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Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

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111–120 of 175 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#111

My village is divided in four zones, every year they prepare a parade for the village festival and the best one win a prize. The classification is made by a selected jury made by theater director, actors, writers, etc. Every year people that attend the parade complained about the winner being not the best one according to the common taste. So I wrote a web app to permit vote by SMS (nothing fancy). It was a great pro…

May I ask which village? sounds very interesting

It's a small village in Tuscany, not far from Florence called Carmignano. The village is divided in 4 district, each one identified by a color (yellow, green, white and blue). During the festival, at the end of September, there is the parade and then a donkey race around the central square. Look for "Festa di San Michele Carmignano" on Youtube so see some videos.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#112
post #8

We're building Double ( https://doubleapp.xyz ) as something that fixes a need of our own. We observed that doing activities in the presence of others overcomes HUGE hurdles in motivation (called body doubling in ADHD communities, but also known as social facilitation: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_facilitation ). It's an incredibly interesting effect and something we are excited to share with others as we b…

Yes sir, I’ve observed this effect first hand -> it’s monumental how focused and dedicated I can be simply because another person is close by either watching, or helping with whatever I’m working on.

I hate the fact that I can’t really achieve that baseline when I’m doing something by myself though, which is my preference usually when I’m working.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#113

You asked for it: https://htmx.org https://hyperscript.org I hated angular when it first came out and couldn't believe what insanity people were willing to put up with, so long as it came from google. (e.g. GWT) I created https://intercoolerjs.org out of frustration with that, and the lack of progress in HTML/hypermedia in general, so I could build a web application I was working on ( https://leaddyno.com , since sol…

Super superficial (?), but the "press and hold" example on https://hyperscript.org/ has a bug (feature? :) in that if you move away the pointer while pressing, then let go, it keeps cycling, and won't stop even if you go back and press and let go again. It will stop if you press outside the button and let go inside, so apparently the actions stack. (On Firefox Linux.)

"Nitpicky" I think is the word you are looking for

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#115
https://slowsocial.us/

I made it as an experimental social network after frustration with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, etc for not providing ample space for people to be heard and feel heard. It got a lot of attention hear on HN, but unfortunately I haven't had much time to iterate on it after launching it, but I'm still really happy to have done it.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Super superficial (?), but the "press and hold" example on https://hyperscript.org/ has a bug (feature? :) in that if you move away the pointer while pressing, then let go, it keeps cycling, and won't stop even if you go back and press and let go again. It will stop if you press outside the button and let go inside, so apparently the actions stack. (On Firefox Linux.)

"Nitpicky" I think is the word you are looking for

I found it interesting behavior and it might be important in the larger picture, thus I'm not sure it's superficial, that's why I put the question mark there. Of course I don't mean that this should take away from the appreciation of the language. I'd have made a bug ticket instead if it weren't just much simpler to mention here, also this way I'm not implying that I'm a user and waiting for a resolution.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#117
post #37

A few years ago I discovered Anki (a spaced repetition app) for helping me learn Japanese. I immediately recognized the power of spaced repetition, but really did not like using Anki (it's pretty clunky and requires a lot of configuration to work right). I started building my own alternative, Mochi [0], which I wanted to kind of be a cross between Anki and Notion. I'm pretty happy with where it's at now and I've been…

Same thing for me, trying to learn Vietnamese - Anki does not cut it, so I am writing my own.

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#118
https://simplePDF.eu

For individuals it’s a free PDF editor tailored to form filling.

For organizations, a single line of code turns any PDFs into a web-form while keeping the look and feel of the PDF.

As to why I’m scratching my own itch:

Filling PDFs form when dealing with my country of origin has been painful every time, I wanted to make it more seamless both for me and for them

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#119
post #13

https://github.com/piku , for sure. I was getting tired of deploying stuff manually or juggling containers for the simplest of apps, so I sat down and wrote most of it in a couple of weekends. I now deploy the vast majority of my personal projects with it (including container-based ones, actually).

My next project! Thanks for this!

Re: Ask HN: What are your “scratch own itch” projects?

#120
My current side project (neighborhud.app) is an iPhone 6 in every room displaying a HUD (heads up display) of recurring things i need to do in that area, inventory, events, and requests. Iphone 6's are fairly advanced devices that are only ~$35 on ebay. This allows for recycling of tech that would otherwise become trash, because it just renders a webpage that's been added to the home screen (so it looks like an app). This bypasses any app store requirements so as long as it can keep running safari it's still of use. I just leave them plugged in with low screen brightness.

For "inventory", it's just a custom state machine that can be scheduled in the past or future. And requests are things an area needs - which can be associated with an inventory item, or free text. This lets me pull up all requests when I'm at the store and see the kitchen needs apples, and the bathroom needs soap, etc.

Right now, I have a HUD for my front door (to remind me of things before i leave) a HUD for my phone/car (when I'm out) and then one for my kitchen, bathroom and hallway. I have the one in my kitchen magnetically on my fridge, so i can pull it off and take picture of food I'm adding. Will probably add one for my office next.

The difficult thing for me has been being the user more than being the builder and just focusing on the real MVP and then picking at it over time.

Working on cleaning it up and then maybe allowing others to give it a go - i feel like there could be some value in connecting people with spaces.

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