I've got a list of side projects to get on with. I've made little progress in the last year, and suspect its burn out to blame - I'm just constantly exhausted.
I think if you have the energy, this is awesome fun. It might even get to the point where one of them makes some decent income.
But if you don't, like me, just realise that there is a reason for that, and it's OK. You need rest and relaxation, and it's OK to prioritise that.
I used to think my youthful energy was gone forever. Then about 3 months ago I had an idea for a project I truly believed in. I was able to write code for 16 hours straight, day after day, for most of the last 3 months. And it's not exhausting, it's rejuvenating. I feel like a young man again, despite my gray hairs! (I was planning on releasing it today actually, but this weekend I had an epiphany that requires a half rewrite for significant gains, which might add another few weeks.)
I'm 63, and still actively shipping "side" projects (quoted, because now they are my "day job"). Been doing it for at least a couple of decades. Probably more like 30 years.
Here's what I'm working on, right now[0]. It's a major rewrite of an existing app, that's been submitted to the App Store, and will probably go "live" in a day or so (unless someone at Apple has an issue with it, which happens, from time to time. Annoying, but not the end of the world). I'm working on the README and code documentation, now (I'll put together a docc catalog, as well as a Jazzy Docs site, and the supporting pages[1]).
I’ve been doing my ‘side’ project as my day job for 5 years, 10 productive hours a day, 7 days a week. Sunday is dedicated to side side projects for experimental ideas that are not on the critical path.
When working a normal job I could only work part time due to burnout that I later found out was in reality ME/CFS. After a Covid vaccine injury (long covid) I had to pause work for a few years while I found a way to treat it. Once treated I elected to work on my side project even though I make much less money as I considerer the regular workforce to be highly dysfunctional and liable to cause me to relapse into a fatigued state.
> burnout that I later found out was in reality ME/CFS
In my experience, burnout is really just a subconscious realization that what you're doing is just not worth doing, even for large amounts of money, and it manifests itself in fatigue or pain, because your mind is trying to stop you.
In my case, I didn't know I was burned out, until after I was -literally- forced out of the industry.
I was really pissed off, for a while, but these days, I have zero desire to return to the Rodent Rally. I have been talking with a friend about a possible effort to create an altruistic organization. I have a couple of bored, rich, retired friends. May not go anywhere, but ya never know...
100% not true in my case and probably not true in the generally case, it’s a common misattribution. The cause of mine is hEDS which has ME/CFS as a comorbidity. I’ve done a WGS and found that I have 2 TNXB SNPs. By my math a lot of ‘burnout’ especially in tech is related to TNXB or CYP21A2 SNPs. The treatments that I take specifically targets IL-1B cytokines that are linked to brain fog.
I was able to predict that I had these SNPs before taking the WGS test and once confirmed able to divise a treatment that worked. The probability of that happing by random chance is incredibly small.
I'm going through a similar investigation. EDS + ME/CFS are the main suspects. Could live with the symptoms for very long, but they got too severe after covid (otherwise I would probably still be living with them).
I’m pretty much back to 100% I just get the occasional slump but I can’t be sure that isn’t from working too hard.
For the IL-1B I take high doses of D3, TUDCA, and DIM. For the dysautonomia aspect I take Low Dose Naltrexone, a lower dose of modafinil in the morning and amitryptiline at night. I prefer weaker psychopharmacology ligands as it’s preferable to work with the natural rhythms of the body instead of fighting them.
I have a strict near zero sugar diet that’s high in kale. I take a low dose of semaglutide (ozempic) which has been one of the best meds I’ve tried. I make sure I get enough UV exposure. I’ve done Test Cyp and Ipamorelin/ModGRF and they do help a lot but I stopped taking them when semaglutide worked so well. I highly suspect people with hEDS are highly sensitive to semaglutide and should start and stay on much lower doses (1/10th) otherwise they’re near guaranteed to have a bad time.
I’m mostly interested in the TNXB subtype of hEDS which seems to have some weird comorbidities, like an intolerance to noise, a touch of ADHD, obstinate personality, difficulty falling asleep, local and general anesthetic resistance, and an unusually high IQ. There is an unusual reaction to medications with most medications working less than expected.
Glad to hear you are well. Also because that gives me some more hope.
> which seems to have some weird comorbidities
I'm a bit shocked by your list of comorbidities. Not only yours, but also the one you linked to. MCAS is currently among my most pressing concerns, although it seems to be getting under control with H1 and H2 antihistamines + cromoglycate. An anti inflammatory diet also helps, even though I'm struggling to stay completely away from sugar. The psychiatric part calls my attention. I also present some traits of ADHD and ASD, although not enough to complete a diagnosis. Twenty years ago I joined mensa at the 99th percentile, but I do believe my IQ has decreased significantly since then. I can't even remember the last time I had, in my adulthood, my mind as functional as I used to have in my teenagehood, even before covid and the aggravation of the symptoms.
