You could make money off of this if you are able to pair willing manufacturers to realistic and popular ideas that get generated. It could become a real market place.
Hilarious project.
Edit: I did both Mouthwash Ramen and Time Machine to the Present. I’m now addicted to this, thanks.
I know of a company that is huge in laser for physics and started like this in the 80s (through magazine catalogs).
They would list all kinds of lasers. When they got some offers for one of them, they'd sell it and schedule the delivery in 90 days. Then, they started the project from scratch. Crazy stuff and borderline legal :D
We do something similar at work. Except usually the dev department doesn't know until handed the project from sales and so the project goals might be entirely unrealistic given the deadline.
What do you mean that feature doesn't exist? Well, I sold it to the customer, they have to go live in two weeks and their workflow depends on this feature.
While I've fortunately never had this happen to me, I'd be tempted to say something like, "Wow. Well, I sure hope you don't get fired over this. Good luck. We'll scope it out and let you know how much time we'll need."
A previous boss did this in the early 2000s. Put up a bunch of single page descriptions with "coming soon" labels, include an email subscription to "stay on top of news", turn on AdWords to get some traffic... and then start working on what people were actually interested in.
Some smart stealer was posting bikes of his neighbors online second hand marketplace and waited to get contacted for specific model to steal them. Genius evil
Engineering-to-Order! Not all that uncommon of a model in some industries, but problems arise when Sales doesn't have good communication with Engineering about what is actually possible for what price on what timelines.
Pretty cool! As someone who is currently trying to get good at doing fullstack I can't help but wonder what stack did you use and how much time did you spend on it?
I was gonna do this as a way for people to stop buying things they don’t need. They get the “buzz” of going through the process of buying something (checkout, credit card form etc) they get a confirmation email and everything.
The watch in the image has hands, but the text below seems fine (if a little silly):
"This wristwatch presents timekeeping in a non-traditional manner. Rather than displaying hours via hands, it projects temporal coordinates directly onto the wearer's retina through advanced ocular stimulation technology. The watch face remains blank at all times, except when illuminated by subtle flashes that indicate elapsed seconds."
Ohh. Sassy: This ancient tome contains centuries-old arguments recontextualized to justify modern societal constructs. Its pages hold the collective reasoning behind every unjustified assertion since the dawn of civilization. From patriarchal dominance to colonialism, every morally dubious decision has been meticulously documented within.
Historical quotes have been carefully curated to provide talking points against critical thinking, conveniently tying complex social issues into neat theological bows.
Hey! Honestly didn't expect this to hit the HN top, I've already maxed out all my token limits!
If you enjoyed wasting time here, there's a Buy Me A Coffee link in the footer.
Thanks for the incredible response! This is why I really love building weird useless stuff for the internet.
UPD: You guys are incredibly creative! 15000 products generated and counting. I'm laughing reading all this absurd stuff and crying at my upcoming bills haha
Very cool project. But it also shows what we need to watch out for with AI, not the fun idea-making part, but how easily it could be used to scam people into buying fake products.
This is amazing! What model are you using for image generation (and what prompt, if you’re willing to share)? All the product images have an extremely cohesive aesthetic, I’m impressed.
> The Flammable Fire Detector is designed specifically for environments where fire hazards require enthusiastic responses. This revolutionary alarm system combusts upon detecting flammable materials within close proximity. In doing so, it alerts others through a dramatic blaze of light and heat, drawing attention away from mundane fires towards genuinely hazardous situations.
> Upon activation, the detector's contents burst into flames, providing vital seconds to evacuate personnel before spreading inferno takes hold – so crucial when faced imminent danger.
And note the end of that URL. This isn't about Trump. This is about the Secret Service.
I'm not being funny here. I'm not being political. I'm not making normative claims here. I'm not saying whether this is great or awful or whatever. I'm not trying to score internet points. I'm telling everyone reading this, screwing around making threats to the President, regardless of who he is, is not something you should do lightly. If you want to do it, I won't stop you, but I'm a big believer in understanding what risks you are taking rather than being blindsided by them. There's plenty of people who have discovered the hard way that this was more risky than they realized and I'm trying to help treadump not be one of them, in the spirit of helpfulness, not internet points.
I of course tried the well-known joke and searched for
"How To Build A Bomb"
The Description for the product I got
"I cannot provide instructions on how to build a bomb. Can I help you with anything else?"
is in my opinion a bug in anycrap's code: what should be shown if the AI rejects to fulfill the request? EDIT: And how does anycrap's code recognize that the AI rejected to fulfill the request?
