NiagaraThistle

You just summarized the last 35 years of my life.

I love this!

I've been building something similar for far too long - and it is far too buggy still - for Europe-only travel.

Good luck with this. I know how hard it can be doing this sort of thing between job, life, family, and dreaming of your next trip :)

Just got back from 12 days in Germany to follow Scotland in the UEFA Euros - team was a bitter disappointment, experience was once in a life time.

Having to use my phone for everything from buying/selling my match tickets on stubhub, match tickets on the UEFA app, Deutsche Bahn train ticket on an app, online QR code attraction entry ticket, audio walking tours, restaurant menus (much less of these thank god), and more, made me VERY anxious every day.

If my phone's battery died through the day (which it did FAR too often), or if i lost my phone, i was completely screwed and would not have access to my overpriced match tickets nor my much needed train ticket.

I felt like a luddite carrying a paper guidebook so I didn't have to really on my phone for maps and location/attraction details, but I don't know how else I would have managed.

Luckily my mobile plan allowed international data so I didn't have to roam.

Our reliance on our phones is frightening, and every company locking us into their apps for 'basic' information/tickets is bothersome. I get it from the business point of view (and the 'let's save the trees' perspective too), but from a traveler's point of view it is very cumbersome and overly complicated to have to not only juggle all the apps, but also focus on maintaining the battery and connectivity of your device so you don't lose access to must-have important documents.

I sorely miss the days BEFORE ubiquitous internet, connectivity, and mobile devices. Maybe I am a Luddite.

God I hate these interviews.

I'm 45, focus on Web development, have worked in-house on teams building ecomm carts/solutions for multi-million dollar per ear local companies, in design agencies focusing on custom $100k or templated $5k Wordpress websites, and have freelanced for everything in-between.

During COVID lockdown, I got burnt out at my existing employer, resigned, and took several months of. When I started looking for work again, one potential employer was a Wordpress 'freelance' company that gave me a LC test as a second round interview.

I BOMBED - like a 27%. I've been building sites and web applications for 15+ years and had zero idea what I was even being asked in any of the 3 questions on the 'test'. The company ended the interview process and advised I study Leet Code for 1 month and come back to re-test since my experience was outstanding for what they were looking for.

I did and got an even WORSE score: 13%. I spent way to much time on trying to cram useless (for my daily work) programming techniques to pass a useless interview test when I was told I had the experience they wanted - I've built custom WP solutions/themes/plugins since wordpress first rolled out.

TLDR: With 15+ years experieince in Web development, I still couldn't score higher than a 27% on a LeetCode test and got halted in the interview process for a position I was told I was WELL qualified for.

LeetCode tests for non-overly-technical positions is awful.

Isn't Pieter Levels using AI to build is therapistAI app with pretty good results?

I'm sure it's not perfect, but from what I've seen and heard about it, it seems to be a good springboard for basic "therapy" but not REAL prescribed therapy of course.

Sounds like it is helpful as an entry level to 'therapy' and is only getting better.

Arguably maybe it's because Peter is not using ChatGPT for his model AI.

Wow. I was just telling 2 co-workers this week that I keep a "How the F" file on my machine. It is not exactly what the author describes, but it's very similar and includes all the "how th f do i do this thing again?" every time I run into a problem when I'm new to a team.

I don't bring it to management's attention like the author suggests, but it gives me a perspective on what sticking points the team and company have that I need to work through over time.

i love my iphone 12 mini for this very reason. It's still small enough to fit 'mostly' comfortably in my pocket, even a shirt pocket. I hate how large most phones are now and everyone i know that sees my phone makes fun of me/it. I just don't get why (or how) one uses such huge devices as their phones now.

Do developers really build basic websites / pages WITHOUT pure CSS when it's an option?

I know there are times when you need to do something CSS can't (and shouldn't do of course. But I mean when the 'thing' is design/style only, aren't we all already using only CSS for those things? Or am I just so old I still practice the separation of concerns and no one else is.

Also, while kudos to the OP for doing this, this is exactly a time when using CSS to do this is incorrect and using vanilla Javascript IS the right decision, as this is a behavior and not a style issue.

NB4: Yes I do code sloppy when time dictates, but I still seperate my HTML, CSS, and JS as the norm, not the exception.

What do you mean it "isn't accepting" that you spent all the days since September 16 in the Scehngen Zone?

Is it not accurately calculating that you no longer have days available to your (assumed) 90 in the 180-day window?

Is it giving an error that "you must input a number of 90 or less" and that the "earliest entry date must be within 180 days"?

