11 ms·

Ask HN: What are you working on and why is it cool?

46 points by bramgg 12y ago

foreverodd 12y ago
What: A 3270-terminal emulator interaction wrapper for Node.js https://github.com/Chris-Cullins/hllapi-node https://github.com/Chris-Cullins/hllapi-node Why: Because old school meets new. Also, it is fairly useful for my job as a CICS mainframe programmer.
0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
What: A chording keyboard. Why: Englebart's demo made people overlook the chording keyboard, and now we are still mostly stuck with QWERTY, a layout that takes too long to learn and doesn't take much advantage what humans are good at. I'm joking about Englebart, but I do like the line of thinking that computers can be powerful instead of faux friendly.
- jcr 12y ago
  This might be helpful, Plover, the Open Source Steno Program http://plover.stenoknight.com/ http://plover.stenoknight.com/
- westward 12y ago
  Have you looked at Plover? It's target audience is stenographers, but it can be used by anyone who wants to type at 250 wpm. http://plover.stenoknight.com/ http://plover.stenoknight.com/
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
    Steno is a great at taking advantage of something humans do well, it might be on the far end of that spectrum. I'd like to see a keyboard that with 100 hours or less of practice would let you type at 100 WPM.
gamegoblin 12y ago
I've been spending almost all of my hobby code time in 2014 writing my own personal web server, database, and web framework in Haskell. My reasons are: - I wanted to learn Haskell. - I wanted to learn more about web stack internals. - I wanted a web stack that was entirely mine. I know how every single aspect of it works, from low level asynchronous network IO to HTML templating. Of course, the amount of time I spent frustrated by bugs in my previous Apache/Django stack will certainly be less than 1% of the amount of time I've spent writing my own stack, I have no regrets. I've learned so much doing it. It's cool because now that I've gotten several thousand lines of Haskell under my belt, I finally know what "a monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors" means.
thewoo 12y ago
What: A cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) self-help website to support people who are currently in therapy, or who want to know more about common mental health conditions Where: http://self-help.tools http://self-help.tools Why cool? It aims to help people to take control of their therapy. The evidence indicates that people going through a course of CBT who take more control of their therapy, and take more responsibility for their well being, have better outcomes.
- mackwic 12y ago
  I like your project a lot. But the articles seems harsh to read (I don't really know, I'm projecting myself). Did you think about making short clips ? Maybe making the font nicer, more healthier ? (no serifs, use the color scheme of the healthcare, put round thing all around) I don't know, it's like I am opening an encyclopedia rather than a self-help book. Is it the goal you want to achieve ?
roschdal 12y ago
I'm working on http://play.freeciv.org/ http://play.freeciv.org/ Making games is a lot of fun!
mackwic 12y ago
I work on an embedded device which monitor your body in a way that will prevent people to hurt themselves without being aware of (because they can't feel it). It's not cool at all. All the pain, the damages on the body. Sometimes the amputations. It's a lot of pressure to develop a software which has to decide if you are in danger right now and how to help. Anyway that's what we're doing and we want to do it right. No link, no demo, no video, it's still pretty confidential, sorry.
- balor123 12y ago
  Wow, that is totally cool! I don't have any neuropathies but I could see how it would totally suck. I imagine you'll be targeting the low hanging fruit first (limbs)? I would guess that the tongue is probably the worst place to lose feeling. You'd lose the ability to distinguish between chewing food and tongue.
austenallred 12y ago
We're building grasswire (http://grasswire.com http://grasswire.com), a real-time newsroom that's curated and fact-checked by everyone. It's cool because it is unreasonable that in this day and age the information that governs the world is controlled by governments and corporations. it's cool because social media is ridden with lies, errors and propaganda, and it doesn't make sense that those keep spreading without being refuted. It's cool because it lets you watch any news event develop in real-time from the point of view of the people on the ground.
- alphagenerator 12y ago
  I think what you're doing is very important. Thank you for tackling this problem.
chuhnk 12y ago
scridx.com It's a screenplay search engine. I couldn't find any adequate resources out there so decided to build my own. I've got much loftier goals for it, but all in good time.
- jeffmorrisjr 12y ago
  Awesome product. I would have loved this in film school or when I was a reader at a production company.
  - chuhnk 12y ago
    Thanks, much appreciated. Exactly the kind of people I'm trying to target. Students in film school would benefit greatly from this kind of resource for educational purposes. I hope to become the defacto source for scripts and at some point approach studios to gain access to more.
graycat 12y ago
What: A new Internet search engine. Why cool: To be the best for the roughly 2/3rds (safe for work or not) of Internet content, searches people want to do, and content they want to find at best poorly served now.
- balor123 12y ago
  Porn I'm assuming? I would think that spam dominates internet content.
  - graycat 12y ago
    Porn? No, not necessarily at all, or as I said, "safe for work or not". Spam? No, not at all. Instead, as I said, searches people want to do and results they want to find, and those are nearly never spam. Nothing tricky; take my description just the way I gave it. The content types are primarily still images, recorded music, video clips, i.e., content types where search by keywords/phrases work from poor down to not at all due to far too little text in the content for matching users' keywords/phrases, and a major fraction of blogs and long tail Web sites, that is, where the content is mostly text. A point is that search by keywords/phrases works well for only about 1/3rd of the content, searches people want to do, and results they want to find. My work is for the other 2/3rds. This description is difficult to understand?
salahxanadu 12y ago
Android Wear stuff. I just got my graphics. Now I just need to figure out how to get it on the store.
