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Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

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Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#801

Post by jwr »

cobbzilla wrote: post #110

My mom digitized many many old family videos, and wanted them online for sharing with family (including elderly & not-super-tech-savvy relatives). She asked me “should I just upload them all to a YouTube channel?” Thankfully it was a phone call so my mom didn’t see my aghast expression. I prefer that big tech not index this stuff! Better to keep “in the family” Seriously why does big tech deserve this free & super-pr…

I wrote something like this, but for photos. I was tired of not being able to share photo albums with my family and friends.

And then I realized that there is a certain group of people who really need a private photo-sharing service without any oversight, and that not only do I want nothing to do with that despicable group, I don't ever want to realize that I helped them in any way.

So I decided to never release the code and never make it available.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#802

Post by rd11235 »

xenodium wrote: post #137

- A ChatGPT shell that integrates well into my editor of choice https://xenodium.com/chatgpt-shell-available-on-melpa - A scriptable screenshot/video capture utility https://xenodium.com/recordscreenshot-windows-the-lazy-way - An iOS habit tracker that's neither cloud-based, nor needs an account, social, wants my attention, data, etc. https://flathabits.com - An iOS scratch pad that removes further friction than typi…

Flathabits looks great. I used to use a paid iOS app until they pushed enough UI changes and buggy updates to motivate me to create my own bare bones solution. Wish I had seen your app before that.

(Mine is just a personalized spreadsheet, https://pasteboard.co/PB1theDENEu7.jpg)

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#803

Post by sslnx »

Back in the day, access to the Internet was very expensive in my locality. We only had mobile data with max 20GB per month, and after that - 7KB/s unlimited for ~20% of average local salary. Having no job, it was very hard to pay that amount for the Internet, so I came up with a solution. I have set up a cloud server for 10$/month, got couple of SIM cards with that internet plan, and started developing a Linux tunnel program, which would join bandwidth of multiple interfaces into one by directing packets to my server. The server then forwards the packets further. I hadn't used it for long but it was very fun and satisfying to do it.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#804

Post by kristopolous »

simonsarris wrote: post #53

I built carefulwords.com simply because I wanted to type a word into the address bar and get a large list of synonyms and some historical quotes using the word quickly. For example: https://carefulwords.com/solitude https://carefulwords.com/think etc. Also unlike thesaurus.com, the search bar actually focuses so you can just start typing! It's not perfect, I need to do a lot of editing, but nonetheless I use it almos…

It's worth noting the best thesaurus I've found is onelook. Compare to the solitude results

https://onelook.com/thesaurus/?s=solitude

This is by datamuse who also does rhymezone (https://datamuse.com/)

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#805

Post by helloguillecl »

jo-m wrote: post #254

I have a rail line right under my apartment, so I built a small computer vision app running on a Rasperry Pi which records each train passing, and tries to stitch an image of it. It has a frontend at https://trains.jo-m.ch/ . Edit: it's currently raining and the rain drops are disturbing the images a bit.

This is incredible. Congrats.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#806

Post by kristopolous »

HornyDude wrote: post #650

Throwaway time! I built a custom smart motorized masturbator. It borrows from 3D printer design, and has a NEMA 17 stepper motor driving a 2GT belt loop around a short length of 2020 extrusion to slide a carriage along a linear rail. The carriage has attachment points that I've put clamps on, that close around a fleshlight-style sheath. There's a brace at the business end that you put around the base of the penis and…

Commercialize it

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#807

Post by Msurrow »

joshgachnang wrote: post #568

It's not specifically just for me but for my team at the World Largest Trivia Contest [0]. It's a 54 hour long contest, questions are broadcast over the radio, you have the length of 2 songs to call in the answers, and you can use any source to find the answer. Sounds easy, right? Just Google it? Nope. "In a big screen flick, XYZ is talking to ABC about something. In the background, a train passes. What does it say o…

Love this! A simple innocent trivia game (I assume this isnt a professional thing) blown completely out of proportion by competitiveness. Its just in that sweetspot where the tradeoff between effort to write tools vs the gain from using tools is in balance (it seems). I can totally see myself doing this.

TriviaOps :-)

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#808

Post by awestroke »

hermannj314 wrote: post #329

I hooked up an analog phone to Whisper, ChatGPT, and TTS. I used of one of those old timey candlestick phones you'd see in a 1920 gangster movie. Initially this was a prop for a murder mystery party I was hosting (ChatGPT would give clues if you said certain words), but now I use it for a silly distraction here and there. Ask ChatGPT a question by picking up a phone like it's last century! I think it is fun. I am usi…

How long is the delay between question and answer?

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#809

Post by deafpolygon »

gimili wrote: post #663

For 6 years I had a long distance relationship between Peru and Germany. When you are in different timezones it can actually be nice to fall asleep with the other person "close" to you; so we kept Skype running while one of us went to bed and the other person was working on the PC. Unfortunately the internet connection would regularly drop, ending the Skype call. Now you did not want to wake the other person by calli…

MS Live Messenger used to have a feature where you could set certain contacts to auto-accept. When my SO and I were doing the long distance thing, that was our lifeline.

Re: Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

#810

Post by ggambetta »

jo-m wrote: post #254

I have a rail line right under my apartment, so I built a small computer vision app running on a Rasperry Pi which records each train passing, and tries to stitch an image of it. It has a frontend at https://trains.jo-m.ch/ . Edit: it's currently raining and the rain drops are disturbing the images a bit.

Very nice! Pleasantly surprised to see the SBB logo <3
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