Ask HN: What's the most creative 'useless' program you've ever written?

• subleq

  1 0 - Python

  This is marginally useful, but I wrote a small ‘subleq’ playground — it’s an instruction set with just one instruction, “SUBtract and branch if Less-than or EQual to zero”.

  https://github.com/incanus/subleq

  It was fun to see how simple a model of computation could actually be.

• SaaSHub

  www.saashub.com featured

  SaaSHub - Software Alternatives and Reviews. SaaSHub helps you find the best software and product alternatives

  

• standup-comedy

  4 9 7.2 TypeScript

  Practice standup comedy with AI

  Recently did a standup comedy app where an AI laughs at my jokes: https://github.com/btahir/standup-comedy

• IONs

  2 11 10.0 Python

  Library of Intuitive Ordinal Notations (IONs)

  My Library of Ordinal Notation Systems shows a way you can systematically write more and more complex code, with no end---even if you had access to strong AGIs, they could never "finish" the exercise. https://github.com/semitrivial/IONs

• BMP_to_Prime

  1 0 - C

  Creates a prime number from a bmp

  I made a small C program that would use GMP to generate a prime number from a bmp image. I was inspired by a Youtube video but I can’t remember what it was anymore.

  https://github.com/Fethbita/BMP_to_Prime

• systemd-dining

  3 3 1.3 Shell

  Dining Philsophers implemented in the Unix Programming Environment

  

  Solving the Dining Philosophers problem using systemd

  It gave me the chance to play with some old unix concepts in an nspawn container.

  https://github.com/brightbox/systemd-dining

  As well as incorporating the Philosopher’s Song and some profound statements into the journal.

• larch

  1 0 - Python

  Generalized graph traversal

• cursed-typescript

  5 98 5.7 TypeScript

  TypeScript's type system is Turing complete - let's abuse that!

  I have a repository where I make classic programs (game of life, sudoku solver, brainfuck interpreter, etc) but entirely within Typescript's type system

  https://github.com/ruyili/cursed-typescript/

• retroSynthwave

  4 137 4.4 JavaScript

  A retro synthwave "demo scene"

  https://github.com/victorqribeiro/retroSynthwave

• triad

  1 0 4.6 C

  An esoteric language based on three-character identifiers

  I like to write a lot of little programming interpreters and compilers that don't have a whole lot of purpose other than to experiment with a concept. One of these was a little language I called Triad ... an esoteric programming language that used three-letter identifiers because I could quickly treat them like a base-26 int and index an array of 17576 entries, avoiding having to use a hash table implementation.

  You can see the C source code for a simple command interpreter that permits three-letter subroutine identifiers here.

  https://github.com/jimlawless/triad

  I have some other versions that had placeholders for built-in operations that would have made the language Turing-complete but I soon lost interest.

• gotermimg

  2 33 - Go

  Display images and play gifs in your 256 color terminal!

  Nyancat terminal animation in perl: https://gist.github.com/moshen/1417991

  On the slightly more useful side...

  gotermimg to play gifs in the terminal: https://github.com/moshen/gotermimg

• pywal

  86 8,096 0.0 Python

  Discontinued 🎨 Generate and change color-schemes on the fly.

  It's a cool problem. Did you ever see the pywal project? It has a few backends for generating palettes, I think the best is the imagemagick one in wal.py

  https://github.com/dylanaraps/pywal/tree/master/pywal/backen...

  Also, I guess dylanaraps has archived all his projects and taken up farming? Fair enough

• genact

  14 9,745 7.3 Rust

  🌀 A nonsense activity generator

• obnoxious.css

  4 510 0.0 CSS

  Animations for the strong of heart, and stupid of mind.

• elevator.js

  8 6,623 10.0 JavaScript

  Finally, a "back to top" button that behaves like a real elevator.

• hipku

  1 308 - JavaScript

  Encode any IP address as a haiku

  JS library to encode IP addresses as haiku

  https://github.com/gabemart/hipku

  the demo is long since dead but the lib is just a file, should still run

• pixelsmoosh

  3 - -

• candidCamera

  1 0 - JavaScript

  tessel camera project

• timekeeper

  3 6 - Python

  Telling the time from an image with computer vision (PyTorch + OpenCV) (by JinayJain)

  When I was first learning computer vision, I wrote a program that could tell the time from an image of a clock [1]. I had no purpose for it besides the fact that it seemed like a cool problem to try and solve.

  Years later, I get an email from a stranger in Korea, asking me how to run my program. Why would he want to use my silly program? Turns out you can adapt the code to read analog pressure gauges which is really useful for chemical plants. Goes to show that there's often a use for most things.

