zbtaylor1

Are you alright?

I built a working version of the Christmas lights from Stranger Things (that Joyce used to talk to Will in the upside down) for a friend's Halloween party. It used an arduino board, a string of addressable LEDs, and a little web interface that guests could use to send messages to the lights.

It was so much fun to build and a hit at the party. I wish I had the opportunity to build more things like it :)

https://github.com/zbtaylor/stranger-things-lights

It may interest you to know that React was first used in production in 2011 and the library was subsequently open-sourced in 2013.

As far as programming tools go I don't think we can call it a fad anymore.

I think you're right. Anecdotally I, as well as most of my friends that still game, have become increasingly conscious of avoiding "help" when playing a new game. I'd never played a FromSoft game and beating Elden Ring with zero spoilers or advice was just about the greatest gaming experience I've ever had.

I suspect it's partially an age thing. Now that we're older and becoming nostalgic for the wonder that games held for us as children this is a great way to capture some of that magic again.

As mentioned elsewhere, gaming guides aren't a new thing, but for a certain segment of the population they were pretty uncommon for a large chunk of our childhood. So, instead, knowledge was shared around the lunch table or at recess.

It's maybe not quite as exciting in my 30's as it was back then, but it's a hell of a lot more fun to discover things with my friends than it is to watch a 20 minute video about optimal strategy.

Wifi light bulbs aren't fancy new gadgets. The Phillips Hue, for example, first hit the market nearly a decade ago. I'm sure there has been much development of the concept since and $10 is, for most people, very affordable. Especially the HN crowd.

I can't speak to their efficacy personally, can you? Do you know for a fact that they are error prone? All makes and models? Or did you shallowly dismiss the other person's suggestion?

I don't think I could roll my eyes any harder if I tried.

I'm still in my first "real" job, almost 6 years later, and while it's not quite as lax as what you describe your comment made me realize that the slow pace is probably a big factor in my own lack of motivation to look for something else. It's awful easy to get comfy.

My first web job was building websites for a rinky-dink SEO company. My boss had zero qualms churning out trash content while trying to game the system. How can Google fight an infinite sea of these operations? I'm not sure who's to blame at this point.

Like many HN users, I assume, my method for finding useful info online has always been to find a forum. You can't monetize a forum post without it being ignored or discouraged by the community so until that changes forums will always provide the most consistently helpful content on the net.

Obviously these companies are making enough money off the segment of the population that does not behave this way to make it worth their while. My question is how big is this segment and will it slowly dissolve as older generations pass and more grow up with the internet? Or will there always be enough people susceptible to this spam that the internet will never get better?

SEO blog spam is a blight. I'm certain you won't, but you should feel bad for contributing more of it to the internet.

Please stop.

These are incredible, I need more!

I completed Lambda's part-time web program about a year ago and while I did come out with more knowledge than when I entered, I do not think it was worth the time or the money I have invested.

I was not the target Lambda student in that I already had web dev knowledge but wanted to delve deeper and felt like I was spinning my wheels on my own. The accountability created by the program is what I was after.

The curriculum was adequate and, with one exception, the instructors were engaging and knowledgeable. While we did have some limited interaction with the instructors themselves, digging in to individual problems was the job of the team lead (a student further ahead in the program who went through an application process) and this is where things got grim.

TLs changed frequently and their quality was all over the place. Some followed the meeting protocol, some let their group run the meetings, others missed meetings regularly. Multiple times my TLs were unable to help much because the curriculum had changed and we were learning something they hadn't been taught. At best, they made sure we all understood the lecture by being thorough during our 1 on 1 meetings. At worst, they were a hindrance.

The final for the web dev curriculum is what they call "labs" and the TL for your labs group has expanded responsibilities. In theory, having gone through labs already, they are supposed to be kind of like lead devs - offering architecture suggestions, helping with deployment snags, shepherding us through merge conflicts, etc.

My labs TL was, more than anything, an obstacle. Mostly they forwarded our questions to the section lead and they weren't a particularly efficient go-between, so after a few weeks of deflecting our follow-ups we started messaging with the SL directly and were receiving timely responses. Our TLs only contributions to our project were the initial heroku projects and an unfinished code climate integration.

