7 ms·

Show HN: Learn anything by creating something everyday

232 points by internetvin 7y ago

rs23296008n1 7y ago
Interesting. Request access page needs UX work. It leaves the prompt text in the field when you click on it. No indication of issue / feedback at all when you click submit.
- internetvin 7y ago
  Ty. Added feedback on submission. I'll improve the rest of the UX now as well.
craftatoms 7y ago
Dope idea using Slack as the central UI!
dang 7y ago
We took "Show HN" off the title because requiring an invite makes it more like a sign-up page than something people are able to try out. https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
- internetvin 7y ago
  I will give everyone who signs up a chance to try it out to hold up on the promise. I'll do this within 5 days of them signing up. Everything about this is just trying to be useful to people
- internetvin 7y ago
  Also here are links to profiles if that helps retain the "Show HN" status so people here can play with elements of this. I've worked really hard to get to a point where I have a working tool that people can use. It required teaching myself how to code to realize it. On Jan 01 2019, I had never written a line of code. I'm a huge fan of Hacker News and would appreciate the Show HN categorization. https://hfo.futureland.tv/internetvin https://hfo.futureland.tv/internetvin https://hfo.futureland.tv/saph https://hfo.futureland.tv/saph https://hfo.futureland.tv/ruaa https://hfo.futureland.tv/ruaa https://hfo.futureland.tv/gabrieloc https://hfo.futureland.tv/gabrieloc https://hfo.futureland.tv/katherine https://hfo.futureland.tv/katherine
  - dang 7y ago
    Ok, we'll make an exception for you. Please don't ask friends to upvote your HN posts, though. It's against the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), HN users tend to see through it, and we ban accounts and sites that do it. Also, it's mostly pointless, because most such votes are rejected by the software.
    - internetvin 7y ago
      OK - this kind of approach is what makes HN so cool. It's something I really appreciate as a reader. It's great that you have software that can do that. fwiw the premise of asking any friends to support this was essentially, "hey I finally had the courage to post that thing we've been iMessaging about everyday and that you are a user of and finding value in on Hacker News." I basically use my Mac to make things and visit this website.
  - avip 7y ago
    Just wanted to say it's very cool your 365-nd output is the futureland-alpha landing page.
    - internetvin 7y ago
      Not at 365 with code yet! Today is day 170. I think it’s very cool that you took the time to check this stuff out and write your thoughts. Thank you so much
  - cyborgx7 7y ago
    Wow, there is some really cool stuff in there. Love how you can immediately see the improvement over time by scrolling through them in some of them. I can't commit to doing something every day right now with uni and work. I've tried it in the past and failed. But I would love to try this in the future.
    - internetvin 7y ago
      Whenever you're ready. Many existing users in Futureland are students in Uni. I encourage you to try and figure out why you failed in the past. I'm always around to help in any way I can.
internetvin 7y ago
Some background on how and why I started this. I was going through a very difficult time in my life. My father in law passed away suddenly two days before my son and first child were born. Things were very emotional and stressful. I couldn't find any clarity. I didn't have any time for myself to figure it all out. One day, while sitting alone in my friends startup office I heard the song Naked Life by Oko Ebombo. I am not sure why it was this song or if it could have been another song. Maybe I was depressed enough. But this song made me want to make music. I messaged some friends with a link to the track and asked, "how do you make this?" Most of them responded with things like, take singing lessons, get guitar lessons and so on. None of this was an option for me. I had to be back in my apartment to help my wife in an hour. So I downloaded GarageBand for iOS, made a track and uploaded it to SoundCloud. Once that happened, I started to feel better. Prior to that moment I had never made any music in my life. The next day I did the same thing and I just didn't stop. I wrote about this process on Twitter in a thread titled, "What I learned making some kind of music for 365 consecutive days:" https://twitter.com/internetVin/status/1019033516028280832 https://twitter.com/internetVin/status/1019033516028280832 I am following the same process now to teach myself how to code. I never want to stop doing this.
- keyle 7y ago
  I too did this except 1 month at a time. I use to produce music or 'jams' once a day for a month or so. I also did 3D quite a bit and produced 1 spaceship concept a day as part of "#shiptember" It's a really fun way to learn to do something and inevitably become REALLY fast at it and produce incredible work that you'd never thought possible to start with. You know the software/hardware so good that by the end of it, it's effortless. The king of this is of course `beeple`. The point is: create, every day. It's under many forms and disciplines but usually it's under the umbrella of "progress before perfection" and "#everyday".
