Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

391–400 of 587 posts

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

#391
NextTrain: https://www.nextrain.co.za

We have a fledgling train system in the Gauteng area of South Africa (this area includes Johannesburg and Pretoria). However, the only way to see train schedules is via a PDF (2MB) buried deep on their website.

This was a quick weekend hack to show when the next train is for each of the stations, and some additional info.

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

#393
I started minienv (don't really like the name) a few months ago: http://minienv.com

Trying to make it easier to deliver sample applications that run in your browser and include backend databases, jupyter notebooks, etc. It basically allows you to run Docker Compose environments in your own little sandbox + adds an online editor for modifying code/etc.

I can see it either going towards more guided tutorials or something more like glitch. Honestly, it's just been super fun to build.

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

#394
post #183

I'm building a new Unix shell called Oil: http://www.oilshell.org/ It's definitely not making me any money. I would say the motivation is a little bit "joy" / learning, but also frustration that shells are so old, unintuitive, and work so poorly. I've been going for about 16 months and it's still fun, so that's good. I think that seeing progress is what make things fun.

I'm starting to wonder how the hell anyone decided shellscripts were a good idea.

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

#395
post #247
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you be open to sharing why this was cut from Amazon's affiliate program? Seems to be a pretty cool tool that they would want placement on.

Sure, straight from their email: - Lack of content which is original to your site and beneficial to your visitors - Pages that are mainly empty when advertisement content is removed Now does any of that really matter, if the service is moving books? No. But there's no appeal process, and no one to discuss this with. So I'm not glad it happened, but I'm glad it happened early. I've always been hesitant about affiliate…

Honestly there could be a better way by reaching out to other companies that work with you and form some sort of partnership agreement. Then you could give amazon "the finger" simultaneously...if you so desire.

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

#396
Currently I am building a self hosted push notifications application[0] which is using emqttd[1] as a message broker.

I am writing it in Elixir using Phoenix framework[2].

In the beginning the driving force was my need for a solution like that, but in long run I started to feel in love with Elixir and Phoenix.

[0] https://github.com/7-iris/iris_server

[1] http://emqtt.io/

[2] http://phoenixframework.org/

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

#397

Late arrival to this thread. One of my projects involve working with local female co-operatives in Nepal and help them sell their hand made products around the world. Paypal doesn't operate here, merchant services for international cards are impossible to get. They don't understand technology in any way and there is a lot of hand holding. The site is https://www.pasatrade.com We make no money off of this, I operate i…

I have a similar website with similar concept (for Filipino products). However, I would strongly suggest you find a way to make it a sustainable business for you as well. It sounds nice that you do not take a profit from it but the reality is that your life will change and one day you won't have time for a project that makes no money/operates at loss. Those women will start to rely more and more on the income from yo…

Yeah; I need to really put some processes in to make it more sustainable. We're quite strict with who can come on board as we're really only looking for non-profits or co-operatives.

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

#398
I guess I do ask for money for this, but it's pretty overengineered and I wrote it knowing that nobody wanted or needed it:

Long ago, when Sun workstations were new and exciting, I wrote a simple Roman numeral digital clock, which just showed the time in Roman numerals.

My friend, instead of admiring my cleverness, said "But that's not how the Romans told the time" - which is true. The Roman day started at dawn and finished at sunset, which meant that day and night length were different every single day, as well as in cities at different latitudes.

Several decades later I did something about it, and wrote it up as a mobile app which showed either the modern time or optionally the Roman time.

Then I made it use the Roman calendar, where you don't have individually numbered days of the month, but count instead how many days until the next Kalends (start of the month), Nones (fifth or seventh day) or Nones (thirteenth or fifteenth day), even if it occurs in the next month.

Then I thought I might as well go all the way, and spent more money than I would ever earn from it on having the help text translated into Latin, just in case any ancient Roman time travellers wanted to use it.

A waste of time and money, but one which made me happy.

http://www.teapot7.com/roman-clock-app/

Post reply on HN