What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?

This page summarizes the projects mentioned and recommended in the original post on news.ycombinator.com

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  • That sounds like a fun application, both the usage and the implementation.

    I wonder if you have any interesting example data-files that could be used with the model, preferable both something small and something larger? Would be fun to test the model locally to see how it behaves.

    Notes: I'm assuming here that https://gitlab.com/dustin-space/meal-scheduler/-/blob/master... is the model used.

  • shotcaller

    Discontinued A moddable RTS/MOBA game made with bracket-lib and minigene.

  • I’m building a minimalistic, 1v1 MOBA game (Dota/LoL) that’s all about grand strategy at the macro level, like chess. It is designed from scratch to accommodate AI development.

    OpenAI gave up after beating 99% of players in a limited version of DOTA2. They essentially just figured out how to out-micro human players. We want to let players play alongside AI assistance, like a racing car driver backed up by their team of mechanics and engineers.

    https://github.com/amethyst/shotcaller

  • InfluxDB

    Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.

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  • beubo

    Discontinued Beubo is a free, simple, and minimal CMS with unlimited extensibility using plugins

  • I'm working on https://github.com/uberswe/beubo - It's a CMS similar to Wordpress but written in Go. It's still very early and it has a lot of bugs but what will make it powerful is plugins and themes. Performance is the biggest difference between Wordpress, plugins will most likely use RPC/gRPC which means they could be written in any language.

    I'm mostly writing it for use with my own projects like https://tournify.io but it would be awesome if a few others found it useful too. It's a nice way for me to practice my Go programming skills.

  • Yue

    A library for creating native cross-platform GUI apps

  • A native GUI library https://github.com/yue/yue.

    It was a disaster when I announced it on Hacker News, and I got numerous harassments from strangers.

    But anyway 2 years since then and I'm still working on it.

  • commutative-algebra

    An introduction to the basic ideas of commutative algebra

  • A book on commutative algebra https://github.com/andreaferretti/commutative-algebra/ Currently, I am writing the second volume.

    It's not that I don't care about the outcome. I really hope it will be useful to many students, and I mean to publish it. But I am writing it primarily for me, as a way to keep being involved in mathematics even if I am not doing actual math research anymore

  • go-plugin

    Golang plugin system over RPC.

  • I benchmarked some of the most popular go plugin libraries here in addition to the plugin package that comes with go: https://github.com/uberswe/go-plugin-benchmark

    Right now I'm leaning towards using https://github.com/hashicorp/go-plugin

    You should link your project, it would be interesting to follow.

  • ppp_thing

    A poorly written, minimum viable PPPoE client with session handoff between redundant FreeBSD routers

  • I just published https://github.com/russor/ppp_thing which lets me (and maybe you) failover my PPPoE session between two FreeBSD hosts, so I can do regular maintenance without losing my IP or impacting TCP sessions.

    I used to let my DSL modem handle PPPoE and NAT, so failover was easy, but found out fragmented IPv6 crashed the leased modem, and the replacement modem also sucks, so bridge mode + a custom PPPoE client (but from netgraph pieces) it is. Sadly useful in 2021, because PPPoE is somehow still a thing.

  • WorkOS

    The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS. The APIs are flexible and easy-to-use, supporting authentication, user identity, and complex enterprise features like SSO and SCIM provisioning.

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  • check-all-the-things

    check all of the things!

  • FactGraph

    FactGraph monorepo (backend + frontend + landing page + blog)

  • I used to have a project like this. I was going to call it FactGraph: https://github.com/FactGraph/FactGraph/wiki

    My idea was to build up a big community-maintained database containing facts and evidence, where everything is linked into a huge network. Everything would have a weight (sometimes automatically calculated from parent nodes), and the software would calculate probabilities for some big questions. Every user could also build their own personalized graph to explore their own worldview, and maybe even uncover some cognitive dissonance that they weren't aware of. Or you could use it to compare and contrast different philosophies, religions. Could even calculate a "coherence score" for each religion and denomination after crunching all of the available evidence.

    Then I discovered RootClaim: https://www.rootclaim.com

    They're doing something very similar, with a more targeted approach where they focus on some specific questions. e.g. COVID-19: https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/what-is-the-source-of-cov...

    RootClaim really seems to be nailing it so far, and hopefully they can continue to grow and become something like the project I was imagining.

  • electron-browser-shell

    A minimal, tabbed web browser with support for Chrome extensions—built on Electron.

