Ask HN: What are you working on? - kamranahmed_se
======
postit
I'm f-unemployed which means I can spend time doing interesting stuff
meanwhile I drawn my savings. I'm doing mostly two projects:

# 1: A game boy advance emulator in Rust - just for fun to learn the language
and to implement a virtual machine.

# 2: A cold storage secret manager with a James Bond feeling.

In the case I die <everyone is gonna die anyways> I need to let people
instructions, documents, bank ids, passwords and other stuff. So I designed a
secret sharing mechanism which allows me split secrets and generate tokens for
specific people. Once enough people gather and join their keys, they can
unlock their specific secrets. If you want to understand a bit just go through
the 1password design docs and Shamir secret sharing mechanism, although I had
to improve the later to improve security.

Once I gave some friends a piece of paper with a QR code with says "in case I
die access this website", most of then got interested in having a service like
this. I registered a domain but I'm still not confident enough to make it
public.

If you want to invest or discuss drop me a line on hn@eternity.is :P

~~~
krapp
> I registered a domain but I'm still not confident enough to make it public.

Honestly, this sounds like a far more productive way to burn through your
savings and free time than a GBA emulator...

~~~
fao_
Does everything have to be productive? Is the pursuit of joy not worthy in and
of itself?

Also, as a project for a CV, the complexity involved in emulating any system
makes it a reasonable feat (if even partially successful).

~~~
krapp
>Is the pursuit of joy not worthy in and of itself?

It is, but unless postit has a lot of savings, lives in a country with a
robust social safety net, or is confident about finding employment without
effort, they risk winding unemployed _and_ broke. I know this from personal
experience, although, of course, everyone's experience is different.

------
Jackalopiate
Been throwing around ideas for a personal database for a few months now. The
idea now is a sort of personal wiki system where ideas can be collected in
markdown formatted pages with internal and external links, as well as all of
the other features you would expect from a wiki.

This wiki acts as a backend for the larger project, which will be a personal
assistant type service that will be able to read and write from this
"database" of personal knowledge and organize deadlines, events, notes,
documentation, and references.

Im thinking of making this functionality happen through a MycroftAI plugin, so
that you can query the database by voice, and give Mycroft the ability to make
agendas and such on the fly based on your personal database.

It's still in the early stages though, as Im still trying to figure out what
kind of backend I want to use. I need something cross platform (at least
Linux, windows, Android) to edit the database, as to be able to update it as I
do research or take notes. Im currently leaning towards DokuWiki due to it's
variety of formatting and the fact that it has an API built in, but I have a
feeling it's going to get hacky.

------
FLCL
I'm building a 2d game engine in pure Javascript.

[http://moonbench.xyz/projects/workshop/axiom/stable/](http://moonbench.xyz/projects/workshop/axiom/stable/)

WASD to move, click to shoot, mouse to aim.

It has parallaxing backgrounds, sprites, collision detection and resolution,
guns and pickups.

It also supports game controllers in browser.

It is a work in progress, but you're obviously welcome to explore it and the
source code.

I have a few other recent projects on that same domain, such as a raspberry pi
camera network [1] and a p2p image sharing tool [2].

All just for fun and education (so far).

[1] [http://moonbench.xyz/projects/pi-camera-
network](http://moonbench.xyz/projects/pi-camera-network)

[2]
[http://moonbench.xyz/projects/shutterbit](http://moonbench.xyz/projects/shutterbit)

------
sharmi
I have just completed
[https://www.camerasforpros.com](https://www.camerasforpros.com) a
stackexchange and reddit reviews aggregator for photogear. I am so far happy
with the progress as it surfaces the most useful books for learning
photography, and even thrifty items that you not even consider photogear that
can improve your photography game.

I am now working on a browser extension to help avoid procastination. Most
extensions are after the fact feedback based. Like they tell you the usage
