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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?

#341

Post by Mz »

raphlinus wrote: post #331
Mz wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and I'm hesitating a bit before pushing it over the line. I think I'm scared of having lots of users. A) What is "lots" of users? (Give me a number) B) What makes you think you would suddenly have lots? Cuz most things seem to struggle to get any traction.

A) I'll toss out 1M because you asked for a number. B) Because if I build out my full ambition, it would be better by most objective metrics (speed, features, integration with IDE-like capabilities) than all the free editors out there, and I think there is a real demand for a better editor. I know what you mean about the struggle for traction. It is of course possible I'm massively mis-estimating the potential userba…

It is of course possible I'm massively mis-estimating the potential userbase.

That is largely irrelevant. Do you have a marketing plan? Because "build it and they will come" tends to work poorly.

If you have no marketing plan, your concerns about a sudden influx of 1M users is likely seriously exaggerated.

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

#342

Post by kmano8 »

dmuth wrote: post #90

I built a website which offers real-time statistics for Philadelphia's Regional Rail train system: https://www.septastats.com/ This lets public transit passengers answer questions like: - "My train is getting later and later, is it actually moving?" - "My train is getting later and later, has it actually STARTED its journey?" (sometimes the answer is "no", sadly) - "Is it just my train, or are many trains running lat…

This is great!

I made this septa app years ago when realtime-ish data became available.. http://septa.kaybox.org/

Displays all on-time trains as blue, and late trains red. Locations update every 30 seconds, I think.

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

#343

Post by msquitieri »

tortoise_face wrote: post #211
msquitieri wrote: post #193

I created a site as a poetry project that generates random poems from sentences in Craigslist Missed Connections. Some of the poems are actually really poignant and funny. https://craigslistpoetry.com https://twitter.com/craigslistpoems

I. Love. This. It's genuine emotional revelations mixed with mundanity mixed with outrageous sexual deviancy.

Haha thanks!!

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

#344

Post by [deleted] »

FooHentai wrote: post #324
overcast wrote: post #71

https://kidisms.com Sharing funny kid quotes. Been going for years, not a whole lot of traffic, but the family loves it (that was the intention). Recently migrated from a severely aging kohana/mysql backend to express/rethinkdb.

Just to let you know - The page shows no quote in IE11 (hail corporate) ;( Also, 'Show More' button does nothing. http://imgur.com/a/QAB7f

[deleted]

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

#345

Post by tomascot »

qzervaas wrote: post #263
dmuth wrote: post #90

I built a website which offers real-time statistics for Philadelphia's Regional Rail train system: https://www.septastats.com/ This lets public transit passengers answer questions like: - "My train is getting later and later, is it actually moving?" - "My train is getting later and later, has it actually STARTED its journey?" (sometimes the answer is "no", sadly) - "Is it just my train, or are many trains running lat…

This is pretty cool. My "project that doesn't make me money" is https://transitfeeds.com Currently it archives a ton of static schedule data, and some basic GTFS-realtime archiving stuff. My longer-term goal is to archive all the GTFS-rt feeds every 30 seconds to provide similar analysis to what you've done here. Obviously this requires even more storage than I'm already using and a ton of data processing, which is p…

Do you know where the gtfs file is located by default? I know a bus company in Argentina that has that info somewhere and Google.is using it in maps but I couldn't find the gtfs file.

ty

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

#346

Post by xeo84 »

Touchboard: http://www.timelabs.io/touchboard Open source app for iPad to send keys to your pc / mac. I use it for gaming, I really find it useful, here is a video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1KOUj9SK_c

I've also made CbrConverter: https://github.com/timefrancesco/cbr-converter

Coverts pdf to cbr and vice versa.

And then there are a bunch of other small projects like:

- Ebay Search Scheduler (schedule Ebay searches with custom parameters)

- Twitter Time Machine (download and browse your twitter timeline) https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/tweet-time-machine-2/id83212... - windows version also available

- Autosleep (put the windows down for good) https://github.com/timefrancesco/autosleep

And many others I really enjoyed making and using.

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

#348

Post by biztos »

In addition to some random, minor bits of free software and one larger bit that's nowhere near finished, I have for years kept a goofy little minimalist thing going just to have it in the world:

http://thislikethat.com

It costs me almost nothing, I check in on it a few times a year, and once in a while I find something fun there.

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

#349

Post by amorphic »

I co-founded and run a makerspace called SparkCC (http://sparkcc.org).

It's not-for-profit but I've met lots of amazing people. I've been able to use my skills and knowledge to help many of them and many of them have used their skills and knowledge to help me. It's fantastic...:)

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

#350

Post by yourduskquibble »

I just saw this thread, and honestly it is probably too late to get noticed by many, but I'm attempting to 'unsuck the web' with my project[0] by pinning "sticky" website elements where they belong - i.e. the website header shouldn't steal your screen real estate and scroll down the page with you.

My project/uBO filter list removes the "annoying" elements noted above as well as other "features" of websites (e.g. social share bars, cookie notices, etc) through a filter list that works with uBlock Origin.

I update the list often, and admittedly am probably entering into an arms race but I'm just really sick of websites hijacking (what I think) the web was built for (information).

Feel free to subscribe to the filter list by pasting the URL below[1] into the 'Custom' section under the '3rd-party filters' tab of uBlock Origin.

This filter list also works on mobile Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin installed.

[0] Project Homepage https://github.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoyances

[1] https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yourduskquibbles/webannoya...

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