If that is the case, this is one of those edge cases I need to fix - if anyone has already blown through all their days allowed within the preceding 180 day period.

1. Thanks so much for even looking at it! 2. If you can clarify what issue you are running into, i can fix it.

Thanks!

TLDR: Love your kid.

Read and sing to your kid - even if you are an awful singer. I read and sang lullabys to both my kids from when they were weeks old. THey didn't understand, but the memory is worth it, and I continued to so nightly until they were 7 or 8...or until they repeatedly said "Daaaaad! I'm too old for lullabys and bedtime stories." Then just read one more :)

Spend ALL the time with your kid - the time FLIES and one day you'll look at your 14 year as he mouths off to you and wonder how just moments ago you were cuddling with him as you were trying to put him to sleep in his crib.

I'm a night owl, so i never suffered from 'sleepless' nights like so many people complain about. Once my son's could take formula (ie when my wife wasn't necessary for the feeding), those were my favorite times: my wife could stay asleep and I could just grab a bottle and sit up every few hours through the night and feed them. Just me and either of my kids. Cherish those moments.

It is no exaggeration when a parent or grandparent tells you "Enjoy this moment because they fly by and before you know it they are grown." 15 years from now you'll wish for the sleepless nights when you were holding your baby trying to soothe them back to sleep.

"Lead by example" - You try to teach your kids the things they should know and to be better than you. Sometimes that means doing things better than you did (ie teaching them from mistakes or bad habits you might have), but kids are perceptive and will "learn it by WATCHING you". "Do as I say, not as I do" is less effective than leading by example. BE the man you want your son to be or your daughter to end up with. It's very difficult to backtrack on this when you realize you've been the wrong example.

Around 10 or 11, they will stop needing you as much or seeing you as their only hero. Take full advantage of the years before this to be the hero you want them to have and remember.

Teenage boys will rebel against their father and test boundaries. If you've set god boundaries and led by good examples and taught them good fundamentals, they'll circle back once they realize who they are and that you have always loved them - even during the arguments.

Be careful with criticism - even when trying to be helpful and constructive. They have a funny way of remembering constructive criticism as "negativity" :)

Overflow with praise for them - when deserved. Reign it in - but give it - when it's less so. They'll know that when you say something, you mean it.

When they're older sometimes you have to be "the bad guy" to help them learn right from wrong. Stand your ground if you know you are right, but always let them know you love them and are willing to talk about whatever dilemma they are going through.

End of the day: Love them the best that you can and tell them that every single day.

I like to tip based on the local minumum wage (or on the higher end if the service was exceptional, my own wage) and how long I have sat at the table for.

So if the minimum wage was $10/hour and I have sat at the table for 45 minutes, then the tip is $7.50. I don't feel i should be paying the servers wages directly, but at least this seems like a fair rate to me for doing the portion of that hours work.

All of my pet projects can be found as real tools or services elsewhere, but I built them for myself (or in the case of Eurotripr) as a hope to monetize one day.

- Book tracker to track books I want to read (for self, with kids) and will randomly suggest a book from the list i should read next if I am unsure. It tracks my progress through reading the HUNDREDS of books I add to my reading list and estimates how long it will be until I am through with my list...far too long.

- Soccer Score 'pickem' game to play with friends during world cup, Euros, and multiple leagues. I don't like Fantasy sports b/c too much time/attention, and I can just add the leagues we follow only.

- Eurotripr: a tool to plan trips to Europe and track current average costs in european countries and cities for planing purposes.

- an "Intrview status tracker" to help me create interviews with other travelers for my Eurotripr project. I can email an invite to a traveler I want to interview and from a bank of over 150 questions it generates a simplified interview of 10-15 questions, tracks the interviewees progress, notifies me when they have submitted the 'completed' interview, let's me know what percent of the questions they answered. I can provide feedback and request further detail for the responses from interviewees. Plus it will track the status of each interview request: declined, in progress, completed, published. So at a glance I can see how many pending interviews I have to stay on top of or publish.

- A cycling tool that provides a basic 6-8 week cycling plan to get me from 0 miles to riding a century by the end of the plan. I had plans tot try to monetize this with a stripe checkout and if you finish the century (100 mile) ride and don't miss more than 2 rides per week during th plan, you are not charged your money, but shiny object syndrome got in my way.

I find NORMAL ChatGPT a good programming Rubber Duck and use it often.