ibanez270dx 12y ago
What: A personal finances app Why: Because Mint and Credit Karma have horrible interfaces that don't allow me to manage my money and view spending trends in a way that I feel is satisfactory. Prototype for now and using plaid.com API for access to financial institutions.
- z3ugma 12y ago
  I'd be really interested to see this.
  - tekknolagi 12y ago
    Ditto!
- conorgil145 12y ago
  I am also really interested in this. Do you have a working prototype that others can play with? Is it SaaS based or something a dev can run on a local box? What is your main goal with the project? Just improvements to the interface? I have been thinking about downloading all of my financial information and throwing it into a project based upon Elasticsearch and Kibana (http://www.elasticsearch.org/overview/ http://www.elasticsearch.org/overview/). I have been using these tools to process log data at work and I get more and more interested in Elasticsearch the more I read about and play with it. They are both open source, but I have not yet dove into either project in detail (certainly not enough to build something on top of it). What technology are you using/plan to use for the project? If you are interested in getting input I would love to chat more about it. Feel free to reach out (personal email in my profile). EDIT: My main motivation for creating a mint-like project is to improve the search and data analysis capabilities so that I can visually explore my spending habits more easily.
josemando 12y ago
What: http://www.colab.re http://www.colab.re, a Brazilian social network for citizenship Why cool: We are helping people solving city problems by connecting them to local government. Already live on 25 cities in Brazil
Permit 12y ago
I'm working on a new way to visualize and edit code called Code Connect (http://codeconnect.io http://codeconnect.io) We're leveraging Microsoft's new Roslyn compiler to break apart software into functions. The user then navigates their code on a function-by-function basis, similar to what was shown off in Code Bubbles a few years ago. We've got a demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs We're planning to launch our beta for Visual Studio and C# this August.
- V-2 12y ago
  Pretty cool. Reminds me there was a thing called Debugger Canvas, too (although I don't think it ever got mature, I may be mistaken). What's with the bracing style inside these bubbles?? :) Looks normal in Visual Studio, yet the whole body of the method gets an extra indentation in CodeConnect
  - Permit 12y ago
    Yeah unfortunately Debugger Canvas was scrapped after Visual Studio 2010. Haha, yeah that's an artifact that's no longer present in current versions. It was including the tabs as part of the content of the function. So that's why it looks weirdly indented in that video.
BrianPetro 12y ago
Work: The "LinkPlug" > https://www.LinkPlugApp.com https://www.LinkPlugApp.com Coolness: Helping people gain value from sharing resources.
spencerfry 12y ago
What: https://www.uncover.com https://www.uncover.com Why is it cool: In the fifteen months we've been in operation, we've never lost a customer. It just gives everyone a smile on their face and that's the type of businesses that I like to work on.
- jeffmorrisjr 12y ago
  @spencerfry Out of curiosity: why does your tagline say "makes it easy to put a smile on your employees faces" yet the landing page image features an employee who is not smiling? I know this seems petty but that employee does not actually look very happy. Small things like this make a difference.
  - gingersnap 12y ago
    That put a smile on my face
  - spencerfry 12y ago
    Ha. That's actually an employer, but fair point.
- codezero 12y ago
  Heads up: the site doesn't appear to render correctly on Safari on iOS.
  - spencerfry 12y ago
    Yeah. Noted. We don't have a mobile site yet. Lack of resources at the moment, but I hope to do it soon.
  - deleted 12y ago
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  - deleted 12y ago
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- firefoxNX11 12y ago
elyrly 12y ago
What: Healthcare application Why Cool: By doctors for doctors. 'Nuff Said'
erming 12y ago
I'm creating a web-based IRC chat. Basically: You install it from npm and then run it, then you browse to http://localhost:9000/ http://localhost:9000/ and start chatting. It's responsive and works great on your smartphone. Repository: https://github.com/erming/shout https://github.com/erming/shout (star if you like it!) And of course, a demo: http://shout-irc.com:9000/ http://shout-irc.com:9000/ Edit: If you can't connect (Freenode only allows ~5 active connections) try "irc.rizon.net".
hav 12y ago
What: A service that promotes the use of bicycles and helps people to maintain their cycles. Why cool: Most people nowadays use cars for shorter distances when using their bicycles would be just fine. If we could get more people to use their cycles, not only would we promote health but also lower CO2 emissions.
mkal_tsr 12y ago
#knowledgebomb Fully offline live-USB (Ubuntu) w/ offline Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, OpenStreetMaps, and other public domain / creative common sources, all running on OSS. Just download and toss it on a USB, then use it as you want. I think it's great for those that have/may-have an intermittent internet connection, want to have an offline way to browse wikipedia, want to put it in a time capsule, are going camping but want educational material, etc.
- angersock 12y ago
  Hah, awesome! I was talking with one of my buddies back from the Peace Corp about making something similar. Good work!
- lowglow 12y ago
  This is a pretty decent idea. I wonder if you can build an app for this? I'm not pay for cellular data/voice anymore and would love offline access for a bunch of things like this. https://www.techendo.com/posts/how-i-killed-my-cellphone-plan https://www.techendo.com/posts/how-i-killed-my-cellphone-pla...
- tekknolagi 12y ago
  That sounds awesome — kind of like the SMILE project!
deleted 12y ago
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steveklabnik 12y ago
Rust: http://rust-lang.org http://rust-lang.org It is cool because memory safety is really hard in low-level languages, and Rust helps you out a lot in that department. I'm also working on a little product on the weekends. A CRM for tattoo shops. It's cool because it'll be a fully Free (AGPL 3'd) Rails app, and there aren't enough of those in the world.
spodek 12y ago
