Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself? • Hacker News Board

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

#961

Post by supermodular » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

codpiece wrote: post #516

Not sure if it counts as tech, but I created a voiceboard for my mother to help her communicate while in hospice. She had a massive stroke and could no longer speak. I thought of a tablet app, but the stakes were too high, so it wound up as a laminated paper. You can read about my design decisions here: https://voiceboard.org

I am very interested in this - my mom has MSA and is quickly losing her ability to talk. Not sure how to contact you, but I'll check the website and your profile again in a bit to see if there are updates

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

#962

Post by jacobkranz » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 5:25 PM UTC

I wrote a Go library for postgres & redis that handles all caching automatically.

where all you do is input the queries your application needs and then it will automatically determine which columns are affected & do all caching / cache invalidation for you.

I have it to the point where due to Redis being able to push onto a list that only writes hit the database & it even will update the cache keys automatically so that after an insert or update the cache is still hot.

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

#963

Post by alexpotato » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 5:35 PM UTC

Not sure how interesting for other people but my wife didn't think this would ever work so here is the story:

- our puppy would bark in his room

- I set up a web based interface to generate commands via the Linux utility espeak

- I trained him to be quiet when he the espeak "quiet" word played

- The first time I did this from the other room and he stopped barking, my wife was impressed

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

#964

Post by arionhardison » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 5:37 PM UTC

AI health coach to help me manage my Crohn's Disease

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

#965

Post by Kye » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 5:39 PM UTC

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…

There's a tool you might like: https://buttplug.io/

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

#966

Post by ornornor » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

evandev wrote: post #560

I created a todo thermal printer so that I can write messages whenever I remember something. For example when I'm lying in bed and I remember that I have to do something or reading a book and think that's a great thought that I should look more into someday. Basically I have a mobile app that I can send a message to a api. Sometimes it's just a note, sometimes it is a todo item. Then I have a raspberry pi that polls…

What printer do you use?

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

#967

Post by Alifatisk » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 6:02 PM UTC

pigcat wrote: post #760

My grandmother has dementia. About twice a day, she calls my parents every 5 minutes, forgetting that she just hung up. The calls are always the same: "You live there now. Yes you have money. We came to visit you yesterday." This can go on for an hour or so. My parents are incredibly patient, but after a couple of these calls, they'll just leave the phone to ring. The soundtrack of the phone constantly ringing in the…

How did you route her calls?

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

#968

Post by Alifatisk » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

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.

How accurate is the speed and length measurement?

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

#969

Post by Alifatisk » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 6:09 PM UTC

drcode wrote: post #593

I just moved to the bay area. I made an app that scrapes all bay area events from meetup, eventbrite, and a couple of other sites- This way you end up with around 100 events a day, way too much to read through. So next I take each event, send it to chatgpt3.5 and ask it to rate this event on around 20 parameters. Next, I take the latitude/longitude of each event and measure driving distance from my house. Then I have…

How did you measure the driving distance?

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

#970

Post by ornornor » Sun, Apr 30, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

btbuilder wrote: post #455

I built a program in Go to defeat GeoIP lock-outs for my home network. It runs on our home router and functions as the primary DNS server. If the record name matches a regex the DNS request is forwarded over a VPN to a DNS server in the target country. Any other requests are forwarded to my ISP’s DNS. If the response is a CNAME then the A record name is cached so that follow-up requests are also forwarded over the VP…

Curious: why not routing and vpn? I do this with opnsense, for instance Pandora is forbidden where I live so I’ve looked up all IPs for their ASN and made routing rules that any packet going to these IPs go over the US VPN. And I’ve made WireGuard profiles for mobile phones so the Pandora traffic goes over WireGuard and through the us vpn via my home opnsense.