  - internetvin 7y ago
    This has absolutely been my experience. The artist Beeple is an excellent example of this and someone who inspired me a lot. Your work sounds really cool
MDLR 7y ago
To give some insight as a user, It's a solid resource / program. Being centralized through slack is a great use for a community driven network. Just eliminates the feeling like you're going it alone. Speaking personally, the HFO program is helping get out of a creative drought. There's definitely something to this
pts_ 7y ago
<rant> Kind of tough learning new things in blue collar software shops. Not impossible but really, really tough.
ai_ia 7y ago
I really like the idea and the execution. The only thing I am against is Slack. I don't wish to Slack. Can you add additional channels like Telegram maybe? WIP[1] uses telegram bot to do something similar to what you are aiming at. [1]: https://wip.chat/ https://wip.chat/
- internetvin 7y ago
  I agree with your thoughts on Slack completely. Building on Slack was a decision I needed to make to realize the Alpha of this concept. I selected Slack because of the wide ranging types of people that already use it. I’m hoping Futureland can be a collision of many different creative disciplines. I live in Toronto and the density of telegram users here is low. At least in my life experience. Over time if Futureland continues to be useful to others, I hope it can exist and provide value entirely on its own. In this case I should also give credit and thanks to Slack. If it wasn’t for their existing software I wouldn’t have been able to get to this point.
bobsoap 7y ago
Good idea. I can see the potential this can have for motivation... often enough you (I) just need a tiny nudge to push you over the edge and just do it. This sounds like it could do just that. Tiny offtopic nitpick: In the title and on the page you write "everyday". Written as one word, it means "ordniary". What you probably want is "every day", which means "each day".
- internetvin 7y ago
  Appreciate you taking the time to write about this. Noted your feedback. It’s great thank you.
enraged_camel 7y ago
Reminds me of Jennifer Dewalt and her "180 webpages in 180 days" project she did to learn programming. https://jenniferdewalt.com/ https://jenniferdewalt.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155 (I'm usually bad with names, but I remember her name to this day. It was a really good way to make an impression!)
- internetvin 7y ago
  Yes, I have come across her project and her story - it's amazing. Thank you for sharing.
Marcus316 7y ago
I like this. I feel like I would want to participate in the community, but not necessarily as an everyday creator. While I do enjoy creating things myself, I also like providing support and mentoring where I can. Are there ways for creators to easily share their work from the Futureland system with the wider internet community? Are you considering "mentor" or "support" participants who do not create, but provide knowledge and encouragement to creators? Not that you need to support such things. These are just a couple thoughts I had while browsing the link and the other comments here.
- internetvin 7y ago
  These are very interesting perspectives and notes. 1. "Are there ways for creators to easily share their work from the Futureland system with the wider Internet community?" This is something I have been thinking about a lot. I wonder about the role of seeking attention while learning something new. I wonder a lot about how seeking attention affects what we end up making. Or what we end up not trying. I want to do whatever is best for users. I could be wrong but I'm not sure if it is as straight forward as adding the ability to publish to Twitter, Instagram and so on. A long way of saying: I don't have clear answers on this yet and I think it requires deeper thinking and experimentation. 2. "Are you considering "mentor" or "support" participants who do not create, but provide knowledge and encouragement to creators?" This is a powerful question. Some form of mentorship might be incredibly important. In my own life, there have been many times when someone I met on the Internet has said something to me that really transformed how I see the world or my work. A question that comes to mind is, "how do you enable true and capable mentors to have more impact?" and "how do you avoid being lead by pretend ones?"
lowtto 7y ago
This is dope. Its like healthier instagram! I would totally use it. (I'm such an instagram haters) I have 1 suggestion, If you're planning to rework the UI/UX, don't go way off than current theme too much. I love the older webs vibe. As bonus point it could keep idiots away and maintain quality content.
- internetvin 7y ago
  I am very open to whatever will make this useful to others. I would love to hear your suggestions. Feel free to share them here if it makes sense or if you want to message me directly, @internetVin on Twitter.
gitgud 7y ago
It is OK to share "mediocre work", actually this is encouraged as it begins to change your psychological relationship with your work. Making mediocre things is a very important part of learning anything new. Wow that's pretty good advice actually...