In the end, having projects and due dates was helpful for me but in no way do I feel it was worth the cost of tuition.

Another Lambda alum here mentioned feeling like student wellbeing took a back seat to marketing and PR and nothing encapsulates this more perfectly than the photo at the top of their homepage of a student who dropped out after repeating one of the early sections once or twice. Who cares what became of them as long as it looks good on the website!

Thank you!

Can you give an example? "How to do it" and "what steps to take" still sound like the same thing to me.

For anyone interested in tracking their own bike fit at home, I've been building a web app based on the park tools road positioning chart (https://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/road-positioning-c...).

This is different than frame geometry, which is what is being discussed in this 99spokes article, but it's quite useful for anyone that likes to play with their fit or wants to transfer their current fit to a new frame.

It's a work in progress, but the app can be found here: http://app.mybike.fit.

Definitely! I've been riding road bikes for ~5 years now and have "built" the last 3 bikes I've owned. I've become increasingly interested in frame geometry as it relates to bike fit (as opposed to handling characteristics). After riding a few frames and comparing their geometries I've narrowed down an ideal range of measurements for myself based on how I got along with each frame. I can browse a geo chart and be pretty certain whether or not a frame will work for me by checking a few measurements.

Agreed. These are frame geometry measurements, not contact point measurements as they are sometimes described in the article. A small but important distinction.

The sentence: "Stack gives an indication of how tall or upright a frame’s cockpit is."

Should be more along the lines of: "Stack gives an indication of how tall or upright a frame’s cockpit can be."

Frame geo is very useful info but it's best to think of it as an indicator of a range of points in space wherein you can reasonably position your contact points.

I'm working on a web app to track bike fit: http://app.mybike.fit

I like to tinker with my fit to dial things in, but there are so many potential dimensions to tweak that it's easy to "get lost."

Long-term I envision it as version control for bike fit where you can make a change, test it, add some notes, and then decide whether or not to commit the change to your new baseline fit.

At this point, though, I've only implemented the input forms and a historical record.

The non-vocal majority does.

First, as you might expect, aerobic and endurance exercise benefits greatly from being in a fasted (16-24 hr) state. You're light, quick and your body is devoting zero blood flow (and other resources) to digestion.

I'd say it depends greatly on the effort and the individual. Long, slow distance for someone who is accustomed to training fasted? Fat stores will suffice as an energy source.

But add in some intensity and that's gonna be rough without much glycogen in the tank - which will be the case if you've been fasting for the past 16-24 hours.

Agreed. I have two bikes - the notoriously stiff Specialized Allez Sprint (aluminum), and the Cannondale SuperSix (carbon). The carbon bike has wider wheels that allow me to run ~10psi lower than I do on the aluminum bike.

Anecdotally, I can barely tell the difference between the two and the deck is stacked in favor of the carbon bike. Swap the wheels and I'm sure they would feel exactly the same aside from geometry.

It's not a cargo-cult mentality. It's the convergence on a set of best practices "illuminated" by analysis of user-behavior data, as well as the application of basic graphic design principles (like the use of white space to create a visual hierarchy).

This is a great idea!

I think the confusion is that the design of this page:

https://www.indiehackers.com/products

is closest to the old layout where each block linked to the founder interviews. I basically wrote the site off until today because it looked like the interviews had been walled off.

I think he's saying that the article omits that space, but should include it.

It's frustrating.

It really is. This "community" can be very unwelcoming. I'll never understand what motivates people to shit all over content they consider below them.

Is it really that hard to pass by without shouting "I'm smarter than you!" at everyone?

Is there some affiliation between this and the Zurb foundation? That yeti looks familiar...

I'm not familiar with the limitations of the system, and I know the point is speed, but couldn't they just slow down before traversing the obstacle?

I believe he's implying that this program may be a sign of a generally poor employment environment in New Zealand.

Can you talk a bit about how you market yourself? I've fallen into a similar role at my current employer and am enjoying it, but I'm not sure what options I have for growth.