie or something, but searching for it reveals surprisingly little (and is surprisingly random - Google / Bing clearly has _no_ idea what I'm looking for :) )
Is this a quote / reference to something? If so, could you let us all in on what it's referring to?
Is this a quote / reference to something? If so, could you let us all in on what it's referring to?
All I could think of was the song Radio, Radio. See the line about cleaning up the nation.
https://genius.com/Elvis-costello-radio-radio-lyrics
https://genius.com/Elvis-costello-radio-radio-lyrics
Sorry, no dice. It isn't, at least not intentionally.
No worries! Thanks for replying, though - thinking "there _must_ be a quote, I just don't know it / can't find it" woulda bugged me :)
: ))
This made my day, thank you for sharing. Such a sweet thing to do.
I love how this requires ZERO learning effort on her part, she simply has a personalized ratio station rather than whatever someone else puts on.
wow, I really enjoy the idea that basically, she just uses what works for her with better content. Really nice work
I love this, thx for sharing :)
I have a spare rpi lying around. I know what i want to do with it now...
Absolutely love this idea. Great work.
You should start selling ad time
Did you have to apply for some kind of permit to do that? Or is it low power enough that FCC doesn't care?
FWIW there are many transmitters similar to what they built that enable playing MP3 players, phones and other things on old radios [1]. I do not remember what the power limit is but no permit is required. They can operate throughout the entire FM broadcast spectrum. If they are broadcasting good music in an elderly community I doubt anyone will complain.
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L3WX26S/
[1] - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L3WX26S/
Several homes in my city put up holiday lights that are synced to music and transmitted over FM. The signal only works if you’re parked near the house.
Earth Angel, will you be mine…
How about a speech synthesis DJ, “that was Foo McBar from 19XX”?
How about a speech synthesis DJ, “that was Foo McBar from 19XX”?
Since I've been playing around with Piper Text-to-Speech & the associated LibriTTS voice model, I couldn't resist:
* https://rancidbacon.gitlab.io/piper-tts-demos/#various_radio...
If the six speakers I selected for the demo don't match your taste in DJs, there's around 900 more in that voice model to try... :D
(The 3 audio players differ only in file format & whether I ran the output through normalization.)
Also, I was pretty impressed/surprised at the quality of their pronunciation of the meta-syntactic variables. :)
* https://rancidbacon.gitlab.io/piper-tts-demos/#various_radio...
If the six speakers I selected for the demo don't match your taste in DJs, there's around 900 more in that voice model to try... :D
(The 3 audio players differ only in file format & whether I ran the output through normalization.)
Also, I was pretty impressed/surprised at the quality of their pronunciation of the meta-syntactic variables. :)
Ha, that’s awesome. Several of the voices sounded just right for radio. I see the lib is limited to 24khz, maybe why it has an almost AM radio sound?
They all sound out of breath. Not sure what causes that effect/perception. Listening to it again, it seems like the plosives (like d, or t) have no pop like there was no air pressure behind them.
Thanks for sharing. I aspire to such elegant projects.
What app do you use to make the playlists? You could use the Spotify api for this
This is inspirational for my gaggle of non-tech, super-senior relatives. Thanks so much for sharing.
The internet archive has tons of old radio shows too; my favourite is The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which aired in the early 40s. Best thing is that it also has the original ads in there. “Now that the poultry shortage is over, why not enjoy a glass of wine with your Sunday chicken roast?”
Might be cute to include some old original programming in your pirate radio!
https://archive.org/details/sherlock-holmes-1939-11-06-6-the...
Might be cute to include some old original programming in your pirate radio!
https://archive.org/details/sherlock-holmes-1939-11-06-6-the...
I used to work construction with one of those big old radios covered in paint that has been dropped 1000 times--we got around to using an FM transmitter dangling off the phone for it. It was fun + charming, since then I've thought about getting a big radio setup and hard-wiring Bluetooth in but your setup sounds truer to the concept.
My ex used to be pissed when I spent whole day coding and dont wrote her a single message...
It was way back before gpt and twilio, so I bent one IRC bot and wrote collection of warm messages that was send via SMS on a pseudorandom timeframe. We broke up when she finds out ... Luckly for both of us I guess.
It was way back before gpt and twilio, so I bent one IRC bot and wrote collection of warm messages that was send via SMS on a pseudorandom timeframe. We broke up when she finds out ... Luckly for both of us I guess.
This reminded me of this internet folklore: https://www.jitbit.com/alexblog/249-now-thats-what-i-call-a-...
There is also a recreation of the scripts at https://github.com/NARKOZ/hacker-scripts
There is also a recreation of the scripts at https://github.com/NARKOZ/hacker-scripts
Midi controller that snaps on to my trumpet. Made from a tiny drone remote control with a replaced "brain" and new housing.
https://i.imgur.com/oYFOBNv.jpeg
And an app that records audio retroactively. Wanted to have recorded the last 2 minutes? just tell it "-2m". It has a ring buffer that buffers the last 2h, but also forgets all the time. (at least that was the plan, but audio streams were so much more difficult so I just dumped a full day of audio and timestamps and cut it later. That makes it much more "eavesdropping" again though which I wanted to avoid with the auto delete though....)
And an app that records audio retroactively. Wanted to have recorded the last 2 minutes? just tell it "-2m". It has a ring buffer that buffers the last 2h, but also forgets all the time. (at least that was the plan, but audio streams were so much more difficult so I just dumped a full day of audio and timestamps and cut it later. That makes it much more "eavesdropping" again though which I wanted to avoid with the auto delete though....)
We recently remodelled our kitchen and dining area, and I wanted some art piece on the wall but couldn’t decide what. For months the wall was a little bare and we were having a lot of dinner guests. I realised our WiFi password was too complicated to keep reading out to family and friends so I built a QR code in Lego that automatically connects you to our guest WiFi. It looks good, and it’s Lego so it was a fun project with the kids. It took about 4 hours to build. The only problem was having enough 1x1 tiles to put on a 37x37 matrix.
Thanks for sharing this, sounds like a cool activity to do with kids (and I didn't expect to find one on this thread!), will definitely steal that.
Today I learned you can generate a QR that connects to WiFi.
https://www.qr-code-generator.com/solutions/wifi-qr-code/ can build one, this is cool.
Android has this feature for a long time. Share the QR code even with iPhone users. And it will add them to the wifi
You can also read the QR code from your Linux laptop.
Install zbar-tools and use zbarcam from the command line. It will read the QR code using the webcam, and now you have the Wi-Fi credentials.
Or any other data in the QR code.
Install zbar-tools and use zbarcam from the command line. It will read the QR code using the webcam, and now you have the Wi-Fi credentials.
Or any other data in the QR code.
Does this work for iOS yet? Last time I was trying out wifi qr codes only android handled them correctly.
I solved that problem with an NFC sticker in the hallway. Anybody with a recent (2-3yo) phone can just tap the sticker and get online.
I made a silly twilio app for my daughter’s 1st birthday party where guests had a set of photos in front of them and they had to guess the correct age ordering and could validate their guess to win a prize using the temporary number I had setup.
I had phone that could run J2ME but did not have Internet.
I reverse engineered a flash application that showed a map and provided address search. I scraped the map tiles and address to location database. Reimplemented the viewer application as a Java applet and preloaded the tiles and address database to a microSD card connected to the phone. So essentially I built my own offline maps for my not internet connected phone.
Address search required prefix tree because IO was too slow to use binary search on the phone.
Anyway this was done just before I went to a new city to attend university and it was really helpful to find out where I am and where to go. There was no navigation, but it showed the map, gps location and the location where I needed to get to.
So that was my personal project that really had great utility for me.
I reverse engineered a flash application that showed a map and provided address search. I scraped the map tiles and address to location database. Reimplemented the viewer application as a Java applet and preloaded the tiles and address database to a microSD card connected to the phone. So essentially I built my own offline maps for my not internet connected phone.
Address search required prefix tree because IO was too slow to use binary search on the phone.
Anyway this was done just before I went to a new city to attend university and it was really helpful to find out where I am and where to go. There was no navigation, but it showed the map, gps location and the location where I needed to get to.
So that was my personal project that really had great utility for me.
it's pretty simple but on various consulting jobs I've had to build SQL databases sometimes with lot's of tables with lot's of columns. Sometimes we switch from on prem to cloud, or vice versa or switch from postgres to sql server, etc. I have this toolkit that automates a lot of the tedious stuff. it allows me to take pandas dataframes and do the following:
- auto detect and convert column types
- save as a parquet file in a folder
- then autogenerate a sqlalchemy table/metadata file in python for all tables with sensible defaults for column types (e.g. 2x the longest string in a column for varchar)
- build the db and all tables
- load data from the files into the tables
this makes it really easy to bootstrap the entire db from a folder of parquet files for testing with sqlite and then makes it easy to move to prod on postgres/sqlserver etc. Before I go to prod i still have to add constraints and keys and indexes but that doesn't take too long. and for dev/testing the data's not too big so performance doesn't really suffer from lack of keys/constraints then we can use something like alembic on the big sqlalchemy tables definition file to do db migrations.
it's kind of like this: https://github.com/agronholm/sqlacodegen but solving an inverse problem.
basically it bootstraps the db and schemas and gets me like 95% of the way there. my quality of life is better with it.
- auto detect and convert column types
- save as a parquet file in a folder
- then autogenerate a sqlalchemy table/metadata file in python for all tables with sensible defaults for column types (e.g. 2x the longest string in a column for varchar)
- build the db and all tables
- load data from the files into the tables
this makes it really easy to bootstrap the entire db from a folder of parquet files for testing with sqlite and then makes it easy to move to prod on postgres/sqlserver etc. Before I go to prod i still have to add constraints and keys and indexes but that doesn't take too long. and for dev/testing the data's not too big so performance doesn't really suffer from lack of keys/constraints then we can use something like alembic on the big sqlalchemy tables definition file to do db migrations.
it's kind of like this: https://github.com/agronholm/sqlacodegen but solving an inverse problem.
basically it bootstraps the db and schemas and gets me like 95% of the way there. my quality of life is better with it.
My daughter enjoyed playing Othello at a friend’s house, so I made this we can use on an iPad: https://jawj.github.io/fliptiles/
Latest vaguely interesting projects I've done, I repurposed an old Nook to be an e-ink family dashboard, showing weather, tidal times and our family calendar.
An automatic fish feeder. I was going on a long trip with my family and needed to feed my fish while we were gone. I remembered I had a servo from an old project. I drilled some holes in a round plastic container, glued it to the servo shaft, hung it off the tank with some wire, and wrote a small Arduino sketch to jiggle the container every 24 hours. It worked better than I thought it would; the fish survived, and in fact seemed so happy that I don't feed them by hand anymore.
I've since built a couple more for my other tanks, and I rewrote the firmware for ESP8266/ESPHome. Now my family can ask Alexa to feed the fish, because of course the world needs that.
I've since built a couple more for my other tanks, and I rewrote the firmware for ESP8266/ESPHome. Now my family can ask Alexa to feed the fish, because of course the world needs that.
Driving simulator in unreal engine. Can do ADAS and now has a real HUD which is warped and quasi raytraced.
I built a website that you can bring up in multiple browser windows, or on multiple adjacent monitors attached to independent computers. Each browser displays a unique QR code. A user can navigate to a second webpage, activate their camera, and point their camera at the QR codes. Each QR code will switch to a unique AR code, then the user can project a single continuous image across all the monitors. It mostly works but I’m missing some 3d math to make the image line up perfect when the angles are weird.
This sounds cool. Do you have it online?
My father was an amateur historian. He used to work with a lot of pictures often of poor quality. I guess his worst was a photo of a road sign printed in a book sometime in the 70s, and then recently not even scanned but taken from a book page with a phone. So I made a tool for him that allows to undo unwanted bending and also helps with the dirt: https://github.com/akalenuk/unpager
there are two things I’ve built that maybe aren’t groundbreaking but I think fit the brief. Might be helpful context that I’m not a professional programmer so these are both hobby projects.
1. I have too many aunts/uncles/cousins but we have a long (30 year at least) tradition of doing a family gift exchange over the holidays. After one too many years of forgetting who I had or having my mom get asked by my aunt what my cousin should get me I build a website for my family that allows them to manage a gift list. Started as a super basic Django app and that was about 7 years ago and every year I add one or two features. Now it’s got all kinds things like notifications and will even help you track your incoming packages and know if they are gift wrapped or not.
Thing 2, was a wedding evite/website for My wedding. At the time I looked around and hated how impersonal all the evite options were, so I created a website with a cms that would give every user a customized, personalized experience. Invited to the rehearsal dinner? you see that dates and details. Are you one of my friends? You get the set of content with our inside jokes. It didn’t need any kind of login or passwords but provided everyone with a custom page. It also provided me with a full database to manage rsvp, song requests, track who gave us gifts (and what), etc. Yes my partner thought it was overkill (to answer that question) but it was super fun to build and ended up getting retooled for my sister in law’s wedding last year.
1. I have too many aunts/uncles/cousins but we have a long (30 year at least) tradition of doing a family gift exchange over the holidays. After one too many years of forgetting who I had or having my mom get asked by my aunt what my cousin should get me I build a website for my family that allows them to manage a gift list. Started as a super basic Django app and that was about 7 years ago and every year I add one or two features. Now it’s got all kinds things like notifications and will even help you track your incoming packages and know if they are gift wrapped or not.
Thing 2, was a wedding evite/website for My wedding. At the time I looked around and hated how impersonal all the evite options were, so I created a website with a cms that would give every user a customized, personalized experience. Invited to the rehearsal dinner? you see that dates and details. Are you one of my friends? You get the set of content with our inside jokes. It didn’t need any kind of login or passwords but provided everyone with a custom page. It also provided me with a full database to manage rsvp, song requests, track who gave us gifts (and what), etc. Yes my partner thought it was overkill (to answer that question) but it was super fun to build and ended up getting retooled for my sister in law’s wedding last year.
We were using facebook exclusively for the 'private group' feature with a some friends in 2012. We liked the fact that it was private and asynchronous.
But I didn't like the fact that it was tied to facebook. I decided to put into practice what I've learned that year at my informatics school and created forum written in php. It was not much but we liked the fact that it was ours.
Ten years later, I'm still fiddling on it and it has grown to a real open-source project that you can find on github [0]. It's still primarly here to serve me since I'm the only maintainer but starts to be driven by external propositions. It's meant to be easy to deploy, easy to use, cheap in resources and reliable.
[0] https://github.com/zusam/zusam
Ten years later, I'm still fiddling on it and it has grown to a real open-source project that you can find on github [0]. It's still primarly here to serve me since I'm the only maintainer but starts to be driven by external propositions. It's meant to be easy to deploy, easy to use, cheap in resources and reliable.
[0] https://github.com/zusam/zusam
Hey, just wanted to say this is very neat! I'm going to try it out this weekend as a self-hosted Google Keep alternative.
(PS: I may have broken your demo server, I'm not certain ;-) )
(PS: I may have broken your demo server, I'm not certain ;-) )
Thank you very much !
No problem, it should reset every hour
[deleted]
I built an open-source low-code platform to build mobile apps in JSON, https://www.nanoapp.dev/
I just made a simple sprint calendar so I could keep track of my team's big dates more effectively at work, at a glance from my phone etc.
https://sprintcalendar.com
My team runs with:
https://sprintcalendar.com/3-week-sprints/start-2023-03-23/r...
https://sprintcalendar.com
My team runs with:
https://sprintcalendar.com/3-week-sprints/start-2023-03-23/r...
https://mathb.in/
I wrote this 11 years ago for my friends and myself who were going through a phase in our lives when we used to challenge each other with mathematical puzzles.
The use of this tool spread from my friends to their friends and colleagues, then schools and universities, and then to IRC channels. Now it is the oldest mathematics pastebin that is still online and serving its community of users. Visit https://github.com/susam/mathb for the source code of this tool.
I wrote this 11 years ago for my friends and myself who were going through a phase in our lives when we used to challenge each other with mathematical puzzles.
The use of this tool spread from my friends to their friends and colleagues, then schools and universities, and then to IRC channels. Now it is the oldest mathematics pastebin that is still online and serving its community of users. Visit https://github.com/susam/mathb for the source code of this tool.
Not really that high-tech or that interesting, but I've made a firefox add-on that sorts YouTube video tabs by duration. Recently I realized that someone else actually uses it too (he left a review), so I got motivated to patch it
Not really that high-tech or that cool, but I've made a firefox add-on that sorts YouTube video tabs by duration. Recently I realized that someone else actually uses it too (he left a review), so I got motivated to patch it
I wrote a server that bridges Subsonic clients to my Spotify library. I like that it lets me to stream anything on Spotify but I can still fill in favorites that aren't available.
* A script that periodically screenscraped booked-up campsite reservation sites for cancellations during dates I wanted and sent me text messages (thanks, Twilio!). We got to stay at a bunch of amazing places at the last minute this way. We’re currently grounded, but I recently ran it again for my parents and was shocked to find it still worked!
* An Alexa app that provides a search interface to Old Time Radio shows on archive.org and saves your place (this was technically for my mother-in-law, the proof-of-concept with arcade sounds for my spouse). We all ended up using it a ton, though, it was kind of magical (the random function was really fun). I also set up an Alexa app to read me recent CVEs, but it’s more of a goofy parlor trick than useful. ;)
* A Rube Goldbergian bunch of terrible scripts that I can feed PDFs to, OCR, poorly-translate (using the expected engines or my own diymodel) and generate epubs from. And a bunch of scripts that convert Markdown to LaTeX and epub for personal book publishing projects.
Thanks for asking this question, it’s so neat to see everyone’s responses! I might ping my spouse on this post, too, who’s developed a crazy amount of personal projects that combine software and hardware to fixup our/our families’ lives.
* An Alexa app that provides a search interface to Old Time Radio shows on archive.org and saves your place (this was technically for my mother-in-law, the proof-of-concept with arcade sounds for my spouse). We all ended up using it a ton, though, it was kind of magical (the random function was really fun). I also set up an Alexa app to read me recent CVEs, but it’s more of a goofy parlor trick than useful. ;)
* A Rube Goldbergian bunch of terrible scripts that I can feed PDFs to, OCR, poorly-translate (using the expected engines or my own diymodel) and generate epubs from. And a bunch of scripts that convert Markdown to LaTeX and epub for personal book publishing projects.
Thanks for asking this question, it’s so neat to see everyone’s responses! I might ping my spouse on this post, too, who’s developed a crazy amount of personal projects that combine software and hardware to fixup our/our families’ lives.
Our apartment has a key fob system to open the front door as well as an intercom system so people can call up and request to be let in. I put a Raspberry Pi Zero W inside the intercom receiver unit hooked up to the "open door" button. The Pi receives on a webhook that I control from a shortcut on my smartphone, so I can let people in even when I'm not home (or let myself in if I've forgotten the fob). The Pi also texts me whenever the doorbell rings. Not the sexiest project, but definitely the one that gets the most use!
My Raspberry Pis all netboot. I have a bunch of them around the house. Some play music, some play games, some are smart TVs. Because they all boot from the LAN, there's no card to wear out, and I can change what OS they boot into just by renaming a file. It's simple, but intensely useful.
What are they netbooting from? Presumably there's a root device somewhere?
Yes, a TrueNAS box running a TFTP server for /boot and NFS for root.
The server is discovered via DHCP.
The server is discovered via DHCP.
This is super cool. Did you follow any specific tutorial?
Not sure about interesting, but I wrote a cli tool to apply boolean set operations on lines of text, so e.g. I can get the intersection of the lines in three different files, or all lines piped into stdin that do not appear in a certain file, or merge the lines from multiple files without duplicates.
I made it because this specific task came up repeatedly in my bash scripting but solving it in bash is ugly and really, really slow.
And right now I am working on my own modal text editor which might never be used by anyone else. Just for fun and to see whether some Vim features could be improved or done in other interesting ways. tl;dr so far: Vim does things really damn well, sometimes to a point you don't even think about it because it simply never fails. That said I did manage to finally solve a tiny issue with the keybinding system that always bugged me, resulting in support for smooth text macros as a side effect.
And right now I am working on my own modal text editor which might never be used by anyone else. Just for fun and to see whether some Vim features could be improved or done in other interesting ways. tl;dr so far: Vim does things really damn well, sometimes to a point you don't even think about it because it simply never fails. That said I did manage to finally solve a tiny issue with the keybinding system that always bugged me, resulting in support for smooth text macros as a side effect.
When I was 15 years old and my sister was 4 or 5 years old, I wrote a pascal program that showed a big letter on a screen when my sister pressed such letter on a keyboard.
She had fun pressing letters on a keyboard and then seeing them on the screen - possibly learning alphabet and keyboard layout at the same time :)
She had fun pressing letters on a keyboard and then seeing them on the screen - possibly learning alphabet and keyboard layout at the same time :)
the time tracker https://github.com/esseti/-schrodinger
A few years ago I traded cryptocurrency extensively. I eventually ended up with a tax nightmare, needing to account for thousands of trades across several exchanges. After months of talking with my accountant and tax office, I eventually built https://github.com/dleber/capitalg
It was still a lot of work aggregating trade histories from various exchanges into a standardized schema, but I took some comfort in understanding the process. I also avoided the need to share exchange API keys and trading data with 3rd party accounting tools.
If you discover any bugs, please don't tell the tax authorities.
It was still a lot of work aggregating trade histories from various exchanges into a standardized schema, but I took some comfort in understanding the process. I also avoided the need to share exchange API keys and trading data with 3rd party accounting tools.
If you discover any bugs, please don't tell the tax authorities.
I hooked up my old (~25y) stereo to an RPi via AUX in. The RPi has MPD and a pulseaudio sink to play audio. And it can be controlled via Home Assistant.
But the feature I like most is that it turns on/off the stereo via an infrared LED. It detects sound and silence on the pulse output and sends the proper IR command. A small thing, but it still makes me happy whenever it does its work in the background.
But the feature I like most is that it turns on/off the stereo via an infrared LED. It detects sound and silence on the pulse output and sends the proper IR command. A small thing, but it still makes me happy whenever it does its work in the background.
I made an iPhone VR app to control a lego mindstorms robot by lashing an old Windows 8 phone onto it.
https://pcblues.com/assets/videos/vrlegorobot.mp4
https://pcblues.com/assets/videos/vrlegorobot.mp4
Most useful thing?
Honestly, a lamp that uses a 1W red LED behind a big diffuser. It uses PWM in the MHz range for dimming (so definitely no flicker), and big physical controls. My wife and I both get migraines and being able to set very dim red light seems to be better than sitting in complete darkness. I have insufficient data to tell if this is a real effect, unique to us, or placebo.
Code is in AVR assembly, because that's easiest for me. Sometimes I feel silly that after all these years working with technology, this is the most useful thing I've managed to build for myself. Hey, it's not nothing though :)
Honestly, a lamp that uses a 1W red LED behind a big diffuser. It uses PWM in the MHz range for dimming (so definitely no flicker), and big physical controls. My wife and I both get migraines and being able to set very dim red light seems to be better than sitting in complete darkness. I have insufficient data to tell if this is a real effect, unique to us, or placebo.
Code is in AVR assembly, because that's easiest for me. Sometimes I feel silly that after all these years working with technology, this is the most useful thing I've managed to build for myself. Hey, it's not nothing though :)
I make my own digital synthesis algorithms using (relatively, w.r.t. the field) esoteric mathematics. [1]
At some point (e.g. once I obtain patents) I hope to commercialize the processes involved as software/hardware instruments, but for now it's solely for my own practice. [2]
[1] https://soundcloud.com/thetanull/1to1-220409-03 [2] https://soundcloud.com/goomtrex/condenser-12-54
At some point (e.g. once I obtain patents) I hope to commercialize the processes involved as software/hardware instruments, but for now it's solely for my own practice. [2]
[1] https://soundcloud.com/thetanull/1to1-220409-03 [2] https://soundcloud.com/goomtrex/condenser-12-54
This is intriguing. If you can elaborate more, are you synthesizing something closer to waveshapes found in traditional synths or more towards totally novel sounds?
The project started a few years ago adapting generating functions to Complex waveshaping, with the waveforms correspond to certain constructions in optics, celestial dynamics, etc.
This has since been extended with an algebraic/modular approach to building more complex textures and rhythms. So the aim is to create totally novel sounds, but the traditional waveforms tend to pop-up from time to time!
This has since been extended with an algebraic/modular approach to building more complex textures and rhythms. So the aim is to create totally novel sounds, but the traditional waveforms tend to pop-up from time to time!
Automatic warning system if I sit too long
I added a pressure sensor to my desk chair (just like the ones built into car seats) and soldered that to a Zigbee door sensor. I now know sitting/not sitting. I then set up push notifications to my watch and desktop if I sit more than one hour to get up and take a walk. Furthermore I connected it to my hight adjustable desk that if it is in up-position and I sit down, it automatically lowers itself to the perfect sitting position. I had to disable the „if I get up, move the desk up“ function because it was just too much movement on the desk end.
I don’t wanna miss the too-long-sitting warning anymore and it is really useful.
I added a pressure sensor to my desk chair (just like the ones built into car seats) and soldered that to a Zigbee door sensor. I now know sitting/not sitting. I then set up push notifications to my watch and desktop if I sit more than one hour to get up and take a walk. Furthermore I connected it to my hight adjustable desk that if it is in up-position and I sit down, it automatically lowers itself to the perfect sitting position. I had to disable the „if I get up, move the desk up“ function because it was just too much movement on the desk end.
I don’t wanna miss the too-long-sitting warning anymore and it is really useful.
This is really cool. Apple watch solves this problem though.
I have an Apple watch and it doesn't for me. The timer isn't as exact as the sensor in the chair (obviously) and if I move a lot (say during meetings and me using my hands), Apple thinks I am getting up from the chair which I am not.
I actually use both: The Apple watch notification as well as my custom push notification to the Apple watch. The more I get up, the better for my health :-)
I actually use both: The Apple watch notification as well as my custom push notification to the Apple watch. The more I get up, the better for my health :-)
SO it kinda sends a push notification to your butt then? :)
I built a Markdown like text format for writing technical reports. I was fed up with Word and I wanted a plain text language that supports tables, footnotes, auto validated references to any part of the document, syntax highlighting of code blocks, comments, math equations, table of contents, etc... Unfortunately, existing solutions are all slow or written with some bizarre toolchains that are a pain to set up.
I wrote it from scratch in Go with very few dependencies, so I can compile it to a single binary that should work on all platforms. It outputs .html or .tex which is then compiled to a PDF via Xelatex. Since Latex is pain to deal with, I wanted to generate pdf directly, but life got in a way so... it's not exactly a finished project, but at least I enjoy using it.
I wrote it from scratch in Go with very few dependencies, so I can compile it to a single binary that should work on all platforms. It outputs .html or .tex which is then compiled to a PDF via Xelatex. Since Latex is pain to deal with, I wanted to generate pdf directly, but life got in a way so... it's not exactly a finished project, but at least I enjoy using it.
You should take a look at the markdown TUI glow (or some of the other projects on charmbracelet) and see if there's anything you can contribute from your work. It's all in Go as well iirc.
I wrote a silly Telegram bot for my group chats: https://github.com/database64128/CubicBot
It's mostly just some useless commands that say stupid things, and stats collection for earning "achievements" and displaying leaderboards.
The bot was written in C# and seriously over-engineered to be completely modular. Every command and stats collector can be turned on or off in config. A running instance with all features turned on is available as https://t.me/Cubic0Bot.
It's mostly just some useless commands that say stupid things, and stats collection for earning "achievements" and displaying leaderboards.
The bot was written in C# and seriously over-engineered to be completely modular. Every command and stats collector can be turned on or off in config. A running instance with all features turned on is available as https://t.me/Cubic0Bot.
I used to run a hackspace, so quite a lot! But in no particular order these are some of my favourites:
- A tracking airsoft turret that would point at and fire at movement. Was coded in Processing.
- A world clock of digital clocks that synced with NTP and could be set to many regions when working with different timezones.
- A QFH antenna for receiving live satellite images via SSTV from weather satellites
- A core xy assembly with a peristaltic pump that can be placed over a frying pan to make fun designs of pancakes
- A screenshot tool that uploaded to a private site with a short code URL for sharing screenshots without relying on ott SaaS products
- A tracking airsoft turret that would point at and fire at movement. Was coded in Processing.
- A world clock of digital clocks that synced with NTP and could be set to many regions when working with different timezones.
- A QFH antenna for receiving live satellite images via SSTV from weather satellites
- A core xy assembly with a peristaltic pump that can be placed over a frying pan to make fun designs of pancakes
- A screenshot tool that uploaded to a private site with a short code URL for sharing screenshots without relying on ott SaaS products
Type Draw Type
A fun little drawing and writing game, I loved playing with friends and kids with pen and paper. During the pandemic I implemented a web version for us to play remotely. By now, thousands of games have been played (not only by me and my friends of course). You need at least 4 players (better 5 or more) to join one game for it to be fun.
https://draw.gerty.roga.czedik.at
(oh, and it is free and open source, of course)
A fun little drawing and writing game, I loved playing with friends and kids with pen and paper. During the pandemic I implemented a web version for us to play remotely. By now, thousands of games have been played (not only by me and my friends of course). You need at least 4 players (better 5 or more) to join one game for it to be fun.
https://draw.gerty.roga.czedik.at
(oh, and it is free and open source, of course)
[deleted]
Not very cool but was useful for my hex-crawling D&D campaign: https://ajuc.github.io/outdoorsBattlemapGenerator/
That's pretty cool actually, going to steal it.
How do you find time and resources to build all these cool things?
Motivation only comes from faith or fun
Very simple one. I geofenced my workplace with IFTTT, and used a tiny bit of javascript glue to drop a line in a google sheet. Instant timesheets.
I've written a minimalist replacement for Ansible. It started as a weekend hack, and I'm still using it daily after 7 years. Perhaps it's not technically impressive, but so wasn't the original UNIX, which served as a direct inspiration: how much work can you do with the simplest design and the least amount of code?
https://github.com/rollcat/judo
https://github.com/rollcat/judo
And it uses honest to god scp. That's great
was going to buy a house miles away from any DSLAM. As I use internet a lot, I wrote something to help handle the lack of bandwidth [1] mlvpn.
Then mptcp came, and I just did use a socks5 proxy with mptcp, which handles fluctuations of the link quality much better.
Used it a lot at work tho, for VPN redundency
[1] https://github.com/zehome/MLVPN
Then mptcp came, and I just did use a socks5 proxy with mptcp, which handles fluctuations of the link quality much better.
Used it a lot at work tho, for VPN redundency
[1] https://github.com/zehome/MLVPN
I lived in a family apartment growing up, and we'd lock the door to the entire building at night when everyone was home with a sliding lock so that it could only be opened from the inside. However, that'd mean you need to ensure at least one person from every apartment was home, otherwise you'd need to go downstairs and let the others in in the middle of the night.
All the 3 apartments in the building were sharing the same wi-fi device, therefore I built a simple scanner to find all the devices in the network, connect them to the individuals I knew, and show the devices I found on the network in a simple website, which then I installed on my parents' devices as a PWA. The scanner would run in a Raspberry Pi I had lying around.
In the end it wasn't very reliable, the router kept failing occasionally due to nmap, and after a few failures we stopped using it, but it was a fun experiment for me.
All the 3 apartments in the building were sharing the same wi-fi device, therefore I built a simple scanner to find all the devices in the network, connect them to the individuals I knew, and show the devices I found on the network in a simple website, which then I installed on my parents' devices as a PWA. The scanner would run in a Raspberry Pi I had lying around.
In the end it wasn't very reliable, the router kept failing occasionally due to nmap, and after a few failures we stopped using it, but it was a fun experiment for me.
Maybe not the most interesting but a CLI utility that would do 2 things (gaming related):
* guess the gameserver tick rate based on network traffic patterns between game client/server (cs:go for example) and display it in grafana
* collect keyboard inputs while playing and display them as a heatmap on grafana
All of this for no real reason.
* guess the gameserver tick rate based on network traffic patterns between game client/server (cs:go for example) and display it in grafana
* collect keyboard inputs while playing and display them as a heatmap on grafana
All of this for no real reason.
I built my blog around fedora's extra nice pandoc markdown to html
https://gigatexal.blog/pages/building-a-blog-from-scratch/bu...
https://gigatexal.blog/pages/blog-update-1/blog-update-1.htm...
It's not very fancy but it is for me. I know next to nothing about web/html and I wanted to do something myself than going with the really good ghost or other static blogging tools.
https://gigatexal.blog/pages/building-a-blog-from-scratch/bu...
https://gigatexal.blog/pages/blog-update-1/blog-update-1.htm...
It's not very fancy but it is for me. I know next to nothing about web/html and I wanted to do something myself than going with the really good ghost or other static blogging tools.
My robotic graduation caps for my undergrad (2015) and PhD (2022) ceremonies:
https://psychomugs.github.io/gradcap
My wrist-mounted Spider-Man-inspired coilgun:
https://psychomugs.github.io/webshooter
https://psychomugs.github.io/gradcap
My wrist-mounted Spider-Man-inspired coilgun:
https://psychomugs.github.io/webshooter
I have finally built myself reader app that fulfills my own needs first.
I totally absolutely enjoyed every minute building my own thing and I highly recommend it for the burnout developers.
https://awesomegoat.com
I totally absolutely enjoyed every minute building my own thing and I highly recommend it for the burnout developers.
https://awesomegoat.com
I made a gender swapping algorithm for my own use only. You put in any text and it outputs the exact same thing with all the genders reversed. Man to woman, he to she, Prince to princess, witch to wizard.
Then got a book deal to create a series of gender swapped illustrated books ‘Gender Swapped Fairy Tales’ and ‘Gender swapped Greek myths’
It seems like a simple enough task but gets complicated in weird ways. For example - his can swap to her or hers depending on the context. And her can swap to his of him depending on context.
The idea is to show the biases in the original stories that you are blind to because you’ve been reading them forever.
Then got a book deal to create a series of gender swapped illustrated books ‘Gender Swapped Fairy Tales’ and ‘Gender swapped Greek myths’
It seems like a simple enough task but gets complicated in weird ways. For example - his can swap to her or hers depending on the context. And her can swap to his of him depending on context.
The idea is to show the biases in the original stories that you are blind to because you’ve been reading them forever.
tangentially to swapping gender in text, there's a section in Delany's novel Babel-17 where one character is trying to teach another character the concepts and language of "I" and "me" and "you", and the other character is getting these ideas mixed up. As a reader you're trying to follow this process from the dialogue.
Years ago, after I noticed that most adverbs are redundant, I began to write an ebook processor that would strip the adverbs out of ebooks before I read them to save time.
It turned out to require rather more semantic parsing than I expected. Maybe its worth revisiting with the advent of large language models.
It turned out to require rather more semantic parsing than I expected. Maybe its worth revisiting with the advent of large language models.
Yeah a bit of LLM help would have saved me sooooooo much time.
I had to create a bunch of very convoluted rules based on whether the preceding and following two words were verbs, nouns, adverbs, end of a sentence etc and with those I could be sure I was right about 95% of the time.
Eg before a noun it’s always his or her.
But some really do require a little intelligence beyond grammar rules.
Eg for ‘It is definitely his’
Both swaps make sense grammatically:
‘It is definitely hers’ or ‘It is definitely her’
You’d need to understand the context to get it right.
I had to create a bunch of very convoluted rules based on whether the preceding and following two words were verbs, nouns, adverbs, end of a sentence etc and with those I could be sure I was right about 95% of the time.
Eg before a noun it’s always his or her.
But some really do require a little intelligence beyond grammar rules.
Eg for ‘It is definitely his’
Both swaps make sense grammatically:
‘It is definitely hers’ or ‘It is definitely her’
You’d need to understand the context to get it right.
My first program was in C, input two dates in yyyy-mm-dd format, one by one,and tells the age. I used to call it Age Finder.exe Second version of it could work with dates entered in either order i.e. oldest newest or newest oldest.
Now I use javascript & html. The most used ones in recent past was my own timesheet log app. Html form submit data to Google sheet through Google script. Another page shows the monthly summary & details.
A telegram bot which logs my msgs as todo list to a Google sheet. I manually mark things done when done.
Many others at apps.bydav.in
Now I use javascript & html. The most used ones in recent past was my own timesheet log app. Html form submit data to Google sheet through Google script. Another page shows the monthly summary & details.
A telegram bot which logs my msgs as todo list to a Google sheet. I manually mark things done when done.
Many others at apps.bydav.in
I'm writing my own app for practicing the piano.
The goal is to make practicing fun, while also making steady progress.
I'm not a good player at all, and I've struggled with practice for years. But I have no problems playing (practicing) difficult video games, that require a lot of repetition (think Celeste).
I think I've identified two major reasons why I never enjoyed it:
1. Classical music notation (sheet music) is just awful. It goes against most modern principles of easy-to-grasp information design. So I've come up with my own notation that is much easier to read and can be generated from musicxml files.
2. Practicing takes too much decision making and discipline. If you want to make progress, you have to constantly remind yourself to practice the parts that you're not good at yet - this is a surprising amount of mental overhead and requires lots of discipline. So the app I wrote listens to you play via MIDI and keeps track of which segments of a piece you're already good at, and automatically gives you those you still need to practice more - zero decision making required. You just play whatever the app gives you and after a few weeks/months you're suddenly able to play the whole piece.
The app is no where near ready to be shown, but I'm confident at this point that the concept will work.
I've been planning a longer write up on this for a while, if you're interested in reading more about it, please let me know, that would be very motivating :)
I'm not a good player at all, and I've struggled with practice for years. But I have no problems playing (practicing) difficult video games, that require a lot of repetition (think Celeste).
I think I've identified two major reasons why I never enjoyed it:
1. Classical music notation (sheet music) is just awful. It goes against most modern principles of easy-to-grasp information design. So I've come up with my own notation that is much easier to read and can be generated from musicxml files.
2. Practicing takes too much decision making and discipline. If you want to make progress, you have to constantly remind yourself to practice the parts that you're not good at yet - this is a surprising amount of mental overhead and requires lots of discipline. So the app I wrote listens to you play via MIDI and keeps track of which segments of a piece you're already good at, and automatically gives you those you still need to practice more - zero decision making required. You just play whatever the app gives you and after a few weeks/months you're suddenly able to play the whole piece.
The app is no where near ready to be shown, but I'm confident at this point that the concept will work.
I've been planning a longer write up on this for a while, if you're interested in reading more about it, please let me know, that would be very motivating :)
This is awesome. I've been using Simply Piano for the past couple of months, and although I enjoy it, sometimes I wish I could spend more time on the parts of a song that I find harder, rather than starting from the beginning each time.
Thanks for your comment!
This sounds like what I need too. I would absolutely love to see the app once you are ready to show it!
I build a "SaaS" wine app, for tracking wines in my cellar and for tasting notes as well.
"SaaS" in quotes since it runs in a small production setup with all the bells and whistles (ie. CI/CD pipelines, continuous releases, user signup etc.), but I'm the only user :-)
I'm a wine enthusiast, i.e. not a professional but interested enough to do a WSET2 in my spare time (I'll do a WSET3 when I find time some day). I like to/need to keep track of two things as part of my wine hobby: Wines in my cellar, and tasting notes.
Used to keep the wine registry in excel and notes in Evernote, however especially the excelsheet lacked features, like easy searches from a mobile device, and notes about the wines in my cellar (not tasting notes, as I have plenty bottles I need to taste but havn't yet, and I still need some notes on those to remember where the heck I got them from and why).
Also, WSET2 tasting notes a much quicker to do with the proper template, but copy/pasting text in Evernote became too annoying (again, phone).
So, I build my own app to have exactly the features and mobile friendly GUI I want. I'm the only user on purpose, because then I can keep building and changing features to be just like I want them.
Yes I know there are some "wine tracking apps" out there, like CellarTracker and Vivino, but they dont fit my needs. CellarTracker is closest to my needs but way too clumpsy GUI and not mobile friendly -- I don't have my laptop with me when I'm in the cellar to find a wine for tonight, I have my phone.
Will I every make up the time I spent building it in time saved compared to my excel/evernote setup? Nope, not even close. But it was a fun side project, and I like fiddling with the hosting/Ops part.
"SaaS" in quotes since it runs in a small production setup with all the bells and whistles (ie. CI/CD pipelines, continuous releases, user signup etc.), but I'm the only user :-)
I'm a wine enthusiast, i.e. not a professional but interested enough to do a WSET2 in my spare time (I'll do a WSET3 when I find time some day). I like to/need to keep track of two things as part of my wine hobby: Wines in my cellar, and tasting notes.
Used to keep the wine registry in excel and notes in Evernote, however especially the excelsheet lacked features, like easy searches from a mobile device, and notes about the wines in my cellar (not tasting notes, as I have plenty bottles I need to taste but havn't yet, and I still need some notes on those to remember where the heck I got them from and why).
Also, WSET2 tasting notes a much quicker to do with the proper template, but copy/pasting text in Evernote became too annoying (again, phone).
So, I build my own app to have exactly the features and mobile friendly GUI I want. I'm the only user on purpose, because then I can keep building and changing features to be just like I want them.
Yes I know there are some "wine tracking apps" out there, like CellarTracker and Vivino, but they dont fit my needs. CellarTracker is closest to my needs but way too clumpsy GUI and not mobile friendly -- I don't have my laptop with me when I'm in the cellar to find a wine for tonight, I have my phone.
Will I every make up the time I spent building it in time saved compared to my excel/evernote setup? Nope, not even close. But it was a fun side project, and I like fiddling with the hosting/Ops part.
Off-topic but thank you for mentioning WSET. It's the first time I've heard about it. In UK, there's something basic offered by bbc: https://www.bbcmaestro.com/courses/jancis-robinson/an-unders...
Sure. You can get WSET 1, 2 and 3 for sure in UK (https://www.wsetglobal.com/wset-school-london/wset-courses/).
Another popular wine education is CMS (Court Of Master Sommerliers) https://www.courtofmastersommeliers.org/current-course-price...
WSET is supposed to be more focused on the production of wine, where CMS is supporsed to have more focus on service/serving (for waiters). Its details and I think perhaps more of a different in the lower levels.
I can recommend WSET. I had a pretty good knowledge of wine before I started, so I did WSET2 first. WSET1 is short and pretty basic, but very good for beginners and/or if you just want to have a taske before taking one of the higher levels. WSET2 is still beginner domain I think, since there is an exam but its not a practical exam (i.e. no tasting exam). WSET3 gets serious :-)
Another popular wine education is CMS (Court Of Master Sommerliers) https://www.courtofmastersommeliers.org/current-course-price...
WSET is supposed to be more focused on the production of wine, where CMS is supporsed to have more focus on service/serving (for waiters). Its details and I think perhaps more of a different in the lower levels.
I can recommend WSET. I had a pretty good knowledge of wine before I started, so I did WSET2 first. WSET1 is short and pretty basic, but very good for beginners and/or if you just want to have a taske before taking one of the higher levels. WSET2 is still beginner domain I think, since there is an exam but its not a practical exam (i.e. no tasting exam). WSET3 gets serious :-)
Here is an idea because you clearly enjoy wine stuff. I can check wine reviews online, but as a total wine noob, a) I don't want to shell out big bucks b) lot of the recommendations are not available at the local chain. What I want is for someone to provide recommendations from a given online store; done by a real person.
Not parent, but you might try Wine on a Dime reviews on YouTube (reviews wines under $20) or WineAndCheeseFriday.com (reviews various wines including easy-to-find ones).
Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with the latter :)
Full Disclosure: I am affiliated with the latter :)
Not a tech project, but made my first batch of wine this year. Was immense fun, and just about drinkable.
We actually also have a hobby wine production. About 200 plants. Established back in 2010ish. Its very insightful and a very interesting perspective to add to “just” drinking and tasting wine. I’ve done 5 vintages now, and there is still so. much. to. learn… and thats before the wine even gets into the bottle.
What country are you in? We are en Denmark, which is horrible for reds.. but red is “real wine” so thats what we are making
What country are you in? We are en Denmark, which is horrible for reds.. but red is “real wine” so thats what we are making
Heh, I built something similar for my partner and myself: https://wine.unobtanium.de/ It's not very sophisticated (as we're not sophisticated wine people), but we've sometimes found ourselves standing in front of the wine rack in the super market (as I said, not sophisticated) wondering which of those we already had tasted and how we liked it.
There's not that much in it because it was put on a bit of a break owing to a broken server a while ago, but it's back up again :)
There's not that much in it because it was put on a bit of a break owing to a broken server a while ago, but it's back up again :)
I've modified Ghidra in order to unlink pieces of an executable back into relocatable object files.
To keep things simple, source code files are compiled into object files which are linked into an executable. Object files have sections (named array of bytes), symbols (either defined as an offset within a section or undefined) and relocations (a request to patch up an offset within a section with the final address of a symbol) while executable files only have sections. The linker takes all the object files, lays out the sections in memory, fixes up the relocation and writes out an executable file without the symbols or relocations.
With Ghidra I can reverse-engineer an executable and recreate symbols, data types and references between symbols. Then, with my modifications I can recreate relocations with that information and, once a range of addresses has been fully processed, I can select it and export it as a relocatable ELF object file.
Why? This allows me to extract parts of an executable as object files and reuse these by linking them my own source code ; I don't need to fully-reverse engineer these extracted parts, I just have to basically identify every relocation there was originally in that part. I can also divide and conquer my way to decompiling an executable by splitting an executable into multiple object files and recreate its source code one object file at a time, like the Ship of Theseus.
So far it works with what I've tested it with and I've been meaning to write a series of articles to explain that process in detail, but writing quality technical articles with illustrations on a topic this esoteric is very hard.
To keep things simple, source code files are compiled into object files which are linked into an executable. Object files have sections (named array of bytes), symbols (either defined as an offset within a section or undefined) and relocations (a request to patch up an offset within a section with the final address of a symbol) while executable files only have sections. The linker takes all the object files, lays out the sections in memory, fixes up the relocation and writes out an executable file without the symbols or relocations.
With Ghidra I can reverse-engineer an executable and recreate symbols, data types and references between symbols. Then, with my modifications I can recreate relocations with that information and, once a range of addresses has been fully processed, I can select it and export it as a relocatable ELF object file.
Why? This allows me to extract parts of an executable as object files and reuse these by linking them my own source code ; I don't need to fully-reverse engineer these extracted parts, I just have to basically identify every relocation there was originally in that part. I can also divide and conquer my way to decompiling an executable by splitting an executable into multiple object files and recreate its source code one object file at a time, like the Ship of Theseus.
So far it works with what I've tested it with and I've been meaning to write a series of articles to explain that process in detail, but writing quality technical articles with illustrations on a topic this esoteric is very hard.
- My Ghidra fork: https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/tree/feature/elfrelocatebleobjectexporter
- My initial prototype in Jython (has a readme): https://github.com/boricj/ghidra-unlinker
Absolutely incredible.
Thanks!
If you want to take a look at the source code, here are some pointers:
If you want to take a look at the source code, here are some pointers:
- The relocation synthesizer for MIPS: https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/blob/feature/elfrelocatebleobjectexporter/Ghidra/Processors/MIPS/src/main/java/ghidra/app/delinker/MipsElfRelocationTableSynthesizer.java
- The Ghidra analyzer that leverages this synthesizer: https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/blob/feature/elfrelocatebleobjectexporter/Ghidra/Features/Delinker/src/main/java/ghidra/app/analyzers/RelocationTableSynthesizerAnalyzer.java
- The classes that implement the ELF object exporter: https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/tree/feature/elfrelocatebleobjectexporter/Ghidra/Features/Base/src/main/java/ghidra/app/util/exporter/elf
- The Ghidra exporter for ELF object files: https://github.com/boricj/ghidra/blob/feature/elfrelocatebleobjectexporter/Ghidra/Features/Base/src/main/java/ghidra/app/util/exporter/ElfRelocatableObjectExporter.javaThank you! I’m fascinated by what must have led you to develop this knowledge.
I got inspired by various decompilation projects of old video games and decided to do one myself. I specifically chose "Tenchu: Stealth Assassins", a game for the PlayStation.
I haven't asked around, but I assumed nobody else out there had both the skills for reverse-engineering video games in general and motivation to work on this game in particular. I started reverse-engineering the game with Ghidra and quickly realized that "this game's code is kind of held together with glue and duct tape" (quoting a speedrunner of this game). It's quite the understatement: the code's a complete tangled mess.
I realized that with my current tooling and knowledge there was no way I could hope to complete this decompilation project by myself. I wanted to divide and conquer the problem into smaller, reasonably-sized pieces, but I just have one big executable and I can't just split it into pieces... or can I?
So I tried to innovate my way out of this mess. Ironically, perfecting the unlinking process and making it usable in practice has taken a long time, but it was intellectually rewarding and progress was tangible, so I did not lose motivation along the way.
As for the reverse-engineering of the game itself, my biggest achievement so far is managing to unlink the archive code from the game into a relocatable object file and writing an utility that leverages it to extract files from the game data archive. That sounds complicated, but with my tooling I just need to identify and annotate about 30 functions and global variables used in that part of the program to be able to export it, independently of the rest of the program. Then it's just a matter of writing some C glue code, compiling it to a Linux MIPS program and using QEMU user mode emulation to run the utility, without ever having rewritten that archive code in C or figuring out how it actually works.
I haven't asked around, but I assumed nobody else out there had both the skills for reverse-engineering video games in general and motivation to work on this game in particular. I started reverse-engineering the game with Ghidra and quickly realized that "this game's code is kind of held together with glue and duct tape" (quoting a speedrunner of this game). It's quite the understatement: the code's a complete tangled mess.
I realized that with my current tooling and knowledge there was no way I could hope to complete this decompilation project by myself. I wanted to divide and conquer the problem into smaller, reasonably-sized pieces, but I just have one big executable and I can't just split it into pieces... or can I?
So I tried to innovate my way out of this mess. Ironically, perfecting the unlinking process and making it usable in practice has taken a long time, but it was intellectually rewarding and progress was tangible, so I did not lose motivation along the way.
As for the reverse-engineering of the game itself, my biggest achievement so far is managing to unlink the archive code from the game into a relocatable object file and writing an utility that leverages it to extract files from the game data archive. That sounds complicated, but with my tooling I just need to identify and annotate about 30 functions and global variables used in that part of the program to be able to export it, independently of the rest of the program. Then it's just a matter of writing some C glue code, compiling it to a Linux MIPS program and using QEMU user mode emulation to run the utility, without ever having rewritten that archive code in C or figuring out how it actually works.
> As for the reverse-engineering of the game itself, my biggest achievement so far is managing to unlink the archive code from the game into a relocatable object file and writing an utility that leverages it to extract files from the game data archive. That sounds complicated, but with my tooling I just need to identify and annotate about 30 functions and global variables used in that part of the program to be able to export it, independently of the rest of the program. Then it's just a matter of writing some C glue code, compiling it to a Linux MIPS program and using QEMU user mode emulation to run the utility, without ever having rewritten that archive code in C or figuring out how it actually works.
I figured you’d have to be exceptionally proud of this. I don’t find this specific, yet extremely useful skill, to be common among reverse engineers.
Though you’d wish it was!
I figured you’d have to be exceptionally proud of this. I don’t find this specific, yet extremely useful skill, to be common among reverse engineers.
Though you’d wish it was!
Amazing. Do you have any intention of opening a merge request to get this into Ghidra? Or maybe in the way of a plugin?
I tried to upstream some of my refactorings/modifications needed to support this, but it was rejected by upstream [1]. I don't blame the Ghidra project for this decision ; my modifications are fairly intrusive (modifying the relocation table after the initial load, extensive refactoring of the ELF support code...) and my workflow is essentially unproved in public.
By that I mean I have no documentation, no series of technical articles describing this process and no public, non-trivial project to demonstrate it in real life. I do have a currently private decompilation project that uses this successfully [2], but it's not currently public and it's nowhere near finished.
Also, I only wrote a relocation synthesizer for statically-linked, 32-bit, little endian MIPS ELF. That's a fairly obscure platform, I'd expect most people care about mainstream instruction sets like x86_64 or ARM64.
If you can suggest a forum where people would be interested in this, I can drop a message there and answer more in-depth questions if you want. So far I've worked on this all on my own and I'm kinda out of the loop from the rest of the reverse-engineering community.
[1] https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/pull/5010#i...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35739949
By that I mean I have no documentation, no series of technical articles describing this process and no public, non-trivial project to demonstrate it in real life. I do have a currently private decompilation project that uses this successfully [2], but it's not currently public and it's nowhere near finished.
Also, I only wrote a relocation synthesizer for statically-linked, 32-bit, little endian MIPS ELF. That's a fairly obscure platform, I'd expect most people care about mainstream instruction sets like x86_64 or ARM64.
If you can suggest a forum where people would be interested in this, I can drop a message there and answer more in-depth questions if you want. So far I've worked on this all on my own and I'm kinda out of the loop from the rest of the reverse-engineering community.
[1] https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra/pull/5010#i...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35739949
That might make LGPL static linking more legally feasible for a lot of programs too!
Lots of things over the last decade or two. I can count almost one hundred repos on GitHub, but most of them are not very popular with other people, my projects seem to only scratch my own itches..
I have my own lunisolar calendar and decimal time (with centidays and dimidays) so I produced a lot of code for that on various devices. I also wrote two chess engines and a hobby operating system.
And countless web apps, like one to read the daily/monthly top of HN and Reddit, another to host my pictures (on a cool domain hack), one to manage the batch jobs on my chess engine cluster in a rack at home that helps keeping the house warm in winter, and lately my own frontend to Bing API because I was growing dissatisfied with DuckDuckGo.
I have my own lunisolar calendar and decimal time (with centidays and dimidays) so I produced a lot of code for that on various devices. I also wrote two chess engines and a hobby operating system.
And countless web apps, like one to read the daily/monthly top of HN and Reddit, another to host my pictures (on a cool domain hack), one to manage the batch jobs on my chess engine cluster in a rack at home that helps keeping the house warm in winter, and lately my own frontend to Bing API because I was growing dissatisfied with DuckDuckGo.
An app that helps me with shopping at my main supermarket.
I usually go always to the same supermarket twice a week. I was frustrated that every time I changed something in my shopping list I had to mentally recompute the optimal path to pick up everything.
Now with my app I am able to build the graph of the entire supermarket (each node represents a rack with shopping items) and then given my shopping list it computes the optimal path from the entrance to the exit. It's a version of the classical travelling salesman problem
I usually go always to the same supermarket twice a week. I was frustrated that every time I changed something in my shopping list I had to mentally recompute the optimal path to pick up everything.
Now with my app I am able to build the graph of the entire supermarket (each node represents a rack with shopping items) and then given my shopping list it computes the optimal path from the entrance to the exit. It's a version of the classical travelling salesman problem
Interesting! How did you ingest all the nodes/racks into your system? Did you shave the yak?
My graph is a partial representation of the supermarket and does not contain all the goods. It has just the stuff that I've bought at least once and manually positioned into the nodes. Sometimes the supermarket decides to relocate groups of goods and I have to update my graph again, but it does not happen too often (they do it probably once or twice a year)
Wow, thats neat! Could you maybe share it? (Hate shopping! And wife tends to always add items in random order to shopping list so it takes ages)
I got fed up of trying to access servers I was whitelisted to but my IP had changed so I wrote a script that runs on startup and lets me copy my IP if I want. ghbarton.com/blog
I put together some operational amplifiers as filters to measure skin voltage and infrared absorption then used machine learning to learn to identify me and to measure blood pressure, pulse rate and oxygen saturation.
I was close to predicting/estimating blood sugar when I lost momentum and also had a few errors making up PCBs.
I was close to predicting/estimating blood sugar when I lost momentum and also had a few errors making up PCBs.
I got tired of editing videos, so I wrote a tiny web app that allows me to record uniform ready-to-publish videos for my SaaS in real-time, so creating & publishing a 5-min video only takes me about 15 minutes.
The videos look like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rdeir2-bVA
Creating a video is simple:
- think about the subject (usually during the week)
- 5 min: copy an existing video script and edit it to match the current subject
- 5 min: record the video with OBS capturing the web output
- 5 min: publish it on FB/LI/youtube/...
It uses a simple scripting language with actions that I can trigger by pressing a button. The script has custom commands that allow you to mount HTML/overlay the webcam video/show the webcam video as a thumbnail/play music/... And you can compose commands into other commands.
Here's an example script I used for the video mentioned in the beginning:
The videos look like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rdeir2-bVA
Creating a video is simple:
- think about the subject (usually during the week)
- 5 min: copy an existing video script and edit it to match the current subject
- 5 min: record the video with OBS capturing the web output
- 5 min: publish it on FB/LI/youtube/...
It uses a simple scripting language with actions that I can trigger by pressing a button. The script has custom commands that allow you to mount HTML/overlay the webcam video/show the webcam video as a thumbnail/play music/... And you can compose commands into other commands.
Here's an example script I used for the video mentioned in the beginning:
const script:Record<string,string[]> = {
Intro: [
`/name empty screen with overlays
/remove *
/volume 0`,
`/name empty screen without overlays
/remove *
/volume 0
/append div.hide-overlay`,
`/subs
How to quickly qualify leads
for premium outdoor structures
without a configurator
`,
`/intro
# Quickly qualify leads
## for premium outdoor structures
### without a configurator
/caption Tom Janssens / Owner
/wait 3s
/remove *
/subs
https://virtualsaleslab.com
marketeers of premium outdoor structures
activate & qualify leads
via online 3D configurators
In this video
explain you
a simple and easy way
to qualify a lead
without using a configurator`
],
Main: [`/remove *
/append img#bg.fullscreen[src="prices.png"]
/select #bg
/animate fade-in 3s both
`,
],
Outro: [
`/site https://**OBFUSCATED**/r/vsl/vsl/en/designer/index/ts-alu`,
`/remove *
/caption Tom Janssens / Owner
/wait 5s
/cfg https://**OBFUSCATED**/r/vsl/vsl/nl/designer/index/solar-de
`,
`/remove *
/outro
# https://virtualsaleslab.com
### [email protected]`]
};
export default script;
Depends what you mean by "for myself".
For practicality: I wrote a flashcard app to use on the tube to help me learn French. I wanted a couple of things specifically: - it should be super simple to use on a mobile device - it should be trivial to add a new flashcard on the fly - it should prioritise flashcards I've got wrong more than I've got right - it should work offline, pushing back to the server once there's a connection again Code: https://github.com/alex-moon/clin
For fun: I wrote an app that tied a bunch of machine vision ML repos together to generate "explorable dream worlds" in the form of short HD videos. I wanted a simple, fun interface that would let me specify a schema/config for the next video, then hit "go" and watch it generate over the course of however many hours, including previewing what we had so far. Code: https://github.com/alex-moon/vc
For practicality: I wrote a flashcard app to use on the tube to help me learn French. I wanted a couple of things specifically: - it should be super simple to use on a mobile device - it should be trivial to add a new flashcard on the fly - it should prioritise flashcards I've got wrong more than I've got right - it should work offline, pushing back to the server once there's a connection again Code: https://github.com/alex-moon/clin
For fun: I wrote an app that tied a bunch of machine vision ML repos together to generate "explorable dream worlds" in the form of short HD videos. I wanted a simple, fun interface that would let me specify a schema/config for the next video, then hit "go" and watch it generate over the course of however many hours, including previewing what we had so far. Code: https://github.com/alex-moon/vc
I don't know if it's interesting, but here it is.
The local branch of the company I work for has recently included a food allowance of 8 eur/day as a perk. I don't like / have opportunities to eat out most days, so I have built a little utility that fetches via a REST API the offers at the deli / grocery store on the way to my kid's nursery, and solves a knapsack problem to generate the most optimal shopping basket (i.e., closest to but not exceeding 8 euros). I extracted the API from the deli's website, as it seems to be something custom. Of course, I might not care about some of the items that the utility includes in the most optimal basket. To mitigate this, the utility iteratively refines the basket by asking me if there is something I want to remove, and then replaces it with the next most optimal items to fill up the remaining budget.
The local branch of the company I work for has recently included a food allowance of 8 eur/day as a perk. I don't like / have opportunities to eat out most days, so I have built a little utility that fetches via a REST API the offers at the deli / grocery store on the way to my kid's nursery, and solves a knapsack problem to generate the most optimal shopping basket (i.e., closest to but not exceeding 8 euros). I extracted the API from the deli's website, as it seems to be something custom. Of course, I might not care about some of the items that the utility includes in the most optimal basket. To mitigate this, the utility iteratively refines the basket by asking me if there is something I want to remove, and then replaces it with the next most optimal items to fill up the remaining budget.
What's this deli / grocery store that has a REST API?
Like a local joint. They have a few stores around the country. It’s a small country, the API powers their website so you can see what is on offer in your local branch.
Ah, cool. On second read you did say, "I extracted the API from the deli's website, as it seems to be something custom."
Not something terribly impressive or useful, but I wrote an image-scrambling (anything-scrambling, really) program which is quite unique.
I was fascinated by the story of David A. Scott, who was obsessed with "bijective compression". It means compression programs where all files are valid archives, and moreover no two archives decompress to the same file. So no magic number file signatures, no checksums, no redundancy whatsoever. Scott felt that compression algorithms that didn't have this property were wasteful, and of course, in a narrow technical sense he was right. There are of course a number of practical reasons why we tolerate a little redundancy.
But he wouldn't let practicality stop him. He made bijective versions of many common compression algorithms. He made a bijective Huffman encoder (one where you'll never get "unexpected end of file"), a bijective arithmetic encoder, and even a bijective LZ variant. But most impressive of all, he made a bijective BWT version.
The Burrows-Wheeler transform is fascinating on its own, and it's almost bijective. It sorts letters in a text by their context, so that letters with similar context appear close to each other. In a strange vaguely DFT-like way, it switches long-distance and short-distance patterns around. The result is, in a typical text, long runs of the same letter, which can be easily compressed.
But the traditional BWT technically works only up to rotation. You get a rotation of the original string back when reversing it, but you don't know if it's the right rotation. You need to store a tiny piece of extra information, either the index of the rotation, or a single sentinel character known to be the last (or first) letter in the original string. Getting rid of that last piece of information seemed impossible, but Scott figured out a way to do it!
The result is that we have a truly bijective version of the BWT transform. Now I'm no mathematician, but surely that is beautiful? It's a true permutation now, that still does the weird low-order higher-order swapping thing, that you could surely analyse with many algebraic approaches that wouldn't work for the original.
Anyway, what I did was implement this transformation on the lines or pixels of an image. So you get an effect similar to the "pixel sort" effect that glitch artists were into for a while, but it's reversible. I guess it's not really useful for anything other than making glitch art, but it's at least a program that does something pretty unique, and which only a very specific kind of weirdo would have the skills and inclination to write (namely me).
I was fascinated by the story of David A. Scott, who was obsessed with "bijective compression". It means compression programs where all files are valid archives, and moreover no two archives decompress to the same file. So no magic number file signatures, no checksums, no redundancy whatsoever. Scott felt that compression algorithms that didn't have this property were wasteful, and of course, in a narrow technical sense he was right. There are of course a number of practical reasons why we tolerate a little redundancy.
But he wouldn't let practicality stop him. He made bijective versions of many common compression algorithms. He made a bijective Huffman encoder (one where you'll never get "unexpected end of file"), a bijective arithmetic encoder, and even a bijective LZ variant. But most impressive of all, he made a bijective BWT version.
The Burrows-Wheeler transform is fascinating on its own, and it's almost bijective. It sorts letters in a text by their context, so that letters with similar context appear close to each other. In a strange vaguely DFT-like way, it switches long-distance and short-distance patterns around. The result is, in a typical text, long runs of the same letter, which can be easily compressed.