  [1] https://github.com/jinayjain/timekeeper

• tatanka

  1 1 - Go

  I wrote a bot / agent in Go that after installing it once in an AWS EC2 instance would starting checking and bidding on AWS spot instances and replicate itself there.

  It would check the API, “buy” a spot instance and inject a startup scrip to download itself.

  Totally useless. But fun.

  Code is here: https://github.com/tnolet/tatanka

• auto-giphy-movie

  9 24 0.0 Python

  AutoGiphyMovie lets you search Giphy for gifs, converts them to videos, attach a soundtrack and stitches it all together into a movie

  I built https://github.com/mohapsat/auto-giphy-movie a long while back for fun. It lets you search Giphy for gifs, uses ffmpeg to convert them to videos, concatenate the chinks, attach a soundtrack and stitches it all together into a movie

• pentatone

  1 1 5.0 Python

  This python thinks it's a guitar

  A guitar simulator: https://github.com/MatrixManAtYrService/pentatone

  A friend was excited to teach me to play the guitar and I was excited to teach him to code so I wanted to make some common ground for us to play with.

• encom-boardroom

  2 2,226 10.0 JavaScript

  📈 Web tribute to the Tron: Legacy Boardroom Scene

  Can’t believe it’s been a decade since I built this stuff… but I used to enjoy recreating futuristic UIs from movies. Tons of fun, wish I had time and energy for this type of play still.

  E.g. https://github.com/arscan/encom-boardroom

• react-lang-selecta

  2 0 3.5 TypeScript

  Language selector component with random flag emojies

  react-lang-selecta: https://github.com/MarcAbonce/react-lang-selecta

  A language selector component that shows random (but still accurate) flags for each given language.

  So if you give it, for example: English, Portuguese and Chinese it might render the flags of South Sudan, Macau, and Macau.

  I always noticed how websites sometimes pick arbitrary flags in their language dropdowns even when they're not even trying to represent those specific regions. Wikipedia even has an article describing this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_icons_for_languages

  So I thought about making a React component lib just to make fun of that idea. It's not that creative nor good but I had fun writing it.

• Margaret

  1 1 - Shell

  Are you there god?

• God

  5 2,214 0.0 Ruby

  Ruby process monitor

  I wrote a script to monitor the process monitor God [1]. which I called Margaret [2], playing off the famous Judy Blume book, "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret". [3]. Silly, but I enjoyed the low effort joke.

  1. http://godrb.com/

• DeepLabCut

  14 4,713 7.9 Python

  Official implementation of DeepLabCut: Markerless pose estimation of user-defined features with deep learning for all animals incl. humans

  

  Thanks for sharing this. The blog article on building your pipeline was a fun read! Your solution has a nice blend of heuristics and DL.

  If you’re ever interested in revisiting this click project, you could check out DeepLabCut [0]. A blogpost highlighted a toy example of training a DLC model to recognize clock arms [1], which may or may not be more consistent than your Canny approach :)

  [0] https://github.com/DeepLabCut/DeepLabCut

  [1] https://guillermohidalgogadea.com/openlabnotebook/training-y...

• RanDraw

  1 0 - Python

  Records keystrokes to create random images

  I found the GitHub repo too although I am a little embarrassed by the code now

  https://github.com/prashantsengar/randraw

• trainbot

  2 468 8.6 Go

  Watches a piece of train track, detects trains, and stitches together images of them.

• metamorphic_polymorphic

  1 19 - C

  Examples of Metamorphic and Polymorphic code

  I wanted to learn metamorphic coding.

  I end up writing a program which creates a copy of itself which is different to the previous copy, but still functions the same.

  https://github.com/jwbensley/metamorphic_polymorphic/tree/ma...

• fireworks-text

  1 2 - JavaScript

  A fireworks inspired approach for explosive text for the New Year

  

• esp32.bf

  1 0 1.4 C++

  branfuck on esp32 because why not?

• nanopond

  1 34 - C

  Nanopond: minimal artificial life system in C

• gevey-2023

  1 0 4.8 Svelte

  This code[1] takes a Gevey[2] phrase (eg: Ganexlje tots qibate vuiteerjat, yu vaelaem vosubz djaont nexljate veihat. Ûdx leugxoisqeu veihakjeu seti, sneinov galeugxe árj mondz dxeute tadiljt.[3]) and turns it into a string of letters that can be displayed by my Gevey native script font[4] in a browser.

  [1] - https://github.com/KaliedaRik/gevey-2023/blob/main/src/lib/n...