  • Tired of walled gardens and increased limitations of Chrome extensions, I'm building enough of the web extensions API to let me run them in my own desktop browser. Eventually I plan to build products from this project.

    https://github.com/samuelmaddock/electron-browser-shell

  • vopono

    Run applications through VPN tunnels with temporary network namespaces

  • vopono - a tool to run individual applications through VPN connections on Linux: https://github.com/jamesmcm/vopono

    I wrote it based on some scripts I had, and then added Wireguard support and configuration generation.

    I'm now working on making a proper backend so it can be used as a library (i.e. to run a few requests through different VPN connections, e.g. for web scraping for websites with geolocation-sensitive content), and also to learn a lot more about Linux system calls.

    Eventually I'd like to expand that to use the network namespaces and firewall rules to allow for different virtual network configurations so I could use it for testing out distributed systems development too.

  • aiohttp_radio

    web interface to mpd/icecast radio

  • Had a lot of them. Like radio which utilizes mpd. Music can be added via youtube links of uploading. You could vote and talk in a chat. And had telegram bot integration. Had to shut it down, but it's opensource https://github.com/pawnhearts/aiohttp_radio

  • decent-signal

    A decent WebRTC signalling library.

  • I was building a small library [1] for WebRTC signalling by sending the signalling messages over Matrix (or Signal or Discord in future). Once the signalling is completed, the connection could be utilised for anything like peer to peer games, drawing boards, or just plain old chatting.

    [1] decent-signal: https://github.com/theawless/decent-signal

  • distribyted

    Torrent client with HTTP, fuse, and WebDAV interfaces. Start exploring your torrent files right away, even zip, rar, or 7zip archive contents!

  • A torrent client that exposes torrent content as files: https://github.com/distribyted/distribyted

    It's pretty fun to work on it and implement new use cases. Right now it supports FUSE mounts, but I'm thinking to make it work as a WebDAV server too.

    Also, I'm working on several demos, like SQLite compatibility, similar to https://github.com/lmatteis/torrent-net, or CSV analysis using Jupyter notebooks for huge datasets like https://ghtorrent.org/

  • dollar

    fully decentralized self-stabilizing dollar. (by cinquemb)

  • Working on modeling behavior of economic agents of defi seigniorage algo stablecoins with a couple of others in discords: https://github.com/cinquemb/dollar/tree/dsd-protocol-modelin...

    A big problem I see now is that lot of "positive" changes being added to existing protocols aren't backed by anything but existing holders beliefs that they will work, and being able to simulate changes/forks on local testnets agaisnt will make it easier to objectively say why an additional will be better/worse than another protocol/previous/future protocol changes.

  • mixdown

    A declarative audio mixer for web games.

  • I thought most WebAudio wrapper libraries aimed at games were kind of useless or only really designed for simple usecases so I wrote my own. Also partly as an excuse to learn TypeScript and the horrendous web build architecture better.

    https://github.com/meheleventyone/mixdown

    It's been on a bit of a hiatus from development because I've been busy with other parts of another project.

  • Arthur

    Discontinued How to build your own AI art installation from scratch [Moved to: https://github.com/maxvfischer/DIY-ai-art]

  • When I set out to learn new skills, I usually try to wrap them in a project. I also try to document and open-source the whole process, both for my own learning, but to enable other to leverage my failures and learnings.

    Here are the projects I've done so far:

    https://github.com/maxvfischer/Arthur An AI art installation I built from scratch using a GAN network, Samsung The Frame, a button and a PIR-sensor (including, code, images and tutorial). The main draft is almost done, but quite some polishing to do.

    https://github.com/maxvfischer/shibusa An automatic Zen Garden drawing infinite patterns in sand. Using stepper motors, inverse kinematics and a Raspberry Pi Zero W (including, code, images and tutorial). I'm almost done building the robot, but still have quite some implementation to do. Also, the guide is far from done, I've mostly uploaded images so far.

    https://github.com/maxvfischer/DIY-arcade A full-size Arcade Machine I built from scratch (including, code, images and tutorial). I don't know where you draw the life of "half baked". It's done, but there's a lot of improvements that can be done.

  • singyeong

    Discontinued 신경 - Cloud-native messaging/pubsub with powerful routing

  • My message queue https://github.com/queer/singyeong It's been closer to research into how things could work than a project meant to be used in prod, and I've learned a ton from it.

  • listudy

    Listudy - chess training server

  • Listudy - https://listudy.org/en

    I created this as a tool for me to memorize chess openings. Since then I added more tools like tactics and endgames where I took theoretical winning endgame positions with the challenge to beat stockfish in them.