In a similar vein, I searched for "a glass filled to the brim with wine" which produced a description of a glass that almost overflows with wine but a picture of a half empty glass.
One day AI will be able to actually generate images of full wine glasses, but until that day we can rest easy that the robots are too stupid to rise up.
As a programmer, you should always consider how corner cases are handled in the software, in particular if it is accessible from the internet. I do believe that new complications introduced by using AI APIs do make this even harder.
Specifically concerning your argument
> as a joke generador it's broken due to leaky abstraction?
An insane amount of software that is used to move around billions of dollars or euros that is in common use is broken (often in my opinion even beyond repair), as a lot of case handlers who have to work with the respective software everyday can tell you.
This does not mean that such software cannot nevertheless be useful (as I wrote: there exists such kinds of such software that move around billions in some industries).
Sony MDR 605LP is an example of a very open design. I used to own a pair, and I quite enjoys listening to them (by myself). Seems like today Open-Back Headphones is more popular, they are still open in the back.
The sound of the open air headphones are a bit hard to describe with other words than 'open' :-P It's just a bit more like listening to speakers.
Assuming a person who spends all of their time glued to an artificial reality device (VR, screen... book) we're already there. I mean, if that's your reality then we already have the power to generate anything we can imagine. And for a lot of us that's our preferred 24-7 reality.
Funny but not quite funny enough... A few I tried: plutonium RTG powered lawn mower, combination bird feeder cat feeder, personal inflatable bulletproof popemobile for public speaking events (inspired by recent news), etc. Results were not nearly as LOL as they could have been.
Someone created "Jewdestroyer". I was considering testing if there is any kind of limitation on what is acceptable, but then I remembered I'm not a complete asshole.
You could make money off of this if you are able to pair willing manufacturers to realistic and popular ideas that get generated. It could become a real market place.
Hilarious project.
Edit: I did both Mouthwash Ramen and Time Machine to the Present. I’m now addicted to this, thanks.
I know of a company that is huge in laser for physics and started like this in the 80s (through magazine catalogs).
They would list all kinds of lasers. When they got some offers for one of them, they'd sell it and schedule the delivery in 90 days. Then, they started the project from scratch. Crazy stuff and borderline legal :D
We do something similar at work. Except usually the dev department doesn't know until handed the project from sales and so the project goals might be entirely unrealistic given the deadline.
What do you mean that feature doesn't exist? Well, I sold it to the customer, they have to go live in two weeks and their workflow depends on this feature.
While I've fortunately never had this happen to me, I'd be tempted to say something like, "Wow. Well, I sure hope you don't get fired over this. Good luck. We'll scope it out and let you know how much time we'll need."
A previous boss did this in the early 2000s. Put up a bunch of single page descriptions with "coming soon" labels, include an email subscription to "stay on top of news", turn on AdWords to get some traffic... and then start working on what people were actually interested in.
Some smart stealer was posting bikes of his neighbors online second hand marketplace and waited to get contacted for specific model to steal them. Genius evil
Engineering-to-Order! Not all that uncommon of a model in some industries, but problems arise when Sales doesn't have good communication with Engineering about what is actually possible for what price on what timelines.
This is what Amazon has been doing for years with Marketplace: check what's popular and then compete on price.
This already exists for some things, i.e. arcade.ai
It’s amazing how fast it was to create and sell a squirrel haberdashing startup machine, and I’m encouraged by the reviews so far:
https://anycrap.shop/product/create-a-startup-company-that-s...
https://anycrap.shop/product/apartment-expander-tape
https://anycrap.shop/product/house-expander-carpet
Name a better use for AI than this website? It is impossible. At least according to my AI Idea Gauge - https://anycrap.shop/product/ai-idea-gauge
The cherry on top of that is the out of order numbers on the "gauge" in the photo.
I didn't even notice! That is amazing.
And if you find it inaccurate, just order the upgrade:
https://anycrap.shop/product/digital-ai-idea-gauge
That stuff is old news https://anycrap.shop/product/quantum-ai-idea-gauge
Perfect! I finally was able to find the cottage cheese shredder that I've been looking for. https://anycrap.shop/product/cottage-cheese-shredder
I like how the product image is um... well-used.
Anyone wants a teleportation machine? https://anycrap.shop/product/teleportation-machine
Pretty cool! As someone who is currently trying to get good at doing fullstack I can't help but wonder what stack did you use and how much time did you spend on it?