Out of your list, the only item I couldn't relate with were the medications working less than expected. In my case, I usually have stronger effects, both therapeutic and side ones. That happens with vaccines too. However, last weekend I took one for Influenza and the side effects were barely noticeable for the first time in my adult life -- I hope that's a result of the MCAS treatment.
It's a long list right, most doctors will think you're just being a hypochondriac, that's what they told me and my family for decades. A general distrust of doctors might as well be another comorbidity.
It certainly sounds like a TNXB subtype of hEDS, this is an unofficial subtype, I read about the theory here on HN many years ago and ran with it. With an IQ that high I would take a guess that you have 2 TNXB SNPs. I'm happy to share more details on what has been figured out about these specific genes, I'll add an email address to my account.
I don't think the IQ points have been lost forever, I think I've recovered to my peak and possibly surpassed it with carful management of the meds. I think the general case of child prodigies burning out is simply a case of them not being able to get effective treatment and not an unavoidable innate quality.
Sugar is is still a tough one for me, it tends to give me headaches rather quickly which does make it easier to avoid it, but the desire for candy is always there.
Certainly an understandable position. The information I'm talking about is very modern as affordable high quality WGS are a recent innovation and news of the implications has not yet spread very far. It's a good time to revisit old superstitions.
On the other hand, the latest research and innovations are often gravely harmful but touted as safe and helpful for a long time by the experts, like lobotomies.
That is reductio ad absurdum. There is neither an appeal to authority nor a risk of social contagion. Additionally all the treatments I have done are completely reversible upon cessation of medication. Is your disdain of expert opinion applicable to all expert opinion or only the opinions that you don’t like?
The psychosomatic view of ME/CFS was and in many places remains the expert opinion and one that I agree is misleading and damaging. It was pushed by a highly influential team of British psychiatrists. Many countries still prescribe exercise as the official treatment which is horrific, especially when MAID is given as an alternative. I’m understand of skepticism.
My position is that of a subset of the patient community that represent motivated amateurs rather than any sort of official expertise. My background in ML and stats did help in my research and my ability to solely focus on this one condition and rapidly iterate small N unofficial trials over many years led to findings that I contend exceed that of most experts. For example we knew the BC007 trials were going to fail years in advance of when they actually did.
Yeah, psychologizing was in vogue. Has the added benefit of obviating the government of responsibility - a form of victim blaming. It used to be hoped that the cost of care would motivate the government to look for treatments they now are instead pushing MAID as an option.
Medical history is a horror show. It's weird that we have absolutely fantastic sources of information and tooling with abundant genome sequences and computers to process them and still medicine is very much prestige driven where dominant experts can hold back competing research for generations. I think patients will increasingly do an end run around them with more patient community sharing.
I do think ozempic will turn out to be a wonder drug not just for weight but also for auto-immune. And then consider - how much of mental illnesses is actually an expression of an auto-immune disorder. I think we're going to find out, and I expect we will look back on how badly people with mental illnesses were treated like we now look back on those who were lobotomized.
I think the difference is that burnout can even be for things you're excited about and want to do, but subconsciously don't want to do for other reasons, e.g. the task/project goes against your ethics but you're pushing past that anyway, so your mind tries to stop you through stopping your body, e.g. fatigue or pain.
Congrats on finding something like that, and can't wait to see the Show HN thread!
What do you think made it something you could believe in? Was it the opportunity, that it aligned with something you were personally interested in or something else?
I had a project a few years ago that was a bit like that. I'd be coding it up every hour I could find around the day job, and loved it. Perhaps I need to reflect on that some more.
Thanks! It's hard to know exactly why. What I do know is that I'm surprised week after week with breakthroughs I never dreamed possible and which I think other people will find very useful, and these each renew my excitement.
I don't suppose you're using LLMs for coding? The number of my older friends who've found energy for side-projects since LLM coding became a thing is very notable
In the most extreme case: a new father of twins just uses his IDE and home projector to put up the work on the wall and builds little things by voice and reading, as he's home with his daughters. It's pretty eye-opening.
Obviously, he won't want to divide his attention so obviously in the near future, but he's the sort who will likely be making things with and for them very early -- I imagine it will be like kids spending lots of time growing up in their father's woodshop.
This is me. I just put up an LCARS MQTT logger and a clock with touch support, on a Raspberry Pi 2B V1.1 with a 3.5' TFT touchscreen, all of which I bought for that purpose 10 years ago. I took a few stabs at it over the years, but in that time I also married and started a family and ultimately could never find enough time or sustained drive to do it.
Five days ago, I stumbled upon that package again, and in between my work tasks I casually chatted with o3 on how to get that screen to show something. I explored my original idea (driving via SPI interface directly) but that turned out to be a dead-end - and then went back to the framebuffer approach (system overlay handles the screen, I write to /dev/fb0); o3 made me a quick prototype to prove the concept - and then I fired up Aider with gemini-2.5-pro, and got the MVP the same day. I casually iterated on it over the next 4 days, improving performance, functionality, style and adding touch support.