  [2] - My constructed language. I started working on it after my first week of French lessons, at which point I decided: "I can build a better language than that!" - 50 years later I'm still working on it and, no, it's not better than French ... yet.

  [3] - The builders worked very quickly, they easily built a bridge over the river. Travelling is easier now, but not enough travellers stop here anymore.

  [4] - https://github.com/KaliedaRik/gevey-2023/blob/main/static/fo...

• CommentCPP

  1 3 - C

  add confusing comments to an existing source file

  A script which replaces all comments in a file with confusing yet plausible-looking alternatives - https://github.com/tiniuclx/CommentCPP

  I did this seven years ago - way before generative AI came around to do it in twice time and 1000x more expensive ;)

• pynum

  1 3 - Python

  An implementation of positive integer arithmetic in Python

  Back at university I found out about Python's operator overloading and decided to reimplement integers:

  https://github.com/bjackman/pynum

• radialRepeat

  1 17 - JavaScript

  Photoshop radial repeat script for CS2+

  Only thing I have posted online currently: a Photoshop script to radially-repeat the current layer, making for interesting graphics! Assign it to a key-command, draw some stuff and press the key-command each time to progressively refine your artwork! Fun stuff. https://github.com/amatecha/radialRepeat

• patchy-py

  1 0 - Python

  Copy paste for pro's

  https://github.com/bobjansen/patchy-py

  Patchy.py allows you to keep define a Python function as the result of another function and a diff.

• sisyphus

  1 0 4.7 Awk

  Toy stack concatenative language implemented in AWK (by fairplay)

  Great thread!

  I wrote stack concatenative language while learning AWK https://github.com/fairplay/sisyphus and it was one of the most pleasant programming experience in 2024.

• least-toxic-todo-2024

  1 0 3.3 TypeScript

  I made a todo app in a mixed up tech stack (nextjs Backend, Go Frontend, Postgres in the browser): https://github.com/refactorerer/least-toxic-todo-2024

  I was probably furious about web development again, so I thought maybe it's fun to do something completely crappy and broken by design on purpose.

  It was really fun to do, but I also wanted to challenge myself in writing about it. I do not think that this satire project/article did a lot to improve my writing, but hey at least I did it and finished it. I do think however that it could have become much funnier had I put a little more effort into it. Also tried to get it out there by making an X account and engage with the htmx guy, but I learned that my X game is too weak and I gave it up afterwards.

  I definitely want to do some project like this again, I like the idea of doing something useless and/or plain wrong.

• computational-thread-art

  1 120 9.7 HTML

  Code that renders an image as a series of lines connecting pins around a circular frame (for more detail, see my Medium page).

  With your description, ChatGPT tells me it may be this one:

  https://github.com/callummcdougall/computational-thread-art

  Is it? :)

• HeartRateBandHacking

  1 0 1.8 C++

  I had an exercise bike that came with a heart-rate band monitor, but it only pairs with the stationary bike. I wanted to use it for running to show heart rate zones. So I wrote an android app that pairs with the band, gets reading and make some nicer display. I had no idea how to write flutter, or talk to bluetooth devices, but github and chatGPT helped a lot.

  https://github.com/kernyan/HeartRateBandHacking

• q8ball

  1 0 3.4 C++

  very cool, I made something similar, https://github.com/derekburgess/q8ball

• QR-to-QR

  1 15 - JavaScript

  Enables a pair of phones that have front facing cameras to share text using QR codes.

  QR-to-QR: https://github.com/sradc/QR-to-QR

  The app lets phones send messages to eachother via QR codes. The two phones have to be put face to face.

• spoonie

  1 6 - JavaScript

  Spoonerisms for the entire web!

  I wrote a Chrome extension called Spoonie[1] that modifies text on websites into spoonerisms[2]. Very useless, but very fun.

  [1] https://github.com/postmalloc/spoonie

• writer

  1 3 - Shell

  a CLI to write without restraint (by smcalilly)

  - writer - a CLI to write notes: https://github.com/smcalilly/writer

• oblique-strategies-bangle-js

  1 0 - JavaScript

  - added oblique strategies to the banglejs app store: https://github.com/smcalilly/oblique-strategies-bangle-js

• firebuild

  7 97 0.0 Go

  Convenience of containers, security of virtual machines (by combust-labs)

  

  https://github.com/combust-labs/firebuild

  Build firecracker vmms from dockerfiles. Learned a ton, never did anything with it but I want believe it influenced a bunch of people to look deeper into firecracker.