A book and online course for geeks and other people generally less emotionally aware and skilled (like myself growing up) on how to develop emotional awareness, empathy, compassion, understanding and other skills schools rarely teach. Also a project-based course on entrepreneurship to teach in the fall. Also a seminar on leadership for General Assembly in New York for later this month. Why are those things cool? Because when I started my first company I had plenty of skills with science, technology, and knowledge and facts. I didn't know how to build relationships, work with teams, motivate people, and other business and personal skills I've come to find more important for business and other relationships. I find very few places teach this stuff effectively. For that matter, few people think it can be taught or learned. Meanwhile people without these skills get promoted to positions where they'd help. Instead the run their organizations into the ground, destroy morale, and things like that. I'm going to change that.
- sheeeep86 12y ago
  how do we follow you :-D
sensecall 12y ago
http://gofokus.com http://gofokus.com We want to improve on current project management tools by giving people more flexibility.
- thebenedict 12y ago
  Is the name a joke? (not asking sarcastically)
bobfunk 12y ago
What: https://www.bitballoon.com https://www.bitballoon.com Why is it cool: complete beginners are deploying their first ever websites with it, and experienced programmers are building cool stuff with it! I also really like using it for my own stuff and think static site generators and static apps have a huge future ahead of them. Especially if we can help building tooling to make static solutions easier to build and work with.
mafuyu 12y ago
I just finished working on BoosterBot, an entry for the Texas Instruments Intern Design Challenge! It's a robotics daughterboards for TI Launchpads. http://hackaday.io/project/1845-BoosterBot http://hackaday.io/project/1845-BoosterBot http://youtu.be/I0JuGvbfIIE http://youtu.be/I0JuGvbfIIE
rtx 12y ago
http://saleszip.com http://saleszip.com Sales cycle management tool.
k_kelly 12y ago
What: A better way to find github repos relevant to your interests. Works by compiling all the starred repos of contributors and . Currently in early alpha at https://github.com/KingsleyKelly/GitStar https://github.com/KingsleyKelly/GitStar. Why? I went from having about 10 starred repos to 300, and found loads of useful libraries and tools along the way.
vikp 12y ago
What I'm working on: Turfly (http://www.turf.ly http://www.turf.ly) Why it's cool: You get to capture real-life territory by running and walking through it. Just keep your phone in your pocket. Compete with your friends if you want. This is the game I have always wanted, and I get to make it. Feels great.
- tekknolagi 12y ago
  Any Android app coming soon? :D
interpares 12y ago
What: Emphatic (http://emphatic.co http://emphatic.co) -- social media as-a-service Why it's cool: gives marketing resources to small businesses who lack the time or expertise
- lbearl 12y ago
  Just an FYI, but under the blurbs about the founders, a little bit of proof reading would go a long way to ensuring legitimacy: "...other large corporates in..." I understand typos, but when it is for someone who wants to run a service which would have very high visibility for a companies image, they really aren't acceptable.
  - interpares 12y ago
    Ah! "Corporates" is a term that's often used within European professional service firms and is a holdover from my Dutch corporate banking days. Thanks for the advice, I'll change!
    - lbearl 12y ago
      Ah, I did not know that. I just assumed with a .co domain, and mostly targeting American social media companies the main focus would be on US English.
      - interpares 12y ago
        Most of are customers are American. Just the old habits dying hard :-)
bfwi 12y ago
What: A site/app that will tell you the most popular events in your city, and which event you should go to. Why: I wanna be able to reach after my phone and quickly find out where I should go to have fun.
interintel 12y ago
Working on simulating a complete nervous system (i.e. C Elegans Connectome) and connecting to a robot so we can see an entire organism simulated from environment to a simulated "brain". To my surprise the robot behaves in a similar manner as the worm; i.e. I wire the sonar to activate nose touch sensory neurons and when the robot comes upon an obstacle, it will stop, reverse a bit and change direction. This is not a program that tells the robot to stop, reverse and change direction but the connectome. This proves in part that we are our connectome. Furthermore, I have created a true "thinking" and autonomous inorganic creature. Currently I am analyzing the captured neural data to validate against the biological creature. Next I want to apply to an autonomous ground vehicle for exploration = throw a hundred of these guys out in the desert and have them search for minerals. Check out my work at http://www.connectomeengine.com http://www.connectomeengine.com
deleted 12y ago
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keenerd 12y ago
Hacking on RTL-SDR. I've been running a successful fundraiser [1] and have just posted a detailed progress report [2]. This might be the first FOSS software-development fundraiser where backers get to decide what features are added. [1] http://igg.me/at/rtlsdr http://igg.me/at/rtlsdr [2] http://kmkeen.com/igg-report/ http://kmkeen.com/igg-report/
tekknolagi 12y ago
I am working on a small virtual machine in C, called Carp. It's cool because I am learning about C, a bit about asm, and a bit about how a simple CPU works. Ish. I also got a bit acquainted with comp.lang.c :) http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp
Estragon 12y ago
Replicating Deep Mind's deep-learning video game player.
achamilt 12y ago
I've been writing an algebra editor analogous to Vim/Emacs. Unlike English, maths is too slow to re-type while you perform algebra. Instead, insert expressions once then use keyboard shortcuts to edit and combine existing expressions. It is interesting because it's the only algebra system in which the user actually performs the algebra. With practice, edits are as fast as maths on paper, but without all of the redundant re-writing. Similar to the sense of flow you get when programming with Vim, this leads to a sense of immersion in the maths. A small, fast executable *.jar, check it out at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ket/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/ket/
cliffdailey 12y ago
Just launched a dead-simple way to discover one new mobile app, every day. http://appstumblr.co http://appstumblr.co