I can tell you, if not for LLMs, that board would continue to gather dust in the drawer for the next decade. Instead, I'm on my way to extending this to realize my other old dream - making it into LCARS A/C control panel to replace the vendor-provided wall-mounted one.
Also, in the past couple months, I explored many other ideas and did a few prototypes, and started feeling again the energy I last had in high school. LLMs are just that good at removing the "blank page syndrome" and making every incremental task just more cost-effective, to the point they start to fit in my otherwise busy adult schedule.
I'm not using an LLM for programming (at least not yet), but I'm using it for business planning, estimating target audiences, summarizing research, etc. All stuff I could do myself, and that I have to verify, but it saves time. More importantly, it's making some work more interesting that was previously too tedious to ever get started on. Maybe that benefit will wear off for me once it's not novel anymore, I don't know.
When Pico 8 came out, I immediately had a feeling of recognition and familiarity: "Oh! So this is the app I was half dreaming of making all these years!*
The app I'm making now gives me the exact same feeling, which is already a reward in itself, but it also means it'll probably give others that feeling too. So it's doubly exciting.
I think you're onto something here. I find that as I'm aging I'm not losing energy anywhere near as fast as I'm losing the belief necessary for commitment.
Definitely something I've worried about. But a major architectural change is different than an improvement. I've left a lot of low hanging fruit for me to fix up after release. But with this change it would literally become a new, backwards-incompatible product. That's where I personally draw the line for when to wait.
That's actually all it was in the beginning. Just writing code for fun. But the more code I wrote, the more it evolved into an app that demands to be released, especially since the nature of it is to be a platform, SDK, and API for others.
I'm on the fence. But the new idea would fully break compatibility, and is much better. Should I continue to indefinitely support a product I no longer believe in?
I think it's more the drive or the interest, instead of the energy.
I miss walking out of Borders with a PHP book dreaming of the websites I would build, or walking out of Best Buy with a iPad, imagining new games to create.
[Comedy take: I blame you for my projects not being done too! :) Bada-tish!]
Seriously though, guilt, blame, shame all that stuff: it's not helpful. It just compounds the feelings that make it hard to get started again because those feelings are emotionally draining.
What I'm trying to get myself into the habit of is a 5-minute dip into something. If I just say to myself when I'm feeling slightly exhausted "I just need to put 5 minutes into this next task, and then I'll stop", I frequently find myself spending 30+ minutes on it. I can then feel a sense of over-meeting my "goal". That builds a little momentum, it makes you feel good about getting something done.
I also have reminded myself of the advice I gave others when younger: don't underestimate rest - particularly sleep, but also generally doing nothing - as being part of getting stuff done.
I don't do this well at all at the moment, hence my comment you're replying to, but I absolutely 100% will not let blaming myself get into my head like that, and that does help a little with the 5-minute trick.
Side projects lately feel the same as creating a blog: why bother, no one is ever gonna read it? And it’s not going to make much money or gain you karma.
I sometimes feel like that. All of the side projects I've done in the last 25 years have been mostly for my own enjoyment. I haven't done a single side project for money. I also used to run a blog for enjoyment. I stopped enjoying it, so stopped doing it.
I do sometimes feel like, if I'd spent 25% of the time I spent on these side projects on something that would have made me $$$$$$$$ then maybe I could now spend all my time on anything I want, or live in a nicer place and that sometimes dissuades me from some new side projects.
I think probably the biggest thing that gets me to start something is if I believe (even wrongly) that I can make tons of progress quickly. Usually that means I think I can get to something working in a few hours.
The great part about side projects is that unlike a business, it doesn't matter how much money it makes or how much traction it gets on social media. You can build something that you think is cool or useful and release it to the world and be proud of it. Then when someone stumbles upon it and also finds it cool and useful, it's a nice feeling.
A focus on revenue or external validation is what turns a "side project" into a "side hustle" or just a plain old "business" and those tend to be a lot less fun to work on.
I've diagnosed myself with a lack of motivation, not a lack of energy. (Which is also what "burnout" refers to, by the way)
I could, in theory, spend six months writing Uber for dogs. But why would I? That hardly feels worth it. Or I could try to implement AF_ONION in the Linux kernel. Also doesn't really feel motivating. Or (let me check the list) port libsodium to WUFFS. Write a framework for interactive tablet applications (at least on the pinetab2). Try to compile something by telling an LLM to pretend it's gcc, just for laughs. Set up an IRC botnet (the legal kind). Write an SSH honeypot. Set up an MQTT server so I can log my own location via an app on F-Droid. All stuff that seems slightly interesting but not enough to actually do it. And what seems interesting enough to focus on it for a few months to the exclusion of all other possibilities? Nothing at all.
