I do some fun things with Wireguard on a few VPS servers.
Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
121–130 of 960 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#122I posted this as a show HN a few weeks ago, I maintain a small, completely free html/js game. There's no chance of it ever making money in its current form, it's just a fun waste of time with a few hundred players[0]. [0] https://wallsmash.com
A while ago, I found this incredible website: https://wilderness.land/
It's basically somebody's web adventures as a map. It's inspired me to make my own version with hex tiles. I'm adding this to my list of sites :)
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#123I built a satirical social network called shlinkedin. It started as a way for me to learn elixir and make fun of thought leadership with my roommate, and has gradually gotten bigger. It’s all open source and a ton of fun to work on. Everyone is an alter ego (think Beff Jezos or Office Spider), and it’s hilarious to see how much people commit to the characters they create. And I can’t say enough good things about work…
HN hug of death. And well deserved, I had a great time with this one.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#124My day job. Personal projects get a little more heart, but "success" to me is usually intrinsic, not extrinsic. I'm probably a little weird when it comes to motivating factors, but not alone.
Oof. This is probably most people, too. There need to be more jobs where the interest alignment in work is 100%. Disney animators, Nintendo programmers, audio programming, SpaceX engineers, ML/AI, bioinformatics, ... Rockets, chemicals, machines, visual toys, solving moonshot things, ... Less plumbing and glue code. Less adtech. Less studying and optimizing trivial human interactions that nobody will remember.
there's a lot of jobs like this out there -- and a lot of people working in them -- but you pay a premium for it. I think economists even have a term for it. employers don't have to charge as much when people are willing to take a pay cut to do the work.
be careful what you wish for, though. in the entertainment industry, for people like actors and directors, the pay cut is only at the early stages, and unions limit how deep it goes even then. for video games, though, it's an absolute nightmare. interest alignment in work, in that case, can turn into a recipe for suffering.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#125I built a fun project to help build a morning journal habit. It works for me because I stay on top of my email inbox. The service emails me a journal prompt every morning and I save my entries by replying to the message, filling out the questions in line. If this sounds interesting there's a free trial available at https://mymomentjournal.com.
I had a lot of fun building this and thinking through the user-flows while I was out on long runs. That alone was satisfying enough, but it would be fun for more people to use it!
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#126Oh, all of them. https://imgz.org , say. I make them for me, usually I make them available because other people might want to use them. Yesterday I made Dia[1], a small cli utility that helps you keep a work journal. [1] https://pypi.org/project/dia/
The imgz FAQ is hilarious, thank you for that.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#127I bought the domain name elmlang.org
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#128My hurricane modeling project. It tends to go on hiatus after every hurricane season, and has gone through several iterations and languages, but I always end up back working on it. The last push got an actual website I'll put in public and automated model generation (though we'll see how well it holds up in June)
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#129I'm not sure if this counts compared to the other posts here, but for me, for many years, r/wallstreetbets.
I think this actually falls in line with most subreddits. You build or support a community because you want to discuss something and there isn't anywhere else to do it.
This is kind of a loose interpretation of the "gets a lot of attention" requirement though.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#130"Oh By"[1] It's a "universal shortener" which means it doesn't just shorten URLs - it shortens anything and turns it into a short, recognizable code. Or, what would be a recognizable code if anyone used it :) Here's an example: https://0x.co/examples.html ... and for some reason I am still enamored with the " send a text to someone in the future " use-case. [1] https://0x.co
Every other url shortener has the massive advantage over yours of providing urls that can actually be used to retrieve the information, whereas your codes are meaningless unless someone is already aware of the service. Furthermore, I would argue they are not "recognizable" because the format you've chosen already has a well-known unrelated meaning for hex notation.