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Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

#891
I finished a project that was on the back burner before the pandemic: ESP8266 based custom LED strip driver/controller.

Also I started reading a quantum computing book, but I rarely feel up to diving in the depths of linear algebra I barely understand.

Re: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

#892
I've been making sourdough bread routinely once a week. The sixth loaf, this morning, is the best yet and I'm really happy with how my familiarity with the recipe is developing. It's almost on par with the local bakery!

I have finally, after some 5 years, setup my RaspberryPi to perform a useful function for me. To validate the claims by my ISP makes about our bandwidth. It's performing a speedtest periodically and updating a Google Sheet with the results. Over time I hope to track and back up their guarantee myself! In the process I am learning about Go, Docker and Google's API. I am also increasing my knowledge of Linux. The project continues with more automation and monitoring.

I've recorded on 2 separate occasions bass lines for different bands in a simple home studio which has been put together since lockdown. I'm collaborating more with a teenage friend whom I used to record and perform with a lot many years ago.

Also, briefly: I've built my family home in Minecraft and plan on extending to some memorable landmarks...

And I hope to get round to reversing the fridge doors before the end!

Re: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

#893
Kidalist.com - crowdsourcing the best kid activity ideas.

Problem = parents get many suggestions some helpful, some clickbaity or low quality (too much mess/effort/clicking). Solution = crowdsource, moderate, and upvote for the highest quality ideas, categorize them and allow users to bookmark their favorites.

Anyone can submit an idea - a link plus short description and category choice. The moderator (just me right now) checks submissions for safety and quality before publishing them.

Visitors can upvote the ideas they like and submit comments on resources that might help other parents.

Logged in users (just email and password sign up) can bookmark their favorites.

If you have a great kid activity idea to share please submit it at https://kidalist.com/

Feedback welcomed, thank you.

Re: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

#896
My friends and I are working on a managed IAP backend for consumable purchases.

https://purchasepoint.landen.co/

We've made a few apps in the past that monetize with consumable purchases (specifically things like virtual currency, extra swipes for a dating app, etc.) and realized the backend we wrote each time for storing user inventory after making an in-app purchase was almost identical. PurchasePoint handles the details of Apple StoreKit and Google IAB transactions to track user inventory for you.

Re: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

#897
I've been working on a data frame implementation for Python. I think API-wise we can do a lot better than Pandas. Especially after having seen and almost daily used dplyr with R, when having to use something else, I miss that convenience of a clear and consistent API and the chaining of operations. I don't know yet if this project makes sense in terms of speed and corner case handling. I haven't done any real-world work with it yet, but at least it's been a good learning project.

https://github.com/otsaloma/dataiter

https://github.com/otsaloma/dataiter/blob/master/dataiter/da...

Re: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

#899
I've been working on my side project to remove the need to manually run website speed checks each time you make a performance tweak.

It's called PerfBeacon (https://perfbeacon.com/), and since quarantine started I've had time to add a free tier, test an implementation in Docker (rather than AWS Lambda), and start a couple of integrations with Netlify and Vercel.

Re: Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?

#900
My quarantine side project is a Moodle SAAS, which will offer free moodle hosting with the ability to install any moodle plugins. Current offerings do not allow users on free tier to install additional plugins or custom themes. It still very early, but I appreciate your feedback and comments. https://xeted.com/
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