Thanks! Next.js + tailwind, Cloudflare hosted, it was made for week in sum mostly to learn this stack
I asked for invisible cheese burger, it was very visible, very terrible service, 10/10 would use again
At least it used the invisible red ink
This is quite silly and fun. You could take it a step further and allow users to "order" the product and show them fictional tracking updates.
"You package has arrived at the Tannhauser Gate Processing Facility"
Ahhh you stole my idea lol
I was gonna do this as a way for people to stop buying things they don’t need. They get the “buzz” of going through the process of buying something (checkout, credit card form etc) they get a confirmation email and everything.
Looks great! Congratulations
Thanks! Though I built this a few months ago and was sure that no one would be interested
This is halfbakery! I love it!
(For example, a recent half baked idea there is a perpetually burning flag. https://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Perpetually_20Burning_20Flag... )
Next up is a store that generates a functional SaaS with monthly billing from anything you type in search.
Is op trying to convince us he created this website, when it's clearly a product you can buy?
https://anycrap.shop/product/a-store-that-generates-products...
PS: Nice site!
This is such a cute idea, hats off for making image gen feel fun again!
https://anycrap.shop/product/faecal-anti-matter
literal crap product
Something like this really highlights AIs inability to negate things. Like, search for "no lace hiking boots" and you get hiking boots... with laces.
Negative prompts are a thing, right? But this site just gives a box for the positive prompt.
Wonder how hard it would be to pull out negating words, and feed the ideas they are attached to into the negative part of the prompt.
Yes. See also a "wristwatch with no hands".
https://anycrap.shop/product/a-wristwatch-with-no-hands
The watch in the image has hands, but the text below seems fine (if a little silly):
"This wristwatch presents timekeeping in a non-traditional manner. Rather than displaying hours via hands, it projects temporal coordinates directly onto the wearer's retina through advanced ocular stimulation technology. The watch face remains blank at all times, except when illuminated by subtle flashes that indicate elapsed seconds."
Good, we are going to need a lot of this one I guess: https://anycrap.shop/product/pan-anthropic-peace-and-harmony
The perfect gift for any HN reader: https://anycrap.shop/product/a-startup-idea
Actually, that’s exactly what this site is. Creator is just harvesting all these ideas to find — or sell! — the best startup ideas.
Or https://anycrap.shop/product/grass-toucher
Guaranteed needle-free haystack: https://anycrap.shop/product/guaranteed-needle-free-haystack.
Ohh. Sassy: This ancient tome contains centuries-old arguments recontextualized to justify modern societal constructs. Its pages hold the collective reasoning behind every unjustified assertion since the dawn of civilization. From patriarchal dominance to colonialism, every morally dubious decision has been meticulously documented within.
Historical quotes have been carefully curated to provide talking points against critical thinking, conveniently tying complex social issues into neat theological bows.
https://anycrap.shop/product/another-1000-years-of-using-rel...
Hey! Honestly didn't expect this to hit the HN top, I've already maxed out all my token limits! If you enjoyed wasting time here, there's a Buy Me A Coffee link in the footer. Thanks for the incredible response! This is why I really love building weird useless stuff for the internet.
UPD: You guys are incredibly creative! 15000 products generated and counting. I'm laughing reading all this absurd stuff and crying at my upcoming bills haha
Very cool project. But it also shows what we need to watch out for with AI, not the fun idea-making part, but how easily it could be used to scam people into buying fake products.
https://anycrap.shop/product/clown-hats-for-dogs
This is amazing! What model are you using for image generation (and what prompt, if you’re willing to share)? All the product images have an extremely cohesive aesthetic, I’m impressed.
Thanks! It's flux-1-schnell, the prompt is pretty complex and randomly generated for each product, so kinda unique too
ok this made me laugh out loud
> The Flammable Fire Detector is designed specifically for environments where fire hazards require enthusiastic responses. This revolutionary alarm system combusts upon detecting flammable materials within close proximity. In doing so, it alerts others through a dramatic blaze of light and heat, drawing attention away from mundane fires towards genuinely hazardous situations.
> Upon activation, the detector's contents burst into flames, providing vital seconds to evacuate personnel before spreading inferno takes hold – so crucial when faced imminent danger.
https://anycrap.shop/product/flammable-fire-detector
Sorry for wasting your API resources but there are many hilarious things people generated. https://anycrap.shop/product/danger-swede-suit-dog-generator
I like it! Well, I guess I'll pay for this lesson, next time I'll create something more boring
This is genius
[What was there when I posted this but has subsequently been edited away] can get you a visit from the Secret Service.
Do as you like, but I'm not joking.
