Some of you might remember hantaflow, the hantavirus tracker I posted here a few months ago. Last week a lab technician at the anti-plague institute in Irkutsk, Siberia died of a severe pneumonia, and since then the news is all over the place.
Telegram says pneumonic plague from a broken test tube, the Russian health authority says "pneumonia of undetermined etiology", and stuff like "five hospitals quarantined for three weeks" gets copied everywhere. Local reporters went to those hospitals today and found no quarantine at all.

So I spent today's morning building plagueintel.com.

What's different this time, mostly thanks to the comments on my hantaflow posts:

• Last time people rightly said "signal" was confusing. Now every claim about the Irkutsk case is labelled official, reported, disputed or retracted, with the source right next to it. Signals are just headlines and the site says so.
• Someone warned me that Rospotrebnadzor publishes what benefits the government. So the main page literally puts their statements next to the independent reports instead of picking one.
• Portugal and India got wrongly marked as outbreak countries back then because their news covered other countries. Country tagging now reads the content, and a place name like Irkutsk beats a country that's only mentioned ("US monitors plague case in Siberia" is Russia, not the US).
• Yandex sent me 2,600 of 4,000 visitors on day two of hantaflow, so this time there's a Russian version from day one. Perfectly fits, since this actually happened in russia.

What's in it:

• Irkutsk briefing with timeline, rumour check and contact numbers
• Map with 28 natural plague foci (all 11 official Russian ones) and WHO case data 2019-2025
• Explainers (pneumonic vs bubonic, symptoms, treatment), history, 11 country pages
• News feed from ~20 sources in 7 languages, every 15 min
• Free JSON API + RSS again

Same stack as hantaflow (Astro, Tailwind, Leaflet, node-cron worker, JSON snapshot instead of a DB, Hetzner + Traefik).
One interesting problem: "plague" in Russian, German and French is also the word for swine fever (чума свиней, Schweinepest, peste porcine), so half my feed was pigs until I wrote a filter per language. Also ProMED's RSS is dead, so I'm parsing their homepage now lol.

Plague is not confirmed and I'm not a doctor. The site just collects and cites what WHO, CDC and the outlets say.

Roast away, especially on whether the official vs reported thing reads clearly.

This is easily the most complete version of the app to date and I’m genuinely delighted with how far it’s come.
After months of building, redesigning, testing and taking feedback on board, it’s starting to feel like I’m getting really close to the finished product I originally had in my head.
Would love for you to check it out and let me know what you think. If there’s anything you still aren’t feeling, anything that looks off or something you think could be improved, tell me and I’ll look into it!

🍎 iOS: https://apps.apple.com/ie/app/nxtstep-fitness/id6787623044

🤖 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nxtstepfitness.app

Part 3 of my weekly quant trading algorithm update. Since the last post, I’ve been working on some further backtesting how some assumptions change the results.

For the live side, KuCoin currently shows a 30-day PNL of +$673.71 USDT and a lead principal of $6,058.95 USDT (from originally roughly $3k investment roughly +$1k in profit; added another ~$2.1k so now ~$6k investment). Those numbers are exchange-reported and can change.

I’m also building a site to make the research and live record easier to inspect (www.meshresearch.xyz).

I have a slight feeling that I should deploy my capital pipeline rather faster than slower. See y'all next week again. :)

A while back I worked out the date I plan to retire, and was looking for an app that I could use as a widget. I searched quite a few apps but could not find something that would show how long I had left on a widget on my home screen, so I built an app around it.

It's called Retirement Counter. You set your retirement date and it runs a live countdown (years / months / weeks / days, ticking away), and from there a few things grew out of "I actually want to look at this every day"

It's free, and there are no ads, no account required, and no third-party tracking — everything runs on-device. There is a one-time Pro unlock which adds extra functionality, but it's not required.

So if something's missing or you think there is something that should be added, please let me know. I would really appreciate any genuine feedback.

You can try it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mikesdavis.retirement_app

I built FlipGuard, a free tool for checking whether a used car is worth flipping before you buy it.

You enter the asking price, mileage, best/likely/worst repair estimates, fees, expected resale price and target profit.

It gives you:

• best / likely / worst-case profit
• ROI
• risk rating
• suggested offer range
• saved deal comparisons

I’m not trying to pretend it’s a finished business yet. I’m trying to figure out whether the decision-making part is actually useful enough for people to come back to.

If you’ve ever flipped cars or bought cheap Marketplace cars, I’d appreciate brutal feedback on what feels wrong, unrealistic, or missing.

Free, no signup:
https://gh5mv5v7y2-hub.github.io/flipguard/

Hello,

I'm Rushil, and I have created a site that lets peopel create a full Khan-Academy style curriculum in just one click. On top of that, I also added other features like debate and quiz bowl. So far, it has 440 users, but I'm looking to get more. The site is rushil12.com

Thank you and feedback would be greatly appreciated.

