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

I used to listen to lots of mp3s on my computer in the nineties, so I built a USB IR receiver that could interpret signals from a remote control and use it to control winamp.

I made a tool that tracks the current and historical prices of all sailboats in the world to look for possible good deals.

I made a website that let me track my student loan payoff (since I had 30+ different loans) that showed the total payoff as a big red thermometer. I also would track the dates of payments and used that to estimate the total payoff date

I made and open sourced an attendance tracking site for a local school that allows students to come and go throughout the day, but needs to ensure they at least showed up and returned before school let out.

I made a tool that would determine the most efficient way to build damage per second on each hero in a moba. It used linear optimization to calculate which items to build and in what order to get the highest DPS.

> since I had 30+ different loans

That's fascinating! How do did you get over 30 different loans? Is this any kind of normal where you're from?

I moved to the US for college, and the only way to pay the predatorily high tuition was to take out student loans. Those were taken out incrementally each semester. I was eligible for several different kinds of loans at varying rates and amounts, so each semester I'd optimize, resulting in several loans a semester.

Most people don't realize that is how it is done, because they consolidate (or never switch provider) after graduation.

America is a scary place.