Just today I wanted to post a link to a meme in IRC, but all the Google results were on garbage sites like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Imgur. I could go build a meme hosting site where you just have direct links to images. Maybe it would even be the best one. That's how Imgur got started. Still doesn't feel worth doing.
It sounds like you're a little too focused on metrics of success. Something can be "worth it" if it works well and nobody but you uses it. If you look at everything through the lens of opportunity cost, you'll be kicking yourself for not curing cancer. It's okay to work on an unambitious, likely unsuccessful side project. That time is only "wasted" if you're not proud of the work and can't show it to future employers.
I'm not focused on any particular metric other than motivation here.
I'm sure some things on my ideas list could make a bunch of money - like taking some SaaS everyone hates because it's enshittified, making one that's not enshittified yet, then selling it to an enshittification company in a few years for a big payout. You'd think the possibility of money would be motivating, but it's not.
I do have unsuccessful side projects that I do sometimes work on, and I'm not motivated to finish them to any substantial degree either.
I have - and still - struggle with this. My (unsolicited) advice:
1. just start anything NOW. Don't worry about getting organized or the correct order; just go. The act of working creates momentum; early on moving is more important than progress.
2. today's good enough > tomorrow's perfect. I found an OSS project for something I was going to build to help me capture "personal content". It's rough and not exactly what I was after but good enough. I've built (less than) half a system to help me with my job on top of PocketBase. Maybe someday I'll finish it (or even add another feature - #1 above has lots of ideas captured!) but until then I get value today.
3. Find something that has ongoing personal value: I help an animal rescue and pay the ongoing costs to run the system I built more than 10 years ago. Dropping $20/month to $5/month is possible but not a big enough motivation for a significant new version. The looming tech debt and support load might be over the rest of this year though!
4. Recognize that the incomplete part of side projects is a feature not a bug. Curiosity and exploration almost always end in specific dead ends, but the illumination gained can be used throughout your life. It's largely the act not the explicit output.
It sounds like the parent comment is saying they may benefit from NOT doing this. They say they have a million unfinished projects, but if you just GO without a plan, sometimes the momentum fatally wanes when you hit a point where you realized you've painted yourself into a corner.
I'm not saying a completely fleshed-out design document will help, but maybe a rough roadmap with milestone release dates would help keep the projects on track.
You upload your side projects’ data/github/seni-working-prototype, it performs a very quick ritualistic ceremony/blessing and buries it in a little marked grave.
Visitors are free to go grave robbing if they wish.
I like the idea. The cemetery could be a large scrollable top-down map where the user could click on each headstone to get a synopsis and a link to where it's hosted.
Meh, just change your personal definition of "finished" and everything gets easier :)
I too struggled with the feeling of not completing things, until I realized I didn't actually want to "finish" projects in the sense of "have paying users" but instead wanted to learn something new, try out some design/architecture or just solve a personal problem.
So for the last few years, my "finished" ratio is much higher, as I got the value I wanted out of almost every project I started.
I don't see this as a bad thing. Most people make side projects for fun, trying knew things, solidifying knowledge, etc.
I mean, if you have a goal of starting a SaaS and you've spent years starting and stopping a bunch of projects that you never follow through on then yeah, you should improve on that. But that's not most people with a bunch of unfinished side projects.
Maybe someone can make a curated wiki page of people's unfinished and/or abandoned projects so everyone can put theirs there? (Oh wait, that's just github.)
I actually love this part of github; it reminds me of the old internet, full of under construction Geocities pages and other half-baked projects. It's the polar opposite of today's bland, instagram-perfect same-same internet.
Yep. I love finding someone's old project on github and going through it and especially comparing it to stuff they did release and seeing how it was merely a stepping stone and a way for them to learn something. That significantly influenced how I code and helped me to be okay with writing code that never sees the light of day, as long as it helps me get past something in a project that does.
That’s the first thing I thought about too. OP how do you sell your side projects? Does people just reach out or are you actively looking for people interested in buying?
I think "sold" probably doesn't mean what you think it means here. Have you looked at the projects? Nearly all of them are just statics lists of things. Like "a list of all country flags" or "a list of modern inventions"
Maybe it was some SEO related sale with the domain and bit of ad revenue that someone bought for $100, which probably isn't the definition of selling a side project that most users on HN have. In fact, looking at the domains, the domains were probably worth more than the content on those sites.
That's why I originally flagged this post because I thought it was a bit misleading. I didn't think most people here would consider simple lists of things as side projects.
Agreed that the number sold is high! Although of the sold ones I clicked on 3/4 were no longer online at all, so I would guess the amounts sold for vary widely.
It's listed under 'sold' but the domain doesn't seem to work right now.
I'd think it's something that gets traction in the media every so often. That can lead to a spikes in traffic that you can potentially monetize. It's a basic site so it wouldn't take much to maintain. So, I guess there's value.
I finally have four ideas that I think worthy to build that I would like to monetize. All would be well within my abilities to build. No vision of grandeur that I'd retire from any of them and if I made $100 from one site I'd be ecstatic.