232 points by internetvin 7y ago

Interesting. Request access page needs UX work. It leaves the prompt text in the field when you click on it. No indication of issue / feedback at all when you click submit.

internetvin 7y ago
Ty. Added feedback on submission. I'll improve the rest of the UX now as well.

craftatoms 7y ago

Dope idea using Slack as the central UI!

dang 7y ago

We took "Show HN" off the title because requiring an invite makes it more like a sign-up page than something people are able to try out. https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html

internetvin 7y ago
I will give everyone who signs up a chance to try it out to hold up on the promise. I'll do this within 5 days of them signing up. Everything about this is just trying to be useful to people
internetvin 7y ago
Also here are links to profiles if that helps retain the "Show HN" status so people here can play with elements of this. I've worked really hard to get to a point where I have a working tool that people can use. It required teaching myself how to code to realize it. On Jan 01 2019, I had never written a line of code. I'm a huge fan of Hacker News and would appreciate the Show HN categorization. https://hfo.futureland.tv/internetvin https://hfo.futureland.tv/internetvin https://hfo.futureland.tv/saph https://hfo.futureland.tv/saph https://hfo.futureland.tv/ruaa https://hfo.futureland.tv/ruaa https://hfo.futureland.tv/gabrieloc https://hfo.futureland.tv/gabrieloc https://hfo.futureland.tv/katherine https://hfo.futureland.tv/katherine
- dang 7y ago
  Ok, we'll make an exception for you. Please don't ask friends to upvote your HN posts, though. It's against the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html), HN users tend to see through it, and we ban accounts and sites that do it. Also, it's mostly pointless, because most such votes are rejected by the software.
  - internetvin 7y ago
    OK - this kind of approach is what makes HN so cool. It's something I really appreciate as a reader. It's great that you have software that can do that. fwiw the premise of asking any friends to support this was essentially, "hey I finally had the courage to post that thing we've been iMessaging about everyday and that you are a user of and finding value in on Hacker News." I basically use my Mac to make things and visit this website.
- avip 7y ago
  Just wanted to say it's very cool your 365-nd output is the futureland-alpha landing page.
  - internetvin 7y ago
    Not at 365 with code yet! Today is day 170. I think it’s very cool that you took the time to check this stuff out and write your thoughts. Thank you so much
- cyborgx7 7y ago
  Wow, there is some really cool stuff in there. Love how you can immediately see the improvement over time by scrolling through them in some of them. I can't commit to doing something every day right now with uni and work. I've tried it in the past and failed. But I would love to try this in the future.
  - internetvin 7y ago
    Whenever you're ready. Many existing users in Futureland are students in Uni. I encourage you to try and figure out why you failed in the past. I'm always around to help in any way I can.

internetvin 7y ago

Some background on how and why I started this. I was going through a very difficult time in my life. My father in law passed away suddenly two days before my son and first child were born. Things were very emotional and stressful. I couldn't find any clarity. I didn't have any time for myself to figure it all out. One day, while sitting alone in my friends startup office I heard the song Naked Life by Oko Ebombo. I am not sure why it was this song or if it could have been another song. Maybe I was depressed enough. But this song made me want to make music. I messaged some friends with a link to the track and asked, "how do you make this?" Most of them responded with things like, take singing lessons, get guitar lessons and so on. None of this was an option for me. I had to be back in my apartment to help my wife in an hour. So I downloaded GarageBand for iOS, made a track and uploaded it to SoundCloud. Once that happened, I started to feel better. Prior to that moment I had never made any music in my life. The next day I did the same thing and I just didn't stop. I wrote about this process on Twitter in a thread titled, "What I learned making some kind of music for 365 consecutive days:" https://twitter.com/internetVin/status/1019033516028280832 https://twitter.com/internetVin/status/1019033516028280832 I am following the same process now to teach myself how to code. I never want to stop doing this.

keyle 7y ago
I too did this except 1 month at a time. I use to produce music or 'jams' once a day for a month or so. I also did 3D quite a bit and produced 1 spaceship concept a day as part of "#shiptember" It's a really fun way to learn to do something and inevitably become REALLY fast at it and produce incredible work that you'd never thought possible to start with. You know the software/hardware so good that by the end of it, it's effortless. The king of this is of course `beeple`. The point is: create, every day. It's under many forms and disciplines but usually it's under the umbrella of "progress before perfection" and "#everyday".
- internetvin 7y ago
  This has absolutely been my experience. The artist Beeple is an excellent example of this and someone who inspired me a lot. Your work sounds really cool