But the traditional BWT technically works only up to rotation. You get a rotation of the original string back when reversing it, but you don't know if it's the right rotation. You need to store a tiny piece of extra information, either the index of the rotation, or a single sentinel character known to be the last (or first) letter in the original string. Getting rid of that last piece of information seemed impossible, but Scott figured out a way to do it!
The result is that we have a truly bijective version of the BWT transform. Now I'm no mathematician, but surely that is beautiful? It's a true permutation now, that still does the weird low-order higher-order swapping thing, that you could surely analyse with many algebraic approaches that wouldn't work for the original.
Anyway, what I did was implement this transformation on the lines or pixels of an image. So you get an effect similar to the "pixel sort" effect that glitch artists were into for a while, but it's reversible. I guess it's not really useful for anything other than making glitch art, but it's at least a program that does something pretty unique, and which only a very specific kind of weirdo would have the skills and inclination to write (namely me).
I agree the BWT is genius.
"Glitch art"
It sounds like the real art is the algorithm and code. Would love to see it.
"Glitch art"
It sounds like the real art is the algorithm and code. Would love to see it.
A very basic implementation of the algorithm I have here:
https://gist.github.com/HaraldKorneliussen/2bf20ca4f4f28c1aa...
I implemented a slightly more efficient version of it that uses a prefix doubling strategy to do the string sorting step, as well as some glue code to make it work on lines and pixels, but that code is too messy to share for now.
https://gist.github.com/HaraldKorneliussen/2bf20ca4f4f28c1aa...
I implemented a slightly more efficient version of it that uses a prefix doubling strategy to do the string sorting step, as well as some glue code to make it work on lines and pixels, but that code is too messy to share for now.
RegExTractor - simple java program to search for regex in text, then replaces each string with another one and appends all those results in other text window. VERY useful when you need to extract something from a text dump and present it in another format, like extracting all events from a log and writing them in one line between quotes and comma separated, ready to dump into some db query.
A "framework" to convert my Jekyll blog into Gemini and Gopher sites. Mainly converts markdown with Pandoc, but also generates a rudimentary site index and headers/footers for each page.
https://github.com/ecliptik/ecliptik.github.io/blob/main/_sc...
https://github.com/ecliptik/ecliptik.github.io/blob/main/_sc...
Mine isn’t particularly advanced or cool but I built this little directory of kaomojis (text-based emoji) with a cat mascot while I was in San Francisco for an interview at Flickr (this was a long time ago). At the time I was a junior designer with very little dev experience, so this project helped get my feet wet.
http://kaomojicat.com/
I originally built it for a now-ex-girlfriend, but I use it all the time myself to add a little spice to things like tweets or error messages.
http://kaomojicat.com/
I originally built it for a now-ex-girlfriend, but I use it all the time myself to add a little spice to things like tweets or error messages.
I made a custom client for the ChatGPT API, so that I can template and chain together prompts to automate content generation. I only just finished off the workflow feature to prompt chain (where one output goes into one of more prompts), but personally think its cool and has lots of applications.
A little rough on the edges so probably not ready for a ShowHN yet.
https://promptpro.tznc.net
A little rough on the edges so probably not ready for a ShowHN yet.
https://promptpro.tznc.net
I built a Frigate event listener and notifier service for Mobile phones that makes use of Pushover.
The currently supported setup of Frigate alerts using homeassistant seemed to be very profoundly complex and I just thought I could use the Frigate API and wrote a small tool with Nodejs. It has been working flawlessly, including sending photos of events to my Android phone.
The currently supported setup of Frigate alerts using homeassistant seemed to be very profoundly complex and I just thought I could use the Frigate API and wrote a small tool with Nodejs. It has been working flawlessly, including sending photos of events to my Android phone.
What's the use case for this?
Getting motion detection events along with video clips and images in push notifications for iPhone and Android, from Frigate, which is a selfhosted NVR for your security cams.
I mean, I put a 4 litre V8 in my mx-5, which I guess is 'tech I built just for myself'
That's got to be so much fun to drive :)
Triumph had the 'Stag', I suspect this is much the same effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Stag
(talk about problem cars...)
Triumph had the 'Stag', I suspect this is much the same effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Stag
(talk about problem cars...)
I've always loved the Stags too. Honestly the mx5 is a ton of fun just because it's that little bit 'newer', and doesn't have as many old car problems.. but it's definitely the same recipe!
Created a fuckup counter for my team on an old ipad. Inspired by the "x days with no accident" from the Simpsons, a webapp that shows in kiosk mode the number of days without a fuckup and a reset button.
> the "x days with no accident" from the Simpsons
Though no doubt most of us know them from all the parodies¹, those signs are real.
¹ https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XDaysSince
Though no doubt most of us know them from all the parodies¹, those signs are real.
¹ https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XDaysSince
- build a tool to easily connect and analyze public datasets. Eg connect dataset for country population with the dataset on international students in the US and get new dataset on international students in the US per capita
- build a tool to publish my personal website from my Apple Notes
In 2017 I spent a while messing around and creating a system to code and control my computer via voice. I was experiencing RSI pain at the time, and thought I should be proactive and have a strategy where I could still work and use my computer in case it kept getting worse and it became an impedance to create such a tool. I tried every voice to text I could find, and unfortunately for me the only acceptable one in terms of quality was Dragon Naturally Speaking, which was commercial and Windows only (I use Linux). I decided to build a virtual machine running Windows XP which ran the voice -> text translation, and then run a local server on the Linux side which would receive packets of text from the virtual machine. It was then a matter of parsing the string for language primitives, as you'd need a custom alphabet of keywords to do certain actions like type any given key combination, and inventing your own primitives for this reduces ambiguity (voice detection is only so accurate and the use case here means it's going to be less accurate than usual since you are not speaking in expected english, plus you want everything to be single syllable).
The process of building a dictionary of primitives and shorts was very much akin to what court reporters / Stenographers do to type fast, and was also probably related to my RSI given that I started my career out as a Stenographer. Something I regret in retrospect.
In terms of voice coding, things really have gotten so much better since then where we now have amazing free and open source options for text to speech, and we've also seen a proliferation of apps used to code via voice. I'm partial to Talon, though I don't do any voice coding today. https://talonvoice.com/. Github also just announced a voice to code copilot type thing, and at this point given the advances we're seeing in AI I'm sure I'll be okay if my RSI gets bad. This video was one of the things I watched and helped me in building the system, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI
I'm also building a video game, and plan on building many more. I'm writing it in a monorepo where I have a common shared foundation, and then apps using and building on that foundation. I believe in dogfooding my code, and have built a bunch of things with it towards that end
The thing I'm happiest with and use the most is a small and simple music player. I never could find a replacement Foobar2000, so I wrote my own. It runs nearly 24/7 on my PC's.
I've also built a breathing app after discovering that breathing exercises were like magic in terms of improving mood and reducing blood pressure. The one I built was modeled after https://github.com/jithware/brethap, and I mainly built it because it was trivial to do and Firefox kept putting the web tab to sleep. If you have high blood pressure, I 100% recommend exploring different breathing exercises.
I've also built two different GUI wrappers around image generators. The first app was built around VQGan+Clip back before Stable Diffusion, and it supported swapping the backends to change generators. I built it as a web app with Svelte, and it let me explore the images and auto-generate based on a theme or with a given sentence structure where parts of the sentence could be sampled from a pool. The second one was much the same, but it was built with my monorepo, it was built around Stable Diffusion, and I added an image-to-image component where I have a simple UI to draw on the input image through the app. The usefulness of this project is near 0 as there are better open source versions out there.
I also built a static website generator in Ruby for my personal website. I've since soured on Ruby though, and my website is no longer online. There are other things but I'll leave it there because this is already too long.
The process of building a dictionary of primitives and shorts was very much akin to what court reporters / Stenographers do to type fast, and was also probably related to my RSI given that I started my career out as a Stenographer. Something I regret in retrospect.
In terms of voice coding, things really have gotten so much better since then where we now have amazing free and open source options for text to speech, and we've also seen a proliferation of apps used to code via voice. I'm partial to Talon, though I don't do any voice coding today. https://talonvoice.com/. Github also just announced a voice to code copilot type thing, and at this point given the advances we're seeing in AI I'm sure I'll be okay if my RSI gets bad. This video was one of the things I watched and helped me in building the system, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SkdfdXWYaI
I'm also building a video game, and plan on building many more. I'm writing it in a monorepo where I have a common shared foundation, and then apps using and building on that foundation. I believe in dogfooding my code, and have built a bunch of things with it towards that end
The thing I'm happiest with and use the most is a small and simple music player. I never could find a replacement Foobar2000, so I wrote my own. It runs nearly 24/7 on my PC's.
I've also built a breathing app after discovering that breathing exercises were like magic in terms of improving mood and reducing blood pressure. The one I built was modeled after https://github.com/jithware/brethap, and I mainly built it because it was trivial to do and Firefox kept putting the web tab to sleep. If you have high blood pressure, I 100% recommend exploring different breathing exercises.
I've also built two different GUI wrappers around image generators. The first app was built around VQGan+Clip back before Stable Diffusion, and it supported swapping the backends to change generators. I built it as a web app with Svelte, and it let me explore the images and auto-generate based on a theme or with a given sentence structure where parts of the sentence could be sampled from a pool. The second one was much the same, but it was built with my monorepo, it was built around Stable Diffusion, and I added an image-to-image component where I have a simple UI to draw on the input image through the app. The usefulness of this project is near 0 as there are better open source versions out there.
I also built a static website generator in Ruby for my personal website. I've since soured on Ruby though, and my website is no longer online. There are other things but I'll leave it there because this is already too long.
TL;DR: A React front-end component workshop, a simple version of Storybook.
So around 5 months ago, I needed a tool to preview front-end (React) components whilst I create them for a personal project of mine. There were two options: Storybook or Ladle.
Storybook is the tool everybody knows. I've used it before quite a lot. It's very big, full-fat, supports loads of use-cases, etc.
Ladle comes out of Uber. It's very small, lean, and doesn't support that much. After trying it out for a while, it just gives me a feeling that it is an Uber engineer's 20% project to learn some new tech.
So I realised that I wanted something kind of in the middle. Something that's a bit more customizable and full-fat than Ladle, but something simpler, less intrusive, and less "framework magic" than Storybook.
This led me to create Exhibitor (https://github.com/samhuk/exhibitor) (https://demo.exhibitor.dev).
I worked on it on-and-off for a couple months, and it ended up being something that I'm quite proud of. It's not perfect, and supports only a fraction of what Storybook does, however for a tool made by 1 engineer vs the 20+ for Storybook, I'm quite happy about it!
So around 5 months ago, I needed a tool to preview front-end (React) components whilst I create them for a personal project of mine. There were two options: Storybook or Ladle.
Storybook is the tool everybody knows. I've used it before quite a lot. It's very big, full-fat, supports loads of use-cases, etc.
Ladle comes out of Uber. It's very small, lean, and doesn't support that much. After trying it out for a while, it just gives me a feeling that it is an Uber engineer's 20% project to learn some new tech.
So I realised that I wanted something kind of in the middle. Something that's a bit more customizable and full-fat than Ladle, but something simpler, less intrusive, and less "framework magic" than Storybook.
This led me to create Exhibitor (https://github.com/samhuk/exhibitor) (https://demo.exhibitor.dev).
I worked on it on-and-off for a couple months, and it ended up being something that I'm quite proud of. It's not perfect, and supports only a fraction of what Storybook does, however for a tool made by 1 engineer vs the 20+ for Storybook, I'm quite happy about it!
Very nice! This should definitely get some more attention as this space needs some serious competition as Storybook is terrible at the best of times.
Thanks! Personally, I have immense respect for Storybook and the engineers behind it. It supports a dizzying amount of use-cases.
Having said that, however, I think that they did go too far down some paths that I would have liked to not see it go down. I feel like them supporting so many use-cases came at a cost of usability. In addition to this, there is quite obviously too much framework-magic, causing obscure undesirable behavior.
However, it's still an awesome tool. Just a little too full-fat for some of my more simpler use-cases :)
Having said that, however, I think that they did go too far down some paths that I would have liked to not see it go down. I feel like them supporting so many use-cases came at a cost of usability. In addition to this, there is quite obviously too much framework-magic, causing obscure undesirable behavior.
However, it's still an awesome tool. Just a little too full-fat for some of my more simpler use-cases :)
A Random Movie Maker that looks at my 4 TB collection of personal history... digitized journals, email, photos, digitized cassettes, phone messages, and home videos, and creates a random 15 minute movie. Each video will include about 50 clip sources. It's a crazy trip down memory lane.
Can you describe how you dod that?
mock - language agnostic API mocking and testing utility
https://github.com/dhuan/mock
I built it because I needed an easy way to set-up API endpoints that weren't implemented yet by some other team. After a while I open-sourced it.
wikicmd https://github.com/dhuan/wikicmd
Navigating through mediawiki to get pages edited all time requires a bunch of clicks. I wanted to be able to quickly edit wiki pages using any editor program instead of the browser.
I built it because I needed an easy way to set-up API endpoints that weren't implemented yet by some other team. After a while I open-sourced it.
wikicmd https://github.com/dhuan/wikicmd
Navigating through mediawiki to get pages edited all time requires a bunch of clicks. I wanted to be able to quickly edit wiki pages using any editor program instead of the browser.
Automatic stand-up message generator powered by GPT-4: https://github.com/golergka/standup_generator
I've only spent about 6 hours on this, but it helps me every day.
I've only spent about 6 hours on this, but it helps me every day.
I built a home brewing system with an Arduino, a 4G router, mqtt/pyton stack and a grafana frontend :D
Building a small quadcopter back in 2012 or so (before cheap toy/consumer drones were everywhere) was a fun project.
Back then, it involved an Arduino, the internals of a Wii MotionPlus (cost effective way to get the gyro sensors), a plywood frame, and the open-source 'MultiWii' code.
That first build never flew well, but soon afterwards it started to become much easier to build a very stable quadcopter, as all-in-one flight controller boards started to appear, along with more knowledge of which brushless motors, props, and ESCs worked well together.
Back then, it involved an Arduino, the internals of a Wii MotionPlus (cost effective way to get the gyro sensors), a plywood frame, and the open-source 'MultiWii' code.
That first build never flew well, but soon afterwards it started to become much easier to build a very stable quadcopter, as all-in-one flight controller boards started to appear, along with more knowledge of which brushless motors, props, and ESCs worked well together.
I have a rail line right under my apartment, so I built a small computer vision app running on a Rasperry Pi which records each train passing, and tries to stitch an image of it.
It has a frontend at https://trains.jo-m.ch/.
Edit: it's currently raining and the rain drops are disturbing the images a bit.
It has a frontend at https://trains.jo-m.ch/.
Edit: it's currently raining and the rain drops are disturbing the images a bit.
Cool! :D
This is so cool!
No interest in trains, but your website is great - simple, visual and effective.
This is really cool! Thanks for creating and sharing!
Sounds interesting id love to know how you do it. Is the speed calculated based on the noise of the wheels going over a track join? Then you can work out the length/speed based on the time it takes etc. Are the train types/images random or calculated some how?
There is a parameter which tells the program how many pixels there are per meter. From this you can compute the length after stitching. Using framerate, you can compute the speed in the same way.
Taking trainspotting to a new level, congratulations
Made me think of Kartrak (an early optical barcode-like system for tracking rolling stock): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K8UpMNYIPo
Awesome.
Congratulations from a fellow Swiss (and panorama photo dabbler).
And yet again I forgot it’s not the Chinese TLD.
By the way I have a quick expansion for most TLDs and for the Swiss .ch “cheese” sounds rather more apt and easier than the real one in my head :)
By the way I have a quick expansion for most TLDs and for the Swiss .ch “cheese” sounds rather more apt and easier than the real one in my head :)
Really cool. They look like model trains! :-)
Yeah! I've never seen trains so clean and modern looking in my life. They look like they came out of a futuristic toy set.
They're swiss trains, I guess we have enough wealth to make sure that our trains are clean. The interior is also almost always clean, except early morning on weekends (drunk people).
From time to time I see a train with graffiti on it, but usually they remove such things very fast.
From time to time I see a train with graffiti on it, but usually they remove such things very fast.
That's Europe for you. Usable train infra is actually a thing.
Maybe West Europe. Definitely not here in the east.
There are visitors from the east sometimes ;)
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/2483
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/2483
It somewhat works but let's not exaggerate how well it works.
Nice job! I would be really happy if I ever finished my own hobby projects this well.
that is very neat, thanks for sharing!
What’s up with the duplicated cars at the top?
The camera is pointing at the car. The train is moving past the car. The images of the whole train are made by stitching together lots of photos, all containing the bit of the train in front of the car as it moves past it.
From what I can see, they're not actually duplicated, I would suggest taking a closer look at the windows. But I do agree that it's quite hard to see the difference.
The trains look very clean from the outside. I do wonder how loud is it, to live so near the tracks.
The trains look very clean from the outside. I do wonder how loud is it, to live so near the tracks.
They are also very clean from the inside :).
I also live right next to a train line in CH (that has exactly the same kind of rolling stock passing by as the ones captured by jo-m). These are modern commuter trains (no cargo and long distance trains), and are a lot less loud than you'd expect. A somewhat busy street nearby would be an order of magnitude more annoying.
I also live right next to a train line in CH (that has exactly the same kind of rolling stock passing by as the ones captured by jo-m). These are modern commuter trains (no cargo and long distance trains), and are a lot less loud than you'd expect. A somewhat busy street nearby would be an order of magnitude more annoying.
This is awesome. Really nice!
So RAD !
This is really impressive. Very nice work
I live on an airport - Id really like to do this.
https://skybot.cam/ (see also https://github.com/IQTLabs/SkyScan) and might be of interest to you?
Do you mean by an airport?
Or do you litteratur love in or on an airport?
Or do you litteratur love in or on an airport?
this is so cool :D
Given the type of trains that are passing (it seems no IC/IR), along with their precise timing and direction, I'm sure it is easy to figure out where exactly you are living.
Yes.
Especially in Switzerland where the trains actually go on time :P But anyway does it really matter? It'll still be hard to identify the actual apartment.
Most online webcams are easier to identify
Most online webcams are easier to identify
Given an approximate location, even I could do that. You just look at the camera angle.
Cool project - thanks for sharing!
This is amazing
That's amazing. Very cool.
This is such a cool project! I live right next to a busy road and for a long time have wanted to do something like this that would count the vehicles passing. I've always been curious how many cars pass on a given day and I feel like the hardest part now adays would be getting the right camera angle so if cars are occupying all 3 lanes they aren't counted incorrectly. From there I just need to detect cars as they pass and count them.
It's really cool to see it used like this! The resulting images are really neat as well!
It's really cool to see it used like this! The resulting images are really neat as well!
There was a post yesterday about counting traffic on a pi, you might want to check it out: https://nathanrooy.github.io/posts/2019-02-06/raspberry-pi-d...
Thank you for this! It's great!
wow that is so cool!
This is so cool!!
Tip: some more interesting ones (including failed ones) show up if you filter for shortest.
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/350
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/3224
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/4045
Etc
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/350
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/3224
https://trains.jo-m.ch/#/trains/4045
Etc
I think the first one is a firefighter train. There is one (the same?) that lives near me.
Wow this is cool as hell!!
Wow that's very cool. The resulting super flat images of the trains is really interesting -- like taking a photo from immense distance
This is really sick!
I love this so much. Amazing use of creativity and tech chops. A++ would trainspot again.
Very cool, how does the stitching work?
I think this might be my favorite. Wonderful idea and execution!
This is close to what I've always wanted to build; a camera watching the road next to me that records the speed of the vehicle traveling by. I should have everything needed from a simple camera setup, but I've not bothered actually doing it.
Since you have speed, I should dig into this.
Since you have speed, I should dig into this.
Same here, I have a Pi 3 but I want to have this outside in the balcony, the question that always stops me is how to power it and what camera do I meed?
My plan was to stick the Pi inside, and power both it and the camera with Power over Ethernet (external-rated PoE cameras are a dime-a-dozen on Alibaba and friends).
I even got so far as to get it working with Zoneminder to dump out the clips that had motion, but didn't get further.
I even got so far as to get it working with Zoneminder to dump out the clips that had motion, but didn't get further.
I wanted that with noise levels. I'm so very tired of hearing illegally modified exhausts. It seems like an I2S mic would give calibrated levels.
Could you show average speed vs car manufacturer? Or vs car type (compact, European luxury, minivan, truck). I've always wondered if this is correlated.
I actually have done something similar to this, since I had pretty clear view of the road infront and had my old android phone laying around,
Used to yolov5 to detect vehicles and deepsort to track them, also got a rough estimate for the speed of the pass
heres the two part blog i wrote about it
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor/
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor-part-two/
Used to yolov5 to detect vehicles and deepsort to track them, also got a rough estimate for the speed of the pass
heres the two part blog i wrote about it
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor/
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor-part-two/
A hybrid between area and line scan - block scan camera?
Very neat. What are those power cars (triebkopf)? I thought sbb was only using proper locomotives (cabs at both ends) and EMUs (kiss, twindexx, …).
Some cool tech there too - client side sqlite db over wasm, neat! :)
Reminds me of the 90's Lego computer game "Lego Loco"
I'm glad there's at least one other person in the world who remembers that game.
Have you considered getting a line scan camera for sharper and higher resolution images? I took some train scans with one: https://daniel.lawrence.lu/photos/
Incidentally I also built some tech for it: https://github.com/dllu/nectar but I need to update the readme...
Incidentally I also built some tech for it: https://github.com/dllu/nectar but I need to update the readme...
I remember seeing your photographs on Wikimedia Commons and wondering how you did them - now I know! I always assumed that you just used a very quick shutter with an f-stop of zero :)
I know he told us how already, but that would have left the background sharp, rather than always the same.
I have a huge backlog of photos that I need to contribute to Wikimedia Commons! I'll get around to doing it eventually, hopefully before 2045.
Do it sooner than 2038 and you get the privilege of 32-bit timestamps on the metadata :)
Thanks for sharing, those photographs are very clear and sharp (especially this one: https://pics.dllu.net/file/dllu-pics/boston-pcc.jpg) it seems to tickle my brain.
This reminds me of Wes Anderson movies for some reason.
His style is to shoot his subjects straight-on. Most other movies have the camera at an angle.
I'm a big fan of Wes Anderson's aesthetics and would love to shoot that funicular train from Grand Budapest Hotel (which actually exists --- the Buda Hill funicular) using my line scan camera.
I have three of those actually:
https://daniel.lawrence.lu/photos/pcc
Technically, the photo could be twice the resolution, since the length of the line scan sensor is 4096. It consists of two lines, RGRGRG and GBGBGB. By interpolating the red and blue channels, it would be possible to get images 4096 pixels tall. The challenge is that the two green channels apparently have quite different sensitivity and also each pixel has some variation in sensitivity, which also seems to drift with temperature and settings, so it's quite annoying to calibrate everything properly haha.
https://daniel.lawrence.lu/photos/pcc
Technically, the photo could be twice the resolution, since the length of the line scan sensor is 4096. It consists of two lines, RGRGRG and GBGBGB. By interpolating the red and blue channels, it would be possible to get images 4096 pixels tall. The challenge is that the two green channels apparently have quite different sensitivity and also each pixel has some variation in sensitivity, which also seems to drift with temperature and settings, so it's quite annoying to calibrate everything properly haha.
Wow, the pictures look amazing!
Yes, the look of line scan images were an inspiration for this project. But of course, I also tried to keep BOM costs down and so ended up with a RP4 + RPi Camera.
The RPi HQ camera is a nice step up from the regular RPi camera while being not too expensive too. Incidentally, I also have a project using that [0] but unfortunately no trains where I live.
[0] https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/y2022m01d27/
[0] https://daniel.lawrence.lu/blog/y2022m01d27/
How do you get the x scaling right? You have to measure the speed of the train somehow?
When the train is moving at a constant speed, you can just scale the image manually to make it just right. If it's moving at a non-constant speed, you can apply a spline or similar to remove the distortion.
Your blog is a gem, thanks for sharing!
Woah the resolution! You can see the earpods on a person behind the tinted windows of Shinkansen.
I love how the line scan camera’s horizontal background makes it look like the trains are moving impossibly fast. Not only are the images sharp & high res, it has a great aesthetic and implies you were tracking an action shot.
Have you tried the opposite direction? Sitting on the train with the line feed and taking a picture of outside? Like say, a panorama view of the entire run-length of the line, distorted in proportion to the trains turns and accelerations.
When you say "right under my apartment", where exactly do you mean? Because I also have a train line going underground very near my apartment but it's not directly under. Could I capture such images? And I'm on the 4th floor.
I got confused at first too. What he means is "somewhere outside on the ground level while my apt is not on the ground level, there are trains passing by which I can see from my apt". You need line of sight.
This is not mysterious tech deriving images from sound traveling through the floor. You will be out of luck with your underground subway.
This is not mysterious tech deriving images from sound traveling through the floor. You will be out of luck with your underground subway.
If you have the schedule and the sound I'm sure you could make a cam with translucent ground. You should be able to figure out where it is, which model and how long it is. Who knows, maybe the orchestra of break sounds (it has many) is unique enough to spot which it is exactly.
A fun fact is that there is a monorail station built in the middle of a residential building, so it might also be literal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liziba_station
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liziba_station
Curious to know how you manage to concentrate during waking hours on work and how you sleep peacefully?
There's a lot of trains in Switzerland so there's a lot of apartments by tracks. For the most part, the apartments are just built well.
Plus, the trains and tracks are very well maintained, so they create a lot less noise than you may be used to.
Plus, the trains and tracks are very well maintained, so they create a lot less noise than you may be used to.
This is cool. How do you calculate the speed of the train?
I'm assuming you are measuring how far a certain feature of the train takes to get from one point of the frame to the other. Similar to how police catch people speeding by measuring how long road markings take to pass in a given frame.
I'm assuming you are measuring how far a certain feature of the train takes to get from one point of the frame to the other. Similar to how police catch people speeding by measuring how long road markings take to pass in a given frame.
Amazing photos
This is incredible. Congrats.
Very nice! Pleasantly surprised to see the SBB logo <3
these pics look great. like some big model trail set catalog.
How accurate is the speed and length measurement?
Sharing this with SBB
I hope they notice (also makes me want to guess the location). I am in Zurich and I hope I don't find this spot
I hope they notice (also makes me want to guess the location). I am in Zurich and I hope I don't find this spot
The G-Seat as part of my sim-rig. 9 AC Servos, borderline dangerous, beast of a simulator. The G-Seat I decided to do better than commercial offerings (had tried "the best" and it was pretty average). CNC brake folded aluminium seat with moveable flaps controlled by AC Servos - had to 'de tune' as they were literally at rib-breaking speed initially. About a year worth of development designed and prototype in Fusion 360, through to this :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STnnqonpcAU
And another vid at max rpm on the servos...
https://youtu.be/eMZC0ekEXQ8?t=39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STnnqonpcAU
And another vid at max rpm on the servos...
https://youtu.be/eMZC0ekEXQ8?t=39
This is awesome. I've wanted to go down this route for a while. Every time, I basically give up at the point where I decide I want to check out https://opensfx.com and then realize I don't have an easy way to get a referral.
I'm currently using a NLR Wheel Stand, and probably don't have time to build right now, but if you'd consider shooting me an email at chris at cjkinni.com I'd love a chance at actually going down the route of building one of these. No worries if you'd prefer not to.
Great work on the whole thing!
I'm currently using a NLR Wheel Stand, and probably don't have time to build right now, but if you'd consider shooting me an email at chris at cjkinni.com I'd love a chance at actually going down the route of building one of these. No worries if you'd prefer not to.
Great work on the whole thing!
If you build the hardware and start working on the software, publicly, a sponsor would probably hear about it and sponsor you.
The only simulator I’ve ever been able to drive in was one with air bladders in the harness that applied pressure backwards. I would love to get one, but it was quite pricey.
Ive had an idea for a flight sim station for a while, but its no where near diy'able am afraid - to be able to 'mimic' different g forces, im thinking a big 'arm' rotating (like the one soviet cosmonauts and i think fighter pilots were trained on), with a capsule in the end of the arm containing a cage with a chair, rotatable 360 deg, with a screen - so if you need sode Gs, youd just rotate the cage so that your side is facing outwards...dunno about the doability at all :D
I built a website to track the generation of electricity in Spain since I couldn't find a single page from the official provider that contains all the information I wanted to look at at a glance.
https://energy.antizone.site/
It scrapes different pieces of data at different intervals.
Very cool! Would be awesome to have something like this for more countries (maybe the entire European network)
For the UK I use:
https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
It has a page for France:
https://gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/
Sweden: https://www.svk.se/om-kraftsystemet/kontrollrummet/
If you go back a few days you can see the emergency stop of Forsmark 1&2.
First brown out I have experienced in Sweden!
Nothing broke, the computers ran. The incandescent lightbulbs where down to 50% for 2 seconds and the humidifyer rebooted.
For north europeean prices next winter will be interesting: https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-... (click chart and week)
If you go back a few days you can see the emergency stop of Forsmark 1&2.
First brown out I have experienced in Sweden!
Nothing broke, the computers ran. The incandescent lightbulbs where down to 50% for 2 seconds and the humidifyer rebooted.
For north europeean prices next winter will be interesting: https://www.nordpoolgroup.com/en/Market-data1/Dayahead/Area-... (click chart and week)
I built a simple software that generates immersion of artist studios.
Example (please refresh twice to visit) here:
https://free-visit.net/fr/demo01
- Why ? As a parisian living in Belleville (poorest area), where artistes build things, I used to visit a lot of "artists studios". I have always loved this places. "J'aurai voulu être un artiste", in a way. I always thought that no photography or 360-photo would feel the Space, the immersive feeling.
- Why ? As a parisian living in Belleville (poorest area), where artistes build things, I used to visit a lot of "artists studios". I have always loved this places. "J'aurai voulu être un artiste", in a way. I always thought that no photography or 360-photo would feel the Space, the immersive feeling.
Not really interesting per se, but useful when dealing with large recursive and sparse archives:
A python script that recursively searches through zipped files within zip files (within zip files...) to find files by name and content. The goal was not to unzip the recursive structure to the file system, since the unzipped files contained hundreds gigabytes of sparse data each. Instead it works directly on the file stream and keeps the memory requirements constant.
A python script that recursively searches through zipped files within zip files (within zip files...) to find files by name and content. The goal was not to unzip the recursive structure to the file system, since the unzipped files contained hundreds gigabytes of sparse data each. Instead it works directly on the file stream and keeps the memory requirements constant.
This is basically the same reason why I started with ratarmount (https://github.com/mxmlnkn/ratarmount) but the focus was more on runtime performance and random access and as the name suggests it started out with access to recursive tar archives. The current version should also work for your use case with recursive zips. Recursive loading must be enabled with `--recursive`. It can also be used as a Python library without FUSE.
I like to play Factorio, but too often lose track of time while playing. There's no clock in the game's UI, and no way to access the system's time through the mod API. So I made a script that runs as a process on the host machine that every minute, sends commands to the game's process to build a clock in the center of the map out of concrete. Its pretty cool because you can also clearly see the time from the mini map.
https://gitlab.com/smew/factorio-clock
https://gitlab.com/smew/factorio-clock
Devs ruining your fun I'm afraid
https://www.reddit.com/r/factorio/comments/s7i4xu/1151_added...
> sends commands to the game's process
You can do that? Is there an API?
You can do that? Is there an API?
I was using factorio-init to start the process. That script makes it easy to send commands to the in-game console.
https://github.com/Bisa/factorio-init
https://wiki.factorio.com/Console
https://github.com/Bisa/factorio-init
https://wiki.factorio.com/Console
This has big Anno-series "You've been playing for [x] hours!" notification energy. I love it. Both of those game series are incredible time sinks.
I made a pomodoro timer display using a WiFi-connected ESP32 board with a small OLED display. I put it outside the guest bedroom/home office door during lockdown so my family members could see how long until I could be disturbed.
It talked to my laptop using MQTT and of course it was triggered from emacs using org-pomodoro.
It talked to my laptop using MQTT and of course it was triggered from emacs using org-pomodoro.
I built this simple website https://unexploredhq.com to find interesting (less known) places to travel with my SO and family. Instead of searching for new places by name, one can search for new places in a region with simple attributes.
I have built the database by scraping some data online, and have a database of 60,000+ locations. The attributes are built with some basic ML and text processing, nothing fancy. But this is sufficient for me to do this search: find places in Europe where I can do surfing and hiking with a temperature of less than 25 degrees.
I have built the database by scraping some data online, and have a database of 60,000+ locations. The attributes are built with some basic ML and text processing, nothing fancy. But this is sufficient for me to do this search: find places in Europe where I can do surfing and hiking with a temperature of less than 25 degrees.
Hey - this is actually pretty useful. Tried for my family trip and got some decent suggestions.
To be fair, I'm trying to turn it into a public product since I think the use-case isn't very niche.
I've recently started building https://responsebrain.com where I can add all my blog articles and automatically let ChatGPT generate responses to questions about my other product https://webtoapp.design
It's a pretty basic setup with a knowledge base you can feed anything you want (your blog articles, help center etc.). That gets put into a vector database and then I pass the related knowledge pieces to GPT along with the question.
I know there's lots of similar products out there, but none of them seem to allow manual editing of your knowledge base and they all seem to be focused on creating chatbots. I've adjusted the prompts to work best for e-mails.
I've recently started building https://responsebrain.com where I can add all my blog articles and automatically let ChatGPT generate responses to questions about my other product https://webtoapp.design
It's a pretty basic setup with a knowledge base you can feed anything you want (your blog articles, help center etc.). That gets put into a vector database and then I pass the related knowledge pieces to GPT along with the question.
I know there's lots of similar products out there, but none of them seem to allow manual editing of your knowledge base and they all seem to be focused on creating chatbots. I've adjusted the prompts to work best for e-mails.
I'll share a project I've been working on that has greatly improved my meal planning. I created a tool to tell me what and how much to eat from a list of ingredients.
Unlike most existing apps that only track what you eat, my app helps you figure out how much to eat to hit your target macros. Initially, I had created some Python scripts that worked well, but I found them inconvenient to use as I needed to be near a computer, edit the script and manually add ingredients to a dictionary. To make it more user-friendly/faster, I re-wrote it as a web app in Rust for the backend and integrated a free food database.
Now, I can quickly and easily add a list of ingredients I have at home from my phone and hit calculate.
Currently, I'm the only user, and the tool is designed entirely for my needs. However, I think it could be useful for others looking to plan their meals and eat healthier, which is why I host publically. If I were to build it for general public use, I would need to relax the constraints to allow flexibility on how close it can match your targets. I would also want to add more food sources, maybe the USDA database, but since I'm not in the US, a lot of the foods won't be relevant to me. Maybe if I get the time i'll work on it but for now it works perfectly for me.
You can check it out at https://www.macrosolver.com/. Let me know what you think!
Unlike most existing apps that only track what you eat, my app helps you figure out how much to eat to hit your target macros. Initially, I had created some Python scripts that worked well, but I found them inconvenient to use as I needed to be near a computer, edit the script and manually add ingredients to a dictionary. To make it more user-friendly/faster, I re-wrote it as a web app in Rust for the backend and integrated a free food database.
Now, I can quickly and easily add a list of ingredients I have at home from my phone and hit calculate.
Currently, I'm the only user, and the tool is designed entirely for my needs. However, I think it could be useful for others looking to plan their meals and eat healthier, which is why I host publically. If I were to build it for general public use, I would need to relax the constraints to allow flexibility on how close it can match your targets. I would also want to add more food sources, maybe the USDA database, but since I'm not in the US, a lot of the foods won't be relevant to me. Maybe if I get the time i'll work on it but for now it works perfectly for me.
You can check it out at https://www.macrosolver.com/. Let me know what you think!
Most of mine was just automation or analysis-download mp3 rips from a streaming site, scrape parse and analyse jobs so I could see the market prices (span off a web app made a few hundred quid but killed it), a trading system and crypto analysis tool, most recently scraping and analysing housing market data.
I co-organized a weekly hacknight meetup of 40-70 people.
I wrote a script to make Anki spaced repetition flash card decks with avatars and names pulled from the meetup API. I would use GitHub Actions to run the script a few hours before the event, then drop the importable deck into a Google Drive folder. I'd review the deck before the meetup, and then at the event, I'd not stress about names. I'd pretend to introduce myself to new people like I didn't already know their names, but I'd be able to make them feel very welcome when I remembered, or introduced them to others.
Why do this arguably creepy thing? Because I am really forgetful with names, and when I forget, I become reluctant to approach people, which comes across as less friendly than I prefer to be. But I believe using people's names is REALLY important to community organizing. When I know names, I am really great at using them a lot, helping others learn them, generously making introductions, and helping people to feel a sense of belonging.
It was the best community organizer hack I ever came up with, until meetup locked down their API and broke it...!
https://github.com/CivicTechTO/anki-meetup-memorizer
I wrote a script to make Anki spaced repetition flash card decks with avatars and names pulled from the meetup API. I would use GitHub Actions to run the script a few hours before the event, then drop the importable deck into a Google Drive folder. I'd review the deck before the meetup, and then at the event, I'd not stress about names. I'd pretend to introduce myself to new people like I didn't already know their names, but I'd be able to make them feel very welcome when I remembered, or introduced them to others.
Why do this arguably creepy thing? Because I am really forgetful with names, and when I forget, I become reluctant to approach people, which comes across as less friendly than I prefer to be. But I believe using people's names is REALLY important to community organizing. When I know names, I am really great at using them a lot, helping others learn them, generously making introductions, and helping people to feel a sense of belonging.
It was the best community organizer hack I ever came up with, until meetup locked down their API and broke it...!
https://github.com/CivicTechTO/anki-meetup-memorizer
That sounds like it would have indeed been a nice way to run a group. I like that you pretended not to know their names when first introduced.
I remember going to an arduino hack group once. When I went to introduce myself to the organiser he cut me off mid-sentence with a flat "I know who you are Lio" and a unblinking stare.
Now, in tech circle we often have people that are a bit "rough" when it comes to human interaction so I make allowances.
I think what he meant was I recognise you from Twitter or something. As far as I know we get along fine and I've had absolutely no issues with him before or after.
All the same, it freaked me the fuck out at the time. :D
I remember going to an arduino hack group once. When I went to introduce myself to the organiser he cut me off mid-sentence with a flat "I know who you are Lio" and a unblinking stare.
Now, in tech circle we often have people that are a bit "rough" when it comes to human interaction so I make allowances.
I think what he meant was I recognise you from Twitter or something. As far as I know we get along fine and I've had absolutely no issues with him before or after.
All the same, it freaked me the fuck out at the time. :D
The college president at my alma mater memorized the names and faces of every incoming freshman in my class (~200 people).
Unfortunately, I didn't know who she was, so my first encounter was having a seemingly random stranger stop me on the sidewalk and ominously declare:
"You didn't have a beard in your picture, Matthew."
Unfortunately, I didn't know who she was, so my first encounter was having a seemingly random stranger stop me on the sidewalk and ominously declare:
"You didn't have a beard in your picture, Matthew."
Yes Anki. I've also written my own code to convert markdown and yaml files into anki cards. So amazing.
>>When I know names, I am really great at using them a lot
I once broke up with a girlfriend, PatCon, because, PatCon, she would use my name PatCon multiple times in a sentence, PatCon and after a while it was annoying enough to where I had to break up with her, PatCon.
I once broke up with a girlfriend, PatCon, because, PatCon, she would use my name PatCon multiple times in a sentence, PatCon and after a while it was annoying enough to where I had to break up with her, PatCon.
Interesting. I tend to have the opposite problem - girlfriends (and wife) typically end up calling me by the first letter of my name, so I actually find them more attractive when they use the whole name. I guess the novelty would wear out with your ex.
I dont disagree, I think w=this was a unique situation....
bwahaha oh god, this sounds like it would be grating...!
Anki (and Mochi) are great for names of neighbours, other kids‘ parents at daycare, and people you don‘t meet often. My wife just remembers any name she‘s heeard once. I can cheat.
In another context, I recall someone doing something similar, but they didn't have images in advance. So they would study the list of names, but wouldn't know who is whom. Supposedly made it faster to learn people's names anyway.
Cool trick either way!
Cool trick either way!
I could see this being useful for work stuff. Learn the names and faces of all the people in your department as well as other info like what projects they're working on, expertise they have (this person knows all about databases, that person knows Linux really well, etc.), who they report to, etc.
Then when it's time to collaborate on something, or when you need to keep the appropriate people in the loop, hopefully the right people just pop into mind. And if you get invited to a meeting with 5 people you don't normally work with, you can probably make an educated guess why they're attending.
Then when it's time to collaborate on something, or when you need to keep the appropriate people in the loop, hopefully the right people just pop into mind. And if you get invited to a meeting with 5 people you don't normally work with, you can probably make an educated guess why they're attending.
I wish I had this, with data sourced from Slack (pic, title, name) and Salesforce (for sales staff, what accounts do they manage) and maybe for developers, GitHub (what areas of code do they contribute to)
Pingboard has this as a feature not sure if others — https://pingboard.com/know-your-coworkers
Seems genuinely useful if it gets meaningful engagement.
Seems genuinely useful if it gets meaningful engagement.
I built my own lay man's digital signage solution.
I wanted to have a display in my living room, which shows the temperature of all rooms in my apartment. So I used an Android Picture Frame. This is connected via WIFI, and offers FTP access.
A Docker service on my local in-house server grabs a random background image from a folder. Depending if we have day or night time, the picture will show satellite images from earth’s day or night view.
It then connects to my home assistant instance, and pulls all the necessary values. A SVG template is then filled with these values, and they are merged with the background image. The service then uploads the image to the picture frame, and it will refresh the image after some minutes.
The whole thing uses templates and config files, so it's easy to extend.
Unfortunately, the picture frame broke down since, and I haven’t had the chance to buy another one yet.
I wanted to have a display in my living room, which shows the temperature of all rooms in my apartment. So I used an Android Picture Frame. This is connected via WIFI, and offers FTP access.
A Docker service on my local in-house server grabs a random background image from a folder. Depending if we have day or night time, the picture will show satellite images from earth’s day or night view.
It then connects to my home assistant instance, and pulls all the necessary values. A SVG template is then filled with these values, and they are merged with the background image. The service then uploads the image to the picture frame, and it will refresh the image after some minutes.
The whole thing uses templates and config files, so it's easy to extend.
Unfortunately, the picture frame broke down since, and I haven’t had the chance to buy another one yet.
I this similar to some of the smart mirror projects that exist?
Somehow, yes. Except for
the mirror part. :)
In theory, the tool is extensible. The first version used an e-Ink display, which of course requires a different way of communicating. So the docker service can upload either to a FTP, or can communicate via REST at the moment. I really only implemented what I needed at that time.
In theory, the tool is extensible. The first version used an e-Ink display, which of course requires a different way of communicating. So the docker service can upload either to a FTP, or can communicate via REST at the moment. I really only implemented what I needed at that time.
Not too fancy, but I built a math model & interactive visualization of my parking spot to understand how to efficiently park there without bumping into anything: https://observablehq.com/@mourner/kinematics-of-reverse-angl...
Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21891919
Discussed on HN here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21891919
I made
- A screenshot to text copied to clipboard
- Another variant had translation from one of the local languages that I can't read to english
- Built a keyboard identifier for windows that could know which USB keyboard the keypress came from and then suppress keystroke and then launch the program (differentiating keyboards is unnecessarily hard btw)
- A python app that could pin any app 'on top' or change it's opacity %
My dad wanted a analysis tool for Flight Sim, ended up having to build one himself that tracks flights then generates loads of reports and maps for you. The map shows you landmarks you flew over with short descriptions, a 3D model of the flight, various charts describing things like glidescope, GForces, speed, pitch/yaw and a bunch of other stuff like runway alignment. He spent so much time that he decided to make a product out of it that's doing quite well: https://myfs.flights
A deadman's switch connected to a manner of things. It basically works by 'non-existence' instead of existence and fires a webhook once something stops. For example, if my computer is turned off for a couple of weeks, it will send an email to loved ones. When I go day hiking, something similar happens when my phone loses service/power for more than a couple hours and sends a low-quality gps track. Basically it's if-this-then-that but more like if-this-stops-then-that. I have it tracking all kinds of things, like git-commits-per-person, server/device health metrics, and things like that.
You could imagine a combination of a Tor-like architecture and Shamir's Secret Sharing Scheme to construct a scavenger-hunt encryption system. Maybe 10 dead-man-switch utilities around the world agree to reveal X when Y happens (or doesn't happen), but their policies aren't even revealed until the first N secrets are broadcast. That way you can distribute the risk of collision, and meter the rate of a final secret being revealed or job being executed.
I’ve built exactly this a few years ago.
I was having anxiety that was throwing me into some crazy spirals and I’ve started to document all my stuff and prepare for the worst. I’ve at the time even registered a company and domais in Iceland “eternity.is” so I cold literally have credit cards issued to continue paying for my domains, storage until kids could pick up from where I left.
Splitting Shamir secrets token for the “Root authority” and finding a way to manage quotas was the fun part the help me deal with the anxiety and let things go.
I was having anxiety that was throwing me into some crazy spirals and I’ve started to document all my stuff and prepare for the worst. I’ve at the time even registered a company and domais in Iceland “eternity.is” so I cold literally have credit cards issued to continue paying for my domains, storage until kids could pick up from where I left.
Splitting Shamir secrets token for the “Root authority” and finding a way to manage quotas was the fun part the help me deal with the anxiety and let things go.
Make that "collusion," not "collision," and thank you once again autocorrect.
I'd love to see the code for this. Seems useful.
[deleted]
I built a web extension that lets me use customised bangs when searching (similar to duckduckgo but fully editable to search whatever you want), makes my regular searches much quicker
https://github.com/psidex/CustomBangSearch
Control your fan speed with your heartbeat.
I created this while setting up a home trainer for bike training in my garage during the lockdown in 2020. One issue with home trainers, unlike biking outdoors, is that you don't get the benefit of the wind generated by your speed that cools you down. So you sweat a lot, and this creates dehydration. Not cool (pun intended).
The solution is to use a fan. But when you are lazy (and focused on your workout) you don't want to have to get up and adjust fan speed (and I don't have a remote for my fan, and it's much cooler to have it automated instead).
https://github.com/edelans/Heart-Rate-Smart-Fan
I created this while setting up a home trainer for bike training in my garage during the lockdown in 2020. One issue with home trainers, unlike biking outdoors, is that you don't get the benefit of the wind generated by your speed that cools you down. So you sweat a lot, and this creates dehydration. Not cool (pun intended).
The solution is to use a fan. But when you are lazy (and focused on your workout) you don't want to have to get up and adjust fan speed (and I don't have a remote for my fan, and it's much cooler to have it automated instead).
https://github.com/edelans/Heart-Rate-Smart-Fan
Brilliant!
> it's much cooler to have it automated
heh
heh
An automated scrapper for all my bank accounts, 401k accounts, and share accounts, and bitcoin values. Then displays it daily
I used to love discovering new music through Spotify's Song Radio feature. But somewhere along the way, they started personalizing it so much that every radio is now basically an echo chamber of the same songs I already know, most of which I have even already added to my Liked Songs.
I built myself a small service to "disable" (work around) Spotify's hyperpersonalization by giving me the Song Radio as an anonymous user would see it. It's available at https://spoqify.com/ (with the name chosen that way so that I only need to replace a single letter in the URL of a Song Radio Playlist and it'll forward me to an unpersonalized version of it).
I built myself a small service to "disable" (work around) Spotify's hyperpersonalization by giving me the Song Radio as an anonymous user would see it. It's available at https://spoqify.com/ (with the name chosen that way so that I only need to replace a single letter in the URL of a Song Radio Playlist and it'll forward me to an unpersonalized version of it).
I re-created a stock ticker machine. I saw an article about them on here and thought "oh that would be cool to have one, lets try and buy one" I realised that they cost $4k+.
So I made my own. https://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/projects/stock-ticker-machin...
Its not strictly electro mechanical like the original, that was too far out of my mechanical design skills.
So I made my own. https://www.secretbatcave.co.uk/projects/stock-ticker-machin...
Its not strictly electro mechanical like the original, that was too far out of my mechanical design skills.
This is super cool. Love it.
A 3D luring audio visual experience that's using a simple 2d canvas, in the browser.
https://vanilla-lattice.mtassoumt.uk/
Totally deprived of any use, but very satisfying.
https://vanilla-lattice.mtassoumt.uk/
Totally deprived of any use, but very satisfying.
Wow, the music is awesome
Thanks, and they would deserve some credits, not my own mix work there.
My AirPods Pro often fail to connect properly, appearing connected but music still plays on cellphone.
As an introvert, I don't like to bother people. When I'm in a quiet coffee shop or library, I turn down my phone volume, select a white noise track in Apple Music, and put my ear near the bottom of the phone.
So, I created the simplest app of my life: open the app, and it plays the sound of waves. If your phone is in silent mode, it won't play anything when the connection fails, even if the volume is high.
I posted it on the web, and many people didn't understand its purpose, thinking it was just another white noise app. It received very few downloads. However, it's the only app I made that I use every day.
As an introvert, I don't like to bother people. When I'm in a quiet coffee shop or library, I turn down my phone volume, select a white noise track in Apple Music, and put my ear near the bottom of the phone.
So, I created the simplest app of my life: open the app, and it plays the sound of waves. If your phone is in silent mode, it won't play anything when the connection fails, even if the volume is high.
I posted it on the web, and many people didn't understand its purpose, thinking it was just another white noise app. It received very few downloads. However, it's the only app I made that I use every day.
A search engine. It indexes all of my personal notes as well as my entire browsing history. Previously visited pages and notes get blended w/ google results. Makes a big difference when trying to find blogs, docs, notes on things Ive worked on previously or make random connections between notes and current questions. Of course it now needs a bottoms up rewrite in the age of vector dbs and GPT.
Was a long time ago, but I used to play this game called DayZ, which back then was just a mod for ArmA2. I played on a private server hosted by a friend.
Back then the game was very easy to cheat in because even though the map was huge, the client kept all of the objects in memory along with their positions all the time - and it was very important in the game to stay hidden from other players and to hide your stashes of objects for later use. All of these was available in memory for grabs and there was no anticheat.
So there were people who wrote cheats that just grabbed the positions of those hidden stashes and bee-lined through all of them, robbing them.
The server logged the position of static objects (like stashes) on startup and logged the position of every player every few minutes. So I wrote a very simple application that parses that log and puts all of that information (position of stashes and players) on a human-readable map. The admin could then select a player and track his journey. It was very easy to spot people running in straight lines from stash to stash, it was obvious they were cheating and should be banned.
After that I added some heuristics that detected these behaviours automatically and gave hints to admin on who to check. There were more abuses possible in the game later on that I also detected.
For example, there was a "dupe bug" which allowed a player to duplicate a backpack full of useful items and give it to their friend. It involved two players staying in the same spot, dropping the backpack on the ground, trying to open it up by two people at the same time, one of them disconnecting, etc. The backpack was duped due to lag on the database on server side.
I modded the server files to log the information that a backpack was dropped or picked up (along with a list of items inside it in order they were arranged). Then I modified my log parser to look for two players being near each other, dropping and picking up the backpack, disconnecting and reconnecting constantly and detecting two backpacks with exactly the same list of items in the same order they were arranged it (which was very unprobable to happen out of itself) - detecting this gave a hint to the admin to check these people out as possible dupers.
Back then the game was very easy to cheat in because even though the map was huge, the client kept all of the objects in memory along with their positions all the time - and it was very important in the game to stay hidden from other players and to hide your stashes of objects for later use. All of these was available in memory for grabs and there was no anticheat.
So there were people who wrote cheats that just grabbed the positions of those hidden stashes and bee-lined through all of them, robbing them.
The server logged the position of static objects (like stashes) on startup and logged the position of every player every few minutes. So I wrote a very simple application that parses that log and puts all of that information (position of stashes and players) on a human-readable map. The admin could then select a player and track his journey. It was very easy to spot people running in straight lines from stash to stash, it was obvious they were cheating and should be banned.
After that I added some heuristics that detected these behaviours automatically and gave hints to admin on who to check. There were more abuses possible in the game later on that I also detected.
For example, there was a "dupe bug" which allowed a player to duplicate a backpack full of useful items and give it to their friend. It involved two players staying in the same spot, dropping the backpack on the ground, trying to open it up by two people at the same time, one of them disconnecting, etc. The backpack was duped due to lag on the database on server side.
I modded the server files to log the information that a backpack was dropped or picked up (along with a list of items inside it in order they were arranged). Then I modified my log parser to look for two players being near each other, dropping and picking up the backpack, disconnecting and reconnecting constantly and detecting two backpacks with exactly the same list of items in the same order they were arranged it (which was very unprobable to happen out of itself) - detecting this gave a hint to the admin to check these people out as possible dupers.
I created a cycling statistics dashboard on a Raspberry Pi with a Pimoroni Inky Impressions e-ink display.
It's on my desk. And every hour it refreshes my cycling stats, reminding me that a) Wow! I build a cool thing that actually works and b) I did ride a lot on my racing bike, didn't I? / It's about time to go outside and ride some more. https://github.com/Marcel-Jan/StravaInky
I've written a couple of blogposts on how I build it: https://marcel-jan.eu/datablog/2022/12/12/strava-dashboard-o...
It's on my desk. And every hour it refreshes my cycling stats, reminding me that a) Wow! I build a cool thing that actually works and b) I did ride a lot on my racing bike, didn't I? / It's about time to go outside and ride some more. https://github.com/Marcel-Jan/StravaInky
I've written a couple of blogposts on how I build it: https://marcel-jan.eu/datablog/2022/12/12/strava-dashboard-o...
14866km is a lot of riding! How often do you get out?
In summer about 5 times a week or more. In weekends I do longer rides.
In winter I try to go out whenever it's light outside in the afternoon and it's not raining or freezing.
So in winter weeks I do 150-250 km per week. Depending on the weather.
In summer weeks it's more like 200-400 km a week.
It's sad to have to look so far back but:
I installed linux for the first time in 1992 on my parents DOS machine. I had another partition for it. It was Slackware with kernel 1.2.13 I think. All off 5.25 inch floppy disks.
Setup wasn't so simple then and I was a UNIX Noob so I managed to set the swap partition to the DOS hard drive and overwrote the first 4MB or so.
The FAT filesystem's root directory and many others were blanked but not all files were lost. Norton tools and CHKDSK managed to get a lot of files back but many of the wordperfect documents were in the form "FILE0001.CHK" and no way to know what was in each one other than very laboriously opening all of them and trying to work it out from the contents.
Very fortunately I had an old backup but the problem was to know, out of all the recovered files, which were covered by the backup and which were new since the backup. If I could ignore the files that I could restore from the backup then I only had to load and rename the ones that were new.
CHKDSK couldn't recover the file size since that was in the destroyed directories. So you couldn't guess if some backed up file matched a restored one just by looking at size.
In the end I wrote some perl+shell to get the md5 of the first kilobyte or two of all the backup files and all the recovered files. I used this to match files and get a list of all the recovered files with no corresponding match in the backup. These had to be new files and since there were far less of these I could manually load up each one into Wordperfect, see what it was and give it a sensible name.
This program (don't have it anymore) saved my bacon and served no-one else but me. It took me from despair to triumph and that's why I like it so much.
I installed linux for the first time in 1992 on my parents DOS machine. I had another partition for it. It was Slackware with kernel 1.2.13 I think. All off 5.25 inch floppy disks.
Setup wasn't so simple then and I was a UNIX Noob so I managed to set the swap partition to the DOS hard drive and overwrote the first 4MB or so.
The FAT filesystem's root directory and many others were blanked but not all files were lost. Norton tools and CHKDSK managed to get a lot of files back but many of the wordperfect documents were in the form "FILE0001.CHK" and no way to know what was in each one other than very laboriously opening all of them and trying to work it out from the contents.
Very fortunately I had an old backup but the problem was to know, out of all the recovered files, which were covered by the backup and which were new since the backup. If I could ignore the files that I could restore from the backup then I only had to load and rename the ones that were new.
CHKDSK couldn't recover the file size since that was in the destroyed directories. So you couldn't guess if some backed up file matched a restored one just by looking at size.
In the end I wrote some perl+shell to get the md5 of the first kilobyte or two of all the backup files and all the recovered files. I used this to match files and get a list of all the recovered files with no corresponding match in the backup. These had to be new files and since there were far less of these I could manually load up each one into Wordperfect, see what it was and give it a sensible name.
This program (don't have it anymore) saved my bacon and served no-one else but me. It took me from despair to triumph and that's why I like it so much.
Oh yeah! I had a laptop that booted Windows and Linux; the Linux side was non-journaling ext2 at the time. I forget how it got extensively scrambled, but I'd run AIDE on it, so I had many file checksums. By running AIDE again on /lost+found, and comparing checksums, I was able to put the vast majority of files back where they belonged.
My wife has her work schedule in a mobile web app, but the app is really bad. Turns out the app is just a wrapper around a web site.
So I made a KVM instance which does one thing - login automatically, start Firefox, login with Selenium, then uses some kind of other Python desktop control contraption to press CTRL-S, tab-tab, save the web page to the Downloads folder.
Then, the python program proceeds to parse the HTML (with BeautifulSoup), extract the schedule times from how they are showed in some <div> or other (super weird ugly text format). Checks for changes over time and emails her what has changed. (So she gets a notice when her schedule changes and she doesn't have to periodically check in with the app.)
Finally converts the schedule to calendar format and publishes on a web site so the schedule can also be seen in the phone calendar.
So I made a KVM instance which does one thing - login automatically, start Firefox, login with Selenium, then uses some kind of other Python desktop control contraption to press CTRL-S, tab-tab, save the web page to the Downloads folder.
Then, the python program proceeds to parse the HTML (with BeautifulSoup), extract the schedule times from how they are showed in some <div> or other (super weird ugly text format). Checks for changes over time and emails her what has changed. (So she gets a notice when her schedule changes and she doesn't have to periodically check in with the app.)
Finally converts the schedule to calendar format and publishes on a web site so the schedule can also be seen in the phone calendar.
That's cool! What library/software did you get the instance to email?
Python has a built-in SMTP client, which I connected to my regular email account. So the emails are "coming from me".
Ive also done this for similar purposes . Scrape parse map reduce over garbage web apps. Good on ya
In similar vein: my local recycling collection is different from week to week (i.e. paper one week, plastic the next, etc). It's supposed to be on a fixed yearly schedule, but during COVID lockdowns the schedule changed dramatically, often day by day. There is a website that will tell you the most recent plan, but you can't just bookmark it - every time you have to specify the address and the date, which is annoying.
So I built a scraping script in python that runs once a day and sends me an email the evening before a collection is due, telling me what I should place outside that day. It's been working great for three years now, with zero maintenance.
I considered turning it into a public service, but i don't want any pressure from neighbors when things eventually break (as they will, inevitably, sooner or later). And really this should be a basic feature offered by the local authority website, so I hope they'll implement it one day on their own.
So I built a scraping script in python that runs once a day and sends me an email the evening before a collection is due, telling me what I should place outside that day. It's been working great for three years now, with zero maintenance.
I considered turning it into a public service, but i don't want any pressure from neighbors when things eventually break (as they will, inevitably, sooner or later). And really this should be a basic feature offered by the local authority website, so I hope they'll implement it one day on their own.
Maybe you could put a web service anonymously. A dirty paper with a QR code on. You have nothing to do with it, of course.
I have a very basic "content repository" that started out as an RSS reader and now has pocket/instapaper like link saving, notetaking and basic GPT integrations (summary for rss entries/saved links + chatgpt like interface since it's now blocked in italy and it sounded fun to reimplement it).
It's been fun having a project where i can just throw in stuff i want to learn (started out as a go + go templates app, then turned into go backend + vue frontend from scratch, now go + vue with vuetify) and where i can just implement features i want (pocket import for saved links, gpt stuff, linking between notes and saved links/rss entries, ...) that are extremely specific to my use case and thus hard to find in anything else.
It's been fun having a project where i can just throw in stuff i want to learn (started out as a go + go templates app, then turned into go backend + vue frontend from scratch, now go + vue with vuetify) and where i can just implement features i want (pocket import for saved links, gpt stuff, linking between notes and saved links/rss entries, ...) that are extremely specific to my use case and thus hard to find in anything else.
A simple script that tallies up my cycling mileage based on Garmin activites, and makes me a reminder on my Google calendar when it's time to re-wax my chain.
Scheduling the script to reliably run via Task Scheduler (Windows) was was its own project!
Scheduling the script to reliably run via Task Scheduler (Windows) was was its own project!
I made a flashcard site with spaced repetition for learning Japanese (I moved to Japan few years ago). I love the idea behind Anki, but both the interface and having to take decision while trying to memorize were a drag on me, so I made the flashcards for a simple "did I know it or not?".
I attribute around half of the Japanese I still know to repeating cards incessantly one after another for months, few years ago:
https://core.cards/
I attribute around half of the Japanese I still know to repeating cards incessantly one after another for months, few years ago:
https://core.cards/
I wrote a live video/audio marker creator with OpenAI's Whisper.
A Stream Deck XL button runs a Python script that creates a timestamp for ongoing video and audio recordings which I use for live stream and podcast chapters while I'm streaming or recording.
Different buttons on the Stream Deck create markers with different labels, e.g., Introduction, Break, Marker, etc.
But as it's hard to name markers for every section and you have to go back to the recordings to infer what each section was about, I added a dynamic marker script that trims audio around a marker with ffmpeg, locally transcribes it with Whisper, and appends the transcript to the marker, so I can easily guess what the marker title should be without having to scroll and watch the video.
A Stream Deck XL button runs a Python script that creates a timestamp for ongoing video and audio recordings which I use for live stream and podcast chapters while I'm streaming or recording.
Different buttons on the Stream Deck create markers with different labels, e.g., Introduction, Break, Marker, etc.
But as it's hard to name markers for every section and you have to go back to the recordings to infer what each section was about, I added a dynamic marker script that trims audio around a marker with ffmpeg, locally transcribes it with Whisper, and appends the transcript to the marker, so I can easily guess what the marker title should be without having to scroll and watch the video.
When I was a student there was this power-of-two game on my friend's iPhone that I was literally addicted to. I didn't have an iPhone and eventually the game even disappeared from the AppStore. I missed it very much and my friends jokingly mentioned building a copy just for me. They never got around to it but at some point I thought "maybe I should give it a try?". So I gave it a try with no game dev knowledge and the second iteration turned out just fine for my needs: https://kiryhas.github.io/memechain/
I've considered rewriting it to make the code better many times but every time I sit down to do that I think to myself "it works just fine, why touch it" and leave this idea for a while :)
BTW the idea of the game is to combine cubes with the same number and color until there are only 4 left.
I've considered rewriting it to make the code better many times but every time I sit down to do that I think to myself "it works just fine, why touch it" and leave this idea for a while :)
BTW the idea of the game is to combine cubes with the same number and color until there are only 4 left.
Do you want a bug report? The lowest row doesn't fit into width of my phone's Chrome. I can only see few millimeters of the rightmost and leftmost cubies. Pinch zoom seems disabled so I cannot adjust. Tried switching to PC mode, but everything became too tiny. Rotating the phone also doesn't help. So for me it's unplayable.
