People Built Things

Streams video through firewalls by encoding frames as text. No ports, no protocols to block. Renders 360p at 30FPS. Built because conventional streaming gets blocked on restrictive networks.

Generates soccer-style player cards from GitHub profile stats. Stars = attack, repos = defense, contributions = stamina. Went viral organically. Pure fun, zero utility, huge engagement.

Records a short loop of you at your desk, then feeds it as a virtual webcam. Built because sometimes you need coffee but don't want to explain it. macOS-only, menu bar.

Aggregates torrent search across multiple trusted indexes, downloads straight to disk. TUI interface. "I got tired of opening 5 sites to find what I wanted."

Crowdsourced rat-sighting map for NYC. Aggregates 311 reports and user submissions into a live heatmap. Built because "this is information the city should have but doesn't present well."

Four different LLMs vote on watering, lighting, and nutrients for indoor tomatoes. If they disagree, the system picks the median. "The tomatoes are thriving. The AI has opinions about pH."

Reverse-engineered the WHOOP BLE protocol, built a full dashboard and backend, then open-sourced everything. Works without a WHOOP subscription. "Your health data should belong to you."

Air-draw equations with your finger, camera captures them, AI solves and shows the answer. Built in a weekend. "It's terrible at recognizing my handwriting and I love it anyway."

Makes ChatGPT look like a Google Doc — same UI, same fonts, same layout. Built because "my boss doesn't like AI tools but I use them constantly." Runs locally, no server.

Tracks eye blinks via webcam and translates intentional blinks into Morse code output. Built for accessibility — a way to type without hands. "It's slow but it works."

Small desktop display showing live flights overhead. Raspberry Pi + small screen + open-source software. "I just wanted to look up and know what plane that is without grabbing my phone."

Learning platform with real job tasks instead of tutorials. You get an actual task, try to complete it, then compare with a senior dev's solution. Built because courses don't teach real work.

Single-page dashboard combining satellite imagery, climate data, world events, and geography. "One tab instead of ten." Local-first, loads cached map tiles.

A nurse built a shift-management tool to track patients, meds, and handoffs. "I started learning to code as a passion project and built the thing I needed most." No medical training data, just their own experience.

Your cursor is a dirt bike, the stock chart is the terrain. Go up = bull market boost, down = you crash. "Dumber than it sounds. Also more fun than it sounds."

DaisyDisk-style disk space analyzer for macOS. Free alternative to DaisyDisk ($13). Shows space usage as an interactive treemap. Native Swift, no Electron.

DaisyDisk-style disk space analyzer but free. Interactive treemap, native Swift, no subscriptions. Built because "$13 for a disk analyzer felt wrong."

Translucent glass-style widgets for the macOS lock screen. Weather, calendar, battery, and custom widgets. "Your lock screen shouldn't be boring just because you're not paying for widgets."

Local AI assistant that runs entirely on-device. Native Swift, open source, no account, no network calls. "Your AI should run on your computer, not in someone else's data center."

Keeps Mac awake with lid closed. Built for coding agents/running servers on a laptop. "I got tired of my Mac going to sleep when I closed the lid to dock it." Menu bar toggle.

Passive time tracker that shows what you actually worked on, not just which apps were open. Groups activity by project. "I wanted to know where my time went without manually starting a timer."

Uses the haptic engine to give tactile feedback for UI elements. Hover over a link → subtle click. Submit a form → brief vibration. Built because "screens are missing a sense."

Lock individual apps behind Face ID on Mac. Uses the TrueDepth camera (or iPhone via continuity camera). "Your Mac apps shouldn't be open to anyone who sits at your desk."

Prevents accidental ejection of drives you always keep plugged in. "I kept hitting 'eject' when I meant 'open.' One afternoon of frustration → one app." Menu bar, tiny footprint.

Customizable Finder replacement. Themes, icon packs, custom columns, scriptable. Free, native. Built because "Finder hasn't changed in 20 years and I'm tired of it."

Captures what's on your screen and sends it as visual context to AI tools. "AI tools see better when they can actually see." Menu bar app, local processing.

Cleans macOS system caches safely. "I built it for myself, figured others might want it too." Free, open source, one-button clean. Lists what it will remove before doing it.

Visual Space switcher with previews and keyboard shortcuts. "I had 6 Spaces open and couldn't find anything." Shows live previews of each Space when you trigger it.

If the webcam doesn't see you drinking within a set interval, the app locks your screen. "Dehydrated developers need external motivation." Menu bar, adjustable interval.

Infrastructure-as-diagram: your Docker Compose / Ansible / Terraform gets parsed into a live network diagram. "Every time I SSH in to fix something, the diagram updates itself."

Curated list of self-hosted apps with honest reviews. "I tried 50+ apps so you don't have to." Includes which ones survived culling and why.

