

Ask HN: What are you working on? - stevenj

I'm curious to see what HNers are building/working on?<p>Particularly things in the consumer space.
======
snikolov
* A robot that does gymnastics. <http://fairlypre.posterous.com/robot-gymnastics> It's a final project for a class on computational control of nonlinear underactuated dynamical systems.

* A system that automatically finds features in fly embryos and spatially aligns them. Once they are spatially aligned, one can build a model of how they develop, and map those dynamics back to the properties of the genome that caused them.

------
lovskogen
I'm a product designer that does graphic and interface design and HTML/CSS.
But lately I've really wanted to build something that _works_ , not just
static stuff. So..

Installed node.js, the Express framework, and are now messing around in Jade
templates. Also installed the mongodb driver via npm (node package manager),
but have zero clue how to make a database and hooking it into my node app.
Next step is to follow along a blog engine tutorial to learn some more.

~~~
maushu
If you don't want to grok SQL you can always try NoSQL which is basically (for
most engines) documents made of key-value pairs in collections.

~~~
lovskogen
I'd need a really basic tutorial, how to do something (like a blog engine),
with Node, Express and NoSQL. Do you know of anything like that?

------
samps
Just released a new version of beets, an open-source CLI music management tool
for nerds: <http://beets.radbox.org/>

It's supposed to be an extensible and fast alternative to iTunes, MusicBrainz
Picard, and other tools. It's getting there.

------
kpao
I'm working on a Flight Simulator for Windows Phone 7.

It's a civilian Flight Sim, build in C# with XNA. I've been working on the PC
version for 7 years as a side project...

Release in a couple of weeks if we get rid of the last few bugs in time.

------
david927
Making tablet computers the ultimate device for a kid:

 _Kongoroo_ (<http://www.kongoroo.com>)

This is the mvp but we will have a much nicer beta version in the coming
weeks.

------
tcgore
Working on a domain management tool for entrepreneurs, especially the domains
that you own but are not using for a startup (yet). <http://ParkedAvenue.com>

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Love it, will be parking my unused domains there now.

~~~
tcgore
Thanks, I appreciate the support!

------
lefstathiou
Groupie (www.groupie.mobi), social network that connects people who share
interests. Currently on the iPhone, building out the web portal over the
coming weeks.50k+ users, 15k+ groups

------
phankinson
Well, let's see: \- <http://www.tether.com/> \- <http://www.compilr.com/> \-
<http://www.wakeful.com/> \- <http://www.spyreveal.com/> \- And a video game!

Yes, I'm still sane...

~~~
toumhi
Wow - 5 things at the same time... makes me reevaluate my lethargy not to
start working on a second project at the same time... How do you cope working
on 5 different things? Any project that gets time priority?

------
jrussbowman
Unscatter.com <http://www.unscatter.com> \- A search site (not engine) still
in major product development. My TODO list includes simple things like fixing
a bug for blekko searches that return 0 results throwing an error page, all
the way to build a realtime engine using zeromq and multiple tornado parsing
engines to dump into mongodb for the tornado front ends.

What it will likely be is a process of fix the bug, make a new logo (got a
great idea for one), add more apis for the raw search, then get to real time
processing.

I'm also considering trying to write a caching reverse proxy using tornado and
zeromq ( or maybe make it an opportunity to teach myself erlang ) while on
vacation to replace nginx. Mainly to keep my mind busy as I'll be in location
where I don't think I'll have internet access. Seems like a good time to write
a proxy and possibly learn a new language.

------
rschildmeijer
<http://deftserver.org/> tornado clone running on the JVM using raw java nio

------
defdac
A physically based renderer that will be able to calculate photosynthetically
active radiation and usable radiation in aquariums. I'm into planted tanks.
Currently I'm mostly programming the render part and decided that a
stochastically progressive photon mapper is good enough and will make it easy
to calculate the intensity and reflector efficiency and also get a photo
realistic render of the tank. I'm using Java3D to grab/create the geometry and
parts of pbrt in my own sppm-implementation. Here is the latest result:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/defdac/5513265646/>

Don't know if it is startup material though? It's a hobby but I would really
love working with light calculations or combine my knowledge about plant
physiology, electro magnetic radiation and graphics programming.