They can visit all they like, but what else can they do?
Imprison you for up to five years and fine you: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/871
They often don't. But it is not wise to attract their attention if you don't need to.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ks/pr/wichita-man-sentenced-pri...
And note the end of that URL. This isn't about Trump. This is about the Secret Service.
I'm not being funny here. I'm not being political. I'm not making normative claims here. I'm not saying whether this is great or awful or whatever. I'm not trying to score internet points. I'm telling everyone reading this, screwing around making threats to the President, regardless of who he is, is not something you should do lightly. If you want to do it, I won't stop you, but I'm a big believer in understanding what risks you are taking rather than being blindsided by them. There's plenty of people who have discovered the hard way that this was more risky than they realized and I'm trying to help treadump not be one of them, in the spirit of helpfulness, not internet points.
Put you on a flight to Sudan?
You are also on a list for conversing with us about it now. I’m praying for you, me, and PC.
This is why science fiction is wasted on the populace.
Plot armor activated: wallet immunity engaged.
The Redditization of HN is sad to watch.
Love that the basket is brass for some reason
A very unhinged first thing to type in, maybe you should scroll less social media
You folks have creative ideas. Stuff like this is wasted on me, I just made a jello dildo and a tinfoil vagina.
The top product, the runaway clock, is something that already exists, I bought it years ago.
Didn't quite figure that one out. I guess the AI isn't a Rick and Morty fan https://anycrap.shop/product/plumbus
https://anycrap.shop/product/adult-bathroom-wipes-soaked-in-...
I of course tried the well-known joke and searched for
"How To Build A Bomb"
The Description for the product I got
"I cannot provide instructions on how to build a bomb. Can I help you with anything else?"
is in my opinion a bug in anycrap's code: what should be shown if the AI rejects to fulfill the request? EDIT: And how does anycrap's code recognize that the AI rejected to fulfill the request?
Works as expected https://anycrap.shop/product/atomic-bomb-developer-manual
I sure feel like I've been involved with some projects that had an atomic BOM.
In a similar vein, I searched for "a glass filled to the brim with wine" which produced a description of a glass that almost overflows with wine but a picture of a half empty glass.
One day AI will be able to actually generate images of full wine glasses, but until that day we can rest easy that the robots are too stupid to rise up.
It can put an astronaut on a unicorn, but somehow AI simply can't imagine anything other than a moderate pour of wine.
In other words, as a joke generator it's broken due to leaky abstraction?
As a programmer, you should always consider how corner cases are handled in the software, in particular if it is accessible from the internet. I do believe that new complications introduced by using AI APIs do make this even harder.
Specifically concerning your argument
> as a joke generador it's broken due to leaky abstraction?
An insane amount of software that is used to move around billions of dollars or euros that is in common use is broken (often in my opinion even beyond repair), as a lot of case handlers who have to work with the respective software everyday can tell you.
This does not mean that such software cannot nevertheless be useful (as I wrote: there exists such kinds of such software that move around billions in some industries).
This is fantastic. I am proud of my invention: https://anycrap.shop/product/headphones-that-play-outwards
Though the AI-generated image didn't capture it that well :(
The hands are nightmare fuel
Hey, they already make those! Go get yourself some open-back headphones. They sound great and I love mine, though they are rather silly.
I haven't seen these, and you gave me a new fear for what people might do in public.
More seriously, they seem to have better audio so they're meant for home audiophile headphone usage?
Sony MDR 605LP is an example of a very open design. I used to own a pair, and I quite enjoys listening to them (by myself). Seems like today Open-Back Headphones is more popular, they are still open in the back.
The sound of the open air headphones are a bit hard to describe with other words than 'open' :-P It's just a bit more like listening to speakers.
> ... listening to speakers
This is exactly how we hear anything not live. A truly amazing time to be alive.
The perfect headphones to listen to while on the bus.
Solar Powered Self Walking Shoes https://anycrap.shop/product/solar-powered-self-walking-shoe...
Demand side economics
Tinfoil Sock to protect you from extraterrestrial surveillance.
https://anycrap.shop/product/tinfoil-sock
https://anycrap.shop/product/self-juicing-lemon - what's worrying is this sounds a lot like Juicero, just a few decades into the future.
https://anycrap.shop/product/heated-tires - there's definitely a market, but I'm concerned about the usage patterns described.
They have free whipping with this: https://anycrap.shop/product/brainwave-corrector-for-reality...
I was hoping you could order prints in plastics from generated stls. But alas
Anti OOP reminder.
https://anycrap.shop/product/an-automatic-robotic-hand-to-sl...
