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Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

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961–970 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#961
I have been trying to setup ultra low cost rdp clients program for schools using RPi Zero 2w.

This is mostly a hobby/community help project. Majority of schools in my area are either not required with computers or they have lots of older ones with no funding to maintain our modernize them.

I'm trying to setup everything within VPN (either wireguard or tailscale). I'll most probably go with tailscale so I can use the subnet router.

The zero would would run the older RPiOS (32 bit) and would autostart a rdp session using xrdp client. It's pretty usable for mostly static work that students need in schools.

Each RPi unit would cost around ₹2500 ($29) which includes all the adaptors, power supply, sdcard etc.

On the server side I'm running two Ubuntu server OS VMs (inside proxmox) configured with XFCE4 and KDE.

The work is still in progress, I'm yet to iron out major bugs.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#963
An open-source pluggable version of Omnivore (read-it-later app).

The idea came since Omnivore decided to shut down. It is open source and self-hostable but the whole system has so many bells and whistles that nobody would want to self-host it. Even more, even if I am able to export all my data, I will be unable to use their beautiful client to view my data or build anything of my own because I am not good at that.

The idea is to have a read-it-later app that has modular components each of which can be self-hosted independently which talk in protocols. So a different data crawler module that can take many forms - browser extension, Telegram bot, or something else, that takes an URL and posts the page content to a server.

The server will have modular parsers that are extensible to support different websites and pages, contributed by community (similar to Telegram's parser or Calibre's). It then converts it into a common format to be stored.

The storage should also be pluggable so that I can easily store my data wherever I want - whether locally as MD files, on S3, or on an SQL Database. This also should be extensible to allow different storage types like so many other tools do.

Then a web server that serves common endpoints to read, add tags and annotations, and other operations. It just needs the user's storage endpoint and authorization to allow them to access their data. I feel this is going to be the most challenging.

Let users create their own clients that render this for users. Just like Telegram and Matrix.

This idea resurfaced recently because I wanted to try getrecall.ai but it looks too expensive and I am worried about privacy. Having a setup like this would allow me to plugin a local LLM to this system as well.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#964

Working on a mathematical model to quantify what is theoretically possible for humans to bridge all fragmented theories across psychology, mental health, productivity, economics, and more (similar to what Shannon did for Information theory). It stems from my struggle to keep up with the feeling of overwhelm with so many things to learn. Currently working on organizing all of my thoughts into a coherent theory. You ca…

Thanks! I'm just digging into this, but there's a lot about this that I like. Your writing is very clear and to-the-point.

Thanks for checking out. Sent you request in Linkedin, would like to discuss more.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#965
I'm still working on a complete overhaul of German health insurance advice for immigrants. It's a really boring topic BUT a fascinating problem.

The system is complex. Choosing the best option is difficult. Understanding the timelines, the required documents, and how to prove coverage for a visa application or school enrolment is super complex. I'm trying to streamline the whole thing.

I released phase one yesterday. It's a simple overhaul of the text advice plus a new health insurance calculator. I also paired up with a health insurance broker to give more personalised advice, since everyone needs a different recommendation.

It's here: https://allaboutberlin.com/guides/german-health-insurance

I'm now working on phase two: covering the exact process of getting insured for a visa application. I really want to walk people through the exact order of things, with detailed steps and timelines. The calculator will get a hell of a lot more complicated.

Phase three is compressing all of that. Once I have a good idea of how things work and where friction can be reduced, I'll simplify and automate as much of it as possible. It should turn a messy, complex and confusing process into a fairly straightforward thing.

I feel like no one is really doing this yet, and I'm surprised at how achievable it is.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#967
post #903

A small tool I'm building for myself because I often forget what I actually did during the week, especially when it's time to summarize it, do my weekly review, or prepare for 1:1s or evaluations. The idea is simple: 1. On the days I work, I get an email one hour before the end of the day (as I usually use emails as todo lists). 2. I reply to that email with what I did just like I would in a personal journal. 3. My r…

That sounds useful. My company tends to work out of Slack, so having it interface that way would be cool.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#968
I'm working on a site (https://panoptic.live/) that lets you collect, watch, and share videos from different platforms.

You can drag and drop links from YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, or Kick.

You can add or remove streams, save mixes for later, and share them as links.

You can watch multiple videos at once in a wall-of-video grid and navigate quickly from one stream to another. It works best on a really big screen --phones aren't really supported.

So far, people seem to like it. I've made a lot of updates based on people's feedback since I announced it a few weeks ago.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#969

https://www.moviemixup.com A wordle-like game based on a road trip game my friends and I used to play. It serves you up a mashup of two different movie plots, and you have to guess the combined movie title. There's always some sort of shared word or wordplay between the two movie titles. An example from the tutorial: the day after tomorrow never dies.

Nice idea! Not sure I'm missing something obvious, but it really needs an archive, or "play random" button.

There is one! When you complete today's puzzle, it asks you if you want to play an older one.

Re: Ask HN: What are you working on? (May 2025)

#970
Agent builder vs “Cursor for APIs” — which dev tool would you actually use?

Hey everyone, I’m building my next project and would really value your input. I’m exploring two directions — both designed for mid-to-senior technical builders: AI Agent Builder: Create complex, production-ready agents from plain text in minutes. Fully code-ownable, transparent (not a black box), and easily connectable to modern tools — even the latest YC startups with APIs. Cursor for APIs: A dev-first tool to connect to any API instantly. Just type “build a RAG system for…” and it suggests the best tools, then generates the right code and surfaces the latest docs — including niche APIs. Think of it as a fast, intelligent API library with copy-paste-ready code. Which of these would actually improve your workflow?

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