Two are simple games, one a directory and one a utility type site. No AI, no sign-up, no affiliate marketing, no upselling, just simple sites with ads.
However, my "paralysis by analysis" affliction is strong.
> However, my "paralysis by analysis" affliction is strong.
The solution is to remember that nothing is perfect, and that all code is eventually thrown away and replaced. So just start writing code and have fun!
Strongly agree. I struggled with the same. A key discovery for me was that this "paralysis by analysis" is a form of perfectionism.
I always thought perfectionism was someone who was productive but way too hard on themselves, overworking to achieve some end that's just not worth it. Not necessarily - it can also mean DOING NOTHING because you dont see a way to do it perfectly.
This has helped me a lot with writing. Sometimes you just have to write down incoherent slop. Let the ideas flow and be content with knowing they will have to be revised later. By all means if you write with more purpose and structure without getting too bogged down to continue then do so.
I think you have the motivation wrong. The cost-benefit economics work if you want to have fun building something, learn a lot and share it with others. It doesn't work if the goal is to make up to $100/month selling ads; getting a part-time job would be a better path. In this scenario not finishing your side project is the correct decision, and not starting an optimization of that.
To me, trying to make money with random projects is the most motivating thing. A dollar earned from some little project is emotionally to me worth many times that of the same dollar I'd earn as salary (as long as I don't starve). Most of my friends do not seem to share this feeling.
Also the internet is very big. You can sometimes have success with something, even it's a very silly badly implemented little thing. What people like, how you happen to get traffic, it's all quite unpredictable.
Create public project, have a contact-form/email somewhere on the website, if someone is interested in buying it, they'll reach out to you and you discuss the details. Isn't much more magic than that :)
Otherwise, if you're solving a specific problem in a niche, start hanging out wherever those people hang out, participate in the community and share your solution if it's applicable to the discussion. Make sure not to spam/self-promote a lot though, as it comes off as really tacky in most places.
Or share it with friends and coworkers, write an article about it, write good texts on the website itself so that search engines can pick it up, etc. pp.
Solve a problem and people will probably find your site.
Microacquistions maybe? I haven't looked much into it and I don't want to link to a random $$$ website, so instead here's the subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/microacquisitions
Very impressive “Sold” list! I’ve created a similar portfolio site for myself, but haven’t added a “Sold” section. Seems obvious, so I think that’ll be in my next update. Link below for reference:
that's awesome! I've had many many side projects launched in the past 2 decades, but the only one still going is my books site https://thegreatestbooks.org
I created it 17~ years ago mostly as just a tool for myself and now it gets roughly 8 million views a month.
The hardest part of any side project is actually launching it and making it somewhat production ready. I always spend the vast majority of my time dealing with devops/deployment issues/tasks
Nice work, particularly the amount you've sold! I keep a similar timeline of projects on my website, going back to 2004 (older stuff going back to 1990 is there, but not as organised) https://www.gingerbeardman.com
I just put out the first version once it feels usable (very important) and try not to overthink it. I add features later if it still feels fun or useful.
How does one pay taxes when selling minor side projects? I have never been a contractor/freelancer and I have never setup a company. This is the main pain in the ass for me when it comes to generating some side income. I'm in Europe, so it makes it worse I think.
It depends on the country the funds originate. Some countries have tax treaties each other. So it can be complicated. The easiest way is to get an accountant to deal with it. Then you can spend your valuable time building more stuff.
I once had a list similar in time and length. It was a great portfolio, but I slowly realized I just made it to remind myself I'm not a perpetually incapable imbecile. Deleting it and giving away those projects was so freeing. I had nothing left to prove to myself or anyone else. Now I can just write code for fun, code that I believed in. Not saying this is OP's motivation or anyone else's, but it was definitely mine.
I've got a list of side projects to get on with. I've made little progress in the last year, and suspect its burn out to blame - I'm just constantly exhausted.
I think if you have the energy, this is awesome fun. It might even get to the point where one of them makes some decent income.
But if you don't, like me, just realise that there is a reason for that, and it's OK. You need rest and relaxation, and it's OK to prioritise that.
I used to think my youthful energy was gone forever. Then about 3 months ago I had an idea for a project I truly believed in. I was able to write code for 16 hours straight, day after day, for most of the last 3 months. And it's not exhausting, it's rejuvenating. I feel like a young man again, despite my gray hairs! (I was planning on releasing it today actually, but this weekend I had an epiphany that requires a half rewrite for significant gains, which might add another few weeks.)
Here's what I'm working on, right now[0]. It's a major rewrite of an existing app, that's been submitted to the App Store, and will probably go "live" in a day or so (unless someone at Apple has an issue with it, which happens, from time to time. Annoying, but not the end of the world). I'm working on the README and code documentation, now (I'll put together a docc catalog, as well as a Jazzy Docs site, and the supporting pages[1]).