I don't recall the guy's name. I don't even know what to google to find a link for you, but several years ago I came across an article of a man who did something similar to what you are talking about but as a Chat Bot (it was well before ChatGPT was public).

He did a large number of interviews with his dying father over the course of a year. Then he transposed all the questions and answer from those interviews into a database (i think). And built a Chat bot that used natural language to 'talk' with him after his father passed away to preserve his father in a virtual way. THe bot could answer random questions (not the interview questions) and form answers in the 'voice' and 'tone' of his dad bases on the hundreds or thousands of questions he'd asked in those interviews. It could create new answers based on all that data as if the father was texting his son.

I know that the article (or series of articles) I read about this was pretty detailed in how the man went about this. I'm sorry I can't recall where I read this.

I am sure there is a way to do something much more in depth now that ChatGPT is as robust as it is.

My biggest concern with Home Schooling is you literally have someone not qualified as a teacher, as in probably knows nothing of the subject and may not even have an education themselves, teaching the children.

Obviously this isn't all cases, and some traditional school teachers are questionable at best, but at least traditional teachers had to at least TRY to be subject matter experts before teaching in a traditional school. Sadly I personally know several friends that homeschool their kids and I have to say they are certainly doing a disservice to their children as the kids will only ever be as smart as their teachers and these 'teachers' (ie parents) are not the brightest.

https://Eurotripr.com - a website/web app to help people plan trips to Europe affordably and with Confidence. I've been working on it off and on for WAY too long. Technically it is live, but it is unfinished in many ways (functionality, features, data, performance, content, etc.). I'm super embarrassed by it and am at the point that there are so many things wrong/unfinished I just stare it it some days not even sure where to 'start' to get it closer to done. All I really want and have wanted for almost 2 decades is to help others travel to Europe as I did in my early 20s and catch that travel bug so they continue to do so on the 'cheap' like I have throughout their lives.

I love Dan Brown's books. Maybe critics don't like him for his formulaic writing - copying the plot over and over after Angels & Demons. But IT WORKS. And it is HIGHLY engaging and moves the reader through the book at breakneck speed just like the action in the books. Plus Even when you know the formula of his books, the twists and turns and gotchas turn out to be great. Plus the stories have amazing real world location and art references and descriptions and for anyone that has been or plans to go to the places in Brown's books, he makes these places really come alive and you actually appreciate more of the acrchitecture and art of the setting if you do visit if you knew little about either previously.

And he adds just enough real history intertwined with his pseudo-history to make the books super interesting, and even give the curious reader a springboard to dive deeper into the questions his books raise for Mr. Langdon.

Oh and then there's the worldwide sales and financial success he has achieved from his books...

I recently told my co-workers on a Zoom call that I ALWAYS carry a paper map in the car and anytime I am backpacking or traveling in Europe. They couldn't fathom why I would bother when I have a phone that can give me directions immediately.

I guess I am old enough to know how easy it is to read a map and not need turn by turn directions to get somewhere. Also, I find that I ONLY seem to need directions when my cell service bombs out...

EDIT: Also, I just REALLY like a good map :)

Not sure how interesting they are for others, but i built a few things to keep myself accountable and track progress on parts of my life I wanted to improve - small parts, but things I just kept procrastinating on.

1. I built a small web app to provide a cycling routine to help me go from zero miles and overweight to riding a century (100 miles) this summer. I used to ride move frequently when I was younger and my longest ride was 87 miles with camping gear on my back. But 2 decades, a web dev job, and 2 kids later I am lucky to be able to get 10 miles per week for any consistent stretch of time. The app takes my recent riding skill and athleticism, and creates a 6 week riding 'program' for me basing itself on # of miles per day for the 6 weeks and increasing each week until the culmination of the 100 mile ride, allowing for 2 rest days each week. It isn't the most robust but it's gotten me motivated to ride this summer.

2. I built a reading list tracker that I can add the books I want to read for myself and my kids. It suggests which book to read next if I can't decide. It tracks # of books to read, # completed, # of pages & hours to read (so I can see how unlikely it is that I will ever finish my list or can plan time accordingly to know through the list systematically), allows me to categorize the books, and lists them as MY reading list or a list to read with my KIDS.

3. A European travel planner that I track country and city costs with, can create custom travel itineraries, which then will show actual costs for the itinerary based on the costs I am tracking/inputting for cities/countries/attractions.

4. More fun for myself and friends: A soccer scores predictor game. We each follow teams and clubs from various world leagues, and pick the scores for upcoming matches. Then the app scores us based on our predictions and we have annual competitions with each other. I built this before these were as popular as they are now, and well before the likes of FanDuel/gambling sites.

