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Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

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Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#231

Post by koeng »

kuczmama wrote: post #211
koeng wrote: post #168

I’ve been working on a synthetic DNA assembly company. Basically, I figured out how to assemble DNA for people at a fraction of what it normally costs, so they give me a sequence, and then I make it in real life for them, then ship it to them. Most of my customers have been AI protein designers, ironically. Turns out SOMEBODY has to wrangle atoms in the real biological world and that’s me! After almost a year of work…

That is very cool. I'm curious if you can share some of the things people are using this synthetic DNA for?

I can share a few things! (but definitely not all)

- One is finding different T7 RNA polymerases with unique properties by manipulating the backbone. They can be used for things like in-vitro RNA production for vaccines - Another is synthesizing a phage that has been sequenced for a specific organism, but that the samples are now lost of. So resynthesizing that genome from scratch - A different project (personal one) is building a DNA parts toolkit with standardized DNA parts so you can combine em together like legos. Pretty much nowhere but FreeGenes has open source genetic parts (I used to run that project), and I think open source genetic parts need to be in the world

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#232

Post by stavros »

jmkni wrote: post #188
koeng wrote: post #168

I’ve been working on a synthetic DNA assembly company. Basically, I figured out how to assemble DNA for people at a fraction of what it normally costs, so they give me a sequence, and then I make it in real life for them, then ship it to them. Most of my customers have been AI protein designers, ironically. Turns out SOMEBODY has to wrangle atoms in the real biological world and that’s me! After almost a year of work…

How the fuck does one "assemble DNA" lol Sorry but that's so outside of my understanding it reads like pure science fiction (I'm sure it's a thing, I'm just a moron)

Very very small tweezers.

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#233

Post by tip_of_the_hat »

williamdclt wrote: post #223
tip_of_the_hat wrote: post #134

I'm working https://annotate.dev , a tool inspired by the Stripe documentation, to let anyone create step by step code walkthroughs. Here's a sample of a walkthrough you can create: https://annotate.dev/p/hello-world/learn-oauth-2-0-by-buildi... Would love to hear any feedback thoughts!

If you’ve not seen it, there’s a vscode extension called CodeTour that does something similar, could be good inspiration (or maybe you already do better!)

It's the first time I've heard of CodeTour, I'm really impressed from what I've seen thus far. Digging a bit deeper now, thanks for sharing!

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#234

Post by koeng »

logtempo wrote: post #171
koeng wrote: post #168

I’ve been working on a synthetic DNA assembly company. Basically, I figured out how to assemble DNA for people at a fraction of what it normally costs, so they give me a sequence, and then I make it in real life for them, then ship it to them. Most of my customers have been AI protein designers, ironically. Turns out SOMEBODY has to wrangle atoms in the real biological world and that’s me! After almost a year of work…

https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-... Might interest you!

That's how Twist/Agilent do oligo pool synthesis (and Dynegene now). I'm pretty interested in the Genscript / Avery digital method of electrochemical synthesis. Turns out those pools ain't good enough to be used in a biological context, which is where I come in - I can assemble them well into sequence perfect stuff

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#235

Post by koeng »

JohnMakin wrote: post #205
koeng wrote: post #168

I’ve been working on a synthetic DNA assembly company. Basically, I figured out how to assemble DNA for people at a fraction of what it normally costs, so they give me a sequence, and then I make it in real life for them, then ship it to them. Most of my customers have been AI protein designers, ironically. Turns out SOMEBODY has to wrangle atoms in the real biological world and that’s me! After almost a year of work…

this is the coolest thing I have ever read. How did you even get into that?

I found a virology textbook at the local Catholic book fair when I was in 6th grade, got hooked, teacher in 7th grade let me order GFP transformation kits to the school that I could do at home, then off to the races from there. I was in this article if you're interested in more deets: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/biohackers-gene-e...

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#236

Post by speps »

rwieruch wrote: post #228

In one week we have our anniversary for CloudCamping - a property management software for campsites. It is targeted for the European market at the moment, mainly the german market, because there is not much digital infrastructure in this space yet. In a nutshell: campsite administrators can create and configure their campsite and enable guest to book a place online. [0] https://www.cloud-camping.com/

What's the difference with https://www.pitchup.com/ ? Any time we go to a different UK area we use this, has most of them here. Only 53 sites for Germany, but it does say they cover 67 countries already which definitely wasn't the case when they started.

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#237

Post by vram22 »

mkw5053 wrote: post #206

I'm making a small compost freezer. This way, while your compost is in your kitchen and before you put it in the municipal compost bin outside, it doesn't smell, isn't wet, doesn't attract flies, and the bag doesn't rip. It has the form factor of a small trash can and uses a TEC for cooling.

Have you checked out bokashi and KNF? I found them interesting. I have a few years of background in organic gardening, and had a lot of fun doing it. But I've not try out bokashi yet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokashi_(horticulture)

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#238

Post by koeng »

jmkni wrote: post #188
koeng wrote: post #168

I’ve been working on a synthetic DNA assembly company. Basically, I figured out how to assemble DNA for people at a fraction of what it normally costs, so they give me a sequence, and then I make it in real life for them, then ship it to them. Most of my customers have been AI protein designers, ironically. Turns out SOMEBODY has to wrangle atoms in the real biological world and that’s me! After almost a year of work…

How the fuck does one "assemble DNA" lol Sorry but that's so outside of my understanding it reads like pure science fiction (I'm sure it's a thing, I'm just a moron)

I use restriction enzymes + ligase to cut DNA, then paste it back together at specific sequences. It's pretty simple honestly! https://www.khanacademy.org/science/ap-biology/gene-expressi...

The key is doing that at an industrial scale, reproducibly, with hundreds to thousands of plasmids at once. Becomes less simple. You encounter bullshit problems with biology, which I guess is valuable because it makes a moat!

Re: Ask HN: What non-AI products are you working on?

#239

Post by m3kw9 »

pyrrhotech wrote: post #151

I've been building algorithmic trading models for the last 4+ years. After trading them successfully with my own capital for more than a year, I launched https://grizzlybulls.com as an alternative to the traditional hedge fund monetization path. Since launching in January 2022, we've significantly outperformed the market with lower volatility and reduced max drawdown: Model - Return - Max drawdown S&P 500 (benchmark)…

Real test is when you have a down market. Everyone one looks like a genius in a bull market
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