Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 281 posts

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#221

Post by lormayna »

ddelnano wrote: post #195
lormayna wrote: post #116

* Kernel development and eBPF: I tried many time to go deep on those topics, but never became proficient * Bayesian statistics: I know the basics and the theory, but I am not able to understand how to use it in a real world problem

For kernel dev and eBPF, what kinds of resources or tutorials have you tried in the past? Have you ever tried building something small or contributing to an existing project? Curious to hear what hurdles you ran into.

For kernel, I have tried to write simple modules and it's okay. But when I am going deep in the internals, things become really complicated and my memories from OSes exam are rusty. For eBPF, I wrote a quite simple DNS visibility tools and while I am okay with the logic, I struggled on writing low-level C code that parse the network packet. Moreover, I found documentation incomplete and really confusing, for example: I would like to understand how the different queues are working and the only solution was to read the code. Right now, anyway, it seems that this aspect is improved; probably it's the time to play again with that!

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#222

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

episteme wrote: post #201
hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #196

I'd like to establish an index fund that jumps through the necessary hoops to allow US expatriate citizens to invest from places like the European Union. Last I checked, there is no fundamental legal barrier preventing this - just an enormous amount of compliance work that has to get done. But as we would be the only real option for 1 or 2 million well-monied people, I imagine we'd be able to start with a very eager…

If it's an index fund, what's the difference between this and a fund run in the EU that tracks a US market? Is it taxed differently?

I'm using 'index fund' broadly to refer to the cost structure - very low management fees, very "dumb" wide market tracking. Plenty of these already exist in the EU, for EU citizens, you are correct.

But yes, they are taxed differently. A US-domiciled fund is much easier for US expats to invest in without risking losing over 100% of their return (I am not exaggerating), but only if you can actually find one which will accept money from you while resident in the EU. None do, to my knowledge, An EU-domiciled fund would probably be classed as a PFIC and have to fill out reams of paperwork to avoid messing up people's taxes. One that US expats love is possible in theory, but no one has brought one to market yet because it requires dealing with a lot of US taxation errata.

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#223

Post by agnosticmantis »

rramadass wrote: post #219
agnosticmantis wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a lot for the recommendations. Would you recommend the Real Analog course independently? What does the Propscope one offer that Real Analog doesn’t? The Propscope one looks kinda old so I was wondering what I’d miss if I only used Real Analog. Also not sure if there’s a parts kit for the Propscope one that I can buy.

Sure, you can do the "Real Analog" course independently. Study it with a Parts Kit from Digilent+Analog Discovery 2/3 device(AD2/AD3)+Arduino board. That would be a nice entry point into Electronics+Embedded Systems. I was referring to the tutorial pdf of Understanding Signals with Propscope containing very nice step-by-step lessons in using a USB Oscilloscope for measuring various circuit parameters. The Propscope i…

Thanks for the tips.

I placed an order for the AD3+Parts Kit and excited to dive in!

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#224

Post by rramadass »

agnosticmantis wrote: post #223
rramadass wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can do the "Real Analog" course independently. Study it with a Parts Kit from Digilent+Analog Discovery 2/3 device(AD2/AD3)+Arduino board. That would be a nice entry point into Electronics+Embedded Systems. I was referring to the tutorial pdf of Understanding Signals with Propscope containing very nice step-by-step lessons in using a USB Oscilloscope for measuring various circuit parameters. The Propscope i…

Thanks for the tips. I placed an order for the AD3+Parts Kit and excited to dive in!

Nice. You also need to get the BNC Adapter board and probes for AD3 (available separately or as part of the pro bundle). Might also want to take a look at other available adapters for AD3.

AD3 resources (docs/tutorials/accessories/books etc.) - https://digilent.com/reference/test-and-measurement/analog-d...

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#225

Post by trealira »

For a while now, I've had the desire to make an AI that kills enemies and beats levels like a human would in the game Crypt of the Necrodancer. Here's[0] someone doing it as a human without ever taking damage.

There's something close called ChoregraphAI[1] on GitHub. It simulates the entire map and does a brute force search for what will get it to the stairs. That doesn't satisfy me because it just skips most of the enemies and takes advantage of things that a human couldn't know, like where a bat will move (bats move randomly, while other enemies are completely deterministic). Also, it can't control the game and is for an old version of it (although those problems themselves seem not that big).

But, I do not know what kind of AI could be written to perform the kind of long term planning and strategizing that a human would do (e.g. isolate each enemy to beat it more easily) and to beat the enemies like a human would (with special, pre-practiced strategies for certain enemies or groups of enemies), and even if I did, I get the sense that this would be really complicated for a first try and that I should gain experience making such an AI for a simpler game, though I don't know what.

It might be a self-constrained challenge. It's just been floating around my head for a while because I don't really know where to start.

[0]: https://youtu.be/CxavaHV-K6A

[1]: https://github.com/Grimy/ChoregraphAI

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#226

Post by ManlyBread »

Reverse engineering. Each time I start I seem to get overwhelmed by the amount of knowledge required, then I decide to check if these skills might be useful in getting a better paid job... and there just doesn't seem to be that much jobs involving these skills, neither in my area nor remotely. And my motivation instantly evaporates because learning all that stuff just to sometimes poke around in some weird program.

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#227

Post by winternewt »

Two projects:

1. Training my own LLM and other kinds of neural networks, e.g. a network for discriminating cheaters in an online game. I feel like it's very hard for an amateur to get their hands on enough training data.

2. Building my own weather prediction engine. Again, accurate prediction requires highly detailed and accurate data to start from and as far as I can tell that's not publicly available.

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#228

Post by NuclearPM »

clx75 wrote: post #140

I am fascinated by the idea of building something like the Lisp Machines or Smalltalk 80 from scratch. Build a Forth in assembly, build a Lisp in Forth, build an OS and computing environment in Lisp. AOT-compile only the Forth interpreter, load and compile the rest from source during system boot, maybe with later stages optimizing the previous stages as the system is assembling itself. I imagine two languages - Langs…

I don’t like the language names but I get why you chose them.

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#229

Post by atmosx »

yu3zhou4 wrote: post #109

Being able to spontaneously speak with people and slow thinking. I am ok at writing with people, because it gives me time to think and refine my message. But I really suck at live events and talking to people in real life. Did anyone overcome it? And how?

Seriously, make it a habit to say “Good morning” or “Good evening” with a warm smile the first time you make eye contact with another guest at a hotel, whether it’s during check-in or at breakfast. This is especially important if you’re staying more than a few days. Once you’ve crossed paths with someone three times without saying a word, starting a conversation later becomes both unlikely and a bit awkward.

Re: Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

#230

Post by bemmu »

seanssel wrote: post #15

Game development. I’ll admit that part of my problem is chronic depression over a decade+. The idea of gamedev excites me, but I have a hard time feeling passionate about anything these days. You definitely need that for games. Hell, I’m barely able to sit down and even enjoy games anymore.

Try Roblox (YouTube but for games essentially). You can publish a game just a few clicks, and even quite simple games can get popular enough that you get the satisfaction of seeing others interact with the thing you made, which is very motivating.
Post reply on HN