len 12y ago
a generalized learning system. there are best practices that are superior to a traditional education. they are free and totally accessible with an internet connection. its cool if you believe in everyone being able to self-educate using the internet. will start applying it in a group context, namely business organizations shortly. looking for companies of 11+ people to participate.
domlebo70 12y ago
We are working on Cammy (http://www.cammy.com http://www.cammy.com). It's a cloud based security and monitoring platform. The idea being, you buy cheap IP cameras (20 - 40 dollars), put them in places you'd like to monitor, and they send images to the cloud, available for viewing via our app. We are working on some useful features around alerting users when a camera detects movement, and you aren't in the immediate vicinity (I.e. an intruder etc), which will make it a good alternative to conventional alarms. Live view of camera feeds is also coming. If you have a spare iPhone or Android device, you will also use those as cameras, rather than purchase IP cameras (not yet in production). Best of all, the app is free. Any feedback?
bernatfp 12y ago
I'm working on a voicecall widget that lets businesses be called by their visits for free with just one click (using Flash and WebRTC). It's called Calloud (https://calloud.com https://calloud.com ). I'm doing it because I'm a big fan of tools like Olark or Zopim which are essentially the same but for live written communication (chat). Because some people prefer talking rather than typing, I'm selling a live voice communication alternative so websites can tailor to this preference as well.
PeterWhittaker 12y ago
Danny Boy on the viola, and my own arrangement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, for solo instrument (I'm using primarily the first violin line, reading it as written in alto clef, not treble, so down a 7th, dipping into the other violins or the viola occasionally to replicate the "feel" of the piece). Because the viola is cool. Just like fezzes are cool. Because life cannot be all-tech-all-the-time. During my day job, key marketing messages, conceptual architecture, and high-level system architecture for an open-source service-to-business platform for governments based on two primary notions, true "tell us once" to ease the burden on business and automated on-boarding of new programs to ease the burden on domain-expert but IT-ignorant (as they should be) program managers. Why? Coz it's like fezzes. And because after years in business, anything I can do to make dealing with the government easier and cheaper is good for me, good for the government, and good for the economy.
ducuboy 12y ago
What: News discovery platform (Svven.com - news rearranged). Why: It works by clustering the users based on their reading history, ranking one's fellow readers, and providing what else they read in order of relevance. Besides the news discovery part, I find it very cool to automatically connect the people with similar interests. Great things may come out of this.
Mc_Big_G 12y ago
A mobile app for timing your stretches. My daughter had to do some physical therapy so I did the stretches with her and got tired of counting and keeping track. Should be in the play store Monday.
phatak-dev 12y ago
Learning functional programming both in scala and js using http://www.manning.com/bjarnason/ http://www.manning.com/bjarnason/ book. [Why] Wanted to learn core concepts and coding in both languages at same time is fun.
udiw 12y ago
What: http://paperthon.com http://paperthon.com It's a research management service, consolidating submissions, notifications, reviews and revisions across multiple conference systems. Why: because I was sick of using emails to track these things, and it allows researchers getting fun stats about their work.
magnet1c 12y ago
What: Petpoc is an iPhone app for pet owners to snap, edit and share photos of their pets. Use virtual stickers to express yourself and your pets with silly costumes and accessories. Targeted towards a young female audience who have a strong affinity to their pets. http://www.petpoc.com http://www.petpoc.com Why: Because pet owners are under served in the App Store. Either the existing apps are poor quality or they focus on being a social media network for pets. I believe a relationship with your pet is a very personal thing and so the focus is simply on your pet, not anyone else's. The target audience clearly enjoy expressing themselves and customising every facet of their digital lives so I provide simple tools to empower them to do that with their pets.
sftcore 12y ago
http://availableworks.net http://availableworks.net
nitai 12y ago
What: I'm working on http://helpmonks.com http://helpmonks.com right now. It helps teams to manage the never ending flow of emails. Why: Some have similar tools, but they all concentrate on the HelpDesk aspect of it. Instead of re-inventing the wheel we simply integrate with popular existing helpdesk apps. Furthermore, we encourage sales and marketing to use our app. Thanks.
ASquare 12y ago
PlanitWide: A whole new approach to planning trips that's faster & easier (for everyone not just those that are savvy/in the know): http://www.planitwide.com http://www.planitwide.com It's cool because it brings together: a) a travel focused vertical search engine that's categorized 1000+ (sometimes interlinked) variables that can be found without typing a single word (just pick from easily labelled menu options) and presented as highly relevant result shortlists vs 100s of pages of results and b) an intelligent itinerary generator that helps you arrive at a realistic final itinerary faster by letting you shortlist content from these results and allowing you to iterate faster by presenting what-if scenarios based on how you construct your final itinerary. Better Search + Intelligent Itinerary Creation = Faster And Easier Trip Plans
gpinkham 12y ago
Working on http://beatsimporter.com http://beatsimporter.com It uses Ruby/Rails, Nginx and MySQL.. It imports playlists from Spotify, Rdio, iTunes and plain ole CSV files. It even will import a subscribed playlist from Spotify. I welcome feedback, comments and issues.. so check it out.. Why is it cool.. 1. when I wrote it a month ago it was the only importer for Beats Music (need to look to see if it still is).. 2. I wrote it because I was moving the family from Spotify and Grooveshark to BeatsMusic and I knew my daughters wouldn't manually move their 500+ song playlists.. So everything I do for my daughters is cool.. (well.. maybe not in their eyes. haha)