patterns for last day, last week etc. I want to supplement that with an addon
that works on the philosophy that prevention is better than cure. It is
basically to scratch my own itch because I spend a significant amount of time
reading. I have not posted it yet. Once it's done, I would be happy to have
your feedback.

------
busymichael
[https://dndemail.com](https://dndemail.com) \- DNDEmail - do not disturb for
Gmail. It works by pausing your inbox so your inbox stays empty. Your emails
get delivered on a schedule you specify.

The idea is to keep your inbox clean so you can focus on the important
productive tasks. That means you can search your email or even reply to an old
email without having to see any new emails.

------
jetti
I'm working on a few things.

1.) a web analytics tool written in Elixir. I'm not sure if it will be used by
anybody or if it will even make money if it is used but it is something that
is helping me learn the OTP more as this is mostly backend service work and
not a phoenix app. This will include status monitoring of links and resources
to alert to any 404's as well as will include site analytics such as traffic
but in a way that will prevent the need for putting up the cookie warning on
your site.

2.) Job site for COBOL jobs. I'm waiting on approval from Indeed to gain
access to their API to help monetize the site as well as provide much better
information regarding the jobs.

3.) A self-published e-book on design patterns in C#

------
swampthinker
Smart fridge device, tracks what's in your fridge.

Just some hardware prototypes that I'm working on, using OpenCV and TensorFlow
for food recognition. The fact that Amazon doesn't have an official product
purchasing API is irritating, but makes complete sense.

------
docsapp_io
Been working on my project [https://www.docsapp.io/](https://www.docsapp.io/)
for more then one year and now growing slowly.

Initially I work on this project to learn Scala + Play! Framework and now I
turn it into real project with real customers.

What I learnt from working on this project: 1\. Time to market - Push your
product to market and find customers ASAP to get real feedback. 2\. Hosting -
Build on cheap hosting provider with self setup that support HA. Machine fail
all the time even you use expensive hosting (Cloud)

------
matheist
Writing up some mathematics I did while (currently) funemployed. It's about
the Wobbly Table problem. I have two parts out of three up already, and am
finishing up the third:
[https://haggainuchi.com/wobblytable.html](https://haggainuchi.com/wobblytable.html)

Probably I won't try to publish it in traditional journals because I don't
intend to get back into academia and anyway it's probably not novel enough.
(It's a new proof — as far as I know — of an old result.)

------
patrickgordon
Building a silly web app:
[https://github.com/patrickgordon/coothaback](https://github.com/patrickgordon/coothaback)
\- [https://whatsyacoothabacktime.com](https://whatsyacoothabacktime.com)

Working on an open source lib:
[https://github.com/JumboInteractiveLimited/redux-
cache](https://github.com/JumboInteractiveLimited/redux-cache)

and trying to think of something new to build.

------
louiswilbrink
I turned my investment property spreadsheet into an Angular 4 web app:

[https://gocashflowapp.com](https://gocashflowapp.com)

It lets you run cashflow calculation on the go, and provides numeric keyboard
since I hate typing in numbers on the full alphanumeric one.

Launched 2 weeks ago and tweaking adwords campaign. I plan on turning it into
a Progressive Web App, then add persistence using AWS Lambda and RDS.

------
ecesena
A new password manager.

The core idea [1] is that there are some passwords that you only want to
remember, never write or store, and yet be able to access even in the worst
possible situation.

I'm negating all these assumptions by creating an app. :) Jokes apart, most of
the time you do want the comfort of an app or browser extension.

[1] [https://medium.com/@0x0ece/how-i-manage-my-passwords-
technic...](https://medium.com/@0x0ece/how-i-manage-my-passwords-technical-
version-8549dc1bde1e)

~~~
analogist
@bascule addresses deterministic password managers as a category here:

[https://tonyarcieri.com/4-fatal-flaws-in-deterministic-
passw...](https://tonyarcieri.com/4-fatal-flaws-in-deterministic-password-
managers)

Certainly you’ve considered these points, and I’m interested in hearing your
responses to these points if you’re using this scheme yourself and want others
to use it.

