Alright so my lab is pretty much functionally complete; it does everything I was hoping it would and much more.
OK so now what :D Do you know of any projects that are self-hostable and serve no functional purpose whatsoever and exist just for fun? Could be silly projects, could be games. I’d like to add a “silly things” section to my publicly facing list of web services.
For instance, I was thinking of hosting a web version of nethack. Also I enjoyed hosting a node of hypermind for a little while just because it was so silly.


How about hosting an ADS-B receiver, tracking nearby air traffic. It doesn’t serve any practical purpose other than participating in the crowd sourced network that feeds sites like FlightAware and FlightRadar24 (and you get a free subscription by participating)
Yep, I set mine up last weekend.
Used a nice Racknex rackmount kit to put a Raspberry Pi with SDR in the rack, and a little LCD display on the front that cycles through the details of aircraft currently in range - so it also serves the important purpose of Blinkenlights.
I’m fortunate to live close to two international airports (one small, one big) and under a reasonably busy flight corridor as well, so plenty of planes to spot - light aircraft, helicopters and military all the way up to A380s.