Thank you, I'm aware that it sometimes looks off on certain Android phones, however I haven't had a case where it is unplayable. Could you tell me your phone model, what size/resolution is the screen?
I can't promise a speedy resolution since I don't have an Android but I'll definitely look into it when I get a chance. You can share your details here, send them to me by email or open an issue in the repo.
I can't promise a speedy resolution since I don't have an Android but I'll definitely look into it when I get a chance. You can share your details here, send them to me by email or open an issue in the repo.
android SDK includes software emulation of phones
Huawei y8p, Android 10, 2400x1080, Chromium 88. Hope this helps.
posted here because I couldn't find the repository. I was looking here https://github.com/memechain
That's really addicting! :D
If this is mobile responsive I will probably use it a lot.
EDIT: Works flawlessly on my phone. Wonder if I can host it locally on my Android, so that I don't even need an internet connection...
If this is mobile responsive I will probably use it a lot.
EDIT: Works flawlessly on my phone. Wonder if I can host it locally on my Android, so that I don't even need an internet connection...
I've never had big hopes for the project but I feel incredibly happy that you like it!
The original I played on my friend's phone was just that -- a phone game, so making sure it works on my phone was a priority :)
I don't have an Android but last time I tested it was playable even though the cubes were bigger than I'd like them to be on some screens.
I've made an offline version for myself in the past to play while traveling by train. Copying the contents of the .js and .css file into the HTML file into <script> and <style> tags was enough. I wonder if I can make it easier for other people like you by storing it somewhere on git...
P.S. Here's the source if you want to create an offline-first version yourself: https://github.com/Kiryhas/memechain
The original I played on my friend's phone was just that -- a phone game, so making sure it works on my phone was a priority :)
I don't have an Android but last time I tested it was playable even though the cubes were bigger than I'd like them to be on some screens.
I've made an offline version for myself in the past to play while traveling by train. Copying the contents of the .js and .css file into the HTML file into <script> and <style> tags was enough. I wonder if I can make it easier for other people like you by storing it somewhere on git...
P.S. Here's the source if you want to create an offline-first version yourself: https://github.com/Kiryhas/memechain
Yeah your game just scratches an itch I had for a long time. Mobile games are filled with ads and in-app purchases and I never found a simple game I could play and enjoy while waiting for public transport. Want to fully clear a seed now, haven't gotten that far yet ;)
Ahh, a single .html would probably work, too, sounds way easier!
I downloaded Termux, installed git and python3 and now your game is running locally on my phone with "python3 -m http.server --bind 127.0.0.1 9000" :)
Ahh, a single .html would probably work, too, sounds way easier!
I downloaded Termux, installed git and python3 and now your game is running locally on my phone with "python3 -m http.server --bind 127.0.0.1 9000" :)
Seeds are absolutely random and some of them can't be solved. I've had people complain about it but I consider it to be another aspect of the challenge of this game because there are cues you can notice that tell you if it's not possible to solve it.
Yeah, you went the extra mile spinning up a local server :)
If the trip you're taking is not a long one, you can just make sure to load the page while you still have reception. The game doesn't make any AJAX requests or load any resources after that and prevents the default 'pull-to-refresh' gesture so if you don't refresh the page accidentally, it'll stay available.
Yeah, you went the extra mile spinning up a local server :)
If the trip you're taking is not a long one, you can just make sure to load the page while you still have reception. The game doesn't make any AJAX requests or load any resources after that and prevents the default 'pull-to-refresh' gesture so if you don't refresh the page accidentally, it'll stay available.
It's a difficult challenge I must say. Played about a dozen games now, furthest I've gotten is 4280 points. Have you ever cleared a full seed?
Yeah I looked at the files to see if you make any external requests. I guess I just found it entertaining that there's a web-game running locally on my phone :)
Yeah I looked at the files to see if you make any external requests. I guess I just found it entertaining that there's a web-game running locally on my phone :)
Yeah, I've cleared it many times. Sometimes no matter how skilled you are luck is not on your side :)
Maybe the game could benefit from a mode that verifies if a seed is solvable but I haven't gotten past it being just an idea.
Maybe the game could benefit from a mode that verifies if a seed is solvable but I haven't gotten past it being just an idea.
It definitely would benefit from that, people like to have success. (And know who they can blame in case of failure)
The easiest solution is probably brute force, have it try all the potential moves and see if it solves the game and if it does, make it a valid seed. Can be pregenerated, but should be doable in real time, also from a smartphone.
Also, I think I was just blocked from my first clearing, because I could not access all blocks.
Rotating the view and angle would be quite nice, but depending on your implementation, not trivial.
Maybe I implement it with babylonjs or threejs these days, it is a fun game.
The easiest solution is probably brute force, have it try all the potential moves and see if it solves the game and if it does, make it a valid seed. Can be pregenerated, but should be doable in real time, also from a smartphone.
Also, I think I was just blocked from my first clearing, because I could not access all blocks.
Rotating the view and angle would be quite nice, but depending on your implementation, not trivial.
Maybe I implement it with babylonjs or threejs these days, it is a fun game.
Thank you for your feedback!
Personally I am not sure if I like winning more than just combining the cubes together and moving onto the next seed if it can't solve the current one :)
Pre-generating seeds is a valid solution but since I don't want the game to make any network requests I don't think it would work for me. Brute forcing it makes me worried if it'd drain the battery.
I think I would rather add an opt-in (like a checkbox) option to make the game check fields for certain patterns that tell if a seed can't be solved and keep generating until there's a seed that passes that check. I think that way the game would still give you the occasional seed that can't be solved but statistically your chances would go up.
Regarding rotating the view, that would make it a different game and I'd like to keep it as it is. However, that sounds like it could be fun so please send me a link if you end up creating such a version! :)
Personally I am not sure if I like winning more than just combining the cubes together and moving onto the next seed if it can't solve the current one :)
Pre-generating seeds is a valid solution but since I don't want the game to make any network requests I don't think it would work for me. Brute forcing it makes me worried if it'd drain the battery.
I think I would rather add an opt-in (like a checkbox) option to make the game check fields for certain patterns that tell if a seed can't be solved and keep generating until there's a seed that passes that check. I think that way the game would still give you the occasional seed that can't be solved but statistically your chances would go up.
Regarding rotating the view, that would make it a different game and I'd like to keep it as it is. However, that sounds like it could be fun so please send me a link if you end up creating such a version! :)
Now I am interested to give it a try, because I really don't think brute forcing the solution would drain the battery. Likely it would be neglectible, compared to the power needed by the rendering.
Because there is a finite and small amount of legal steps, so it should not need too many iterations.
That is of course, if you only brute force the raw game logic. Simulating the steps with the UI would definitely drain the battery ;)
And yeah, if I get around to redo it in true 3D, I send you a link. I think if done right, it provides the same experience, just a bit more overview.
Because there is a finite and small amount of legal steps, so it should not need too many iterations.
That is of course, if you only brute force the raw game logic. Simulating the steps with the UI would definitely drain the battery ;)
And yeah, if I get around to redo it in true 3D, I send you a link. I think if done right, it provides the same experience, just a bit more overview.
Thanks. I’ve just wasted 2 hours.
Loved the game.
To make it generate winnable games just start from a solution and keep expanding it until you get to the initial game state.
Loved the game.
To make it generate winnable games just start from a solution and keep expanding it until you get to the initial game state.
Glad you enjoyed!
Could you elaborate on 'start from a solution and keep expanding it'? I thought of it more like checking the field for certain patterns that tell if it can't be solved and generating fields until one passes that check.
Could you elaborate on 'start from a solution and keep expanding it'? I thought of it more like checking the field for certain patterns that tell if it can't be solved and generating fields until one passes that check.
Start with 4 different color cubes, each with the value of 128.
Then just keep splitting them until you have a full the game. You'll need some intelligence in deciding which cubes to split and where to stack the split cube.
But if you reach a state where you can't split anymore you can must backtrack and try again.
Then just keep splitting them until you have a full the game. You'll need some intelligence in deciding which cubes to split and where to stack the split cube.
But if you reach a state where you can't split anymore you can must backtrack and try again.
Yeah, makes sense, I'll consider it, thank you!
Thank you for a good and very playable game.
It took me several tries with many different seeds, but I made it at last. 8000 points on seed 5706121. I like the simple but cool rotating cubes at the end.
I also like the non-minimized source code. It makes it instantly discoverable without having to find your repository (https://github.com/Kiryhas/memechain).
Looks like you did it without any external libraries which is cool! It looks clean and readable, and proves that developers don't need to download huge dependencies to create these types of games.
I have one minor suggestion. It would be great if you made the highlight a bit clearer when you are hovering over a matching cube. Sometimes it can ba a bit difficult to hit the correct spot. Maybe you could highlight the hovering cube as well in addition to the outline?
It took me several tries with many different seeds, but I made it at last. 8000 points on seed 5706121. I like the simple but cool rotating cubes at the end.
I also like the non-minimized source code. It makes it instantly discoverable without having to find your repository (https://github.com/Kiryhas/memechain).
Looks like you did it without any external libraries which is cool! It looks clean and readable, and proves that developers don't need to download huge dependencies to create these types of games.
I have one minor suggestion. It would be great if you made the highlight a bit clearer when you are hovering over a matching cube. Sometimes it can ba a bit difficult to hit the correct spot. Maybe you could highlight the hovering cube as well in addition to the outline?
Thank you for your feedback and kind words!
Your suggestion makes a lot of sense, I think I'll add 0.5 transparency to the cube the player is dragging when it can be combined with the cube under it. It's late so I'll do that tomorrow, stay tuned :)
Your suggestion makes a lot of sense, I think I'll add 0.5 transparency to the cube the player is dragging when it can be combined with the cube under it. It's late so I'll do that tomorrow, stay tuned :)
So it's been two days, I've played it a lot since then and cleared it twice. If feels soooo good to clear it because it's rare (for me).
Looking forward to the update ;D
Looking forward to the update ;D
Sorry for the delay, I've been a bit busy recently.
I've just adjusted the highlighting of the cubes, give it a look. For feedback you can contact me here, by email or open an issue on GH. Hope you enjoy!
I've just adjusted the highlighting of the cubes, give it a look. For feedback you can contact me here, by email or open an issue on GH. Hope you enjoy!
Works great. Thanks
> Mobile games are filled with ads and in-app purchases and I never found a simple game I could play and enjoy while waiting for public transport.
I bought Threes for $3 in 2014, and I still play it for hours each day -- on the subway, while waiting at restaurants, while watching TV, wherever.
A lot of people play 2048 because it's free, but it's not nearly as polished.
I bought Threes for $3 in 2014, and I still play it for hours each day -- on the subway, while waiting at restaurants, while watching TV, wherever.
A lot of people play 2048 because it's free, but it's not nearly as polished.
Tried Threes yesterday. Realy cute game but for some reason these kinds of games don't really hook me(Threes and 2048). But thanks for the suggestion!
Thank you for your game, kind stranger, I've just wasted my day.
Only a day? This has been my go-to time killer for the last 5 years!
On a serious note, you're welcome, glad you enjoyed! :)
On a serious note, you're welcome, glad you enjoyed! :)
Very fun game :)
4000pts even and I'm done for the day
Fun!
Fun!
Neat little game! I don't like that you can lift cubes to see what's hidden, ruins the fun for my personal tastes as it becomes tedious.
Very cool game! Are all seeds solvable?
Happy to know you like it!
No, some seeds can't be solved and the game doesn't verify them.
No, some seeds can't be solved and the game doesn't verify them.
Very very nice!
2c of feedback - I'd love to have an unlimited undo to be able to backtrack and try different paths woth the same seed; sometimes the game doesn't end even if there are no moves left; and related to that it won't hurt to have a "hint" option to show a possible move.
Ps. Also the 2048 game was a blatant rip of "Threes", which would've been fine had the 2k guy not decided to monetize it.
2c of feedback - I'd love to have an unlimited undo to be able to backtrack and try different paths woth the same seed; sometimes the game doesn't end even if there are no moves left; and related to that it won't hurt to have a "hint" option to show a possible move.
Ps. Also the 2048 game was a blatant rip of "Threes", which would've been fine had the 2k guy not decided to monetize it.
Glad you enjoyed!
Thank you for your feedback. The "Back" button allows you to go back to the initial state of the game so I'm not sure as to how I'd make it unlimited. Could you please elaborate? I'll consider adding a hint, just have to come up with the animation.
Never heard about the Threes game, that's very interesting. When 2048 went viral I remember it being promoted as a learning exercise from some book a student did while learning JavaScript.
Thank you for your feedback. The "Back" button allows you to go back to the initial state of the game so I'm not sure as to how I'd make it unlimited. Could you please elaborate? I'll consider adding a hint, just have to come up with the animation.
Never heard about the Threes game, that's very interesting. When 2048 went viral I remember it being promoted as a learning exercise from some book a student did while learning JavaScript.
The "Back" button seems to be doing exactly what I was after with the Undo suggestion. Not sure how I missed it!
I must also add that the game is bloody awesome. Been playing it daily, now a part of the daily routine. Thanks for making and sharing it!
I must also add that the game is bloody awesome. Been playing it daily, now a part of the daily routine. Thanks for making and sharing it!
Because I work with a lot of currencies and I used to do a lot of multi-currency calculations, I’ve built a convertor (https://4ex.ro) that accepts formulas and displays the results in all selected currencies. The rate is the one offered by the National Bank in Romania (a legal requirement for transactions that happen between companies in Romania - maybe I’ll add different data sources in the future). Oh, and you can add a formula in one field and then continue in another field using the previous result. Something really easy to accomplish, but there was no solution doing this a few years ago. Almost nobody is using it, but I do and this is a sufficient reason to keep it (a)live.
In 2010 I was at my first job out of college and frustrated that iTunes took over such a huge amount of resources on my PC. But I loved the UI look and function and the way it had playlists, and didn't like the other options on the market. So I hired a cheap overseas freelancer to build "Litetunes", which I requested look and function exactly like iTunes but be <2MB file with no installation required that would open quickly just like notepad or calculator. I thought of distributing it but ended up using it just for myself, it worked great.
Built my own music player for mac which I use every day. I have a large collection of ripped mp3s and I wanted to control exactly where they are stored, order in which they are played (album order) etc.
It just snowballed from there with other features.
https://snowlinesoftware.com/apps/mac/mamusique/index.php
https://snowlinesoftware.com/apps/mac/mamusique/index.php
Not for me but for my dad. He has a giant vinyl collection from his teenage years at his country cabin in Vermont.
I hooked a raspberry pi zero up to it about 7-8 years ago, and streamed the audio to a custom app on an iPhone, so he could play a record and listen to it anywhere in the house or even outside while cutting wood.
The hard part was making a nice vector animation of a record player that animated based on the state of the playback.
I hooked a raspberry pi zero up to it about 7-8 years ago, and streamed the audio to a custom app on an iPhone, so he could play a record and listen to it anywhere in the house or even outside while cutting wood.
The hard part was making a nice vector animation of a record player that animated based on the state of the playback.
tool used to download instagram images to a google photo album for use with things like chromecast screensaver https://github.com/mcpengelly/instagram-saved-to-google-phot...
I built a “dipping bird” boiler reset (metaphorically). Our old boiler had a fault where it would lock out every few months until manually reset. So, I wired a normally closed relay to it and a 10 line Arduino sketch to open the relay 1 minute out of every 120.
That ran for about 7 years; when I was researching replacing the boiler with air-to-water heat pump, I had to prove the house could be heated with lower temp water, so I changed to an ESP8266, added a platinum temperature sensor, a webserver, data logging, and ran a bunch of experiments with lower supply temps to see how the house would react.
https://imgur.io/a/VM7nD74 (that chart is entirely SVG, the whole content screenshotted was generated on the ESP)
That ran for about 7 years; when I was researching replacing the boiler with air-to-water heat pump, I had to prove the house could be heated with lower temp water, so I changed to an ESP8266, added a platinum temperature sensor, a webserver, data logging, and ran a bunch of experiments with lower supply temps to see how the house would react.
https://imgur.io/a/VM7nD74 (that chart is entirely SVG, the whole content screenshotted was generated on the ESP)
Not yet built, but in my TODO list:
A mango pi mq-pro, a custom written 100% risc-v 64bits assembly firmware, plate-mounted cherry switches (probably silent red, or black), lovely PBT key caps, laser cutted aluminium plates, diodes, a bit of electric wiring and:
https://external-preview.redd.it/AxGrpEpxqpATGsX7MwsoSRrD2ie...
https://external-preview.redd.it/AxGrpEpxqpATGsX7MwsoSRrD2ie...
After pushing to a branch, gitlab sends you back a URL where you can create the merge request (MR). This broke my flow because I do all my development using command line tools.
So I created this tool that opens an MR off the branch I'm on. It opens up my favorite editor and asks me for a title and a description in the same way that git does for commits. It splits it in first line for title and the rest for the body.
It's very simple but I'm very happy with it. Now I extended it to list the open MRs, show the tickets in the current sprint, etc...
Nobody else in my company uses it tbh, but I don't care because it solves _my_ problem and I love it.
So I created this tool that opens an MR off the branch I'm on. It opens up my favorite editor and asks me for a title and a description in the same way that git does for commits. It splits it in first line for title and the rest for the body.
It's very simple but I'm very happy with it. Now I extended it to list the open MRs, show the tickets in the current sprint, etc...
Nobody else in my company uses it tbh, but I don't care because it solves _my_ problem and I love it.
+1 for Merge Request
I just wrote a long bash script to automate the trimming and organising of a large collection of videos.
I recently bought a drone for photography. But the video looks so good that I end up taking a lot of video, too. Video is new to me, so the raw files keep piling up in my "in" tray. I will have to learn to edit video, one day, or send them to a pro to edit for me.
I decided that the least I could do is watch the videos, organize them, and trim them to just the interesting parts. Saves on disk space.
I wrote a bash script to help me:
- Loop over all videos in a dir.
- Play each video.
- Extract the clips I want.
- Tag, rate and organize the clips.
The result is a neat pile of trimmed and catalogued video clips. Ready to be thrown into some YouTube video.
Only problem, now? I'm more interested in refining the bash script, than I am in learning to use Resolve to make a finished video.
I recently bought a drone for photography. But the video looks so good that I end up taking a lot of video, too. Video is new to me, so the raw files keep piling up in my "in" tray. I will have to learn to edit video, one day, or send them to a pro to edit for me.
I decided that the least I could do is watch the videos, organize them, and trim them to just the interesting parts. Saves on disk space.
I wrote a bash script to help me:
- Loop over all videos in a dir.
- Play each video.
- Extract the clips I want.
- Tag, rate and organize the clips.
The script opens each video in two MPV players. One is full screen and unscaled (watching 4k on a 2k screen means the video appears zoomed in to a 2k region). This is for pixel peaking. I can quickly check, at a glance, the raw video quality. Another MPV window acts like a PIP, taking up a quarter of the screen, and showing the whole video scaled down.
If a video is DLOG, a LUT is applied to MPV to show the video in a more natural colour (raw LOG video looks grey before it is processed).
Hacking this together, without a plan, I use simple msg boxes, on top of the playing videos, to control the process. Better than having to flick back and forth to a terminal window.
When I see a good place in the video to start my cut, I press the "Start" button. An input box pops up, prefilled with the current time of the player, e.g. 00:00:09 if the video is 9 seconds in.
I watch some more of the video and notice some messy, jerky camera movement starting at 38s. I press the "End" button, and another input box pops up to capture the end time of the clip. I change it to 00:00:37 to exclude that jerky part.
Now, in the background, ffmpeg is called to extract the section of video between 9s and 37s. I use keyframes so that video does not need to be re-encoded. It sets the real start time to the nearest keyframe before the start, and the real end time to the next keyframe after the input end_time. This means the output video is always a bit longer than I chose. I can trim those few extra frames when I use the clip. Because we don't re-encode, the extraction time is near instantaneous.
A preview of the clipped file is played back at high-speed.
If the source video is long, and contains more content I want, I continue playing until I see the next clip I want to extract.
When I finish with a source file, I am asked to give a star rating (1-5) for the videos and then to choose tags. For these I make use of the rating and file tagging extended metadata (xdg). I can select any number of pre-existing tags, and add new tags. Some metadata tags will be added automatically, such as frame_rate, resolution, and colour_profile.
Now the clips are in the output dir, and I choose to send the original file to the wastebin. The next video in the source dir starts playing, and the process continues until the dir is empty.
The result is a neat pile of trimmed and catalogued video clips. Ready to be thrown into some YouTube video.
Only problem, now? I'm more interested in refining the bash script, than I am in learning to use Resolve to make a finished video.
Some 30 years ago, I reverse-engineered the format of Prince of Persia's save files and wrote a little C program that would create a save file for any place / level in the game. Just because I could...
I made https://chitchatter.im/ because I don’t trust third parties not to spy on me. I can trust Chitchatter because I know how it works and I built it myself. :)
Recently, I used Zig to write a utility that runs on my NAS (ARM-based) and trawls through all directories looking for SRT subtitle files; it then cleans up these files, getting rid of any subtitles that match any of a set of patterns (such as "Please suscribe to XXX"). The utility does almost zero work for already-scrubbed subtitles, and only does work for new subtitles.
I hooked up an analog phone to Whisper, ChatGPT, and TTS. I used of one of those old timey candlestick phones you'd see in a 1920 gangster movie. Initially this was a prop for a murder mystery party I was hosting (ChatGPT would give clues if you said certain words), but now I use it for a silly distraction here and there. Ask ChatGPT a question by picking up a phone like it's last century! I think it is fun.
I am using Asterisk on Debian that calls my python script. The analog phone adapter auto dials when the receiver goes off hook, because rotary dialing sucks that much and the answering extension is chatgpt role playing different characters based on prompting.
I think it is neat. I need to work on better voice synthesis and improve latency a bit still, but it is a nice toy.
I am using Asterisk on Debian that calls my python script. The analog phone adapter auto dials when the receiver goes off hook, because rotary dialing sucks that much and the answering extension is chatgpt role playing different characters based on prompting.
I think it is neat. I need to work on better voice synthesis and improve latency a bit still, but it is a nice toy.
That sounds like a lot of fun, and really interesting to boot! I hadn't heard of Asterisk until today.
Have you written anything on the development of this project, or is this something you'd consider? I would love to build something similar, and the idea of combining old analogue technology with modern tools and integrations- especially PBX- is quite intriguing.
Have you written anything on the development of this project, or is this something you'd consider? I would love to build something similar, and the idea of combining old analogue technology with modern tools and integrations- especially PBX- is quite intriguing.
I haven't written anything up, but I might do that.
Asterisk is extremely powerful and reliable with good documentation. Because so many companies use it, I knew if something wasn't working that it was definitely on my configuration. Once you have Asterisk running on the LAN, you can you use any VOIP softphone app to connect and make "calls" to your scripts for testing.
I bought an analog telephone adapter (ATA) to connect the phone to the LAN as well. At that point, the ATA is the bridge between the PBX and the physical phone and it can now make and receive calls (to destinations reachable by the PBX).
If you want to make your scripts and devices accessible to the "real phone system" (PSTN) you can hook your ATA to a phone carrier (some ATA support this with a secondary port) or have asterisk connect to an external provider. I have not done this step.
There is definitely a bit of steps involved, so it would make a good write-up. A lot of potential to do some fun things with it.
Asterisk is extremely powerful and reliable with good documentation. Because so many companies use it, I knew if something wasn't working that it was definitely on my configuration. Once you have Asterisk running on the LAN, you can you use any VOIP softphone app to connect and make "calls" to your scripts for testing.
I bought an analog telephone adapter (ATA) to connect the phone to the LAN as well. At that point, the ATA is the bridge between the PBX and the physical phone and it can now make and receive calls (to destinations reachable by the PBX).
If you want to make your scripts and devices accessible to the "real phone system" (PSTN) you can hook your ATA to a phone carrier (some ATA support this with a secondary port) or have asterisk connect to an external provider. I have not done this step.
There is definitely a bit of steps involved, so it would make a good write-up. A lot of potential to do some fun things with it.
How long is the delay between question and answer?
It is currently highly variable. Oftentimes it can be a few hundred milliseconds and the conversation feels natural but other times the whisper api will take like 10 seconds to create a response.
I did create some static filler phrases stored locally (ummm, let me think, good question) to break the silence.
I did create some static filler phrases stored locally (ummm, let me think, good question) to break the silence.
A DNS server, many many years ago. Just to avoid using bind:
https://github.com/antirez/yaku-ns
https://github.com/antirez/yaku-ns
I attempted to build flight control software for a quadcopter[1]. I had a few major life changes around this time and it got packed up and I stopped working on it before I got the PID controllers worked out. But I essentially wrote a small game engine and had to learn a little calculus along the way.
[1] https://github.com/castis/currant
[1] https://github.com/castis/currant
I built a 3D visualiser that overlays semantic topics and sentences of documents with different "embedding types and orders"[1] using Natural Language Processing.
It colours each document with the same colour. You can see how two documents overlap, semantically - it's pretty awesome for Job Role/CV overlays for example, or educational resources and exams - a mix merging of colour shows both equally discuss something... missing colour means one document doesn't.
Since it's semantic, depending on the embedding, the gaps in-between spots make a lot of sense intuitively, and you can sometimes even see how the conclusion of a document ends up in a different semantic space to the start as such (even though there is no time data, you just notice the later topics are semantically in a different space to the earlier ones for the same document)
[1] Similarity based, NLI based, GPT-raw etc.
It colours each document with the same colour. You can see how two documents overlap, semantically - it's pretty awesome for Job Role/CV overlays for example, or educational resources and exams - a mix merging of colour shows both equally discuss something... missing colour means one document doesn't.
Since it's semantic, depending on the embedding, the gaps in-between spots make a lot of sense intuitively, and you can sometimes even see how the conclusion of a document ends up in a different semantic space to the start as such (even though there is no time data, you just notice the later topics are semantically in a different space to the earlier ones for the same document)
[1] Similarity based, NLI based, GPT-raw etc.
Back in 2001-ish, looking for a rental house with good public transport. Screen scraped the entire realestate.com.au database overnight, then fed the addresses into some mapping API that gave me coordinates, and caluclated the distance from those addresses to the addresses of Zone 1 train stations.
Also had descriptions, so wrote a simple regex based scorer that classified the descriptions by keywords that I valued. Spat out a hitlist of likely candidate houses to go inspect.
...
Also wrote a basic wedding registry that allowed people to scan our list of things we wanted and say they had purchased them, or were interested and it gave a list of others who might want to go in on a group purchase. No privacy, but it was only sent to friends. Circa 2004.
...
Finally, wrote a diary and calendar tool which took emails with very simply structured subjects and built a static website showing travels through Europe in 2002. Could email from any net cafe with any email address and it would update the travel diary, or a website with a calendar saying which city we were in and how we were traveling to the next one. Friends could elect to get immediate updates or a daily summary. Purely static built from cron and email archives. Worked like a charm.
...
More recently, hmm... as treasurer for various choir things I've written a ton of little commandline tools which give very quick access to data and allow tracking who owes what and logging their payments into a database, and tools which generate email invoices and receipts.
Everything else is either opensource or work stuff. And I don't code so much these days either, though this week I started diving into Python to create tools that help keep data for our marketing team up-to-date without manually copying stuff around, and some maintenance work on code I wrote 15 years ago which is still running really nicely but needs some updates.
Also had descriptions, so wrote a simple regex based scorer that classified the descriptions by keywords that I valued. Spat out a hitlist of likely candidate houses to go inspect.
...
Also wrote a basic wedding registry that allowed people to scan our list of things we wanted and say they had purchased them, or were interested and it gave a list of others who might want to go in on a group purchase. No privacy, but it was only sent to friends. Circa 2004.
...
Finally, wrote a diary and calendar tool which took emails with very simply structured subjects and built a static website showing travels through Europe in 2002. Could email from any net cafe with any email address and it would update the travel diary, or a website with a calendar saying which city we were in and how we were traveling to the next one. Friends could elect to get immediate updates or a daily summary. Purely static built from cron and email archives. Worked like a charm.
...
More recently, hmm... as treasurer for various choir things I've written a ton of little commandline tools which give very quick access to data and allow tracking who owes what and logging their payments into a database, and tools which generate email invoices and receipts.
Everything else is either opensource or work stuff. And I don't code so much these days either, though this week I started diving into Python to create tools that help keep data for our marketing team up-to-date without manually copying stuff around, and some maintenance work on code I wrote 15 years ago which is still running really nicely but needs some updates.
I trained the raccoons that visit my house at night. I started them out getting a peanuts from a water bottle. Then I tied the bottle to a rope. Then kept raising the bottle higher. At that point, I built an automated feeder system using a linear actuator activated by pulling the rope with the bottle attached. It had LEDs that were green / red to show when the feeder would / wouldn't dispense peanuts. It was all driven by an ESP32, it even had a web page on our LAN reporting how many correct / incorrect pulls were done. Over the coarse of a few nights they figured it out. Raccoons are so cool.
Now teach them how to do simple taxes and you'll have an army of ghost CPAs that can do a similar amount of good to Batman with much less violence.
This is so geeky and awesome at the same time!
Man, I'd have trained them to put coins in a little hopper for the food. Start by leaving the coins on a string similar to how you did it. Then set it up so pulling on the string drops the string+coin into the hopper, triggering the food. Then leave coins on the ground near the hopper. Then... start leaving fewer coins around. Soon, an army of racoons will be bringing you street coins in exchange for peanuts.
One feeder for racoons, and another for crows! Then over time you scale it up by having feeders with cheap snacks and feeders with expensive snacks. Then have a leaderboard to see which animal brings in the most money!
Some LLM AI is going to read this and create a similar apparatus for training humans.
Humans already do this to humans with app analytics.
Raccoons and crows already know how to use vending machines. They don't do it because they don't want to be made to work. It's the same reason orangutans don't talk.
or, neighbourhood nuisances like cigarette buttes.
Next, train them to raid other houses for shiny things and deposit at your house.
If you think racoons are cool, you're definitely not from Toronto.
I only got stupid dogs around here.... :-(
Some years ago, I was annoyed by 1password not having any support for Linux and local vaults, and their vault spec was open, so I build a JavaFX app that allows me to read/view my passwords and OTP tokens.
https://github.com/ingon/opvaultfx
https://github.com/ingon/opvaultfx
I realised I have quite a few random scripts I use for myself or to improve my usual workflow. Recently decided to start blogging again and figured some of them might make interesting reading for others. Lately:
Made my monitor an "ambient tv" by reverse engineering the bluelooth lights and sending them pixel colours: https://www.reaminated.com/reverse-engineer-led-to-convert-m...
I also wanted to use ChatGPT over my own files and documents. Whilst my personal system is a bit more complex, created an end-to-end tutorial of my learnings to get started with using your own docs: https://www.reaminated.com/run-chatgpt-style-questions-over-...
Made my monitor an "ambient tv" by reverse engineering the bluelooth lights and sending them pixel colours: https://www.reaminated.com/reverse-engineer-led-to-convert-m...
I also wanted to use ChatGPT over my own files and documents. Whilst my personal system is a bit more complex, created an end-to-end tutorial of my learnings to get started with using your own docs: https://www.reaminated.com/run-chatgpt-style-questions-over-...
I made a Mac app that turns my webcam light on and off with the camera. It’s buggy, but I use it every day and I love it
I made an AR-based app for myself that tracks my head in 3D space and then pipes the position and angle data to my PC which uses an open source app called OpenTrack to emulate the "TrackIR" protocol to then 3D-control the camera in sim games (like flight sims) with slight movements of my head.
I then posted a little video of it to /r/flightsim (https://www.reddit.com/r/flightsim/comments/id7vmy/head_trac...) and it turned out to be something others wanted, too, so then I polished it and released it as a full app (SmoothTrack). It's been the most successful side project I've ever done.
I then posted a little video of it to /r/flightsim (https://www.reddit.com/r/flightsim/comments/id7vmy/head_trac...) and it turned out to be something others wanted, too, so then I polished it and released it as a full app (SmoothTrack). It's been the most successful side project I've ever done.
It started as a necessity project and evolved over time. You see my daughter started to wanted to have her independence around 5th grade (11 years old) and didn't liked me or her mother to go to school or get her home from school. So she needed a key to enter the apartment. Problem was that she lacked the necessary strength to actually unlock the door - door lock had a certain key position and until you hit that position it required quite a strength to do that. So every day she came from school she was ringing at the door. Whoever (me most of the time) was at home, had to go to the door and open it for her.
So that's how I started this project. Get the door to be unlocked. Bought a new lock, with electromagnetic locker in it, hooked up a Raspberry Pi to command a switch for 0.5 seconds and then wrote a server application for RPi that does the command. Wrote another Android app, that connects to RPi, sends the user/pwd via WiFi, the server verifies if all is OK and then unlocks the door.
Then started expand the tech. Get new users to be added by an Admin user (so roles were implemented). Used as DB SQLite in RPi. Wrote my own protocol on top of crypto libraries so communication is secured with a 4096 RSA key over WiFi. Then one day a little accident happened - my daughter had problems with her stomach and the door could not open fast enough for her to go to toilet, so a little soiled pants came out of that event :). That prompted me to start expanding even more and invest in a little LoRa PCB attached to RPi so the communication now can happen from distance instead of just few meters from the door.
Then I wanted to expand the usefulness of RPi. So when we go to vacation a little pump is pumping a predefined liters of water on our flower pots. And to make sure those do not actually get too little or too much I hooked also a number of webcams on RPi to watch them. And since I was at this step and I wanted to flex my muscle in computer vision so another camera is on our front door and automatically will try to recognize people going through its field of vision. This last step is still refined. So this is where I am with this project. Still in development, pretty sure I'll have more ideas in the future I'll attach to that RPi.
So that's how I started this project. Get the door to be unlocked. Bought a new lock, with electromagnetic locker in it, hooked up a Raspberry Pi to command a switch for 0.5 seconds and then wrote a server application for RPi that does the command. Wrote another Android app, that connects to RPi, sends the user/pwd via WiFi, the server verifies if all is OK and then unlocks the door.
Then started expand the tech. Get new users to be added by an Admin user (so roles were implemented). Used as DB SQLite in RPi. Wrote my own protocol on top of crypto libraries so communication is secured with a 4096 RSA key over WiFi. Then one day a little accident happened - my daughter had problems with her stomach and the door could not open fast enough for her to go to toilet, so a little soiled pants came out of that event :). That prompted me to start expanding even more and invest in a little LoRa PCB attached to RPi so the communication now can happen from distance instead of just few meters from the door.
Then I wanted to expand the usefulness of RPi. So when we go to vacation a little pump is pumping a predefined liters of water on our flower pots. And to make sure those do not actually get too little or too much I hooked also a number of webcams on RPi to watch them. And since I was at this step and I wanted to flex my muscle in computer vision so another camera is on our front door and automatically will try to recognize people going through its field of vision. This last step is still refined. So this is where I am with this project. Still in development, pretty sure I'll have more ideas in the future I'll attach to that RPi.
I absolutely love that the problem was the door lock, and the first thing you did was replace the door lock, but still continued to tech it up and beyond.
Next is an automatic door opener so you can detect her walking up and actually physically open the door, too.
Next is an automatic door opener so you can detect her walking up and actually physically open the door, too.
I made an iOS app which I use to control the Bontrager Flare and ION bike lights via Bluetooth LE.
It turns on/off the lights, changes the mode and also shows the battery status
It turns on/off the lights, changes the mode and also shows the battery status
I combined mblaze (https://github.com/leahneukirchen/mblaze), fzf and standard UNIX tools to build my own CLI MUA in under 300 lines, most of which is shell scripts.
When UNIX is your platform you don't need a complex UI framework with thousands or millions of lines of codes, and you get to reuse knowledge you've already built elsewhere.
I need to write more about it
When UNIX is your platform you don't need a complex UI framework with thousands or millions of lines of codes, and you get to reuse knowledge you've already built elsewhere.
I need to write more about it
Not nearly as cool as all the other stuff here, but still my favorite piece of tech for myself:
IMO, Vim + Markdown is one of the best ways to take notes, brainstorm, or just explore ideas. However, I found the questions of "Where should I put the notes in my dir hierarchy?" and "How do I find the notes again?" and "How do I ensure I have my notes across all devices?" to be inhibiting.
I wrote a CLI "journal" tool that says "forget putting them into folders", dumps all the Markdowns into a single Google Drive folder, and instead focuses on providing really good search.
Now, in my day to day, I can do "journal new some-meeting-with-dan.md" and I get a fresh Markdown. I can also do "journal find" to search by name, date of creation, or tag, and then open notes in either Vim or as rendered HTML in Chrome (for copy-pasting). Behind the scenes all the information is just encoded in the filename (so it becomes "some-meeting-eith-dan~2023-04-23T22:10:23~tag1,tag2.md", with no extra DB needed).
I'm also now trying to rewrite the frontend as a Charm TUI, which is another whole fun growth path!
IMO, Vim + Markdown is one of the best ways to take notes, brainstorm, or just explore ideas. However, I found the questions of "Where should I put the notes in my dir hierarchy?" and "How do I find the notes again?" and "How do I ensure I have my notes across all devices?" to be inhibiting.
I wrote a CLI "journal" tool that says "forget putting them into folders", dumps all the Markdowns into a single Google Drive folder, and instead focuses on providing really good search.
Now, in my day to day, I can do "journal new some-meeting-with-dan.md" and I get a fresh Markdown. I can also do "journal find" to search by name, date of creation, or tag, and then open notes in either Vim or as rendered HTML in Chrome (for copy-pasting). Behind the scenes all the information is just encoded in the filename (so it becomes "some-meeting-eith-dan~2023-04-23T22:10:23~tag1,tag2.md", with no extra DB needed).
I'm also now trying to rewrite the frontend as a Charm TUI, which is another whole fun growth path!
Seems really cool. I love Vim + Markdown as well.
If you haven't heard of vimwiki yet, check it out. Right in line with what you're working on.
https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki
If you haven't heard of vimwiki yet, check it out. Right in line with what you're working on.
https://github.com/vimwiki/vimwiki
Thanks - will check it out!
I have a esp32 board that listens to voice commands and turns on and off the lights in my workshop. For fun and for the kids it has a rainbows mode since it controls multi color led strip of lights.
In highschool a friend and I build a multiplication circuit based on an AMV serving as clock frequency driver, pushing binary numbers A and B through an addition circuit and a latch producing the result A*B.
We freaked out when we were able to increase the frequency from 1Hz where we visually could see the calculation proceed via LEDs, to thousands of Hz and "instant" calculation.
We had to physically hit the manual begin-switch with great force, in order to prevent the switch from not going cleanly from 0 to control voltage, when we operated in the KHz clock frequencies.
We freaked out when we were able to increase the frequency from 1Hz where we visually could see the calculation proceed via LEDs, to thousands of Hz and "instant" calculation.
We had to physically hit the manual begin-switch with great force, in order to prevent the switch from not going cleanly from 0 to control voltage, when we operated in the KHz clock frequencies.
I made a password manager in Rust. It just encrypts and decrypts a file from/to ~/passwords.txt <-> ~/passwords.ryp (the encrypted form). Because the the file names are fixed it's easy to use. Just type:
ryp
If ~/passwords.txt is there, it will be encrypted. If ~/passwords.ryp is there, it will be decrypted.
The cool feature is that it checks to make sure that the password you typed in the nth time you encrypt it is the same as the 1st time. This protects you from inadvertently encrypting it with a typo if you check/update your passwords many times.
ryp
If ~/passwords.txt is there, it will be encrypted. If ~/passwords.ryp is there, it will be decrypted.
The cool feature is that it checks to make sure that the password you typed in the nth time you encrypt it is the same as the 1st time. This protects you from inadvertently encrypting it with a typo if you check/update your passwords many times.
Have you heard of `pass`[0] before?
It's not quite as simple as your solution, but otherwise works really well.
[0] https://www.passwordstore.org/
It's not quite as simple as your solution, but otherwise works really well.
[0] https://www.passwordstore.org/
About yen years ago, I built a site that scraped Steam and spat out the ~100 most recently-released games in a skimmable format: http://www.whatsonsteam.com
There's a lot of weirdness that launches each day, but also lots of interesting-looking stuff.
There's a lot of weirdness that launches each day, but also lots of interesting-looking stuff.
SSO proxy I use for all my self-hosted needs. I have 1 user in an LDAP database and I can use it even for services with no authentication at all. I even implemented real-time QR code login, magic link and web login over SSH.
Older 1999-2007 model year Ford vehicles don’t come with an aux input audio option and they have a cd changer under the seat instead. I made an Arduino shield that emulates the CD changer and injects my iPhone’s audio pretending to be a CD.
The shield also handles intercepting the car headunit’s playback commands when you press the physical radio buttons on your car so it does a second emulation of a earphone clicker and passes headunit playback commands back to control the phone over the aux cable.
In short I can control my phone’s audio playback using my retro radio headunit using only a wired connection and no Bluetooth.
My schematic and source code are available at https://github.com/ansonl/FordACP-AUX
In short I can control my phone’s audio playback using my retro radio headunit using only a wired connection and no Bluetooth.
My schematic and source code are available at https://github.com/ansonl/FordACP-AUX
2007?! They were putting CD players in cars in 2007?! Are you in the US?
Ford's first iteration of their Sync infotainment system came out in 2007. What were they supposed to use before that?
I’m not sure if that’s surprisingly early or late
I live in the US and had a 1991 Acura Legend with a six disc CD changer in the trunk (it was ahead of its time in a few ways) and have recently had a 2014 Honda Accord with a single CD player in the center infotainment area
I live in the US and had a 1991 Acura Legend with a six disc CD changer in the trunk (it was ahead of its time in a few ways) and have recently had a 2014 Honda Accord with a single CD player in the center infotainment area
I'm not sure what I was thinking, I must have been tired and maybe mixed up 2007 and 2017. 2007 absolutely would have been CD player central with a sprinkle of Aux/3.5mm connector every now and then.
My 2010 Audi (bought used) has a 5 disc changer and an iPod connector. Very futuristic.
I had a 2008 Lexus RX with a CD changer and a cassette player in the dash. Old people is their primary target audience.
My 2014 Ford has a CD player (which we never use).
Yep, the 2007 Ford Escape hybrid I have is a US model. The next year in 2008 was when the new Escape model design had the Ford Sync audio system with aux input.
This is awesome! How did you figure out the signalling protocol between the head unit and the CD changer?
There was some previous hobbyist research into implementing the protocol which is the Ford Audio Control Protocol. You can see my summary and all sources linked here http://ansonliu.com/2017/09/ford-acp-cd-changer-emulator-aux...
One of the easiest ways to add an aux audio input to a car is to get a radio antenna bypass box, like the iSimple IS31.
I used to listen to lots of mp3s on my computer in the nineties, so I built a USB IR receiver that could interpret signals from a remote control and use it to control winamp.
I made a tool that tracks the current and historical prices of all sailboats in the world to look for possible good deals.
I made a website that let me track my student loan payoff (since I had 30+ different loans) that showed the total payoff as a big red thermometer. I also would track the dates of payments and used that to estimate the total payoff date
I made and open sourced an attendance tracking site for a local school that allows students to come and go throughout the day, but needs to ensure they at least showed up and returned before school let out.
I made a tool that would determine the most efficient way to build damage per second on each hero in a moba. It used linear optimization to calculate which items to build and in what order to get the highest DPS.
I made a tool that tracks the current and historical prices of all sailboats in the world to look for possible good deals.
I made a website that let me track my student loan payoff (since I had 30+ different loans) that showed the total payoff as a big red thermometer. I also would track the dates of payments and used that to estimate the total payoff date
I made and open sourced an attendance tracking site for a local school that allows students to come and go throughout the day, but needs to ensure they at least showed up and returned before school let out.
I made a tool that would determine the most efficient way to build damage per second on each hero in a moba. It used linear optimization to calculate which items to build and in what order to get the highest DPS.
> since I had 30+ different loans
That's fascinating! How do did you get over 30 different loans? Is this any kind of normal where you're from?
That's fascinating! How do did you get over 30 different loans? Is this any kind of normal where you're from?
I moved to the US for college, and the only way to pay the predatorily high tuition was to take out student loans. Those were taken out incrementally each semester. I was eligible for several different kinds of loans at varying rates and amounts, so each semester I'd optimize, resulting in several loans a semester.
Most people don't realize that is how it is done, because they consolidate (or never switch provider) after graduation.
America is a scary place.
I built this about 4 years ago... I have about half a dozen of them around the house right now showing stock quotes, weather, etc. and updating every 5 minutes.
https://foundrytechnologies.com/relay.php
One of them has been outside the front door showing messages to visitors and exposed to the Texas elements for all that time now - still going strong. About 2 years ago I replaced the plastic case, which was looking a bit warped.
Sold a few too - though not enough to scale things up. Hardware is hard.
https://foundrytechnologies.com/relay.php
One of them has been outside the front door showing messages to visitors and exposed to the Texas elements for all that time now - still going strong. About 2 years ago I replaced the plastic case, which was looking a bit warped.
Sold a few too - though not enough to scale things up. Hardware is hard.
I believe tech has passed down inefficient solutions that represented the best solution given the hardware constraints of the time. For this reason, I began rebuilding my web stack.
Deployed applications:
Analytics, Object Database, and WAF.
Deploying shortly:
WSGI app and templating system.
Deployed applications:
Analytics, Object Database, and WAF.
Deploying shortly:
WSGI app and templating system.
I built myself a phototrap using a Raspberry Pi and a spare webcam. It was a proof of concept to demonstrate a function of a python package I developed for aesthetic analysis of images, that was presented at an international conference. The camera detects movements, and send an image to my via Telegram.
I am now using it to take pictures of stray cats moving outside my house.
When I was house-hunting I ended up writing a console app for my wife and I to do a few things:
- Pulled down applicable YNAB savings envelope balances and future income calculations from a Google Sheets spreadsheet (which included stock prices for determining RSU payouts) to know how much cash we'd have for down payments at any time in the next 12 months
- Allowed us to either give a house price and have it output when we could afford it, or give a month and tell us how much we could afford if we bought on that month
- Do budgetary analysis of what the monthly payment would be, given fluctuating mortgage rates and estimated insurance from scraping Zillow/Redfin
- Calculated transit times to my office and my wife's office using Google Maps
- Allowed for swappable "scenarios" for all the above to show what would happen if we wanted to sell our current place first and then buy, buy and then sell, or buy-renovate-sell, so we could evaluate all options. We ended up going the buy-renovate-sell path in reality, and it was a huge stress relief to have hard numbers showing us the money was going to be fine.
- Output several months of cash reserves for each scenario after all transactions were done, so we could know if we would cut too much into savings
- Output a yes/no decision based on all of the above to keep us grounded and help prevent over-reaching for a house we couldn't afford - basically enforcing rules on ourselves
- Pulled down applicable YNAB savings envelope balances and future income calculations from a Google Sheets spreadsheet (which included stock prices for determining RSU payouts) to know how much cash we'd have for down payments at any time in the next 12 months
- Allowed us to either give a house price and have it output when we could afford it, or give a month and tell us how much we could afford if we bought on that month
- Do budgetary analysis of what the monthly payment would be, given fluctuating mortgage rates and estimated insurance from scraping Zillow/Redfin
- Calculated transit times to my office and my wife's office using Google Maps
- Allowed for swappable "scenarios" for all the above to show what would happen if we wanted to sell our current place first and then buy, buy and then sell, or buy-renovate-sell, so we could evaluate all options. We ended up going the buy-renovate-sell path in reality, and it was a huge stress relief to have hard numbers showing us the money was going to be fine.
- Output several months of cash reserves for each scenario after all transactions were done, so we could know if we would cut too much into savings
- Output a yes/no decision based on all of the above to keep us grounded and help prevent over-reaching for a house we couldn't afford - basically enforcing rules on ourselves
Any chance you could share this? I made something similar for an investment decision once and i just discovered the realtor i worked with uses it all the time with his clients. I feel like others might like what you’re doing.
I just put pause on a project because i couldn’t figure out a revenue model: mappedby.com
I just put pause on a project because i couldn’t figure out a revenue model: mappedby.com
I wrote a set of Python/PIL scripts to arrange image collages for print calendars, web backgrounds, ...etc. In one particular script I use to build backgrounds, the images remain the same height but they can be different widths. The images built are seamless. Here's an example of some comic book covers in a collage using one of these scripts:
https://jiml.us/bp/
https://jiml.us/bp/
I like to fish at night. So I built 3D printed bobbers with an LED diode and scavenged LiPo batteries from vapes inside. It has a dime sized wireless charger receiving coil that is glued inside to a slightly flattened bottom. Externally I built a mini solar panel that charges a scavenged 18650 that charges the battery with a wireless transmitter. The bobber is about the size of a golf ball. I used a slow blinking LED diode that changes color of the bobber. Haven't caught a fish with it yet but it is mesmerizing watching it change colors and bob on the water.
I built a Chrome extension to be able to use spaced repetitions for chess puzzles/exercises that I found online. Used it for a couple years and gained at least 200 Elo rating with it :)
Recently I built a public facing website for that, if anybody is curious: chess.braimax.com
Recently I built a public facing website for that, if anybody is curious: chess.braimax.com
I've built two projects that I'm very happy with.
I'm still using livejournal.com social network nobody cares about today and when I was really into common lisp I decided to build a cli client to it. What makes it cool is that it's just markdown files locally and the client works almost like git, you can even pull and push posts. After I wrote it I was able to pull all my posts since 2007 or so from the service and have them locally as markdown files, any updates would be synced.
The other thing I've built mostly for my self is a notes taking service https://dabdab.org which allows to take notes the way I want it. What was cool about it was that I was able to almost reinvent django or rails but in go, so everything is fast, but still compile checks. From the product side I've managed to get to the same level of comfort one would get with github issues (markdown, image upload etc).
Both things have 1 user at the moment (me) do I think that counts :D
I'm still using livejournal.com social network nobody cares about today and when I was really into common lisp I decided to build a cli client to it. What makes it cool is that it's just markdown files locally and the client works almost like git, you can even pull and push posts. After I wrote it I was able to pull all my posts since 2007 or so from the service and have them locally as markdown files, any updates would be synced.
The other thing I've built mostly for my self is a notes taking service https://dabdab.org which allows to take notes the way I want it. What was cool about it was that I was able to almost reinvent django or rails but in go, so everything is fast, but still compile checks. From the product side I've managed to get to the same level of comfort one would get with github issues (markdown, image upload etc).
Both things have 1 user at the moment (me) do I think that counts :D
watched the video - had a few thoughts i thought id share
instead of specific field (ie for pushups) why not a "tag" ? ie "Started doing pullups today, did <f>6</f> - not much, but i think with a daily practice, i could get to <f>20</f> by <fd>10-10-2025</fd>
and another, more cosmetical - to reduce visual clutter, i'd hide those "add fact | task" links, and only show them when hovering over the card.
also, dunno if you already have it - would have a "all tasks" view that would show me all tasks from all the messages.
and another, more cosmetical - to reduce visual clutter, i'd hide those "add fact | task" links, and only show them when hovering over the card.
also, dunno if you already have it - would have a "all tasks" view that would show me all tasks from all the messages.
About 30 years ago I reverse-engineered my Sega Mega Drive game console and built my own hardware dev kit from scratch. I did blog about that project here:
https://nestenius.se/2022/01/18/how-i-built-my-own-sega-mega...
Laughs in YM2612.
I did not join social media until very recently but wanted an easy way to send pictures to close friends and family so built this small python script that sends N pics out of a text file list (so if even if I sort 100 in one day I only send 5 per batch) sends one pic per email, reduce the size of the pics, sets a custom from field, hide the recipients' addresses in the BCC field.
https://github.com/dorfsmay/emailFiles
There's nothing extraordinary about it, it's not far from a standard spam bot! What's interesting about it is that I've been using it for more than a decade with fairly little maintenance.
https://github.com/dorfsmay/emailFiles
There's nothing extraordinary about it, it's not far from a standard spam bot! What's interesting about it is that I've been using it for more than a decade with fairly little maintenance.
Some developer tools that spun out of my current product (but not launched thus counts as "built for myself" and nowadays "ourselves"):
- A build system that is simpler and easier to use than Gradle. It also has a much better rendering of progress and output for tests when they fail. I mostly use it to run tests, actually. Supports parallel incremental and cached work.
- A Kotlin Scripting runtime that exposes a high-level UNIX shell-like API along with many other useful utilities like printing markdown, tracking progress of long operations (including hierarchically), working with files and remote programs over ssh and many other things. We have almost entirely replaced bash with it.
- A build system that is simpler and easier to use than Gradle. It also has a much better rendering of progress and output for tests when they fail. I mostly use it to run tests, actually. Supports parallel incremental and cached work.
- A Kotlin Scripting runtime that exposes a high-level UNIX shell-like API along with many other useful utilities like printing markdown, tracking progress of long operations (including hierarchically), working with files and remote programs over ssh and many other things. We have almost entirely replaced bash with it.
I didn’t exactly build this from scratch but it is pretty heavily modified: I use an ESP8266 with a relay module to control my garage door via Home Assistant. I use a second one mounted on my bike as a WiFi presence detector. This way when I turn the bike on, the bike module connects to my home WiFi and Home Assistant opens my garage door. Once I leave the property and WiFi disconnects, the garage door closes a minute later. When I come home the same happens: as I approach the garage door opens and after I park and shut the bike off the door closes. There are a lot of solutions for how to open the garage door from a bike but this has been the most elegant that I’ve tried.
The most interesting tech I've build for myself is boring: a writing tool I use every day for journaling: https://enso.sonnet.io
With that out of the way here's some more ridiculous stuff:
In 2016, I made a browser based AR party game where you'd fight kittens falling from the sky by dancing with vegetables in your hands (CMYK was easier to track using the webcam). I have some photos here: https://goo.gl/photos/g6Dp8GLDbuuhT1TRA
From a technical PoV it was exciting (running AR, in a browser, in pre Pokemon GO, pre WASM times!)
I also made a simple photography lighting tool, replacing professional lights with computer/tablet/phone screens (facade.photo). I put it in an old wardrobe bought in a thrift store on Brick Lane and during my startup launch. Results: https://goo.gl/photos/RZ3fCRcScYSGr7aG6
Ah, I also made an AI-powered voice assistant in 2014. The tagline was HTML5-powered voice assistant, as AI wasn't really _the_ buzzword then, but _HTML5_... oh yeah.
With that out of the way here's some more ridiculous stuff:
In 2016, I made a browser based AR party game where you'd fight kittens falling from the sky by dancing with vegetables in your hands (CMYK was easier to track using the webcam). I have some photos here: https://goo.gl/photos/g6Dp8GLDbuuhT1TRA
From a technical PoV it was exciting (running AR, in a browser, in pre Pokemon GO, pre WASM times!)
I also made a simple photography lighting tool, replacing professional lights with computer/tablet/phone screens (facade.photo). I put it in an old wardrobe bought in a thrift store on Brick Lane and during my startup launch. Results: https://goo.gl/photos/RZ3fCRcScYSGr7aG6
Ah, I also made an AI-powered voice assistant in 2014. The tagline was HTML5-powered voice assistant, as AI wasn't really _the_ buzzword then, but _HTML5_... oh yeah.
Enso looks really nice, as does Sit and your about pages.
enso is cool!
Enso website looks beautiful, what tools did you use to build it?
Next.js for the product page and regular react for the app. My personal website was built using eleventy. I enjoy writing plain html and css but I try to be pragmatic when things get a bit complex.
You might have a typo on the Ensō homepage.
>Ensō works perfectly fine even without internet connecton.
hah, editing to say that I really liked it. I'm stress a lot about how I phrase things and am very conscious about how concise am I when when I'm writing for an audience.
>Ensō works perfectly fine even without internet connecton.
hah, editing to say that I really liked it. I'm stress a lot about how I phrase things and am very conscious about how concise am I when when I'm writing for an audience.
fixed, thank you sacred satan
> hah, editing to say that I really liked it. I'm stress a lot about how I phrase things and am very conscious about how concise am I when when I'm writing for an audience.
Same here. My fluency has improved quite a bit since I started writing daily, but things get much harder when I have to share my work. I'm trying to be more comfortable with sharing things when they're not perfect. Sit was an exercise in that. I wrote about it here: https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/
> hah, editing to say that I really liked it. I'm stress a lot about how I phrase things and am very conscious about how concise am I when when I'm writing for an audience.
Same here. My fluency has improved quite a bit since I started writing daily, but things get much harder when I have to share my work. I'm trying to be more comfortable with sharing things when they're not perfect. Sit was an exercise in that. I wrote about it here: https://sonnet.io/posts/sit/
I can't believe people like you exist. Just a handful of amazing projects
Both Enso and Sit are really nicely done. I think it would be interesting to add a wordcount "goal" with Enso - set it before you begin and have it notify you when you reach the wordcount for that day. Maybe even re-use the chime from Sit, heck maybe even say ok you reached your writing goal (either time or word count) time to "sit" for a few minutes and then back to it.
Ha. I made The Most Dangerous Writing App for that very purpose (sold it a few years ago after it became an unlikely success), I love finding other peoples home made writing tools! Thanks for sharing Enso!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Dangerous_Writing_A...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Dangerous_Writing_A...
Thank you so much for making it, when I started getting into the habit of digital journal, it had helped me a lot to not fix grammar and to not cringe at the things I've just written down.
Haha, a few years ago I created a Chrome extension called "Writer's Block" that would delete everything in the textarea if the user pressed backspace/delete. I used it a lot myself for a while and it got me into the habit of writing without premature editing. I never got around to actually releasing it.
I can ask siri in the car "Check parking" and it will tell me if there are any available spaces in the parking lot near my building.
There is also a telegram bot that can show me the latest camera image with vacant places highlighted.
There is also a telegram bot that can show me the latest camera image with vacant places highlighted.
A door sensor, for when my kid was sleep walking. There are various door sensors out there on the market, but they all set off a siren. I just wanted something that would alert my phone and wake me up, in case she did it in the middle of the night. Your not supposed to wake up a sleep walker, and I sure as hell didn't want a siren going off in the middle of the night.
Kinda sorta worked ok...just in time for her to stop sleep walking.
Kinda sorta worked ok...just in time for her to stop sleep walking.
> Kinda sorta worked ok...just in time for her to stop sleep walking.
Heh, Sounds just like every project I set out to do :)
Heh, Sounds just like every project I set out to do :)
It's probably not as cool as some of the other projects in here, but I've been working on a sound change applier, which is a hobbyist tool for applying sound change rules to a lexicon. You could use this to generate pronunciations for a language with particularly regular spelling, but these tools are mainly used for evolving constructed languages.
The way it works is it generates an NFA for a rule. You can define sets of sounds, some of which can be multiple characters long, and also define distinctive features, which allows you to define how sounds change by adding or removing them, but also allows you to match groups of sounds based on combinations of distinctive features. It builds up these ad-hoc sets of sounds and produces a prefix tree, which it uses as a template to build the NFA. Finally, the NFA is converted to a DFA for performance. It takes a while (the console app is much faster than the browser demo), but the rules run many, many times, so they need to be fast. It's essentially a special purpose regex engine. I'm working on bug fixes and some enhancements for now, but it basically works.
Demo: https://marriola.github.io/transmute-demo
The way it works is it generates an NFA for a rule. You can define sets of sounds, some of which can be multiple characters long, and also define distinctive features, which allows you to define how sounds change by adding or removing them, but also allows you to match groups of sounds based on combinations of distinctive features. It builds up these ad-hoc sets of sounds and produces a prefix tree, which it uses as a template to build the NFA. Finally, the NFA is converted to a DFA for performance. It takes a while (the console app is much faster than the browser demo), but the rules run many, many times, so they need to be fast. It's essentially a special purpose regex engine. I'm working on bug fixes and some enhancements for now, but it basically works.
Demo: https://marriola.github.io/transmute-demo
I have a "TV channel" app running on a Raspberry Pi serving up local video content to a schedule I create.
The Pi has a 5TB hard drive attached with perhaps 1000 videos or so. The app has a schedule and plays the videos according to the schedule. It starts up in the morning, plays tele-courses, moves on to old TV shows, an afternoon movie, after school shows begin around 3:00 PM, a comedy show around dinner time, an evening movie, some late-night content, then the Indian head and "We Will Resume Broadcasting Tomorrow Morning...."
It fills dead airtime by choosing randomly among (literally) thousands of YouTube short clips I have on the drive — or showing a title card indicating when the next show begins.
Partly it's a fantasy — to have my own "channel" with my own scheduled content — my fantasy station.
Partly it serves to put on content I would otherwise not be inclined to pull up, double click and watch. It adds the serendipitous element to TV watching that I miss before streaming. The movie "Charly" (1968) just came on last night and I am sure I have not seen it since I was a teenager — had to stop what I was doing and watch a few scenes I recall vividly.
Today's lineup here: https://engineersneedart.com/UHF/
(Since the schedule is in JSON format, it was easy enough to make a web front end to display today's schedule.)
The Pi has a 5TB hard drive attached with perhaps 1000 videos or so. The app has a schedule and plays the videos according to the schedule. It starts up in the morning, plays tele-courses, moves on to old TV shows, an afternoon movie, after school shows begin around 3:00 PM, a comedy show around dinner time, an evening movie, some late-night content, then the Indian head and "We Will Resume Broadcasting Tomorrow Morning...."
It fills dead airtime by choosing randomly among (literally) thousands of YouTube short clips I have on the drive — or showing a title card indicating when the next show begins.
Partly it's a fantasy — to have my own "channel" with my own scheduled content — my fantasy station.
Partly it serves to put on content I would otherwise not be inclined to pull up, double click and watch. It adds the serendipitous element to TV watching that I miss before streaming. The movie "Charly" (1968) just came on last night and I am sure I have not seen it since I was a teenager — had to stop what I was doing and watch a few scenes I recall vividly.
Today's lineup here: https://engineersneedart.com/UHF/
(Since the schedule is in JSON format, it was easy enough to make a web front end to display today's schedule.)
Engineer Sneed Art?
Look who is out of the loop on Sneed Art
Engineers Need Art
Formerly Chuck Art
Engineers Need Art ^^
Engineers nèè Dart
What a great idea! Are you inclined to make a guide? If so, my old-school wife and myself would be grateful.
Otherwise, I will enjoy the fun of figuring it out for myself some day.
Otherwise, I will enjoy the fun of figuring it out for myself some day.
I'll open-source it when I get the embarrassing bugs worked out.
I encourage you not to be embarrassed and to simply opensource it. To err is human; anyone giving you grief because of bugs doesn't deserve the effort you've put in. And opening it now could actually bring assistance in getting those bugs fixed, while simultaneously benefitting everyone who wants to do something similar but isn't sure where to start
I won't speak for anyone else but sometimes "bugs" in more about process than code. I have a similar project as the GP and am not currently interested in open sourcing the project because there's a lot of bespoke elements and manual setup process. I don't want to have to make a README describing all the process steps that make my code actually useful.
For me, on my hardware, on my network, I've got a process that works. It's a non-zero amount of effort to generalize the description of that process.
For me, on my hardware, on my network, I've got a process that works. It's a non-zero amount of effort to generalize the description of that process.
I have been thinking about doing exactly this for Saturday morning cartoons to stream anime to my PVM once I can figure out how to stream 480i from a modern device to RGB.
Would consider sharing how you set it up? I’d love to do something similar!
Would consider sharing how you set it up? I’d love to do something similar!
I wrote the app in Python for the Raspberry Pi. For video playback I am using the (now deprecated) omx player.
I tried using VLC instead for video playback (I think the more accepted way to play video from Python now) but when VLC completes showing a video there is a visible flash that I cannot figure out how to get rid of.
