Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

Post by episteme » Wed, Jun 11, 2025, 10:18 PM UTC

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #196

I'd like to establish an index fund that jumps through the necessary hoops to allow US expatriate citizens to invest from places like the European Union. Last I checked, there is no fundamental legal barrier preventing this - just an enormous amount of compliance work that has to get done. But as we would be the only real option for 1 or 2 million well-monied people, I imagine we'd be able to start with a very eager…

Post by dapperdrake » Wed, Jun 11, 2025, 10:53 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #32

jesol wrote: post #7

I don't know anything about electronics design, but I'm really into backpacking so a high efficiency battery system with a solar panel is really interesting to me. I came across this project[1], and wanted to improve upon it for my usecase. I want to add the ability to have multiple 21700 cells in a lightweight charger, instead of a single cell with a builtin USB charger. I want to learn more electronics, but it defi…

Learning just enough for your needs is a valid approach to learning electronics design, unless you're planning on becoming an actual EE. It provides a huge amount of self-motivation and as much as I hate to admit it (as a one-time electronics design engineer), you can skip a lot of the middle-layer concepts. Sure, you should understand Ohm's law and what basic components (resistors, capacitors, transistors) do , but…

Post by seanssel » Wed, Jun 11, 2025, 11:33 PM UTC

petee wrote: post #151

seanssel wrote: post #15

Game development. I’ll admit that part of my problem is chronic depression over a decade+. The idea of gamedev excites me, but I have a hard time feeling passionate about anything these days. You definitely need that for games. Hell, I’m barely able to sit down and even enjoy games anymore.

Not sure what types of games you're interested in, but the TIC-80 can be fun to explore, and supports quite a few languages

Post by noisy_boy » Thu, Jun 12, 2025, 12:24 AM UTC

fakedang wrote: post #189

noisy_boy wrote: post #168

I want to help small businesses in my area, those who want it, with technology solutions that can improve things (and in-turn learn about the needs of real small businesses). I can pretty much do full-stack (ranging from something basic that improves things for them to something elaborate like backend, UI, AWS, K8S etc). However, I don't have any idea how to identify customers, approach them, price my work fairly, de…

What I've learnt is that it's for businesses to productize SME solutions unless they're dirt cheap or free, but getting hired as a consultant (who actually adds value) is always an option. It need not be done for compensation either initially - you just want to build trust with the folks, advise them, maybe sit with them and evaluate already existing technical solutions on the market (instead of building your own!).…

Post by mkbkn » Thu, Jun 12, 2025, 1:29 AM UTC

monarchwadia wrote: post #125

yu3zhou4 wrote: post #109

Being able to spontaneously speak with people and slow thinking. I am ok at writing with people, because it gives me time to think and refine my message. But I really suck at live events and talking to people in real life. Did anyone overcome it? And how?

For me, it was a skill issue.Most people learn it when very young. Just repeated practice helped... and someone close to me coached me on things that seemed common sense to others, but were counterintuitive to me. But over time, my neurons rewired themselves. I'm fairly good at small talk now. People dont believe me when I say I couldn't even order pizza over the phone at one point.