Shuffle again

A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.

Hobbies

Making things, learning and having fun · 960 ideas

Comb DNA databases with 950 agents and spot a new enzyme system

Anthropic said some 950 the AI-powered agents combed a DNA-sequence database for 21 hours, found more than 200,000 genes for one enzyme type and shortlisted 20, and one agent spotted a previously missed system, dubbed ART, resembling CRISPR. Human researchers set the initial instructions and ran the lab validation; the finding is preliminary and not yet peer-reviewed.

Compiled dossiers on Facebook and Instagram accounts — including non-users — identifying

Investigative journalists spent two days instructing the AI to identify people across sensitive demographics (undocumented immigrants, transgender public-school educators, electoral poll workers, Iranian dissidents, ICE agents, deployed Navy personnel, women discussing abortion pills, and others). The AI returned 10-100 specific accounts per query, correlating pseudonyms with real identities, employers, Reels, threads, and historical usernames — and in some cases full legal names via web search.

Fill and submit UK master’s applications from one master file

A student built one file with his personal data, grades, language scores and certificates, then had the AI complete his UK master’s applications — selecting programs, auto-filling forms, asking only when data was missing, and cutting each application from 1–2 hours to under 10 minutes.

The AI checks my bird feeder camera every night and keeps the bird list

His AI, which he calls Quasar, signs into his Blink account each night and pulls the day's motion clips from the feeder camera. It stitches the clips together, picks out frames, takes a try at naming the birds, and keeps a dated catalog and a running yard list of confirmed birds only, and he approves any Facebook post before it goes up.

He built an Android app for the Magic league he plays with his wife, with life trackers that log wins and rounds on their own

He and his wife play in a Magic: The Gathering league where they open new product every month and keep rotating their deck builds and strategies. The tracking used to live in spreadsheets and note apps. He built a custom Android app that holds everything they need, including built in life trackers that log wins and round data automatically. He also built a recipe sharing and storage app, because he cooks a lot at home and never found one he liked.

HobbiesWent wrong

Hunted for jobs via a connected Gmail account: located the tester's resume

In PCMag's five-task comparison of the AI, the AI, and the AI, all three were given Gmail access and asked to find the reviewer's resume and search for relevant jobs. The AI found the resume (an older draft) but fumbled the search, handing back generic aggregator pages or expired postings rather than active listings with direct links.

This one went wrong. See what happened before you try it.

The AI made a 4 player Wizard of Wor for my Atari 800

Thanks to the AI he has been working on a 4 player version of Wizard of Wor for the Atari 800 that uses all 4 joystick ports, so far in an emulator, with a real Atari test to come. He says he can now play his favorite games with fun options that never existed before.

His Blender agent built and animated a spaceship, then caught its own thrusters firing into the ship and rebuilt them

A man built a chat copilot inside Blender in a day, at a total cost of $7.18, then gave it 5 sentences. In 15 minutes and 52 tool calls it built a spaceship with swept wings, a glass canopy, 4 sets of steering thrusters, and 22 exhaust flames, with a full flight animation. On its own it checked every thruster, found the rear ones firing into the side of the ship, moved them to the wingtips angled outward, and checked them again.

HobbiesPartly worked

I am having the AI rewrite all my Bluesky bots in Rust

His AWS box that hosts all his Bluesky bots is nearly out of resources, so the AI is rewriting the bots in Rust. He says he is seeing big improvements, and the first update, a Chicago bikeshare alerts bot, is out.

This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.

Track my reading goal and add books to my list

AI engineer Sajal Sharma built an AI on Telegram that tracks his tasks and notes and handles scheduled work. On camera he asked for a project overview, checked progress toward a reading goal, and had the assistant search the web for a book series and add the books it found to his reading list.

Show 10 more

Every idea is a real post from someone who tried it, summarized in our words, with a link to the original. App names are swapped for plain words.