    The project is open source [1] written in Elixir using Phoenix and also utilizing LiveView for some pages like the search pages.

    [1] https://github.com/ArneVogel/listudy

  • scikit-fem

    Simple finite element assemblers

  • My finite element library (https://github.com/kinnala/scikit-fem). I consider it complete and improve it only if my research requires, but I'll likely maintain it until Python is dead or I'm dead.

  • timeline

    Timeline generator. Turns your photos, calendars, GPS tracks and more into a nice timeline of your life.

  • https://github.com/nicbou/timeline

    It regroups my personal data, and displays it on a timeline. Sort of like if Google Photos also included reddit posts, personal journal entries, text messages and other slices of life.

    I do it both as a way to back up files and photos, and as a way to keep an enhanced journal.

  • Iron Arachne: https://gitlab.com/ironarachne/iron-arachne-js

    Playing with procedural content generation for games is a ton of fun, and I've learned a great deal so far in the three iterations of this.

  • data_engineering_on_gcp_book

    A book describing how to set up and maintain Data Engineering infrastructure using Google Cloud Platform.

  • A book for setting up data engineering infrastructure on GCP: https://github.com/Nunie123/data_engineering_on_gcp_book

    It's almost done, and I do plan to spend a little effort promoting it when it's complete, but it's been a great focus for me even if no one ever reads it.

    I use a fair bit of infrastructure at my job that was set up by others. It was nice to go through the practice of setting it up myself.

    I learned a good bit, but also it's nice to have all this knowledge written down in a place not owned by the company I work for. If I use GCP at future jobs I'm sure I'll reference this book myself.

  • VimMode.spoon

    Adds vim keybindings to all OS X inputs

  • I have a project that adds Vim key bindings to anywhere in macOS: https://github.com/dbalatero/VimMode.spoon

    I'd love to have more users only to get more feedback but ultimately I work on it because it makes me more productive!

  • yue-sample-apps

    Sample apps of Yue

  • IMO, all of these (from all the subdirs) should be in the top level README: https://github.com/yue/yue-sample-apps/blob/master/auto_heig...

    You're asking people to do a lot of clicking to get an idea of what's available.

  • dali

    Indie assembler/linker for Dalvik VM .dex & .apk files (Work In Progress) (by akavel)

  • https://github.com/akavel/dali was one (a fully hand-written assembler for Android .apk files); I managed to write a rudimentary flappy-bird-like prototype in it and did a presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr9X5NCwPlI&list=PLxLdEZg8DR... but on shelf now, didn't get much attention, and I don't feel bad about it. Had some roadblocks, but managed to overcome them, and I'm honestly surprised how the core effort was basically easy to implement and how the formats were open and relatively simple. (The main real issues I had were that debugging via adb logs was tiresome when something was not working.) What was funny about this project was that I started it with basically a thought of: "there will be probably some annoying roadblock at some point that will make it unviable to continue; I accept that and will be ok with stopping once I stumble upon it; but I don't see one clearly from the start [I did some quick initial research how the formats & the bytecode look and they seemed rather simple], and I'm really curious how far I can get if I decide to not think about this possible roadblock". Turns out I was able to get all the way to the end :D

  • foldity

    Utility for folding terminal output to fit the screen.

  • Occasionally I post some utility for devs working in Linux/MacOS terminals. Here's my recent one:

    https://github.com/da-x/foldity

    A utility for folding terminal output to fit the screen.

  • wumpex

    A fast, simple Discord bot framework

  • I'm currently building https://github.com/dealloc/wumpex, a library for building Discord bots written in Elixir.

  • ecobot

  • OpenNefia

    Discontinued (Archived) Moddable engine reimplementation of the Japanese roguelike Elona.

  • An engine rewrite of a Japanese roguelike I played a lot. I liked Emacs, so I decided to see what would happen if I tried writing it in the style of what Steve Yegge calls "living systems", where all the code is interactively callable in-game and reusable in mods. There is no scripting layer, the implementation and extension language are one and the same (Lua). I like to think of the engine as a massive programming runtime with a bunch of libraries and functions made for the sole purpose of modding the game. You could whip up a scratch buffer and start tinkering around with the game state or prototyping new mods fairly quickly.

    The engine is not general purpose either, it's specific to the quirks of the original game. The number of weird ideas that I could graft onto it keeps increasing with each week. Yet, without feature parity and stability with the original, it's a long way away from having those things.

    Another downside is going back and playing the original now isn't as fun, because I keep thinking I'm playing the rewrite and expecting bugs to pop up at ever corner. Working on a project like this for so long affects your perception of the end result in ways you can't easily unsee.