46 points by bramgg 12y ago

What: A 3270-terminal emulator interaction wrapper for Node.js https://github.com/Chris-Cullins/hllapi-node https://github.com/Chris-Cullins/hllapi-node Why: Because old school meets new. Also, it is fairly useful for my job as a CICS mainframe programmer.

0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago

What: A chording keyboard. Why: Englebart's demo made people overlook the chording keyboard, and now we are still mostly stuck with QWERTY, a layout that takes too long to learn and doesn't take much advantage what humans are good at. I'm joking about Englebart, but I do like the line of thinking that computers can be powerful instead of faux friendly.

jcr 12y ago
This might be helpful, Plover, the Open Source Steno Program http://plover.stenoknight.com/ http://plover.stenoknight.com/
westward 12y ago
Have you looked at Plover? It's target audience is stenographers, but it can be used by anyone who wants to type at 250 wpm. http://plover.stenoknight.com/ http://plover.stenoknight.com/
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  Steno is a great at taking advantage of something humans do well, it might be on the far end of that spectrum. I'd like to see a keyboard that with 100 hours or less of practice would let you type at 100 WPM.

gamegoblin 12y ago

I've been spending almost all of my hobby code time in 2014 writing my own personal web server, database, and web framework in Haskell. My reasons are: - I wanted to learn Haskell. - I wanted to learn more about web stack internals. - I wanted a web stack that was entirely mine. I know how every single aspect of it works, from low level asynchronous network IO to HTML templating. Of course, the amount of time I spent frustrated by bugs in my previous Apache/Django stack will certainly be less than 1% of the amount of time I've spent writing my own stack, I have no regrets. I've learned so much doing it. It's cool because now that I've gotten several thousand lines of Haskell under my belt, I finally know what "a monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors" means.

thewoo 12y ago

What: A cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) self-help website to support people who are currently in therapy, or who want to know more about common mental health conditions Where: http://self-help.tools http://self-help.tools Why cool? It aims to help people to take control of their therapy. The evidence indicates that people going through a course of CBT who take more control of their therapy, and take more responsibility for their well being, have better outcomes.

mackwic 12y ago
I like your project a lot. But the articles seems harsh to read (I don't really know, I'm projecting myself). Did you think about making short clips ? Maybe making the font nicer, more healthier ? (no serifs, use the color scheme of the healthcare, put round thing all around) I don't know, it's like I am opening an encyclopedia rather than a self-help book. Is it the goal you want to achieve ?

roschdal 12y ago

I'm working on http://play.freeciv.org/ http://play.freeciv.org/ Making games is a lot of fun!

mackwic 12y ago

I work on an embedded device which monitor your body in a way that will prevent people to hurt themselves without being aware of (because they can't feel it). It's not cool at all. All the pain, the damages on the body. Sometimes the amputations. It's a lot of pressure to develop a software which has to decide if you are in danger right now and how to help. Anyway that's what we're doing and we want to do it right. No link, no demo, no video, it's still pretty confidential, sorry.

balor123 12y ago
Wow, that is totally cool! I don't have any neuropathies but I could see how it would totally suck. I imagine you'll be targeting the low hanging fruit first (limbs)? I would guess that the tongue is probably the worst place to lose feeling. You'd lose the ability to distinguish between chewing food and tongue.

austenallred 12y ago

We're building grasswire (http://grasswire.com http://grasswire.com), a real-time newsroom that's curated and fact-checked by everyone. It's cool because it is unreasonable that in this day and age the information that governs the world is controlled by governments and corporations. it's cool because social media is ridden with lies, errors and propaganda, and it doesn't make sense that those keep spreading without being refuted. It's cool because it lets you watch any news event develop in real-time from the point of view of the people on the ground.

alphagenerator 12y ago
I think what you're doing is very important. Thank you for tackling this problem.

chuhnk 12y ago

scridx.com It's a screenplay search engine. I couldn't find any adequate resources out there so decided to build my own. I've got much loftier goals for it, but all in good time.

jeffmorrisjr 12y ago
Awesome product. I would have loved this in film school or when I was a reader at a production company.
- chuhnk 12y ago
  Thanks, much appreciated. Exactly the kind of people I'm trying to target. Students in film school would benefit greatly from this kind of resource for educational purposes. I hope to become the defacto source for scripts and at some point approach studios to gain access to more.

graycat 12y ago

What: A new Internet search engine. Why cool: To be the best for the roughly 2/3rds (safe for work or not) of Internet content, searches people want to do, and content they want to find at best poorly served now.

balor123 12y ago
Porn I'm assuming? I would think that spam dominates internet content.
- graycat 12y ago
  Porn? No, not necessarily at all, or as I said, "safe for work or not". Spam? No, not at all. Instead, as I said, searches people want to do and results they want to find, and those are nearly never spam. Nothing tricky; take my description just the way I gave it. The content types are primarily still images, recorded music, video clips, i.e., content types where search by keywords/phrases work from poor down to not at all due to far too little text in the content for matching users' keywords/phrases, and a major fraction of blogs and long tail Web sites, that is, where the content is mostly text. A point is that search by keywords/phrases works well for only about 1/3rd of the content, searches people want to do, and results they want to find. My work is for the other 2/3rds. This description is difficult to understand?

salahxanadu 12y ago

Android Wear stuff. I just got my graphics. Now I just need to figure out how to get it on the store.