------
horofox
A real-time chan/anonymous community. We want to explore the potential in the
privacy aspect that it does have. Chans are known to be hard to break-
even(server cost wise) and they look... bad/ugly.

So using node/socket.io and with a nice execution, in that "adventure" we want
to create one that can scale cost-wise and basically own the market. We are
developing a lot of cool features(and useful) and it's looking good now. Beta
in july/august.

We want to change that narcissist/egocentric facebook culture that the web is
built upon. Contributing to something and not getting credit for it is good.
Altruism is awesome. We want to change the "crazy/sick" reputation that chans
do have today.

~~~
petervandijck
That's a great idea, hope it goes well.

------
fondue
I'm making a game for Android that's Tamagatchi meets the Sims meets
Civilization. I'm using libgdx as the foundation and building off of there.

Initially the game will be available in two modes, "Challenge" and
"Freebuild"; the challenge mode will be time-limited or resource-limited
challenges to take your tribe through. The Freebuild mode will just let you
grow your tribe in a set environment like a tamagotchi/sims game - get them
foraging/hunting for food, building shelter, etc,.

Ultimately I want to add a third mode, "PvP" where you will play in a large
world populated with other players and you'll need to cooperate and coexist or
crush them depending upon your play style.

------
marcomonteiro
Putting the real Multiple Listing Service back in the hands (literally) of
real estate professionals and combining it with tools that helps them make
sense of the real estate market. It's part listing syndication, analytics and
social networking.

~~~
dpcan
It's all politics and people desperate to keep their cushy desk jobs. If
you're already coding, I'd recommend getting out there now to find your
hurdles, because there will be A LOT of them.

~~~
marcomonteiro
This is _extremely_ true. It is all politics and there will be a lot of
hurdles. It is what it is.

------
k4st
I'm working on an open-source framework, and a series of command line tools
built on top of the framework, for symbolically manipulating context-free
grammars, non-deterministic pushdown automata, and non-deterministic finite
automata. All of it is implemented in C++. I have done some neat things like
implement CFG production pattern matching using an EDSL that lets me express
foreach loops in C++. I'm currently looking for people interested in
contributing / using the code.

The project page is <http://www.grailplus.org>.

------
abyssknight
Working with FAMiLab on creating a low cost sensor battery for classrooms as
part of the Element-14 Great Global Hackerspace Challenge.

Otherwise, trying desperately to get out of a recent spout of burnout, loss of
motivation, and chronic perfectionism. I have, arguably, one of the best job
situations in the world right now but I'm not enjoying it. The work I do is
just not profoundly satisfying, despite being able to do weeks of it in a
couple hours with minimal error and rework. Taking suggestions on that if
anyone has any.

~~~
genbattle
I feel your pain in just about every respect. Having personal projects can
help. From what others have said having a solid non-programming hobby and
getting back some balance is a key to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Interesting and somewhat related blog article:
<http://heycarsten.com/employment-the-hard-parts/>

Also, another article i found really interesting on the topic:
[http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JoelChristiansen/20110110/6763/Pa...](http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JoelChristiansen/20110110/6763/Path_of_the_Perfectionist.php)

~~~
abyssknight
Thanks. Hit me up off HN if you ever need someone to share your frustration.
:)

------
HerraBRE
I am working on my start-up: <http://pagekite.net/>

PageKite aims to make it super-easy for people to self-host websites or other
servers by solving all the problems caused by IP address shortages and
unfriendly firewalls.

At the current early stage it's mostly useful for making prototype web apps or
web designs visible to coworkers or customers without having to go through a
deployment step, but there are numerous ways this could develop into a
consumer product as it matures.

------
kertap
Recently I've found twitter to be a drag because I'm following way too many
people.

I want to start following less people so I'm writing a web app that will tell
you who tweets the most out of the people you follow.

I'd have it finished but I was going around in circles trying to solve a
problem that I just realized I don't really need to solve yet.

I keep thinking of other features I could add, such as who retweets the most
and who talks to other people I follow the most which doesn't help.

