The AI brought back code I lost 30 years ago
He lost the source code for his macOS 8 PowerPC programs three decades ago. The AI decompiled the binaries, turned them into a web app, and then converted them to Dylan with OpenDylan.
A random mix from the whole library. Shuffle for a new set.
Hobbies
Making things, learning and having fun · 960 ideasBuilt a school newsletter and permission slip from scratch for a school
One of eight hands-on tests run on the reviewer's real accounts; the AI scored 42.5/47 overall across the gauntlet.
The AI picked my new PC on eBay and talked me through moving off my paid VPS
He ran his apps on a Raspberry Pi and paid for a VPS to keep the AI away from live operations. The AI worked out the spec for a PC that could run two virtual machines, researched eBay and found a good deal, and he followed its instructions, mostly by pasting commands on his phone, to set up both machines and move everything over.
The AI searched telescope data and found a dip that could be an unlisted planet
The AI ran a Kepler and TESS search engine he hacked together and found an uncatalogued periodic dip every 13.77 days around KIC 5689121, a possible 2.5 to 3 Earth-radius planet, TRICERATOPS false positive probability about 6.9 percent (result report, not a product pitch).
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
My agent organized my whole music collection on my NAS
He gave the AI a profile on his Synology NAS, linked over Tailscale by SSH, with one hard rule: never delete anything without his clear say so. The AI went through his large MP3 collection folder by folder. It renamed files, removed duplicates, found album art, fixed tags, and moved songs that were filed wrong, like songs in an 80s folder that were not from the 80s. It also relinked a playlist after he had moved all of its tracks into other folders.
The AI set up a daemon that syncs my Mastodon posts into Obsidian
Over the weekend he had the AI set up a daemon on his Mac mini that syncs all of his Mastodon posts to his Obsidian vault. Now he can search his own posts on all of his devices.
The AI and I hacked my old Wish smartwatch. Now it talks to a local AI.
Today he and the AI hacked a cheap Wish smartwatch he had abandoned for years. Now the watch talks to an AI model running locally, like a bargain basement Alexa.
He tells an LLM how he wants his Linux desktop and it changes in minutes
He tells an LLM to change his XFCE Arch desktop and it does so in minutes, giving 1-click closing of many windows of one type, file and folder results in whisker search, and games running that refused before.
The AI is sorting out my NAS. It holds 30 backups and years of syncs.
He has the AI dedupe and reorganize his NAS. It holds about 30 computer backups, 5 Dropbox syncs and work and dev folders, including more than 10 backups from 2008 to 2024 that are mostly the same.
This only partly worked. Worth knowing before you try it.
Redesign my circuit board with cheaper parts
A maker had the AI redesign his KiCad board, including selecting parts from JLCPCB's catalog and suggesting cheaper equivalent components that cut his bill of materials significantly. When assembly proved too expensive, the AI redrew the schematic around through-hole parts he could source himself.
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.