• analog_gauge_reader

  1 26 4.0 Python

  Open framework for reading analog gauges, deployable on real world robotic systems

  

  At ETH we worked on an analog pressure gauge reading project. In the larger project, we wanted to read analog pressure gauges in oil refineries. https://github.com/ethz-asl/analog_gauge_reader

• sandwichbot

  1 2 4.1 PHP

  A helpful sandwich virtual assistant

  https://github.com/JonD-libera/sandwichbot

• repiet

  5 92 0.0 Python

  A compiler for the esoteric language Piet, targeting multiple backends.

  I'm a lover of esoteric languages, and Piet[1] captured my imagination more than any other. So, I wrote a compiler for the language[2].

  And since I love code golf, I wrote most of the compiler in the extremely tortured form that only fellow golfers can love. But I balanced the golf with extensive comments, as a bit of an experiment on the varied advice that we receive as programmers about comments.

  Just recently, I made a friend! And by "friend" I mean that another human has written another Piet compiler[3] and it's a beautiful project and we were delighted to discuss our tortuous projects that we wrote for pure fun! So I've gotta plug his compiler too, because it's written in safe Rust! Too cool!

  [1] https://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html

  [2] https://github.com/boothby/repiet

  [3] https://github.com/pwang00/pietcc/

• pietcc

  1 13 4.5 Rust

  Piet interpreter and retargetable compiler written in Rust using LLVM as a backend

  I'm a lover of esoteric languages, and Piet[1] captured my imagination more than any other. So, I wrote a compiler for the language[2].

  And since I love code golf, I wrote most of the compiler in the extremely tortured form that only fellow golfers can love. But I balanced the golf with extensive comments, as a bit of an experiment on the varied advice that we receive as programmers about comments.

  Just recently, I made a friend! And by "friend" I mean that another human has written another Piet compiler[3] and it's a beautiful project and we were delighted to discuss our tortuous projects that we wrote for pure fun! So I've gotta plug his compiler too, because it's written in safe Rust! Too cool!

  [1] https://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet.html

  [2] https://github.com/boothby/repiet

  [3] https://github.com/pwang00/pietcc/

• pulsar

  9 179 6.7 TypeScript

  Micro creative coding playground (by Stanko)

  I love creative coding. I'm mostly focused on the visual stuff, especially generating vector files for pen-plotting. That said, I'm very proud of Rayven, my small vector 3D engine that mimics hand hatching:

  https://muffinman.io/blog/sneak-peek-of-rayven/

  I would say it is 80% done, but it needs to be polished for a public release. I do plan to release it, and I would love to prepare a proper talk about it.

  There are also other small tools I created, like Pulsar (micro creative coding playground) and Vertigo (turning raster images to SVGs). Both are open source and available here:

  https://muffinman.io/pulsar/

• diff-actor

  1 5 - Emacs Lisp

  Act out diff's between files in Emacs

  Many years ago, I made an emacs script that plays back diffs between files as live edits in the emacs buffer: https://github.com/nma83/diff-actor

  My nefarious intent was to make my screen at work look like I am editing code from remote login :).

• gut

  1 0 - Shell

  For when you mistype `git`. (by dom111)

  Exactly the tools that inspired me:

  https://github.com/dom111/gut

• Bad-AppKit

  2 11 3.9 Swift

  Bad Apple but with Cocoa (I know it's not AppKit)

• ascii_project

  1 0 5.3 Python

  CLI tool for ascii text generation in python

• Bin

  5 10 0.0 Shell

  My command line tools (by tobylane)

  I wrote a bash script to put a colour dot in the mac menu bar to represent the CPU temperature. I barely used it when I was on Intel, and it doesn't work on Apple Silicon. It's now only possible to ask for the thermal pressure, and be told a descriptor, always 'Nominal' in my case. I wrote the change but haven't pushed it.

  https://github.com/tobylane/Bin?tab=readme-ov-file#tempinbar

• mtcx

  1 1 4.8

  Makers Territory

  I love all of these projects mentioned here. A year ago, I wrote a Manifesto to attempt and write fun applications like these. This is such a good "Ask HN" post. I wish there's more of such posts here.

  For those interested, here's the Manifesto: https://github.com/mohnish/mtcx

• bubbleos

  26 - -

• FollowingEye

  1 7 - Java

  Simple eye looking at the face (android app)

• yummychars

  2 13 7.1 Go

  it's a terminal snake game that uses tmux to capture your terminal content and serve that as food for the snake

  there are no scores or anything just gobbling up characters to clear your screen

  written in go

  https://github.com/willofdaedalus/yummychars

• GREED

  7 28 7.1 C++

  RTS Programming game based on C++ (by PHANTOM9009)

  you can see the project here at my website: https://aiplaygrounds.in

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