I’m particularly interested in point 4 where, unlike traditional password
managers like 1Password and Lastpass, where you need both the password and
some form of data access, the leakage of my master password (say by a shoulder
surfing security camera at any time) literally means every credential can be
derived from scratch at any time.

~~~
ecesena
I read it indeed. Before I respond please let me say that this is just my
opinion, and I'm totally happy if other people think differently. Also, the
point that I wrote and I'd like to stress is that there are _some_ passwords,
the most critical ones (i.e. Google, Facebook, banks), that I never want to
store and just remember. The reason is that I've found myself in situation
where my devices aren't available and I have a urgent need to access these
services.

For all the other passwords I honestly don't care, deterministic or vault both
have pros and cons, but in reality it doesn't really matter. First, I never
experienced the same urgent need of access. Second, I could temp reset the
password provided that I can access my gmail.

On point 4 specifically I have two things to say.

> With a traditional encrypted password vault scheme, we need two things to
> obtain site-specific passwords: the ciphertext of the password vault, and
> the master password.

To me this is not a feature at all. I want exactly the opposite, meaning I
don't want to depend on a file to retrieve my passwords, at least not the most
critical ones. So, I guess this is a critical distinction. Are you ok with
this dependency? Then definitely go for a vault. Ar you against? Then you
can't use a vault.

Second, and to your point. It's worth noting that, because you need the vault
file, you probably have it replicated in multiple places or at least
accessible by multiple devices. To me, this makes the probability to get
access to your vault file higher than the probability to find out the master
password. Or, said in another way, I wouldn't base the security of the system
on the fact that the attacker can access the master password but not the vault
file.

To limit the attack surface you have to create multiple groups with different
master passwords. The one that you type more often are the one more exposed,
so you want to group sites with similar security risk and frequency of login
(this is another thing that often seems amplified, I don't logout+login every
day in all sites, I typically keep things logged in).

I hope this replies to your question, happy to chat more.

------
seanmcdirmid
Since HARC ended, I’ve been working on raising my baby so my wife can get back
to her UX design career (not ideal, but it’s gone by much better than I
expected).

I’m also planning a pivot away from doing research in live programming and
instead looking at dynamic mediums for thinking (a common HARC topic). The two
topics are fairly related anyways (tight feedback loops, reduction in
representational gulfs). I hope to grab some time from child rearing to work
on a new demo soon.

------
mattbgates
A series of projects having to do with API communications, specifically
emails, text messages, and phone calls. Specializing in memory, focus,
security, and privacy.

------
krapp
Udemy tutorials for Unity, OpenGL and Corona SDK, as well as a ton of game
development library code in C++ and Lua. I have a list of (very, stupid
simple) games I want to MVP with it, starting with Pong and ending with
something using OpenGL, which I'm just starting to teach myself.

So, likely, nothing anyone is likely to care about, or that will make money,
or an interesting Show HN thread once I manage to actually finish something.

------
togusa2017
My first mobile app in react-native. Working on it for quite sometime. Lacking
some courage to push it to play store/app store . Currently using it.

