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Ask HN: Most interesting tech you built for just yourself?

1901 points l2silver | 2 comments | 27 Apr 23 15:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.41s | source

Maybe you've created your own AR program for wearables that shows the definition of a word when you highlight it IRL, or you've built a personal calendar app for your family to display on a monitor in the kitchen. Whatever it is, I'd love to hear it.
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simonsarris ◴[27 Apr 23 17:46 UTC] No.35731879[source]▶
I built carefulwords.com simply because I wanted to type a word into the address bar and get a large list of synonyms and some historical quotes using the word quickly. For example:

https://carefulwords.com/solitude

https://carefulwords.com/think

etc. Also unlike thesaurus.com, the search bar actually focuses so you can just start typing!

It's not perfect, I need to do a lot of editing, but nonetheless I use it almost every time I write, now.

The site is a little over 30,000 static HTML pages built with a number of TypeScript scripts that compile some sources for synonyms, parts of speech, and the quotes.

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1. kccqzy ◴[28 Apr 23 05:26 UTC] No.35737741[source]▶
I don't particularly care about synonyms (when I consulted a thesaurus too much my writing became too flowery) but the historical quotes feature was just great! I can imagine downloading the full text of several of my favorite authors and index the words from that corpus.
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2. greenpeas ◴[28 Apr 23 11:00 UTC] No.35739741[source]▶
Sometimes I know that a precise word for what I want to say exists, and I'll know it when I see it, but I can't quite remember it in the moment. In those cases I search thesaurus for synonyms to related words; or maybe ask ChatGPT these days.