~~~
devspade
Are you aware of <http://proxlet.com/> \- similar but not the same - trying to
cut down "twitter noise"

~~~
kertap
I wasn't. Finding twitter apps is really difficult, I never know what to
search for.

This looks interesting. I'm going to try this out. It may replace the need for
my app but I'll be finishing it anyway.

------
lux
We're building a new music discovery/sharing service for iOS and web
(eventually Android too :). Features new songs in an HN-style ranking for each
genre, with recommendations based on your saved favorites, and the ability to
browse/share favorites between friends.

Our basic website is up, but we're still a couple months from launch and
working with artists and labels now to get some initial content in place.

<http://www.band-o-rama.com/>

------
bdclimber14
<http://getrunrate.com>. Better double-entry bookkeeping software for small
businesses. Collecting beta invites and validating features.

------
splatcollision
Edit Room: <http://editroom.splatcollision.com>

Visual CSS Animation Design Web App, with pre-launch access to my development
prototype. It's going to be the best way to build CSS animated websites! No
more building keyframes by hand in a text editor, and no more web layout and
design using desktop photo manipulation applications. Design and animate
directly in the browser*

*requires CSS3 Animation support, for now...

------
znt
TweetHit (<http://www.tweethit.com>) - Tracking the most popular products on
Twitter

And PerformanceEngine, the layered storage library (local instance cache,
memcache,datastore) that powers TweetHit.
(<https://github.com/ocanbascil/Performance-AppEngine>)

I'll probably submit it as a Show HN thread but until then, any early feedback
would be helpful.

------
sayemm
I'm learning Ruby and I'm working on an app that gives you email alerts on
CrunchBase updates, my first taste of Rails. And I'm also working through
SICP, albeit slowly.

I'm also waiting to get my Firefox add-on fully reviewed by Mozilla, which I
built a while ago. Check it out, the Web Startup Toolbar -
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-
startup-t...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/web-startup-
toolbar/)

------
Muchi
I'm trying to learn more about RoR and it's ecosystem by modifying the twitter
example to be a neighborhood social network using GMaps, etc. It's a WIP with
no effort put into the front-end yet ( <http://neckowoods.heroku.com> )

It seems that a _lot_ of folks have attempted to capture this space without
anyone being dominant. If you'd like to help out with whatever, let me know :)

------
trafficlight
Digital Signage with a focus on local events and information. It will be a
centrally managed network of LCD TVs that are playing local news feeds,
weather, realtime updateable ads. The host business will also be able to add
content of their own. All of it is played back in glorious 1080. I'm also
planning to incorporate SMS coupons and advertising as well.

My am installing my first display on Friday at the local bowling alley.

------
dpakrk
"Which one will I buy"? How many times do you go though a review or read
recommendations of someone before it gives you the final push to buy
something? ... We are making a product + marking app based on consumers +
twitter feed .. but not like others star rating product review.. people can
see how many users are happy , sad , angry .. People's emotions with any
product that can help you :)

~~~
missy
The saying that a picture says more then a 1000 words is true. In our case our
pie chart alone says more then 100 000 words if you look at reviews like of
Twillight. Feel what 1500 reviwers on amazon felt in 1 button press and share
this with your friends

------
genbattle
Dell Stage: <http://www.dell.com/us/p/stage/pd>

It's very much a consumer-facing product, built on technology somewhere
between a game engine and Flash.

edit: Also working on learning Google Go and OpenCL in my spare time, as well
as recovering from a burnout phase and trying to get my programming mojo back.

------
techtalsky
I'm helping build a new search interface and implementation for a casual game
company based on Apache Lucene/Solr. I always wanted to participate in a Solr
implementation, and I was really gratified to work on this project. I think
marketing had given up on improving search, so this was a grassroots
engineering effort that releases officially later this month.

------
toumhi
I'm making an application for small businesses to select, edit and print their
own gift certificates:

<http://www.giftcertificatefactory.com>

I'm spending an awful lot of time writing content as a SEO strategy. It does
take time to climb up the ranks of Google but it's a worthwhile investment!