ibanez270dx 12y ago

What: A personal finances app Why: Because Mint and Credit Karma have horrible interfaces that don't allow me to manage my money and view spending trends in a way that I feel is satisfactory. Prototype for now and using plaid.com API for access to financial institutions.

z3ugma 12y ago
I'd be really interested to see this.
- tekknolagi 12y ago
  Ditto!
conorgil145 12y ago
I am also really interested in this. Do you have a working prototype that others can play with? Is it SaaS based or something a dev can run on a local box? What is your main goal with the project? Just improvements to the interface? I have been thinking about downloading all of my financial information and throwing it into a project based upon Elasticsearch and Kibana (http://www.elasticsearch.org/overview/ http://www.elasticsearch.org/overview/). I have been using these tools to process log data at work and I get more and more interested in Elasticsearch the more I read about and play with it. They are both open source, but I have not yet dove into either project in detail (certainly not enough to build something on top of it). What technology are you using/plan to use for the project? If you are interested in getting input I would love to chat more about it. Feel free to reach out (personal email in my profile). EDIT: My main motivation for creating a mint-like project is to improve the search and data analysis capabilities so that I can visually explore my spending habits more easily.

josemando 12y ago

What: http://www.colab.re http://www.colab.re, a Brazilian social network for citizenship Why cool: We are helping people solving city problems by connecting them to local government. Already live on 25 cities in Brazil

Permit 12y ago

I'm working on a new way to visualize and edit code called Code Connect (http://codeconnect.io http://codeconnect.io) We're leveraging Microsoft's new Roslyn compiler to break apart software into functions. The user then navigates their code on a function-by-function basis, similar to what was shown off in Code Bubbles a few years ago. We've got a demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuQ8NJOypqs We're planning to launch our beta for Visual Studio and C# this August.

V-2 12y ago
Pretty cool. Reminds me there was a thing called Debugger Canvas, too (although I don't think it ever got mature, I may be mistaken). What's with the bracing style inside these bubbles?? :) Looks normal in Visual Studio, yet the whole body of the method gets an extra indentation in CodeConnect
- Permit 12y ago
  Yeah unfortunately Debugger Canvas was scrapped after Visual Studio 2010. Haha, yeah that's an artifact that's no longer present in current versions. It was including the tabs as part of the content of the function. So that's why it looks weirdly indented in that video.

BrianPetro 12y ago

Work: The "LinkPlug" > https://www.LinkPlugApp.com https://www.LinkPlugApp.com Coolness: Helping people gain value from sharing resources.

spencerfry 12y ago

What: https://www.uncover.com https://www.uncover.com Why is it cool: In the fifteen months we've been in operation, we've never lost a customer. It just gives everyone a smile on their face and that's the type of businesses that I like to work on.

jeffmorrisjr 12y ago
@spencerfry Out of curiosity: why does your tagline say "makes it easy to put a smile on your employees faces" yet the landing page image features an employee who is not smiling? I know this seems petty but that employee does not actually look very happy. Small things like this make a difference.
- gingersnap 12y ago
  That put a smile on my face
- spencerfry 12y ago
  Ha. That's actually an employer, but fair point.
codezero 12y ago
Heads up: the site doesn't appear to render correctly on Safari on iOS.
- spencerfry 12y ago
  Yeah. Noted. We don't have a mobile site yet. Lack of resources at the moment, but I hope to do it soon.
- deleted 12y ago
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firefoxNX11 12y ago

elyrly 12y ago

What: Healthcare application Why Cool: By doctors for doctors. 'Nuff Said'

erming 12y ago

I'm creating a web-based IRC chat. Basically: You install it from npm and then run it, then you browse to http://localhost:9000/ http://localhost:9000/ and start chatting. It's responsive and works great on your smartphone. Repository: https://github.com/erming/shout https://github.com/erming/shout (star if you like it!) And of course, a demo: http://shout-irc.com:9000/ http://shout-irc.com:9000/ Edit: If you can't connect (Freenode only allows ~5 active connections) try "irc.rizon.net".

hav 12y ago

What: A service that promotes the use of bicycles and helps people to maintain their cycles. Why cool: Most people nowadays use cars for shorter distances when using their bicycles would be just fine. If we could get more people to use their cycles, not only would we promote health but also lower CO2 emissions.

mkal_tsr 12y ago

#knowledgebomb Fully offline live-USB (Ubuntu) w/ offline Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, OpenStreetMaps, and other public domain / creative common sources, all running on OSS. Just download and toss it on a USB, then use it as you want. I think it's great for those that have/may-have an intermittent internet connection, want to have an offline way to browse wikipedia, want to put it in a time capsule, are going camping but want educational material, etc.

angersock 12y ago
Hah, awesome! I was talking with one of my buddies back from the Peace Corp about making something similar. Good work!
lowglow 12y ago
This is a pretty decent idea. I wonder if you can build an app for this? I'm not pay for cellular data/voice anymore and would love offline access for a bunch of things like this. https://www.techendo.com/posts/how-i-killed-my-cellphone-plan https://www.techendo.com/posts/how-i-killed-my-cellphone-pla...
tekknolagi 12y ago
That sounds awesome — kind of like the SMILE project!