    Also gets pretty lonely working on something alone for years you're not sure anyone will care about when it's playable.

    [1] https://github.com/Ruin0x11/OpenNefia

  • fingine

    A personal finance simulation engine in Rust.

  • I've been writing a library to help me forecast my personal finances accounting for taxes, various expenditures, income, and unexpected windfalls. I started because I noticed that whenever I tried to forecast my future, I kept repeating a lot of code and thought it would be better to just build out a library I could re-use. Plus, it's been a cool opportunity to learn Rust :)

    Library if anyone's interested: https://github.com/RestitutorOrbis/finsim

  • scraper

    Nodejs web scraper. Contains a command line, docker container, terraform module and ansible roles for distributed cloud scraping. Supported databases: SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL. Supported headless clients: Puppeteer, Playwright, Cheerio, JSdom. (by get-set-fetch)

  • https://github.com/get-set-fetch/scraper - I've been working (intermittently :) ) on a nodejs or browser extension scraper for the last 3 years, see the other projects under the get-set-fetch umbrella. Putting a lot more effort lately as I really want to do those Alexa top 1 million analysis like top js libraries, certificate authorities and so on. A few weeks back I've posted on Show:HN as you can do basic/intermediate? scraping with it.

    Not capable of handling 1 mil+ pages as it still limited to puppeteer or playwright. Working on adding cheerio/jsdom support right now.

  • ddt

    Golang Dynamic Decision Tree (by sgrodriguez)

  • https://github.com/sgrodriguez/ddt a decision tree lib in golang for building custom rules decision tree. It allows adding a pre-processing stage to the input before comparing it with the following possible branches of the tree. One of the default preprocessing stages in ddt is calling a method of a struct (CallStructMethod) and getting the attribute of a struct (GetStructAttribute) using reflection, so you can have a struct user with some methods and attributes and build a tree asking question about the user.

  • brains

    Discontinued ⚡️ My Digital Brain

  • My Digital Brain: https://github.com/allenleein/brains

    The Input and Functions of My Thinking

  • technicalc-core

  • I’m working on a scientific calculator app - TechniCalc

    https://jacobdoescode.com/technicalc

    It’s done in react native and a good amount of it is also open source.

    https://github.com/jacobp100/technicalc-core

    It at least covers App Store fees

  • Video-Hub-App

    Official repository for Video Hub App

  • https://videohubapp.com/

    Video Hub App - Browse, search, and organize your videos.

    Turns 3 years old this month. MIT open source, cross-platform (Win, Mac, Linux). Selling it for $5 and $3.50 goes to a cost-effective (my favorite) charity AMF (Against Malaria Foundation). Would be great to get more donations to the charity - it's not a project I need to succeed financially.

    https://github.com/whyboris/Video-Hub-App

  • old-engram

  • https://engramhq.xyz/

    Engram - Open source knowledge management app

    Still pretty early on, but I'm excited about the possibilities. This is the first time I'm using an app I built daily.

    https://github.com/adamjberg/engram

  • 3cosystem

    Discontinued Dockerized django web application that runs the website

  • Ha, ok. I added this as a feature request.

    https://github.com/undernewmanagement/3cosystem/issues/25

    Not sure it will get much attention, but thanks for the input.

  • listtosql

    VS Code extension making it easy to take a list of values and create a SQL list from it.

  • I have a few, no desire to monetize. Just built them to help!

    Tired of copying rows from Excel files into SQL insert statements? Try using this VS code extension: https://github.com/reZach/listtosql

    An Electron template with security practices baked-in: https://github.com/reZach/secure-electron-template

    Print out your own recipe cards: https://github.com/reZach/recipe-cards

  • noteworthy

    Discontinued Noteworthy is a collection of experimental meta-protocols for building, deploying and managing distributed overlay networks. (by decentralabs)

  • Self-hosted ngrok alterntive: https://github.com/decentralabs/noteworthy

    Host your shit at home without exposing ports to the world.

  • exomind

    A personal knowledge management tool hosted on your own personal cloud

  • I just added a few screenshots in the README: https://github.com/appaquet/exomind

    As for the Gmail integration, it is quite crude at the moment. I use it mostly to organize incoming emails, but I still use Gmail to send or reply to my emails. Exomind inbox is synchronized with Gmail, so all emails that you remove from one or the other get removed / archived on the other side. It also supports multiple accounts.

    If you are interested to try and not afraid of the rough edges, just let me know. I added Discussions to the GitHub repository.

  • SaaSHub

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

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