I should point out though that it doesn't "stream" — you'll have to find some other solution for that. The Pi is a dedicated "player" hooked to a dedicated TV that is always on, always showing what the Pi has to offer up.
I tried using VLC instead for video playback (I think the more accepted way to play video from Python now) but when VLC completes showing a video there is a visible flash that I cannot figure out how to get rid of.
I should point out though that it doesn't "stream" — you'll have to find some other solution for that. The Pi is a dedicated "player" hooked to a dedicated TV that is always on, always showing what the Pi has to offer up.
You might look at mpv instead of VLC. I had the same visible flash problem with VLC and mplayer but not with mpv. The other benefit of mpv I just (as in two days ago) found was I can use a loudness normalization audio filter to keep some shows from having blaring audio.
On my system I'm running mpv on top of OpenBox with compton for the compositor. It's been much smoother all around than VLC or mplayer on the same hardware (an AMD mini PC now replacing an RPi I had been using).
On my system I'm running mpv on top of OpenBox with compton for the compositor. It's been much smoother all around than VLC or mplayer on the same hardware (an AMD mini PC now replacing an RPi I had been using).
Thank you! I will do that.
VLC has a setting to pause videos when they reach the end, instead of stopping them. Depending on how your system is set up, this might prevent the flashing.
For those interested in doing something similar there's a Plex add-on for making custom TV channels:
https://github.com/vexorian/dizquetv
Personally I want almost this. I want to rotate the TV shows my kids watch in the morning but I don't want to start part way through a show (the one part of the old analogue experience that I don't miss at all). Difficult to square that circle.
https://github.com/vexorian/dizquetv
Personally I want almost this. I want to rotate the TV shows my kids watch in the morning but I don't want to start part way through a show (the one part of the old analogue experience that I don't miss at all). Difficult to square that circle.
HDMI seems to be two way, my ps5 turns on automatically when I turn my TV on.
So you should be able to do something with that.
So you should be able to do something with that.
Oh, it's definitely possible. Software like dizquetv it must know when a new connection is made. But to add such a feature would require a lot of familiarization with their codebase and I don't currently have the time.
One day...
One day...
The protocol you're looking for is HDMI-CEC! Not a ton of good documentation out there, but hopefully this helps send you down a good path.
Your comment led me to learn about Plex Plugins even though I've been using Plex for literally a decade!
Unfortunately they're removing support for all Plugins over time and have already eliminated ones that play content.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/online-media-sou...
Unfortunately they're removing support for all Plugins over time and have already eliminated ones that play content.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/categories/online-media-sou...
God. I wish they would stop shagging about with it content stuff (I don’t want their content, ever).
I would like a more logical arrangement of settings, remote setting of user resolutions (eg, please try native!).
I would like a more logical arrangement of settings, remote setting of user resolutions (eg, please try native!).
Try out Jellyfin! It's an open source Plex replacement that doesn't mess with its users.
I switched a year ago after some dumb monetization change at Plex annoyed me enough and it's just been so much better.
Imagine a product just like Plex, but without all the shit Plex tries to pull all the time!
I switched a year ago after some dumb monetization change at Plex annoyed me enough and it's just been so much better.
Imagine a product just like Plex, but without all the shit Plex tries to pull all the time!
Wow. No idea this existed. I was about to set up a TV tuner with my Plex and pay $4.99 for the ability to broadcast live TV over Plex but see that JellyFin has this feature for free.
THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!
Do you ever need to access your library remotely or from iOS devices?
That's the one killer app for Plex for me. I can get to my library when I'm on the road (music more than movies or TV).
Does Jellyfin do anything like this? Any other caveats if you've used both?
That's the one killer app for Plex for me. I can get to my library when I'm on the road (music more than movies or TV).
Does Jellyfin do anything like this? Any other caveats if you've used both?
I'm using a seedbox and I can access it from anywhere, just fine. I'll be honest, I'm not sure about the implementation details, but I'm pretty sure it's done via a reverse proxy like so: https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/networking/caddy/
Thanks for sharing! I'm reading the docs but was curious to also hear some first-hand experiences..
I like the idea of Jellyfin, but I had a lot of performance issues with Jellyfin and ended up having to switch back to Plex.
What kind of performance issues? I haven't experienced anything like that personally
Ha! The Final Sacrifice is on tonight. That's one of the very best MST3K episodes.
I would love to do something like this for my kids. They're constantly begging to watch Youtube, which I limit pretty heavily. Something like this could allow me to stick some pre-approved videos into a queue, and maybe even make an allowance for a half-hour of some of the ... dumber stuff that they like at a certain time of the day. I could also slip in some Kurzgesagt, Mark Rober, content that they may not otherwise be that interested in to surreptitiously educate them ;)
I would love to do something like this for my kids. They're constantly begging to watch Youtube, which I limit pretty heavily. Something like this could allow me to stick some pre-approved videos into a queue, and maybe even make an allowance for a half-hour of some of the ... dumber stuff that they like at a certain time of the day. I could also slip in some Kurzgesagt, Mark Rober, content that they may not otherwise be that interested in to surreptitiously educate them ;)
That’s great! Like the idea of bringing serendipitous timing back. I see ‘Sounder’ is coming up, I recently got that soundtrack on vinyl!
I did this same sort of thing. My impetus was that I have tons of shows and movies to watch but I 1) don't necessarily want to binge every episode back to back and 2) my wide selection leads to choice paralysis. I mostly want some background noise rather than something I'm super engaged in.
I wrote a script to catalog all my shows/movies then another that reads a schedule and generates a daily playlist. My schedule has daily episodes of some shows and then weekly showings of others. I even put some network block bumpers between some shows and "upcoming schedule" clips.
The output of the scheduling script is just an m3u playlist. A cron job loads the day's playlist at midnight and it plays continuously during the day. There's no controls to pause or anything, if I miss something I miss it (by design). All the video content is stored on a 5TB drive plugged into the machine.
To complete the old school analog nature of the project I picked up a low power Hlly VHF video transmitter. I've got a small CRT TV in my office that I use during the day and I can pick up the signal on the TV in the living room. The project started on an RPi with VLC but it struggled on some videos I'd ripped from Bluray so I replaced it with a little fanless AMD box with an HDMI-RCA adapter. It sits in the garage and I can pick up the signal anywhere in the house.
The best part is apart from the setup it's proven to be pretty reliable. My next step is to make a schedule output like what you linked and maybe a web based UI to let me "change channels". For right now it does what I want with no real fuss and I always have something on that I like.
I wrote a script to catalog all my shows/movies then another that reads a schedule and generates a daily playlist. My schedule has daily episodes of some shows and then weekly showings of others. I even put some network block bumpers between some shows and "upcoming schedule" clips.
The output of the scheduling script is just an m3u playlist. A cron job loads the day's playlist at midnight and it plays continuously during the day. There's no controls to pause or anything, if I miss something I miss it (by design). All the video content is stored on a 5TB drive plugged into the machine.
To complete the old school analog nature of the project I picked up a low power Hlly VHF video transmitter. I've got a small CRT TV in my office that I use during the day and I can pick up the signal on the TV in the living room. The project started on an RPi with VLC but it struggled on some videos I'd ripped from Bluray so I replaced it with a little fanless AMD box with an HDMI-RCA adapter. It sits in the garage and I can pick up the signal anywhere in the house.
The best part is apart from the setup it's proven to be pretty reliable. My next step is to make a schedule output like what you linked and maybe a web based UI to let me "change channels". For right now it does what I want with no real fuss and I always have something on that I like.
That is super cool!
I’ve wanted to do the m3u playlist thing for a long time, so I could create a HLS stream for each “channel”. Then family members could watch from any device.
I’ve wanted to do the m3u playlist thing for a long time, so I could create a HLS stream for each “channel”. Then family members could watch from any device.
This reminds me of the channels gamers get in Ready Player One. The main character used his channel to broadcast his favorite T.V. shows that other people could tune in and watch. This is a really cool!
If it were public, it would sadly fall afoul of copyright laws. Which is an absolute shame. Netflix and friends should definitely find a way to make this exist.
All this is missing is an RF modulator and a very-low-power transmitter, just enough to reach throughout the house...
Do houses no longer come with coax anymore? I broadcast to my house on an injected channel using an HDMI-to-RF modulator[0]
[0] https://www.provideoinstruments.com/hdmi-to-rf-modulator-con...
[0] https://www.provideoinstruments.com/hdmi-to-rf-modulator-con...
I did the same thing with my Chromecast, I made it play a random episode from my library, one after the other, so there was always something I liked on.
I've wanted to do this for quite some time! Do you serve it over you local network or is the Pi directly connected to the television?
Very cool. This is exactly what I miss about old time TV; being able to catch a show by chance. I find it interesting that most of the time there's so much choice that I can't get the energy to pick one and stick with it. For a while there, I had 4 streaming services and never watched any of them. I just wasted my money.
I don't like mobile games, mostly because of IAP and ads. There's also an oversaturation of chess apps, but none where an AI can play your own variants, so I made www.chesscraft.ca
For years now it's the only mobile game I play, just about. The game took off a bit, but the core is still for me.
For years now it's the only mobile game I play, just about. The game took off a bit, but the core is still for me.
I have a liquid bi-prop rocket engine on the table next to me that is almost ready for a static fire and then a launch later this year likely at FAR or Spaceport America.
It has improved pretty much all my skills. Fabrication, embedded software/controls, system integration, operations processes, research and learning and so on. So far it’s been my most challenging personal hobby project.
It has improved pretty much all my skills. Fabrication, embedded software/controls, system integration, operations processes, research and learning and so on. So far it’s been my most challenging personal hobby project.
I built https://maphoto.app/ . Is a simple tool that allows you to add a mini-map on your picture. I used python and expressjs.
Love this, but is it just me or can it not read the location data embedded in images?
Glad to hear that. Totally agree with you. That was the main feature but then I preferred to start with the manual location UI. But I'm working on it, I'll release it soon. Thank you
I built a terminal-based gpt client for myself. It uses a sqlite db to store conversations and uses bubbletea for terminal drawing. I use it frequently while I'm writing code. It uses another library to render markdown so that code snippets gpt produces look pretty. It's not perfect by any stretch but it feels great to use it because I made it. https://github.com/collinvandyck/gpterm/
Idk if this counts but I built myself a Rubik's cube timer and eventually made it public:
https://cubedesk.io
It was a weekend project which I used for several weeks before sharing it on Reddit. The feedback was so good I decided to make it public.
https://cubedesk.io
It was a weekend project which I used for several weeks before sharing it on Reddit. The feedback was so good I decided to make it public.
I rewrote the UI for an off the shelf WiFi digital photo frame so that it shows the latest raw images sent back from the Perseverance Mars rover.
https://prbs23.com/blog/posts/picture-frame-from-mars/
The picture frame secretly ran Android under the hood. Which meant I could replace the app which showed pictures pulled from the manufacturers server, with one which pulls photos from the NASA website. Fortunately they left ADB enabled with root permissions, so it was trivial to replace their startup app with my own. All the source code is public here: https://gitlab.com/prbs23/mars-photo-stream
The picture frame secretly ran Android under the hood. Which meant I could replace the app which showed pictures pulled from the manufacturers server, with one which pulls photos from the NASA website. Fortunately they left ADB enabled with root permissions, so it was trivial to replace their startup app with my own. All the source code is public here: https://gitlab.com/prbs23/mars-photo-stream
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I built a simple recipe meal planner and shopping list generator to manage family meals or dinner parties.
The recipes are stored as free text and the ingredients are parsed out of the text so you can just copy paste most recipes or record them the exact same way that your old family recipes were written down.
The recipes are stored as free text and the ingredients are parsed out of the text so you can just copy paste most recipes or record them the exact same way that your old family recipes were written down.
I struggled with procrastination a lot so on top of Pi-Hole I built myself an automatic procrastination tracker and blocker, this setup helped reduce my procrastination from several hours a day to almost nothing (over the period of several years of slowly unlearning the bad habits)
As someone who is struggling with procrastination, I'd love to know more about how it works and how it helped you overcome the bad habits.
I understand, it's basically a wrapper around PiHole, which is a DNS server. This wrapper does several things, such as monitor dns log, change site destination, and monitors my devices and enforces itself as DNS server (thorough SSH)
Project is here https://github.com/richard-hajek/environment-overseer/tree/b... the code quality is not amazing but it works haha
Project is here https://github.com/richard-hajek/environment-overseer/tree/b... the code quality is not amazing but it works haha
Thank you for sharing this. Although I have a similar setup with NextDNS and ActivityWatch, it does not give me the same level flexibility like your project does. I'll be sure to check it out when I switch to PiHole.
I built a Chrome Extension called Bookee (https://onassar.github.io/extensions/bookee/) (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookee-instant-boo...)
Not used by many people, but accomplished what I set out to: an extension that is accessible easily via keyboard shortcut at all times, that allows me to visually (open graph images, screenshots, thumbnails) search any bookmarks saved to Chrome.
The search is super-quick, and it has a bunch of other keyboard-shortcuts to quickly navigate my bookmarks.
Not used by many people, but accomplished what I set out to: an extension that is accessible easily via keyboard shortcut at all times, that allows me to visually (open graph images, screenshots, thumbnails) search any bookmarks saved to Chrome.
The search is super-quick, and it has a bunch of other keyboard-shortcuts to quickly navigate my bookmarks.
I live in a Hurricane/Typhoon zone and wanted a way to watch storm live status without all the panicked commentary. I had an old Chromecast laying around and discovered that it is just a web browser so I built a simple html image bouncer that auto refreshes the latest satellite image of the storm, lets you crop in, etc. It works amazingly well for days of peaceful live coverage. An unexpected side perk is my kids can now tell the category (strength) of the storm based purely on the satellite image.
Turns out the code works for pretty much anything with a browser and any situation where there is an updating image at a static URL. So I’ve used it for a number of other things too. I put it all at https://github.com/antgiant/GOES-East-Big-Screen
Personal assistance with chat interface for keeping notes, link, with a lot of extensions to make use of the information. It's one of my side project. https://zettel.ooo/
I've written a bouncing color bar for Amiga, which was running without the processor.
Amiga computers have
- a main processor (MC68000 or higher),
- a bit blitter, which can perform memory various operations in memory (using 3x source and 1x target, it can AND, OR etc. them),
- and a Copper, which have own "program", it can interpret 2 type of instructions: WAIT for a scanline position (4-pixel precision), and COPY value to a specified regsiter.
It was the name, which made me think: "Copper" is coming from "coprocessor". Well, it can run WAIT and COPY instructions, but the program's time-scope is somewhat restricted, the program is running every screen refresh cycle only once. Is it possible to write a program for Copper, which is doing some more, like animation?
I've generated several color bar frames for Copper, which adds up as a bouncing bar, and as the last instructions, I've added a COPY instruction, which sets the address of the Copper List to the next frame (the last one pointed to first frame).
So, it worked, the bar was bouncing without any support from the processor (besides initial generation and setting of the Copper List address first time).
Blitter and audio DMA is fantastic, it's a big help that the processor just puts an order to a hardware and it executes, but Copper is a degree more bigger magic, it can make things autonomously, which I was demonstrated.
Amiga computers have
- a main processor (MC68000 or higher),
- a bit blitter, which can perform memory various operations in memory (using 3x source and 1x target, it can AND, OR etc. them),
- and a Copper, which have own "program", it can interpret 2 type of instructions: WAIT for a scanline position (4-pixel precision), and COPY value to a specified regsiter.
It was the name, which made me think: "Copper" is coming from "coprocessor". Well, it can run WAIT and COPY instructions, but the program's time-scope is somewhat restricted, the program is running every screen refresh cycle only once. Is it possible to write a program for Copper, which is doing some more, like animation?
I've generated several color bar frames for Copper, which adds up as a bouncing bar, and as the last instructions, I've added a COPY instruction, which sets the address of the Copper List to the next frame (the last one pointed to first frame).
So, it worked, the bar was bouncing without any support from the processor (besides initial generation and setting of the Copper List address first time).
Blitter and audio DMA is fantastic, it's a big help that the processor just puts an order to a hardware and it executes, but Copper is a degree more bigger magic, it can make things autonomously, which I was demonstrated.
YoutUbe?
Profiling tool with custom instrumentation, low overhead, and CPU perf counter support.
https://github.com/lally/ppt
https://github.com/lally/ppt
I built a system in 2008 that would let me design a database and the automatically generate an entire admin backend, granular ACL rules for different users and roles, related records and interactive table fields like toggle switches. It wasn’t statically generated so it easily adapted to changes in the database over time too. Could also swap out the UI theme per customer. Among other things.
Called it The Intersect because I was and still am a huge fan of “Chuck”.
It sped up my client projects so much that it killed my hourly income.
Now there are lots of systems that do this type of thing, but at the time I was very proud of that system. It was nice to be able to focus on web project from a purely data design back approach.
Called it The Intersect because I was and still am a huge fan of “Chuck”.
It sped up my client projects so much that it killed my hourly income.
Now there are lots of systems that do this type of thing, but at the time I was very proud of that system. It was nice to be able to focus on web project from a purely data design back approach.
I recently constructed a compact compost freezer. In San Francisco, we have a municipal compost collection service that picks up large bins from the curb. However, using a smaller container on the countertop often results in unpleasant odors, flies, and torn, soggy bags. My (now) wife introduced me to the idea of storing a small compost bag in our freezer, which solved these issues but consumed valuable freezer space. To address this, I designed a mini freezer with the form factor of a small floor trash can, featuring a foot-operated lid.
Back in university, a friend and I built an old-school arcade. It as a wooden chest with an old PC inside running Linux. We then got the arcade buttons and joystick for 2 players, connected to the serial port, and wrote a Linux driver to understand the presses as a keyboard. We even added a coin door that accepted quarters. At the time, I was the president of the CompSci student body. We had a room in the university, where we placed the arcade. There were some great games between classes, and it gave us some funds for random small stuff (printer toners, etc.).
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Another one is https://shellshare.net. I use Linux for a while, and from time to time someone would ask my help with something. If you ever tried debugging a problem in someone's else terminal over the phone, you know how frustrating it can be. So I built it as a way to share a read-only stream of your terminal with a one-liner command.
It's been a while since I used it myself, but there are some people that use it for teaching in universities.
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Another one is https://shellshare.net. I use Linux for a while, and from time to time someone would ask my help with something. If you ever tried debugging a problem in someone's else terminal over the phone, you know how frustrating it can be. So I built it as a way to share a read-only stream of your terminal with a one-liner command.
It's been a while since I used it myself, but there are some people that use it for teaching in universities.
I built a command line app that will execute a variety of different strategies for my crypto holdings. To be clear, I'm not a degen trader, it's more about things like DCAing and rebalancing.
Eg. "Divide my current USD balance into 5 levels of descending orders where the first order is at 5% discount from the current price and every level after that is at a 10% discount." Set it and forget it or run it again with different parameters if the market changes.
Eg. "Divide my current USD balance into 5 levels of descending orders where the first order is at 5% discount from the current price and every level after that is at a 10% discount." Set it and forget it or run it again with different parameters if the market changes.
A software developer and football (soccer) fan who lives in an antipodean time zone, I enjoy watching games on demand the morning after they occur. Apart from watching the games of the team I support, I like to watch one or two of the most entertaining games in any given week, but score spoilers absolutely ruin the experience for me.
So, I created https://laterball.com: a web app the algorithmically determines the best games of the past 7 days without score spoilers, to let me (and you) know which games are worth spending time watching. There was also an associated twitter bot at https://twitter.com/laterball which occasionally tweets when there's been a high-quality game until the recent Twitter API changes.
Technical stuff: the back end is a Ktor server hosted on a linode instance which pulls statistics data from an API to determine the ratings. Factors used to determine ratings include goals (number, timing, swings in score, comebacks), xG, wins or draws against the odds, cards, and a few others.
So, I created https://laterball.com: a web app the algorithmically determines the best games of the past 7 days without score spoilers, to let me (and you) know which games are worth spending time watching. There was also an associated twitter bot at https://twitter.com/laterball which occasionally tweets when there's been a high-quality game until the recent Twitter API changes.
Technical stuff: the back end is a Ktor server hosted on a linode instance which pulls statistics data from an API to determine the ratings. Factors used to determine ratings include goals (number, timing, swings in score, comebacks), xG, wins or draws against the odds, cards, and a few others.
This is very nice, It would be great to add other leagues and cups.
I would love to, but my API quota is a little restrictive :)
I wish Apple did something like this with their MLS subscription. I watch quite a lot of sport on delay. All of the games in the Apple MLS Season Pass are available to watch after the game ends, but the screenshot for every game shows the final score!? Why would I want to watch 90mins of a random soccer game to which I already know the result? I won't be renewing.
I found this super frustrating too. Luckily you can disable it: https://www.reddit.com/r/appletv/comments/116mtfp/how_to_hid...
Definitely a strange default setting to have it enabled.
Definitely a strange default setting to have it enabled.
Very nice project, thank you! As a european transplanted to the U.S I feel this challenge with score spoilers as well. Streaming services that do not offer hiding scores, or who even insist on leading with scores in their UI are now brands I actively avoid. Such a small simple UX detail leading to absolute shunning of a whole media company.
I stopped with the nfl because their streaming app would put up the newest video from any given team as soon as it was published... guess what comes right after the game video? the post game interview. So you load up the app and some reporter is asking a sad player a question, spoiled with spoilers mode on.
That’s amazing, I’ve been wanting something like that for UFC for a while, I might just steal the idea!
I would love to expand it to other sports, the only real challenge is finding an API with appropriate stats and writing a simple algorithm to decide what constitutes "watchabilty" based on the those. I would happily take advice on that re: UFC and add it to the site
Wonderful!
I built something similar for NFL, it scrapes NFL stats websites (very few public APIs available afaik) and gives a 'fun index' for each game from the previous week.
I then obtain that game from a dodgy website and am able to watch it without any spoilers, but safe in the knowledge that it will definitely be a good game.
It was my first ever programming project and helped me learn Python, the code is complete shite but it works.
I built something similar for NFL, it scrapes NFL stats websites (very few public APIs available afaik) and gives a 'fun index' for each game from the previous week.
I then obtain that game from a dodgy website and am able to watch it without any spoilers, but safe in the knowledge that it will definitely be a good game.
It was my first ever programming project and helped me learn Python, the code is complete shite but it works.
That's a great thought! But, how does it decides the score for watchability or how interesting the games are?
You can see for yourself at https://github.com/y-a-n-n/laterball
Hugged? Seems down for me
Is it fun to watch only high quality games?
Won’t the high quality become the norm after some time?
Won’t the high quality become the norm after some time?
You could easily choose to watch the lower quality games too if you like
I needed to build a Wordpress site for user docs for a company last year. Couldn’t find a good solution :(
I created a React based version of Wordpress for developers.
I turned it into an open source framework so that other people can use my work and build on top of it. It comes baked with Next.js, Tailwind, and a bunch more.
It’s currently a work in progress, but I’ve been receiving great feedback from the dev community.
https://www.elegantframework.com/
https://github.com/elegantframework/elegant-cli
I created a React based version of Wordpress for developers.
I turned it into an open source framework so that other people can use my work and build on top of it. It comes baked with Next.js, Tailwind, and a bunch more.
It’s currently a work in progress, but I’ve been receiving great feedback from the dev community.
https://www.elegantframework.com/
https://github.com/elegantframework/elegant-cli
I built a tool for measuring iOS app animation performance that makes dropped frames audible as clicks.
https://github.com/kconner/KMCGeigerCounter
https://github.com/kconner/KMCGeigerCounter
My friends and I used to watch movies almost every night online during COVID and to decide on the movie I created a polling website that pulls information from TMDB. It was really useful because we could see the movie description, genre and length right there while voting instead of having to google for every movie title. I planned on adding new voting methods as well instead of majority vote like ranked voting, a movie randomizer that the chance a movie wins is based on how many votes it has and others. Unfortunately, we no longer watch that many movies together so the incentive to add those features decreased.
Probably not as cool as everyone else’s but I made savonius wind turbine to learn more about the basics of wind energy. It was a fun jaunt!
A toolset for learning Japanese with focus on listening comprehension. Most resources suggest a "writing systems first" approach, which seemed counterintuitive to me. So I started coding my own tools 10 years ago. First, a small spaced repetition system for vocabulary connected to forvo (pronunciation database) and lateron an addon for Anki (popular spaced repetition system). The addon is made for studying with movies and includes a dictionary and a parser for converting the original script to something simpler.
In retrospect, it was totally worth it: I reached a decent amount of fluency in listening comprehension and used the tools to create a Japanese course for others, which became popular on ankiweb: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/911122782
In retrospect, it was totally worth it: I reached a decent amount of fluency in listening comprehension and used the tools to create a Japanese course for others, which became popular on ankiweb: https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/911122782
this is very wholesome, is there a way to port it for other language.
Getting tempted to give Japanese a shot when seeing that deck. I spent a lot of time with subs2srs for German but found it difficult to match subs with audio. There's probably more media available today thanks to Netflix but I'm probably past the Anki stage for that language.
Moving box management system!
I used AirTable as a backend and UI, added boxes with a room, box number, barcode and contents details.
Before beginning I printed barcodes for the first 10 or so boxes. I used thermal shipping labels, sliced them into 3 stickers with 2 barcodes each and slapped them on corners so every face had one.
Then I just packed like normal and when a box was full I took a photo of the contents from the AirTable mobile app, scanned the barcode and jotted a note about the contents down.
My local machine was pinging AirTable every few seconds to look for new boxes with photos and would then print out 2 full size labels with the photo, box number large, contents and room name which I then put on 2 sides of the box.
Arriving was amazing, every box had a destination (room) so no double moving. Every box had contents on them so no opening boxes until you are ready. Plus the AirTable made searching for an item and it’s containing box trivial.
I used AirTable as a backend and UI, added boxes with a room, box number, barcode and contents details.
Before beginning I printed barcodes for the first 10 or so boxes. I used thermal shipping labels, sliced them into 3 stickers with 2 barcodes each and slapped them on corners so every face had one.
Then I just packed like normal and when a box was full I took a photo of the contents from the AirTable mobile app, scanned the barcode and jotted a note about the contents down.
My local machine was pinging AirTable every few seconds to look for new boxes with photos and would then print out 2 full size labels with the photo, box number large, contents and room name which I then put on 2 sides of the box.
Arriving was amazing, every box had a destination (room) so no double moving. Every box had contents on them so no opening boxes until you are ready. Plus the AirTable made searching for an item and it’s containing box trivial.
I have a wonderful group of friends from back home, ranging all over the age spectrum, who all golf together almost religiously every weekend. I made them an app that resembles the PGATour's live scoring, so folks can be on the course and input their scores on the holes and get a live leaderboard of how everyone is doing, factoring in everyone's handicap. There are some commercial apps that kind of do this, but the issue with us there are several members who for one reason or another don't. have phones to input their scores themselves, so my app lets one person in the group put their scores in for the other ones.
After I left the country, this has had the wonderful side benefit that I can still follow along with everyone's game, and has been instrumental in me staying in touch and connected to my friends, so that when I come to visit on vacation it's like I never left!
After I left the country, this has had the wonderful side benefit that I can still follow along with everyone's game, and has been instrumental in me staying in touch and connected to my friends, so that when I come to visit on vacation it's like I never left!
Definitely a marketable idea right there, ChicagoBoy11
Prior to the 2017 "Great American Eclipse", I made reservations at two hotels -- each within a day's drive of my location that were near the path of totality. I then built a screenscraper from one of the weather sites (WUnderground, IIRC) that took the cloud forecast for the eclipse and presented it as a time-series. (Yes, I knew there was significant uncertainty involved!)
About 3 days before the eclipse, I decided which site to visit and ditched the other hotel reservation.
It worked well. My wife and I each saw our first total solar eclipse!!!
There's one coming up in 2024 too. Maybe some enterprising soul would like to expand on the idea and create cloud-coverage forecasts for the entire path of totality?
About 3 days before the eclipse, I decided which site to visit and ditched the other hotel reservation.
It worked well. My wife and I each saw our first total solar eclipse!!!
There's one coming up in 2024 too. Maybe some enterprising soul would like to expand on the idea and create cloud-coverage forecasts for the entire path of totality?
This is exactly the type of shit I see benevolent AGI doing for us
I'm not convinced the costs would make that a viable use of resources versus just making an appropriate product, or using something that already exists like Spotify playlists. Even an LLM is expensive to keep running.
Why would you keep one running. You don’t need to run an LLM except perhaps to rotate the playlists. First time it might help setup the code. Even making requests can be done by simply queries. Pennies at most for a few thousand tokens every now and then.
Why would you need one whatsoever? If someone has already done the work as in the op, why not just cut out the hypothetical "benevolent AGI" and utilize the existing source code?
You're invoking LLMs, but "benevolent AGI" was what got invoked originally. Don't conflate a hypothetical AGI with an existing LLM. Anything of the scale required to create a hypothetical AGI is going to be expensive. Period.
Is grandma really going to use a hypothetical AGI any better than she's able to use Spotify? Come on.
You're invoking LLMs, but "benevolent AGI" was what got invoked originally. Don't conflate a hypothetical AGI with an existing LLM. Anything of the scale required to create a hypothetical AGI is going to be expensive. Period.
Is grandma really going to use a hypothetical AGI any better than she's able to use Spotify? Come on.
Hear me out. We can bootstrap these costs by mining crypto! We’ll use the waste heat from that to power the AI’s, with 110% carnot efficiency.
Unfortunately, the physics of this work out so that every playlist generated is composed of Nickelback and “Sweet Caroline” covers.
Unfortunately, the physics of this work out so that every playlist generated is composed of Nickelback and “Sweet Caroline” covers.
Nickleback is a fundamental concept of physics, you will always see echoes of it in any work you do. One way to be sure is to snap a picture, look at this photograph and every time it will make you laugh.
I have often wondered if Chad is the actual source of dark matter:
1. Never made it as a poor man
2. Never made it as a blind man stealing
3. This is how I remind you, that I’m really MOND.
Sometimes the answer is just staring you in the face. A Canadian face, that should have been from San Antonio, TX.
1. Never made it as a poor man
2. Never made it as a blind man stealing
3. This is how I remind you, that I’m really MOND.
Sometimes the answer is just staring you in the face. A Canadian face, that should have been from San Antonio, TX.
Even an LLM is expensive to keep running.
In a decade, it'll cost pennies a year.
In a decade, it'll cost pennies a year.
I definitely agree, specifically because of software improvements (not because Moore's Law will make it that cheap).
Conversely, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to predict that it will always be as expensive as it is today.
Well, I guess "pennies" is a radical prediction. Cheap, anyway.
Conversely, it wouldn't make a lot of sense to predict that it will always be as expensive as it is today.
Well, I guess "pennies" is a radical prediction. Cheap, anyway.
But we aren't there yet, and grandma is going to be dead in a decade, and the source code for the radio playlist gimmick already exists, as does Spotify.
Isn't it already relatively cheap to run? Training is costly, but there are examples of running LLaMA on your laptop. It doesn't seem like it will take decades to commoditize this stuff ... it is just the cutting edge might keep moving ahead.
Not relative to a permanent and much more simplistic solution that already exists in the form of the source code for the original radio project mentioned in the op.
I'll give you an example: fabricating an ASIC is expensive. Using FPGAs is cheaper if the potential sales are low, but they're less performant.
If a hypothetical AGI a decade from now can do the radio gimmick, but it incurs an ongoing cost, but it's going to have wide appeal, it makes more sense to make a simple utility.
Better yet, the simple utility already exists and doesn't need a hypothetical "benevolent AGI". It doesn't even need an LLM. It's here today.
This entire sub-thread went off at a tangent of trying to shoehorn AI into somewhere it has no place being, just like the fetishizing of blockchain and attempting to shoehorn it into everywhere a database would be cheaper, more flexible and more performant.
A hypothetical "benevolent AGI" is going to be incredibly larger in scale than an LLM, thus much more expensive. You won't be running one on a laptop. We may not even have enough compute globally for a hypothetical "benevolent AGI".
I'll give you an example: fabricating an ASIC is expensive. Using FPGAs is cheaper if the potential sales are low, but they're less performant.
If a hypothetical AGI a decade from now can do the radio gimmick, but it incurs an ongoing cost, but it's going to have wide appeal, it makes more sense to make a simple utility.
Better yet, the simple utility already exists and doesn't need a hypothetical "benevolent AGI". It doesn't even need an LLM. It's here today.
This entire sub-thread went off at a tangent of trying to shoehorn AI into somewhere it has no place being, just like the fetishizing of blockchain and attempting to shoehorn it into everywhere a database would be cheaper, more flexible and more performant.
A hypothetical "benevolent AGI" is going to be incredibly larger in scale than an LLM, thus much more expensive. You won't be running one on a laptop. We may not even have enough compute globally for a hypothetical "benevolent AGI".
Yeah why not? Just replace the thoughtfulness of creating something for a loved one and the human ingenuity to do it (however simple) with an AI. I do not yearn for a future where everything is replaced by AI.
I'm not sure how much overlap there is between the "everyone's just a consumer these days! That's awful, they should be creators!" set of posters, and the "needing fewer people to do anything at all is always a good thing, bring on the glorious AI future!" set, but I suspect it's at least non-zero and I find that rather confusing.
Yes, let's make it so anything short of world-class creative talent (if that, even, if "AI" keeps advancing) is something that's of no monetary or social value, then wonder why people don't spend more time creating stuff. You're not motivated to play violin in your bedroom for nobody, or make paintings to hang in your own closet because nobody wants them? Or, there's no need for you to build this kind of great thing for your elderly relative because an AGI can do it instead? And now you're a couch potato struggling with depression and wondering what the point of living even is? Quelle surprise!
It's as if solipsistic intrinsic motivation is shit compared to having others want or need what you can do for them, and like maybe we need the latter in order to be healthy. But no, let's race toward further reducing our value to others as fast as we can, what could go wrong?
Yes, let's make it so anything short of world-class creative talent (if that, even, if "AI" keeps advancing) is something that's of no monetary or social value, then wonder why people don't spend more time creating stuff. You're not motivated to play violin in your bedroom for nobody, or make paintings to hang in your own closet because nobody wants them? Or, there's no need for you to build this kind of great thing for your elderly relative because an AGI can do it instead? And now you're a couch potato struggling with depression and wondering what the point of living even is? Quelle surprise!
It's as if solipsistic intrinsic motivation is shit compared to having others want or need what you can do for them, and like maybe we need the latter in order to be healthy. But no, let's race toward further reducing our value to others as fast as we can, what could go wrong?
> Or, there's no need for you to build this kind of great thing for your elderly relative because an AGI can do it instead?
Just like there is no need to design and build the FM transmitter from scratch because [factory] can do it instead. Some of us still think it's fun to build things like that as a hobby, but those who don't can still have an FM transmitter to start with and create something more exciting from there.
Just like there is no need to design and build the FM transmitter from scratch because [factory] can do it instead. Some of us still think it's fun to build things like that as a hobby, but those who don't can still have an FM transmitter to start with and create something more exciting from there.
I mean, didn't Pandora spend like a decade pretending to be that? We don't exactly need AGI for that, we just need Pandora with some specific problems fixed.
Part of what makes this nice is that it's a handmade product of love for a family member. I think if you commoditize something like this, it loses much of its charm and even some of its purpose.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35740720. It's not super terrible but it's off topic and the parent thread was making the page top heavy.
I used Arduino to build an automated RDT adapter for grinding espresso beans in such a manner that they don’t spread all over your counter. It was a fun project and learned a lot about the chemistry of beans.
During the lockdown me and my girlfriend to watch movies remotely synced, I wrote a service to sync VNC instances together via websocket. It worked via the web control panel of VLC and a Chrome extension was handling the websocket messages and clicking on the buttons. It even added some indicators to show if we both connected.
Would you be willing to share this?
Here you go: https://github.com/tiborsaas/vlc-sync
Every night, at 3 AM, my cat will meow and paw at the bedroom door like a banshee. I tried everything to get him to stop, including the off-the-shelf air sprayers that trigger with motion.
Eventually, I decided to build my own. I 3D printed a case and trigger for an air sprayer can, created some electronics with an ESP32 and RF trigger, and wrote my own "motion detection" logic - this time with an ultrasonic sensor, which works much better in the dark.
Now, the cat knows that a meow or paw will get him sprayed, and my wife and I can finally sleep!
I also built an air filtration system for my 3D printer, a level checker for my water softener, and a custom keepsake box that only opens with an RFID chip that you can read more about on my blog: https://www.mikebuss.com/blog
Eventually, I decided to build my own. I 3D printed a case and trigger for an air sprayer can, created some electronics with an ESP32 and RF trigger, and wrote my own "motion detection" logic - this time with an ultrasonic sensor, which works much better in the dark.
Now, the cat knows that a meow or paw will get him sprayed, and my wife and I can finally sleep!
I also built an air filtration system for my 3D printer, a level checker for my water softener, and a custom keepsake box that only opens with an RFID chip that you can read more about on my blog: https://www.mikebuss.com/blog
We need this.
> ... meow and paw like a banshee.
Was this in March by any chance?
Was this in March by any chance?
We were lucky enough that our cat seems to prefer screaming under the door rather than pawing at the door, and stuffing a blanket underneath thankfully caused her to simply give up.
She still attacks the door loudly when playing with her toys at 5 AM if we forget to confiscate them though...
She still attacks the door loudly when playing with her toys at 5 AM if we forget to confiscate them though...
The first time we ever had cats, we put little bells on their collars so we knew where they were in the house.
One night is all it took for us to remove those bells. Never again.
One night is all it took for us to remove those bells. Never again.
Very clever. I would love to re-create this, we have the same issue with our cat.
In all my previous houses I just cut a hole in the door. $50s from a big box store for the proper door and a jig saw. I think they even sell templates you can attach to the door to make them more seamless.
But also I'm not trying to keep the cat out so there's that. I just like the door closed
But also I'm not trying to keep the cat out so there's that. I just like the door closed
I solved this by letting the cat open the door from both sides.
From one side, the cat can just push open the door. The closing force on the door comes from a small weight hanging on a string, which goes from the top corner of the door to an eye screw on the wall and down to the weight. The weight is adjusted to be just barely enough to pull the door closed, so the door is easy for the cat to push open. The cat walks through and then the door closes very gently and quietly.
From the other side, the cat can pull open the door. I stuck a little hook-handle on the bottom corner of the door, and the cat learned to paw the handle and pull the door open. Because the door closes so slowly and gently, it's easy for the cat to get through.
This lets the cat can come and curl up with me whenever he wants. It's quieter than a flappy cat door; he can come and go without bothering me or waking me up.
From one side, the cat can just push open the door. The closing force on the door comes from a small weight hanging on a string, which goes from the top corner of the door to an eye screw on the wall and down to the weight. The weight is adjusted to be just barely enough to pull the door closed, so the door is easy for the cat to push open. The cat walks through and then the door closes very gently and quietly.
From the other side, the cat can pull open the door. I stuck a little hook-handle on the bottom corner of the door, and the cat learned to paw the handle and pull the door open. Because the door closes so slowly and gently, it's easy for the cat to get through.
This lets the cat can come and curl up with me whenever he wants. It's quieter than a flappy cat door; he can come and go without bothering me or waking me up.
I have the same cat friendly door closer! Very useful for a good night’s sleep. But now my cat is so old he mostly stays curled up on the bed poor fellow.
Heads up that a) those commercial/industrial door closer thingies aren't that expensive if the door isn't too heavy, but better than that b) they have spring door hinges, so you can install those and the door will self-close. Not sure its cat friendliness but it works for keeping the door closed.
Your blog is amazing, I would love to keep up by adding it to my feed reader but I'm not finding any RSS/Atom feeds.
Thanks! I always forget to add RSS when redoing the site. Here's a link to that: http://mikebuss.com/rss.xml
Serious question - have you considered just leaving the door open?
After years of trying I've finally made something that my girlfriend would use without me nagging her to try.
A small sveltekit app that registers our expenses and tracks who owns who, basically splitwise with way less features, but way more control over my data.
I'm really happy every time I see her note down the expense into the app.
About 10 years ago when Droplr deprecated their free packages (and went to paid only) I've made my own free alternative - https://pics.rs followed with its own screenshot app for Windows (C#) and later Mac (Electron) and still use it daily... I needed a screenshot tool which allows me to select a part of the screen, uploads it and immediately copies URL to clipboard. Now I'm finding myself using it without app by doing CMD + CTRL + SHIFT + 4 which copies image directly in clipboard and then opening pics.rs and pressing CMD + V (paste event triggers upload if it contains image in clipboard)
I haven't touched the UI since then, its ugly but it works, I've tried allocating time to make more modern version and even started refactoring it a few times with a few friends in our spare time, but unfortunately finding time next to full-time jobs and family is much harder than it was 10+ years ago :)
I've never advertised it anywhere except shared with friends and used it on some forums in the past, but it slowly grew to 10k registered members and almost 200k uploaded pictures. At this scale (~100GB of data) its very cheap to keep it online since its using very small amount of resources on dedicated servers where I host some other important apps with regular off-site backups, but if it ever spikes and becomes problematic financially it will at least give me more motivation to make something more serious out of it or just slam ads onto it and call it a day (worst case scenario, not a fan of it).
I haven't touched the UI since then, its ugly but it works, I've tried allocating time to make more modern version and even started refactoring it a few times with a few friends in our spare time, but unfortunately finding time next to full-time jobs and family is much harder than it was 10+ years ago :)
I've never advertised it anywhere except shared with friends and used it on some forums in the past, but it slowly grew to 10k registered members and almost 200k uploaded pictures. At this scale (~100GB of data) its very cheap to keep it online since its using very small amount of resources on dedicated servers where I host some other important apps with regular off-site backups, but if it ever spikes and becomes problematic financially it will at least give me more motivation to make something more serious out of it or just slam ads onto it and call it a day (worst case scenario, not a fan of it).
It's not personally useful but I wanted to see if I could design and build a navigation controller designed for a satellite with different configurations. I started with a sandbox simulator that emulated all the hardware sensors down to the noise (according to their data sheets) and a microcontroller emulator that ran real code compiled for a microcontroller I chose for the task (STM32G431).
I tested different control schemes and thrust firing plans, added support for different types of thrusters, errors in sensor readings, atmospheric drag depending on altitude, weird anomalies in the earth's magnetic field, simulated bit flip events and hardware lockups (I left the internal watchdog out of the hardware lockups which is probably not realistic).
In an effort to stress test my simulator I ended up writing a genetic algorithm solver for thruster, magneto-torquer, and reaction wheel placement on arbitrary craft bodies with different mission plans and let it solve it.
I ended up designing a physical circuit board matching the simulator, flashing the board with the same code that was running in the simulator and it worked! I roughly made an approximate cube sat (10cm^3) (had a mechanical engineer friend design me a frame and manufacture it for me) with some small cold gas thrusters out of pressurized CO2 cartridges, controlled by solenoids, and placed by my genetic algorithm.
I dropped it off a cliff that was ~600ft high (best I could do for a "zero gravity" environment that was away from people). It was able to completely arrest its angular rotation before slamming into the ground which is better than I was expecting.
I tested different control schemes and thrust firing plans, added support for different types of thrusters, errors in sensor readings, atmospheric drag depending on altitude, weird anomalies in the earth's magnetic field, simulated bit flip events and hardware lockups (I left the internal watchdog out of the hardware lockups which is probably not realistic).
In an effort to stress test my simulator I ended up writing a genetic algorithm solver for thruster, magneto-torquer, and reaction wheel placement on arbitrary craft bodies with different mission plans and let it solve it.
I ended up designing a physical circuit board matching the simulator, flashing the board with the same code that was running in the simulator and it worked! I roughly made an approximate cube sat (10cm^3) (had a mechanical engineer friend design me a frame and manufacture it for me) with some small cold gas thrusters out of pressurized CO2 cartridges, controlled by solenoids, and placed by my genetic algorithm.
I dropped it off a cliff that was ~600ft high (best I could do for a "zero gravity" environment that was away from people). It was able to completely arrest its angular rotation before slamming into the ground which is better than I was expecting.
That is awesome! I've had an inkling of an idea similar to that for years, but definitely not so well thought through.
Is there any place you have more info on this? I'm especially interested in the genetic algorithm.
Is there any place you have more info on this? I'm especially interested in the genetic algorithm.
[deleted]
I made a safe-to-wake light for my son out of a Raspberry Pi. It serves up a responsive website on the local network so you can manually change the lights or update the schedule.
Been running like a champ for over 3 years now, which has been the most pleasant surprise. I'm used to ecosystem entropy causing things to break.
I documented my adventures in a 6-part series: https://ajpierce.com/2020-01-04_safe-to-wake-pt1/
Been running like a champ for over 3 years now, which has been the most pleasant surprise. I'm used to ecosystem entropy causing things to break.
I documented my adventures in a 6-part series: https://ajpierce.com/2020-01-04_safe-to-wake-pt1/
Human behaviour is fascinating. Never heard of this happening before.
a web and android app (free) for lossless jpeg recompression (saves me some space on the phone)
https://reductor.app/
https://reductor.app/
A bash-only issue tracker, written on a dare[1] then used for some projects.
A laptop theft honeypot to pwn the thief[2].
[1]: https://github.com/manpages/issues-legacy [2]: https://github.com/manpages/tar-spoon/
[1]: https://github.com/manpages/issues-legacy [2]: https://github.com/manpages/tar-spoon/
I make a lot of tech for myself for learning, none of which being novel, so maybe this doesn’t exactly fit.
I made a raycasting engine to learn more about it and I’m in love. It’s the most clever thing ever. I can’t believe I have a 3D effect without using a single trig function. The math is so simple you could run it on a 286. Raycasting feels like a magical hack. It has no business being so ridiculously simple for what you get!
I’m taking it a step further and integrating a real-time map editor so you can modify a map as you play.
I’m not sure where to go beyond that, but I’m having a ton of fun.
I made a raycasting engine to learn more about it and I’m in love. It’s the most clever thing ever. I can’t believe I have a 3D effect without using a single trig function. The math is so simple you could run it on a 286. Raycasting feels like a magical hack. It has no business being so ridiculously simple for what you get!
I’m taking it a step further and integrating a real-time map editor so you can modify a map as you play.
I’m not sure where to go beyond that, but I’m having a ton of fun.
I’ve been wanting to play around with raycasting as well - I found myself with a sudden interest in so-called boomer shooters and would love to make my own (just for learning and messing around).
Any resources that you particularly liked when learning, or is the stuff I will find when Googling “raycasting engines” all good enough?
Any resources that you particularly liked when learning, or is the stuff I will find when Googling “raycasting engines” all good enough?
I used this one: https://lodev.org/cgtutor/raycasting.html (note this is just chapter 1 of 4 related chapters)
It's decent. In some cases it's a bit clumsy when they try to explain mathematics in natural language, but we can't always have pretty Latex-rendered math functions and graphics. =)
It's decent. In some cases it's a bit clumsy when they try to explain mathematics in natural language, but we can't always have pretty Latex-rendered math functions and graphics. =)
Maybe not the interesting, but the most recent— I was annoyed that Bloomberg’s email newsletters didn’t have an associated RSS feed, so I wrote a script that uses JMAP to take the most recent emails from them from my inbox and publish to an rss file. A docker container hosts that running on a cron job, and nginx to serve.
I run it on my NAS so my RSS reader can find it as long as I’m on VPN. Now I only need to visit NetNewsWire for all my news!
I run it on my NAS so my RSS reader can find it as long as I’m on VPN. Now I only need to visit NetNewsWire for all my news!
I built a program in Go to defeat GeoIP lock-outs for my home network.
It runs on our home router and functions as the primary DNS server. If the record name matches a regex the DNS request is forwarded over a VPN to a DNS server in the target country. Any other requests are forwarded to my ISP’s DNS. If the response is a CNAME then the A record name is cached so that follow-up requests are also forwarded over the VPN.
Before returning the IPs in the foreign DNS response /32 routes for the IPs are added to send any home network traffic for them over the VPN.
This means that any client on our home network can transparently access GeoIP locked sites. It’s worked for around 8 years with no modifications.
It runs on our home router and functions as the primary DNS server. If the record name matches a regex the DNS request is forwarded over a VPN to a DNS server in the target country. Any other requests are forwarded to my ISP’s DNS. If the response is a CNAME then the A record name is cached so that follow-up requests are also forwarded over the VPN.
Before returning the IPs in the foreign DNS response /32 routes for the IPs are added to send any home network traffic for them over the VPN.
This means that any client on our home network can transparently access GeoIP locked sites. It’s worked for around 8 years with no modifications.
This is brilliant!
Curious: why not routing and vpn? I do this with opnsense, for instance Pandora is forbidden where I live so I’ve looked up all IPs for their ASN and made routing rules that any packet going to these IPs go over the US VPN. And I’ve made WireGuard profiles for mobile phones so the Pandora traffic goes over WireGuard and through the us vpn via my home opnsense.
I did this for several years before but it was a constant maintenance burden because as third party services were integrated or removed over time. Eventually as AWS and third-party CDN usage grew routing by subnet was just not feasible.
Didn't consider smaller services hosted on AWS. Subnet routing only works well for those that have their own ASN indeed.
Years back I was living in the foothills just outside of the Yosemite NP gates and fell in love with the trails through the Sierra Nevada. It wasn't long before I realized that how much weight I carried dramatically affected _everything_ about my trips - so I got serious about finding a good compromise between "ultralight" and "comfortable but still light".
The gear and testing it was very expensive, I wanted to make my own but didn't know how to sew - but quickly found the "cottage" industry of lightweight and ultralight backpacking gear and fell in love again. Now I loved the trail and the gear, but I was also broke.
One of my first non-visual basic programming projects was building a scraper for a handful of backpacking forums' used gear sections - I found that I was able to acquire and test the gear I wanted at a fraction of the cost this way, as well as find buyers for the gear I was ready to cycle out.
While I did build this for myself I eventually realized that there were so many good deals and people with good gear looking to offload it - but the forums and the communities were so fractured it made it hard for others (just like it did for me). I ended up building the whole thing (again) as my first foray into playing with Laravel.
It's still up and working - thousands of people still using it, maybe some of you would also enjoy it... [0] (no ads, no affiliate offers, ever)
0: https://lwhiker.com
* Note, I'm aware some of the "source" forums are broken/no longer scraping properly, will be updating it soon.
The gear and testing it was very expensive, I wanted to make my own but didn't know how to sew - but quickly found the "cottage" industry of lightweight and ultralight backpacking gear and fell in love again. Now I loved the trail and the gear, but I was also broke.
One of my first non-visual basic programming projects was building a scraper for a handful of backpacking forums' used gear sections - I found that I was able to acquire and test the gear I wanted at a fraction of the cost this way, as well as find buyers for the gear I was ready to cycle out.
While I did build this for myself I eventually realized that there were so many good deals and people with good gear looking to offload it - but the forums and the communities were so fractured it made it hard for others (just like it did for me). I ended up building the whole thing (again) as my first foray into playing with Laravel.
It's still up and working - thousands of people still using it, maybe some of you would also enjoy it... [0] (no ads, no affiliate offers, ever)
0: https://lwhiker.com
* Note, I'm aware some of the "source" forums are broken/no longer scraping properly, will be updating it soon.
This is pretty cool!
Built one of the first 3d ultrasonic scanner that works in the air to make an autonomous drone [1] [2]
[1]: https://www.alextoussaint.com/2021-04-28_How-I-built-an-ultr...
[2]: https://hackaday.com/2021/05/15/a-phased-array-ultrasonic-3d...
[1]: https://www.alextoussaint.com/2021-04-28_How-I-built-an-ultr...
[2]: https://hackaday.com/2021/05/15/a-phased-array-ultrasonic-3d...
I’d say almost everything I’ve written, has been for personal use, even though I publish as public open-source.
I write a lot of modules and SDKs, and regularly consume them in my own work. Comes out great.
Lots of folks ignore my work. I won’t bother speculating as to why, but I’m fine with that, as everyone that depends on my work means I need to take them into account, when maintaining. If I’m my only customer, then I can do whatever I want. I write stuff that I need.
Publishing as “classic” public open source, forces me to do a good job, so that means that really significant parts of my projects are pretty much “worry free.”
You can see my stuff in my GH orgs (I don’t really have much in my personal repos).
https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#here-on-github
I write a lot of modules and SDKs, and regularly consume them in my own work. Comes out great.
Lots of folks ignore my work. I won’t bother speculating as to why, but I’m fine with that, as everyone that depends on my work means I need to take them into account, when maintaining. If I’m my only customer, then I can do whatever I want. I write stuff that I need.
Publishing as “classic” public open source, forces me to do a good job, so that means that really significant parts of my projects are pretty much “worry free.”
You can see my stuff in my GH orgs (I don’t really have much in my personal repos).
https://github.com/ChrisMarshallNY#here-on-github
I created an optimizer for helping me make ship loadouts in the game highfleet. I put it online and added ship-sharing. Had a ton of help from a frontend dev, I mostly worked in C using SCIP, IPOPT, and such to solve the constrained optimization problem.
https://hfopt.jodavaho.io
https://hfopt.jodavaho.io
I built a native mac app called FileWatcher. It watches the filesystem for events like read, write, open, mount, stat, etc etc. I wanted to investigate how xcode's build system worked [1] (which relies on `stat` to determine whether or not a file needs to be recompiled) and couldn't find any tool that would do the job.
I was astonished when I couldn't find what I needed - surely this had already been solved by someone else! There are things like inotify and watchman, but they don't provide process information about the events.
I haven't figured out how to distribute it quite yet because the API it uses to collect file system events isn't allowed in apps distributed on the app store. I recently made a short video demo, though[2].
[1] https://blog.codysehl.net/2023/Understanding-the-XCode-Build... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhMWXzoBWY
I was astonished when I couldn't find what I needed - surely this had already been solved by someone else! There are things like inotify and watchman, but they don't provide process information about the events.
I haven't figured out how to distribute it quite yet because the API it uses to collect file system events isn't allowed in apps distributed on the app store. I recently made a short video demo, though[2].
[1] https://blog.codysehl.net/2023/Understanding-the-XCode-Build... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPhMWXzoBWY
Pretty cool project!
Why don't you distribute through your own website though?
It doesn't seem like the kind of tool people that only use the App Store would be interested in :)
Why don't you distribute through your own website though?
It doesn't seem like the kind of tool people that only use the App Store would be interested in :)
Thanks a lot!
Yeah, my current plan is to create a small static site and put a download link up on there, but I've yet to get the certificates and signing straightened out with apple.
Not really the same but you might find this and related projects interesting: https://github.com/johnno1962/InjectionLite
These projects also watch the file system to look at build system changes
These projects also watch the file system to look at build system changes
One of my big "side projects" over the last few months has been my personal website and blog (https://epiccoleman.com). It's not very interesting per se - I mean, who doesn't have a blog these days - but it has been really educational and fun to work on. It's a really simplistic stack which makes working on it pretty frictionless. I spent a lot of time tweaking the look and feel of the site and am pretty happy with how everything has turned out.
I've also been putting a lot of work into a React component that renders a nice looking SVG Circle of Fifths, and just recently got to a point where I felt I could call a release "1.0.0". This has also been a really educational project and I'm super proud of the component. It's a little basic right now, but it looks very nice, and I have a lot of cool features planned.
It's licensed MIT, so if this sounds like something you'd like to use in an app, you can check it out here: https://github.com/epiccoleman/react-circle-of-fifths. I'd love any feedback, issues, etc.
Edit: Oh, I just thought of one other thing - a single line of code I wrote which frequently gives me great joy. In zsh you can define a function called `command_not_found_handler` which gets invoked whenever a command ... isn't found.
Mine says: `figlet lol, $@`, so whenever you make a typo like "gits status" or something, you get a big "lol, gits tatus" printed out, which is amusing.
I've also been putting a lot of work into a React component that renders a nice looking SVG Circle of Fifths, and just recently got to a point where I felt I could call a release "1.0.0". This has also been a really educational project and I'm super proud of the component. It's a little basic right now, but it looks very nice, and I have a lot of cool features planned.
It's licensed MIT, so if this sounds like something you'd like to use in an app, you can check it out here: https://github.com/epiccoleman/react-circle-of-fifths. I'd love any feedback, issues, etc.
Edit: Oh, I just thought of one other thing - a single line of code I wrote which frequently gives me great joy. In zsh you can define a function called `command_not_found_handler` which gets invoked whenever a command ... isn't found.
Mine says: `figlet lol, $@`, so whenever you make a typo like "gits status" or something, you get a big "lol, gits tatus" printed out, which is amusing.
Well that sure looks similar:
https://pine.fm/music/ChordGear
I rotated the inner ring to capture the sense that (for example) Amin shares two notes with Cmaj and 2 notes with Fmaj, so belongs between them.
You can drag the chord gear, click it for a kind of awful synth-piano sound that I had a lot of fun making, switch modes, etc. I actually originally made this in wood/acrylic:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lwIS-1sPNyIpYM1nCcFkU9Iq... but I like how the online version renames the notes sensibly.)
Mostly I was just trying to explore music theory concepts, and have a few other toys at https://pine.fm/music
(also the code is gross; I've been a manager for almost a decade now and am rusty; you've been warned, lol)
https://pine.fm/music/ChordGear
I rotated the inner ring to capture the sense that (for example) Amin shares two notes with Cmaj and 2 notes with Fmaj, so belongs between them.
You can drag the chord gear, click it for a kind of awful synth-piano sound that I had a lot of fun making, switch modes, etc. I actually originally made this in wood/acrylic:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lwIS-1sPNyIpYM1nCcFkU9Iq... but I like how the online version renames the notes sensibly.)
Mostly I was just trying to explore music theory concepts, and have a few other toys at https://pine.fm/music
(also the code is gross; I've been a manager for almost a decade now and am rusty; you've been warned, lol)
Wow, I love the way you incorporated the seventh degree - instead of an extra inner ring, just converting that one to show a diminished chord. The extra rotation of the inner circle is really clever too. That is awesome, thanks for sharing!
Thank you!
I have built VS Utils [1] mostly for myself since I work with WordPress and they use serialize(), unserialize() functions a lot, and sometimes I need to convert base64, timestamps value without leaving the editor. I find it's easier to write an extension for daily use functions and publish to VS Code so I can download it easier, sync across devices. Hope it helpful for others too.
[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tanftw.v...
[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=tanftw.v...
I hate the weather where I live (Chicagoland), so I spent a week a couple years ago downloading weather data from WUnderground and geo data from a bunch of places and turning it into a reverse weather index - instead of searching by place, you'd search by weather.
I found the best weather for me was in Antofagasta, Chile, but I never did anything with this knowledge :)
Unfortunately it was all built on an OpenShift gear on the free tier, so it's dead now.
I found the best weather for me was in Antofagasta, Chile, but I never did anything with this knowledge :)
Unfortunately it was all built on an OpenShift gear on the free tier, so it's dead now.
When language learners learn vocab, there are two main processes:
1. Use a premade list of the top x words. Pro: they are guaranteed to be common words. Con: Once you make it past 2000 or so, they might not show up depending on what sort of niche things you read/watch/talk about
2. Look up random words as you come across them, and learn those. Pro: These are words you really saw. Con: You don't know how common that word is, maybe this is the only time in your life that you'll see it
I made a web app that lets you note down words that you come across and might want to learn, and then generates a learning order of those words based on a variety of frequency lists, as well as linking offsite for sample sentences etc. It allowed me to pass the JLPT N1 with just 6k known words (people usually need 8-10k)
vocab.c-ehrlich.dev
I made a web app that lets you note down words that you come across and might want to learn, and then generates a learning order of those words based on a variety of frequency lists, as well as linking offsite for sample sentences etc. It allowed me to pass the JLPT N1 with just 6k known words (people usually need 8-10k)
vocab.c-ehrlich.dev
This is great! Would be curious to adapt this for other languages, as I’m currently using some flash cards of top N type frequency.
Shouldn't be too difficult. The main thing you'd need is a dictionary that's as close as possible to covering the entire language (ie a digital-first one rather than a digital representation of a paper dictionary), and at least one but ideally several frequency lists. Ideally in the JSON format that Yomichan uses, as that's what the script for generating the data currently expects, but if not then the data can always be massaged. Then you just need to replace the specifics in the app (hardcoded frequency list names etc) with the stuff for your language.
I built a TypeScript-based DSL for Karabiner Elements that allows me to work with hyperkey sublayers, thus enabling me to have keyboard shortcuts for pretty much everything I do across my entire Mac: https://github.com/mxstbr/karabiner
Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4b_uQX3Vu0
Demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4b_uQX3Vu0
Uhh, I'm building a virtual pet ant farm combined with journaling / breathing exercises. Ants get fed when I submit data. It pushes me to keep on top of my mental health each day in the same way getting a dog pushes someone to go for daily walks.
It's kind of weird, but it's fun to make and serves a decent purpose.
It's kind of weird, but it's fun to make and serves a decent purpose.
I hated when Google killed iGoogle because I used it daily. So i took my data export and built one for myself. Even had the themes part mostly working. I used it for a few years but a lot of the RSS feeds stopped working as the web seemingly moved on from offering those. Not the most interesting tech but something I built just for me.
Oh, I think I have a good one. I had an HP-25 calculator as old as myself, and couldn't use it. The original battery pack contained two sealed NiCd cells, which obviously failed many years ago. Most people replaced their NiCd cells with new ones, then with NiMh cells, or even alkaline AA batteries. This was always problematic: newer batteries were slightly larger and never fit well. Also, the power consumption of a calculator with an LED display was significant, so frequent battery replacements were needed. And the original HP charger was risky and could easily destroy the calculator.
So I designed and built a wirelessly (Qi) charged battery pack for it.
https://partsbox.com/blog/wireless-charging-for-a-hp-25-calc...
After a year of use, it's totally over-engineered and has so much energy and so little idle power consumption, that I have to remind myself to charge sometimes, the thing lasts for months.
I'm the only user. There are many people who wanted to buy one, but the step from a hobby design to small-scale production is a big one and it simply doesn't make business sense. Especially with Li-Po batteries being difficult to ship and potentially a hazard. I guess maybe if I found a manufacturer that would be willing to take the design and manufacture it on demand, taking over all of the shipping/support issues…
So I designed and built a wirelessly (Qi) charged battery pack for it.
https://partsbox.com/blog/wireless-charging-for-a-hp-25-calc...
After a year of use, it's totally over-engineered and has so much energy and so little idle power consumption, that I have to remind myself to charge sometimes, the thing lasts for months.
I'm the only user. There are many people who wanted to buy one, but the step from a hobby design to small-scale production is a big one and it simply doesn't make business sense. Especially with Li-Po batteries being difficult to ship and potentially a hazard. I guess maybe if I found a manufacturer that would be willing to take the design and manufacture it on demand, taking over all of the shipping/support issues…
The HP-25 was a hand-held programmable scientific/engineering calculator made by Hewlett-Packard between early January 1975 and 1978.
Wirelessly charged battery pack. Whhhhhatttttt
Wirelessly charged battery pack. Whhhhhatttttt
I love this. I used to have a bunch of things that would benefit from a project like this.
There probably are some contract manufacturers that'll handle all that, but they'll need a decent sized minimum order.
I doubt anyone would front the money to produce 100k of them (to recover the cost of molds) unless you literally give them the design fro free.
Maybe there are smaller companies using 3D printers willing to take on a 1k sized order?
I doubt anyone would front the money to produce 100k of them (to recover the cost of molds) unless you literally give them the design fro free.
Maybe there are smaller companies using 3D printers willing to take on a 1k sized order?