------
plamb
We are building web iPhone & Android apps that consume and filter the social
media content bars/restaurants are pushing. Ultimately we'll be combining this
with a bunch of location based services, recommendations and group
communications. --> <http://www.barbird.com> (also free on iPhone/Android)

------
zarprey
I'm working on an iphone/ipad app for kids. It's a silly thing just a coloring
book but we're trying to make it better than anything else out there
interface-wise and we're experimenting with in-app purchases and a bunch of
other ios features. It's my first app that i've worked on from concept to
execution so its pretty exciting to me.

------
nicksergeant
I'm working on a new-car research site that's intended to make researching
new-model-year vehicles suck less. Right now, it sucks. Sifting through MFR
sites looking for info / styles / colors that set vehicles apart is time
consuming and boring.

The site is <http://autoswatch.com>

------
kovar
I'm building a SaaS offering to develop test data and validation tools for the
ediscovery market. There are no mechanisms in place at present to show that an
ediscovery process worked as expected. Courts require testing of all sorts of
other processes that produce evidence, but not so ediscovery. We think we've
got this solved.

------
adambard
I posted it up here a few weeks back, but my current project is
<http://resumatic.net/>

It's a(nother) online resume-hosting app influenced by about.me and such, with
an emphasis on presentation and individuality. I hope. Basically, it's a
pretty frontend for LinkedIn.

------
dsgraham
I am working on my first RoR's page. We have 2 admins that post weather
related questions, and users vote on which will option will be correct.
monthly totals and question voter break downs, etc. I work for a weather
company so this is a small, very niche website. But a fun way to get my hands
dirty in Rails.

------
imechura
I am working on an MVP for a staff scheduling application to help small-to-
medium businesses schedule and communicate with their employees and I am
looking for a collaborator or cofounder

See: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2417022>

------
dhess
Reading Bruner's "Toward a Theory of Instruction" and Piaget's "The Child's
Conception of Number." Sawyer's "Vision in Elementary Mathematics" is next.

Trying to get over my distaste for Objective-C so I can translate some of
these ideas to the iPad.

Teaching Scratch in Oakland.

------
civilian
Work: Making www.iegallery.com more functional.

Personal project: Tinkering with the Emotiv headset & emokit's hack. (
<https://github.com/daeken/Emokit> ) (If there are any other emotiv hobbyists
here, email me!)

------
epochwolf
I'm working on a literature community, I have an alpha copy deployed at
<http://beta.singleforest.com/> Not sure if I'm going to bother trying to make
money off it. (It doesn't have ssl yet, so careful with your passwords)

------
missy
[http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_207474292616003...](http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_207474292616003&ap=1)

We as applicants have thought be cool to set up a FB Group to stay in touch.
So click above and feel free to join

------
triviatise
Trying to figure out if a metagame is more important or transparency to
increase competition and sharing.

Also trying to find vendors to sign up and create triviatisements (have 5 in
the works).

Also adding stats for admins so we can see what people are actually doing

------
ryanburke
Emulsion ( <http://emulsion.me> ), which will allow photographers to create
beautiful, simple portfolios in about 15 minutes.

We felt someone needed to kill the slow, Flash slideshows everyone was using.

------
sim0n
I'm currently working on my startup's first product, Interstate
(www.interstateapp.com) :)

~~~
roam
Let me help you there: <http://interstateapp.com>

It looks great and I can't wait it to try it out myself ( _hint_ ).

~~~
sim0n
Thanks :) Hint understood and invite sent ;)

------
markkat
Hubski, a thoughtful content forum built on the HN code. Much more to do, but
you can follow people and topics, and a bunch of other things.
<http://hubski.com>

------
chc
I'm making a program that can take any common kind of file and convert it into
any other kind. I find this is a fairly common need for people I know, but
there isn't any good simple answer right now.

------
hamner
A platform to address some of the most challenging problems in machine
learning & artificial intelligence. Just started prototyping and don't want to
be more specific at this point.