~~~
segmondy
Why are you lacking courage? It's tough, reach me if you need a support
network. I understand.

~~~
togusa2017
Thanks for the kind words.i will definitely reach out to you .

------
caser
A community for tech people on sabbatical who are full-time exploring new
ideas and figuring out what to do next.

Info on our beta batch up here: www.recesslabs.com

------
jeffshek
Supplement, Medication, Sleep, Habit Tracker that correlates to how you sleep
and productivity. (With a gabillion other features I want to add soon).

Site - [https://betterself.io](https://betterself.io) Open sourced -
[https://github.com/jeffshek/betterself](https://github.com/jeffshek/betterself)

------
ioddly
I'm working on my habit formation/note-taking application:
[https://github.com/ioddly/meditations](https://github.com/ioddly/meditations)

Specifically I'm trying to work up the nerve to go implement a decent search
which I've been putting off for a while. And maybe get it cleaned up for some
kind of actual release.

------
ripexz
Working on the next iteration of
[https://www.sketchdaily.io](https://www.sketchdaily.io) \- a free educational
sketching web app.

Also a mobile game for solving abbreviations (currently website is just a
placeholder [https://www.wtftag.com](https://www.wtftag.com))

------
themeranch
A WordPress theme aggregator:

[https://themeranch.com](https://themeranch.com)

So far I've learned a bunch about WordPress and php, and overall I'm pretty
happy with the results. However, I haven't worked on it for a while, and
honestly I'm not sure what do to next. Any advice/suggestions appreciated.

------
tuacker
Working on an update for Claire Budget[1] a personal budget tracking app for
iPhones. Update is going to bring goals to plan for the future and option to
schedule recurring transactions.

[1] [https://budgetwithclaire.com](https://budgetwithclaire.com)

------
Slaul
I'm working on a web-based workout, activity, and meal logger because I'm not
satisfied with the performance of any of the current offerings. They all seem
to be missing something I would like to have so I decided I'd just build what
I want and maybe others would like it too.

------
essofluffy
Site to collect and share lists of resources around the internet like the ones
on this page: [https://github.com/ZuzooVn/machine-learning-for-software-
eng...](https://github.com/ZuzooVn/machine-learning-for-software-engineers)

------
dani_c
A multiplayer game of reading against your opponents.

Made it mainly to learn about sockets.io and Web Speech APIs.

Interested to extend this to a player vs bot mode, as well as supporting
Mandarin Chinese in the future if I have time.

[http://funreading.io/](http://funreading.io/)

------
Mz
Figuring out where to post flyers in town. Because, obviously, that is how you
promote a website or two.

------
chrisfrantz
Product Hunt hackathon. We’re working on a project called Press Kite. Unified
brand and press assets in one beautiful page.

[https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/press-
kite](https://www.producthunt.com/upcoming/press-kite)

------
bpchaps

      Mapping out chicago's parking tickets
      Polling metrics over I2C for a distributed power stack
      7 ongoing FOIA requests for email metadata.
      A clojure web scraper
      Building an caching server with an nvme raid
      Building a large LAN party with some friends

~~~
Nilef
Why are you mapping out parking tickets?

~~~
bpchaps
Mostly because it's an extremely difficult problem that pushes me to learn new
things across a wide field. If you're interested in checking it out, it's at
[1].

I'd like to make something similar to [2] in the mid-term, but the longer
goal's to find tickets given in error.

[1] [http://github.com/red-bin/chicago_tickets](http://github.com/red-
bin/chicago_tickets) [2]
[http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc-
ta...](http://toddwschneider.com/posts/analyzing-1-1-billion-nyc-taxi-and-
uber-trips-with-a-vengeance/)

------
techeigh
1\. Online sales course, bootcamp, and training 2\. A way to consolidate sales
content and communication onto a single page, eliminating the need for
followup emails. [[https://www.recapped.io](https://www.recapped.io)]

------
hkmurakami
A comprehensive guide for employee equity decision making.

Even the best posts out there are B+ in my opinion and they often miss
something.

AMT is always the stumbling block for my own analysis though so I might point
on that part =\

------
kehers
An analytics dashboard and reporting tool for Mailgun transactional emails

[https://suet.co/](https://suet.co/)

------
Yiin
Cloud accounting and business management platform,
[https://overseer.io](https://overseer.io)

------
surds
A simple journal app to note periodic progress - A side project for practice,
but something that I think I really need.

~~~
kevdoshi
even I had plans to make such an app, to study Nodejs on the way. Also make it
such a way that anybody can host the application on their own so that the data
can remain private. can you mention how you are planning to build it?

------
manodocedoceu
Integrated Earth Systems - a plan to cool the ice-caps with a mix of old and
new tech.

------
varun244
Trying to generate good test data using generative adversarial networks.

------
neduma
Security hardening of Meso's cluster

------
segmondy
Killing the password.

~~~
ecesena
How? (Just posted about my password manager... I'm interested in the space)