[0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/ambiamara (Just a timer app, but a pretty good one).
[1] https://riftvalleysoftware.com/work/ios-apps/rival-t/
When working a normal job I could only work part time due to burnout that I later found out was in reality ME/CFS. After a Covid vaccine injury (long covid) I had to pause work for a few years while I found a way to treat it. Once treated I elected to work on my side project even though I make much less money as I considerer the regular workforce to be highly dysfunctional and liable to cause me to relapse into a fatigued state.
In my experience, burnout is really just a subconscious realization that what you're doing is just not worth doing, even for large amounts of money, and it manifests itself in fatigue or pain, because your mind is trying to stop you.
I was really pissed off, for a while, but these days, I have zero desire to return to the Rodent Rally. I have been talking with a friend about a possible effort to create an altruistic organization. I have a couple of bored, rich, retired friends. May not go anywhere, but ya never know...
I was able to predict that I had these SNPs before taking the WGS test and once confirmed able to divise a treatment that worked. The probability of that happing by random chance is incredibly small.
Is the treatment working out well for you?
For the IL-1B I take high doses of D3, TUDCA, and DIM. For the dysautonomia aspect I take Low Dose Naltrexone, a lower dose of modafinil in the morning and amitryptiline at night. I prefer weaker psychopharmacology ligands as it’s preferable to work with the natural rhythms of the body instead of fighting them.
I have a strict near zero sugar diet that’s high in kale. I take a low dose of semaglutide (ozempic) which has been one of the best meds I’ve tried. I make sure I get enough UV exposure. I’ve done Test Cyp and Ipamorelin/ModGRF and they do help a lot but I stopped taking them when semaglutide worked so well. I highly suspect people with hEDS are highly sensitive to semaglutide and should start and stay on much lower doses (1/10th) otherwise they’re near guaranteed to have a bad time.
I’m mostly interested in the TNXB subtype of hEDS which seems to have some weird comorbidities, like an intolerance to noise, a touch of ADHD, obstinate personality, difficulty falling asleep, local and general anesthetic resistance, and an unusually high IQ. There is an unusual reaction to medications with most medications working less than expected.
A good list of comorbidities that could help make a self diagnosis; https://ohtwist.com/about-eds/comorbidities
> which seems to have some weird comorbidities
I'm a bit shocked by your list of comorbidities. Not only yours, but also the one you linked to. MCAS is currently among my most pressing concerns, although it seems to be getting under control with H1 and H2 antihistamines + cromoglycate. An anti inflammatory diet also helps, even though I'm struggling to stay completely away from sugar. The psychiatric part calls my attention. I also present some traits of ADHD and ASD, although not enough to complete a diagnosis. Twenty years ago I joined mensa at the 99th percentile, but I do believe my IQ has decreased significantly since then. I can't even remember the last time I had, in my adulthood, my mind as functional as I used to have in my teenagehood, even before covid and the aggravation of the symptoms.
Out of your list, the only item I couldn't relate with were the medications working less than expected. In my case, I usually have stronger effects, both therapeutic and side ones. That happens with vaccines too. However, last weekend I took one for Influenza and the side effects were barely noticeable for the first time in my adult life -- I hope that's a result of the MCAS treatment.
It certainly sounds like a TNXB subtype of hEDS, this is an unofficial subtype, I read about the theory here on HN many years ago and ran with it. With an IQ that high I would take a guess that you have 2 TNXB SNPs. I'm happy to share more details on what has been figured out about these specific genes, I'll add an email address to my account.
I don't think the IQ points have been lost forever, I think I've recovered to my peak and possibly surpassed it with carful management of the meds. I think the general case of child prodigies burning out is simply a case of them not being able to get effective treatment and not an unavoidable innate quality.
Sugar is is still a tough one for me, it tends to give me headaches rather quickly which does make it easier to avoid it, but the desire for candy is always there.
My position is that of a subset of the patient community that represent motivated amateurs rather than any sort of official expertise. My background in ML and stats did help in my research and my ability to solely focus on this one condition and rapidly iterate small N unofficial trials over many years led to findings that I contend exceed that of most experts. For example we knew the BC007 trials were going to fail years in advance of when they actually did.
Lotta folks died, because of that.
Medical history is a horror show. It's weird that we have absolutely fantastic sources of information and tooling with abundant genome sequences and computers to process them and still medicine is very much prestige driven where dominant experts can hold back competing research for generations. I think patients will increasingly do an end run around them with more patient community sharing.
I do think ozempic will turn out to be a wonder drug not just for weight but also for auto-immune. And then consider - how much of mental illnesses is actually an expression of an auto-immune disorder. I think we're going to find out, and I expect we will look back on how badly people with mental illnesses were treated like we now look back on those who were lobotomized.
What do you think made it something you could believe in? Was it the opportunity, that it aligned with something you were personally interested in or something else?
