
Show HN: Learn anything by creating something everyday - internetvin
https://internetvin.com/futureland-alpha/
======
internetvin
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
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".

~~~
icoder
This sounds a lot like NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which focuses
on writing (regardless of quality) a certain number of words each day.

------
dang
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
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
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
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.

------
Marcus316
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
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?"

------
ai_ia
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
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.

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

------
gitgud
_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...

------
MDLR
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

------
lowtto
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
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.

------
bobsoap
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
Appreciate you taking the time to write about this. Noted your feedback. It’s
great thank you.

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rs23296008n1
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
Ty. Added feedback on submission.

I'll improve the rest of the UX now as well.

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

------
craftatoms
Dope idea using Slack as the central UI!

