The AI on his phone clones projects, builds his features in, and ships the app back to the phone
Uses the AI on his phone to clone projects, build his features in, build the app and push it to his phone, usually not upstreaming.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Hobbies
Making things, learning and having fun · 960 ideasHold my whole D&D campaign and help me DM on the fly
Noah, a Dungeons & Dragons game master, gave his AI Q all the notes from his past sessions plus the group's specific house rules. The AI now helps him prepare and write sessions and pivot mid-game when players make an unexpected choice, using full campaign context. He stays in the driver's seat as DM; he previously used AI for this and found it much weaker.
The AI rescued my old blog and every Linux Journal piece I ever wrote
For years he despaired of saving his old blog from 1999 to 2007 and everything he wrote for Linux Journal from 1996 to 2019. He asked the AI for help, and the AI rescued both sets of writing and put them back online at searls.com, though some Linux Journal pieces are still missing.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
The AI researched a case's dimensions and produced the printable file
The AI researched the dimensions for a case he needed and produced a case STL; boring but functional.
Rebuild your own broken connector and finish the weekly update
A user's notes MCP was down - his own mistake - when his agent decided finishing the request mattered more: it researched the Joplin API, wrote, refactored, and debugged a 400-plus-line Python tool across five files, then used it to read his notes and write its weekly update markdown into Joplin as planned.
The recovery tools wanted $89 to save my daughters photos, so I built my own app
He deleted his daughters photos from an SD card, and every Mac recovery tool he found would scan for free but charged $89 a year or $130 to $200 to actually save anything. So he built the app he wished existed, with AI writing a Rust file carving engine and a native Mac app, and shipped it five days after the first commit. It is now a paid app of its own, $29 once, no subscription.
The AI restored my damaged video, a job I used to need a special tool for
He says some tools disappear because a chatbot can now do their job reliably. The AI restored a corrupted video for him, something he would previously have used a specialized tool for.
Delivered unsolicited fantasy-football reports five days a week (Monday recaps, Wednesday waiver-wire),
2026, a host described playing fantasy football in two leagues while the AI sends weekly performance reports every Monday night and waiver-wire reports every Wednesday — unsolicited football advice about five days a week. Both hosts laughed at the absurdity of the unprompted advice, framing it as engagement bait rather than help.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
A local agent runs his home router, and he now configures it in plain English
Gave a local agent SSH access to his OpenWrt One router to optimize, secure and interpret his home network; now configures it in English.
I built an app that turns my saved articles into one EPUB
He saved articles and never read them, because on his phone he ended up on social media or email instead. So he built a reading app with AI and the AI that bundles his saved articles into one EPUB for his Xteink X4 Pro e-reader.
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.