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Ask HN: What cool skill or project interests you, but feels out of reach?

125 points akktor | 3 comments | 09 Jun 25 12:41 UTC | HN request time: 0.75s | source

This question's for all those cool projects or skills you're secretly fascinated by, but haven't quite jumped into. Maybe you feel like you just don't have the right "brain" for it, or you're not smart enough to figure it out, or even worse, you simply have no clue how or where to even start.

The idea here is to shine a light on these hidden interests and the little (or big!) mental blocks that come with them. If you're already rocking in those specific areas – or you've been there and figured out how to get past similar hurdles – please chime in! Share some helpful resources, dish out general advice, or just give a nudge of encouragement on how to take that intimidating first step.

Let's help each other get unstuck!

1. andig ◴[15 Jun 25 09:08 UTC] No.44281352[source]▶
Author here. With https://evcc.io I have (with tremendous help) developed a home energy management system, originally for solar-optimised EV charging (big in Germany/Europe with users in the US or even Australia). Turning into a general HEMS proves hard. While all our current algorithms are strictly predictable, we're lacking global, multi-goal, non-linear optimisation. Maybe SAT solvers, maybe non-linear programming, maybe stochastic or ML/AI can be part of the solution. We have lots of data but no algorithm or technical approach and I'm unsure where to go next.
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2. jonaswi ◴[17 Jun 25 20:48 UTC] No.44303789[source]▶
thank you for evcc - awesome pice of software that I'm using every day. I actually built some small prediction models around it figuring out if I should charge my car or feed in the electricity. Not sure if that is what you have in mind but I would be interested to hear what kind of algorithm you have in mind. Maybe I can help?
replies(1): >>44312208 #
3. andig ◴[18 Jun 25 18:28 UTC] No.44312208[source]▶
Sounds great! Wanna post on GH Discussions with your idea and we take it from there?