Love this.
Semi relatedly, the reason I chose my current smart watch is that it can go weeks without charging, I simply don’t worry about it. Yes it has a limited number of colors and I can’t browse the web on it or w.e. but that’s a feature.
Maybe I’ll seek out a phone with similar battery use profile…
Semi relatedly, the reason I chose my current smart watch is that it can go weeks without charging, I simply don’t worry about it. Yes it has a limited number of colors and I can’t browse the web on it or w.e. but that’s a feature.
Maybe I’ll seek out a phone with similar battery use profile…
What's your current smartwatch?
My HP-29C could use something like that. I have it on the shelf beside me
I use AA batteries and the seem to have both a good shelf life but I do now about life span because I don't use it much but when I do it still works.
Li-Po isn't difficult to ship. You just slap a certain sticker on the outside of the box and pay a little extra. Otherwise, it's no more effort.
LiPo is an absolute nightmare to ship in nontrivial quantities. The trickiest part is all the paperwork. Shippers really do not like it, because it places a lot of extra restrictions on the way they are allowed to ship it. This is made 10x worse when you are trying to ship bare batteries.
This is also why companies like Sparkfun don't sell batteries internationally. Adafruit used to have this restriction too, but they seem to have recently changed that.
This is also why companies like Sparkfun don't sell batteries internationally. Adafruit used to have this restriction too, but they seem to have recently changed that.
I made a personal website [1] that aggregates my notifications from GitHub and Gerrit in one stream. It updates in real-time without me needing to refresh the page.
It also hosts a small set of personal Go packages. For this, it implements a git server, module proxy protocol, issue tracker and change tracker. At some point, I want to differentiate the code review UI with nice-to-haves specific to Go, but haven’t gotten there yet.
I’m playing around with compiling the whole thing (written in Go, of course) to WebAssembly that runs client-side, along with server-side rendering for the initial page load. This is mostly to make iteration easier and faster for me.
It also lets people leave comments or reactions to blog posts and such by signing in via a URL rather than username+password.
[1] https://dmitri.shuralyov.com
It also hosts a small set of personal Go packages. For this, it implements a git server, module proxy protocol, issue tracker and change tracker. At some point, I want to differentiate the code review UI with nice-to-haves specific to Go, but haven’t gotten there yet.
I’m playing around with compiling the whole thing (written in Go, of course) to WebAssembly that runs client-side, along with server-side rendering for the initial page load. This is mostly to make iteration easier and faster for me.
It also lets people leave comments or reactions to blog posts and such by signing in via a URL rather than username+password.
[1] https://dmitri.shuralyov.com
Wrote a RoyalRoad scraper to convert any of their series into an ebook.
I'm a credit card point junkie so I always volunteer to pay the bill at dinner or drinks. But, if everyone doesn't get roughly the same thing, it becomes a massive headache. I got fed up with having to manually tally up what everyone ordered and then hunting them down individually to get paid back.
Surprisingly, I haven't found a good tool that addresses this, so I spun up my own. I didn't want to force my friends to download another app just so I can get paid back so I tried to make it mostly SMS based.
You text a picture of the receipt to my Twilio phone number. It triggers a serverless function that runs AWS Textract to itemize the receipt, then stores it in a database. Twilio responds with the unique URL for the receipt and I can text that out to my friends so they can claim their own damn items.
Win win, I get the points AND I finally get paid back.
Surprisingly, I haven't found a good tool that addresses this, so I spun up my own. I didn't want to force my friends to download another app just so I can get paid back so I tried to make it mostly SMS based.
You text a picture of the receipt to my Twilio phone number. It triggers a serverless function that runs AWS Textract to itemize the receipt, then stores it in a database. Twilio responds with the unique URL for the receipt and I can text that out to my friends so they can claim their own damn items.
Win win, I get the points AND I finally get paid back.
Wow, that's a pretty cool idea. Sounds like it has some potential for being productized!
I am thinking about doing something with it. I put up a landing page to gauge interest, but I have no idea how I would monetize. Right now it's just burning money on AWS.
Yeah, I can imagine it would be tough to charge for this, especially on a recurring basis. If I was splitting a bill, and thought I could use this, but then it turns out I'm going to have to pay $5 or a monthly subscription or something, at that point I'd probably just split the bill manually.
If you actually handled the payments, you could introduce a small upcharge that way, but even there it might be a hard sell, and the amount of bullshit you'd have to deal with to be able to scrape a buck or two off each transaction might mean the juice isn't worth the squeeze. But still, if you could scale it enough, a buck or two per transaction could be big money!
If you actually handled the payments, you could introduce a small upcharge that way, but even there it might be a hard sell, and the amount of bullshit you'd have to deal with to be able to scrape a buck or two off each transaction might mean the juice isn't worth the squeeze. But still, if you could scale it enough, a buck or two per transaction could be big money!
Yeah, definitely worth looking into. I think Stripe has their Connect feature which might facilitate payments between people. Could be fun to tinker with. Thanks for the feedback!
[deleted]
I think this exists, iPhone app called Tab?
I like thinking out loud, but don't like having to listen to voice memos. So I created a syncthing folder that is synced between my phones and my home server, and created an iphone shortcut that records voice memos and saves them into that folder (and then opens the iphone syncthing app so that it'll do the sync). I have a cronjob on the server that looks for new audio files in that syncthing folder and transcribes them with whisper, formats them into a nice looking pdf, and sends them to the printer. So now I can be anywhere, record a voice memo, and come home to find it sitting in my printer.
This is very practical, I like it. I can’t stand listening to my own voice memos.
LLaMA.go - open-source framework for LLM inference on regular CPUs [0]
It took me about a month of full-time, hard, day and night coding (including weekends) to finally build a solid piece which can handle some crazy CPU workloads of tensor math.
[0] https://github.com/gotzmann/llama.go
It took me about a month of full-time, hard, day and night coding (including weekends) to finally build a solid piece which can handle some crazy CPU workloads of tensor math.
[0] https://github.com/gotzmann/llama.go
I created a little mind dumping text app that I use on the daily. Originally it was intended as a throwaway little app but turned out to be my most used app that I’ve created.
I am currently working on a todo list that stores all info in the browser only.
I am currently working on a todo list that stores all info in the browser only.
Happy Friday! I have built a document-reading app to help me curate, visualize, and recall my knowledge as I read and annotate research papers - https://www.KnowledgeGarden.io
The app also extracts data from documents, such as urls, keywords, and references, and generates a downloadable pdf report with annotations and extracted data.
The app also extracts data from documents, such as urls, keywords, and references, and generates a downloadable pdf report with annotations and extracted data.
I created a smart spreadsheet app for tracking any books, movies, or TV series I'm interested in watching which can automatically run web searches for sources to stream/rent/buy any item on the list (ex: Netflix, Amazon Prime, my local library, my local bookstore).
This way I can focus on what I want to watch and not worry about how I will watch it.
This way I can focus on what I want to watch and not worry about how I will watch it.
If you don’t already know it servarr (radarr, sonarr, etc) will also download it for you and sync your tv media player (Kodi etc). It also handles failures, redownloads, quality upgrades. Downloads from torrents and/or newsgroup. There is also one for books but I forget the name.
I built a sprinkler system that has 14 zones. Using raspberry pi and relays. It has a web interface and can run on schedule or manually.
Worked out to be better than a kickstarter I backed, lono, that turned out to be dud and the company went under.
I plan to open source it. have to clean up the code. Built with python flask, GPIO and a small custom PCB that interfaces pi with the off the shelf relay boards.
Todo - flutter app - 3D printable enclosure to package the entire set. - basic logo etc.
I plan to open source it. have to clean up the code. Built with python flask, GPIO and a small custom PCB that interfaces pi with the off the shelf relay boards.
Todo - flutter app - 3D printable enclosure to package the entire set. - basic logo etc.
Me too! Was astounded by the price of a standard solution and said to myself, "I can do that cheaper [ assuming my time is worth less than minimum wage.]" Still works, 7 years after install.
Turn a YouTube channel into a personal podcast feed.
https://gist.github.com/thebenlamm/9d862a3e6c9f481ab9d8a8afe...
More detailed instructions in the script but the general idea is: 1. When a channel publishes a new video IFTT puts a text file with youtube link in Dropbox 2. Script downloads audio from youtube 3. Justcast.com free tier to turn a Dropbox folder into a podcast feed
More detailed instructions in the script but the general idea is: 1. When a channel publishes a new video IFTT puts a text file with youtube link in Dropbox 2. Script downloads audio from youtube 3. Justcast.com free tier to turn a Dropbox folder into a podcast feed
I built a ‘prezi file fixer’.
In the old days, prezi used pez files which could get ‘corrupted’. Not really corrupted, but when someone scaled some objects too much down, the prezi editor could no longer solve the issue, and the prezi file (really: a presentation) could be considered lost.
Solved it locally at first: unzipped the pez file, searched for the smallest objects, and scaled them up. It might look a bit funny (that ball which had been made much smaller would have been scaled up), but people could again fix it using the prezi editor.
Used this manually to ‘fix’ other peoples presentations, in which they send me their pez file, I would ‘solve’ it and send it back (usually: they would invite me to be a co-author, I would make a copy, fix that and make them editor to that copy). Used to do this quite a lot on the prezi forum.
In the end automated it completely: made a service in which one could upload a pez file, my NAS would decompress it, fix is, compress it again, and mail a link to the corrected pez file.
Software is defunct as problems have disappeared (and changes to prezi way made it no longer work).
Incidentally not my first prezi product: I guess that was the Android app that made it possible to view a prezi on an Android phone or tablet, ways before Prezi themselves made the Android app (I think they already had the iOs app, not sure). [That app ran in more then 50 countries, but that is another tale;-0]
Solved it locally at first: unzipped the pez file, searched for the smallest objects, and scaled them up. It might look a bit funny (that ball which had been made much smaller would have been scaled up), but people could again fix it using the prezi editor.
Used this manually to ‘fix’ other peoples presentations, in which they send me their pez file, I would ‘solve’ it and send it back (usually: they would invite me to be a co-author, I would make a copy, fix that and make them editor to that copy). Used to do this quite a lot on the prezi forum.
In the end automated it completely: made a service in which one could upload a pez file, my NAS would decompress it, fix is, compress it again, and mail a link to the corrected pez file.
Software is defunct as problems have disappeared (and changes to prezi way made it no longer work).
Incidentally not my first prezi product: I guess that was the Android app that made it possible to view a prezi on an Android phone or tablet, ways before Prezi themselves made the Android app (I think they already had the iOs app, not sure). [That app ran in more then 50 countries, but that is another tale;-0]
When I was in college, registering for classes was always a pain since a lot of classes would fill up almost instantly once online registration opened, then it was just a game of constantly refreshing to see if any seats had become available.
After struggling through that for a few semesters, I decided to automate it. Started out with a script that would take course IDs as input and check for openings every few minutes (used selenium/beautiful soup I think) then text me via twilio whenever a seat was available. The next semester I updated it so it would even sign me up for the course automatically.
Also came in handy to get myself and a few friends into the coveted wine tasting class our senior year.
After struggling through that for a few semesters, I decided to automate it. Started out with a script that would take course IDs as input and check for openings every few minutes (used selenium/beautiful soup I think) then text me via twilio whenever a seat was available. The next semester I updated it so it would even sign me up for the course automatically.
Also came in handy to get myself and a few friends into the coveted wine tasting class our senior year.
I've built a CRM (https://www.bizzey.com) for myself to automate my accounting / business administration. I was freelancing on the side and noticed that many of the business solutions where either crazy expensive for a single person business or looked like they were made in the 80's.
It has since exploded into fully fledged CRM with all kinds of features you can choose from. I originally built it for myself to keep track of everything expenses, recurring invoices, ... At some point a freelancer saw me working in it and asked what I was using.
Told him what I was working on and he became my first customer, since then it has spread through word of mouth.
It has since exploded into fully fledged CRM with all kinds of features you can choose from. I originally built it for myself to keep track of everything expenses, recurring invoices, ... At some point a freelancer saw me working in it and asked what I was using.
Told him what I was working on and he became my first customer, since then it has spread through word of mouth.
This is actually really cool, I may have to give it a shot! Thanks for sharing
Congratulations on your success so far and good luck with it - I just dropped by to say that all the sales pop-ups on your front page are quite intrusive and premature (I'm currently browsing mobile) - I'm trying to read about the features you offer but I keep getting interrupted by invitations for a demo or a free trial. It's a matter of personal preference obviously but I am never pursuaded to buy something by a sales person jumping on me before before I even know what I'm looking at, and that's much more likely to push me away altogether.
I know this sort of thing is tough to get right so I hope a bit of constructive criticism is helpful; overall it's impressive that you've launched a product that people find useful and I wish you all the best with it!
I know this sort of thing is tough to get right so I hope a bit of constructive criticism is helpful; overall it's impressive that you've launched a product that people find useful and I wish you all the best with it!
Shared Slides Clicker [1] - an extension to allow for multiple people to remotely drive a single Google Slides presentation. I created this because it drives me insane when I hear people saying "Next slide please"! It leverages React and Firebase.
Simple Weekly Meal Planner [2] - a very simple, free PWA for deciding what you want to make for dinner each week and tracking all the ingredients you need to get from the market. I built this because meal planning is one of the most annoying parts of adulting. It was built with Svelte and Firebase.
Audiobook Locker [3] - a Tauri-based desktop app for managing your audiobooks. Think calibre-for-audibooks. I created this because I wanted a nice way to keep track of which audiobooks I'd completed and which to read next. It uses Svelte for the UI and Rust on the backend.
[1]: https://fonner.gitlab.io/shared-slides-clicker/ [2]: https://simpleweeklymealplanner.com/ [3]: https://fonner.gitlab.io/audiobook-locker/
Simple Weekly Meal Planner [2] - a very simple, free PWA for deciding what you want to make for dinner each week and tracking all the ingredients you need to get from the market. I built this because meal planning is one of the most annoying parts of adulting. It was built with Svelte and Firebase.
Audiobook Locker [3] - a Tauri-based desktop app for managing your audiobooks. Think calibre-for-audibooks. I created this because I wanted a nice way to keep track of which audiobooks I'd completed and which to read next. It uses Svelte for the UI and Rust on the backend.
[1]: https://fonner.gitlab.io/shared-slides-clicker/ [2]: https://simpleweeklymealplanner.com/ [3]: https://fonner.gitlab.io/audiobook-locker/
Thats awesome (meal planner) - is this opensourced? Id like to customise it for my own use..
My wife has a goal to run 1000km this year, and uses an Apple Watch to track them. But getting to the YTD total is a pain in the fitness app.
So I made the worlds most basic iPhone app with React Native, that grabs the data from HealthKit and shows it across a percentage of the year.
Simple but effective.
So I made the worlds most basic iPhone app with React Native, that grabs the data from HealthKit and shows it across a percentage of the year.
Simple but effective.
I should learn how to do iPhone apps, I want a really simple app that can communicate between an iPad and a iPhone/watch and just show a speaker timer: https://www.dsan.com/speaker-timers/
As two iPads are cheaper than a genuine hardware one ...
As two iPads are cheaper than a genuine hardware one ...
I made a "bot" server for myself, which is really just a server and app framework to host a bunch of scripts. The framework handles:
- Running bots periodically - Receives webhooks - Handles OAuth - Provides a shared DB - Posts updates to and receives commands from Slack
It's not very innovative, but super helpful. I love that I can deploy a new script so easily and already have all the tools I need so I can just focus in the logic. A few bots I have running:
- I run a site with thousands of articles, so one bot checks 10-15 articles per day for spelling mistakes, broken links, broken images, poor formatting, etc. Tasks to fix these are then posted to Notion. - Monitor Hacker News and Reddit for mentions of the sites/apps that I run so I can respond. - Sync calendars between apps without having to make them public - Gather financials and reports from various sources for bookkeeping - Monitor all of the servers we run and sync their status to Notion
Probably at least half of the automations could work on something like Zapier, but this is more fun and I get a lot more control over them.
- Running bots periodically - Receives webhooks - Handles OAuth - Provides a shared DB - Posts updates to and receives commands from Slack
It's not very innovative, but super helpful. I love that I can deploy a new script so easily and already have all the tools I need so I can just focus in the logic. A few bots I have running:
- I run a site with thousands of articles, so one bot checks 10-15 articles per day for spelling mistakes, broken links, broken images, poor formatting, etc. Tasks to fix these are then posted to Notion. - Monitor Hacker News and Reddit for mentions of the sites/apps that I run so I can respond. - Sync calendars between apps without having to make them public - Gather financials and reports from various sources for bookkeeping - Monitor all of the servers we run and sync their status to Notion
Probably at least half of the automations could work on something like Zapier, but this is more fun and I get a lot more control over them.
The most useful thing I built for myself is my workflow.
Being both on the ASD and ADHD spectrums, I intuitively knew I need systems, and started working on them, long before I was diagnosed and got treatment.
One of my dearest parts of my system is the knowledge, task, and time management part. There's many things to improve, but I'm really happy to where I got.
TLDR; custom org/markdown/hyperlists-inspired document syntax powered by tree-sitter, go library for accessing the data, command line utility with interactive task manager (built in with a custom React-like component-based TUI framework), Neovim plugins and integrations.
This short video explains more than I can in a short time: https://gist.ro/slang.mp4
Extra - Thank you Org mode: I do my work in a terminal emulator, so (obviously) my editor is Neovim. Two years ago I allocated a few weeks to learn Emacs and to review Org mode, I was hooked on so many concepts, and I loved it. Didn't like Emacs through, it's just too slow for me, and Elisp felt very meh if not yuck. There's quite a few things that I liked so much while testing Org mode, and that I tried to port.
One of my dearest parts of my system is the knowledge, task, and time management part. There's many things to improve, but I'm really happy to where I got.
TLDR; custom org/markdown/hyperlists-inspired document syntax powered by tree-sitter, go library for accessing the data, command line utility with interactive task manager (built in with a custom React-like component-based TUI framework), Neovim plugins and integrations.
This short video explains more than I can in a short time: https://gist.ro/slang.mp4
Extra - Thank you Org mode: I do my work in a terminal emulator, so (obviously) my editor is Neovim. Two years ago I allocated a few weeks to learn Emacs and to review Org mode, I was hooked on so many concepts, and I loved it. Didn't like Emacs through, it's just too slow for me, and Elisp felt very meh if not yuck. There's quite a few things that I liked so much while testing Org mode, and that I tried to port.
Simplest File Renamer - https://www.yboris.dev/renamer & https://github.com/whyboris/Simplest-File-Renamer
I wanted to be able to quickly rename files with my text editor (using keyboard commands), so this lets me do it. Plus I share the app online for free.
Video Hub App - https://videohubapp.com/ & https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App
I started it just for myself, but it ended up so good I spent several more years improving it as people kept buying it (up to almost 5,000 purchases since I started).
Also wrote a couple of dev tools for myself (sharing via NPM too) - https://www.yboris.dev/
I wanted to be able to quickly rename files with my text editor (using keyboard commands), so this lets me do it. Plus I share the app online for free.
Video Hub App - https://videohubapp.com/ & https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App
I started it just for myself, but it ended up so good I spent several more years improving it as people kept buying it (up to almost 5,000 purchases since I started).
Also wrote a couple of dev tools for myself (sharing via NPM too) - https://www.yboris.dev/
I used to spend a ton of time on reddit but, lately, I've been struggling to find content I enjoy there. So, I built a little RSS aggregator. It's hosted at https://www.trybsync.com/
This hearkens back to the analog days, but I can't drive without music. My last car had a crappy stereo. I happened to have a project box lying around so I built a 12-watt, 4-channel amplifier. The best part is that I also had these beautiful old backlit analog VU meters lying around. I only had two, but it made the thing look totally awesome.
I made a "laser-beam-break" camera trigger for my Nikon D750, which I use to capture images of hummingbirds at my feeder.
Instead of paying $125 for this ... (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1337050-REG/pluto_tri...)
I decided to build one using an Arduino. I probably spent more than $125 on the project, but I ended up buying a lot of hobbyist electronics parts, soldering gun, etc.
I learned a bit about what Arduino can do, learned some baby electronics.
And I have some nice pics of hummingbirds.
https://flickr.com/photos/184781347@N05/52648636091/in/datep...
https://flickr.com/photos/184781347@N05/52325370300/in/datep...
Instead of paying $125 for this ... (https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1337050-REG/pluto_tri...)
I decided to build one using an Arduino. I probably spent more than $125 on the project, but I ended up buying a lot of hobbyist electronics parts, soldering gun, etc.
I learned a bit about what Arduino can do, learned some baby electronics.
And I have some nice pics of hummingbirds.
https://flickr.com/photos/184781347@N05/52648636091/in/datep...
https://flickr.com/photos/184781347@N05/52325370300/in/datep...
The knowledge and experience you gain from those types of projects could pay for itself several times over in the future.
Reminds me of when I was getting into woodworking and my wife wanted a new coffee table.
Why would we go buy coffee table when I could build it in a month and have it cost 3 times as much?
Reminds me of when I was getting into woodworking and my wife wanted a new coffee table.
Why would we go buy coffee table when I could build it in a month and have it cost 3 times as much?
The story is priceless though, and I love handmade stuff.
Not nearly as cool, but related. I've been using yolo to pull bird frames from a GoPro left running by the bird feeder.
Impressive shots! Very nice project.
I built a working version of the Christmas lights from Stranger Things (that Joyce used to talk to Will in the upside down) for a friend's Halloween party. It used an arduino board, a string of addressable LEDs, and a little web interface that guests could use to send messages to the lights.
It was so much fun to build and a hit at the party. I wish I had the opportunity to build more things like it :)
https://github.com/zbtaylor/stranger-things-lights
It was so much fun to build and a hit at the party. I wish I had the opportunity to build more things like it :)
https://github.com/zbtaylor/stranger-things-lights
Built a live coding library for python that allows me to reload code I edited while it was executing. It has repl and debugger support and it can be run even for embedded python. It's pretty granular so it can reload modules or even individual objects. Unlike the existing module reload python function it can change object references to the updated code and delete old objects and their references from memory. This way in the next call only the latest code is executed. I built something similar for C code too.
I was just looking for something like this. Have you shared either of these publicly?
Here you go
https://pypi.org/project/pylivecoding/
Two years ago I decided to built my own web browser, with the underlying idea to use the internet more efficiently (and to force cache everything).
Took a while to find the architecture, but it's still an unfinished ambitious project. You can probably spend forever working on HTML and CSS fixes alone...
[1] https://github.com/tholian-network/stealth
Took a while to find the architecture, but it's still an unfinished ambitious project. You can probably spend forever working on HTML and CSS fixes alone...
[1] https://github.com/tholian-network/stealth
I've been meaning to write a blog post about this but the code is so messy I keep telling myself "I'll clean it up first and then show it off"...
Growing up I had an alarm clock that you put a CD into and it would fade in the CD instead of an alarm noise. I really loved this, though having to wake up super early for school everyday, I will admit that I developed negative associations with the first track on many albums.
I created an improvised version of this a few years ago: a timer switch hooked up to a light, a cassette player and a water heater. When the timer went off all three would turn on. This worked but wasn't great cause nothing faded in.
I remodeled my bedroom last summer and wanted to replace this alarm with something more sophisticated.
I used a Raspberry Pi to do the following: - At the set alarm time, access my media server and generate a playlist of 10 random songs. Start this playlist and slowly increase the volume. - I bought a separate module to hook up to a lamp that points at where I sleep. This module lets me slowly turn up the brightness of the lamp as the music volume increases.
The water heater is hooked up to a timer in my kitchen now. But I just finished building an arduino based wifi switch, so once I get it integrated, that switch will get turned on 5-10 minutes before the alarm is set to go off and heat my water for coffee.
I built a dashboard for all of this using HTMX. It lets you set the alarm time, snooze, play arbitrary playlists, adjust the light etc. I also added a weather widget and I have a JSON file of all important birthdays in my life, so it tells me whos birthday it is when I go to review the weather.
Something that HN may appreciate, I have it setup so when I ssh into the Pi, I get dropped into a tmux session where an instance of emacs is running with the actual alarm code being executed inside of it. This makes editing and trying the new functions sort of like a lisp machine. You get dropped into emacs and can tweak all the scripts and test them in a sort of live environment (you have to restart the server to update the dashboard but everything else is 'live'). I have a dream of rewriting this so it really is a lisp machine and everything can be `c-x c-e`'d to run but I doubt I'll ever get around to that.
I would also like to integrate motorized blinds and open them up when I wake. I'm still researching this, if anyone has recommendations.
Growing up I had an alarm clock that you put a CD into and it would fade in the CD instead of an alarm noise. I really loved this, though having to wake up super early for school everyday, I will admit that I developed negative associations with the first track on many albums.
I created an improvised version of this a few years ago: a timer switch hooked up to a light, a cassette player and a water heater. When the timer went off all three would turn on. This worked but wasn't great cause nothing faded in.
I remodeled my bedroom last summer and wanted to replace this alarm with something more sophisticated.
I used a Raspberry Pi to do the following: - At the set alarm time, access my media server and generate a playlist of 10 random songs. Start this playlist and slowly increase the volume. - I bought a separate module to hook up to a lamp that points at where I sleep. This module lets me slowly turn up the brightness of the lamp as the music volume increases.
The water heater is hooked up to a timer in my kitchen now. But I just finished building an arduino based wifi switch, so once I get it integrated, that switch will get turned on 5-10 minutes before the alarm is set to go off and heat my water for coffee.
I built a dashboard for all of this using HTMX. It lets you set the alarm time, snooze, play arbitrary playlists, adjust the light etc. I also added a weather widget and I have a JSON file of all important birthdays in my life, so it tells me whos birthday it is when I go to review the weather.
Something that HN may appreciate, I have it setup so when I ssh into the Pi, I get dropped into a tmux session where an instance of emacs is running with the actual alarm code being executed inside of it. This makes editing and trying the new functions sort of like a lisp machine. You get dropped into emacs and can tweak all the scripts and test them in a sort of live environment (you have to restart the server to update the dashboard but everything else is 'live'). I have a dream of rewriting this so it really is a lisp machine and everything can be `c-x c-e`'d to run but I doubt I'll ever get around to that.
I would also like to integrate motorized blinds and open them up when I wake. I'm still researching this, if anyone has recommendations.
I work in front-end development, and am very frustrated each time I encounter a front-end framework with auto-refresh without an easy way to disable it (looking at you, Next.js).
As a result, I wrote a (Chrome only) Web extension[1], which monkey-patch the WebSocket object, so I could 'plug' or 'unplug' them by simply clicking the extension's icon. So far I'm very happy with it [2], and can finally have multiple tabs of the same page without my 'reference' tab refreshing itself while I'm working on CSS.
[1] https://github.com/MarcMonchablon/toggle-hmr
[2] It gets the job done, even if in some case (such as the Zola static site generator), where I had to put the link to the plugin's code in the index.html, otherwise the code would be injected too late.
As a result, I wrote a (Chrome only) Web extension[1], which monkey-patch the WebSocket object, so I could 'plug' or 'unplug' them by simply clicking the extension's icon. So far I'm very happy with it [2], and can finally have multiple tabs of the same page without my 'reference' tab refreshing itself while I'm working on CSS.
[1] https://github.com/MarcMonchablon/toggle-hmr
[2] It gets the job done, even if in some case (such as the Zola static site generator), where I had to put the link to the plugin's code in the index.html, otherwise the code would be injected too late.
I'm always building random quick solutions to problems we happen upon. In one instance, I'm gathering data for a large stream from their chat and writing ways to search and process it. Another I'm writing renaming automation.
Most recently, my partner and I were using Anki to learn country flags but found the user experience to be annoyingly over-engineered and kind of stressful. We just wanted to be able to sit down and go through 5 flashcards while microwaving something or go through 100 in a day. With Anki it always felt like I was messing with some algorithm if I stopped early or didn't do my required number of cards for the day. Plus we were finding it annoying that the flash cards with Anki always seemed sorted. If I was looking at Albania's flag and had no idea about the next one I could guess it was maybe Algeria, etc.
So I built a python app that will tear open .APKG files and extract relevant information (currently, due to the file spec, it's specific to this because the notes are not consistently formatted but could be reused for whatever). It'll unpack and rename the images based on the media file and, in the case of the country flags deck, spit out a JSON file that matches the "challenge" (the image) to the answer.
Then I had ChatGPT build me a simple front end with HTML and Javascript for going through them at random and hosted it on one of my websites for the 2 of us to go through whenever we want. I'm working on doing the same with top-level domains and country codes! Turns out APKG files are a great dataset that happen to just be shoved into a somewhat over-engineered (in my opinion) file format and shoved into a software that, while great, doesn't feel conducive to casual learning where I don't have specific needs or dates the information will be come relevant. I just want to know these things not be a prisoner to them while I learn them.
Most recently, my partner and I were using Anki to learn country flags but found the user experience to be annoyingly over-engineered and kind of stressful. We just wanted to be able to sit down and go through 5 flashcards while microwaving something or go through 100 in a day. With Anki it always felt like I was messing with some algorithm if I stopped early or didn't do my required number of cards for the day. Plus we were finding it annoying that the flash cards with Anki always seemed sorted. If I was looking at Albania's flag and had no idea about the next one I could guess it was maybe Algeria, etc.
So I built a python app that will tear open .APKG files and extract relevant information (currently, due to the file spec, it's specific to this because the notes are not consistently formatted but could be reused for whatever). It'll unpack and rename the images based on the media file and, in the case of the country flags deck, spit out a JSON file that matches the "challenge" (the image) to the answer.
Then I had ChatGPT build me a simple front end with HTML and Javascript for going through them at random and hosted it on one of my websites for the 2 of us to go through whenever we want. I'm working on doing the same with top-level domains and country codes! Turns out APKG files are a great dataset that happen to just be shoved into a somewhat over-engineered (in my opinion) file format and shoved into a software that, while great, doesn't feel conducive to casual learning where I don't have specific needs or dates the information will be come relevant. I just want to know these things not be a prisoner to them while I learn them.
Not sure if it counts as tech, but I created a voiceboard for my mother to help her communicate while in hospice. She had a massive stroke and could no longer speak.
I thought of a tablet app, but the stakes were too high, so it wound up as a laminated paper. You can read about my design decisions here:
https://voiceboard.org
I thought of a tablet app, but the stakes were too high, so it wound up as a laminated paper. You can read about my design decisions here:
https://voiceboard.org
Definitely counts. Very cool.
This absolutely counts. This is such a great testament to how simple engineering and thoughtful design can do good in the world. You're a good son!
Is there a reason besides preventing commercial use that you don't just have a PDF link on your site?
Is there a reason besides preventing commercial use that you don't just have a PDF link on your site?
I tailor them upon request. I would like to make a self-serve site, but don't have the time or skills. I would prefer to give this away, people are usually in their worst moments, so a little generosity makes me feel like I make the world a better place.
Actually, I think I just forgot to put the newer, generic version up on the site for download. Good thinking!
Thanks for designing and publishing your work!
I was surprised too, that there is nothing similar when I was at a stroke unit for a relative.
I wish you all the best for your mother. Keep caring for her, before caring for the website.
I wish you all the best for your mother. Keep caring for her, before caring for the website.
Your website is covered in "contact me", but I see no contact information, and your HN profile is similarly anonymous. Sorry, I couldn't figure it out.
I don't know what skills you lack, but if they're web development skills, and if you want some help with your wonderful project, my email is in my profile. I cannot, alas, do anything about your insufficient-time problem.
I don't know what skills you lack, but if they're web development skills, and if you want some help with your wonderful project, my email is in my profile. I cannot, alas, do anything about your insufficient-time problem.
Huh. You are right. I think stress and grief caused me to overlook the obvious;
- post a 'contact us' if you want people to contact you, and
- post a downloadable PDF if you want people to use it.
I guess this is why doctors don't treat loved ones. I was doing outreach, it never occurred to me to go back and check my site with fresh eyes. I wonder how many people I missed helping.
I guess this is why doctors don't treat loved ones. I was doing outreach, it never occurred to me to go back and check my site with fresh eyes. I wonder how many people I missed helping.
Whoa, whoa, that sounds like you're beating yourself up, and please don't. Maybe I screwed up the tone of my prior comment (if so, sorry!)
A downloadable PDF would be more useful, sure, but already with what's up there, relatively-low-skill users could print the whole page and cut it up. And higher-skill users can read it to follow your thinking to get inspiration and kick-start their work on a similar solution. So even if you never add one more thing to that site, and even if all that happens is half a dozen people a year randomly find it by lucky google query, it's STILL a meaningful contribution to other people that you've made your thinking and your output available. You're already doing good work, both for your mom and for strangers who you'll never know you've reached.
Hugs for you, internet person, and high fives.
And, again, if you want any help with making a dynamic version, hit me up, email in profile. I'd be proud if I got to help this project in any way.
A downloadable PDF would be more useful, sure, but already with what's up there, relatively-low-skill users could print the whole page and cut it up. And higher-skill users can read it to follow your thinking to get inspiration and kick-start their work on a similar solution. So even if you never add one more thing to that site, and even if all that happens is half a dozen people a year randomly find it by lucky google query, it's STILL a meaningful contribution to other people that you've made your thinking and your output available. You're already doing good work, both for your mom and for strangers who you'll never know you've reached.
Hugs for you, internet person, and high fives.
And, again, if you want any help with making a dynamic version, hit me up, email in profile. I'd be proud if I got to help this project in any way.
Thank you, you are very kind! I will contact you shortly, I would love to make this happen!
When my sister was in the ICU at a hospital in a big city, I created something similar for her. The nurses complimented me on it and said it made their lives easier, but I was shocked to learn that they didn't have anything like it unless families made them themselves.
I was shocked to find that out too. A friend pointed out it helps for people on ventilators, was that your case?
They make something like that for autistic people and others that are non-verbal. The commercial product, which is essentially just a binder with printed words or pictures, is surprisingly expensive so lots of people DIY them.
They're called PECS, Picture Exchange Communication System. A speech therapist is trained to work with people who have verbalization or accent issues and help them work through them. Or if they can't, suggest PECS so they're still able to communicate.
Amazing work. Of all the great projects on this thread, this is my favourite
This is a wonderful project, I hope someone in the community helps you with a self service version, love the thought you have put into it and Thankyou for explaining the reasoning. You should share this in the Occupational Health community.
I found your love for your mom and your dedication to taking care of her to be really touching. This is really wonderful!
I am very interested in this - my mom has MSA and is quickly losing her ability to talk. Not sure how to contact you, but I'll check the website and your profile again in a bit to see if there are updates
I sent you a message, I would be happy to make a board for your mom!
My wife and I lived on a Sailboat for a few years. The boat had a 20 year old SeaTalk bus connected to the sensors (depth, wind speed/direction, water speed). I bought a newer radio with an AIS receiver. Of course I wanted to hook it all to my computer & phone.
So I built some hardware to interface with the SeaTalk network, the AIS radio (and a modern GPS) https://github.com/johnboiles/Helm-hardware https://github.com/johnboiles/Helm-firmware
And a Python proxy running on a Pi to pass messages back and forth across the network. https://github.com/johnboiles/NMEAProxy
And an iOS app that could drive my autopilot https://github.com/johnboiles/helm-ios
Since my proxy spoke the NMEA standard, you could also hook up with other apps like iSailor and get all the sensor data + gps + AIS data. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wärtsilä-isailor/id398456162
To my knowledge, 0 other people have ever used any of this but I've always been proud of it :)
So I built some hardware to interface with the SeaTalk network, the AIS radio (and a modern GPS) https://github.com/johnboiles/Helm-hardware https://github.com/johnboiles/Helm-firmware
And a Python proxy running on a Pi to pass messages back and forth across the network. https://github.com/johnboiles/NMEAProxy
And an iOS app that could drive my autopilot https://github.com/johnboiles/helm-ios
Since my proxy spoke the NMEA standard, you could also hook up with other apps like iSailor and get all the sensor data + gps + AIS data. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wärtsilä-isailor/id398456162
To my knowledge, 0 other people have ever used any of this but I've always been proud of it :)
I'm always impressed by hardware hacks.
I also made my own variable speed diaphragm water pump for our boat's water pressure. The VSD options on the market were notoriously unreliable, so I took one of the best non-VSD pumps with a pressure switch and drove it with a custom board + software. This also meant if my controller failed (which it never did) I could switch back to the original pressure switch.
https://github.com/johnboiles/openvsd
https://github.com/johnboiles/openvsd
Nice this is awesome! Well done. Once you have everything in NMEA it really does become very easy to integrate with other marine hardware/software. Literally everything runs on it :)
I built an emulator for HUB75 LED matrix panels.
https://github.com/ty-porter/RGBMatrixEmulator
One of the side projects I work on is a scoreboard that displays MLB scores. It's highly configurable -- you buy the size panel you want and a Raspberry Pi, install the software, and you can configure it to display games, standings, and news headlines for your favorite team or division.
The problem is that the hardware is purchased by the end user, so it can come in many different sizes. I think we officially support 6 or 7 sizes right now, and each panel can be a chunk of change if you get a nice one. If we wanted to test on every device that means I need to shell out 50 bucks x 7 sizes, plus Raspberry Pi and wiring adapter, so not insignificant for a hobby project. Instead, I wrote a drop-in replacement emulator that makes it super simple to emulate any size panel across a variety of display types.
The most advanced display adapter spins up a minimal webserver and serves emulated images over a websocket, meaning you can display your panel over the network on pretty much any device with a web browser.
I write about it quite a bit, if further interested: https://blog.ty-porter.dev/categories.html#emulation-ref
One of the side projects I work on is a scoreboard that displays MLB scores. It's highly configurable -- you buy the size panel you want and a Raspberry Pi, install the software, and you can configure it to display games, standings, and news headlines for your favorite team or division.
The problem is that the hardware is purchased by the end user, so it can come in many different sizes. I think we officially support 6 or 7 sizes right now, and each panel can be a chunk of change if you get a nice one. If we wanted to test on every device that means I need to shell out 50 bucks x 7 sizes, plus Raspberry Pi and wiring adapter, so not insignificant for a hobby project. Instead, I wrote a drop-in replacement emulator that makes it super simple to emulate any size panel across a variety of display types.
The most advanced display adapter spins up a minimal webserver and serves emulated images over a websocket, meaning you can display your panel over the network on pretty much any device with a web browser.
I write about it quite a bit, if further interested: https://blog.ty-porter.dev/categories.html#emulation-ref
md2blog: creates a tiny (a few kilobytes per page, with no JavaScript) blog from Markdown files, with two features that I couldn’t find elsewhere:
* Links between Markdown files “just work” (both when viewing the Markdown source on GitHub and in the final HTML version of the site), including anchors
* Posts are automatically tagged based on directory structure (e.g. all files in “posts/linux” are tagged with “linux”)
Bonus: my entire site hot-rebuilds on my 12 year-old netbook in under a second (with a few tweaks that I should probably publish a new build for).
https://jaredkrinke.github.io/md2blog/
* Links between Markdown files “just work” (both when viewing the Markdown source on GitHub and in the final HTML version of the site), including anchors
* Posts are automatically tagged based on directory structure (e.g. all files in “posts/linux” are tagged with “linux”)
Bonus: my entire site hot-rebuilds on my 12 year-old netbook in under a second (with a few tweaks that I should probably publish a new build for).
https://jaredkrinke.github.io/md2blog/
Not as exciting as some here, but helped me at times where i couldn't be at my desk however still be 'available'.
I developed a 'transport' for Mulesoft, that would allow XMPP based communication, and relay that to my phone either by sms or email, and vice versa. At the time the communication were Jabber based and almost everything was through that, so this worked out quite nicely.
I developed a 'transport' for Mulesoft, that would allow XMPP based communication, and relay that to my phone either by sms or email, and vice versa. At the time the communication were Jabber based and almost everything was through that, so this worked out quite nicely.
I built https://playtune.app to have rhythm game with unlimited musics because it uses YouTube as the music playback provider. I play it often with my daughter.
I consider removing the restart feature (or maybe just for her) because she kept restarting whenever she missed just a single note
I consider removing the restart feature (or maybe just for her) because she kept restarting whenever she missed just a single note
that is super cool!!
I was annoyed by having to reach for a remote or my phone when watching stuff on my Apple TV, so I made a MacOS Apple TV remote[0] that lives in the menu bar. Saves me literally seconds every day.
[0]: https://github.com/dickfickling/honeycrisp
[0]: https://github.com/dickfickling/honeycrisp
My current favorite: I often go camping deep in the backwoods with friends, far from any sort of cell service. So I built a LoRa radio system that allows us to text each other, physically locate each other, etc. when we go off and do our own things. The system consists of small radio units that are carried, and a larger (but still backpackable) base unit that gets set up in camp.
They run as a mesh network, so you don't have to be in range of the base unit for it to work.
Regular radios don't work well for this use case because the terrain is very mountainous.
Currently looking into making one that can be attached to a dog collar to allow for geolocating the animal.
They run as a mesh network, so you don't have to be in range of the base unit for it to work.
Regular radios don't work well for this use case because the terrain is very mountainous.
Currently looking into making one that can be attached to a dog collar to allow for geolocating the animal.
This is very cool, and something I could see myself setting up for my friends while camping as well. Are you able to share more details about your setup? Thanks!
Sure. The radios are inexpensive ESP32 LoRa dev boards (with good antennae and 3D printed enclosures), and the software is a modified version of Meshtastic. This is the article that inspired me -- I think that will lead you to more detail about what I did than I can give here.
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/26/lora-mesh-network-with-off-t...
These perform better than the Baofeng radios we used before, but the terrain is still a limiting factor.
https://hackaday.com/2020/02/26/lora-mesh-network-with-off-t...
These perform better than the Baofeng radios we used before, but the terrain is still a limiting factor.
That's a much better price point than a Gotenna, which grew out of a kickstarter and is proprietary. Sell they still ready to go devices not kits, so there's that.
Sounds really interesting! Do you have keyboard on these devises or how do you send the texts? Id really love to see some pictures and internals how they are built up...awesome anyhow tho! :)
I have a "icon switcher for chatGPT".
I know it has no value, but I can't stop using it.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personalized-chatg...
I know it has no value, but I can't stop using it.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/personalized-chatg...
Raspberry Pi temperature monitor in a big freezer full of breast milk. It would email me if the temperature got above some threshold for a certain duration.
It only fired once (outside testing anyway). But that one time made the whole endeavor more than worthwhile.
It only fired once (outside testing anyway). But that one time made the whole endeavor more than worthwhile.
I, like probably most other people, tend to start a habit and then it quickly fades away, not necessarily due to lack of wanting. I find that I might want to start, for example, strecthing my hamstrings regularly, I do them for some days/weeks and then I forget some days, then forget some more, and then after a while I realise I haven't done any for months.
So I wrote a webapp that I usually myself constantly now, it's very basic. I enter a habit I want to keep up and then visit the site everyday and click the "done" button when its done. It also has a calendar so I can see how often I've been doing it because not every habit is to be done every day.
I started this for exercising but i'm not using it for very basic/stupid things. One example is cleaning my glasses. I would never remember to clean them and I'd occasionally realise I'm viewing the world through a layer of grime. I now click "done" every day and the world looks crystal clear.
I guess it's just gamified habits a little bit and its working really well for me. There's a ton of habit trackers out that but I never found anything simple and quick to use.
So I wrote a webapp that I usually myself constantly now, it's very basic. I enter a habit I want to keep up and then visit the site everyday and click the "done" button when its done. It also has a calendar so I can see how often I've been doing it because not every habit is to be done every day.
I started this for exercising but i'm not using it for very basic/stupid things. One example is cleaning my glasses. I would never remember to clean them and I'd occasionally realise I'm viewing the world through a layer of grime. I now click "done" every day and the world looks crystal clear.
I guess it's just gamified habits a little bit and its working really well for me. There's a ton of habit trackers out that but I never found anything simple and quick to use.
I have langchain hooked up to a SMS number with some of the tools. I want to extend it to voice and pictures but, I have used it also to replace googling or Wikipedia for a bit.
The old Yahoo News Digest app from years back was incredible and I never could find a replacement. I decided to build my own.
It uses Embeddings to gather thousands of articles and compare against each other. Then uses a relational graph to combine those into collections and uses an LLM to create a succinct summary, quote, map, and other info about the topic.
It lets me the news for the day within minutes instead of endlessly scrolling.
It uses Embeddings to gather thousands of articles and compare against each other. Then uses a relational graph to combine those into collections and uses an LLM to create a succinct summary, quote, map, and other info about the topic.
It lets me the news for the day within minutes instead of endlessly scrolling.
CitiBikeHistory.com
I CitiBike a lot around NYC and this gives me (and my friends/coworkers) access to the full station history
I CitiBike a lot around NYC and this gives me (and my friends/coworkers) access to the full station history
That's great! Which APIs are you using?
[deleted]
Built my own app for tracking my exercises using a phone arm band, the gyro, accelerometer, and the camera to create a model for rep counting and tempo. I got tired of the mental effort of counting reps. This graphs the strongest signal using an fft and some custom algo to determine the best signal to use. Works pretty well and backs up my own internal count. I promised myself I would only build it for me so I would actually build it as opposed to getting a mental block by building it for others.
My long term vision was to open it up to others and mine the data to determine what the ideal weight, tempo, resting period, and exercises were for a particular body type. I'm just a little too ADHD to commit to it and keep a day job.
https://swolereport.com/
My long term vision was to open it up to others and mine the data to determine what the ideal weight, tempo, resting period, and exercises were for a particular body type. I'm just a little too ADHD to commit to it and keep a day job.
https://swolereport.com/
I build my personnal search engine which record things I like on twitter, blog posts etc.. It automatically calls those APIs using Github Action and store them in an open source database (json file)
I actualy use it at least twice a week to retrieve content I bookmarked, so I'm happy to have created such a tool.
The app: https://raphaelsty.github.io/knowledge/?query=bayesian
The Github: https://github.com/raphaelsty/knowledge
I actualy use it at least twice a week to retrieve content I bookmarked, so I'm happy to have created such a tool.
The app: https://raphaelsty.github.io/knowledge/?query=bayesian
The Github: https://github.com/raphaelsty/knowledge
Some background:
- Samsung Galaxy phones have "Routines", background tasks that can fire based on a number of conditionals, including time, geofencing, messages received, etc.
- I have a good friend who I regularly grab dinner with at Texas Roadhouse. In fact, for over a year, we went twice a week or more after we each bought $1200 worth of gift cards for $900 during a promo that was intended for businesses (we both have LLCs we were able to use).
- Our Texas Roadhouse has crazy long wait times during peak hours. Like 45 to 90 minutes. This was especially frustrating given my friend was about 10-15 minutes from that location, with traffic.
- Texas Roadhouse offers an online reservation system. You fill out the form, and they will send you a text with the estimated wait, to which you must respond to confirm your reservation.
- Once you are texted again to be notified your table is ready, you have 20 minutes or you lose your reservation.
As VIP customers (the entire restaurant knew us both on a first name basis, we always tipped generously [e.g. $20 on $40 of food], we often received preferential service from staff. One of our waiters was actually a young man with a budding tech interest, who, after considerable encouragement, mentorship, and a quality boot camp some of my former coworkers enjoyed, is now a software engineer making several times more income than he made as a waiter.
We were very pleased with this arrangement in all but one way: while we could talk to several of our waiter friends who were staff members of the restaurant to get a table without a reservation even when it was 1 table short of being packed, it often was packed, or our waiter friends were not working that night, and we did not like waiting in a noisy, crowded lobby.
I picked apart the reservation website and found a very simple, wide-open API. I quickly hacked together a script to make a reservation with a single GET request to my own site, with reservation options in URL parameters, then created Samsung Routines such that when I arrived within 100 feet of my friend's house between 3pm and 9pm, it would automatically send a properly formatted GET request to my website, which in turn made a properly formatted POST to the API, and then it would also immediately respond to the incoming text confirming the reservation. Before I'd even made it to his front door, we'd have an ETA, so we could decide on whether to start a movie, play some split screen diablo, etc. I'd then get a text a short time later, and we'd leave for TRH. Upon arrival, we'd walk up to the counter, mention our reservation was called up, and proceed to be seated immediately regardless of how busy it was, or whether any of our waiter friends were working that night.
DIY VIP Reservation system :)
As VIP customers (the entire restaurant knew us both on a first name basis, we always tipped generously [e.g. $20 on $40 of food], we often received preferential service from staff. One of our waiters was actually a young man with a budding tech interest, who, after considerable encouragement, mentorship, and a quality boot camp some of my former coworkers enjoyed, is now a software engineer making several times more income than he made as a waiter.
We were very pleased with this arrangement in all but one way: while we could talk to several of our waiter friends who were staff members of the restaurant to get a table without a reservation even when it was 1 table short of being packed, it often was packed, or our waiter friends were not working that night, and we did not like waiting in a noisy, crowded lobby.
I picked apart the reservation website and found a very simple, wide-open API. I quickly hacked together a script to make a reservation with a single GET request to my own site, with reservation options in URL parameters, then created Samsung Routines such that when I arrived within 100 feet of my friend's house between 3pm and 9pm, it would automatically send a properly formatted GET request to my website, which in turn made a properly formatted POST to the API, and then it would also immediately respond to the incoming text confirming the reservation. Before I'd even made it to his front door, we'd have an ETA, so we could decide on whether to start a movie, play some split screen diablo, etc. I'd then get a text a short time later, and we'd leave for TRH. Upon arrival, we'd walk up to the counter, mention our reservation was called up, and proceed to be seated immediately regardless of how busy it was, or whether any of our waiter friends were working that night.
DIY VIP Reservation system :)
When I was a bit younger I had a TI-84+ that I adored and learned TI-BASIC on. I wanted to create a small little RPG which I proceeded to do. My favorite little piece of tech I made was the hex-mapper for the map builder. Years later, a careless me allowed the memory in that calc to go. RIP.
Maybe not interesting, but a slideshow application that is much faster and more memory efficient than anything I could find.
Image viewers I tried all beachballed constantly, were slow to respond if they even did, had many bugs, and required many interactions and pixel hunting to interact with.
It emphasizes instant response even when working with 10s if thousands of very large photos, and a UI that eliminates or reduces required interactions, and integrates with finder smartly.
It defaults to opening folders or images fullscreen and round robins windows across displays. The UI is a 3x3 button grid overlay that auto hides, the window name is the the last three parts of the file path. There is gesture support, but I don’t use it because focus is a pain to deal with.
JPEG decoding is memory intensive so there is a shared rendering process so the parallelism can be managed and memory uses isn’t duplicated.
A shared cache process contains bitmaps of images scaled to screen size that are stored on disk. This kind of assumes you are on a fast flash drive like an MBP where flash is basically as fast as memory.
The cache is a 100 element LRU in front of Caffeine (W-Tiny LFU) and all the cache state is persistent including Caffeine so it can remember the LRU and adaptive cache state across restarts.
Prefetching scales the previous and next five images in parallel so you can click forward/next and it is instant every time.
When you turn shuffle off it plays forward from the image you were on. You can click a button and it will loop all files on a directory.
You can open multiple files or directories from finder and it will play all nested files in order.
The order is a natural order that parses numbers so if the numbers aren’t padded you still get the correct order.
Ended up using JavaFX which works surprisingly well. Fast JPEG decoding, working HiDPI, window resizing and movement renders very nicely.
Image viewers I tried all beachballed constantly, were slow to respond if they even did, had many bugs, and required many interactions and pixel hunting to interact with.
It emphasizes instant response even when working with 10s if thousands of very large photos, and a UI that eliminates or reduces required interactions, and integrates with finder smartly.
It defaults to opening folders or images fullscreen and round robins windows across displays. The UI is a 3x3 button grid overlay that auto hides, the window name is the the last three parts of the file path. There is gesture support, but I don’t use it because focus is a pain to deal with.
JPEG decoding is memory intensive so there is a shared rendering process so the parallelism can be managed and memory uses isn’t duplicated.
A shared cache process contains bitmaps of images scaled to screen size that are stored on disk. This kind of assumes you are on a fast flash drive like an MBP where flash is basically as fast as memory.
The cache is a 100 element LRU in front of Caffeine (W-Tiny LFU) and all the cache state is persistent including Caffeine so it can remember the LRU and adaptive cache state across restarts.
Prefetching scales the previous and next five images in parallel so you can click forward/next and it is instant every time.
When you turn shuffle off it plays forward from the image you were on. You can click a button and it will loop all files on a directory.
You can open multiple files or directories from finder and it will play all nested files in order.
The order is a natural order that parses numbers so if the numbers aren’t padded you still get the correct order.
Ended up using JavaFX which works surprisingly well. Fast JPEG decoding, working HiDPI, window resizing and movement renders very nicely.
Not sure how interesting they are for others, but i built a few things to keep myself accountable and track progress on parts of my life I wanted to improve - small parts, but things I just kept procrastinating on.
1. I built a small web app to provide a cycling routine to help me go from zero miles and overweight to riding a century (100 miles) this summer. I used to ride move frequently when I was younger and my longest ride was 87 miles with camping gear on my back. But 2 decades, a web dev job, and 2 kids later I am lucky to be able to get 10 miles per week for any consistent stretch of time. The app takes my recent riding skill and athleticism, and creates a 6 week riding 'program' for me basing itself on # of miles per day for the 6 weeks and increasing each week until the culmination of the 100 mile ride, allowing for 2 rest days each week. It isn't the most robust but it's gotten me motivated to ride this summer.
2. I built a reading list tracker that I can add the books I want to read for myself and my kids. It suggests which book to read next if I can't decide. It tracks # of books to read, # completed, # of pages & hours to read (so I can see how unlikely it is that I will ever finish my list or can plan time accordingly to know through the list systematically), allows me to categorize the books, and lists them as MY reading list or a list to read with my KIDS.
3. A European travel planner that I track country and city costs with, can create custom travel itineraries, which then will show actual costs for the itinerary based on the costs I am tracking/inputting for cities/countries/attractions.
4. More fun for myself and friends: A soccer scores predictor game. We each follow teams and clubs from various world leagues, and pick the scores for upcoming matches. Then the app scores us based on our predictions and we have annual competitions with each other. I built this before these were as popular as they are now, and well before the likes of FanDuel/gambling sites.
1. I built a small web app to provide a cycling routine to help me go from zero miles and overweight to riding a century (100 miles) this summer. I used to ride move frequently when I was younger and my longest ride was 87 miles with camping gear on my back. But 2 decades, a web dev job, and 2 kids later I am lucky to be able to get 10 miles per week for any consistent stretch of time. The app takes my recent riding skill and athleticism, and creates a 6 week riding 'program' for me basing itself on # of miles per day for the 6 weeks and increasing each week until the culmination of the 100 mile ride, allowing for 2 rest days each week. It isn't the most robust but it's gotten me motivated to ride this summer.
2. I built a reading list tracker that I can add the books I want to read for myself and my kids. It suggests which book to read next if I can't decide. It tracks # of books to read, # completed, # of pages & hours to read (so I can see how unlikely it is that I will ever finish my list or can plan time accordingly to know through the list systematically), allows me to categorize the books, and lists them as MY reading list or a list to read with my KIDS.
3. A European travel planner that I track country and city costs with, can create custom travel itineraries, which then will show actual costs for the itinerary based on the costs I am tracking/inputting for cities/countries/attractions.
4. More fun for myself and friends: A soccer scores predictor game. We each follow teams and clubs from various world leagues, and pick the scores for upcoming matches. Then the app scores us based on our predictions and we have annual competitions with each other. I built this before these were as popular as they are now, and well before the likes of FanDuel/gambling sites.
Starting in HS and continuing for years I developed the first and only complete software package I’ve ever made, for my father. He’s a EE and was doing a lot of his board design in excel — if I remember this meant he then needed to map the excel design onto a layout program to connect all the parts; the layout program generates a netlist and the netlist then goes to the actual layout person who figures out the final position of parts/traces on the board.
He hired me to make a VBA program that generates the netlist directly from excel. Refined it over the years and I believe he still uses it to this day. He can turn around a design in far keat time than it used to take.
I’m no EE — and it’s been probably 15 years since I’ve touched that code — so I may have gotten some details wrong here. But it was a cool project to work on and taught me a lot about code!
He hired me to make a VBA program that generates the netlist directly from excel. Refined it over the years and I believe he still uses it to this day. He can turn around a design in far keat time than it used to take.
I’m no EE — and it’s been probably 15 years since I’ve touched that code — so I may have gotten some details wrong here. But it was a cool project to work on and taught me a lot about code!
Hard to answer. Because the most technically challenging and interesting work I've done has been for employers or clients, and under NDA, closed source, and now part of their IP or trade secrets.
Whereas for myself in my own free time I bias more to the ruthlessly pragmatic, which often means the simplest or easiest solution, so I can move on to the next thing.
Random pick from those:
- many many years ago I once wrote a Terminal-like UI widget for Java AWT/Swing apps. This was in the very very early days of Java. To scratch my own itch. It gave me a way in my Swing/AWT desktop apps to embed a console/REPL-like widget (which could be kept invisible/inactive by default, then only appear when a special key pressed) to let me issue CLI-like commands in-app, for example for cheat codes or dev testing or to provide extra features to advanced users. It provided an API for registering comands and their handlers. Had built-in commands like "help" and to repeat the last command, etc. So my Java GUI apps could have the best of both worlds: the "friendliness" of the GUI and the power and conciseness of a terminal workflow. Super simple. Only ever used in a few of my hobby apps (and a few games I considered selling then.)
I named it, originally, in private, SwingShell. Then renamed it to Grio, because that had more personality. (Obligatory Pulp Fiction reference.) I even devised my own little theme song for it. Okay more of a tune. A melodic catchphrase. Why? Here let me show you my nerd license. Hold still, please. This will only take a second.
Whereas for myself in my own free time I bias more to the ruthlessly pragmatic, which often means the simplest or easiest solution, so I can move on to the next thing.
Random pick from those:
- many many years ago I once wrote a Terminal-like UI widget for Java AWT/Swing apps. This was in the very very early days of Java. To scratch my own itch. It gave me a way in my Swing/AWT desktop apps to embed a console/REPL-like widget (which could be kept invisible/inactive by default, then only appear when a special key pressed) to let me issue CLI-like commands in-app, for example for cheat codes or dev testing or to provide extra features to advanced users. It provided an API for registering comands and their handlers. Had built-in commands like "help" and to repeat the last command, etc. So my Java GUI apps could have the best of both worlds: the "friendliness" of the GUI and the power and conciseness of a terminal workflow. Super simple. Only ever used in a few of my hobby apps (and a few games I considered selling then.)
I named it, originally, in private, SwingShell. Then renamed it to Grio, because that had more personality. (Obligatory Pulp Fiction reference.) I even devised my own little theme song for it. Okay more of a tune. A melodic catchphrase. Why? Here let me show you my nerd license. Hold still, please. This will only take a second.
IceCast stream ripper website. Listen, download mp3 from online radio stations.
https://stream.local.hesamian.com/
https://stream.local.hesamian.com/
Made a similar thing
https://indycast.net/index
Description https://indycast.net/about
https://indycast.net/index
Description https://indycast.net/about
This looks awesome. Do you still maintain it? I’m getting errors on every stream on the site
Broken?
I created a todo thermal printer so that I can write messages whenever I remember something. For example when I'm lying in bed and I remember that I have to do something or reading a book and think that's a great thought that I should look more into someday.
Basically I have a mobile app that I can send a message to a api. Sometimes it's just a note, sometimes it is a todo item.
Then I have a raspberry pi that polls the api for new messages and prints them onto a receipt/thermal printer on my desk. Then every morning I usually look and see if there is a todo item, or more long term item.
I haven't exactly thought of how to store the messages, but basically when the "receipt" gets to CVS level, I rip it off and store it in in a document shelf organizer. Every few months I'll go through the receipt for any long term touch items.
Basically I have a mobile app that I can send a message to a api. Sometimes it's just a note, sometimes it is a todo item.
Then I have a raspberry pi that polls the api for new messages and prints them onto a receipt/thermal printer on my desk. Then every morning I usually look and see if there is a todo item, or more long term item.
I haven't exactly thought of how to store the messages, but basically when the "receipt" gets to CVS level, I rip it off and store it in in a document shelf organizer. Every few months I'll go through the receipt for any long term touch items.
This sounds awesome, would love to see some pics of this. Or even a video of it in action
I don't have any pictures, but I did upload the source code:
Android App: https://github.com/moosilauke18/PrintTodo API: https://github.com/moosilauke18/printodo-api Worker on PI: https://github.com/moosilauke18/printodo-worker
Android App: https://github.com/moosilauke18/PrintTodo API: https://github.com/moosilauke18/printodo-api Worker on PI: https://github.com/moosilauke18/printodo-worker
Thanks :)
Love that! I want to setup a little thermal printer connected to an endpoint too. Any tips on how to do this the easiest way? are there any prebuilt solutions, or kits?
Some Star Micronics printers have a built in server that polls an endpoint that can point to any url.
They have different names for similar services. I think the one you want may be called CloudPRNT. I tried it a few years ago and it worked OK (had some issues with reconnecting when it lost the internet connection)
They have different names for similar services. I think the one you want may be called CloudPRNT. I tried it a few years ago and it worked OK (had some issues with reconnecting when it lost the internet connection)
I just wrote a go program to directly write to the usb via gousb. I wrote the model of receipt printer that I used, but it's a very generic ebay receipt printer. https://github.com/moosilauke18/printodo-worker
Interesting project. What's the advantage of this over, say, an inbox folder in a todo app like Todoist or a note in Keep?
Some people do much better with physical representations of information than digital.
True but in this case he's still using a mobile app. So I assume there's some value in having the tasks individually printed in comparison with just writing them manually and that's what I'm curious about.
In my case, I like the physical representation, but sometimes I only have my phone on me when I think of something. And sometimes at night I don't want to turn on a light to write something down.
edit: Also, my handwriting is horrible.
edit: Also, my handwriting is horrible.
[deleted]
Thermal paper is nasty stuff. Just sharing it forward.
Hmm interesting. Just looked it up. Seems to be that BPA/BPS is the problem with it. It seems like phenol free thermal paper is the answer to that issue, although there isn't a lot of information on what is used instead.
https://www.possupply.com/blog-the-phenol-paper-rundown
https://www.possupply.com/blog-the-phenol-paper-rundown
I used a Raspberry Pi with a Hifi-berry card to make a web-controlled MP3 player hooked up to my stereo. It's a fairly bare-bones app but I wrote it myself (Flask, VLC) and it works great!
Currently working on building a virtual art gallery populated with fictitious works from dead artists generated by Stable Diffusion. Users in the same room can talk to each other using WebRTC.
It's not specifically just for me but for my team at the World Largest Trivia Contest [0]. It's a 54 hour long contest, questions are broadcast over the radio, you have the length of 2 songs to call in the answers, and you can use any source to find the answer. Sounds easy, right? Just Google it? Nope. "In a big screen flick, XYZ is talking to ABC about something. In the background, a train passes. What does it say on the train?"
This has led to a ton of fun little coding projects to help us answer questions better. A lot of very hard to Google questions involve album covers, so I ran every album cover I could get through Google Vision and built a little search engine. Another part of the contest is short (1-2s) clips of songs being broadcast and you have a few hours to come up with what they are. We built a massive fingerprint library ahead of time and used it to answer some of those (Google finally got better at this too, before we built this, it'd never work because the clip was so short). We also use AWS to live transcribe the broadcast because one of the hardest parts was remembering "were they asking for the actor? their character? the movie?" and having to wait until they ask the question again between songs.