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steveklabnik 12y ago

Rust: http://rust-lang.org http://rust-lang.org It is cool because memory safety is really hard in low-level languages, and Rust helps you out a lot in that department. I'm also working on a little product on the weekends. A CRM for tattoo shops. It's cool because it'll be a fully Free (AGPL 3'd) Rails app, and there aren't enough of those in the world.

spodek 12y ago

A book and online course for geeks and other people generally less emotionally aware and skilled (like myself growing up) on how to develop emotional awareness, empathy, compassion, understanding and other skills schools rarely teach. Also a project-based course on entrepreneurship to teach in the fall. Also a seminar on leadership for General Assembly in New York for later this month. Why are those things cool? Because when I started my first company I had plenty of skills with science, technology, and knowledge and facts. I didn't know how to build relationships, work with teams, motivate people, and other business and personal skills I've come to find more important for business and other relationships. I find very few places teach this stuff effectively. For that matter, few people think it can be taught or learned. Meanwhile people without these skills get promoted to positions where they'd help. Instead the run their organizations into the ground, destroy morale, and things like that. I'm going to change that.

sheeeep86 12y ago
how do we follow you :-D

sensecall 12y ago

http://gofokus.com http://gofokus.com We want to improve on current project management tools by giving people more flexibility.

thebenedict 12y ago
Is the name a joke? (not asking sarcastically)

bobfunk 12y ago

What: https://www.bitballoon.com https://www.bitballoon.com Why is it cool: complete beginners are deploying their first ever websites with it, and experienced programmers are building cool stuff with it! I also really like using it for my own stuff and think static site generators and static apps have a huge future ahead of them. Especially if we can help building tooling to make static solutions easier to build and work with.

mafuyu 12y ago

I just finished working on BoosterBot, an entry for the Texas Instruments Intern Design Challenge! It's a robotics daughterboards for TI Launchpads. http://hackaday.io/project/1845-BoosterBot http://hackaday.io/project/1845-BoosterBot http://youtu.be/I0JuGvbfIIE http://youtu.be/I0JuGvbfIIE

rtx 12y ago

http://saleszip.com http://saleszip.com Sales cycle management tool.

k_kelly 12y ago

What: A better way to find github repos relevant to your interests. Works by compiling all the starred repos of contributors and . Currently in early alpha at https://github.com/KingsleyKelly/GitStar https://github.com/KingsleyKelly/GitStar. Why? I went from having about 10 starred repos to 300, and found loads of useful libraries and tools along the way.

vikp 12y ago

What I'm working on: Turfly (http://www.turf.ly http://www.turf.ly) Why it's cool: You get to capture real-life territory by running and walking through it. Just keep your phone in your pocket. Compete with your friends if you want. This is the game I have always wanted, and I get to make it. Feels great.

tekknolagi 12y ago
Any Android app coming soon? :D

interpares 12y ago

What: Emphatic (http://emphatic.co http://emphatic.co) -- social media as-a-service Why it's cool: gives marketing resources to small businesses who lack the time or expertise

lbearl 12y ago
Just an FYI, but under the blurbs about the founders, a little bit of proof reading would go a long way to ensuring legitimacy: "...other large corporates in..." I understand typos, but when it is for someone who wants to run a service which would have very high visibility for a companies image, they really aren't acceptable.
- interpares 12y ago
  Ah! "Corporates" is a term that's often used within European professional service firms and is a holdover from my Dutch corporate banking days. Thanks for the advice, I'll change!
  - lbearl 12y ago
    Ah, I did not know that. I just assumed with a .co domain, and mostly targeting American social media companies the main focus would be on US English.
    - interpares 12y ago
      Most of are customers are American. Just the old habits dying hard :-)

bfwi 12y ago

What: A site/app that will tell you the most popular events in your city, and which event you should go to. Why: I wanna be able to reach after my phone and quickly find out where I should go to have fun.

interintel 12y ago

Working on simulating a complete nervous system (i.e. C Elegans Connectome) and connecting to a robot so we can see an entire organism simulated from environment to a simulated "brain". To my surprise the robot behaves in a similar manner as the worm; i.e. I wire the sonar to activate nose touch sensory neurons and when the robot comes upon an obstacle, it will stop, reverse a bit and change direction. This is not a program that tells the robot to stop, reverse and change direction but the connectome. This proves in part that we are our connectome. Furthermore, I have created a true "thinking" and autonomous inorganic creature. Currently I am analyzing the captured neural data to validate against the biological creature. Next I want to apply to an autonomous ground vehicle for exploration = throw a hundred of these guys out in the desert and have them search for minerals. Check out my work at http://www.connectomeengine.com http://www.connectomeengine.com

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keenerd 12y ago

Hacking on RTL-SDR. I've been running a successful fundraiser [1] and have just posted a detailed progress report [2]. This might be the first FOSS software-development fundraiser where backers get to decide what features are added. [1] http://igg.me/at/rtlsdr http://igg.me/at/rtlsdr [2] http://kmkeen.com/igg-report/ http://kmkeen.com/igg-report/

tekknolagi 12y ago

I am working on a small virtual machine in C, called Carp. It's cool because I am learning about C, a bit about asm, and a bit about how a simple CPU works. Ish. I also got a bit acquainted with comp.lang.c :) http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp http://github.com/tekknolagi/carp

Estragon 12y ago

Replicating Deep Mind's deep-learning video game player.

achamilt 12y ago

I've been writing an algebra editor analogous to Vim/Emacs. Unlike English, maths is too slow to re-type while you perform algebra. Instead, insert expressions once then use keyboard shortcuts to edit and combine existing expressions. It is interesting because it's the only algebra system in which the user actually performs the algebra. With practice, edits are as fast as maths on paper, but without all of the redundant re-writing. Similar to the sense of flow you get when programming with Vim, this leads to a sense of immersion in the maths. A small, fast executable *.jar, check it out at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ket/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/ket/

cliffdailey 12y ago

Just launched a dead-simple way to discover one new mobile app, every day. http://appstumblr.co http://appstumblr.co

len 12y ago

a generalized learning system. there are best practices that are superior to a traditional education. they are free and totally accessible with an internet connection. its cool if you believe in everyone being able to self-educate using the internet. will start applying it in a group context, namely business organizations shortly. looking for companies of 11+ people to participate.

