
Awesome but Useless - idan
http://awesomebutuseless.com/
======
edw519
Love the title! Sadly, it describes so much these days.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a hacker at heart and love to get under the hood,
pull things apart, and put them back together. But the more I do this, the
more I hear this little voice in my head say, "Wait a minute. Sure it's cool,
but what's the point?"

I have started using an approach that satisfies both my need to hack and my
desire to be useful: I try to hack not the stuff that I find interesting, but
that which my customers do. It took a little while to get used to (who cares
about past due orders when I could be playing with HTML5?), but I have been
pleasantly surprised. Grokking someone else's stuff may not lead to many happy
dances, but it sure is fun watching someone with money to spend do a happy
dance of their own.

~~~
the_mitsuhiko
> "Wait a minute. Sure it's cool, but what's the point?"

Learning.

~~~
cookiecaper
>Learning

Learning is of course awesome. It's the entire point of life. We are all here
to learn.

But, excessively doing things solely for the sake of "learning" is actually
doing a disservice to yourself. You should do things with tangible
applications to real people besides yourself, too.

There are a lot of preliminary or experimental avenues to explore, but once
you find a handful with promise, my advice would be to try to follow those
more deeply and apply the principles you learned to something with direct
applicability.

What you'll find is that by turning an experiment into a product, you've
actually learned a lot more than you ever thought that little idea could yield
up. You'll gain not only depth but also breadth as you explore the
implications of that product in various fields, gauge peers' reactions to the
product and marketing, and attempt to develop your idea into a repeatable,
profitable boon.

Tinkering is really important for a lot of reasons, but endless, exclusive
tinkering results in a very superficial knowledgebase. I recommend that
everyone follow several of their promises tinkers down the rabbit hole and see
what comes out of it. I recognize that this takes effort and commitment, but I
think you'll often be surprised at the results.

~~~
kstenerud
If it had a reason it wouldn't be a hobby.

~~~
cookiecaper
That makes no sense to me. Is there some obligation that all hobbies be
useless? One of my hobbies is contributing to open-source software. That's
useful, right?

~~~
Confusion
A => B /= ~B => ~A

~~~
MattyDub
Sorry, maybe I'm misreading your notation, but are you saying that modus
tollens isn't a valid argument? <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens>

~~~
pilgrim689
I think he's using a logical implication notation "|=". as in: A => B
logically implies that: ~B => ~A

He just decided to use "/=" rather than "|="...so it looks weird...

~~~
MattyDub
Ah, I'd read that as "does not equal", rather than "implies". Thanks
pilgrim689.

------
ferrofluid
"The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.
All art is quite useless." -- Oscar Wilde

~~~
marquis
I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call the work displayed here art, but I do
agree that it can be admired on it's own merits.

~~~
thret
Defining art is difficult; but something created to be admired on it's own
merits is certainly a candidate. I'm comfortable calling recreational hacks
art.

------
marknutter
I don't know why, but I find it extremely difficult to work on stuff that I
don't think will someday become useful or profitable. I think this is what
differentiates a lot of hackers out there. There are the hackers who create
for the pure joy of it; they love to learn, create neat things, and don't like
to worry so much about the viability or marketability of their creations. Then
there are the hackers who do it solely so that they or others can profit from
it.

We need both - the former are the toolmakers and typically push the tech in
new directions that become practical later on. The latter are the tool-users
and take what's been learned from the tool-maker's efforts and apply it to the
real, functioning world.

------
samarudge
"Candy doesn't have to have a point, that's why it's candy"

------
taylorbuley
The success of this post on HN suggests there's a niche for "awesome but
useless" style collections. That said, sadly this site hasn't been updated
since May 22. My pinboard account suggests there's been many awesome-but-
useless things created since.

------
pud
This is like 10 HN posts in one. Thanks!

------
chaostheory
I could be wrong but I think that's what people thought of experiments with
electricity a few centuries ago. I don't think things are useless if you learn
something and / or if it's beautiful.

------
skrebbel
I like the list, but some entries are disappointing. Like playing mspaint.exe
as audio - didn't we all do that when we were 14? I know I did.

~~~
dextorious
No, we were busy getting laid.

~~~
the-cakeboss
I wasn't doing either at 14...

------
bg182
I'm working on a startup. My to-do list accumulates tasks faster than I can
take items off it. In fact, between starred emails, pen & paper, smartphone
apps, web to-dos etc I'm accumulating to-do lists faster than I'm getting
through them. I sleep 2 or 3 hours a night. I have no time for friends and my
girlfriend is mad at me. I'm in a constant state of stress and anxiety. I
can't figure out if I'm on the verge of success or a good for nothing mess.

Do I really have time for AwesomeButUseless.com? Why, of course I do :)

~~~
LeafStorm
Despite the fact that HN is run by Y Combinator, not everyone here is a
startup founder.

~~~
bg182
Think you are misinterpreting a bit. I just thought the URL was funny enough
to make a joke about.

------
pja
Produce no code that you do not know to be useful or believe to be awesome. A
mantra to live by?

------
shin_lao
If it's awesome, it's not useless.

~~~
goblin89
Exactly.

You could use the techniques you saw in awesome CSS3 or WebGL demo.

You may get inspired by these demos to do something different.

Even simple looking at stuff (if it's not awesome enough for you to check out
at how it's done, or you're not a programmer) at least refines your
understanding of possibilities of different technologies, that kind of
knowledge we use often without noticing it.

Hell, a post with playing paint.exe as audio data might give an idea for a
killer 8bit chiptune dubstep track!

They say that even watching TV might be useful, depending on how you're doing
it. (Can't remember the source, ironically.) So, we shouldn't be quick at
labeling things useless.

------
pohungc
The js PC emulator is pretty awesome.

------
BrainScraps
Regretsy for hacks?