MDLR 7y ago

To give some insight as a user, It's a solid resource / program. Being centralized through slack is a great use for a community driven network. Just eliminates the feeling like you're going it alone. Speaking personally, the HFO program is helping get out of a creative drought. There's definitely something to this

pts_ 7y ago

<rant> Kind of tough learning new things in blue collar software shops. Not impossible but really, really tough.

ai_ia 7y ago

I really like the idea and the execution. The only thing I am against is Slack. I don't wish to Slack. Can you add additional channels like Telegram maybe? WIP[1] uses telegram bot to do something similar to what you are aiming at. [1]: https://wip.chat/ https://wip.chat/

internetvin 7y ago
I agree with your thoughts on Slack completely. Building on Slack was a decision I needed to make to realize the Alpha of this concept. I selected Slack because of the wide ranging types of people that already use it. I’m hoping Futureland can be a collision of many different creative disciplines. I live in Toronto and the density of telegram users here is low. At least in my life experience. Over time if Futureland continues to be useful to others, I hope it can exist and provide value entirely on its own. In this case I should also give credit and thanks to Slack. If it wasn’t for their existing software I wouldn’t have been able to get to this point.

bobsoap 7y ago

Good idea. I can see the potential this can have for motivation... often enough you (I) just need a tiny nudge to push you over the edge and just do it. This sounds like it could do just that. Tiny offtopic nitpick: In the title and on the page you write "everyday". Written as one word, it means "ordniary". What you probably want is "every day", which means "each day".

internetvin 7y ago
Appreciate you taking the time to write about this. Noted your feedback. It’s great thank you.

enraged_camel 7y ago

Reminds me of Jennifer Dewalt and her "180 webpages in 180 days" project she did to learn programming. https://jenniferdewalt.com/ https://jenniferdewalt.com/ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6097155 (I'm usually bad with names, but I remember her name to this day. It was a really good way to make an impression!)

internetvin 7y ago
Yes, I have come across her project and her story - it's amazing. Thank you for sharing.

Marcus316 7y ago

I like this. I feel like I would want to participate in the community, but not necessarily as an everyday creator. While I do enjoy creating things myself, I also like providing support and mentoring where I can. Are there ways for creators to easily share their work from the Futureland system with the wider internet community? Are you considering "mentor" or "support" participants who do not create, but provide knowledge and encouragement to creators? Not that you need to support such things. These are just a couple thoughts I had while browsing the link and the other comments here.

internetvin 7y ago
These are very interesting perspectives and notes. 1. "Are there ways for creators to easily share their work from the Futureland system with the wider Internet community?" This is something I have been thinking about a lot. I wonder about the role of seeking attention while learning something new. I wonder a lot about how seeking attention affects what we end up making. Or what we end up not trying. I want to do whatever is best for users. I could be wrong but I'm not sure if it is as straight forward as adding the ability to publish to Twitter, Instagram and so on. A long way of saying: I don't have clear answers on this yet and I think it requires deeper thinking and experimentation. 2. "Are you considering "mentor" or "support" participants who do not create, but provide knowledge and encouragement to creators?" This is a powerful question. Some form of mentorship might be incredibly important. In my own life, there have been many times when someone I met on the Internet has said something to me that really transformed how I see the world or my work. A question that comes to mind is, "how do you enable true and capable mentors to have more impact?" and "how do you avoid being lead by pretend ones?"

lowtto 7y ago

This is dope. Its like healthier instagram! I would totally use it. (I'm such an instagram haters) I have 1 suggestion, If you're planning to rework the UI/UX, don't go way off than current theme too much. I love the older webs vibe. As bonus point it could keep idiots away and maintain quality content.

internetvin 7y ago
I am very open to whatever will make this useful to others. I would love to hear your suggestions. Feel free to share them here if it makes sense or if you want to message me directly, @internetVin on Twitter.

gitgud 7y ago

It is OK to share "mediocre work", actually this is encouraged as it begins to change your psychological relationship with your work. Making mediocre things is a very important part of learning anything new. Wow that's pretty good advice actually...