I've written one fiction novel and I'm working on another one, and have ideas for the early stages of two others. While I would like to be published one day I don't think it would hurt me too badly if I wasn't. I love writing and the process of breathing life into a story and characters from nothing. I've got my manuscripts listed here in case anyone is interested https://writing.martin-brennan.com/works/#manuscripts
Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
161–170 of 960 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#162Believe it or not, I sell the following on Fiverr as radiantxp21: "I will special stocks and option picks lose all your money fast and intelligently"
I know, it sounds a bit, non-English, but in my defense: it was my first time using Fiverr and I had no clue how to use it. The ad is up for a few months already, and I had many laughs creating it, but yesterday I had my first client! I panicked, I realized that I am as bad at picking bad stocks as good ones. I felt like a fraud! And I was laughing so hard that I felt like a fraud.
I genuinely have impostor syndrome telling people how to pick the worst stocks of their lives that will lead them into financial ruin :') I feel there's something funny about the whole aspect of: you ask for a service where you lose your stuff, now you gained more stuff, you're happy as a person but probably not too happy with my service.
Writing the order was a ton of fun! I just get so many questions. Why would one want to lose money? Why listen to me? Would he want to adopt me? What are they really expecting? How does one pick a horrible horrible stock? Should I inverse my own trades, or should I lose the money to feel a sense of comradery? How serious should I be?
The result is: I set up this persona that I feel is funny as hell, yet I try to analyze things as intelligently as possible and really show my real side as well.
Thinking the question through: how can I deliver the worst possible stock (that is not something synthetic, or an index)? Really having the same strong drive that I normally have when I want to buy a winning stock.
I can't put my words on it, but I feel it's splendidly beautiful if done in moderation.
And I am proud to now say at parties: I am a professional financial advisor, I make sure people lose all their money. I am so good at it, I need a place to crash, can I stay at your place tonight?
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#163When you plug a Macbook in with the included two-prong power adapter, sometimes it buzzes slightly when you stroke it gently (ground loop). Im working with a factory to make a grounded duckhead adapter to fix this. https://ibb.co/P4Bjstg
Wow. I had never experienced this until I moved from US to NL. It sometimes really bothers (scares?) me. If you have two Macbooks side by side, and you touch them both at the same time, you can get an even bigger sensation.
Now since you're in this area of expertise, do you think it's possible that on rare occasions I could lightly stroke another human (let's say in a bed, on a waterbed (water filled rubber container)) and feel the same sensation as I feel sometimes when I stroke the computer? Could be that both turn me on, but I'm pretty sure this was not imagined. It was also rare and strong when it happened.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#164I have a YouTube channel of videos I make with my family at our cabin. Some of it is renovation, some of it is just enjoying the outdoors. Folks message us from time to time and say they enjoyed this or that. If it takes off and becomes something, that's cool, but only to the extent that it means it made someone's day brighter. Otherwise, I'm content to just enjoy the videos myself.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#165What a great thread, love all those projects!
For me it's https://togetherdb.com, my passion project that I enjoy working on so much. It's an online database for developers, you can also manage your existing databases with it. If you work with databases, then please check it out!
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#166I'm not sure if this counts compared to the other posts here, but for me, for many years, r/wallstreetbets. I think this actually falls in line with most subreddits. You build or support a community because you want to discuss something and there isn't anywhere else to do it. This is kind of a loose interpretation of the "gets a lot of attention" requirement though.
I’ve run a community for 10 years now, I’m extremely burned out. You have to make so many compromises and babysit so many idiots it really saps the fun out of everything. I’m tired of being Literally Hitler because I have to ban someone or mediate other histrionic meltdowns.
Also after awhile it grows so much you don’t even know everyone anymore, and you pretty much don’t care. My discord has 11k members and I don’t even read 80% of the channels anymore lol
I always wanted to be the big webmaster guy when I was young, but the reality can be a bitter pill.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#167I have a small game that I made to experiment with some tech. https://donotplaythisgame.click/ In short, you accrue points while you aren't playing it, but you have to log into actually get the points (similar to "the game", which you just lost). You get your global ranking only after logging in though.
There's a concept here to refine... I've thought about something that's perhaps related.
One problem with a lot of modern (online/shared) games is the sense of missing out when you're not playing, or the sense of competition which demands focused attention. Both of those tend to upset life balance.
I have pondered influence based games, somewhat like turn-based, where you aren't able to micromanage play but instead strategize and occasionally provide instructions or goals. Then the game does the playing, and you can observe if you wish. But importantly, for lengthy periods you cannot make changes or influences; so frequent observation wouldn't be rewarding or useful, and you could feel content to go away for a day or two. Then when you return, there's a bit of excitement to discover how things turned out and to plan what goals to modify or add.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oof. This is probably most people, too. There need to be more jobs where the interest alignment in work is 100%. Disney animators, Nintendo programmers, audio programming, SpaceX engineers, ML/AI, bioinformatics, ... Rockets, chemicals, machines, visual toys, solving moonshot things, ... Less plumbing and glue code. Less adtech. Less studying and optimizing trivial human interactions that nobody will remember.
> There need to be more jobs where the interest alignment in work is 100%. Disney animators, Nintendo programmers, audio programming, SpaceX engineers, ML/AI, bioinformatics, ... Some of these jobs can involve crunch time, low pay, and other forms of employee abuse, since people are willing to suffer for the sake of their passion. Sometimes boring work is the healthier option.
^^ this
Would add: prestige law and government jobs; trying to be an actor; working at Amazon; working as a chef/cook at most restaurants, esp fancy ones--the list is quite long of "passion jobs" that pay poorly and involve all sorts of abuse people wouldn't put up with at other jobs.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#169I posted this as a show HN a few weeks ago, I maintain a small, completely free html/js game. There's no chance of it ever making money in its current form, it's just a fun waste of time with a few hundred players[0]. [0] https://wallsmash.com
Ooh, like Holedown in a browser.
Re: Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?
#170https://bytebucket.co
I'm the kind of person that always buys electronics used on eBay, where you can get really powerful but 2-3 years old devices for a few hundred $. And, I find shopping for used electronics elsewhere is still terrible (how good is a 1yo i5 vs a 3yo i7?). So, I made this site to help me in that -- I started scraping eBay listings for laptops, picked out the specs and cross-referenced them to benchmarks.
True to form, I made this early in the pandemic for the fun of it (I'm not even a software dev), then realized marketing is boring and never shared it with anyone. Real life makes me busy, but there's tons of features I want to add eventually. And now I have a very interesting dataset to play around with.