I had a project a few years ago that was a bit like that. I'd be coding it up every hour I could find around the day job, and loved it. Perhaps I need to reflect on that some more.
In the most extreme case: a new father of twins just uses his IDE and home projector to put up the work on the wall and builds little things by voice and reading, as he's home with his daughters. It's pretty eye-opening.
Obviously, he won't want to divide his attention so obviously in the near future, but he's the sort who will likely be making things with and for them very early -- I imagine it will be like kids spending lots of time growing up in their father's woodshop.
Five days ago, I stumbled upon that package again, and in between my work tasks I casually chatted with o3 on how to get that screen to show something. I explored my original idea (driving via SPI interface directly) but that turned out to be a dead-end - and then went back to the framebuffer approach (system overlay handles the screen, I write to /dev/fb0); o3 made me a quick prototype to prove the concept - and then I fired up Aider with gemini-2.5-pro, and got the MVP the same day. I casually iterated on it over the next 4 days, improving performance, functionality, style and adding touch support.
I can tell you, if not for LLMs, that board would continue to gather dust in the drawer for the next decade. Instead, I'm on my way to extending this to realize my other old dream - making it into LCARS A/C control panel to replace the vendor-provided wall-mounted one.
Also, in the past couple months, I explored many other ideas and did a few prototypes, and started feeling again the energy I last had in high school. LLMs are just that good at removing the "blank page syndrome" and making every incremental task just more cost-effective, to the point they start to fit in my otherwise busy adult schedule.
When Pico 8 came out, I immediately had a feeling of recognition and familiarity: "Oh! So this is the app I was half dreaming of making all these years!*
The app I'm making now gives me the exact same feeling, which is already a reward in itself, but it also means it'll probably give others that feeling too. So it's doubly exciting.
I think you're onto something here. I find that as I'm aging I'm not losing energy anywhere near as fast as I'm losing the belief necessary for commitment.
If his joy comes from endlessly coding and refactoring and tinkering, just have fun doing that.
Not every side project needs to turn into a side product
I miss walking out of Borders with a PHP book dreaming of the websites I would build, or walking out of Best Buy with a iPad, imagining new games to create.
[Comedy take: I blame you for my projects not being done too! :) Bada-tish!]
Seriously though, guilt, blame, shame all that stuff: it's not helpful. It just compounds the feelings that make it hard to get started again because those feelings are emotionally draining.
What I'm trying to get myself into the habit of is a 5-minute dip into something. If I just say to myself when I'm feeling slightly exhausted "I just need to put 5 minutes into this next task, and then I'll stop", I frequently find myself spending 30+ minutes on it. I can then feel a sense of over-meeting my "goal". That builds a little momentum, it makes you feel good about getting something done.
I also have reminded myself of the advice I gave others when younger: don't underestimate rest - particularly sleep, but also generally doing nothing - as being part of getting stuff done.
I don't do this well at all at the moment, hence my comment you're replying to, but I absolutely 100% will not let blaming myself get into my head like that, and that does help a little with the 5-minute trick.
I do sometimes feel like, if I'd spent 25% of the time I spent on these side projects on something that would have made me $$$$$$$$ then maybe I could now spend all my time on anything I want, or live in a nicer place and that sometimes dissuades me from some new side projects.
I think probably the biggest thing that gets me to start something is if I believe (even wrongly) that I can make tons of progress quickly. Usually that means I think I can get to something working in a few hours.
A focus on revenue or external validation is what turns a "side project" into a "side hustle" or just a plain old "business" and those tend to be a lot less fun to work on.
I could, in theory, spend six months writing Uber for dogs. But why would I? That hardly feels worth it. Or I could try to implement AF_ONION in the Linux kernel. Also doesn't really feel motivating. Or (let me check the list) port libsodium to WUFFS. Write a framework for interactive tablet applications (at least on the pinetab2). Try to compile something by telling an LLM to pretend it's gcc, just for laughs. Set up an IRC botnet (the legal kind). Write an SSH honeypot. Set up an MQTT server so I can log my own location via an app on F-Droid. All stuff that seems slightly interesting but not enough to actually do it. And what seems interesting enough to focus on it for a few months to the exclusion of all other possibilities? Nothing at all.
Just today I wanted to post a link to a meme in IRC, but all the Google results were on garbage sites like Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, and Imgur. I could go build a meme hosting site where you just have direct links to images. Maybe it would even be the best one. That's how Imgur got started. Still doesn't feel worth doing.
I'm sure some things on my ideas list could make a bunch of money - like taking some SaaS everyone hates because it's enshittified, making one that's not enshittified yet, then selling it to an enshittification company in a few years for a big payout. You'd think the possibility of money would be motivating, but it's not.
I do have unsuccessful side projects that I do sometimes work on, and I'm not motivated to finish them to any substantial degree either.
But it would be so huge I can’t afford the hosting bill.
1. just start anything NOW. Don't worry about getting organized or the correct order; just go. The act of working creates momentum; early on moving is more important than progress.
