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Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

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Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#341
post #309

I invented a programming language where you use Unicode box-drawing characters to draw a structure of boxes and lines: ╓───╖ ║ ! ║ ╙─┬─╜ ┌───╖ ╔═══╗ ┌─────┴─────┤ > ╟──╢ 2 ║ │ ╘═╤═╝ ╚═══╝ ╔════╗ ┌───╖ │ │ ║ −1 ╟──┤ + ╟─┴─┐ │ ╚════╝ ╘═╤═╝ │ │ ┌─┴─╖ │ ╔═══╗ │ │ ! ║ │ ║ 1 ║ │ ╘═╤═╝ │ ╚═╤═╝ │ │ ┌─┴─╖ ┌─┴─╖ │ │ │ × ╟──┤ ? ╟──┘ │ ╘═╤═╝ ╘═╤═╝ └─────┘ │ The language is called Funciton (pronounced: /ˈfʌŋkɪtɒn/) and the above…

Also impressed with how good this looks on HN :)

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#342
I'm working on helping my wife get her print-on-demand Shopify store off the ground. She designs the products herself, but ran into challenges with SEO. So, I built a custom app that connects to her Shopify store via API, using GPT-4o-mini to handle SEO optimizations—things like generating descriptions, titles, alt text, SEO-friendly URLs, and more, all based on the product images.

There were also issues syncing with Google Merchant Center (missing colors, categories, etc.), so I tweaked the app to auto-fill these fields using GPT-4o, making it compliant with Google and Pinterest requirements.

I’m completely new to SEO and just tried following best practices to fix things as they came up. Now I’m learning that SEO keywords change constantly, so I’m thinking of integrating a keyword provider to dynamically enhance our product descriptions.

I never realized running an e-commerce store (especially print-on-demand) would involve so much operational work on the marketing front. I’d appreciate any advice on what to tackle next, especially since my goal is to avoid “subscription hell” with multiple Shopify apps. My wife is also just starting with ads and campaigns, diving into tutorials to learn the ropes.

Any guidance is welcome!

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#343
post #223

I've noticed that my son spends way too much time on YouTube or playing Minecraft and one of the few offline activities he enjoys doing on his own is coloring. And since he comes to me every time he wants a new coloring book and we spend about 10 minutes together searching for each picture, I made a website with a collection of coloring books for him. The site is very simple, but to be honest, I haven't had so much f…

Love this, thank you for creating it!

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#345
post #13

I'm working on synthesizing a genome at home! Here is a video with more details, as well as a picture of my home lab. I've always wanted to build life from scratch, and I finally have a chance to do it. Video on what I'm doing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCiuS1oHnKw Picture of my home lab - https://x.com/koeng101/status/1844150979484319842 I'm trying to build a DNA assembly company right now (been lots of ups a…

Wow this is very exciting! Always makes me happy when I see your comments on HN, you're always up to something interesting! Are you hiring developers or aspiring bioengineers? (I'm a developer and an aspiring bioengineer)

Someday hopefully soon when I raise a seed :)

I think if you have the right structure, it is easier to train developers to be bioengineers than bioengineers to be developers! Bioengineering tends to be a more wicked discipline, which seriously affects how one writes their code. Makes it kinda crap. Software devs on the other hand typically aren't as experienced in the other field, and so are coming in blind.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#346
post #81
post #13

I'm working on synthesizing a genome at home! Here is a video with more details, as well as a picture of my home lab. I've always wanted to build life from scratch, and I finally have a chance to do it. Video on what I'm doing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCiuS1oHnKw Picture of my home lab - https://x.com/koeng101/status/1844150979484319842 I'm trying to build a DNA assembly company right now (been lots of ups a…

a literal home lab!

My favorite piece of lab equipment is the bed.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#347
post #13

I'm working on synthesizing a genome at home! Here is a video with more details, as well as a picture of my home lab. I've always wanted to build life from scratch, and I finally have a chance to do it. Video on what I'm doing - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCiuS1oHnKw Picture of my home lab - https://x.com/koeng101/status/1844150979484319842 I'm trying to build a DNA assembly company right now (been lots of ups a…

> I've always wanted to build life from scratch, and I finally have a chance to do it. I'm pretty sure I saw this movie... and it didn't end well for existing life on Earth, as I recall. :p

good thing we live in real life and not a movie

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#348
eDSL for Build123d to make 2D sketching easier.

Almost all technical models imply some sort of complex planar line sketch(es) in various planes. CAD as a code already has a high entry level. My hope this eDSL could mimic GUI CADs techincs, be more "intuitive" and decrease entry level. At least it's more concise :P

https://github.com/baverman/build123d_draft/tree/build_line-...

https://build123d.readthedocs.io/en/latest/index.html

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#349

I'm still working on Habitat. It's a self-hosted social platform for local communities. The plan is for it to be federated, but that's a while off yet. I want it to be easily installable for those who want to host using docker, and for those who want to host on an EC2 instance or something, because online services for docker hosting are quite expensive, so I've been working recently on ansible setup, and it's proving…

I like the idea and have been ruminating on something similar myself - starred!

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)

#350
I'm building an open source messaging app similar to Discord or Slack, but with the notetaking/wiki capabilities of something like Notion or Confluence integrated. I just finished rewriting it in Rust, and while the new release is somewhat buggy, I feel like it solves many of the problems with Discord being the "black hole of knowledge".

https://alpha.mikoto.io/

https://github.com/mikotoIO/mikoto

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