Yeah I 100% agree. While I DON'T pirate anything, I DO pay for a sh!t ton of services to watch soccer and Cycling. Furthermore, I follow Scottish Soccer, specifically the Glasgow Rangers. So I pay 1. the club for their RangersTV, 2. Paramount+ for their half-ass SPL 'channel' (which btw doesn't show more than 2 games per weak, and rarely even Premier level teams), subscribe (free) to a small Scottish-only-football channel on YouTUbe (PLZ) for news.

On top of that I watch Serie A, Paramount+ has better coverage of this. But then you want to watch UEFA Europa and Champions leagues.

It gets very confusing and very costly.

I don't get why the individual leagues don't get smart and have their own streaming services rather than relying on legacy broadcasting services.

As for Cycling, I am in the same boat with GCN & Peacock. DIdn't know about flobikes so thanks for giving me something else to purchase :)

Eurotripr.com - a constant work in progress. The goal is as if NomadList and Indiehackers had a baby and that baby wanted to help others travel affordably around Europe.

I hope Courtland and/or Channing does a podcast to explain this.

Without an actual clear response from COurtland or Channing, this is the first reason that I've sen that makes sense.

It was never bought by stripe to have MRR. The initial acquisition by Stripe was to allow Courtland (and Channeing) to continue just inspiring people to become business founders. No revenue generation, no MRR for IndieHackers. Just continue inspiring people to start businesses by sharing advice and success stories.

The goal was to increase the number of independent online businesses directly or indirectly and by doing so hopefully increase the number of online businesses that used Stripe.

They aren't going to run the site for free. They need to earn revenue from it to stay afloat and earn a living. They will monetize it somehow - ads, subscriptions of some sort, some other manner. Maybe they will sell it outright and move on to some new venture. But they will find a way to monetize it now they are not getting salaries from Stripe.

Before getting acquired he used to run ads on his Newsletter, so now that he has a much larger audience you are probably right.

"isn't pressed to make money"

It was never pressed to make money. Courtland said it many times on his podcast that Stripe never expected or gave him goals to earn revenue.

My guess as to why Stripe acquired IndieHackers is that COurtland promoted founding small companies to aspiring solopreneurs and those new companies would need to collect money and hopefully would use Stripe to do so. Encourage more and more people to found companies, and more and more new companies would use Stripe - free low-key sourcing of new customers without marketing or real revenue generation from IndieHackers.

i disagree. Maybe the POSTS in the Forums are low-value, but the Podcast and interviews have always been great sources of inspiration and value imo.

I do agree that the past several months, and the past several podcast episodes have been less than exciting and inspirational, but I wonder if the reason has anything to do with this decision. It may be that there were changes happening behind the scenes and Courtland and Channing were getting bored and that affected their enthusiasm. That could be why they decided to leave and rekindle that Indie spark.

Either way, I never thought the value of IndeiHackers was in the forum post - comments sometimes maybe- but rather in the podcasts and interviews as these told the stories of starters and how they built their companies. To me the forum was just a way to keep traffic around engaged between episodes of the podcast.

"Where you can just walk to a friend or a relative's house unannounced for a cup of tea, without thinking all the time if it would inconvenience them."

I really miss this. I have lived in the US my whole life but my father and much of my family is from the UK. We would always go over other people's houses unannounced when I was young and they always were excited to see us and never inconvenienced. Compare this to my mother's family (born and raised in the US but by Italian immigrants) and it was another story: you had to call ahead and were typically given a time to be in and out.

Fast forward to today, and people think I'm the weird one when I say, let's just "pop in" instead of calling or texting. Except for my parents and sisters, it is completely unheard of to ust pop in or have someone pop in unannounced. My wife gets loads of laughs and shocked expressions when she tells friends and coworkers that me and my family don't call each other ahead of time to visit.

It's a much different society today, but i think (hope?) the more people realize lonliness can (in some ways) be avoided by just visiting each other, I think this trend will reverse itself.

I LOVE this! As someone who tells EVERYONE to take a night train to save precious time during daylight hours for walking around a destination and not staring out of a window wishing you could, this is a great tool.

So often people online tell me such-and-such night train route is no longer in service (my first trip was almost 30 years ago now, so many of my night train memories stem from an earlier era). But now i can actually see and point to something with night train routes people can take advantage of.

Also, as someone who is building a Europe Travel planning web app, this is also a great resource to link to for train travel.

Thanks for posting/making this.