Next up is a parallel auto-dialer. There's only a handful of people answering phones, so actually calling in the answer can be a struggle.
[0] http://90fmtrivia.org
This has led to a ton of fun little coding projects to help us answer questions better. A lot of very hard to Google questions involve album covers, so I ran every album cover I could get through Google Vision and built a little search engine. Another part of the contest is short (1-2s) clips of songs being broadcast and you have a few hours to come up with what they are. We built a massive fingerprint library ahead of time and used it to answer some of those (Google finally got better at this too, before we built this, it'd never work because the clip was so short). We also use AWS to live transcribe the broadcast because one of the hardest parts was remembering "were they asking for the actor? their character? the movie?" and having to wait until they ask the question again between songs.
Next up is a parallel auto-dialer. There's only a handful of people answering phones, so actually calling in the answer can be a struggle.
[0] http://90fmtrivia.org
Love this! A simple innocent trivia game (I assume this isnt a professional thing) blown completely out of proportion by competitiveness. Its just in that sweetspot where the tradeoff between effort to write tools vs the gain from using tools is in balance (it seems). I can totally see myself doing this.
TriviaOps :-)
TriviaOps :-)
Oh definitely not professional. I'm not sure the team that wins even gets money, but a trophy and bragging rights is worth a lot. It's a ton of fun and you can compete (mostly) online each year!
Haha I'm going to steal TriviaOps!
Haha I'm going to steal TriviaOps!
The trivia contest sounds awesome! What are some example questions?
See if you can answer in about 6 minutes:
What is the name of the first number one single on the billboard hot 100 to include the voice of Bob Dylan?
This question was worth 110 points (points are 2000 / number of teams that answered), so only 18 or 19 teams answered it correctly out of over 300.
What is the name of the first number one single on the billboard hot 100 to include the voice of Bob Dylan?
This question was worth 110 points (points are 2000 / number of teams that answered), so only 18 or 19 teams answered it correctly out of over 300.
I made a thingy that receives pictures of the earth from a geostationary satellite: https://gist.github.com/lxe/c1756ca659c3b78414149a3ea723eae2
I created an IOT 3d printed, Raspberry Pi Pico powered WIFI fish feeder with a rotating dispensing carousel with an 8 food pellet capacity. I could have made it higher capacity but NJ is a restricted state (gun joke). I plan on improving it by adding battery backup and an RTC, so I can travel and be sure that my fish still get fed in case of a power outage.
I made a wagon with an electric motor to carry my things to the park and at music festivals. It has a 1000W brushless DC motor and a drive train for a go cart. It’s controlled by an ESP32 that is attached to a hand throttle on the handle for the wagon. This ESP32 also has a temperature sensor attached to the batteries in the wagon to make sure they don’t overheat. It controls a relay that powers another ESP32 that controls the Neopixels I’ve attached to the wagon using LED channels with a milky white diffuser.
It was a very fun project and I learned a lot about electricity, batteries and the pitfalls of aliexpress.
It was a very fun project and I learned a lot about electricity, batteries and the pitfalls of aliexpress.
If you ever get a chance, a blog post about the build, software, and pitfalls would be awesome. I'm thinking about building something like this as our toddler gets older and we start to do longer day outings in a wagon.
I'll second this. I was really hoping there'd be a link at the end of the post.
Ask and you shall receive. I’ll put some time into making a blog post with the technical details this weekend.
In the mean-time, here’s a lunch and learn video I made to show it to work people.
https://youtu.be/qo97UxPTYRA
In the mean-time, here’s a lunch and learn video I made to show it to work people.
https://youtu.be/qo97UxPTYRA
Re-implemnted a version of the old unix `who`, `last`, and `finger` command line tools that works across most of the whole infra of the company I work for. Planning to add more APIs for it for different systems to aggregate up into it. (AD, EDRs, Splunk, etc.)
I was a sysadmin for a dialup ISPs with a shell server in the mid 90's and people today have no idea how good we had it back then. An entire userbase accessible from a single shell prompt and a few commands instead of todays gamified web UXs with 3D graphics. Security was terrible back then, but the UX was calm, so I re-built that experience over everything.
I was a sysadmin for a dialup ISPs with a shell server in the mid 90's and people today have no idea how good we had it back then. An entire userbase accessible from a single shell prompt and a few commands instead of todays gamified web UXs with 3D graphics. Security was terrible back then, but the UX was calm, so I re-built that experience over everything.
I built a Chess training app called SpicyChess(https://spicychess.com) that leverages spaced repetition and strict time constraint to increase your pattern recognition ability for tactical motifs. SpicyChess also allows you to "bookmark" a puzzle for review later on.
It's not the most interesting tech I built but it's the most recent one and checks the features wish-list I've had when using other tactics training apps.
It's not the most interesting tech I built but it's the most recent one and checks the features wish-list I've had when using other tactics training apps.
I made a shell script that can be used to generate a diff of what data was modified in your pg database between two points in time. I use it to help me get a quick sense of what certain actions do without having to dive into the code too deeply. It's a pretty simple thing, but has been valuable to me quite a bit. https://github.com/denvaar/pgdiff
I'm so glad I'm on page-2 of this thread. This is a fantastic tool! I would use the hell out of this :)
I'm slightly embarrassed that in terms of building personally relevant things, my proudest (digital) work is always shell scripts I use daily. Most of my personal projects are non-technical meat-space things like building with wood and the like. Here's some that I've open-sourced:
- A git interface using fzf that works pretty nicely and is very composable. https://github.com/bigH/git-fuzzy
- An interactive evaluator, perfect for interactive `sed`, `grep`, `jq`, etc. If properly configured, it'll keep history per command or using whatever key you give it. I find myself using it often with `jq`. https://github.com/bigH/interactively
There are many other shell functions/scripts that are interesting from my `dotfiles`. Particularly interesting snippets for anyone who wants them:
- A recursize `which` that follows symlinks and stops at a real file. https://github.com/bigH/dotfiles/blob/3d48792b4e910d2fc82504...
- A `watch` alternative that runs in the current shell. https://github.com/bigH/dotfiles/blob/3d48792b4e910d2fc82504...
- A git interface using fzf that works pretty nicely and is very composable. https://github.com/bigH/git-fuzzy
- An interactive evaluator, perfect for interactive `sed`, `grep`, `jq`, etc. If properly configured, it'll keep history per command or using whatever key you give it. I find myself using it often with `jq`. https://github.com/bigH/interactively
There are many other shell functions/scripts that are interesting from my `dotfiles`. Particularly interesting snippets for anyone who wants them:
- A recursize `which` that follows symlinks and stops at a real file. https://github.com/bigH/dotfiles/blob/3d48792b4e910d2fc82504...
- A `watch` alternative that runs in the current shell. https://github.com/bigH/dotfiles/blob/3d48792b4e910d2fc82504...
You accomplish things in real non-computer life? Nerd.
For the downvoters, that's what we call a "joke". I appreciate when I hear from not-terminally-online people on here.
For the downvoters, that's what we call a "joke". I appreciate when I hear from not-terminally-online people on here.
Upvoted ;)
I’m a long time user of git-fuzzy, thank you for that!
I am also grateful to hear about “interactively”, I always had to write some kind of half baked implementation, it’s great to finally have a defacto solution.
I am also grateful to hear about “interactively”, I always had to write some kind of half baked implementation, it’s great to finally have a defacto solution.
I've just discovered git-fuzzy - it's fantastic! I missed its announcement on Hacker News some 3 years ago. Thanks for highlighting it in this thread!
What kind of work do you do? Does your day job involve writing shell scripts? Or is that something you do on the side?
I started building a typing web app to get better at touch typing. (Doesn’t work on mobile so open on PC if curious)
https://www.typefaster.app/
Still very early stage and many more features (racing, user management, etc) coming but it’s probably one of the first projects I’ve built that I’ve actually used
https://www.typefaster.app/
Still very early stage and many more features (racing, user management, etc) coming but it’s probably one of the first projects I’ve built that I’ve actually used
Nice UI! Is it open source?
Unfortunately no, I intend to continue working on it on my own and will be looking for effective ways to monetize it; once it has valuable features.
I built DiffLens (https://www.difflens.com/) initially just for myself. It's a diff tool that uses abstract syntax trees to make the diff more review-able. It's free for anyone to use too. I use it every day to review my diffs. If anyone works on Typescript, Javascript, HTML and/or CSS, do check it out!
All: This thread has several pages of fabulous comments - to get at them, you need to click 'more' at the bottom of each page, or like this:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729232&p=2
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729232&p=3
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729232&p=4
One of these years (maybe this year!) we won't need to paginate anymore and scrolling will be blissful again. In the meantime, sorry for the annoyance if you knew this; I just wanted to make sure everyone realizes how large and good this thread is.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729232&p=2
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729232&p=3
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35729232&p=4
One of these years (maybe this year!) we won't need to paginate anymore and scrolling will be blissful again. In the meantime, sorry for the annoyance if you knew this; I just wanted to make sure everyone realizes how large and good this thread is.
I haven't built it yet, but there's a homeless person that yells every night from 2am to 4am at the top of their lungs across the street. Profanities and everything.
I've been looking into directional speakers so i can kindly ask the person to quiet down without waking the neighbors up. The person in question about 200ft away
I've been looking into directional speakers so i can kindly ask the person to quiet down without waking the neighbors up. The person in question about 200ft away
... perhaps a phased array of speakers?
i'll take a look. From what i've seen so far, this is what i'm thinking of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eZVF1ouTT4
I have a tractor. Mice like to chew electrical wiring because the wire casings are made of soybeans, so the tractor dealer recommended setting several traps by my tractor. I couldn't stand killing a mouse so I used "humane" catch and release traps, the problem was a mouse died because I forgot to check the trap. So I put a reed switch and an esp-32 on a catch and release mouse trap that when tripped, sent an mqtt message to aws iot, that triggered a lambda function that sent me an email notifying me I had a mouse to let out of its trap.
I once gave my wife soy-based nailpolish remover, because it smelled merely horrible rather than like instant brain damage. I wonder whether, while they're at it, it wouldn't be worth it for the manufacturers of soy-based wire to coat it with something like that.
Oh, I built something similar with Homematic. When one of our mousetraps closes, I immediately get a message via my Pushover app.
The king.
http://sam.zeloof.xyz/second-ic/
http://sam.zeloof.xyz/second-ic/
I built https://crushentropy.com/ one weekend and I've been using it to plan my day ever since
I’ve got a few that I think are interesting enough to share.
When I was getting divorced a few years ago, I had to wait out the mandatory six month waiting period (aka “cooling off” period). Since I had the actual date the divorce would be finalized, I wrote a script and scheduled it to send me a countdown every morning at 4am. For a few months upon waking up I was greeted by an SMS with the ever decreasing number. I called it my freedom counter and loved watching people I told about it go from curious to mildly uncomfortable to amused.
Years later I repurposed the idea and made a wedding day countdown. This one started counting up after the big day, for continuous joy.
At some point I started building a ridiculously tiny SaaS service around it (and even registered domains undorthe.wedding and dothe.wedding), but never got around to finishing and launching it.
---
I’ve been tracking my weight daily since 2019. I used to just add an entry to an Airtable base, but the free plan has a per-base entry limit I’ve long surpassed.
I didn’t want to pay $10/mo just for that one thing, so I built a solution which let me send an SMS with the daily weight to a Twilio number, which then sent a request to an API endpoint I built, which then stored it in a TinyDB file on the server, which I then backed up to Backblaze using restic. The code behind the endpoint also sent me a graph of the last two weeks worth of entries, and the date I last weight that much or less.
I then decided to decommission the server hosting the endpoint, and in order to avoid having to pay for something else rebuilt it as a combination of Airtable and GH Actions. I have a base in which I enter the daily weight, then a GH Action fires a few hours later, and it gets all the entries in the base, reads a TinyDB file from a separate repo, updates relevant records, updates the TinyDB file, and deletes old entries from the Airtable base. This is now costing me $0, which is fun in its own right.
---
I started working from home during the pandemic, and my living room worked quite well as a personal office while I was single, living with just a cat. As my wife and I moved in together, there have been some challenges with working from a shared space, and we particularly found a need to communicate when I’m on a video call.
I used the Circuit Playground Express I got at PyCon 2019 as an on-air light. It was plugged into my computer, which exposed it as a USB drive, and it ran an infinite loop that set the LEDs to red if I was on a call and green if I wasn’t. I wrote a script that would detect the presence of a Zoom call process to do that automatically, and then another to manually toggle the flag using xbar.
---
EDIT: I thought of one I actually wrote for work! We’re a small team and were discussing making our on-call rotation official some time ago. Since we were starting from scratch, I suggested we try daily rotations (instead of the customary weekly ones), largely based on some things I’d read right here on HN. We don’t yet use any tooling beyond a manually managed Google Calendar, so I wrote a script to generate a fair schedule (e.g., no one gets stuck with all Fridays) and output importable files for both the shared calendar and people’s individual ones. We’ve used it for a few periods of time, and it seems to be good enough for our needs.
When I was getting divorced a few years ago, I had to wait out the mandatory six month waiting period (aka “cooling off” period). Since I had the actual date the divorce would be finalized, I wrote a script and scheduled it to send me a countdown every morning at 4am. For a few months upon waking up I was greeted by an SMS with the ever decreasing number. I called it my freedom counter and loved watching people I told about it go from curious to mildly uncomfortable to amused.
Years later I repurposed the idea and made a wedding day countdown. This one started counting up after the big day, for continuous joy.
At some point I started building a ridiculously tiny SaaS service around it (and even registered domains undorthe.wedding and dothe.wedding), but never got around to finishing and launching it.
---
I’ve been tracking my weight daily since 2019. I used to just add an entry to an Airtable base, but the free plan has a per-base entry limit I’ve long surpassed.
I didn’t want to pay $10/mo just for that one thing, so I built a solution which let me send an SMS with the daily weight to a Twilio number, which then sent a request to an API endpoint I built, which then stored it in a TinyDB file on the server, which I then backed up to Backblaze using restic. The code behind the endpoint also sent me a graph of the last two weeks worth of entries, and the date I last weight that much or less.
I then decided to decommission the server hosting the endpoint, and in order to avoid having to pay for something else rebuilt it as a combination of Airtable and GH Actions. I have a base in which I enter the daily weight, then a GH Action fires a few hours later, and it gets all the entries in the base, reads a TinyDB file from a separate repo, updates relevant records, updates the TinyDB file, and deletes old entries from the Airtable base. This is now costing me $0, which is fun in its own right.
---
I started working from home during the pandemic, and my living room worked quite well as a personal office while I was single, living with just a cat. As my wife and I moved in together, there have been some challenges with working from a shared space, and we particularly found a need to communicate when I’m on a video call.
I used the Circuit Playground Express I got at PyCon 2019 as an on-air light. It was plugged into my computer, which exposed it as a USB drive, and it ran an infinite loop that set the LEDs to red if I was on a call and green if I wasn’t. I wrote a script that would detect the presence of a Zoom call process to do that automatically, and then another to manually toggle the flag using xbar.
---
EDIT: I thought of one I actually wrote for work! We’re a small team and were discussing making our on-call rotation official some time ago. Since we were starting from scratch, I suggested we try daily rotations (instead of the customary weekly ones), largely based on some things I’d read right here on HN. We don’t yet use any tooling beyond a manually managed Google Calendar, so I wrote a script to generate a fair schedule (e.g., no one gets stuck with all Fridays) and output importable files for both the shared calendar and people’s individual ones. We’ve used it for a few periods of time, and it seems to be good enough for our needs.
As a data engineer who is looking to leave a toxic workplace behind, I built a data streaming application to surface new dataeng jobs being posted on ATSes (Applicant Tracking Systems). There is a constant stream of new JDs being posted, which fans out to a bunch of RSS/Atom feeds for combinations of skillset and location. Most startups post JDs to either greenhouse or lever, statistically speaking.
I just moved to the bay area. I made an app that scrapes all bay area events from meetup, eventbrite, and a couple of other sites- This way you end up with around 100 events a day, way too much to read through.
So next I take each event, send it to chatgpt3.5 and ask it to rate this event on around 20 parameters. Next, I take the latitude/longitude of each event and measure driving distance from my house. Then I have a master formula based on my personal interests and driving preferences and an app shows me the 10 events every day most likely to be interesting to me for any day.
So next I take each event, send it to chatgpt3.5 and ask it to rate this event on around 20 parameters. Next, I take the latitude/longitude of each event and measure driving distance from my house. Then I have a master formula based on my personal interests and driving preferences and an app shows me the 10 events every day most likely to be interesting to me for any day.
This is brilliant and could be useful in general. Very "Jeeves" like.
What's your prompt? I've been doing something similar but I've found it difficult to get chatgpt to output a consistent data format.
Always give good examples in the prompt, preferably a few (2-4). Still not 100% reliable though, especially with models below GPT-4.
I use the chatgpt35-turbo "system" field for instructions, then put the event info into the "user" field
--- PROMPT ---
You are given a meetup event description. For each of the following attributes, return the percent likelihood that the event involves has that attribute, in CSV format:
Attributes:
- Technology
- Pets
- Exercise
Example:
Technology,0.3
Pets,0.1
Exercise,1.0
--- PROMPT ---
You are given a meetup event description. For each of the following attributes, return the percent likelihood that the event involves has that attribute, in CSV format:
Attributes:
- Technology
- Pets
- Exercise
Example:
Technology,0.3
Pets,0.1
Exercise,1.0
(The example values should be in percentages, can't edit anymore)
Ask it to return only valid JSON and show it an example, best GPT trick I know. I use this for my cocktail recipe generator https://yourdink.is
Now that's an embarrassing typo. I meant https://yourdrink.is
Please opensource this - or even a pastebin would work.
Totally agree, would love to have a local instance running
This is such a great idea. A tip if you are not already aware (and interested in music) is to check out “The List”, a Bay Area concert guide which has been maintained since the 90s: http://www.foopee.com/punk/the-list/
Ahh yes the list, it is shared to whoever doesn’t know about it. It’s the opposite of gatekeeping and a pleasure to see.
Amazing. I used the list 20 years ago religiously.
Thanks, I didn't know about this yet and this is A++++
EDIT: Got me some Death Grip tickets!
EDIT: Got me some Death Grip tickets!
Jealous, have been hoping to see them for years but missed out on the last show they played in my country. Here’s hoping they add it to their tour.
Yeah, I rarely go to shows anymore just because I've been to so many in my life that it's not that thrilling anymore.
But I think Death Grips is worth a show, given their reputation for live shows.
I'm already dreading standing in GA after they start two hours late, holding my pee to maintain my good spot LOL
But I think Death Grips is worth a show, given their reputation for live shows.
I'm already dreading standing in GA after they start two hours late, holding my pee to maintain my good spot LOL
Lived in the bay the whole time, did the same thing. Multiple sources, categorization, distances, etc. Chaining GPT for rating is a nifty feature add though.
I built a site to scrape events from my city and show them all on one page. It was amazing for finding things to do, until Facebook shut down their events API and the site died overnight.
Best real world example of something actually useful for ChatGPT I’ve seen yet.
That's a startup product you got there.
hey i'm building something very similar, pls put this on github would love to hack on it!
this is brilliant, please open source it. I need AI to tell me which AI events to go to.
Sorry for being a noob. But I am not sure that I understand how a chat gpt can decide this. As I thought that it just uses probability to find the next likely word for sentence completion. How does this even work? And can we trust what the ChatGPT outputs?
I asked ChatGPT:
Is chatgpt a stochastic parrot?
No, ChatGPT is not a stochastic parrot. ChatGPT is a large language model that uses deep learning algorithms to generate text based on the input it receives. While it can sometimes produce nonsensical or inaccurate responses, it is not simply repeating phrases or patterns without any understanding of the meaning behind them. Instead, ChatGPT is designed to analyze and learn from a vast corpus of text data, and it uses that knowledge to generate responses that are intended to be relevant and meaningful based on the input it receives.
Is chatgpt a stochastic parrot?
No, ChatGPT is not a stochastic parrot. ChatGPT is a large language model that uses deep learning algorithms to generate text based on the input it receives. While it can sometimes produce nonsensical or inaccurate responses, it is not simply repeating phrases or patterns without any understanding of the meaning behind them. Instead, ChatGPT is designed to analyze and learn from a vast corpus of text data, and it uses that knowledge to generate responses that are intended to be relevant and meaningful based on the input it receives.
You should try it, which it sounds like you haven’t! :-)
Can you share the promo you give to gpt?
How did you measure the driving distance?
I asked chatgpt4, and it did some insane formula that uses lat/long and the radius of the earth to measure distances, then asked it to add a bonus 20 minutes for any destination in SF, 15 minutes for any event in Berkeley/Oakland (and it correctly put bounding rectangles on the three jurisdictions).
Cool, thank you for the insight.
I stumpled upon a similar quest where my app had to calculate the walking distance between two coordinates (the client and the restaurant).
OSM seem to be the only good option, I could not find any better alternative in my case (Ruby).
I stumpled upon a similar quest where my app had to calculate the walking distance between two coordinates (the client and the restaurant).
OSM seem to be the only good option, I could not find any better alternative in my case (Ruby).
Are you willing to share the source code? I wanna do this for London
One super niche project I made recently lets you search through dialogue in public domain films:
https://public-domain-film-quote-search.stefanbohacek.dev
I made it so that I can quickly find vocal samples to use in music production.
https://public-domain-film-quote-search.stefanbohacek.dev
I made it so that I can quickly find vocal samples to use in music production.
You may already have a list of public domain movies, but I wrote a query to find the ones on Wikimedia Commons [1] :) WikiFlix [2] is a nicer interface for browsing them
[1] - https://w.wiki/6dxC
[2] - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Spinster/WikiFlix
[1] - https://w.wiki/6dxC
[2] - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Spinster/WikiFlix
Thank you, I'll check these out!
I partially encrypt/decrypt a file based on the presence of special HEREDOCs (ie <<PRIVATE) so I can keep a public daily journal and keep some notes private.
The tool is still a WIP as it isn't portable between machines -- https://github.com/higgins/privatize
more on it here: https://encapsulate.me/writing/Privatize.html
The tool is still a WIP as it isn't portable between machines -- https://github.com/higgins/privatize
more on it here: https://encapsulate.me/writing/Privatize.html
I've built a few audio effects that only I've used. The only one that really stuck around is a guitar pedal delay effect with pitch shifting where the pitch shifting only happens on the first repeat, it doesn't accumulate as the sound repeats. It also has an envelope follower so notes can repeat infinitely when there's no playing, and once you start strumming/picking again the feedback of the repeats drops to zero until you stop playing and it goes back to the knob setting (Which can go from 0-150% feedback). Unfortunately I've got no good sound demos except some Facebook videos I'm not willing to share ;p
Very cool! Is that hardware or vst plugin?
I built a personal data warehouse just for myself, with everything from my Tweets and LinkedIn data to my Swarm checkins and a copy of my genome.
I gave a talk about that (with a lot of video and screenshots) here: https://simonwillison.net/2020/Nov/14/personal-data-warehous...
I gave a talk about that (with a lot of video and screenshots) here: https://simonwillison.net/2020/Nov/14/personal-data-warehous...
I've been playing around with Node-RED[0] and built a completely pointless svg manipulation flow[1] which then makes this page https://demo.openmindmap.org/ui/#!/7
The idea is create a tool for creating a global mind map but instead it's a svg!
[0]=https://nodered.org
[1]=https://demo.openmindmap.org/omm/#flow/3ebb65fdbecb182e (not really mobile conform)
The idea is create a tool for creating a global mind map but instead it's a svg!
[0]=https://nodered.org
[1]=https://demo.openmindmap.org/omm/#flow/3ebb65fdbecb182e (not really mobile conform)
A number of years ago I decided that I had enough of iTunes and that I needed to handle my digital music collection myself.
Blog post about it: https://swampbits.bearblog.dev/first-cloud-music-library/
Blog post about it: https://swampbits.bearblog.dev/first-cloud-music-library/
Original python implementation: https://github.com/pauldardeau/cloud-jukebox
Go implementation: https://github.com/pauldardeau/go-cloud-jukebox
C# implementation: https://github.com/pauldardeau/CSharpCloudJukebox
Oxygene on Mac implementation: https://github.com/pauldardeau/MacOxygeneCloudJukebox
Oxygene on Windows implementation: https://github.com/pauldardeau/WinOxygeneCloudJukebox
C++ implementation: https://github.com/pauldardeau/cpp-cloud-jukebox
This Speak & Spell simulator: https://sha.nnoncarey.com/
The only one I've found that's as accurate is the emulated version at https://archive.org/details/hh_snspell But mine also has two expansion modules to choose from :)
The only one I've found that's as accurate is the emulated version at https://archive.org/details/hh_snspell But mine also has two expansion modules to choose from :)
I'd love to see a piece of hardware like this that you could reprogram easily; or the spin-and-say or whatever it was.
I have been working for a while on a wooden sailing ship model, where at times one will reference model parts in terms of real dimensions - e.g., a 4" x 18" piece of wood. But that has to be translated into the model's scale when measuring the model parts.
To streamline this, I made a little Arduino-driven device with an OLED display that can plug into the digital output port that many digital micrometers have. It takes the current micrometer measurement, applies the scaling factor, and displays the scaled dimension on the OLED.
So that means I can take a small piece of wood from the kit, measure it with the micrometer, and directly see its full scale dimension - e.g., it's a scale 8" thick plank. Or I can take the micrometer to the 8 foot measure, and use it to mark off a piece of wood that I want to be that long.
To streamline this, I made a little Arduino-driven device with an OLED display that can plug into the digital output port that many digital micrometers have. It takes the current micrometer measurement, applies the scaling factor, and displays the scaled dimension on the OLED.
So that means I can take a small piece of wood from the kit, measure it with the micrometer, and directly see its full scale dimension - e.g., it's a scale 8" thick plank. Or I can take the micrometer to the 8 foot measure, and use it to mark off a piece of wood that I want to be that long.
At the beginning of COVID i switched to weekly shopping and realized that it takes a significant time to inventarize the storage to make sure I make it through the week.
I built a storage shelf that self-inventorizes based on strain gauges. Through the change in weight distribution it can determine the weight and 2D location of the item added or removed. LED strips give immediate feedback. https://www.niels-ole.com/arduino/iot/2021/03/21/storage-sys...
I used this to automatically add the items consumed throughout the week to my shopping list.
I only ever built a single shelf board (subsequent boards had issues) and I never fully implemented the advanced usability features of adding new items for the first time and automatically determining good places for them, but it was a very fun project.
I built a storage shelf that self-inventorizes based on strain gauges. Through the change in weight distribution it can determine the weight and 2D location of the item added or removed. LED strips give immediate feedback. https://www.niels-ole.com/arduino/iot/2021/03/21/storage-sys...
I used this to automatically add the items consumed throughout the week to my shopping list.
I only ever built a single shelf board (subsequent boards had issues) and I never fully implemented the advanced usability features of adding new items for the first time and automatically determining good places for them, but it was a very fun project.
So does each type of item have its own designated spot on the shelf or is it figuring out the item identity based on weight?
Each item type had its area in a database with x_start, x_end, y_start, y_end and weight.
These areas could overlap though. I had an error function that picked the most likely option: https://gitlab.com/nielsole/logistics-board/-/blob/master/se...
Manually adding areas for all items would not have been feasible(>100 different product types with sometimes multiple SKUs from different brand for the same product type), so my idea was to add a hand-scanner and when a barcode gets scanned, it checks if it knows the product. If it doesn't, it would tell you to put it in a special weighing position. After wheighing it would light up all the boards in accordance of how well the item could be placed there. This could have taken into account the total weight of the board and the likelihood for the item weight to be mistaken for another product already on the shelf.
In the end I gave up before getting these usability improvements in.
Manually adding areas for all items would not have been feasible(>100 different product types with sometimes multiple SKUs from different brand for the same product type), so my idea was to add a hand-scanner and when a barcode gets scanned, it checks if it knows the product. If it doesn't, it would tell you to put it in a special weighing position. After wheighing it would light up all the boards in accordance of how well the item could be placed there. This could have taken into account the total weight of the board and the likelihood for the item weight to be mistaken for another product already on the shelf.
In the end I gave up before getting these usability improvements in.
[deleted]
Built a Chrome extension to save myself money last Christmas: https://getscore.app/chrome?ref=hn.
Ended up saving thousands of dollars for myself so far (I shop a lot online), and friends & family really love the product. We also applied to YC – so let's see how that goes!
Ended up saving thousands of dollars for myself so far (I shop a lot online), and friends & family really love the product. We also applied to YC – so let's see how that goes!
I've got a couple things, they're pretty simple, but they've improved my life significantly for as simple as they are.
One is an interface for a MIDI controller I use to be able to control the Soundcraft UI16 mixer I use for my desk setup. I'm a bit of an audio nerd, having done pro-am music production, and having a love for broadcasting, and what started as a simple setup to get good quality sound at low latency has now become an audio chain with a teleconferencing audio processor, a headless digital mixer, and several microphones to do acoustic echo cancellation and noise cancellation so I can use an open microphone without headphones.
My mixer, being headless, has no physical controls. From my DJ days, I had a MIDIFighter 3D controller not being used, and a Raspberry Pi without a dedicated task. I was able to write a small bash script to read note information from the controller and send web requests to a Bitfocus Companion server to act as API intermediary between my mixer and the controller. Now, I have physical controls for hardware muting my microphone, and the various computers at my desk. It's effectively a big Elgato Streamdeck for what I use it for, but to be able to upcycle the hardware has been quite nice.
I also was working from home with some long hours, and I wanted to try and improve my sleep schedule. I already use redshifting software (usually what's built into the OS these days, although I used to be a longtime F.lux user), and that's been great, but I also wanted to control monitor brightness by time of day. Giving my eyeballs less light blasted into them has helped me regulate my sleep better. I wrote a small python daemon that can run on Mac or Linux, integrate with native DCC tooling to send control commands to my displays, and gradually adjust the brightness of my monitors based on the time of day. This has also been eternally useful when, being an ops guy, I'm called in during the middle of the night, sit down at my desk to address an outage, and my eyeballs are bombarded with significantly less light, making the pain of adjusting much less difficult to address, and also making falling back asleep after the incident is resolved much easier.
One is an interface for a MIDI controller I use to be able to control the Soundcraft UI16 mixer I use for my desk setup. I'm a bit of an audio nerd, having done pro-am music production, and having a love for broadcasting, and what started as a simple setup to get good quality sound at low latency has now become an audio chain with a teleconferencing audio processor, a headless digital mixer, and several microphones to do acoustic echo cancellation and noise cancellation so I can use an open microphone without headphones.
My mixer, being headless, has no physical controls. From my DJ days, I had a MIDIFighter 3D controller not being used, and a Raspberry Pi without a dedicated task. I was able to write a small bash script to read note information from the controller and send web requests to a Bitfocus Companion server to act as API intermediary between my mixer and the controller. Now, I have physical controls for hardware muting my microphone, and the various computers at my desk. It's effectively a big Elgato Streamdeck for what I use it for, but to be able to upcycle the hardware has been quite nice.
I also was working from home with some long hours, and I wanted to try and improve my sleep schedule. I already use redshifting software (usually what's built into the OS these days, although I used to be a longtime F.lux user), and that's been great, but I also wanted to control monitor brightness by time of day. Giving my eyeballs less light blasted into them has helped me regulate my sleep better. I wrote a small python daemon that can run on Mac or Linux, integrate with native DCC tooling to send control commands to my displays, and gradually adjust the brightness of my monitors based on the time of day. This has also been eternally useful when, being an ops guy, I'm called in during the middle of the night, sit down at my desk to address an outage, and my eyeballs are bombarded with significantly less light, making the pain of adjusting much less difficult to address, and also making falling back asleep after the incident is resolved much easier.
>several microphones to do acoustic echo cancellation and noise cancellation so I can use an open microphone without headphones.
I'd love to read more about the work on this!
Can I get away with just 2 other microphones? Is it in python?
I'd love to read more about the work on this!
Can I get away with just 2 other microphones? Is it in python?
This admittedly isn't software. I'm leaning on the shoulders of giants in the professional teleconferencing space for this. I'm using a beastly old Biamp Nexia VC audio processor for this. The nice thing is that these are very end-of-life products that don't require a license to operate, so you can pick one up on eBay for $50-100.
The Nexia provides Acoustic Echo Cancelling, which is fundamentally the same stuff that VoIP apps like Zoom, Teams, Discord, etc. use to detect feedback and squelch it, except instead of ducking my microphone, it does waveform cancellation to strip it out, to pretty great effect. To take advantage of this, I send the audio output from my computers (I have my desktop or my laptop, which are attached to the same USB audio interface, and a Mac Mini that I use for secondary tasks, media watching, and a CI/CD worker target) as well as a contact microphone attached to the wall adjoining a bathroom. Audio from those sources are then removed from my microphone feed before it goes back into my audio interface for whichever primary computer I'm using as my teleconferencing device.
The Nexia provides Acoustic Echo Cancelling, which is fundamentally the same stuff that VoIP apps like Zoom, Teams, Discord, etc. use to detect feedback and squelch it, except instead of ducking my microphone, it does waveform cancellation to strip it out, to pretty great effect. To take advantage of this, I send the audio output from my computers (I have my desktop or my laptop, which are attached to the same USB audio interface, and a Mac Mini that I use for secondary tasks, media watching, and a CI/CD worker target) as well as a contact microphone attached to the wall adjoining a bathroom. Audio from those sources are then removed from my microphone feed before it goes back into my audio interface for whichever primary computer I'm using as my teleconferencing device.
I also made a time-of-day brightness adjuster! I had a much cruder solution, just an autohotkey script that drags sliders around in nvidia control panel, but it's such a relief on the eyes. I hope it gets baked into OSes (or monitor hardware?) at some point, matching monitor luminosity to what the sun is doing seems pretty obvious.
I hated scrolling ikea.com for new products, way too cluttered and all over the place. Found their hidden api and created a RSS feed from the new products.
We have pet chickens that we close up every night. I built a door to let us open and close the chicken run from a web page. The door slides horizontally and is driven by a cheap electric drill motor with an all thread rod, which acts as a worm gear, and is controlled by a rpi.
Open source please?
I was running the lightshow for a medium sized nightclub and ended up building a custom React renderer that would declaratively control all of the lighting fixtures on the dance floor, strobes and smoke machines included. The entire show was controlled with various MIDI controllers (similar to Launchpads) which also had their button grid programmed using React.
It was suddenly very intuitive to build user interfaces on a button grid MIDI controller using standard React design patterns, not to mention the actual light shows being implemented as React components.
It was suddenly very intuitive to build user interfaces on a button grid MIDI controller using standard React design patterns, not to mention the actual light shows being implemented as React components.
For fun I stitched together a map of my hometown from older fire insurance maps ( taken in 1914 ) Ironically much of the downtown area was destroyed by a fire two years later.
https://www.joeycato.com/stuff/paris-texas-1914/
https://www.joeycato.com/stuff/paris-texas-1914/
I want to learn to type telex on Vietnamese so I made a super simple app: https://0-sv.github.io/viet-typing-tutor/
I still have to add a lot of words though, any feedback is welcome
I still have to add a lot of words though, any feedback is welcome
A TDCS device. Trans-cranial Direct Current Stimulation, mostly experimental, somewhat proven for short-term depression and cognition improvement. Motivation was my solution would be simpler and easier to control as well as include triple safety.
I had little trust for the Chinese IC steered devices nor the early US attempters at pop market that refuse to describe even their safety approach.
Pleased with my personal results. Would not openly recommend doing it, because the DIY route as well as adopting TDCS do require that you can competently read medical studies. At least half of those I browsed fail good science test even at first glance.
And then of course the manufacturers and sellers are even worse, such as they are quite good at parroting misquotes of study results for marketing and PR.
Next plan is build an ECG and my own medical ultrasound, although with that one it is probably best to wait for about 5 to 7 years till the new-tech ultrasound generators get to market.
I had little trust for the Chinese IC steered devices nor the early US attempters at pop market that refuse to describe even their safety approach.
Pleased with my personal results. Would not openly recommend doing it, because the DIY route as well as adopting TDCS do require that you can competently read medical studies. At least half of those I browsed fail good science test even at first glance.
And then of course the manufacturers and sellers are even worse, such as they are quite good at parroting misquotes of study results for marketing and PR.
Next plan is build an ECG and my own medical ultrasound, although with that one it is probably best to wait for about 5 to 7 years till the new-tech ultrasound generators get to market.
If you're in the area, Stanford's Brain Stimulation Lab is always recruiting for clinical trials: https://bsl.stanford.edu/clinical-trials/
So did you build the device or research and purchase a personal one? I've been thinking of doing this for probably approaching a decade and been terrified of the potential consequences.
What do you use it for? Just the typical depression type thing or have you experimented with it at all? Super interested
What do you use it for? Just the typical depression type thing or have you experimented with it at all? Super interested
1. Built from scratch on protoboard, analog ammeter, lm337, fuses on input and output, tight safety tolerances, multiple fail-safes.
2. I have experimented with cognition and mood modulation with positive personal results. I would prefer not to go over my current area of application since it is outside of the well-tested. Too often personal anecdotes on the internet may be misinterpreted as "proof", dangerous in areas that require a solid scientific approach.
3. Sadly, and the credible scientists have been calling for such research for years, no solid long-term, large-scale studies have been done on TDCS. What has been widely and somewhat better researched is a) application for depression alleviation and b) cognition modulation.
2. I have experimented with cognition and mood modulation with positive personal results. I would prefer not to go over my current area of application since it is outside of the well-tested. Too often personal anecdotes on the internet may be misinterpreted as "proof", dangerous in areas that require a solid scientific approach.
3. Sadly, and the credible scientists have been calling for such research for years, no solid long-term, large-scale studies have been done on TDCS. What has been widely and somewhat better researched is a) application for depression alleviation and b) cognition modulation.
I was studying maths as a hobby and made myself a LaTeX editing environment in Emacs with inline rendering of mathematical content: https://github.com/dandavison/xenops
A handful of other people use it I think but I made it for myself and don't have time to maintain it when I'm not studying maths.
A handful of other people use it I think but I made it for myself and don't have time to maintain it when I'm not studying maths.
A bootable mini-CDROM that I would pop into two dozen computers in a computer lab after hours that would turn the lab into an OpenMOSIX SSI cluster and auto-eject the CDs. All I had to do to reset the lab is ctrl+alt+delete on all the machines.
I also built a CarPC back before we had smartphones that could do everything. I wrote some custom Perl software for it:
- An audible user interface that allowed a remote control, a keypad, or voice commands to speak-navigate a series of menus, to allow running programs, selecting music to play, etc. It was extremely low-latency, fast and clear, to allow very rapid navigation. No need to look away from the road, unlike every annoying car navigation menu I've ever used.
- A music interface to allow selecting playlists, shuffling music, pausing/skipping, etc
- A program to play the next of a pre-written instruction when approaching a GPS coordinate; basically, ghetto turn-by-turn GPS nav
- A wardriving interface to tell you when a new access point was captured and if it was unencrypted and high signal
- A video player hooked up to a mini monitor installed in the dash
I also built a CarPC back before we had smartphones that could do everything. I wrote some custom Perl software for it:
- An audible user interface that allowed a remote control, a keypad, or voice commands to speak-navigate a series of menus, to allow running programs, selecting music to play, etc. It was extremely low-latency, fast and clear, to allow very rapid navigation. No need to look away from the road, unlike every annoying car navigation menu I've ever used.
- A music interface to allow selecting playlists, shuffling music, pausing/skipping, etc
- A program to play the next of a pre-written instruction when approaching a GPS coordinate; basically, ghetto turn-by-turn GPS nav
- A wardriving interface to tell you when a new access point was captured and if it was unencrypted and high signal
- A video player hooked up to a mini monitor installed in the dash
Pretty simple but saved me a lot of time: using Twilio, Google maps API, and PythonAnywhere I would send myself a text if my normal route to work would take >n minutes.
I built this app for my self and based on my own needs and requirements
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.darkruby...
It's got hidden developer mode, where even more interesting stuff available
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.darkruby...
It's got hidden developer mode, where even more interesting stuff available
Right now I’m working on a heads up display using a pair of AR glasses and a pinephone. At the moment you just get the time and a battery level in the corner of your vision, but the interesting thing is the platform. Every hud app is just a Wayland client, and the apps get positioned absolutely on the screen by the compositor
Does it count if you've built something for yourself that is now becoming an actual business?
If yes, then I started building a hand tracking based VR workout app back in 2019 using GodotEngine to get myself a bit of extra motivation to exercise at home.
In the meantime it's become an official app but I am still using it for myself very intensively ( unfortunately no longer using Godot )
https://app.xrworkout.io
If yes, then I started building a hand tracking based VR workout app back in 2019 using GodotEngine to get myself a bit of extra motivation to exercise at home.
In the meantime it's become an official app but I am still using it for myself very intensively ( unfortunately no longer using Godot )
https://app.xrworkout.io
OOOH I've got one - I made a short script that lets me play any video on any site at arbitrary speed (speed controlled by arrow keys).
//@ts-check window.kVideoSpeed = 1; window.initialVolume = 1;
NUMPAD_3 = "99" NUMPAD_2 = "98" NUMPAD_6 = "102" NUMPAD_5 = "101"
UP_ARROW = "38" DOWN_ARROW = "40"
let timeoutId = null; document.onkeydown = (e) => { if (!document.querySelectorAll("video").length) { // no-op for pages with no videos return; } window.initialVolume = document.querySelector('video')?.volume || 1
//@ts-check window.kVideoSpeed = 1; window.initialVolume = 1;
NUMPAD_3 = "99" NUMPAD_2 = "98" NUMPAD_6 = "102" NUMPAD_5 = "101"
UP_ARROW = "38" DOWN_ARROW = "40"
let timeoutId = null; document.onkeydown = (e) => { if (!document.querySelectorAll("video").length) { // no-op for pages with no videos return; } window.initialVolume = document.querySelector('video')?.volume || 1
let myDiv = getOrMakeDiv();
e = e || window.event;
let KEYCODE = e.keyCode;
// NOTE: can't use left/right b/c those go forward/back 10s on some sites
if ((KEYCODE == UP_ARROW || KEYCODE == NUMPAD_6) && window.kVideoSpeed < 4) {
// up arrow
window.kVideoSpeed += 0.5;
myDiv.textContent = window.kVideoSpeed;
} else if ((KEYCODE == DOWN_ARROW || KEYCODE == NUMPAD_5) && window.kVideoSpeed > 1) {
// down arrow
window.kVideoSpeed -= 0.5;
myDiv.textContent = window.kVideoSpeed;
}
for (let el of document.querySelectorAll("video")) {
el.playbackRate = window.kVideoSpeed;
// prevent volume from changing
setTimeout(() => {
el.volume = window.initialVolume
}, 100)
}
if (timeoutId) {
clearTimeout(timeoutId);
}
// set timeout to remove div
timeoutId = setTimeout(() => { myDiv.remove() }, 1000); let div = document.createElement("div");
div.id = "myDiv";
// add styles to div
div.style.padding = "8px";
div.style.textAlign = "center";
div.style.fontSize = "16px";
div.style.position = "fixed";
div.style.fontWeight = "600";
div.style.border = "1px solid yellow";
div.style.color = "white";
div.style.backgroundColor = "black";
div.style.zIndex = "999999";
// insert div at the top of the body
if (document.fullscreenElement) {
document.fullscreenElement.prepend(div, document.fullscreenElement.firstChild)
}
else {
document.body.insertBefore(div, document.body.firstChild);
}
}
return document.getElementById("myDiv");
}I improved our kitchen hood vent by attaching a semi-rigid aluminum duct to one of the fans. The other end of the duct can be positioned right over a frying pan to suck in cooking smell. It works much better compared to the vent itself.
My wife and I built our own Laser Maze for our front yard so kids could try it out on Halloween. https://www.tiktok.com/@bobbylox/video/7163380326008425770
I love this. I'd love to hear more on how you build this
This wasn’t terribly hard, but I built https://seattle-movies.innocence.com/ because I really wanted an aggregate indie movie theater calendar. Then I added an RSS feed cause someone asked for it. It has vastly improved my quality of life around movies!
(I’m a hack but the code is as general purpose and adaptable as I could make it, just in case someone wants to use it for another city.)
(I’m a hack but the code is as general purpose and adaptable as I could make it, just in case someone wants to use it for another city.)
Our house has a commercial style HVAC system. The controllers for everything (relays) are very simple. The run on a protocol called BACNet that is unauthenticated and pretty straightforward.
I was able to read in all the data points and then use the weather forecast and a few other data points to make changes to my HVAC system. The comfort different has been very drastic. Our house doesn't overheat on hot days and doesn't get cold fast when the temperature drops. (I am in the Northeast where there are big swings).
I was able to read in all the data points and then use the weather forecast and a few other data points to make changes to my HVAC system. The comfort different has been very drastic. Our house doesn't overheat on hot days and doesn't get cold fast when the temperature drops. (I am in the Northeast where there are big swings).
Hey, I apologize You were exposed to BACNet. Seriously. That was one the worst HVAC protocols I've dealt with. It seemed (1990's) to do most stuff in obtuse ways compared to other HVAC comms.
At least The standards were supported (eg. 4-20mA).
Again, sorry. And glad You toppled it.
At least The standards were supported (eg. 4-20mA).
Again, sorry. And glad You toppled it.
I had a servo motor attached to a raspberry pi which turned a small gear that connected to a plastic gear m on the analogue temperature control of my gas heater.
Then I had it switch to various temperatures while heating and also had a geofence for my phone implemented that turned on the heating when I entered a 500m radius. Even had a calibration script for the servo motor.
Then I had it switch to various temperatures while heating and also had a geofence for my phone implemented that turned on the heating when I entered a 500m radius. Even had a calibration script for the servo motor.
I mean I guess I did build an overbed table to put the TV on. I don't know whether it counts as tech though.
Throwaway time!
I built a custom smart motorized masturbator.
It borrows from 3D printer design, and has a NEMA 17 stepper motor driving a 2GT belt loop around a short length of 2020 extrusion to slide a carriage along a linear rail. The carriage has attachment points that I've put clamps on, that close around a fleshlight-style sheath. There's a brace at the business end that you put around the base of the penis and it keeps everything aligned.
All the parts are custom-designed and 3d printed.
It has an outboard control box that contains:
It's been evolving for a couple years now and it works brilliantly!
I built a custom smart motorized masturbator.
It borrows from 3D printer design, and has a NEMA 17 stepper motor driving a 2GT belt loop around a short length of 2020 extrusion to slide a carriage along a linear rail. The carriage has attachment points that I've put clamps on, that close around a fleshlight-style sheath. There's a brace at the business end that you put around the base of the penis and it keeps everything aligned.
All the parts are custom-designed and 3d printed.
It has an outboard control box that contains:
- an ESP32-based microcontroller with a small OLED screen.
- a clickable rotary encoder that is the single input control
- a TMC2209 stepper driver
- 12v power input and a buck converter to feed the esp32
- 12v output ports for 2 additional vibrators and an an H-bridge module to control them
- stroke duration
- stroke amplitude
- offset from the 0 position
- motion path (just sinusoidal vs triangle wave so far)
It's been evolving for a couple years now and it works brilliantly!
I cannot believe that username was available.
Such a shame it's a throwaway. They should keep it!
>I cannot believe that username was available.
Have you seen anything hornier?
>Such a shame it's a throwaway. They should keep it!
I expect he'll come again.
Have you seen anything hornier?
>Such a shame it's a throwaway. They should keep it!
I expect he'll come again.
Finding bugs must be unpleasant.
Nah, there are no bugs if you wash it after every use.
Gross >.<
Hilarious, but gross
Hilarious, but gross
Just to toss one out there…
You need a fitness tracker and some machine learning to really get your freak on.
Sorry, too tired to come up with a good robot innuendo.
You need a fitness tracker and some machine learning to really get your freak on.
Sorry, too tired to come up with a good robot innuendo.
They do say you should scratch your own itch
Does it have Apple Health integration?
You can't leave us hanging like that. No pictures of this thing?
mr. fancypants here with the silent tmc2209 driver lol
Gotta switch to some a4988s so the machine can moan back.
Commercialize it
Dude, you have to write this up!
There's a tool you might like: https://buttplug.io/
I've been slowly working on a web app that keeps track of cocktail recipes and all the liquor bottles in my home bar, then it tells me what drinks I can make right now. It's been a fun way to spend way too much money at the liquor store buying "just one more bottle", and I've found some new favorite drinks via these recipes.
It doesn't do anything amazing yet, but it's been fun to tinker with it over time and get back to coding as I do more and more management at work.
The website itself is here: https://barkeep.website, and I've been blogging about it here: https://edbrown23.github.io/blog/
It doesn't do anything amazing yet, but it's been fun to tinker with it over time and get back to coding as I do more and more management at work.
The website itself is here: https://barkeep.website, and I've been blogging about it here: https://edbrown23.github.io/blog/
I'm currently working on a service that would allow me to place orders using a satellite messenger.
Some background: When I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail few years ago, I used to order items that needed to be replaced or that I lost to the next or town stop using my phone (most towns have a general store or a supermarket, often not an outfitter).
However, it's not uncommon for sections of the trail to be outside cell service for days between town to the next one.
Anyhow, since the next trail that I plan to hike, the Continental Divide Trail, is even more remote than the PCT, I started to play with a prototype of a satellite messenger backed service to let me order items from a predefined list (each can match multiple items of a different priority) and be shipped to a predefined shipping address (post offices of trail towns along the trail).
So, for example, assuming that one of my contacts is a phone number that my service is monitoring, I can text a message like that:
If any item on the list can't be delivered until 2023-07-01 using prime shipping (unfortunately it's the easiest option), it should be dropped from the order. Alternatively, if the guaranteed delivery date is off by 1 day, I might just place it on a separate order, hope for the best and if it doesn't show up on time, it'll get returned individually after not being claimed.
Some background: When I hiked the Pacific Crest Trail few years ago, I used to order items that needed to be replaced or that I lost to the next or town stop using my phone (most towns have a general store or a supermarket, often not an outfitter).
However, it's not uncommon for sections of the trail to be outside cell service for days between town to the next one.
Anyhow, since the next trail that I plan to hike, the Continental Divide Trail, is even more remote than the PCT, I started to play with a prototype of a satellite messenger backed service to let me order items from a predefined list (each can match multiple items of a different priority) and be shipped to a predefined shipping address (post offices of trail towns along the trail).
So, for example, assuming that one of my contacts is a phone number that my service is monitoring, I can text a message like that:
items: shoes, tape, filter, usb cable, ice axe;
to: Chama;
eta: 2023-07-01;
If any item on the list can't be delivered until 2023-07-01 using prime shipping (unfortunately it's the easiest option), it should be dropped from the order. Alternatively, if the guaranteed delivery date is off by 1 day, I might just place it on a separate order, hope for the best and if it doesn't show up on time, it'll get returned individually after not being claimed.
Would this be like an app on your phone, or something else?
While an app that can sync the predefined items and their code, as well as format the text properly would be ideal, my time constraints might not allow me to build that, and since it's for personal use only, and under the assumption that I'll only have to use it a few times over few months, I think that hand crafted text messages, sent using the Garmin app should be good enough for me.
I wrote a WebGL, WebGL2, and WebGPU statistics tracker: https://web3dsurvey.com. Well it is useful at least.
For 6 years I had a long distance relationship between Peru and Germany.
When you are in different timezones it can actually be nice to fall asleep with the other person "close" to you; so we kept Skype running while one of us went to bed and the other person was working on the PC.
Unfortunately the internet connection would regularly drop, ending the Skype call. Now you did not want to wake the other person by calling them.
So I wrote a small script that would allow you to send a secret word in the chat and invoke the other persons' Skype to call you instead automatically.
Kept our relationship healthy. Now we've been married for nearly 10 years and are happily living together :)
When you are in different timezones it can actually be nice to fall asleep with the other person "close" to you; so we kept Skype running while one of us went to bed and the other person was working on the PC.
Unfortunately the internet connection would regularly drop, ending the Skype call. Now you did not want to wake the other person by calling them.
So I wrote a small script that would allow you to send a secret word in the chat and invoke the other persons' Skype to call you instead automatically.
Kept our relationship healthy. Now we've been married for nearly 10 years and are happily living together :)
That's really sweet. I think I remember a scene from the TV show Normal People where something similar happens.
Great story. I love this thread.
Love this. This is exactly what coding is about for me; improving your life and the life of others by solving some problem, how miniscule it might seem.
I was expecting a sad ending after six years. Glad it turns out well.
MS Live Messenger used to have a feature where you could set certain contacts to auto-accept. When my SO and I were doing the long distance thing, that was our lifeline.
Did the same with Google Hangouts which wouldn't end the call if someone dropped, and when their internet came back up they would automatically be back in the call. I think that's how it worked.
I am soo happy for you guys. Being in a long distance 5 year relationship myself this is pretty awesome. I'm gonna give this one a shot
“You sleep. I watch.”
Can I watch you eat?
You sleep, I watch question?
Nice reference
Nice reference
Its probably too late to comment for anyone to see/respond, but I've been working for a long time on a personal workstation automation/configruation project:
- https://github.com/joelmccracken/workstation
At this point, its basically ready to go. Its a weird feeling. I've been working on it for so long, and now it... works.
Being able to use github actions with macos runners makes this project so, so, so much easier.
Another project I've been working on is a custom authoring format - think markdown, but customized to my needs (specifically, the format is extensible). Think markdown/xmlish hybrid. There is a lot of churn though so I'm not quite ready to demo it, but once I get something interesting I'll share it more with folks.
- https://github.com/joelmccracken/workstation
At this point, its basically ready to go. Its a weird feeling. I've been working on it for so long, and now it... works.
Being able to use github actions with macos runners makes this project so, so, so much easier.
Another project I've been working on is a custom authoring format - think markdown, but customized to my needs (specifically, the format is extensible). Think markdown/xmlish hybrid. There is a lot of churn though so I'm not quite ready to demo it, but once I get something interesting I'll share it more with folks.
Nah. Someone will definitely read it ,)
I built a small websocket server [0] that helps me write simple multiplayer backends. It spawns a process for the first client in a room, and routes subsequent clients to the same process.
[0]: https://scalesocket.org
[0]: https://scalesocket.org
I've built a simple website to watch other People's mood around the world!
https://mymood.today/
When I lived in SF, I built a webcam with a raspberry pi which looked down on the street in front of my apartment and uploaded to a website if a parking spot was available. My friends could visit the page on the drive up to see me, and check if there was a parking spot available before they got to the house ... so they didn't have to circle around looking for other spots if there was a vacancy right in front.
A jazz generator, pre-machine learning. It had instruments and each instrument had Markov Chains to control pitch and note duration. I then used a bunch of helpers and functions to write markov chains that sounded cool. I used it to play bass and jam with me. This was 2009.
The implementation was in netlogo I don’t remember why. It was really fun
The implementation was in netlogo I don’t remember why. It was really fun
I have a hacky combination of Playwright browser automation plus Tesseract OCR that splits a Verizon group plan among members by posting individual totals to Splitwise. Simple at first glance, but there are always small changes due to people traveling overseas or changing devices.
- I built DreamList.com originally because I was working on another startup and as a founder I didn’t want my Baby Registry showing up on search engines or my address showing up to random people who looked up my name. All the other services were using customer names as free SEO and every list was indexed by default with your address available. I built it safe and private for my own family and over time it went from side hustle to main hustle, especially as demand for privacy-respecting social and family software keeps going up.
- A family member in an elected position needed to write a schedule for 22 healthcare professionals that take shifts every month and I wrote a tool for them that allows them to make sure everyone gets sufficient time off and nobody takes too much of the weekend load. They were elected again and to a higher leadership role partly because of the scheduling tool.
- Regularly writing new stock trading, modeling, and timing software to improve my earnings from trading.
- Wrote my own tool to scrape bios, cluster and find investors in different niche areas and need to rewrite it for recruiting people with niche expertise.
- Created a social network for collaboration between nerds like me in different disciplines at top universities while I was at grad school and shut it down after it got flooded with recruiter spammers. Always thinking of ways to relaunch that.
- A family member in an elected position needed to write a schedule for 22 healthcare professionals that take shifts every month and I wrote a tool for them that allows them to make sure everyone gets sufficient time off and nobody takes too much of the weekend load. They were elected again and to a higher leadership role partly because of the scheduling tool.
- Regularly writing new stock trading, modeling, and timing software to improve my earnings from trading.
- Wrote my own tool to scrape bios, cluster and find investors in different niche areas and need to rewrite it for recruiting people with niche expertise.
- Created a social network for collaboration between nerds like me in different disciplines at top universities while I was at grad school and shut it down after it got flooded with recruiter spammers. Always thinking of ways to relaunch that.
I built a web app that keeps track of every link I ever find to be interesting. It allows for fine-grained topics (e.g., individual academic papers, or topics more specific than that). It groups the topics in a DAG, so that you can get to a topic via more than one path from the top. And it allows you to look at intersections of transitive closures over topics in order to narrow down a search.
It keeps a history of every change to the graph in Git, so one day you could potentially implement some form of time travel and see what the graph looked like at an earlier point in time without too much difficulty.
I have used the app every day for years. I feel like there's something promising there that is of general interest, but I have not figured out how to communicate the value.
It keeps a history of every change to the graph in Git, so one day you could potentially implement some form of time travel and see what the graph looked like at an earlier point in time without too much difficulty.
I have used the app every day for years. I feel like there's something promising there that is of general interest, but I have not figured out how to communicate the value.
That's an intriguing idea. What is the purpose of it? Can you share screenshots?
My own purpose in using it is to be able to get back to any link that I've read or have potentially wanted to read at a later point in time. You scan see screenshots here: https://github.com/emwalker/digraph.
Sounds very interesting. Do I’m having trouble picturing how it works. How do you get the links into the system? I’m assuming this won’t work for links that you find on your phone, i.e. when not on your on your computer? And how do these links get indexed? By the stuff that’s on the page? What’s an example use case of where you use that system to find a link?
It's pretty manual at this point. The indexing is done by hand. The idea is kind of crazy, but I think it can be made to work, in the same way that Wikipedia is maintained by hand.
https://digraph.app/
https://github.com/emwalker/digraph
If you can crowdsource the indexing, you get yourself a manually curated search engine with a nice topic graph that can be traversed. A piece of this puzzle that hasn't been tackled yet is a reputation system to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high and deal with spam.
> What’s an example use case of where you use that system to find a link?
An example use case is that I come across some interesting long-form article on a topic I'm following, e.g., Shackleton's expedition, that's published on a nice website and that I don't have time to read. I can just drop the link in the right topic and get back to it without too much difficulty. Or that's the hope, anyway. (Doesn't always work out that like that.)
Another thing I'm interested in is what the topic structure ends up looking like as it's more fully fleshed out. So sometimes I'll drop in random links even if they're not that interesting, just to build out the topics.
https://digraph.app/
https://github.com/emwalker/digraph
If you can crowdsource the indexing, you get yourself a manually curated search engine with a nice topic graph that can be traversed. A piece of this puzzle that hasn't been tackled yet is a reputation system to keep the signal-to-noise ratio high and deal with spam.
> What’s an example use case of where you use that system to find a link?
An example use case is that I come across some interesting long-form article on a topic I'm following, e.g., Shackleton's expedition, that's published on a nice website and that I don't have time to read. I can just drop the link in the right topic and get back to it without too much difficulty. Or that's the hope, anyway. (Doesn't always work out that like that.)
Another thing I'm interested in is what the topic structure ends up looking like as it's more fully fleshed out. So sometimes I'll drop in random links even if they're not that interesting, just to build out the topics.
Thanks for the link. Quite a collection. Have you thought about auto suggesting categories when adding new items? Cheap and fast way: Use fastText or Fast Sentence Embeddings to calculate average embeddings for all items in each category. Then, when user enters a new link, create embeddings and rank categories based on the new embeddings’ similarity to those of the categories.
I think there's plenty of scope for improvements like this. I haven't had the energy to pursue further improvements along these lines, but I suspect they could make it a better app.
I’ve made the exact same website for myself. It’s just a little PHP static webapp but I can write reviews for posts and it’s got a simple SQLite/PHP ^8 backend.
https://artsie.red/
I could have used something like Safari’s reading list, but that wouldn’t scale to all of my devices. And I don’t like the idea of putting control of those links into a service I can’t delete.
This site literally solves one problem perfectly and beyond the occasional functionality upgrades (auto-fetching post metadata, a refresh button, and a little CMS behind authentication) it’s super light and useful for me!
https://artsie.red/
I could have used something like Safari’s reading list, but that wouldn’t scale to all of my devices. And I don’t like the idea of putting control of those links into a service I can’t delete.
This site literally solves one problem perfectly and beyond the occasional functionality upgrades (auto-fetching post metadata, a refresh button, and a little CMS behind authentication) it’s super light and useful for me!
I keep all my projects and other repos that I clone under `~/src` e.g. `~/src/github.com/rails/rails` for the rails project. I then have the following fish function to navigate to a project:
I also have this one to clone or cd a project from github like `gc rails/rails`
function c
set -l directory (fd -d 5 --prune -a -H -t d -g '.git' ~/src ~/b -x dirname {} | fzf --tiebreak=length,begin,end)
if test -n "$directory"
and test -d $directory
cd $directory
end
end
I also have this one to clone or cd a project from github like `gc rails/rails`
function gc --argument repo
set -l dir $HOME/src/github.com/$repo
if not test -d $dir
if test -d $HOME/go/src/github.com/$repo
set dir $HOME/go/src/github.com/$repo
else
mkdir -p $dir
if not git clone "[email protected]:$repo.git" $dir
set -l git_status $status
rmdir $dir 2>/dev/null
return $git_status
end
end
end
cd $dir
end
function list_after_cd --on-variable PWD
ls
end
Reminds me of z / zoxide / fasd, I use zoxide personally
It didn’t really stay personal, but I built a very basic Raspberry Pi Pinout website hosted on a Raspberry Pi [1] back in 2013. The intent was to collect the pinouts for some boards I was tinkering with at the time. It got wildly out of hand since [2] [3], but I think the original site meets the spirit of this question.
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20130505194305/Pi.Gadgetoid.com/... 2. https://pinout.xyz 3. https://pico.pinout.xyz
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20130505194305/Pi.Gadgetoid.com/... 2. https://pinout.xyz 3. https://pico.pinout.xyz
Ive used your website many times :)
I've made a tool to create 3D tours based on Threejs Editor and it has been really useful to make presentations more compelling.
To create the presentation, you have to import 3D models (preferably fbx or glb) and place them in the 3D environment as desired. To create a "slide" you just have to click on the "new" button under the "slide" tab and it will capture the camera pose.
After creating some slides you can press the "start" on the menu to preview the presentation. Once everything is loaded, you can scroll through the preview page, and the camera will be animated sequentially between the captured poses.
That's the basic usage, but there are also other features available.
The editor page: https://arthurmiy.gitlab.io/editor_slide_3d/editor/index.htm...
Presentation made using the tool: https://arthurmiy.gitlab.io/se-webview/jaguariuna.html
To create the presentation, you have to import 3D models (preferably fbx or glb) and place them in the 3D environment as desired. To create a "slide" you just have to click on the "new" button under the "slide" tab and it will capture the camera pose.
After creating some slides you can press the "start" on the menu to preview the presentation. Once everything is loaded, you can scroll through the preview page, and the camera will be animated sequentially between the captured poses.
That's the basic usage, but there are also other features available.
