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Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

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Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#311

Post by exikyut »

vanderZwan wrote: post #84

It doesn't have to be a full project, right? Do random drive-by PR-requests to open-source projects count? A few months ago I ended up scratching an optimisation itch for weeks, trying to figure out ways to make the lz-string[0][1] library faster and smaller. Near the end I went a bit nuts with trying out what works, methinks (nested trees built out of arrays and such), but I had a lot of fun. It's not even my librar…

Interesting. I need to do some deep diving on LZ myself, to build a highly-compressible custom file format.

Would benchmarks from a really old laptop be useful for #98 ?

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#312

Post by cozuya »

My web adaptation of the social deduction board game Secret Hitler: https://secrethitler.io

Pretty fun, don't get to do much back end stuff so its a learning process. Its creative commons so can't make $ off it but the $10/month digital ocean box is doing fine. About 100 players on at peak and always games going.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#313

Post by RealityNow »

I'm at a point where money doesn't matter to me anymore except in the sense of retirement. I'm not rich by any means, I'd just rather live a life working on the most important problems in life, which these days I believe are mostly political/economic.

http://www.endwageslavery.org/

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#315

Post by christophilus »

yogthos wrote: post #27

http://www.luminusweb.net/ and all my GitHub projects https://github.com/yogthos

Well, even if it doesn't make you money, I hope you know how much you're appreciated in the Clojure community. Thanks for all the hard work!

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#316

Post by jhy »

I created and hack away on jsoup, a HTML parser/scraper for java. https://jsoup.org

I created it initially just to scratch a personal itch (to make another project, https://alterslash.org, more resilient to upstream changes in HTML), and now get a lot of satisfaction just in knowing how much it's used around the world for all sorts of use cases I hadn't really imagined when I started writing it.

And it's great fun finding new areas to benchmark and micro-optimize.

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#317

Post by Lerc »

Sheer joy is an interesting term. I like making things but I don't think that is my primary motivater for _what_ I make.

Most of my free stuff is because I think the things should exist and they are things that shouldn't have to be paid for.

Some things are just plain geek fun

https://github.com/Lerc/stackie - Makes textures using a very compact stack machine language

https://github.com/Lerc/kwak-8 - Emulator for an 8-bit computer that never existed

Some things I wanted to have exist

https://github.com/Lerc/smallcalc - A compact pop-up calculator for the Cinnamon Desktop

https://github.com/Lerc/plops - (old) A lightweight Desktop widget engine that I made when I developing for 256-512mb boxes/

https://github.com/Lerc/whio - A Javascript canvas rendering lib for beginner programmers using Globaly avalilable functions + mediaWiki plugin to run in a worker.

http://fingswotidun.com/code - A wiki usisng the plugin from the entry above. Has some introduction to programming javasctipt tutorials.

And the mad project that I come back to every couple of years to push a bit further along.

https://github.com/Lerc/notanos - A html/js login deskop for Linux.

And a lot of games.

Here's a silly one http://screamingduck.com/Lerc/LD13.html

Here's a really hard one http://www.screamingduck.com/Lerc/LD14.html

And here's one that might give your browser a hernia http://fingswotidun.com/ld21/

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#318

Post by fapjacks »

StavrosK wrote: post #288
fapjacks wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hah! I just noticed "Not a git repo" on the main page. Say no more! I completely grok why that's there.

Did you grok "because I changed deployment techniques and git can't read the commit hash any more"? :P I was going to fix it, but I like your reaction, so I might just leave it!

Ah, that's funny!

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#319

Post by [deleted] »

Lerc wrote: post #317

Sheer joy is an interesting term. I like making things but I don't think that is my primary motivater for _what_ I make. Most of my free stuff is because I think the things should exist and they are things that shouldn't have to be paid for. Some things are just plain geek fun https://github.com/Lerc/stackie - Makes textures using a very compact stack machine language https://github.com/Lerc/kwak-8 - Emulator for an…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Projects that don't make you money but you're doing it out of sheer joy?

#320

Post by chaostheory »

tenaciousDaniel wrote: post #302
chaostheory wrote: post #292

Late to the game again =/ I'm working on https://theymadethat.com It's an IMDB for everything, not just movies. It does show you who built what but it does more: theymadethat can show you what they used to build it, what those things are made of (parts, ...), their evolutionary history, who they worked with, and so on I can't say that I'm building it out of sheer joy; it's more out of obligation. There are so many pe…

This is super interesting to read through, and was very happy to see the Pentax K1000 mentioned! That was my first camera and I used it all the time during my teenage years. The thing was a beast, you could own the same one for 30 years and it would never die on you.

Thanks man - Pentax K1000's entry is actually a stub that needs work; still - glad you liked it =)

This is a slightly better entry in terms of cameras

https://www.theymadethat.com/organizations/slx/polaroid-corp...

On a related note, if you happen to know anyone related to the the K1000's design and manufacture, feel free to add it

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