AI (Claude) has changed my relationship with Canvas, the academic CMS. Canvas is horrible! But it does have an API and there is an excellent Python package which works with it well. (I don't even know Python, but it does not matter.) I had to sweet-talk my IT department to get a token, but I can now have Claude manage my Canvas pages just by talking to it. It writes and runs the necessary Python. This is especially useful if you, like me, have multiple sections of the same course which you want to keep in sync and/or a class website which you want to keep in sync with Canvas itself. Highly recommended!
Similar to your books to website example, our local homebrew shop closed and I wanted to save their recipes — which are PDFs — before they shut down. I was able to use Claude to download all the PDFs and then extract the relevant data into a CSV file and created Quarto website to display and organize all the recipes.
Claude has helped me create a beer site where I log interesting beers I've had; an Instagram clone site where I saved all my old Instagram posts before retiring my account; a quick quarto.yml to turn my Advent of Code repo into a site; and an Android tv app with only a handful of pre-approved YouTube channels for my child to watch. I'm a bit of an AI sceptic but it has helped me with these tech mini projects.
I think the big difference between getting AI help with coding/writing and AI help for real-world stuff is that in the former the AI can give you the answer or suggestion, and then just do it for you (write the code, draft the paragraph, etc). This harms learning and leads to deskilling. Using AI to help with physical world stuff - it can give you some help or the answer, but you still have to put the phone down and turn wrench. AI accelerates learning/upskilling in this case.
I am a heavy R user and currently work at Google. I have shared some solutions I have built for myself to learn different alphabets (Scribo), trips itineraries with versioning and customization (tripitdown), family finances tracking and planner (Billio), offline chess puzzles web app, and a few other applications that boost my non-work time and hobbies. I’ve catalogued them all under BERVOS.org and shared it with the world. I use Antigravity most of them time to build these. I would love to hear from your feedback!
I play drums in my spare time. Jamming along with music is where I like to be since I’m not practicing in earnest with what little time I have these days. I recently came into a new computer and rather than paying for the latest Logic Pro version I had Fable 5 create a custom MacOS app that lets me access my Spotify library and mix my mic’d drum kit into the audio. Still needs some finishing touches, but it does what I need :)
Cool, macOS is also a fantastic way of achieving these! One of the projects under BERVOS.org is tonaly (https://tonaly.bervos.org) which helps train the ear with note recognition, relative intervals, and performance data. Feel free to share yours :)
Oh, I apologize. Not sure what’s the issue but I am currently traveling and using it. Will check it out by end of next week and let you know when it’s fixed. Thanks for letting me know
Hmm, now I have a different error, when I click on "start my trip" or "log in", instead of getting an authorisation window pop-up, the main page reopens in the small pop-up
My favorite is packing lists - I just upload my whole trip itinerary and say "go". I like taking the thinking out of it even for simple stuff, because I hate packing with a fiery venagance. But also, it's great at reminding me of niche trip-specific items I might have forgotten. (For example, concert ear plugs for a trip with a concert, that variety of thing.)
Great examples of how AI can extend beyond professional tasks into everyday life. What stands out to me is the shift from using AI simply to find answers to using it as a partner for learning, creating, and solving practical problems. I believe the real opportunity lies in combining AI’s capabilities with human curiosity, critical thinking, and personal judgment. I’m particularly interested in how these everyday experiments can inspire new ideas for building useful digital tools.
I created a personal financial knowledge base. I downloaded all of our insurance documents, retirement statements, mortgage docs, etc. and dumped them in a folder. I also gave Claude information on what credit cards we have and our family structure and had it build a knowledge base for our finances. Now I can go to Claude and ask things like if a certain procedure or doctor is covered, if we have the proper coverage for our car and house, if we should get trip insurance, what benefits we aren't using that we have access to.