The editor page: https://arthurmiy.gitlab.io/editor_slide_3d/editor/index.htm...
Presentation made using the tool: https://arthurmiy.gitlab.io/se-webview/jaguariuna.html
I built a site that visualizes continuous glucose monitor data.
Everything is stored in your browser's database so there is no server and I (you) don't have to worry about securing or sharing your data.
https://www.opencgm.com
https://www.opencgm.com
@dang regarding pagination
// Get the anchor tag element
const anchorTag = document.querySelector('.morelink');
// Add a scroll event listener to the window object
window.addEventListener('scroll', () => {
// Check if the user has scrolled to the bottom of the page
if (window.innerHeight + window.scrollY >= document.body.offsetHeight) {
// Fetch the content from the URL stored in the anchor tag's href attribute
const xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open('GET', anchorTag.href, true);
xhr.onload = () => {
// Append the fetched content to the page
const div = document.createElement('div');
div.innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
document.body.appendChild(div);
};
xhr.send();
}
});Some people appreciate being able to choose whether or not to continue browsing. Infinite scroll is not objectively better.
Lots of websites have the option to toggle pagination on/off for those that do find it objectively better.
> div.innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
Did you test this? Because CORS aside, that sure does look like it will append the whole of page 2 to the body of page 1 and get progressively worse as one reaches the pagination of page 2. It would be more code (and memory pressure) but I believe the correct impl of any such trickery would be to reach into the actual table of page 2 and jam that into the body of page 1
Did you test this? Because CORS aside, that sure does look like it will append the whole of page 2 to the body of page 1 and get progressively worse as one reaches the pagination of page 2. It would be more code (and memory pressure) but I believe the correct impl of any such trickery would be to reach into the actual table of page 2 and jam that into the body of page 1
declarative code generation https://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof because I was tired of having to change 10+ files in a full stack app to add a field to one type, so I brought ideas from devops to application development
it's now generalized and for everyone
it's now generalized and for everyone
Sounds super simple, but was awesome at the time. In the 90s when all of my music was either on CD or ripped to MP3, I built an FM transmitter to broadcast my computer audio (sonique or winamp) to any radio or receiver in the house. It was a perfect solution that didn't take long to implement. I didn't know anyone else who did this.
About 5 years ago, I had a car stolen and lamented what affordable tracking mechanisms I could use. I cobbled together an extra cell phone and a data only SIM. I kept the phone running in the back of my van plugged into an auxiliary cigarette lighter port. It uploaded data to google spreadsheets every 15 minutes. I had to root it to have it automatically boot when connected to power. In the end, it was flawlessly reporting its location every 15 minutes. While I was testing this, my car was stolen. The google spreadsheet pointed me to the GPS location where it was. A phone call to the police and a 40 minute wait for them to arrive got my car back only hours after stolen. Dude was sleeping with a big knife next to him, so I'm glad I let the professionals speak with him.
About 5 years ago, I had a car stolen and lamented what affordable tracking mechanisms I could use. I cobbled together an extra cell phone and a data only SIM. I kept the phone running in the back of my van plugged into an auxiliary cigarette lighter port. It uploaded data to google spreadsheets every 15 minutes. I had to root it to have it automatically boot when connected to power. In the end, it was flawlessly reporting its location every 15 minutes. While I was testing this, my car was stolen. The google spreadsheet pointed me to the GPS location where it was. A phone call to the police and a 40 minute wait for them to arrive got my car back only hours after stolen. Dude was sleeping with a big knife next to him, so I'm glad I let the professionals speak with him.
An app that let anybody convert an otherwise-useless phone into a gps tracker might do well. Those trackers can be expensive.
What kind of battery life would you see with one?
In 2020 I wanted to look up some classic StarCraft 1 maps that I used to play but there wasn't a good database around that I could easily search through. So I made https://scmscx.com to serve that purpose.
This thread is giving me a complex. Why? Well, because the answer is basically "nothing". I mean, don't get me wrong - I've built all sorts of stuff, and plenty of it was not for my $DAYJOB. And I think (at times) of myself as being fairly creative and having lots of "ideas". And yet... at least in the context of this thread (the way I'm interpreting the OP's question anyway) I just don't have much to offer up.
FWIW, I interpret the question as being strictly about stuff one built for oneself in the context of everyday, day-in, day-out life. Stuff to use yourself. And on that front, I just realized I almost never build anything strictly for myself. I work on Open Source projects and work on projects at Fogbeam that I (want|hope|expect|whatever) other people to use, or things I would use myself in a business context. But I just don't build handy little gadgets to use around the house, or in my truck, or when out and about.
This may be one of the first times I've really felt a strong case of the "imposter syndrome" that one hears so much about. I feel like I should have some answers for this, so why don't I? :-(
OK, to be fair, I did built at least one thing just for myself. I have a couple of lamps that are positioned in an out of the way location in my living room, and I hate having to walk to them and stretch to reach the switch(es). So I did the whole "IP controlled lamp" thing with a relay and an Arduino Nano 33 IoT board. The power strip the lamps are plugged into is controlled by the relay, and I can send an HTTP request to turn the relay on or off. I created a shortcut on my phone's homescreen so I can easily control it from my phone. But that's such a chintzy project I almost feel worse for admitting to it. :p
FWIW, I interpret the question as being strictly about stuff one built for oneself in the context of everyday, day-in, day-out life. Stuff to use yourself. And on that front, I just realized I almost never build anything strictly for myself. I work on Open Source projects and work on projects at Fogbeam that I (want|hope|expect|whatever) other people to use, or things I would use myself in a business context. But I just don't build handy little gadgets to use around the house, or in my truck, or when out and about.
This may be one of the first times I've really felt a strong case of the "imposter syndrome" that one hears so much about. I feel like I should have some answers for this, so why don't I? :-(
OK, to be fair, I did built at least one thing just for myself. I have a couple of lamps that are positioned in an out of the way location in my living room, and I hate having to walk to them and stretch to reach the switch(es). So I did the whole "IP controlled lamp" thing with a relay and an Arduino Nano 33 IoT board. The power strip the lamps are plugged into is controlled by the relay, and I can send an HTTP request to turn the relay on or off. I created a shortcut on my phone's homescreen so I can easily control it from my phone. But that's such a chintzy project I almost feel worse for admitting to it. :p
I saw this while looking through this thread and I just wanted to say you're not alone.
In my free time I play videogames mostly. I dream of making them myself, but I never have. And I generally don't do cool tech projects like this for myself either.
I made a canvassing app for my friend who was running for mayor of his town once, but yeah.
I barely even have my own github account.
So please don't feel like an imposter. It's ok to treat tech as a day job. :)
In my free time I play videogames mostly. I dream of making them myself, but I never have. And I generally don't do cool tech projects like this for myself either.
I made a canvassing app for my friend who was running for mayor of his town once, but yeah.
I barely even have my own github account.
So please don't feel like an imposter. It's ok to treat tech as a day job. :)
> It's ok to treat tech as a day job.
HN is full of people with side hustles and hobby computing projects, some of which are pretty interesting.
But it's really OK to do other things after work, especially things that you enjoy.
Even computers are good for a lot of things other than software development. Games, for example. ;-)
HN is full of people with side hustles and hobby computing projects, some of which are pretty interesting.
But it's really OK to do other things after work, especially things that you enjoy.
Even computers are good for a lot of things other than software development. Games, for example. ;-)
This is normal. This is a bragging thread, so you're getting the subset of people who have something to brag about.
For me, most of my mental energy goes into my day job, so I'm often just tired of programming and tech stuff after hours. I tend to have to balance - either put my energy into work work, or work work can suffer while I put my energy into personal projects. I also have family and other hobbies that take up time, and there's only so much of it.
I've also found that if I'm not careful, I'll get too obsessive over this stuff and everything else suffers, so I have to try to keep it in check or I'll end up burned out, more tired, and have half-finished projects - which can be even more mental overhead.
For me, most of my mental energy goes into my day job, so I'm often just tired of programming and tech stuff after hours. I tend to have to balance - either put my energy into work work, or work work can suffer while I put my energy into personal projects. I also have family and other hobbies that take up time, and there's only so much of it.
I've also found that if I'm not careful, I'll get too obsessive over this stuff and everything else suffers, so I have to try to keep it in check or I'll end up burned out, more tired, and have half-finished projects - which can be even more mental overhead.
>I (want|hope|expect|whatever) other people to use, or things I would use myself in a business context.
I can admire this right here.
As a priority if you do try to solve problems that you and others share in some way, this has got to be the path toward potentially most widespread utility.
Regardless of whether you are actually on that path, which can be a more elusive yellow brick road than the problems you are skilled at solving.
No matter how cool it is there are probably some things that nobody else ends up using anyway.
There you go, you built it and it turned out to be just for yourself :)
Without any details I respect that as much as the amazing non-business context accomplishments in this topic.
I can admire this right here.
As a priority if you do try to solve problems that you and others share in some way, this has got to be the path toward potentially most widespread utility.
Regardless of whether you are actually on that path, which can be a more elusive yellow brick road than the problems you are skilled at solving.
No matter how cool it is there are probably some things that nobody else ends up using anyway.
There you go, you built it and it turned out to be just for yourself :)
Without any details I respect that as much as the amazing non-business context accomplishments in this topic.
No matter how cool it is there are probably some things that nobody else ends up using anyway. ... There you go, you built it and it turned out to be just for yourself :)
Excellent point! It is true for most of the things I build, even though the intent is for the "thing" to see use by others, that the inception was a case of "scratching my own itch." And yes, even if the thing "fails" as something in the global marketplace, I still have the result to continue using for my own itch. :-)
Excellent point! It is true for most of the things I build, even though the intent is for the "thing" to see use by others, that the inception was a case of "scratching my own itch." And yes, even if the thing "fails" as something in the global marketplace, I still have the result to continue using for my own itch. :-)
This is a classic effect of social media: people only post their wins, and the ones you notice are the biggest ones. "Oh man, Kathy is having a holiday in the Sahara! John bought a badass motorbike! Frank ran the NY marathon! I've never done any of that, I'm such a loser..." This thread is the nerd equivalent of an Instagram feed.
It's fine: you keep doing you and finding your own happiness. Don't feel pressured into matching these folks, nobody expects you to.
It's fine: you keep doing you and finding your own happiness. Don't feel pressured into matching these folks, nobody expects you to.
I have always been fascinated by live TV broadcasts from around the world. I created a website for it locally and have now released the code as open source. Please feel free to check it out on GitHub at github.com/tpkahlon/jackal.
I made a text-only social network for the Gemini network and it recently surpassed 1k users: https://martinrue.com/station
I made my first browser extension to allow you to download substack video and view them using mp4 format instead of hsl streams.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/substack-video-dl/...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/substack-vide...
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/substack-video-dl/...
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/substack-vide...
I made a portfolio rebalancing tool to help automate my investment purchases.
https://github.com/TylerHillery/RePort
https://github.com/TylerHillery/RePort
Blind developer here; I often write tools for myself to perform some task that is not well supported by my screenreader. For example:
* I wrote an add-on that allows me to read HN comments in a structured way. A typical screenreader would present page in a linear manner, so you'd have to read all replies in order, which is quite tedious in popular posts. My add-on parses the page and identifies the level of each comment, and then I can navigate to previous/next comment at any level. So I can quickly check top-level comments and then read replies only if I'm interested.
* Another add-on makes Jupyter edit boxes to work with my screenreader. Jupyter was requiered at my company , so I either had to write that add-on or else. The way it works is that it sends Control+C Control+V keystrokes to the browser to retrieve contents and then presents them to me in an accessible window for editing. When I'm done it would Control+A Control+V new content back to edit box.
* BlindCompass - iOS app that I wrote for myself to navigate on the streets. One of the problems of blind people is that it is easy to lose the sense of heading, e.g. where is north vs South. So BlindCompass would read my heading and present it as a two-pitch sound, that allows me to deduce rough direction. It's also easy to figure out the right direction and just maintain it, so with BlindCompass I can cross large open spaces easily.
* I wrote an add-on that allows me to read HN comments in a structured way. A typical screenreader would present page in a linear manner, so you'd have to read all replies in order, which is quite tedious in popular posts. My add-on parses the page and identifies the level of each comment, and then I can navigate to previous/next comment at any level. So I can quickly check top-level comments and then read replies only if I'm interested.
* Another add-on makes Jupyter edit boxes to work with my screenreader. Jupyter was requiered at my company , so I either had to write that add-on or else. The way it works is that it sends Control+C Control+V keystrokes to the browser to retrieve contents and then presents them to me in an accessible window for editing. When I'm done it would Control+A Control+V new content back to edit box.
* BlindCompass - iOS app that I wrote for myself to navigate on the streets. One of the problems of blind people is that it is easy to lose the sense of heading, e.g. where is north vs South. So BlindCompass would read my heading and present it as a two-pitch sound, that allows me to deduce rough direction. It's also easy to figure out the right direction and just maintain it, so with BlindCompass I can cross large open spaces easily.
BlindCompass sounds (pun not intended) brilliant! Did you have inspiration for this or was it an original idea? Not any less impressive either way, just curious as someone who’s not at all family with this space.
Reminds me of season 5 of person of interest where the super intelligent AI known as "the machine" is giving relative directions to a character using ascending tones for right and descending for left, or something like that. The other character preferred directions in positions on an analog clock.
That was actually season 2! The final episode, I just watched it last week on a rewatch of the show. A lot of it feels pretty prescient right now, although not quite as intense as when the Snowden leaks happened and confirmed all of the government illegality of the show but none of the AI lol.
Haha, this was my immediate thought as well! That was awesome. Root is a badass.
As the sibling says this was the season 2 finale. There were other similar instances.
S02E22 "God Mode": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHIo96yBf70 (3m54s)
As the sibling says this was the season 2 finale. There were other similar instances.
S02E22 "God Mode": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHIo96yBf70 (3m54s)
Reminded me of this: https://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/. Saw this linked on HN somewhere back in 2012 or so.
Reminds me of the train puzzle in Myst!
I got the idea when I was learning to cross a wide street with a white cane. three lanes in each direction - and it proved to be a challenge because I would veer left or right and frequently get confused and lost. Then I thought a compass would be helpful, but a quick survey of compass apps on iOS showed that they are either visual, or show your heading as a number that can be read by VoiceOver, but it is still not very practical. So I thought that I need to encode heading as something that my brain can easily decipher during crossing the street. I have prior musical training, so that's why I decided to encode heading as a musical interval. This allows my app to communicate with about 10 degrees precision and in practice this is well enough to go on a straight line for long enough to cross the street.
I see someones cane get hit by a car one time causing him to lose orientation and make an almost 90 degree turn in the middle of the road. If the cane is pointed towards or away from traffic people don't even stop anymore.
This was actually long ago but it stuck with me. Just now I realized what perfect analogy for life it is. You move towards something, something interrupts the journey and then you just continue, thinking you are moving in the same direction.
This was actually long ago but it stuck with me. Just now I realized what perfect analogy for life it is. You move towards something, something interrupts the journey and then you just continue, thinking you are moving in the same direction.
BlindCompass is neat! My child told me that she had learned about the existence of compass implants and wants to get one. Would that be useful from your perspective?
Implants? Sounds too hardcore. But I remember some people talking about compass anklets; you put one on your leg and it gives a signal (vibration?) on the north side. They said it can greatly improve your orientation on a hike, even if you do not pay conscious attention to the anklet.
(This happened years ago, I do not remember more details.)
(This happened years ago, I do not remember more details.)
Very interesting idea. I think it depends on precision with which that implant can communicate heading. If precision is 10 degrees or less, this can actually be extremely useful to visually impaired people.
Those are pretty cool screen reader add-ons. Do you use JAWS, NVDA, or something else?
I use NVDA. Here is that add-on if you're interested: https://github.com/mltony/nvda-browser-nav/
I'm not blind but I wrote an EPUB to Text-To-Speech reader using Coqui (a really good AI TTS project). There are books I wanted to listen to while doing other things, and I couldn't find audio-book versions of them, so this worked out perfectly. It could be that I did not do enough searching, but I was surprised I didn't see anything out there that already worked this way.
https://github.com/aedocw/epub2tts
https://github.com/aedocw/epub2tts
Is this it? https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/blind-compass/id1546647415
I’m not blind but I have terrible time with directions and navigation. I’m gonna try it next time I have to stick to a general heading.
I’m not blind but I have terrible time with directions and navigation. I’m gonna try it next time I have to stick to a general heading.
This is one of the coolest things I've ever read. If you don't mind me asking, I'm really interested in how you read, write and edit code. What tools do you use? What's your typical workflow like?
I recently took up the banjo and as a musician who learns by ear, I wanted a way to quickly loop a phrase of music, slow it down and learn by repetition. Speeding it up as i go and moving on to the next phase.
So I built https://looptube.xyz It takes a YouTube ID input and allows you manipulate the video to loop and change tempo
So I built https://looptube.xyz It takes a YouTube ID input and allows you manipulate the video to loop and change tempo
This is lovely! Thank you for making it!!
This one is so Simple, yet so cool, one of my favorites so far
This is fantastic. Piano player here. Thank you for making it!
I built a home security system using PoE CCTV cameras, a small linux box, and copious use of GStreamer. Yes I know there are hundreds of these on GitHub, but I looked at dozens that were awful (sorry, Motion).
At first I tried all kinds of methods to turn it on only when there was something interesting to avoid drowning in terabytes of data, detecting things like: cars, people, animals. I tried classical image processing methods, and tools like Motion, then tried similar image compression algs to find significant macroblocks; then I tried all types of methods in OpenCV; next came several neural nets with off-the-shelf YOLO/SSD object detection (using Google TFUs, Nvidia Jetsons), I even tried retraining the networks with my own tiny dataset.
In the end, everything sucked with too many false positives blowing up my cloud alert SMS traffic to myself. So now I just record 6 cameras nonstop to files. I don't get the benefit alerts, but nothing much happens, and if it does, I have history recorded.
It was a fun project, I tried all kinds of codecs, cameras, languages, frameworks, hardware, etc. I even started out trying to do custom battery-powered wireless device using a raw Chinese MIPI CCDs and building my own WiFI station. I spent over 3 years on it, just to end up with your basic CCTV box. But it was fun!
At first I tried all kinds of methods to turn it on only when there was something interesting to avoid drowning in terabytes of data, detecting things like: cars, people, animals. I tried classical image processing methods, and tools like Motion, then tried similar image compression algs to find significant macroblocks; then I tried all types of methods in OpenCV; next came several neural nets with off-the-shelf YOLO/SSD object detection (using Google TFUs, Nvidia Jetsons), I even tried retraining the networks with my own tiny dataset.
In the end, everything sucked with too many false positives blowing up my cloud alert SMS traffic to myself. So now I just record 6 cameras nonstop to files. I don't get the benefit alerts, but nothing much happens, and if it does, I have history recorded.
It was a fun project, I tried all kinds of codecs, cameras, languages, frameworks, hardware, etc. I even started out trying to do custom battery-powered wireless device using a raw Chinese MIPI CCDs and building my own WiFI station. I spent over 3 years on it, just to end up with your basic CCTV box. But it was fun!
I wrote my own home automation controller. Recently I wired up a sump pump alarm I can monitor with it. In my car it also logs GPS and speed. It's very badly written though and I recommend against others using it, generally.
Realtime, full-resolution satellite imagery, globally.
https://satview.skysight.io
https://satview.skysight.io
From somebody else's design, a WWV/JYY repeater node with a copper loop antenna driven by HF gpio pin toggling on a rpi.
It's so I can NTP sync my Citizen radio controlled wristwatch which otherwise only gets time signal if I happen to be in Europe or some parts of Asia.
It's so I can NTP sync my Citizen radio controlled wristwatch which otherwise only gets time signal if I happen to be in Europe or some parts of Asia.
I am a teacher and built a tool to generate images of ten-frames (used in early elementary math education). I tried to package it up for other educators as well, but so far I'm the only user. :) It's online at https://10f.io
I don't like Reddit's UI for browsing subreddits that are mostly/entirely images, and I don't really like their gallery viewer either. I've always wanted something ultra-simple; just a grid of images and nothing else. So I built it:
https://griid.co/
I don't think anyone else really uses it, and I haven't promoted it at all. But I really enjoy using it.
https://griid.co/
I don't think anyone else really uses it, and I haven't promoted it at all. But I really enjoy using it.
Is it currently broken? It's not working for me.
not excessively impressive but I built a few fun webextensions that I had an itch for.
The ones I use daily or almost daily:
a simple, scanable tab manager that lists all the tabs over all your windows in one list. you can close tabs via middle clicking them and bring the tab you want into the forefront by clicking on it.
an extension that captures capslock and a/d to cycle focus from one tab to the left or right
an extension that opens up a folder of bookmarks a few bookmarks at a time via a right click menu option
an extension to change the speed of a youtube video by having - + buttons at the bottom of the page overlaid and also tells you the current speed of the video.
an extension that made a few quality of life tweaks to the apple development docs.
a theme extension that fits what i want the browser to look like.
I have some others but these are the most useful to me
In meatspace, I built a fan box that hangs at the top of my window facing out so it can take the hot air from the ceiling and push it out while a fan at the bottom of the window pushes cool outside air in.
The ones I use daily or almost daily:
a simple, scanable tab manager that lists all the tabs over all your windows in one list. you can close tabs via middle clicking them and bring the tab you want into the forefront by clicking on it.
an extension that captures capslock and a/d to cycle focus from one tab to the left or right
an extension that opens up a folder of bookmarks a few bookmarks at a time via a right click menu option
an extension to change the speed of a youtube video by having - + buttons at the bottom of the page overlaid and also tells you the current speed of the video.
an extension that made a few quality of life tweaks to the apple development docs.
a theme extension that fits what i want the browser to look like.
I have some others but these are the most useful to me
In meatspace, I built a fan box that hangs at the top of my window facing out so it can take the hot air from the ceiling and push it out while a fan at the bottom of the window pushes cool outside air in.
My MTG playgroup kept taking too long to play rounds because of indecision on which cards to play, and we consistently ran out of time part-way through games.
A proven solution to this problem already existed - chess clocks. However, those only work for two-player games, and we play games with the number of players ranging from 2 to 6.
So I made a little web app that's like a chess clock but supports several players rather than just 2. It's designed to be used on a phone and put between the players on the table. Your turn ends when you tap your clock. There's also a pause button for during combat so that you can't unfairly run down another player's time while deciding which creatures to block with. The KO button distributes a defeated player's remaining time amongst the players who are still in the game.
Made with 100% organic, home grown typescript. No React in sight.
https://mtg.viggers.net/
A proven solution to this problem already existed - chess clocks. However, those only work for two-player games, and we play games with the number of players ranging from 2 to 6.
So I made a little web app that's like a chess clock but supports several players rather than just 2. It's designed to be used on a phone and put between the players on the table. Your turn ends when you tap your clock. There's also a pause button for during combat so that you can't unfairly run down another player's time while deciding which creatures to block with. The KO button distributes a defeated player's remaining time amongst the players who are still in the game.
Made with 100% organic, home grown typescript. No React in sight.
https://mtg.viggers.net/
https://neighbs.us/
Really fucking dumb. Uses browser geolocation to tell me which neighborhood in San Francisco I'm currently standing in. Grabbed the lat/longs of each neighborhood from the SFData [0]. It works by plotting a circle representing your location + uncertainty and determining which of SF's 117 neighborhoods intersect with it. If your circle intersects with more than one neighborhood, it's smart enough to categorize them in order of certainty. It even automatically updates as you move, it's pretty fun to sit in an Uber and watch the neighborhood change as you move across the city. Learned a lot about polygon intersection algorithms, they're pretty amazing!
Built it a number of years ago when I moved here. Since it runs entirely in the browser, it's hosted for free on github pages and I don't need to maintain a server.
0 https://datasf.org/opendata/
Really fucking dumb. Uses browser geolocation to tell me which neighborhood in San Francisco I'm currently standing in. Grabbed the lat/longs of each neighborhood from the SFData [0]. It works by plotting a circle representing your location + uncertainty and determining which of SF's 117 neighborhoods intersect with it. If your circle intersects with more than one neighborhood, it's smart enough to categorize them in order of certainty. It even automatically updates as you move, it's pretty fun to sit in an Uber and watch the neighborhood change as you move across the city. Learned a lot about polygon intersection algorithms, they're pretty amazing!
Built it a number of years ago when I moved here. Since it runs entirely in the browser, it's hosted for free on github pages and I don't need to maintain a server.
0 https://datasf.org/opendata/
Small aside, I hate the concepts of neighborhoods. If someone tells me they’re from Highland, or Bakerson, or Rockwell, that means absolutely nothing to me. The boundaries are so arbitrary, and when I’m driving I don’t have any indication when I cross one or which one I’m in. I’d rather people just tell me they’re close to the intersection of Major St A and Big Road B. Or that they’re near the IKEA.
It’s especially frustrating on dating apps like Hinge which only show neighborhoods. Half the time I don’t even know if they live in the same city as me.
It’s especially frustrating on dating apps like Hinge which only show neighborhoods. Half the time I don’t even know if they live in the same city as me.
Usually I'd agree with you, but San Francisco is _really_ into its neighborhoods. Woe unto you if you say you're in Potrero Hill when you're in Dog Patch, or say you're in the Mission when you're on 12th street on the edge of SOMA. It's why I built the webapp, since as a new-comer I was finding myself on the receiving end of a lot of unwarranted ribbing over where exactly I was!
Oh, it definitely is (re: SF being into neighbourhoods)! Cool project.
Kudos on recognising “Fairmount” versus lobbing it in with Glen Park or Noe Valley. (I don’t /really/ have a complex about this - but the neighbourhood does have some interesting history!)
Kudos on recognising “Fairmount” versus lobbing it in with Glen Park or Noe Valley. (I don’t /really/ have a complex about this - but the neighbourhood does have some interesting history!)
But how does that work when you've never heard of Major St A or Big Road B? I know I don't know where all of the neighborhoods in my city are, but I know I've not heard of all of the major streets in my city.
In the 2000s I was addicted to Elisp and contributed a ton of OSS code including JDE, EDEE, and tons of other tools.
But... I had just a MASSIVE amount of code that was literally just for me.
Emacs basically became my OS.
Emacs allowed you to just eval code on the fly and the IDE would just adapt. No reload required. So if you wanted to do stupid stuff like make control+enter open the current URL at the cursor, you just write a three line script. Then you add it to your elisp on load.
... but mine got WAY out of hand. It was just mountains of code.
But... I had just a MASSIVE amount of code that was literally just for me.
Emacs basically became my OS.
Emacs allowed you to just eval code on the fly and the IDE would just adapt. No reload required. So if you wanted to do stupid stuff like make control+enter open the current URL at the cursor, you just write a three line script. Then you add it to your elisp on load.
... but mine got WAY out of hand. It was just mountains of code.
do you still use emacs?
Probably the backup and update system for my desktop.
All of my Linux boxes use btrfs as the filesystem.
I have some tools that makes snapshots of all the subvolumes I wish to keep backups of and does incremental transfers of them to my NAS. It will incrementally transfer any non-synced ones as well, so if you run make-snapshots multiple times without backing up, they'll all end up on my NAS eventually.
You can also have it create a writable snapshot out of the latest full snapshot so you can muck around with updates without breaking your current environment. It also updates the rEFInd configuration dynamically so you can boot into old snapshots if the one you're working on is broken. You can also have it spin up a VM to test as well.
I also wrote my own tiny dynamic DNS service I run on my blog's VPS so I can bind my home network's IP address to a domain name. It's just a tiny node.js app that acts an an authentication frontend to update a bind server's DNS config.
All of my Linux boxes use btrfs as the filesystem.
I have some tools that makes snapshots of all the subvolumes I wish to keep backups of and does incremental transfers of them to my NAS. It will incrementally transfer any non-synced ones as well, so if you run make-snapshots multiple times without backing up, they'll all end up on my NAS eventually.
You can also have it create a writable snapshot out of the latest full snapshot so you can muck around with updates without breaking your current environment. It also updates the rEFInd configuration dynamically so you can boot into old snapshots if the one you're working on is broken. You can also have it spin up a VM to test as well.
I also wrote my own tiny dynamic DNS service I run on my blog's VPS so I can bind my home network's IP address to a domain name. It's just a tiny node.js app that acts an an authentication frontend to update a bind server's DNS config.
I wrote some js to take a textfile list of events with start/end dates and lay them out on a timeline. Nothing fancy, just a way to visualise time using a simple, human-readable and -writeable text file as the source.
I hobbled together a software implementation of a half-QWERTY keyboard after a serious bike accident which left me unable to type with my left hand for over a month. The hardware solutions were (probably still are?) patented and we’re expensive to my then-very-broke self, so I learned enough ObjC and enough about the underlying keyboard mapping design to ~replicate the functionality in software on my Mac (right hand only until I could start actually using it), and then enough more ObjC to relaunch the thing whenever it crashed (fairly frequently, presumably from memory management issues I wasn’t trying to to deep dive at the time). I really wanted to open source it but it was just a life hack to keep working and I definitely didn’t want to also do a deep dive into the patent litigation risks.
There's a company (Matias?) that makes one-handed keyboards. When I bought one on a lark, 20 years ago, it was maybe $80. I checked back years later and they were $600, and had all sorts of marketing materials about disability accommodations qualification. My guess is that they realized that there was a way to get their product purchased by HR departments, and that such purchasers would be very cost-insensitive. So they 7x'd their price.
They were at least one of the patent owners. One of many things that soured me on the company (the rest being a series of more mainstream keyboards which deteriorated to become unusable, the last one I broke to bits when I finally gave up on it). And yeah when I had my accident it was north of $500 for the half QWERTY model, which was more than my rent at the time. The rest of their keyboards were retailing around $150.
http://whenisgoldenhour.com .. tech isn't particularly interesting, but it gets a decent bit of usage. Does a geoip lookup to tell you the golden hour time range for today. Inspired by my photography habit.
I made a python script / notebook to scrape a reddit thread on music, send all the comments to ChatGPT with a prompt like 'extract all the songs to CSV' and then upload to a Spotify playlist. probably high school level these days but it was amusing. https://github.com/druce/reddit_prettiest_songs
I built an opinionated RSS/website reader - https://lenns.io. Everyone can register and use it, but it's built based on my requirements and vision only. Yet, I believe it could be useful to others, and that's why I made it open for everyone to use.
Not really high tech, built a countdown timer with a calculator UI for quick and precise entry say 1m25s. For the Apple Watch. Used mostly for coookign but it’s great if I need it quick. Also built my own music app to listen to music the way I like it
My laptop picked up three extra cameras on folding sticks[1] for tracking? For MediaPipe hand pose. And chopstick wands (could be held while typing) with barber-pole marker for rotation, a small Xmas half-ornament to glide over keys for keyboard-as-graphics-tablet, and an unfinished arduino pressure sensor. Face pose, low-precision gaze and higher-precision head pointing with markers on glasses. Long-thin curved mirror bar at top of keyboard to get keyboard-as-touchpad touch events from the keyboard cam. Shallow-3D UI using eye-tracked perspective, anaglyph, or arduino LCD-shutters. I was interested in software dev inside aphysical XR, to extend rather than replace existing mature laptop dev tooling. Diverse input latencies interestingly required complex event processing and backtrackable ui state. Lenovo "portable workstation" fans would crank high just from the input handling, before 3D apps even started. Battery life under half-an-hour. But... it was oddly the flop-up cameras which most gave me joy.
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERqCfdkX0AEWTN_?format=jpg&name=...
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ERqCfdkX0AEWTN_?format=jpg&name=...
This sounds interesting, but for the life of me I can't figure out what your project actually is.
You unpack your new laptop. With a nice ThinkPad keyboard, that's also a multitouch surface and stylus graphics tablet. Hand and stylus pose are tracked on, above, and to the sides of the laptop surface. Head and gaze are tracked. Mouth noises and speech-to-text are available. The screen is a 3D one. Your AR glasses are plug-and-play.
So, your human interface is no longer a 1970's Xerox Alto. It's time to update your dot-emacs file. What might you're new software development environment look like?
Project wise, objective was to get me that laptop, usable for daily work, and start exploring aphysical-not-VR shallow-3D ergonimicly-small-motion graphic-artist-like UX for software dev. It was basically a lot of software and hardware spikes. Python juggling lots of optical tracking, and an electron udev-to-3D-window-manager stack. Arduino bits. Laptop and body barnacles. Getting from first-lights to borderline-usables was being a slog, and then covid clipped the in-person communities which was keeping it motivated. Maybe I'll get back to it someday. Status quo seems unlikely to state change any year soon. Though it will be nice to have way more GPU and usb bandwidth, 4K cameras, less-noisy hand-pose ML, better AR glasses, maybe a real 3D panel or at least gaming latency for the LCD shutters.
So, your human interface is no longer a 1970's Xerox Alto. It's time to update your dot-emacs file. What might you're new software development environment look like?
Project wise, objective was to get me that laptop, usable for daily work, and start exploring aphysical-not-VR shallow-3D ergonimicly-small-motion graphic-artist-like UX for software dev. It was basically a lot of software and hardware spikes. Python juggling lots of optical tracking, and an electron udev-to-3D-window-manager stack. Arduino bits. Laptop and body barnacles. Getting from first-lights to borderline-usables was being a slog, and then covid clipped the in-person communities which was keeping it motivated. Maybe I'll get back to it someday. Status quo seems unlikely to state change any year soon. Though it will be nice to have way more GPU and usb bandwidth, 4K cameras, less-noisy hand-pose ML, better AR glasses, maybe a real 3D panel or at least gaming latency for the LCD shutters.
I dropped acid one time and turned a coffee grinder and an arduino into a system that opens my front door. I showed it to my friends but they laughed at me. But it worked, so I don’t give a shit.
Not so interesting but continuously useful for me as a learning aid: A compass rose showing the opposite bearing of a given bearing; the back azimuth.
Useful to head back the way you came, or tell someone you see in the distance roughly where to head to meet you, in both real and virtual worlds.
https://hypertexthero.com/compass-rose-back-azimuth/
Useful to head back the way you came, or tell someone you see in the distance roughly where to head to meet you, in both real and virtual worlds.
https://hypertexthero.com/compass-rose-back-azimuth/
I live on the flight path of a busy airport (Toronto) and have always wondered what type of aircrafts they are as they fly above me.
So, I made a "Plane Above Me" app that listens to airplane sound. Once detected, it polls data from flight APIs and read out the flight info and aircraft data.
In other words, it's my little "Flight Announcer".
https://evergreen-labs.com/PlaneAboveMe.html
So, I made a "Plane Above Me" app that listens to airplane sound. Once detected, it polls data from flight APIs and read out the flight info and aircraft data.
In other words, it's my little "Flight Announcer".
https://evergreen-labs.com/PlaneAboveMe.html
I bookmark this page and load it whenever something starts circling/passing overhead:
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?SiteLat=##.####&SiteLon=##.#...
Regular plane noise is a regular thing where I live - I'm right under one of the regular flight-paths for a nearby very busy airport and very close to another busy airport.
One idea I've had for a while is to take my eInk raspberry-pi accessory and poll this data and have a constantly updating "what's overhead" display.
https://globe.adsbexchange.com/?SiteLat=##.####&SiteLon=##.#...
Regular plane noise is a regular thing where I live - I'm right under one of the regular flight-paths for a nearby very busy airport and very close to another busy airport.
One idea I've had for a while is to take my eInk raspberry-pi accessory and poll this data and have a constantly updating "what's overhead" display.
Nice... That would be a great conversation starter at home... feel free to reach out if you put the idea in motion!
This thread inspired me to pull out the display and finally tinker with it - and then I realized how expensive the APIs are for this data - especially if trying to do a "constant updating" style approach like you'd want for this idea.
It makes sense you listen for the sound of a plane / wait for a button press before making the call!
Seems like this would be best done with a receiver and monitoring that directly and/or exchanging the radio logging for API access.
It makes sense you listen for the sound of a plane / wait for a button press before making the call!
Seems like this would be best done with a receiver and monitoring that directly and/or exchanging the radio logging for API access.
Sounds do-able. Radio available on the web too. https://www.liveatc.net/
Another cool way to do this would be an ADS-B receiver on your roof. They're about $30-40, and when paired with a Raspberry Pi, a waterproof box, and free software[0] they work really well. Plus, you get a free subscription to a lot of flight tracking services like FR24.
[0]: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
[0]: https://flightaware.com/adsb/piaware/
Can it measure intensity?
I grew up under a flight path, and now live... under another flight path. Luckily this one is used almost exclusively to land (much quieter) but my parents are still under a takeoff one. All airlines are supposed to follow certain rules to minimize noise, but many just flaunt them. Local authorities own the airport, so their interest in monitoring infractions is... very low.
Having an app that could detect and categorize bad actors, would be pretty cool.
I grew up under a flight path, and now live... under another flight path. Luckily this one is used almost exclusively to land (much quieter) but my parents are still under a takeoff one. All airlines are supposed to follow certain rules to minimize noise, but many just flaunt them. Local authorities own the airport, so their interest in monitoring infractions is... very low.
Having an app that could detect and categorize bad actors, would be pretty cool.
Not at the moment, but it would be easy to add.
If your parents use iPhone or iPad, I am happy to add an intensity label and/or a filter for them so it would display/read out those that are over certain thresholds.
If your parents use iPhone or iPad, I am happy to add an intensity label and/or a filter for them so it would display/read out those that are over certain thresholds.
I’m almost certain I heard about a similar project years ago that would automatically file complaints and fine the offending airlines when they were too loud/flying too low.
Could you tune in to the radio transmissions?
Not right now, it's do-able as the streams are online. (could use that instead of listening to airplane sound)
British Airways had a famous advertising campaign that did something similar. If I remember correctly they used a digital billboard somewhere in London that showed a little boy pointing to the sky. The text refreshed throughout the day to display the details of the flight passing overhead.
Ah neat. I'd forgotten I did something like this a few years back using an ADSB receiver on my roof, and integrated it into a Pi-powered digital clock. https://www.behance.net/gallery/42580099/Pi-Clock
It's abandonware now, because it was a PITA to get the flight data from behind a clunky paywall, and an Echo Show could do voice-driven stuff more easily. Maybe I could revisit it now and put it into an e-ink display instead, and use Flightaware or FR24 API...
It's abandonware now, because it was a PITA to get the flight data from behind a clunky paywall, and an Echo Show could do voice-driven stuff more easily. Maybe I could revisit it now and put it into an e-ink display instead, and use Flightaware or FR24 API...
I wanted to practice with leetcode. Resetting the solution wasn't available as short cut key. So created a tampermonkey script to help me reset and redo the problem. Helps me a bit.
After I got fired from twitter in 2015, I was having some remorse, dissatisfaction and sense of failure, opportunity lost. I wrote a browser extension, https://github.com/orsenthil/fortune-browser-extension that will good quotes I had collected and help me focus.
I still go by that maxim. "There are far far better things ahead than any we leave behind. C.S. Lewis" and want to share this with anyone was let go by bad leaders in the tech layoffs.
After I got fired from twitter in 2015, I was having some remorse, dissatisfaction and sense of failure, opportunity lost. I wrote a browser extension, https://github.com/orsenthil/fortune-browser-extension that will good quotes I had collected and help me focus.
I still go by that maxim. "There are far far better things ahead than any we leave behind. C.S. Lewis" and want to share this with anyone was let go by bad leaders in the tech layoffs.
Built it for me, but available to all -- Zillion: a python data modeling and analytics library.
https://github.com/totalhack/zillion
https://github.com/totalhack/zillion
Maybe lame by HN standards but I wrote a Chrome extension to tell me if Redfin, Zillow, and Loopnet listings are in a designated HUBZone.
I don't know about the most interesting thing I built ever, but I am pleasantly surprised with the utility and usefulness I am getting out of https://jarvis.tel.
I built it to scratch my own itch: I wanted a way to use AI on the go the way I talk to people (via text messages) and wanted a way to quickly show off AI to the uninitiated (friends and family who have never seen or used or understand AI).
I built it to scratch my own itch: I wanted a way to use AI on the go the way I talk to people (via text messages) and wanted a way to quickly show off AI to the uninitiated (friends and family who have never seen or used or understand AI).
I built a device out of a large copper block interfacing with a matrix of water cooled TEC on one side to cool the block and a TEC tower on the other, with the top of the TEC tower opening into an insulated chamber. The chamber has a valve to a CO2 canister. It’s able to make dry ice without any adiabatic cooling. I 3D printed the entire insulated enclosure using Build123D (a parametric python CAD library). I’ve always been fascinating the using non mechanical systems for all sorts of tasks, in this case transferring large amounts of heat. It’s a pretty inefficient way to do things; and I did cheat by having a mechanical pump moving the water cooling into a heat exchanger with fans. The amounts of dry ice are also very small. My favorite bit was the large pure copper block acting as a large efficient thermal mass in the middle of the system.
My grandmother has dementia. About twice a day, she calls my parents every 5 minutes, forgetting that she just hung up. The calls are always the same: "You live there now. Yes you have money. We came to visit you yesterday." This can go on for an hour or so.
My parents are incredibly patient, but after a couple of these calls, they'll just leave the phone to ring. The soundtrack of the phone constantly ringing in the house, and the guilt associated with not picking up, is unbearable.
My brother and I built a system where her calls get re-routed to a rotation of relatives to answer her calls, to spread the load. After a call with her, each person gets a 2 hour break (customizable). If no one is available to answer, or if everyone is on break, she gets a voicemail that my dad recorded that explains that we love her, that she lives there, all the usual stuff.
It's working beautifully.
My parents are incredibly patient, but after a couple of these calls, they'll just leave the phone to ring. The soundtrack of the phone constantly ringing in the house, and the guilt associated with not picking up, is unbearable.
My brother and I built a system where her calls get re-routed to a rotation of relatives to answer her calls, to spread the load. After a call with her, each person gets a 2 hour break (customizable). If no one is available to answer, or if everyone is on break, she gets a voicemail that my dad recorded that explains that we love her, that she lives there, all the usual stuff.
It's working beautifully.
How did you do this
Probably twilio
how can you use Twilio to reroute a call to your phone number?
Either route all calls from that callerid to your twilio number, port your own phone number to twilio and route all other calls to your new number, or what I would do: replace my mom's phone with an ATA and setup a dialplan for how to route calls to the child's number.
Yep, that's pretty much spot on :D
I never knew about ATA's! I think would have solved things a little more elegantly. Thanks!
I never knew about ATA's! I think would have solved things a little more elegantly. Thanks!
Many phone providers actually offer what they call “Selective Call Forwarding”, which allow you to set up a limited number of basic routing rules to forward calls coming from specific numbers.
pigcat's brother here :)
In our case, my grandmother always calls my parents home phone number. The phone provider only offers simple call forwarding, so we route all calls to the home phone over to a Twilio number. We have a very simple Twilio Studio flow that routes calls from my grandmother's phone number to the call handler script we created, and all other calls are routed to my dad's cell phone number: https://share.cleanshot.com/ywwhzJ8H
We are a little lucky in that we can forward calls from our landline to a cell phone. If your relative is calling you directly on your cell phone, your carrier would need to offer selective forwarding for this strategy to work
In our case, my grandmother always calls my parents home phone number. The phone provider only offers simple call forwarding, so we route all calls to the home phone over to a Twilio number. We have a very simple Twilio Studio flow that routes calls from my grandmother's phone number to the call handler script we created, and all other calls are routed to my dad's cell phone number: https://share.cleanshot.com/ywwhzJ8H
We are a little lucky in that we can forward calls from our landline to a cell phone. If your relative is calling you directly on your cell phone, your carrier would need to offer selective forwarding for this strategy to work
on android you can use tasker to automate this: http://tasker.wikidot.com/call-forwarding . I think IOS has a shortcut that does the same.
In our case it was a landline, but yeah something like this would work if it was mobile!
There are many ways to do this. Asterisk and a rented VoIP line, a hosted PBX service you just rent and transfer your line to, a 'Web 2.0' variation of the same (like Twilio), or even a programmable desk phone.
We use a custom twilio number, some rerouting logic (which is easily configured in twilio), and an api endpoint to determine the next relative that will answer. There is also a minimal frontend to configure things like who is on the roster, their break times, a place to upload a recording, and see call logs.
These are the steps we took:
1. Get a twilio number
2. All incoming phone calls to the home phone are redirected to that twilio number [1]
3. If incoming number == grandma, request from an api endpoint the next relative to dial. Redirect her call to them.
4. If no one is available, play the voice mail
5. If incoming number != grandma, redirect the call to dad's mobile number [2]
[1] A child comment by macNchz noted correctly about "Selective Call Forwarding". This would have simplified the process and we could have skipped step 5, but our telephone provider did not offer it.
[2] Note that this is a bit of a compromise in the setup. The home phone never rings anymore and all non-grandma calls go to dad's cell. But they were happy to accept this.
These are the steps we took:
1. Get a twilio number
2. All incoming phone calls to the home phone are redirected to that twilio number [1]
3. If incoming number == grandma, request from an api endpoint the next relative to dial. Redirect her call to them.
4. If no one is available, play the voice mail
5. If incoming number != grandma, redirect the call to dad's mobile number [2]
[1] A child comment by macNchz noted correctly about "Selective Call Forwarding". This would have simplified the process and we could have skipped step 5, but our telephone provider did not offer it.
[2] Note that this is a bit of a compromise in the setup. The home phone never rings anymore and all non-grandma calls go to dad's cell. But they were happy to accept this.
That's a fantastic idea.
Incredible use of technology! Caregiver overload is so common.
This is beautiful, I wonder if there is a way to make it avaliable to more people. Not even as a business - I just imagine it would help a lot of families in similar situations.
Thanks! My brother and I are quite touched by the reaction in this thread. I will see what I can do about this - if not as a product, then by sharing a little more about what we have done and how it has worked so far
But what did you use?
Hi unixhero! We forward all calls to our home number to a Twilio number. We then use Twilio studio to forward calls from my grandmother to a web-based call handler that we created, and all other calls are forwarded to my dad's cell phone. I pasted an image of the twilio flow in another comment if you are curious!
Twilio, ah cool. Seems like something I too could make use of :)
I didn’t see in your profile any way to contact you directly, so this comment. Can you send me an email (address in my profile)? I would like to learn more about your setup and challenges you encountered.
I am actually a volunteer at a non-profit in Japan. The NPO provides very similar service using volunteers for elderly people. I have been looking into automating some of the call handling/routing, personalization, and increasing family participation.
I am actually a volunteer at a non-profit in Japan. The NPO provides very similar service using volunteers for elderly people. I have been looking into automating some of the call handling/routing, personalization, and increasing family participation.
Sent you an email :)
Can't you get AI to answer the calls and have these conversations using your voice?
The prerecorded message seems sufficient for that use case. If I had a relative in that situation, I'd want her to be able to talk to a human - it might be an actual emergency or problem, but even if not...
Right. My brother and I discussed this out of curiosity and you're spot on. Prerecorded message is sufficient, and AI introduces too many wildcards.
But the biggest reason is that ethically, it somehow seems very wrong to trick my grandma that way.
Not sure why parent comment is getting downvoted though, it's certainly an interesting idea.
But the biggest reason is that ethically, it somehow seems very wrong to trick my grandma that way.
Not sure why parent comment is getting downvoted though, it's certainly an interesting idea.
As my brother said, this is a really tricky area for us to explore for non-technical reasons. We go back and fourth on this, as I do believe my grandmother's quality of life would improve dramatically if this could be done well. For now, we've decided not to explore this, but I think it makes more sense to build personalized AI assistants for people who do not yet have dementia but who are concerned they may in the future
"The soundtrack of the phone constantly ringing in the house, and the guilt associated with not picking up, is unbearable."
Hit me right in the feels.
Thanks for sharing pigcat. Beautiful problem solving.
Hit me right in the feels.
Thanks for sharing pigcat. Beautiful problem solving.
Why not just have the voicemail be the default. Every 2 hours is absolutely ridiculous.
It's his grandmother, not some random person from the street. Not at all ridiculous, especially with larger family sizes.
I would have loved to have that (or even thought up of that) when my grandmother began developing signs of dementia. Fortunately, her signs weren't that bad before she passed away ultimately.
I would have loved to have that (or even thought up of that) when my grandmother began developing signs of dementia. Fortunately, her signs weren't that bad before she passed away ultimately.
Wow how generous you and your brother are. Your family is so incredibly lucky to have you both.
That'll do, pigcat. That'll do.
nice work.
This is true problem solving.
Thanks :)
Thanks :)
If you love her so much why don't you let her live by your side.
I guess hn is known for “why don’t you just” comments but this one really takes the cake.
I love how it's a guy named heroku. So unbelievably apathetic.... like Heroku is to its userbase.
How did you route her calls?
You can use Astrisk (and a PSTN to SIP gateway): https://www.asterisk.org/
It's also possible to use Twilio with their GUI "studio" to create this entire flow. I've used it as call recording system for when I need to record outgoing calls and it's worked wonderfully (and was easy to set up).
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yaycorn.com texts me 2 week warnings for upcoming birthdays. SMS as a CLI is underused IMO
My son is an English language learner in high school, and this is the first year he is in the standard English class instead of English for ELLs. His class is reading Into the Wild and it's a bit beyond his current reading comprehension level, so I used GPT-3.5 to build an annotated version for him to read. Less common English language words can be clicked on to hear the pronunciation and see the definition in Spanish, and every few paragraphs, there is a summary in Spanish. I had GPT-4 do the web design for me.
https://isaiah.st/john/ez/into-the-wild/authors-note.html
https://isaiah.st/john/ez/into-the-wild/authors-note.html
This is super cool. These things are so new and I'm already seeing so many cool things with them
This is nice, but be aware that GPT doesn't explain words in the correct context. For example, in chapter one:
> Gallien steered his truck onto the shoulder
Here, "shoulder" is explained in Spanish as parte del cuerpo humano que conecta el brazo con el torso. I'm pretty sure the English sentence doesn't imply that the truck driver drove his truck over the hitchhiker's shoulder.
> Gallien steered his truck onto the shoulder
Here, "shoulder" is explained in Spanish as parte del cuerpo humano que conecta el brazo con el torso. I'm pretty sure the English sentence doesn't imply that the truck driver drove his truck over the hitchhiker's shoulder.
Small scale stuff but I've wanted context sensitive snippets in my editor for a while now and i was able to make it work recently with treesitter and ultisnips in neovim.
I spend a lot of time listening to music, so I built my own music player for my large collection of MP3s. I'm not a big fan of streaming and could never find a player that did all the things I wanted, so I figured it'd be best to build my own using Web technologies. It's been fun adding each feature -- automatic playlists with intricate rules, some smart shuffle features, stats, tag management, displaying waveforms, syncing with my phone, etc. -- and I've learned a lot on the way. I've also fine-tuned the UX to my personal preference. It helps when you only have to worry about the exact set of features that you want!
12 years ago my wife had 4 strokes, barely lived, was in a coma, etc.
After lots of rehab she came home, but was paralyzed on left side, couldn't speak, couldn't hold a pen to write. Our communication technique was having her point to letters or phrases on a piece of paper.
I wrote a typing program back then that would accept as input any USB joystick for selecting letters/phrases and then text to speech on button press. Not terribly complicated, but also better than anything I could find at the time.
After lots of rehab she came home, but was paralyzed on left side, couldn't speak, couldn't hold a pen to write. Our communication technique was having her point to letters or phrases on a piece of paper.
I wrote a typing program back then that would accept as input any USB joystick for selecting letters/phrases and then text to speech on button press. Not terribly complicated, but also better than anything I could find at the time.
I had a family member who couldn’t speak, but could cognitively process, and it was palpably frustrating for them. I wish I thought of something clever like that. Really curious if you ever updated your system?
Not necessarily only for myself, but I've been using my own terminal CLI to browse and comment on HN (yes, including this comment):
https://github.com/Aperocky/hnterminal
You can also get it via `pip install hnterminal`
https://github.com/Aperocky/hnterminal
You can also get it via `pip install hnterminal`
Add to it, it's especially good for threads like these since I can control the depth of the DFS via arguments to only look at the first level comments.
I built a thing that’s similar to supabase realtime or firebase, but for DynamoDB. It reads the DynamoDB kinesis stream and broadcasts the changes over Phoenix pubsub via a websocket connection, directly to the client.
I'm working on an app to browse a codebase as a list of constructs — classes, methods, etc. It matches how I think about code: as a database of named entities, in which the implementation is often an afterthought — unlike text editors, in which constructs of various types, along with their implementation, all kind of look the same. It's still a very early project, but here's a short recording of some of what I've built so far[^0]. It's been a great way to learn SwiftUI, the Language Server Protocol, and FSEvents as well!
[^0]: https://twitter.com/tanagram_/status/1652164856563507200
[^0]: https://twitter.com/tanagram_/status/1652164856563507200
I made a vertical mouse for my wrist pain with tons of macro buttons... https://youtu.be/NjJaXvkDHfI
When Teslas were hot, it was really hard to buy one in my area, it involved using the search function on the Tesla website, inputting my zipcode and waiting every few hours until new cars are out. I basically made a script that texts me if there’s new car with the configuration I want with a link to the buy page so I can buy it immediately.
We got solar powered string lights for our balcony. The solar panel only came with a spike to stick in the dirt. Since we are several stories up that didn't really work and we didn't want to just tape it to the railing. The part that connected to the spike was a little circular bit with a couple holes for screws so I designed a little mount for it in CAD and 3D printed it and so far it works great. It fits the railing and the solar panel perfectly.
I homelab and my hypervisor is a Proxmox installstion. I marvel at it every time I use it.
Https://www.Proxmox.com
I have Hewlett Packard Z840 machines as nodes, they are awesome.
Https://www.Proxmox.com
I have Hewlett Packard Z840 machines as nodes, they are awesome.
I wrote a JS bookmark that lets me jump to the next top-level comment on HN. I use it for finding interesting conversions without having to scroll and look for the next top-level comment.
It works by finding all of the comments with indent=="0". Then, each time the bookmark is clicked, it creates and follows a link. Each comment has a unique id so I just have to concatenate current_url + "#" + unique_id and follow that link.
Once the script reaches the bottom, it follows the "more comments" link and repeats the same process.
I plan to write something similar for Reddit
It works by finding all of the comments with indent=="0". Then, each time the bookmark is clicked, it creates and follows a link. Each comment has a unique id so I just have to concatenate current_url + "#" + unique_id and follow that link.
Once the script reaches the bottom, it follows the "more comments" link and repeats the same process.
I plan to write something similar for Reddit
Hi, Can you share the same please ? I was planning on writing a browser extension that lists the top level comments for big threads like these.
Are you aware that there's already a "next" link on every comment, that does exactly that? Or am I misunderstanding you?
My parents have a door in their kitchen that is right next to two ovens and a drawer. When the ovens or drawer are open, then someone opening the kitchen door would smash it into the opened oven or drawer, damaging both sides. I built an interlock system that detects when the ovens or drawer are open, and engages an electromagnetic lock to prevent the kitchen door from being opened. It unlocks as soon as the ovens and drawer are closed.
The open/closed detectors for the drawer and one of the ovens use Hall effect sensors with neodymium magnets. I found a very thin, but very strong magnet (gold-plated for corrosion resistance) that I adhered to the glass on the oven door with Kapton tape (on the bezel, outside of the hot part). I also built a 3D-printed housing for the sensor on the back of the oven frame opposite it.
Due to physical constraints, it wasn't possible to put a Hall effect sensor on the other oven. Instead, I reverse-engineered the oven's control board, found the exact (somewhat obscure) wiring connectors that the oven uses, and made a passthrough sensor that MITMs two of the wiring harnesses (one for signal, one for power). It uses a MOSFET to amplify a signal that my custom control board uses to sense when the oven's own door open/closed switch is engaged. It also uses an optocoupler so that the oven and the rest of the system are electrically isolated. I was surprised that the oven uses the duty cycle of a PWM signal (instead of just a simple on/off signal) to represent whether the oven door is open or closed.
There's also a push button switch next to the door to disengage the system. It's fail-safe, in that there are no electronics or software involved. It's a simple electrical disconnection of the power that goes to the door lock. The lock itself is fail-safe, too: it's an electromagnetic lock (rather than one with a physical bolt or latch), so if power goes out, it's guaranteed to disengage.
The brains of the operation is a custom control board with an off-the-shelf Arduino nano soldered onto it. I could have put all of the Arduino components directly onto the board, but it was easier to use a pre-fabbed Arduino and just design the custom parts.
I ran CAT5 to most of the sensors, but used some heavier 18 AWG wire for the lock, since it needs to handle more current. I used JST XH connectors for most things, but larger XT30U for higher-current components.
A few other things I'm proud of:
- All of this was non-invasive to the ovens. I didn't drill any holes or cut any wires.
- I designed some custom PCBs for this (my first time) using Kicad (Phil's Lab on YouTube is great!) and had them fabbed and partially SMT-assembled at JLCPCB. They turned out great. Pretty amazing compared to when I had some boards fabbed locally 20+ years ago. Turnaround time, quality, price, and general experience are loads better than they used to be.
- I taught myself CAD and 3D-printed enclosures for the electronics and sensors. I used OnShape, which has a semi-hidden version that's free for personal use, as long as you make your designs public.
- I taught myself surface-mount electronic assembly for this project. It was easier than I expected.
- The push button on the wall has an RGB LED in it that shows status. It also allows the system to be disabled temporarily for 5 minutes by long-pressing it.
- Given that some of the electronics will be installed in or near an oven, I took care to characterize the thermal environment and respect the thermal constraints for all of the components I used.
- I put a temperature sensor in the electronics in the oven, and if the electronics ever get too hot, it will indicate overheating via the LED that's in the pushbutton switch on the wall. (I checked the temperature in the sensor location while the oven was running before installation, so this is just a precaution. It hasn't ever overheated.)
- The control board enclosure has a laser-printed label on its face that marks the ports for all of the sensors, actuators, and power connections.
- The whole system is basically invisible except for the button and the electromagnetic switch.
This whole project is a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine, but it was really fun to do the design, hardware, software, and physical assembly. It turned out really well, and has been working great for a few years now.
The open/closed detectors for the drawer and one of the ovens use Hall effect sensors with neodymium magnets. I found a very thin, but very strong magnet (gold-plated for corrosion resistance) that I adhered to the glass on the oven door with Kapton tape (on the bezel, outside of the hot part). I also built a 3D-printed housing for the sensor on the back of the oven frame opposite it.
Due to physical constraints, it wasn't possible to put a Hall effect sensor on the other oven. Instead, I reverse-engineered the oven's control board, found the exact (somewhat obscure) wiring connectors that the oven uses, and made a passthrough sensor that MITMs two of the wiring harnesses (one for signal, one for power). It uses a MOSFET to amplify a signal that my custom control board uses to sense when the oven's own door open/closed switch is engaged. It also uses an optocoupler so that the oven and the rest of the system are electrically isolated. I was surprised that the oven uses the duty cycle of a PWM signal (instead of just a simple on/off signal) to represent whether the oven door is open or closed.
There's also a push button switch next to the door to disengage the system. It's fail-safe, in that there are no electronics or software involved. It's a simple electrical disconnection of the power that goes to the door lock. The lock itself is fail-safe, too: it's an electromagnetic lock (rather than one with a physical bolt or latch), so if power goes out, it's guaranteed to disengage.
The brains of the operation is a custom control board with an off-the-shelf Arduino nano soldered onto it. I could have put all of the Arduino components directly onto the board, but it was easier to use a pre-fabbed Arduino and just design the custom parts.
I ran CAT5 to most of the sensors, but used some heavier 18 AWG wire for the lock, since it needs to handle more current. I used JST XH connectors for most things, but larger XT30U for higher-current components.
A few other things I'm proud of:
- All of this was non-invasive to the ovens. I didn't drill any holes or cut any wires.
- I designed some custom PCBs for this (my first time) using Kicad (Phil's Lab on YouTube is great!) and had them fabbed and partially SMT-assembled at JLCPCB. They turned out great. Pretty amazing compared to when I had some boards fabbed locally 20+ years ago. Turnaround time, quality, price, and general experience are loads better than they used to be.
- I taught myself CAD and 3D-printed enclosures for the electronics and sensors. I used OnShape, which has a semi-hidden version that's free for personal use, as long as you make your designs public.
- I taught myself surface-mount electronic assembly for this project. It was easier than I expected.
- The push button on the wall has an RGB LED in it that shows status. It also allows the system to be disabled temporarily for 5 minutes by long-pressing it.
- Given that some of the electronics will be installed in or near an oven, I took care to characterize the thermal environment and respect the thermal constraints for all of the components I used.
- I put a temperature sensor in the electronics in the oven, and if the electronics ever get too hot, it will indicate overheating via the LED that's in the pushbutton switch on the wall. (I checked the temperature in the sensor location while the oven was running before installation, so this is just a precaution. It hasn't ever overheated.)
- The control board enclosure has a laser-printed label on its face that marks the ports for all of the sensors, actuators, and power connections.
- The whole system is basically invisible except for the button and the electromagnetic switch.
This whole project is a bit of a Rube Goldberg machine, but it was really fun to do the design, hardware, software, and physical assembly. It turned out really well, and has been working great for a few years now.
In a long distance relationship for almost 4 years now. We started dating just few months before COVID hit and lockdowns announced. That's when we discovered Zoom. We used Zoom as a way to keep connected. Initially it was great. We could keep the connection up for hours on end. However, Zoom started restricting time limits on free accounts (which meant we had to reconnect every 40 minutes or so). We tried different apps to see which works best but there were none that matched Zoom's quality or features (I specifically wanted PiP mode as I could keep working while being connected). So decided to code up my own barebones WebRTC app, hosted on Codesandbox, which uses Peerjs to establish connections. Video/audio streamed to HTML Canvas. With Pip mode. Extremely simple and barebones app. Been going good for almost a year now.
A few years ago, before the rate limits on Google maps, I wrote a script that analyzed my commutes. Per week it produced a standard deviation of the travel time for every departure time. The result was a nice graph showing peaks of traffic.
I dodged quite a few traffic jams using those graphs.
I tried to implement the TCP/IP protocol of internet from scratch + radio transceiver
https://kyle.af/internet-from-scratch
https://kyle.af/internet-from-scratch
I wrote an AppleScript and cron-ish schedule to automatically archive anything on my desktop or downloads folder. It checks once an hour, and if there is anything there that is over a day old, and not tagged, it creates a folder in an archives folder, named for the date and time, and moves the items there. So I always have a clean desktop and downloads folder (and later I modified it to organize my documents folder).
I wrote it up a long time ago. I need to clean it up, but you can probably figure it out from here: https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-des...
I wrote it up a long time ago. I need to clean it up, but you can probably figure it out from here: https://gcanyon.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/keeping-a-clean-des...
You might be interested in https://GitHub.com/maid/maid
I wrote a Python script which checks the version of every programming language, JDK etc. on my Mac then scrapes the website of each language to compare it with the latest version. Simple but a great time-saver.
I made a chrome extension[0] to search MDN from address bar more than a decade back. It served me well and has since picked up a loyal set of users. I'm glad it is helping new developers as they venture onto the journey I really enjoyed my time with.
[0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ffpifaemeofjmncjdb...
[0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ffpifaemeofjmncjdb...
Back in the day, access to the Internet was very expensive in my locality. We only had mobile data with max 20GB per month, and after that - 7KB/s unlimited for ~20% of average local salary. Having no job, it was very hard to pay that amount for the Internet, so I came up with a solution. I have set up a cloud server for 10$/month, got couple of SIM cards with that internet plan, and started developing a Linux tunnel program, which would join bandwidth of multiple interfaces into one by directing packets to my server. The server then forwards the packets further. I hadn't used it for long but it was very fun and satisfying to do it.