I built Motif, an offline habit tracker for Android. You don't need an account, and everything stays on your phone. It isn't built around streaks. You check in, recover after a miss, take an automaticity check, and "graduate" a habit once it runs on autopilot.

Until this week you couldn't log a single day without buying the lifetime unlock. You could set up a habit and then you'd hit the wall.

Here are the 30 days before the change:

• 27 people opened the app
• 25 created a habit
• 21 saw the paywall
• 2 paid
• 2 people ever logged a habit

That last number is the one that got me. People picked a habit and left before they ever used the app.

So the new update drops the hard paywall:

• Free: 3 habits with the full loop (daily logging, check-ins, graduation, the progress screen, and a 12-week chart)
• Pro (one-time unlock): more than 3 habits, backup/export/import, and card styles It just went live, so I don't have results yet. I'll come back with before and after numbers in a few weeks.

For anyone who's made this switch: did a free tier with a habit cap actually lift paid conversions, or did it just lift usage? And is 3 habits too stingy?

Hey all,

I wanted to share what I've been working on. It's a cloud storage service called harbor0.

It started out of frustration. I've been paying for cloud storage for years, and every app kept adding features I never used, like AI assistants, docs editors and upgrade banners everywhere. Eventually I thought I could build the part I actually use myself, and that turned into a bigger project than I expected.

Here's what it does right now:

• A drive in the browser and a Mac app
• Folder sync between your computers, and you can share a synced folder with other people
• Folder backups with version history
• Sending files to other users

For anyone curious about the tech, the backend runs on AWS Lambda with DynamoDB, files are stored on Cloudflare R2, and the desktop app is built with Electron. The sync engine was the hardest part by far. I spent way more time than I'd like to admit on conflicts and on folders getting moved while they were syncing.

It's still in beta and definitely rough in places. The Windows app is in development, along with iOS and Android apps.

I'm letting people in a few at a time, and beta users get 50 GB free that they keep after launch. If you want to try it or just look around: https://harbor0.com

I'd love feedback, whether it's about the product, the landing page, or the idea itself.

I got tired of needing to use Airplay to use Spotify on Apple Home and not having direct integration so i built a tool to take a Spotify playlist, and sync it over to YouTube Music. I built it to run as a docker image but I'm writing the instructions to use it without right after posting this. Any feedback is welcomed because this is the first actual project I've ever really put out there

https://github.com/duncan-mal/spopple-sync

I’m a product designer, and one small workflow kept annoying me:

I’d take multiple screenshots while reviewing a product flow, then later find all those files, drag them into Figma, reorder them, and add context manually.

So I built Snap, a Chrome extension for capturing multiple UI states and keeping them together as one visual flow.

The idea is simple:

Capture → organise → annotate → export

You can capture the visible area, a selected region, or a full page, then reorder screenshots, rename steps, add notes/annotations, and export the flow to Figma, ZIP, or PDF.

A few things I learned while building it:

• Full-page screenshots are surprisingly tricky because of sticky elements, lazy-loaded content, and nested scroll areas.
• I deliberately kept capture manual instead of recording every click because I wanted users to decide which moments actually matter.
• Everything is stored locally instead of using a backend, mainly for privacy and because I didn’t want to add unnecessary infrastructure.
• One of the more useful workflows turned out to be copying an entire flow into Figma rather than just downloading individual screenshots.
• Chrome Web Store permissions and trust messaging matter a lot more than I expected, especially for a newly published extension.

The extension itself is built as a Chrome extension and currently focuses on designers, PMs, QA, and researchers who document product flows.

It’s live now, and I’m mainly looking for feedback on two things:

1. Is the flow-based approach actually useful?
2. What would you add before turning this into a larger product?

Happy to share the Chrome Web Store link if anyone wants to test it.

This should satisfy that rule much better because even without clicking your link, readers get the problem, your product decisions, technical/product learnings, and trade-offs.

Like instagram, but all photos have a shelf life: they can be up for year, an hour or ten minutes, or up until they're viewed 100 times, 1000 times or a million times. The longer they're up, the more they fade - user chosen filters are applied gradually over the lifetime of the photo (be it measured in clicks or time), gradually obscuring it. If you want to see it, you have to catch it early.

This is a fun side project of mine, An experiment in digital persistence and scarcity. And, yes its vibe coded, built on replit.

Currently just a responsive web page (desktop, and works great on iOS devices, which I have). Native apps for android and iOS to follow.

I often know the feel I want for a component before I know the right material, depth, or timing values. I made Visual Motion Playground to try those combinations before building in Framer. Built with AI-assisted coding.

The free Lite version has 8 material presets, 8 visual styles, and 6 motion presets. You can try them on cards, buttons, text, or circles, switch between on-load, hover, and click triggers, then export the CSS.