I create apps to solve my problems. One is almost fully formed. an async, turn-based correspondence protocol. A small group agrees on a rhythm; one person holds the floor at a time; their letter publishes at a fixed hour everyone knows in advance. I use it so I keep some connections going, particularly with my kid, who is 28. https://snailapp.ink/ I also created an Apple Watch app to provide exercise reminders (think pull ups, push ups, etc, throughout the day) (GTW Grease the wheel), an app to assign crew members to positions in a canoe, and a few others. Fun stuff.
I use Gemini outside of work to explore philosophy, mathematics, and statistics. I did not study pure mathematics, and so I really enjoy learning about it and how it drives the work I do in epidemiology and data science.
For statistics, I am constantly finding new methods I haven't explored on LinkedIn from different folks and academic literature that I consume, and so I find myself interacting with AI to learn the history of the methods and what they contribute to my work and the work of others.
I also enjoy working in our garden and taking care of our property, and so I use AI to learn about how to best take care of things and how to solve problems.
Last, my wife and kids and I go camping in a camper regularly (writing from the camper now!), and like a house there is always stuff to fix on a camper over time. So AI helps me save money. 😁👌🏻
I also like it for incredibly specific recommendations. Recently I tried to schedule it to return a list of interesting local events in the next few months. Haven't yet tried any of its suggestions but the initial results were promising
AI (Claude) has changed my relationship with Canvas, the academic CMS. Canvas is horrible! But it does have an API and there is an excellent Python package which works with it well. (I don't even know Python, but it does not matter.) I had to sweet-talk my IT department to get a token, but I can now have Claude manage my Canvas pages just by talking to it. It writes and runs the necessary Python. This is especially useful if you, like me, have multiple sections of the same course which you want to keep in sync and/or a class website which you want to keep in sync with Canvas itself. Highly recommended!
Similar to your books to website example, our local homebrew shop closed and I wanted to save their recipes — which are PDFs — before they shut down. I was able to use Claude to download all the PDFs and then extract the relevant data into a CSV file and created Quarto website to display and organize all the recipes.
https://critmcdonald.github.io/beer-recipes/
I am very much enjoying the Venn diagram overlap of beer brewing and R programming! Going to try out some of these all grain recipes
Claude has helped me create a beer site where I log interesting beers I've had; an Instagram clone site where I saved all my old Instagram posts before retiring my account; a quick quarto.yml to turn my Advent of Code repo into a site; and an Android tv app with only a handful of pre-approved YouTube channels for my child to watch. I'm a bit of an AI sceptic but it has helped me with these tech mini projects.
Fixing broken stuff. https://blog.stephenturner.us/i/200128706/fixing-broken-stuff
Lawnmowers. Bikes. Cars. Plumbing. Etc.
I think the big difference between getting AI help with coding/writing and AI help for real-world stuff is that in the former the AI can give you the answer or suggestion, and then just do it for you (write the code, draft the paragraph, etc). This harms learning and leads to deskilling. Using AI to help with physical world stuff - it can give you some help or the answer, but you still have to put the phone down and turn wrench. AI accelerates learning/upskilling in this case.
I am a heavy R user and currently work at Google. I have shared some solutions I have built for myself to learn different alphabets (Scribo), trips itineraries with versioning and customization (tripitdown), family finances tracking and planner (Billio), offline chess puzzles web app, and a few other applications that boost my non-work time and hobbies. I’ve catalogued them all under BERVOS.org and shared it with the world. I use Antigravity most of them time to build these. I would love to hear from your feedback!
I play drums in my spare time. Jamming along with music is where I like to be since I’m not practicing in earnest with what little time I have these days. I recently came into a new computer and rather than paying for the latest Logic Pro version I had Fable 5 create a custom MacOS app that lets me access my Spotify library and mix my mic’d drum kit into the audio. Still needs some finishing touches, but it does what I need :)
Cool, macOS is also a fantastic way of achieving these! One of the projects under BERVOS.org is tonaly (https://tonaly.bervos.org) which helps train the ear with note recognition, relative intervals, and performance data. Feel free to share yours :)
I was curious to try tripitdown, but I'm getting an error when I try and sign in (see below)
Error 400: redirect_uri_mismatch
You can't sign in to this app because it doesn't comply with Google's OAuth 2.0 policy.