2. today's good enough > tomorrow's perfect. I found an OSS project for something I was going to build to help me capture "personal content". It's rough and not exactly what I was after but good enough. I've built (less than) half a system to help me with my job on top of PocketBase. Maybe someday I'll finish it (or even add another feature - #1 above has lots of ideas captured!) but until then I get value today.
3. Find something that has ongoing personal value: I help an animal rescue and pay the ongoing costs to run the system I built more than 10 years ago. Dropping $20/month to $5/month is possible but not a big enough motivation for a significant new version. The looming tech debt and support load might be over the rest of this year though!
4. Recognize that the incomplete part of side projects is a feature not a bug. Curiosity and exploration almost always end in specific dead ends, but the illumination gained can be used throughout your life. It's largely the act not the explicit output.
Yes! Projects develop organically, with many stop gap solutions and temporary scaffolds built and torn down along the way. Rome wasn't built in a day.
I'm not saying a completely fleshed-out design document will help, but maybe a rough roadmap with milestone release dates would help keep the projects on track.
SideProjectCemerary ?
You upload your side projects’ data/github/seni-working-prototype, it performs a very quick ritualistic ceremony/blessing and buries it in a little marked grave.
Visitors are free to go grave robbing if they wish.
I too struggled with the feeling of not completing things, until I realized I didn't actually want to "finish" projects in the sense of "have paying users" but instead wanted to learn something new, try out some design/architecture or just solve a personal problem.
So for the last few years, my "finished" ratio is much higher, as I got the value I wanted out of almost every project I started.
I don't see this as a bad thing. Most people make side projects for fun, trying knew things, solidifying knowledge, etc.
I mean, if you have a goal of starting a SaaS and you've spent years starting and stopping a bunch of projects that you never follow through on then yeah, you should improve on that. But that's not most people with a bunch of unfinished side projects.
I actually love this part of github; it reminds me of the old internet, full of under construction Geocities pages and other half-baked projects. It's the polar opposite of today's bland, instagram-perfect same-same internet.
Maybe it was some SEO related sale with the domain and bit of ad revenue that someone bought for $100, which probably isn't the definition of selling a side project that most users on HN have. In fact, looking at the domains, the domains were probably worth more than the content on those sites.
That's why I originally flagged this post because I thought it was a bit misleading. I didn't think most people here would consider simple lists of things as side projects.
Still… it’s a pretty fun list!
I'd think it's something that gets traction in the media every so often. That can lead to a spikes in traffic that you can potentially monetize. It's a basic site so it wouldn't take much to maintain. So, I guess there's value.
I finally have four ideas that I think worthy to build that I would like to monetize. All would be well within my abilities to build. No vision of grandeur that I'd retire from any of them and if I made $100 from one site I'd be ecstatic.
Two are simple games, one a directory and one a utility type site. No AI, no sign-up, no affiliate marketing, no upselling, just simple sites with ads.
However, my "paralysis by analysis" affliction is strong.
The solution is to remember that nothing is perfect, and that all code is eventually thrown away and replaced. So just start writing code and have fun!
I always thought perfectionism was someone who was productive but way too hard on themselves, overworking to achieve some end that's just not worth it. Not necessarily - it can also mean DOING NOTHING because you dont see a way to do it perfectly.
This has helped me a lot with writing. Sometimes you just have to write down incoherent slop. Let the ideas flow and be content with knowing they will have to be revised later. By all means if you write with more purpose and structure without getting too bogged down to continue then do so.
I had a professor point this out to me while in undergrad.
To me, trying to make money with random projects is the most motivating thing. A dollar earned from some little project is emotionally to me worth many times that of the same dollar I'd earn as salary (as long as I don't starve). Most of my friends do not seem to share this feeling.
Also the internet is very big. You can sometimes have success with something, even it's a very silly badly implemented little thing. What people like, how you happen to get traffic, it's all quite unpredictable.
However, I have difficulty in doing a personal site just for my own benefit and pleasure.
I enjoy learning, I enjoy the THOUGHT of building and doing but my execution sucks.
Right now, I just have my blog + github as a messy portfolio of personal projects, but I like this much better.
I'd argue there is some kind of magic here.
Otherwise, if you're solving a specific problem in a niche, start hanging out wherever those people hang out, participate in the community and share your solution if it's applicable to the discussion. Make sure not to spam/self-promote a lot though, as it comes off as really tacky in most places.
Solve a problem and people will probably find your site.
[1] https://www.itschrisray.com/
I created it 17~ years ago mostly as just a tool for myself and now it gets roughly 8 million views a month.
The hardest part of any side project is actually launching it and making it somewhat production ready. I always spend the vast majority of my time dealing with devops/deployment issues/tasks
I too have noticed that these Cooper Black variants with a kinda 60s/70s retro style have become incredibly popular.
How do you deal with updates? I.e. how do you decide whether to maintain a product or move it to "dead"?