Real-time trip planner that integrates transit schedules, traffic, and weather. Self-hosted, no API keys needed (uses public transit data). "Google Maps doesn't let me plan my way."

Your own location history dashboard. Import Google Takeout data or use the companion app. "Google is killing Timeline. I built my own." Map view, timeline view, statistics.

Aggregates results from multiple search engines without using Google. "I wanted search results without being the product." Self-hostable, Docker, lightweight.

Self-hosted file sharing with preview, bulk download, and LDAP auth. Built because "every file sharing service limits you or reads your files." Docker compose, 2-minute setup.

Live comparison of NAS drives with real Backblaze failure data, CMR vs SMR identification, and current pricing. "I was tired of cross-referencing 4 spreadsheets to buy a hard drive."

Portable media server on a Raspberry Pi Zero 2W. Battery-powered, fits in a pocket. "Take your Plex library camping." Web UI, WiFi AP mode for direct connect.

Search engine for everything you've seen. Indexes browser history, documents, and screenshots without recording your screen. "Rewind was too invasive and too expensive." $39 once, no sub.

Multi-source torrent searcher + downloader in the terminal. TUI interface. Hits all major indexes simultaneously. "No more opening 6 tabs to find what I want."

Full-featured Logitech mouse/keyboard configuration without Logitech's bloatware. "Logitech Options+ is 400MB of Electron. This is 2MB of native code." Remap buttons, set DPI, create profiles.

Full CAD in the browser. C++ CSG engine compiled to WASM. STEP AP242 B-Rep pipeline. No login, no cloud, no subscription. "Web CAD that actually works offline."

Interactive 3D globe with fresh satellite imagery. Source data pipelines included. "Google Earth is great. Open-source Earth is better." Python + WebGL.

Terminal-based REST client. "I was tired of Postman using 400MB to make a GET request." Saves requests as files, supports variables, environment switching. Built in Rust.

Downloads video and audio from 100+ sites. "No ads, no tracking, no premium tiers. Just paste a link and download." Local-only, no server.

Lightweight API client. "Postman became slow and bloated. I wanted something that opens instantly." Native app, <10MB, keyboard-first.

Full-featured SQL client. SQL notebooks (like Jupyter but for SQL), visual query plan explorer, local AI that converts English to SQL. "No more switching between 3 tools to write a query."

Unified interface for Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, and S3. "I have 5 cloud storage accounts and I'm tired of opening 5 tabs." Search across all at once.

Runs Figma MCP server locally. "Figma's cloud MCP sends your design data to their servers. This one doesn't." Lets AI agents read/write Figma files entirely on your machine.

Terminal file manager in Rust. "I wanted ranger but in a compiled language." Tabs, previews, bulk rename, fuzzy find. Cross-platform.

Full QR code tool: generate, customize (colors, logos, shapes), and scan. Works offline. "Every QR site has ads or limits. This one just works." PWA, <1MB.

Reverse-engineered AirPods features for non-Apple platforms. "Apple locks basic features behind their ecosystem. I fixed that." Battery readout, spatial audio, ear detection on Android/Linux.

Remote control panel for your dev environment. Start/stop agents, run terminal commands, inspect browser DevTools from one UI. "I wanted to control my dev box from my phone."

TUI BitTorrent client. "Transmission is great but I wanted something in my terminal." Trackers, peers, DHT, all in the terminal. Rust.

Modern BBS accessible over SSH. Chat, forums, door games, IRC bridge. "I missed the BBS era. So I rebuilt it over SSH." Growing community, 100+ daily users.

Terminal-based note-taking app compatible with Obsidian vaults. "I love Obsidian but I want to take notes in the terminal." Renders markdown, links, and graph view in TUI.

Terminal-based escape game that takes you through computing history. Solve puzzles using real terminal commands. "Learn command line by escaping a digital dungeon."

Renders any structured data format as an ASCII tree in the terminal. "I got tired of squinting at nested JSON." Supports JSON, YAML, TOML, INI. One command.

Search your photo library by description — "find the photo of the dog on the beach." Runs entirely locally, no cloud, no upload. "Like Google Photos search but it never leaves your computer."

See which processes are using the network, how much, and where they're connecting. "I wanted nethogs but better." Real-time, per-connection view. Rust.

Terminal RSS reader with caching, search, and keyboard shortcuts. "I tried 10 RSS readers. None of them stayed out of my way." Vim-like keybindings.

TUI for cron. "I'm tired of editing crontab with nano and praying I don't break the syntax." Visual schedule picker, syntax highlighting, log viewer.

Serial monitor for hardware debugging with live plotting. "Screen and minicom haven't changed since 1995. I wanted something modern." Plot voltage, decode protocols, log to file.

Terminal music player with album art, playlists, and streaming support. "cmus is good but looks like 1999. I wanted something modern in the terminal."

A falling snow effect rendered in the terminal. "It does nothing useful. It looks beautiful." Uses terminal escape codes for animation.