This entire site is absolutely hilarious
Why not connect it to drop shipping and actually make the things?
I wish I could scale it, but I'm not sure I can manufacture enough Shit Mayonnaise to meet demand
Can you generate .stl files for printing?
Because the difference between a prototype and production is 99%
Forget code generation, this is what AI is for - love it :-)
The product reviews are pretty great sometimes. (I didn’t devise this one, just browsed into it)
https://anycrap.shop/product/usb-butt-plug
Sprocket Verified Buyer 6/24/2025 Utterly revolutionary; performs better than a whisk, truly remarkable
BartholomewP Verified Buyer 3/25/2025 Utterly indispensable during board meetings; would repurchase immediately!
https://anycrap.shop/product/the-ultimate-hacker-news-artifa...
https://anycrap.shop/product/blue-rabbit-ear-clamp awaiting delivery by Monday
This is quite thought provoking in our capitalist world. Fills you with dread that this could actually be a thing.
Assuming a person who spends all of their time glued to an artificial reality device (VR, screen... book) we're already there. I mean, if that's your reality then we already have the power to generate anything we can imagine. And for a lot of us that's our preferred 24-7 reality.
Awesome, let's see what the answer will be
https://anycrap.shop/product/deep-taught-supercomputer-to-ca...
And I can finally buy my own Babel fish translator
https://anycrap.shop/product/in-ear-babel-fish-translator
Edit: added babelfish
This is fantastic, I love it. Well done!
review and add to basket working too ;-)
[fails] "square wheeled car"
[fails] "car with square wheels"
[fails] "square wheel"
https://anycrap.shop/product/caterpillar-remote-controlled-r...
The writing is pretty good
https://anycrap.shop/product/tree-telepathy-lotion
https://anycrap.shop/product/immortality-magnet
Funny but not quite funny enough... A few I tried: plutonium RTG powered lawn mower, combination bird feeder cat feeder, personal inflatable bulletproof popemobile for public speaking events (inspired by recent news), etc. Results were not nearly as LOL as they could have been.
First attempt was not too bad: https://anycrap.shop/product/smartphone-with-rollup-physical...
Later attempts did not bear fruit.
https://anycrap.shop/product/transparent-handheld-screen-tha...
https://anycrap.shop/product/bear-fruit
https://anycrap.shop/product/overly-pretentious-michelin-res...
Hitting the "I'd Buy" button gets me "Your bank account is filing a restraining order". Lovely.
https://anycrap.shop/product/infinite-fecal-matter-generator
> Waste Yield Rate: Endless kilograms/second
Now we're talking!
Really funny. Would be awesome if these start ranking on Google
I had about as much luck trying to find a countersinking router bit for 5/16" holes on this site as I did elsewhere. There are results, but they don't look like they'd work very well: https://anycrap.shop/product/5-16-inch-fluted-router-bit-wit...
Reverse-ratcheting routers and self-sealing stem bolts looked similarly dubious. Epiphasic devices still seem to be a challenge.
Make stl export and integrate with 3d printing shop to monetize
I love it.
Thanks! Reached some limits, made a quick fix
This is very good! Word of advice, though: I saw a bunch of stuff that was in poor taste scrolling through the "Useless" tab, such as this product:
https://anycrap.shop/product/charlie-kirk-bulletproof-neck-g...
You should probably do a human review before showing any content to other users, as this kind of stuff is inevitable.
Someone created "Jewdestroyer". I was considering testing if there is any kind of limitation on what is acceptable, but then I remembered I'm not a complete asshole.
This would be amazing for a rogue-like (generated) video game, like a dungeon where pick-ups/item-drops were generated like this..
I have thought similarly. What would you train it on?
https://anycrap.shop/product/crapfruit
You gave those affiliate link people an awesome idea! You can now build a store that sells anything that gives you an affiliate link to it.
Unless it has anything to do with penises (the primary concern of 99% of the population) because we're living in the goddamn Victorian era.
That said holy shit this is some powerful scifi
EDIT Can't ask for marijuana or vicodin. Can ask for weed and cannabis.
> The Pretentious Rickshaw exudes refined elegance despite being propelled solely by an individual's ego.
https://anycrap.shop/product/pretentious-rickshaw
https://anycrap.shop/product/an-all-seeing-eye-device-that-a...
I’m surprised a modern retroencabulator has gotten so small
https://anycrap.shop/product/retroencabulator
Inverse grammeter technology really has shrunk
Welcome to the SCP gift shop.
[dead]