I currently live in a place in which at 4:30am ~ 5am a mosque speaker loudly blares through my closed window, through earplugs, and wakes me up.
I built a white noise generator on a timer, which starts up a little while before the expected disturbance, plays through it, then stops a little while after.
I built a white noise generator on a timer, which starts up a little while before the expected disturbance, plays through it, then stops a little while after.
Maybe (if the current solution is not enough) ise the window glass ass a speaker, put a outside and play a negative sound of the mic capture through the window glass...
I built a starter template "create-rpc" [1] to help my freelancer friends to easily setup RPC API for Typescript projects.
The core is powered by meta-programming, aka code that further generates code.
It auto generate typed client SDK with named types for API input and output. And it comes with JWT integrated out of the box.
Compared to traditional untyped restful API over http, it helps developer to prototype and evolve the application with inferred type hint.
Upcoming improvement will be runtime type checking with cast.ts [2] or ts-type-check [3]
[1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/create-rpc
[2] https://www.npmjs.com/package/cast.ts
[3] https://www.npmjs.com/package/ts-type-check
The core is powered by meta-programming, aka code that further generates code.
It auto generate typed client SDK with named types for API input and output. And it comes with JWT integrated out of the box.
Compared to traditional untyped restful API over http, it helps developer to prototype and evolve the application with inferred type hint.
Upcoming improvement will be runtime type checking with cast.ts [2] or ts-type-check [3]
[1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/create-rpc
[2] https://www.npmjs.com/package/cast.ts
[3] https://www.npmjs.com/package/ts-type-check
I’ve built https://www.plaasma.co/ to track the following activities of a group of people on Twitter (AI people, smart VCs, popular thinkers, etc.). That let me discovered new people, companies and tech projects to know about.
Only few friends are using it! I’m definitively the most active user!
In my new house with underfloor heating, an air source heat pump was installed that turned out to have a controller that switches it on and off over 80 times per day which reduces its lifespan significantly. I decided to see if I could improve on this so I started reading lots of papers regarding temperature control.
Since this is a tricky problem to solve, I built a quick fix solution while I work on the "real" version. The quick fix measures the average indoor temperature in the house using zigbee sensors and uses a number of weather forecast APIs to calculate the amount of heat lost from the house in a day based on the difference of outdoor / indoor temperature and the amount of solar irradiation. It runs at midnight and creates a 24h schedule based on the forecast energy price and expected COP. The heat pump is controlled with a relay from an ESP32. The algorithm/app runs on a raspberry pi and is written in Rust.
It worked surprisingly well last winter with some tweaking needed during very cold periods. And the heat pump only switches a few times per day now and makes very long efficient runs, theoretically greatly increasing its lifespan and simultaneously reducing my energy bill.
I'm still planning on building the better version I had planned based on a thermal model of my house, but that will require more studying and now that the quick&dirty version works so well the pressure is off a bit.
Since this is a tricky problem to solve, I built a quick fix solution while I work on the "real" version. The quick fix measures the average indoor temperature in the house using zigbee sensors and uses a number of weather forecast APIs to calculate the amount of heat lost from the house in a day based on the difference of outdoor / indoor temperature and the amount of solar irradiation. It runs at midnight and creates a 24h schedule based on the forecast energy price and expected COP. The heat pump is controlled with a relay from an ESP32. The algorithm/app runs on a raspberry pi and is written in Rust.
It worked surprisingly well last winter with some tweaking needed during very cold periods. And the heat pump only switches a few times per day now and makes very long efficient runs, theoretically greatly increasing its lifespan and simultaneously reducing my energy bill.
I'm still planning on building the better version I had planned based on a thermal model of my house, but that will require more studying and now that the quick&dirty version works so well the pressure is off a bit.
This is fascinating, but what is the temperature swing in your house?
Interesting question! The swing is about 0,5 to 1 degree C (1 - 2 degrees F) over the day. If it's very cold out the controller makes sure to spread out the heating in a few blocks during the day instead of a single block at the most efficient timespan.
So it's much less stable than with the original PID controller which kept the temperature very stable, but surprisingly it doesn't bother us, proved by the fact that WAF is high. Which to be honest I did not expect.
I still have plans to improve on it by modeling the temperature drop in the house and making sure it stays within certain bounds. But that is for "later".
So it's much less stable than with the original PID controller which kept the temperature very stable, but surprisingly it doesn't bother us, proved by the fact that WAF is high. Which to be honest I did not expect.
I still have plans to improve on it by modeling the temperature drop in the house and making sure it stays within certain bounds. But that is for "later".
I noticed the same problem with my heat pump. It was cycling every 5 minutes when we first moved in. I replaced the thermostat with one that supports Zigbee, with plans to drive the setpoint up and down using a second level controller in order to reduce this behavior.
Actually, the new thermostat entirely solved the problem, by allowing a 2°F deadband instead of the 0.5° that the previous thermostat used. Now it will run roughly once an hour instead of ~12 times. This is not as good as your solution, but considerably better than it was.
I still use the Zigbee control to ramp the thermostat up and down at morning and night less aggressively than a native schedule on the thermostat, but it isn't truly necessary.
Actually, the new thermostat entirely solved the problem, by allowing a 2°F deadband instead of the 0.5° that the previous thermostat used. Now it will run roughly once an hour instead of ~12 times. This is not as good as your solution, but considerably better than it was.
I still use the Zigbee control to ramp the thermostat up and down at morning and night less aggressively than a native schedule on the thermostat, but it isn't truly necessary.
Yep that is a good solution that is popular as far as I've read. I've tried this as well initially but in my case this didn't work out due to the fact that the heat pump is too powerful for the house (about a factor of 2). And due to how slow the underfloor heating responds, I get huge overshoots when I use a controller like that.
So I had to figure out a way to switch it off earlier than reaching the setpoint, which lead to my poor man's solution of just calculating the house's heat loss.
So I had to figure out a way to switch it off earlier than reaching the setpoint, which lead to my poor man's solution of just calculating the house's heat loss.
I think there is a lot of value in what you describe. But it’s hard to build a UI for, and hard to market AFAICT. [im thinking of a more generalized HVAC AI product.]
Daily email I reply
To to keep a diary: two php scripts and mailgun.
My own recipe site: WordPress.
Tag-based time tracking (in-progress) at timer.express: react, php api.
Productively timer at timerdoro.com: react, WordPress.
Configurable image cropper for client use at crop.express: vanilla JavaScript, html.
Well, I've made something for a very niche group of people.
I made a really small simple tumblr clone social network, and a few months ago I was able to kind of bugily conect it with mastodon.
https://app.wafrn.net
It has 400 registred users, of wich in the last month 20 have posted.
https://app.wafrn.net/.well-known/nodeinfo/2.0
This endpoint I added it not too long ago to be more "friendly" towards other nodes
I made a really small simple tumblr clone social network, and a few months ago I was able to kind of bugily conect it with mastodon.
https://app.wafrn.net
It has 400 registred users, of wich in the last month 20 have posted.
https://app.wafrn.net/.well-known/nodeinfo/2.0
This endpoint I added it not too long ago to be more "friendly" towards other nodes
Back in the late 80s, amused by the multitasking capabilities of the Commodore Amiga, with a friend we removed the keyboard for a Commodore 64, added the second keyboard to the Amiga so both could use the same computer in one display showing two different windows. The reverse of the purpose of terminals: sharing one display while having a single computer and two keyboards.
Clearly that involves electronics and 68k assembly programming.
Clearly that involves electronics and 68k assembly programming.
I wrote a script that takes all the info in the database of the FLOSS DJ Software Mixxx' databse (sqlite, yeah!), and writes it to the tags of the MP3s/OGGs/FLACs.
I have another script that reads the info from the tags and writes in back into the database. So I never have to set the cue-points/comments/scores/BPMs again for my tracks :) And all is self contained in the audio file.
I have another script that reads the info from the tags and writes in back into the database. So I never have to set the cue-points/comments/scores/BPMs again for my tracks :) And all is self contained in the audio file.
I live in Paris, the city with the most art house cinemas in the world. There are so much of them I have a hard time following what is showed every week. I made a simple crawler that looks at these cinemas and sends a digest of the week schedule by email, listing only the movies that went out one more than year ago (because these theaters also show recent films). Nothing fancy here but I use it every week.
I want it ! You would get a lot of users if you shared this.
I use a command line browser (lynx) to log into my bank account and scrape my data because APIs are not coming to town any time soon. I actually use Lynx to scrape a bunch of different things. Much easier than trying to log into a site using CURL etc.
• 3D printed aeroponic misting nozzles. I followed a patent, so it can't be open sourced.
• Automatic turret to guard a pond against herons. They come during winter and eat many goldfish. This year was catastrophic enough I started developing a turret using a raspberrypi4 with a YOLO computer vision nnet with weights from Tencent (not fined tuned, I just look for big bounding boxes tagged as a bird). The "gun" is composed of a coffee machine pump and a 3D printed polycarbonate pressure tank. Pan-tilt mount using sg90 servos. I didn't finish the project because it turned out quite a lot of fishes survived, they were just very good at hiding.
• Automatic turret to guard a pond against herons. They come during winter and eat many goldfish. This year was catastrophic enough I started developing a turret using a raspberrypi4 with a YOLO computer vision nnet with weights from Tencent (not fined tuned, I just look for big bounding boxes tagged as a bird). The "gun" is composed of a coffee machine pump and a 3D printed polycarbonate pressure tank. Pan-tilt mount using sg90 servos. I didn't finish the project because it turned out quite a lot of fishes survived, they were just very good at hiding.
I wanted to listen to the audio version of "Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-To-Market Handbook by Peter R Kazanjy." But I couldn't find an audible version so a friend and I downloaded an ePub version of it and converted it to audio using Microsoft's txt to speech model and built a simple UI.
I plan to make it general purpose so you can download and ePub and convert it to audio seamlessly.
https://listenandread.netlify.app/
I plan to make it general purpose so you can download and ePub and convert it to audio seamlessly.
https://listenandread.netlify.app/
Nothing special from me. Just a small app (https://how-you-spell.in/) that translates a word to the phonetic alphabet. My full name is quite long and I’m always struggling to spell my details over the phone.
Had an older Bezzerra coffee grinder without the grind timer, which is, as you go further in to the espresso rabbit-hole a major PIA.
Got an ESP32 board with Wifi and a relay, wrote a quick webserver, some ui to access through the phone and voila, no more need for a grinder upgrade. Took about three days (moved from arduino to ESP32 due to memory issues of a large css/js UI for iphone)
Got an ESP32 board with Wifi and a relay, wrote a quick webserver, some ui to access through the phone and voila, no more need for a grinder upgrade. Took about three days (moved from arduino to ESP32 due to memory issues of a large css/js UI for iphone)
Mine is Scheme for Max, now on it's fourth open source release, but really written so I could make computer music how I want to. It's an extension to the popular Max/MSP visual music programming environment that embeds an s7 Scheme interpreter and provides a substantial API/FFI to Max. It allows you to script Max (and thus also Ableton Live) with Scheme, enabling interactive coding, algorithmic music, live coding, macros, and just much more pleasant scripting than in JavaScript. It locks in with the scheduler so you can even use Scheme powered sequencers within Ableton Live alongside regular Live tracks, and you can build sophisticated Live control surfaces using the Live API.
Github page here: https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max
YouTube demos here: https://www.youtube.com/c/musicwithlisp
A recent demo of it in the context of Live is this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0sKBA-Pv2c&t=1s&ab_channel=...
Github page here: https://github.com/iainctduncan/scheme-for-max
YouTube demos here: https://www.youtube.com/c/musicwithlisp
A recent demo of it in the context of Live is this one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0sKBA-Pv2c&t=1s&ab_channel=...
I built an app for a family member, who is a nutritionist, that makes it easier for her to stay connected with her patients via WhatsApp. It keeps track of appointments and sends automatic reminders.
Lately I decided to jump on the ChatGPT bandwagon and added a feature that integrates with the OpenAI API to suggest replies to messages from her patients.
It was overall a fun project. It gave me the chance to explore the integration with WhatsApp Business API (used to communicate with patients), OpenAI API (used to suggest message replies), Discord (used to notify events).
Apart from the APIs, it has zero dependencies. It’s deployed as a static website hosted on GitHub. The backend is written as a set of AWS Lambda functions. Data is stored in DynamoDB. Frontend is vanilla JS.
Lately I decided to jump on the ChatGPT bandwagon and added a feature that integrates with the OpenAI API to suggest replies to messages from her patients.
It was overall a fun project. It gave me the chance to explore the integration with WhatsApp Business API (used to communicate with patients), OpenAI API (used to suggest message replies), Discord (used to notify events).
Apart from the APIs, it has zero dependencies. It’s deployed as a static website hosted on GitHub. The backend is written as a set of AWS Lambda functions. Data is stored in DynamoDB. Frontend is vanilla JS.
I have been struggling with my circadian rhythm and have been exploring light therapy and novel techniques that will help me wake up. I learned that a smart light I bought, from Kasa, has a solid community written python library that controls it on the local network. I made a little app that adjusts the lamp color based on sunrise and sunset hours. It's relatively simple technology wise, but it's forced me to rethink how I evaluate "smart" technology.
I am thinking of expanding it to be a notification light of sorts. Not for anything related to the internet, but for chores, like the laundry machine finishing, or reminders to take a break from work. It's helped me remember to grab lunch more than a few times this week. There's something pleasant about light notifications compared to vibrations or sounds.
I am working on making an advanced wifi enabled timer using an esp32. I love the idea of a dedicated timer, seperate from my phone, that I can use day to day. I have a basic display and webserver for scheduling countdowns/alarms, but I want to incorporate some sort of keypad and a couple input buttons. There's plenty of ways in can be improved.
I also have a first generation raspberry pi monitoring my washing machine, it sends me notifications when a cycle finishes. It uses a simple ultrasonic sensor and is hosting a web server showing a readout.
I am thinking of expanding it to be a notification light of sorts. Not for anything related to the internet, but for chores, like the laundry machine finishing, or reminders to take a break from work. It's helped me remember to grab lunch more than a few times this week. There's something pleasant about light notifications compared to vibrations or sounds.
I am working on making an advanced wifi enabled timer using an esp32. I love the idea of a dedicated timer, seperate from my phone, that I can use day to day. I have a basic display and webserver for scheduling countdowns/alarms, but I want to incorporate some sort of keypad and a couple input buttons. There's plenty of ways in can be improved.
I also have a first generation raspberry pi monitoring my washing machine, it sends me notifications when a cycle finishes. It uses a simple ultrasonic sensor and is hosting a web server showing a readout.
I have built a Discord bot that greets me every morning and sends me a list of tasks to do on that day because I'm more comfortable with a single friendly message than a pile of calendar notifications.
I still use calendar and reminder apps for one-off and time-sensitive tasks, but for recurring tasks, especially those with complex timing, the crontab syntax integrated into the bot is more powerful and easier to maintain.
I still use calendar and reminder apps for one-off and time-sensitive tasks, but for recurring tasks, especially those with complex timing, the crontab syntax integrated into the bot is more powerful and easier to maintain.
As a developer I hoard many links and also would like to get notifications on different tasks being finished (script/RSS/IoT) so I've built a chat web app for myself where you can create a channel for each specific notification or links to read later.
The web app is a PWA so I can install it on my Android Mac and PC via Chrome browser without app/play store and access from anywhere.
I took it further by adding Webhoom API for the notification and a Chrome extension to share links from my browser to the channels.
People liked it (didn't try to market so much) but they wanted encryption so I have added end to end encryption as well.
I'm currently working on (on my spare time) big files support up to 4GB from any browser including live preview and video streaming for well known file types.
You can check it out here https://www.pushstaq.com
Can read some of the blog posts for more info.
The web app is a PWA so I can install it on my Android Mac and PC via Chrome browser without app/play store and access from anywhere.
I took it further by adding Webhoom API for the notification and a Chrome extension to share links from my browser to the channels.
People liked it (didn't try to market so much) but they wanted encryption so I have added end to end encryption as well.
I'm currently working on (on my spare time) big files support up to 4GB from any browser including live preview and video streaming for well known file types.
You can check it out here https://www.pushstaq.com
Can read some of the blog posts for more info.
Analog circuit code golfing:
Long ago, a current mirror to charge a 12v battery bank from a "12v" iPod charger, evading the usual regulator voltage drop.
More recently, a circuit to trip a solenoid when a bit of hot dog goes missing from two leads.
I needed two op amps for sensitivity, because over a day or so the hot dog dries up to nearly an open circuit. Still, only a handful of parts, on the smallest breadboard made.
Yes, I'm a walking cliche, a better rat trap. My only excuse is this was during the pandemic. I excelled at an electronics segment of shop class back in 1968 junior high school, and I never asked my parents for a kit to go on from there.
Long ago, a current mirror to charge a 12v battery bank from a "12v" iPod charger, evading the usual regulator voltage drop.
More recently, a circuit to trip a solenoid when a bit of hot dog goes missing from two leads.
I needed two op amps for sensitivity, because over a day or so the hot dog dries up to nearly an open circuit. Still, only a handful of parts, on the smallest breadboard made.
Yes, I'm a walking cliche, a better rat trap. My only excuse is this was during the pandemic. I excelled at an electronics segment of shop class back in 1968 junior high school, and I never asked my parents for a kit to go on from there.
I just started this:
A collection of tools to pull in personal data from various sources, in the spirit of a "quantified self".
I just got it to a state yesterday where I can do do this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/VitamintK/data-fetishism/m...
Source code: https://github.com/VitamintK/data-fetishism
Eventually I'd like to get it to the point of something like this: https://beepb00p.xyz/myinfra.html
A collection of tools to pull in personal data from various sources, in the spirit of a "quantified self".
I just got it to a state yesterday where I can do do this: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/VitamintK/data-fetishism/m...
Source code: https://github.com/VitamintK/data-fetishism
Eventually I'd like to get it to the point of something like this: https://beepb00p.xyz/myinfra.html
I just shipped my hobby project - https://github.com/rounakdatta/my-best-of-reddit/. It is a Telegram bot which would send me all my upvoted posts and comments at EOD everyday.
It's a solution to a personal pain point - discovering and getting reminded of all the hilarious & extraordinary knowledge that I keep discovering on Reddit.
It's a solution to a personal pain point - discovering and getting reminded of all the hilarious & extraordinary knowledge that I keep discovering on Reddit.
Hey! I am building a sailing simulator built in my own OpenGL engine. You can see videos about it here: https://archipelagosim.com/
timer.express: tag-based, one-fee time tracking (in-progress, but online). React, php.
Timerdoro: productivity timer. React, WordPress.
My own recipe site, not public. WordPress.
Daily email-based diary. Two php scripts and Mailgun's api.
Hey! I am building a sailing simulator built on my own openGL engine. See this:
https://archipelagosim.com/
The YouTube videos and screenshots look incredible for a hobby project! Are you still working on it? What’s next?
I'm late to the party, but I'll compensate by posting 2 things.
1. [Zircon][zircon] is a text gui library I have been working on for a few years in my spare time, although I haven't contributed much to it lately. It also comes with a tutorial in which I implement a simple roguelike game ([Caves of Zircon](caves-of-zircon)).
2. This is more recent (in fact I haven't finished it yet): I have been working on a toolkit in the last few weeks that includes a scheduler, an event bus and a state machine library ([Cobalt](cobalt-ts)). Using these in conjuncion you can easily implement a workflow engine (that's what I'm gonna use this for). The interesting part is that it is implemented by using functional programming. Feel free to check it out if you need something like it (permissive license).
[zircon]: https://github.com/Hexworks/zircon [caves-of-zircon]: https://hexworks.org/posts/tutorials/2018/12/04/how-to-make-... [cobalt-ts]: https://github.com/Hexworks/cobalt-ts/blob/master/libs/hexwo...
2. This is more recent (in fact I haven't finished it yet): I have been working on a toolkit in the last few weeks that includes a scheduler, an event bus and a state machine library ([Cobalt](cobalt-ts)). Using these in conjuncion you can easily implement a workflow engine (that's what I'm gonna use this for). The interesting part is that it is implemented by using functional programming. Feel free to check it out if you need something like it (permissive license).
[zircon]: https://github.com/Hexworks/zircon [caves-of-zircon]: https://hexworks.org/posts/tutorials/2018/12/04/how-to-make-... [cobalt-ts]: https://github.com/Hexworks/cobalt-ts/blob/master/libs/hexwo...
During the COVID19 pandemics I wrote an app to help my mom cook with anything she had at home, so she could go fewer times to the supermarket, considering her heavy smoking and old age, the best is to avoid exposure.
The app is just a search where you input the ingredients you have and you get a list of possible food you can cook with it. I crawled over 6000 recipes over the network. In fact I have over 120k recipes in Portuguese but can't display them due to legal restrictions. After some time I decided to create a site and open-source it:
https://feitaemcasa.com
I added some recipes in english as well.
The app is just a search where you input the ingredients you have and you get a list of possible food you can cook with it. I crawled over 6000 recipes over the network. In fact I have over 120k recipes in Portuguese but can't display them due to legal restrictions. After some time I decided to create a site and open-source it:
https://feitaemcasa.com
I added some recipes in english as well.
My parents have a sauna in their home (northern Europe), but it takes an hour or so to heat up. I connected the controller to an arduino with Wi-Fi shield and let the sauna run its own tiny Webserver that served a single page with a single button to turn it off or on. They would turn it on before they left work so it’s nice and warm after cycling home through the freezing cold.
Unmaintained code: https://github.com/maebert/SaunaControl
Unmaintained code: https://github.com/maebert/SaunaControl
My flatmate used to watch TV in the living room quite loud when I was trying to sleep in my room.
I set a Raspberry Pi with an IR led running an Apache server close to the TV. From my phone I would visit the Raspberry IP and send signals to the IR led to lower the volume.
I set a Raspberry Pi with an IR led running an Apache server close to the TV. From my phone I would visit the Raspberry IP and send signals to the IR led to lower the volume.
An admin panel (time & project management) for my startup.
Time & project management software are expensive, and prices per user, and mine is $0 for all.
Time & project management software are expensive, and prices per user, and mine is $0 for all.
Neat! Any more info/links to share? I'm curious what this looks like at the "side project" level.
I’ve built a mac app that has all the dev tools I use on daily basis. Its 100% local & 100% offline. I was worried pasting company specific data on public website tools like JSON formatter, SQL Formatter etc and also hate having too many single trick pony apps.
So one app to rule them all. Current list of tools in the app are: - Todo list integrated with Pomodoro timer - Notes with ability to be converted to todo list - Pomodoro timer - JSON/SQL/XML/YAML/Protobuf formatter and error detector. - Converter from JSON to CSV and other formats. - Meditation/Gratitude general - Universal time clocks - Count down timer, focus timer, stopwatch
In development: - Unix time formatter - CloudWatch metrics reader (to monitor my other cloud apps) - S3 explorer (My own infinite cloud storage with no one reading meta-data or scanning my pictures/documents) - Cron explorer and scheduler
In process of putting it on app store. If anyone is interested in trying, DM me.
So one app to rule them all. Current list of tools in the app are: - Todo list integrated with Pomodoro timer - Notes with ability to be converted to todo list - Pomodoro timer - JSON/SQL/XML/YAML/Protobuf formatter and error detector. - Converter from JSON to CSV and other formats. - Meditation/Gratitude general - Universal time clocks - Count down timer, focus timer, stopwatch
In development: - Unix time formatter - CloudWatch metrics reader (to monitor my other cloud apps) - S3 explorer (My own infinite cloud storage with no one reading meta-data or scanning my pictures/documents) - Cron explorer and scheduler
In process of putting it on app store. If anyone is interested in trying, DM me.
Wow this sounds like exactly what I need. How do I dm you?
Sweet. I thought there was a way to dm on HN.
Your profile has your website which has your email. I will email you.
Thanks
Your profile has your website which has your email. I will email you.
Thanks
I've been using Boop, it's pretty good for, json, yaml, datetimes, hashing etc! Missing a lot of what you've mentioned, but might be able to get some more ideas from it!
https://github.com/IvanMathy/Boop
https://github.com/IvanMathy/Boop
Thanks for sharing.. definitely will check it out
6groups.com:
A fully featured group calendar that I use for myself
A collaborative organigram maker that I use for my kids class
A collaborative family tree maker that my distant and close family alike use to document every detail until (as of today) 1776
A fully featured group calendar that I use for myself
A collaborative organigram maker that I use for my kids class
A collaborative family tree maker that my distant and close family alike use to document every detail until (as of today) 1776
I mostly do interesting stuff on FreeBSD and its all documented in as detailed form as possible here:
- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/
Regards, vermaden
- https://vermaden.wordpress.com/
Regards, vermaden
Not programs, but plenty of virtual machines. Proud owner of 100 custom VMs all for different purposes.
When I started learning code and to build websites, I felt it very cumbersome to login into cpanel and upload PHP files. Hence I built my own file manager called HostBrowser[1]. It was a single PHP script. It had a lot of functionality that a lot of advanced file mangers have, like copy paste, compress files to Zip, extract Zip, copy-paste, directly download file from remote server, a code editor. The UI was inspired by that of phpLiteAdmin[2].
[1] https://github.com/anupamsaikia/HostBrowser
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhpLiteAdmin_Main_Screen....
[1] https://github.com/anupamsaikia/HostBrowser
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PhpLiteAdmin_Main_Screen....
I have created a vuejs components library that is based on a proprietary js framework.
Its super easy to create a new component since all the JS and design is handed from the proprietary framework, and i have full control on the complete library.
The downside is that i have to create every component i want to use and i cannot share the library with anyone.
Its super easy to create a new component since all the JS and design is handed from the proprietary framework, and i have full control on the complete library.
The downside is that i have to create every component i want to use and i cannot share the library with anyone.
I’ve built this to prove to myself that viewing text in 3D fundamentally changes the interaction and information gleaned from the relationships of files and software. I’ve had fun, and some people like it. It’s a toy and I want more for it, but it gets harder and harder to make progress by myself. New topics, necessary optimizations, bad fundamentals, and honestly… lack of internal motivation.
It’s a Mac app, it works in iOS too, and it has an AR mode. You can point it a git repo to download and view all the files. Hopefully someone else may enjoy it.
P.s.: to the idea of highlighting word definitions, I’m working on personal dictionary building and visualizing as well.. imagine heptopod language but with words. Same tech, different code flow.
https://github.com/tikimcfee/LookAtThat
It’s a Mac app, it works in iOS too, and it has an AR mode. You can point it a git repo to download and view all the files. Hopefully someone else may enjoy it.
P.s.: to the idea of highlighting word definitions, I’m working on personal dictionary building and visualizing as well.. imagine heptopod language but with words. Same tech, different code flow.
https://github.com/tikimcfee/LookAtThat
I had subscribed to an IPTV service with SO many channels that loading it was a massive pain, so instead I dipped my feet into python for fun and created a filter service that breaks it into a more manageable list:
https://github.com/cmcconomy/iptv-filter
I since stopped subscribing to IPTV so the project is abandoned, but I have a couple of friends who still use it; I'd probably write it completely differently today - but it's still trucking!
https://github.com/cmcconomy/iptv-filter
I since stopped subscribing to IPTV so the project is abandoned, but I have a couple of friends who still use it; I'd probably write it completely differently today - but it's still trucking!
I created an AI that can beat the first and second boss in my favourite pc game Dark souls 3
First boss:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcbH7jt4w0w
Second boss:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeEoQVT66t8
I am using cheat engine to get information from the game such as hero position, boss position, hero animation, boss animation, time since animation change, life, stamina, current rotation and the angle between the boss' heading and the hero. (to see if hero is behind or in front of or to the side/behind the boss)
When the boss or hero starts an animation i start a counter at 0. For every timestep that the animation is still running i increment that counter and feed it as inputThe AI has no knowledge about the lengths of the animations. It has to learn that.The animation names are converted to a one hot encoding and fed to the network
The different examples shown in the videos have only been trained for a few days in real time (only 1 instance of the game running). But the episodes are cherry picked. In the Iudex case it actually kills the boss almost every time, however Vordt is a lot harder to learn so these are the some of the kills that i have picked out.
Other games have APIs made for reinforcement learning so that the agent can take an action at each frame of the game. I have kind of hacked my own implementation and are actually doing keypresses with sleeps in between each step as i can't control the frames on a frame by frame basis.
I am using python and stable baselines for the reinforcement learning part. I made my own implementation of a "gym" for dark souls. Then i set up a lua script in cheat engine that opens a socket from this socket i read the state in my python script.
First boss:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcbH7jt4w0w
Second boss:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeEoQVT66t8
I am using cheat engine to get information from the game such as hero position, boss position, hero animation, boss animation, time since animation change, life, stamina, current rotation and the angle between the boss' heading and the hero. (to see if hero is behind or in front of or to the side/behind the boss)
When the boss or hero starts an animation i start a counter at 0. For every timestep that the animation is still running i increment that counter and feed it as inputThe AI has no knowledge about the lengths of the animations. It has to learn that.The animation names are converted to a one hot encoding and fed to the network
The different examples shown in the videos have only been trained for a few days in real time (only 1 instance of the game running). But the episodes are cherry picked. In the Iudex case it actually kills the boss almost every time, however Vordt is a lot harder to learn so these are the some of the kills that i have picked out.
Other games have APIs made for reinforcement learning so that the agent can take an action at each frame of the game. I have kind of hacked my own implementation and are actually doing keypresses with sleeps in between each step as i can't control the frames on a frame by frame basis.
I am using python and stable baselines for the reinforcement learning part. I made my own implementation of a "gym" for dark souls. Then i set up a lua script in cheat engine that opens a socket from this socket i read the state in my python script.
I created a service you can text to get fun conversation starters based off a topic, or an observation. I used Twilio + ChatGPT to build this so I could come up with interesting questions anytime, anywhere.
Simply text 1 (434) 404 6822 with an observation.
Simply text 1 (434) 404 6822 with an observation.
https://umbrellatoday.app
The idea has emerged from a personal frustration with umbrellas If you buy a too big and expensive umbrella (take for example a gulfbrella), you might recall that it's such a hassle to drag along - just by its weight and size. Also, its something that you will most likely lose during a company event, after one or two drinks.
If you buy a small and cheap version instead, you won’t get sufficient protection due to the small surface. In addition, such smaller variants tend to break quickly, and when this happens, you might as well not have dragged one with you in the first place.
The idea has emerged from a personal frustration with umbrellas If you buy a too big and expensive umbrella (take for example a gulfbrella), you might recall that it's such a hassle to drag along - just by its weight and size. Also, its something that you will most likely lose during a company event, after one or two drinks.
If you buy a small and cheap version instead, you won’t get sufficient protection due to the small surface. In addition, such smaller variants tend to break quickly, and when this happens, you might as well not have dragged one with you in the first place.
Built a service and web app that listens to Frigate car events via MQTT. It analyzes the video and image to determine the make and model, as well as OCR the plate.
Uses some fuzzy matching logic in an attempt to match it to a historical vehicle. Also attempts to look up Make, Model, Year and VIN based on the state and plate.
Been running pretty well for a few months. Can easily see history of a vehicle or search vehicles by make or model. Has come in handy once when someone in the neighborhood experienced a road rage incident and I was able to provide info on the car to the police.
Next step is to build “detections” for anomalous vehicles. Or weird behavior like a vehicle passing by multiple times in a given window.
Built with Python and HTMX cause why not.
Uses some fuzzy matching logic in an attempt to match it to a historical vehicle. Also attempts to look up Make, Model, Year and VIN based on the state and plate.
Been running pretty well for a few months. Can easily see history of a vehicle or search vehicles by make or model. Has come in handy once when someone in the neighborhood experienced a road rage incident and I was able to provide info on the car to the police.
Next step is to build “detections” for anomalous vehicles. Or weird behavior like a vehicle passing by multiple times in a given window.
Built with Python and HTMX cause why not.
I wanted to play an Xbox gamepad like an instrument, so I used GameMaker 2 to make one. It doubles as a controller tester.
https://github.com/crawsome/Orchestroller
https://github.com/crawsome/Orchestroller
Chrome extension that solved a couple of everyday problems from a single view:
a. Controlling YouTube. I used to have a hard time finding the YouTube tab midst a bunch of open tabs, and if someone would approach me at my desk (good old days when we had offices with people) I didn't want to open the tab to pause the song (or to play it again, or to go next/previous) so this extension would find the tab and show me a simple UI to control it. I later on extended it to be controllable via a hosted URL which I could put in an Android app. This was helpful because if I had to ever leave the desk and song accidentally played out loud, I can pause it from the phone. b. Controlling Jenkins. I had a bunch of builds running and it was painful to visit and see the status, again, amidst all the tabs.
a. Controlling YouTube. I used to have a hard time finding the YouTube tab midst a bunch of open tabs, and if someone would approach me at my desk (good old days when we had offices with people) I didn't want to open the tab to pause the song (or to play it again, or to go next/previous) so this extension would find the tab and show me a simple UI to control it. I later on extended it to be controllable via a hosted URL which I could put in an Android app. This was helpful because if I had to ever leave the desk and song accidentally played out loud, I can pause it from the phone. b. Controlling Jenkins. I had a bunch of builds running and it was painful to visit and see the status, again, amidst all the tabs.
I built a pipeline to go from a novel file in Apple Pages to finished Kindle Book and PDFs in various sizes, both with proper scene breaks, etc.
I created an app for my phone so I can track my kit rocket as it descends under parachute. As far as I know this is the first app for android that predicts landing locations. I couldn't find one previously.
https://github.com/parchedpacha/LandingPredictApp
https://github.com/parchedpacha/LandingPredictApp
Built a chrome extension to help me save time by adding custom tags to the URL with just one click rather than typing them out every time.
https://tinytags.xyz
https://tinytags.xyz
I built a todo list extension that blocks addictive websites until you finish your tasks. Importantly it redirects you back to your todo list and shows you a pair of disappointed eyes.
I believe it really helped me deal with procrastination, but of course the whole project was just a way to procrastinate.
I planned to make it a business, but many of its features are now built into OS. And Google doesn’t like it.
You can still get it for brave and Google chrome, but I’m no longer working on it. In case it you need it. The Firefox version is not good.
prodtodolist.com
I believe it really helped me deal with procrastination, but of course the whole project was just a way to procrastinate.
I planned to make it a business, but many of its features are now built into OS. And Google doesn’t like it.
You can still get it for brave and Google chrome, but I’m no longer working on it. In case it you need it. The Firefox version is not good.
prodtodolist.com
I have a custom automated DVCAM riprig, I just read the label, type it from memory into the prompt, and the deck rewinds, plays back over DV, then is split, sent over the wire to an encoder box via ethernet, deinterlaced, normalized and encoded to x265, logged and sent via syncthing to an editor friend across the state. If you can imagine, before this I manually did all those steps but with an old tv camera rather than an auto-rewinding/splitting pc
Nothing crazy but, an app that tracks products in grocery stores.
Just open the app and scan a barcode and it'll give product info such as name, description, nutritional info, pricing across stores and price change past 30 days.
Built with React Native, InfluxDB, and go for the backend and scraper, products get scraped from all the stores every day and gets stored in InfluxDB.
-
Also built a desktop app for toggling ANC on my bluetooth headphones, the only ways to toggle ANC were a mobile app (which requires pairing to phone, thereby dropping connection to PC), or holding a physical button (which was next to the button to enter pairing mode so I kept accidentally pressing it), so I learned how to snoop on bluetooth LE and reverse engineered it with Android and Wireshark, it was a fun project and incredibly useful to me.
Just open the app and scan a barcode and it'll give product info such as name, description, nutritional info, pricing across stores and price change past 30 days.
Built with React Native, InfluxDB, and go for the backend and scraper, products get scraped from all the stores every day and gets stored in InfluxDB.
-
Also built a desktop app for toggling ANC on my bluetooth headphones, the only ways to toggle ANC were a mobile app (which requires pairing to phone, thereby dropping connection to PC), or holding a physical button (which was next to the button to enter pairing mode so I kept accidentally pressing it), so I learned how to snoop on bluetooth LE and reverse engineered it with Android and Wireshark, it was a fun project and incredibly useful to me.
A website for playing sequenced music (video games, chiptunes, and MIDI files). macOS lost native MIDI playback a long time ago. And I like to listen "interactively," adjusting tempo, soloing instruments, stuff like that.
I have gone deep on a few problems, like converting Nintendo 64 to MIDI+soundfonts (there are tools for this, but nothing turn-key) or enabling support for Farbrausch V2 (a powerful but tiny synth engine). There's really no point other than to solve puzzles with a very salient musical reward at the end. https://github.com/mmontag/chip-player-js
I have gone deep on a few problems, like converting Nintendo 64 to MIDI+soundfonts (there are tools for this, but nothing turn-key) or enabling support for Farbrausch V2 (a powerful but tiny synth engine). There's really no point other than to solve puzzles with a very salient musical reward at the end. https://github.com/mmontag/chip-player-js
I built an EAP proxy that runs on my EdgeRouter 4 so that I don't have to use the router that AT&T would otherwise require me to:
https://github.com/jaysoffian/eap_proxy
It's been running for years now out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
Which reminds me... I should probably take a look at those pull requests.
https://github.com/jaysoffian/eap_proxy
It's been running for years now out-of-sight and out-of-mind.
Which reminds me... I should probably take a look at those pull requests.
My family has historically been very into genealogy research, so we've got lots of family tree info. I've been working with my aunt to put together a webapp to create/edit info, see relationships, show ancestors/descendants of individuals. We've also started adding photos recently, which is really cool.
Favorite feature we've built: "are you my cousin", where you choose 2 people in our database and it calculates how they are related. First time I got to write a search function outside of a classroom!
I'm sure Ancestry does all this and more, but it's nice to have something that we built that's just for our family. We also use it all the time to verify relationships/birthdays!
Favorite feature we've built: "are you my cousin", where you choose 2 people in our database and it calculates how they are related. First time I got to write a search function outside of a classroom!
I'm sure Ancestry does all this and more, but it's nice to have something that we built that's just for our family. We also use it all the time to verify relationships/birthdays!
Do you have/do you plan to open source this anywhere? I'd be really interested in checking it out!
I've not put a ton of thought into a plan to open source it, but we've got comments from friends who also have a lot of genealogical info that it would be super helpful for their info, so maybe? It's basically just a CRUD Django app at it's core, so I don't know how interesting it would be.
I think a lot of people would be into this. If you're willing to, you should totally do it! You might get some good contributions from the community, too.
I built a proxy number for my sister who has to deal with her abusive ex-husband. She has court ordered visitations via phone for their kids. He would give her number to any multitude of people that would send harassing messages on his behalf.
The proxy allows any calls or texts from her number to send out with the proxy number. Any calls or texts from his number connect to her phone. All other communications are given a notice that they don't have access to call or message the proxy number and communications are recorded for court. It does not forward blocked communications to her phone. He continues to give out the number to harass her, but the family court judge gets a monthly report of all the attempted harassment.
The proxy allows any calls or texts from her number to send out with the proxy number. Any calls or texts from his number connect to her phone. All other communications are given a notice that they don't have access to call or message the proxy number and communications are recorded for court. It does not forward blocked communications to her phone. He continues to give out the number to harass her, but the family court judge gets a monthly report of all the attempted harassment.
Holy shit. This should be mandatory practice, government funded for any court related phone visitation.
What service do you use for SMS?
The new, government mandated registration requirements for programmatic SMS use in the US seem to have essentially done away with all hobbyist use.
The new, government mandated registration requirements for programmatic SMS use in the US seem to have essentially done away with all hobbyist use.
This is a fantastic service, and could definitely be commercialized for divorce attorneys. And made freely available to DV survivors.
About a year ago I got a Tesla K80 off eBay for about $200. It's basically 2 Tesla K20Xes in one card, so it's pretty powerful, but the downside is that it's a datacenter GPU - it doesn't have any cooling.
I 3D printed a fan shroud for it and put an old (but surprisingly powerful) fan on there, and that worked ok. The issue, though, was that I wanted the fan to be quiet when the GPU was idle, and I couldn't figure out fan control on Linux, so I decided to control the fan speed via an Arduino.
I took a spare Arduino, some wiring, and despite never before programming anything for Arduino, I managed to hack this together: https://github.com/askiiart/k80-linux-cooling
It takes the GPU temperature, turns that into desired fan speed, then sends the desired speed to the Arduino over USB. The Arduino just controls the fan speed via PWM.
I 3D printed a fan shroud for it and put an old (but surprisingly powerful) fan on there, and that worked ok. The issue, though, was that I wanted the fan to be quiet when the GPU was idle, and I couldn't figure out fan control on Linux, so I decided to control the fan speed via an Arduino.
I took a spare Arduino, some wiring, and despite never before programming anything for Arduino, I managed to hack this together: https://github.com/askiiart/k80-linux-cooling
It takes the GPU temperature, turns that into desired fan speed, then sends the desired speed to the Arduino over USB. The Arduino just controls the fan speed via PWM.
I wrote a flow-graph in Gnu Radio to receive and decode VOR broadcasts[1] using an SDR dongle and my laptop. It was fun to drive around the local station and see it point towards the station.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VHF_omnidirectional_range
As a color-blind person, most of the time when stuff on screen was only differentiated by color (like red/green status indicators), the go-to-tool would be the system’s digital colorimeter for me.
It was tiresome to have to launch an extra application and inspect RGB percentages to derive what color I was supposed to see.
The colorimeter I made activates while holding down an inconsequential modifier key on the keyboard and shows the name of the color.
Now I can also quickly double-press that modifier key and copy the color value to the clipboard.
It was tiresome to have to launch an extra application and inspect RGB percentages to derive what color I was supposed to see.
The colorimeter I made activates while holding down an inconsequential modifier key on the keyboard and shows the name of the color.
Now I can also quickly double-press that modifier key and copy the color value to the clipboard.
I realized at some point that in learning languages, I was often limited by how much vocabulary I was picking up. The main advice I got was to read more, but progress was slow; I learned less from more basic texts, but constantly had to look up words when reading more advanced stuff.
So I wrote myself an e-reader (in Kivi) that is aware of my vocabulary and integrates with a flashcard system. For more obscure words it just shows the translation in-line so that I can focus on the most vocabulary. I pick up way more words and phrases, and can enjoyably read at a significantly higher level than without it.
So I wrote myself an e-reader (in Kivi) that is aware of my vocabulary and integrates with a flashcard system. For more obscure words it just shows the translation in-line so that I can focus on the most vocabulary. I pick up way more words and phrases, and can enjoyably read at a significantly higher level than without it.
I built this fun little tool that takes a Tweet and gets 10 different 'AI personalities' to reply to it. I thought this was a great way to get some feedback on how a tweet might be received. I also threw in a tab to se optimized versions of the tweet.
I want to take this further and play with the idea of an AI only Twitter. Where AIs interact with each other based on real news. Could be a fascinating game of life simulation haha.
https://www.tweetenhance.com/
I want to take this further and play with the idea of an AI only Twitter. Where AIs interact with each other based on real news. Could be a fascinating game of life simulation haha.
https://www.tweetenhance.com/
I have a pretty clear view of the road infront of my place and an old android laying around, So i wanted to know more about the stats of vehicles passing by
ended up setting up Yolo with deepsort to track each vehicle pass, and making a cool dashboard to show stats, like speed of pass and graphs to show how busy the road is over time
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor/
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor-part-two/
ended up setting up Yolo with deepsort to track each vehicle pass, and making a cool dashboard to show stats, like speed of pass and graphs to show how busy the road is over time
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor/
https://dharisd.github.io/posts/vehicle-monitor-part-two/
cool project!
Some of the screenshots in your post aren't working however
Some of the screenshots in your post aren't working however
I built https://osintukraine.com no clear idea who's using it but 2TB of videos go out of it every month since last year.
Right now, I have to remember a large amount of information through rote memorisation. I built myself a little webapp which allows me to upload a folder and it process the text (an un-annoying use of gpt) and spits out gigantic flashcard sets.
I built the "Harry Potter clock", a screen that shows the location of each family member. It's just and old monitor on the kitchen wall + raspberry pi + zigbee 220V plug to switch it off at night.
I worked beautifully for a few years displaying Apple's "Find My" via a Chromium browser in kiosk mode. However, Apple closed off web access to Find My, so I've now redone it via Google Maps. The Google Maps version doesn't work nearly as well and the maps are cluttered with lot's of stuff you don't want to see, so I'm currently looking at redoing it again by using the Home Assistant app and API.
I worked beautifully for a few years displaying Apple's "Find My" via a Chromium browser in kiosk mode. However, Apple closed off web access to Find My, so I've now redone it via Google Maps. The Google Maps version doesn't work nearly as well and the maps are cluttered with lot's of stuff you don't want to see, so I'm currently looking at redoing it again by using the Home Assistant app and API.
I'll describe one tool that I built that sparks joy every time I use it:
For a long time I wanted to listen to lots of different stuff, podcasts, sermons, YouTube videos, online courses. But I'd always forget about them and never got around to listening to most of them.
So last year I started tracking this in a Google Sheet. Initially just a link of URLs, then I added date added/date completed, length, etc. Recently I even added some custom menu items in Sheets so I can add items and mark them done faster.
I've greatly increased the amount of audio content I consume, even when I get in the car it's easy to select something to play next. But one conclusion: I add on average 4 items per week and I listen to only 3, so my queue grows unbounded.
For a long time I wanted to listen to lots of different stuff, podcasts, sermons, YouTube videos, online courses. But I'd always forget about them and never got around to listening to most of them.
So last year I started tracking this in a Google Sheet. Initially just a link of URLs, then I added date added/date completed, length, etc. Recently I even added some custom menu items in Sheets so I can add items and mark them done faster.
I've greatly increased the amount of audio content I consume, even when I get in the car it's easy to select something to play next. But one conclusion: I add on average 4 items per week and I listen to only 3, so my queue grows unbounded.
As compared to others, my tech seems a lot less revolutionary, but I do like it. It's my own blog, https://www.anshumankumar.dev/, which I wrote using Angular (with Scully) and using Strapi as a headless CMS, which I read about extensively from some folks on this site. Prior to that I had a Wordpress blog, which a cancer due to the number of ads they added on it.
There is a lot of stuff I am working on it and I am planning a port to using Gatsby instead.
Would appreciate if anyone has feedback.
Also, I wrote a bot that notifies me of stock price changes for stocks that I subscribe to on Telegram. I haven't fixed it as the code has had some issues recently and I plan to work on fixing it once I have the time.
There is a lot of stuff I am working on it and I am planning a port to using Gatsby instead.
Would appreciate if anyone has feedback.
Also, I wrote a bot that notifies me of stock price changes for stocks that I subscribe to on Telegram. I haven't fixed it as the code has had some issues recently and I plan to work on fixing it once I have the time.
I wrote a node/browser OS to serve as a peer to peer command and control and file system agent.
[deleted]
3D printer
Total game changer for tinkering
Total game changer for tinkering
One sentence summary of each top level comment here: https://github.com/afiodorov/notebooks/blob/main/2023_04_30_...
I wanted to read all the ideas but it became hard to read.
I wanted to read all the ideas but it became hard to read.
Thank you - hopefully it's not lost on you that this also actually qualifies as an entry in the list :-)
Glad you found it useful. Yes it should qualify and I wanted to make it a bit meta :). However I think https://thoughtful3.eth.limo is more interesting out of things I've built for myself. It's an onchain Twitter. I am currently using it as my personal microblog - however anyone could use it too if they wanted to to burn a few cents per post.
Neat, thank you!
Really cool, only suggestion would be to put the comment id the summary instead of the number, as the comments aren’t in a predictable order
Hey! Updated to include the id. By the way there's also a committed json with all the data: https://github.com/afiodorov/notebooks/blob/main/ideas.json.
A few years back I made a smart smoke detector for a total of 12 euros to closely monitor the battery of drones during storage, saving at least 40 euros from the cheapest option available online at the time: https://medium.com/dev-jam/build-a-smart-smoke-detector-in-3...
Turns out that "I can see the sun" is not good enough for deciding whether you're able to absorb Vitamin D. I had a deficiency (living in Nordics, not very surprising). So I built a small calculator that calculates during what periods you can absorb Vitamin D from the sun. Very fun to learn about calculating positions of the sun.
https://whencanigetvitamind.com
https://whencanigetvitamind.com
I wish I made something advanced, but anyways. This thing helped me a lot, so I'll share it. I hacked a Behringer X32 Rack mixer board to have physical controls. The idea is it is controllable by OSC, and there is unofficial documentation. So, I made a patch in Pure Data that converted MIDI from Launch Control XL to OSC to control the board. Pure Data was running in headless mode on Raspberry PI and was the only thing running. It was close to a consumer-level product; it loaded up in seconds on power failure and just worked.
I infrequently commute into Boston for work, I live beyond the subway system but there is a rail network (Commuter Rail). With childcare and other family logistics I might be doing errands in a different town before parking and hopping on a train, I had trouble doing a 'radius' search of stations (which might span lines) to plan a round-trip into the city. I built a site[1] to query the MBTA API[2] for stations and schedules, then custom js + leaflet.js[3] (an amazing product) to render a map. I have a /demo[4] resource which includes some hard-coded addresses for test purposes. A limitation is it only plots round-trips to the terminal stop (South Station) in Boston.
It's been a work-in-progress for a while. It vastly helps with my weekly plans. And as a side project to up-skill, what I'm still working on:
- UIUX and 'user flow', usability
- hosting + CICD
- integrations, optimization, caching
[1]http://cr2southstation.com/
[2]https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
[3]https://leafletjs.com/
[4]http://cr2southstation.com/test
It's been a work-in-progress for a while. It vastly helps with my weekly plans. And as a side project to up-skill, what I'm still working on:
- UIUX and 'user flow', usability
- hosting + CICD
- integrations, optimization, caching
[1]http://cr2southstation.com/
[2]https://www.mbta.com/developers/v3-api
[3]https://leafletjs.com/
[4]http://cr2southstation.com/test
I do all my opensource work just for myself. Then it becomes a nice surprise when someone else uses it too.
A full local html and js based notebook that can be synced over different pcs
I develop mobile games as a hobby, but have little time as a family with 3 small kids.
So I wrote a mobile app that lets me rapidly prototype games from my phone, so I don’t need to be in front of a computer to code.
So I wrote a mobile app that lets me rapidly prototype games from my phone, so I don’t need to be in front of a computer to code.
A set of utilities for myself, especially the private notes for sending sensitive information that is e2e encrypted: https://utiliti.dev/
About 15 years ago we had our first chickens. Due to space and time constraints, we did not build a new chicken house, but bought an old children's playhouse on stilts. The chickens should get an automatic chicken flap. But unfortunately, at that time all purchasable automatic chicken flaps worked on the principle of a winch and the flap had to go up vertically. With our chicken house, however, only a horizontally opening flap would have worked. So I built an automatic chicken flap from parts of an old inkjet printer, two limit switches and an Arduino. It has worked flawlessly for many years. Another advantage was: my control opened in the morning at 8 o'clock and closed in the evening depending on the calculated sunset (+ 30 min). Such ingenious control I have not seen in any automatic chicken flap until today.
All automatic chicken flaps that can be purchased in Germany today work either with a timer or with a brightness sensor. And then either in the morning and evening only by time or brightness as trigger. Time combined with brightness can none. And the brightness sensors usually have the disadvantage that the flap opens if you shine at night longer than 1 min on the sensor, for example with the flashlight, if you work something next to the chicken house.
I wrote a Go library for postgres & redis that handles all caching automatically.
where all you do is input the queries your application needs and then it will automatically determine which columns are affected & do all caching / cache invalidation for you.
I have it to the point where due to Redis being able to push onto a list that only writes hit the database & it even will update the cache keys automatically so that after an insert or update the cache is still hot.
where all you do is input the queries your application needs and then it will automatically determine which columns are affected & do all caching / cache invalidation for you.
I have it to the point where due to Redis being able to push onto a list that only writes hit the database & it even will update the cache keys automatically so that after an insert or update the cache is still hot.
Not sure how interesting for other people but my wife didn't think this would ever work so here is the story:
- our puppy would bark in his room
- I set up a web based interface to generate commands via the Linux utility espeak
- I trained him to be quiet when he the espeak "quiet" word played
- The first time I did this from the other room and he stopped barking, my wife was impressed
- our puppy would bark in his room
- I set up a web based interface to generate commands via the Linux utility espeak
- I trained him to be quiet when he the espeak "quiet" word played
- The first time I did this from the other room and he stopped barking, my wife was impressed
AI health coach to help me manage my Crohn's Disease
I came up with a lot of small custom algorithms for my thesis, all based on np.einsum. I had to estimate the assymptotic complexity for them, and every time I would get a different answer than the last. So at some point I built a system to which you give an einsum expression and a mapping between axis and their names and you get the assymptotic complexity (e.g. for MxN times NxM matrix multiplication 'ij,jk->ik' you would use {'i': 'M', 'j': 'N', 'k': 'M'} to get O(M^2 N) complexity). It also supports chains of einsum expressions, summing the complexities together and symbolically simplifying. And it uses opt_einsum to reorder the operations to get the best possible asymptotics for an expression.
https//isitmuddy.com
I wanted to know if it was safe to take my dog to play fetch in a field, if it's too muddy I end up with a very dirty dog. Uses weather APIs after providing location to the browser to tell you if it's muddy, and when it will dry up.
I wanted to know if it was safe to take my dog to play fetch in a field, if it's too muddy I end up with a very dirty dog. Uses weather APIs after providing location to the browser to tell you if it's muddy, and when it will dry up.
Around 2001-2002 I wanted to build a bipedal robot, about 1-2 feet tall, mostly using RC servos... But first I wanted to sort of prototype it in software, and that part of the project took on a life of its own.
Coincidentally, a library called ODE had just been released, which did (still does) very nice physics modeling. After a year I had a sort of "robot construction kit" / 3D world editor and simulator GUI for ODE. I had so much fun building that app, and building random stuff in that virtual world, I didn't even start on the physical robot. Bipeds, centipedes (there's a dialog box to build N-pedes), snakes, a motorcycle, a couple cars, etc, etc.
If anyone remembers sodaplay from back in the day, I cloned and extended their GUI for controlling simple oscillating motions. And added a smooth waveform for "up, pause, down, pause, repeat" in addition to just sine waves.
There's a simple visual programming language for configuring the data flow from those simple wave functions to motorized joints in your contraption.
There's multilevel undo/redo for everything, because I had just bought the GoF patterns book, and the CommandHistory chapter seemed like such a great idea that I couldn't NOT use it.
It turned out really nice, I was super proud for a while... life moved on.
I dusted it off a couple years ago and got it to build with a modern version of Visual Studio. The C++ standard has evolved, and there are now a billion warnings, but it does build and run. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the MPEG library and terrain library to work. And the screenshots and MPEGs from 2002 are long lost, so I haven't got much to show for it today.
But it is on GitHub if anyone wants to play with it: https://github.com/natewaddoups/juice
Coincidentally, a library called ODE had just been released, which did (still does) very nice physics modeling. After a year I had a sort of "robot construction kit" / 3D world editor and simulator GUI for ODE. I had so much fun building that app, and building random stuff in that virtual world, I didn't even start on the physical robot. Bipeds, centipedes (there's a dialog box to build N-pedes), snakes, a motorcycle, a couple cars, etc, etc.
If anyone remembers sodaplay from back in the day, I cloned and extended their GUI for controlling simple oscillating motions. And added a smooth waveform for "up, pause, down, pause, repeat" in addition to just sine waves.
There's a simple visual programming language for configuring the data flow from those simple wave functions to motorized joints in your contraption.
There's multilevel undo/redo for everything, because I had just bought the GoF patterns book, and the CommandHistory chapter seemed like such a great idea that I couldn't NOT use it.
It turned out really nice, I was super proud for a while... life moved on.
I dusted it off a couple years ago and got it to build with a modern version of Visual Studio. The C++ standard has evolved, and there are now a billion warnings, but it does build and run. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get the MPEG library and terrain library to work. And the screenshots and MPEGs from 2002 are long lost, so I haven't got much to show for it today.
But it is on GitHub if anyone wants to play with it: https://github.com/natewaddoups/juice
I made a website that helps me search for specific techno tracks across DJ sets.
It helps me find DJs I vibe with the most
It helps me find DJs I vibe with the most
Built a solution to a problem I have always had. I like my system to be clean, minimal and structured. It gets quite tricky to manage multiple projects on my on machine, projects tend to gather and are placed everywhere. Overtime managing system wide dependencies becomes a problem. It is quite easy to mess up a system setting or to keep track of a package I wont need tomorrow. This is why I built freshenv. It is a command line application which helps developers in running and managing completely isolated developer environments locally. It fetches and lets you run environment flavours in the form of docker containers which are preconfigured with tools and packages developer needs everyday.
I use it everyday and some others as well. Which makes me happy :)
I use it everyday and some others as well. Which makes me happy :)
It's not that really interesting but it's something I use daily. I've written a sqlite3 based time tracking tool. I highly inspired by timewarrior, but I wasn't satisfied with it.
https://github.com/dgsb/tt
https://github.com/dgsb/tt
I watched Stargate-SG1, the series that was on from 1999 to 2010. I bought the disks and ripped them to my Mac. I scraped episode information from various locations (Netflix, Wikipedia, IMDB, etc) for directors, writers, full cast and synopses for each episode.
I wrote a perl script for the terminal that permitted searching all of these items for requested episode patterns/Titles/numbers/cast. The search results include info from every episode where a case insensitive match is found. I also enabled running the episode's video in QuickLook or QuickTime. The search results were color coded to differentiate search/cast/synopsys info. (no color shown below.)
Simplest example searching for a director:
sg1.pl 'William Waring' -terse ( just episode numbers ) Search for "William Waring" was found in 13 episodes: 109, 131, 147, 156, 164, 177, 178, 185, 194, 196, 198, 202, 212.
sg1.pl 109 SG1 Episode=[#109] S5 E21, => 'SG 2001 Stargate SG1 S5 D5_5.m4v', "Meridian", 05/10/02, Director: William Waring, Writer(s): Robert C. Cooper, cast: [Amanda Tapping (Major Samantha Carter), Christopher Judge (Teal'c), Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson), Richard Dean Anderson (Colonel Jack O'Neill), Don S. Davis (Major General George Hammond), Gary Jones (Sgt. Walter Harriman), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Janet Fraiser), Corin Nemec (Jonas Quinn), Carmen Argenziano, Jacob Carter / Selmak), Mel Harris (Oma Desala), David Hurtubise (Tomis)], Daniel incurs lethal radiation exposure when he prevents a potentially cataclysmic accident in a weapons laboratory on the planet Langara (P9Y-4C3) but the mysterious Oma Desala shows him that death can simply be another beginning. While the alien government responsible for the lab accuses him of attempting to sabotage their research the Kelownan Jonas Quinn tries to negotiate with SG-1.
I wrote a perl script for the terminal that permitted searching all of these items for requested episode patterns/Titles/numbers/cast. The search results include info from every episode where a case insensitive match is found. I also enabled running the episode's video in QuickLook or QuickTime. The search results were color coded to differentiate search/cast/synopsys info. (no color shown below.)
Simplest example searching for a director:
sg1.pl 'William Waring' -terse ( just episode numbers ) Search for "William Waring" was found in 13 episodes: 109, 131, 147, 156, 164, 177, 178, 185, 194, 196, 198, 202, 212.
sg1.pl 109 SG1 Episode=[#109] S5 E21, => 'SG 2001 Stargate SG1 S5 D5_5.m4v', "Meridian", 05/10/02, Director: William Waring, Writer(s): Robert C. Cooper, cast: [Amanda Tapping (Major Samantha Carter), Christopher Judge (Teal'c), Michael Shanks (Dr. Daniel Jackson), Richard Dean Anderson (Colonel Jack O'Neill), Don S. Davis (Major General George Hammond), Gary Jones (Sgt. Walter Harriman), Teryl Rothery (Dr. Janet Fraiser), Corin Nemec (Jonas Quinn), Carmen Argenziano, Jacob Carter / Selmak), Mel Harris (Oma Desala), David Hurtubise (Tomis)], Daniel incurs lethal radiation exposure when he prevents a potentially cataclysmic accident in a weapons laboratory on the planet Langara (P9Y-4C3) but the mysterious Oma Desala shows him that death can simply be another beginning. While the alien government responsible for the lab accuses him of attempting to sabotage their research the Kelownan Jonas Quinn tries to negotiate with SG-1.
Also, (SciFi geek here) The same was done for Stargate-Atlantis and my favorite Firefly
Recently I restarted to seed and download Torrents and I was frustrated with the various search engines, all the dodgy adds and banners, the clunkiness and the difficulty of sending the torrents to my home server.
So I created Torrent Hound https://federicocappelli.com/torrenthound.html a macOS app for searching torrents in 3 major search engines and with more advanced download options like multiple download and send to server.
After a bit my girlfriend and some friend started using it and gave me interesting feedbacks, so I made the app easier to use and with some features for helping less tech-savvy users.
The app is free and I'm happy to implement new features and add search engines if requested, any request or feedback can be done here: https://github.com/federicocappelli/TorrentHound/issues
So I created Torrent Hound https://federicocappelli.com/torrenthound.html a macOS app for searching torrents in 3 major search engines and with more advanced download options like multiple download and send to server.
After a bit my girlfriend and some friend started using it and gave me interesting feedbacks, so I made the app easier to use and with some features for helping less tech-savvy users.
The app is free and I'm happy to implement new features and add search engines if requested, any request or feedback can be done here: https://github.com/federicocappelli/TorrentHound/issues
In 9th grade I would text my crush from my mom's phone and would later delete the entire conversation since I didn't want others to read them.
I just wanted a way to save these messages in a way others couldn't read them.
We had just started to learn Java. I used the basics I picked from school to write a cipher program which would take some plain text, a pass key and generate encrypted text. Although, I didn't know at the time (but realized couple years later) that I actually coded a little extension of our age old favorite Caesar cipher.
This brought back so many memories!
I just wanted a way to save these messages in a way others couldn't read them.
We had just started to learn Java. I used the basics I picked from school to write a cipher program which would take some plain text, a pass key and generate encrypted text. Although, I didn't know at the time (but realized couple years later) that I actually coded a little extension of our age old favorite Caesar cipher.
This brought back so many memories!
[deleted]
I wrote a CMS / personal website hosting system that lets me publish straight from the Bear App note taking app that I use every single day.
Write or edit any post as a note in Bear, give it a tag so it gets published as a blog post or a new page, run one command and my site is updated.
The software is available as AGPL licensed open source.
I blogged about it, if you'd like more details: https://joisig.com/bearly-a-cms
Write or edit any post as a note in Bear, give it a tag so it gets published as a blog post or a new page, run one command and my site is updated.
The software is available as AGPL licensed open source.
I blogged about it, if you'd like more details: https://joisig.com/bearly-a-cms
In my house we where constantly searching for satellite weather images to understand the weather for the next days (because here in Mexico forecasts don't seem really accurate). So I built a small website that included 2 of our most visited local satellite weather images, and made it adaptable to the screen visiting (this was on 2006, way before responsiveness).
After making some experiments in positioning the website, it managed to the second place in some searches. Nowadays it has had no crucial updates for almost a decade (really old and ugly), nevertheless still has many daily visitors. https://txopi.com/clima
After making some experiments in positioning the website, it managed to the second place in some searches. Nowadays it has had no crucial updates for almost a decade (really old and ugly), nevertheless still has many daily visitors. https://txopi.com/clima