Ask HN: What's Your Weirdest Achievement?

4 points·yen223··3 comments

Is there something you've done that you're really proud of, that you never had a chance to talk about because most people wouldn't understand?

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I cycled every road, every path in a 5km radius. OpenStreetMap back then was empty and with a GPS device recording I filled the map. At least in Europe the OpenStreetMap coverage is so high you won't be able find a blank map area (canvas?) any more. It was fun, the last 20% felt like work.

Other people have done it and on larger scale. This guy for example managed 4500km capturing 600.000 images in Brussels https://blog.mapillary.com/update/2023/07/28/Mapping-Brussel...

I was working on an embedded system that had a primary board and a backup board. I wrote the code that kept the data on the backup board in sync. And you could update the software on the backup board, reboot it, wait for the data to re-sync, swap which board was primary, then update the software on the former (now backup) board and reboot it. This let you update the system without it ever going down, and without losing any data.

The little extra was that the code for all this was in a file named Redun.C.

July 1, 1995; I got a $20k loan, and "title" to an acre of unimproved land a good half mile away from any services. I didn't quite get time off from my job but they tried real hard to not call me for every little thing for a bit.

August 1, I was moved in to my new home. I had a road cut, land cleared, a mobile home installed with septic system, water and power. Immense amount of work.

I'm quite proud of the speed that got done and the interlocked planning and orchestration that came together to make it all happen.

15 years later I discovered my land title was fake (after building a bigger, real house beside the trailer) and had to purchase it again, but that's a different story.

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