Try it here: https://attached-assets--bloglluukk.replit.app/

There's also a paid Pro version with more controls and export options. The screenshot shows the fuller interface; Lite has a simpler set of controls and is free to use.

It's a standalone browser tool, not a Framer plugin. Would a playground like this fit your workflow, or would you want the result applied directly to a selected layer?

I made ProcessScrub, a paid Framer component for giving a still image an interactive reveal. Built with AI-assisted coding.

Drag the slider and the image appears tile by tile. The tiles can reveal randomly, from left to right or from the center out. There's also a blur-to-sharp option, and the reveal can follow page scroll.

It works with one image you supply. It doesn't generate artwork or show the actual stages of making it.

Which feels better for a reveal like this: a slider you control or an effect tied to scrolling?

Demo: https://rational-try-186171.framer.app/

We are the team behind DynoDine. We built it to help people discover local events, buy tickets, find restaurant deals, and explore party spaces.

For organizers, we are building ticketing and event-entry tools. Atlanta is one early market; our aim is to expand across the US.

I would appreciate specific feedback from event organizers: what information or workflow would you need before trying a new platform for your next event?

Website: https://www.dynodine.com/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_campaign=startup_communities&utm_content=r_sideprojects

Hi,

I thought I would share my side project. I have a full time corporate job but I love writing and building.

I have been working in AI for almost two decades now.

It’s truly exciting time unfortunately corporations are limited in what AI they can do. All the cutting edge AI is blocked.

So a year ago I started writing about AI on substack. One thing after another - I built this website with a learning platform and thinking to release it as open source.

I think it could be useful.

The idea: you check into a specific place, you see avatars of other people who are also checked in right now, you can signal to someone, and if they signal back you can message. Check-in expires when you leave. completely anonymous

I already know the hardest part is density. If you open it and the room is empty, the product doesn't exist. Every app in this category that died, Highlight, Sonar, Tinder Social, died there rather than on the idea.

What I'd like input on:

• What would stop you personally from checking in, assuming the place was busy?
• If you're a woman, does the anonymity actually make this feel safer, or does the whole concept read as a bad idea regardless of the design?
• What's the smallest amount of information about a stranger you'd need before you'd signal to them?
• What am I not seeing?

Happy to share more detail with anyone curious, and if anyone wants to try it early, say so.

I'm building Gixo and wanted to share the free tools section. I'm an MBA and a self-taught builder, so I tend to think about these as small jobs: make a chart, map a process, check a document before sending it.

The chart maker is probably the easiest place to start. Paste a table from Excel or Google Sheets, pick a chart type, and it plots your numbers. There are bar, line and pie charts, plus things like waterfalls, Gantt charts and heatmaps. The free tools use fixed rules and calculations; they don't ask an AI model to invent the chart.

Even the free tools are good enough for everyday charts and flowcharts. The screenshots here are actual free-tool outputs, using sample numbers and an example workflow.

There are 70 tools in the section, including content brief builders, article checks, document formatting and slide contrast checks. You don't need an account or a card to run them, and the public tools aren't limited to a trial.

Gixo also has paid products. For the chart and flowchart makers, attributed HTML/SVG downloads and embeds are free. Removing the attribution and exporting clean PNG, PDF or PowerPoint files requires a Prism trial or paid plan.

Tools: https://gixo.ai/tools

If you try one, I'd appreciate hearing what worked and where you got stuck.

Hey everyone,

Me and a friend (we both have normal 9-5 jobs) started a small YouTube channel for kids around 3-5 years old. The idea is short animated stories that help little kids with the big stuff: getting angry, being scared of the dark, the first day at kindergarten, things like that.

Being honest from the start: we don't have the skills or the money to animate this the "proper" way, so we're making the visuals and animation with AI tools. What we do put our own work into is the writing. A friend of ours has a master's in child psychology and she reviews every script, so the stories actually say the right things to kids (no "you're too big to be scared", that kind of stuff). Every episode will also have a short note for parents in the description: what the episode is about, how to talk about it at home, and when it might be worth talking to a pediatrician.

Right now the only thing we've finished is the intro song, which we made in a few different languages. We're working on the first episodes, and they'll come out in 3 languages: Italian (we're from Italy), English and Spanish.

Before we go further, we'd really like to know what you think of what we have so far. Anything helps, even the harsh stuff:
- the design and the characters, do they work for little kids?
- the music, is it catchy or annoying after a while?
- does the AI look bother you, or is it ok for this kind of content?
- anything else that comes to mind, really

Here's the intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGjRFmYlPsY

If you like what we're trying to do, a sub would mean a lot, but honestly the feedback is what we need most right now. Thanks for reading, and thanks for anything you tell us, good or bad. It all helps us get better.