------
valjavec
<http://twitter.com/YCnews>

Tiny side project to get Hacker News over Twitter with comments. Click on a
link in any tweet to see.

~~~
serialpreneur
Neat work with the sidebar :)

------
danieldk
A collection of core machine learning and natural language processing modules.
I still have a gig for nearly two years, and am using spare time to gear up
for my first startup ;).

------
martinshen
UpOut: Discover and share awesome things to do. Discover, post and follow
stuff to do in your city.

<http://www.upout.com>

------
combiclickwise
I am working on <http://www.updatesitenow.com/> Updatesitenow helps you update
your website using your phone.

------
HowardRoark
Working on <http://OneSong.me> \- an app that lets you describe your friends
in one song, just like ThreeWords.me.

------
3dFlatLander
I'm creating an ebook and software combo for computer/technology educators.
Hoping to market it to school districts, but individual teachers as well.

------
mikelbring
Fllix : <http://fllix.com> \- Browse, build and share the movies you have
watched and want to watch.

------
udfalkso
SaleLocator (<http://salelocator.com>) - A local retail sales aggregator and
search engine.

~~~
serialpreneur
Really cool idea! The homepage is immediately showing me sales around me. Will
be using it more :)

~~~
udfalkso
Thanks!

------
russjhammond
Researching and playing with different crowd sourcing options like Mechanical
Turk to see what all I can use them for school, work and life.

------
dkeskar
<http://mavenn.com> \- collectively monitor, share and discover information.

------
hari91
im new to the hn forum; im building a website called Faceless, user-verified
community posts, news, links, events aggregation. hopefully in real-time one
day: here's the link to my little design work so far.
<http://faceless.com/qa>; were going to launch to scu next week!

------
petervandijck
<http://gethirely.com>, getting ready to open up soon.

------
imwilsonxu
I'm working on solving how to make the Web serves families better.

------
The_Igor
We are working on Ad Serving and advanced metrics tracking.

------
tunaslut
a "classifieds" plugin for vanillaforums and a "motivational" ios app

------
bmelton
My next idea is one I'm going to work on for StartupWeekend.

It's killing me NOT working on it, but I don't want to 'cheat' by showing up
with a previously-worked-on product.

~~~
jrussbowman
Work on it. It's not cheating. There's a good chance that you'll walk in with
the idea of working on it and end up working on something completely
different. When I did the DC Startup Weekend I walked in with a product and
then ended up getting an idea from a comment someone made, went up, pitched it
and ended up with a team to work on that.

In the end we didn't win, primarily because we were told to keep the pitch
down and then the didn't do questions and only comments. Most of the comments
were about things that we did have answers for but didn't have time to mention
in our pitch so... There's a lesson in there too :)

But if you have idea, work on it. In the end I'm back to working on the
product I was working on before the event anyway.

~~~
bmelton
You _may_ be right, but 1) if _feels_ like cheating and 2) I specifically
asked the event organizer, and he said:

"you should really just be bringing your ideas and not a product-in-
development."

So that's why I'm holding off. I mean, on the one hand, I'd happily commit to
the idea, whether StartupWeekend was on or not, but since I'm going, and my
team agrees that it's a great idea, I really want to see how far we can get in
the time allotted.

~~~
jrussbowman
Gotcha.. either way be prepared for a fun high stress no sleep weekend. It's
great. One other hint I can give you, bring something you can tether to for
internet. Not sure if it was just the location where it was held here, but I
ended up tethering my phone to get to the internet because the attendees
pretty much swamped the wireless network where we were at.

Oh and if Stephen Douglas is at your startup weekend, ask him to do a one
handed keg stand.

------
ascendant
I'm in the preliminary research stages of building a series of stock tools
that allow users to do arbitrary searches on the intarwebs and then correlate
the data with historical price data on equities. I registered
tinystocktools.com but nothing is up there yet as I'm just tinkering with what
sort of free API's I have available to me at the moment before I start
seriously building it.

There will be social aspects to it but I'm so tired of "social" being the main
focus so it's definitely going to be more of a research/monitoring tool that
begrudgingly lets you tap into your FB and twitter networks as part of it.

There will be a consumer-facing interface but I'd also like to create a nice
streamlined API so people can leverage my platform as well.

~~~
Donald
So your tool correlates historical trends in search results with historical
equity price trends?

~~~
ascendant
That might be where it goes. I started out by looking at news alerts on stock
charts and thinking that I'd like to be able to define my own search terms for
certain equities instead of just looking for news stories that mention the
company or the ticker symbol directly. If I actually manage to get something
serious up and running it will eventually turn into more of a data-mining
service.