domlebo70 12y ago

We are working on Cammy (http://www.cammy.com http://www.cammy.com). It's a cloud based security and monitoring platform. The idea being, you buy cheap IP cameras (20 - 40 dollars), put them in places you'd like to monitor, and they send images to the cloud, available for viewing via our app. We are working on some useful features around alerting users when a camera detects movement, and you aren't in the immediate vicinity (I.e. an intruder etc), which will make it a good alternative to conventional alarms. Live view of camera feeds is also coming. If you have a spare iPhone or Android device, you will also use those as cameras, rather than purchase IP cameras (not yet in production). Best of all, the app is free. Any feedback?

bernatfp 12y ago

I'm working on a voicecall widget that lets businesses be called by their visits for free with just one click (using Flash and WebRTC). It's called Calloud (https://calloud.com https://calloud.com ). I'm doing it because I'm a big fan of tools like Olark or Zopim which are essentially the same but for live written communication (chat). Because some people prefer talking rather than typing, I'm selling a live voice communication alternative so websites can tailor to this preference as well.

PeterWhittaker 12y ago

Danny Boy on the viola, and my own arrangement of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, for solo instrument (I'm using primarily the first violin line, reading it as written in alto clef, not treble, so down a 7th, dipping into the other violins or the viola occasionally to replicate the "feel" of the piece). Because the viola is cool. Just like fezzes are cool. Because life cannot be all-tech-all-the-time. During my day job, key marketing messages, conceptual architecture, and high-level system architecture for an open-source service-to-business platform for governments based on two primary notions, true "tell us once" to ease the burden on business and automated on-boarding of new programs to ease the burden on domain-expert but IT-ignorant (as they should be) program managers. Why? Coz it's like fezzes. And because after years in business, anything I can do to make dealing with the government easier and cheaper is good for me, good for the government, and good for the economy.

ducuboy 12y ago

What: News discovery platform (Svven.com - news rearranged). Why: It works by clustering the users based on their reading history, ranking one's fellow readers, and providing what else they read in order of relevance. Besides the news discovery part, I find it very cool to automatically connect the people with similar interests. Great things may come out of this.

Mc_Big_G 12y ago

A mobile app for timing your stretches. My daughter had to do some physical therapy so I did the stretches with her and got tired of counting and keeping track. Should be in the play store Monday.

phatak-dev 12y ago

Learning functional programming both in scala and js using http://www.manning.com/bjarnason/ http://www.manning.com/bjarnason/ book. [Why] Wanted to learn core concepts and coding in both languages at same time is fun.

udiw 12y ago

What: http://paperthon.com http://paperthon.com It's a research management service, consolidating submissions, notifications, reviews and revisions across multiple conference systems. Why: because I was sick of using emails to track these things, and it allows researchers getting fun stats about their work.

magnet1c 12y ago

What: Petpoc is an iPhone app for pet owners to snap, edit and share photos of their pets. Use virtual stickers to express yourself and your pets with silly costumes and accessories. Targeted towards a young female audience who have a strong affinity to their pets. http://www.petpoc.com http://www.petpoc.com Why: Because pet owners are under served in the App Store. Either the existing apps are poor quality or they focus on being a social media network for pets. I believe a relationship with your pet is a very personal thing and so the focus is simply on your pet, not anyone else's. The target audience clearly enjoy expressing themselves and customising every facet of their digital lives so I provide simple tools to empower them to do that with their pets.

sftcore 12y ago

http://availableworks.net http://availableworks.net

nitai 12y ago

What: I'm working on http://helpmonks.com http://helpmonks.com right now. It helps teams to manage the never ending flow of emails. Why: Some have similar tools, but they all concentrate on the HelpDesk aspect of it. Instead of re-inventing the wheel we simply integrate with popular existing helpdesk apps. Furthermore, we encourage sales and marketing to use our app. Thanks.

ASquare 12y ago

PlanitWide: A whole new approach to planning trips that's faster & easier (for everyone not just those that are savvy/in the know): http://www.planitwide.com http://www.planitwide.com It's cool because it brings together: a) a travel focused vertical search engine that's categorized 1000+ (sometimes interlinked) variables that can be found without typing a single word (just pick from easily labelled menu options) and presented as highly relevant result shortlists vs 100s of pages of results and b) an intelligent itinerary generator that helps you arrive at a realistic final itinerary faster by letting you shortlist content from these results and allowing you to iterate faster by presenting what-if scenarios based on how you construct your final itinerary. Better Search + Intelligent Itinerary Creation = Faster And Easier Trip Plans

gpinkham 12y ago

Working on http://beatsimporter.com http://beatsimporter.com It uses Ruby/Rails, Nginx and MySQL.. It imports playlists from Spotify, Rdio, iTunes and plain ole CSV files. It even will import a subscribed playlist from Spotify. I welcome feedback, comments and issues.. so check it out.. Why is it cool.. 1. when I wrote it a month ago it was the only importer for Beats Music (need to look to see if it still is).. 2. I wrote it because I was moving the family from Spotify and Grooveshark to BeatsMusic and I knew my daughters wouldn't manually move their 500+ song playlists.. So everything I do for my daughters is cool.. (well.. maybe not in their eyes. haha)