If you're the app developer, register the redirect URI in the Google Cloud Console.
Request details: redirect_uri=https://tripidown.firebaseapp.com/__/auth/handler flowName=GeneralOAuthFlow
Oh, I apologize. Not sure what’s the issue but I am currently traveling and using it. Will check it out by end of next week and let you know when it’s fixed. Thanks for letting me know
Thanks for your patience. I'm back from vacations and it's fixed now! Hope it works now as expected :)
Hmm, now I have a different error, when I click on "start my trip" or "log in", instead of getting an authorisation window pop-up, the main page reopens in the small pop-up
Uh, sorry for that. Should work now. Feel free to contact me directly if you have any feedback or issues in the future
My favorite is packing lists - I just upload my whole trip itinerary and say "go". I like taking the thinking out of it even for simple stuff, because I hate packing with a fiery venagance. But also, it's great at reminding me of niche trip-specific items I might have forgotten. (For example, concert ear plugs for a trip with a concert, that variety of thing.)
Great examples of how AI can extend beyond professional tasks into everyday life. What stands out to me is the shift from using AI simply to find answers to using it as a partner for learning, creating, and solving practical problems. I believe the real opportunity lies in combining AI’s capabilities with human curiosity, critical thinking, and personal judgment. I’m particularly interested in how these everyday experiments can inspire new ideas for building useful digital tools.
I created a personal financial knowledge base. I downloaded all of our insurance documents, retirement statements, mortgage docs, etc. and dumped them in a folder. I also gave Claude information on what credit cards we have and our family structure and had it build a knowledge base for our finances. Now I can go to Claude and ask things like if a certain procedure or doctor is covered, if we have the proper coverage for our car and house, if we should get trip insurance, what benefits we aren't using that we have access to.
Oh that's such a great idea!
Thanks for sharing. I used Matt Pocock’s incredible /teach skill in Claude to learn how to draw caricatures in the style of Tom Richmond
Let’s use AI just everywhere for everything, to the point where we no longer need to think… Great idea! 🤡
I create apps to solve my problems. One is almost fully formed. an async, turn-based correspondence protocol. A small group agrees on a rhythm; one person holds the floor at a time; their letter publishes at a fixed hour everyone knows in advance. I use it so I keep some connections going, particularly with my kid, who is 28. https://snailapp.ink/ I also created an Apple Watch app to provide exercise reminders (think pull ups, push ups, etc, throughout the day) (GTW Grease the wheel), an app to assign crew members to positions in a canoe, and a few others. Fun stuff.
These are great, Hadley! Thanks for sharing. I am glad we have an intersection with birds. You inspired me to write a post of my own. I talk about researching the WNBA, birding, extending the life of my drink fridge by 6 months, and more. https://thetreeline.substack.com/p/ai-outside-of-work-and-in-the-creek?r=7qe9p&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
I use Gemini outside of work to explore philosophy, mathematics, and statistics. I did not study pure mathematics, and so I really enjoy learning about it and how it drives the work I do in epidemiology and data science.
For statistics, I am constantly finding new methods I haven't explored on LinkedIn from different folks and academic literature that I consume, and so I find myself interacting with AI to learn the history of the methods and what they contribute to my work and the work of others.
I also enjoy working in our garden and taking care of our property, and so I use AI to learn about how to best take care of things and how to solve problems.
Last, my wife and kids and I go camping in a camper regularly (writing from the camper now!), and like a house there is always stuff to fix on a camper over time. So AI helps me save money. 😁👌🏻
I also like it for incredibly specific recommendations. Recently I tried to schedule it to return a list of interesting local events in the next few months. Haven't yet tried any of its suggestions but the initial results were promising