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jonkratz

1,081 karma · joined September 1, 2011

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jonkratz··on 75 Hard Calculator
I just finished 75 Hard and one thing that surprised me was how hard it was to find a really minimal way to track progress. Most of what I found was either overly complicated or bundled into big habit apps. So I built something simple for myself and put it up at 75hardcalculator.com.

You enter your start date and it shows: • What day you’re on • How many days are left • Your exact finish date • A simple 75-day visual so you can see the days stacking up

No account needed. Just a clean way to see where you are and how close you are to Day 75. If you’re in the middle of it (or about to start) and want something minimal, it might help.

jonkratz··on Nintendo announces the Switch 2 [video]
Interesting, as an American, I read the date in the video (02.04.2025) as February 4th, 2025 (I agree that the DD/MM/YYYY format makes more sense, but dates are commonly listed MM/DD/YYYY everywhere here). It makes me realize when doing a worldwide release, it's important to be as explicit on the date as possible.
jonkratz··on Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell
The input data is predictable, so it can easily be filtered out by a rule.
jonkratz··on Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2024 – Show and tell
I built a service that makes sure your forms are always working — no more lost leads due to something breaking. Currently bringing in over 1k/mo: https://formtester365.com

It fills out the form as a human would (daily or on whatever weekly schedule you want) and then confirms it was received. It currently supports Gravity Forms on Wordpress due to their API for confirming submissions, but a new version that supports all web forms is nearly ready.

One of the main use cases is for agencies that want to make sure clients sites are always working.

jonkratz··on Comedy Theory (2022)
I'm interested in reading that essay — is this the one? https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3250/3250-h/3250-h.htm
jonkratz··on Gas and propane stoves linked to 50k cases of childhood asthma, study finds
Thank you — I had tried a search on hn.agnolia.com for "natural gas" in the last week, but I see now that was the wrong search term...I posted simply because I wanted to see the discourse on this study.
jonkratz··on 200-year old heat pump technology is back
This guy is doing something similar with heat pumps and water storage - specifically utilizing radiator and boiler along with heat pumps: https://www.2040energy.com
jonkratz··on Apple Music is the most buggy and annoying software I use
Great suggestion! I just added this — and it worked as expected (mostly). If the Apple Music app is in MiniPlayer mode, it will not automatically switch to the full player, but thankfully, closing the MiniPlayer immediately drops you into the search results. Thanks!
jonkratz··on Postmark has been acquired by ActiveCampaign
This makes me sad (even as I wish them the best). Postmark may be one of my favorite services 1) to actually use and 2) as a company. Their product is actually fun to use and powerful. As a company, Wildbit is one I've always had high respect for. Their "People-First" approach says it all, and they seem like a company that truly acted on that.

I understand the reasons for the acquisition, and I hear the message that product continuity is the goal, but I can't think of an example of a product acquisition that hasn't resulted in a worse experience (at least with a product as good as this one). I'd love to hear examples if anyone has any.

I'm happy for Postmark overall though, and I want to express gratitude for creating a great product and company.

jonkratz··on Ask HN: Those making $500/month on side projects in 2022 – Show and tell
My side project, FormTester 365 https://www.formtester365.com has been doing a little over $700/mo now. Many customers are agencies who want to be alerted if a client's web forms stop working.

It tests website forms daily (currently as a Gravity Forms plugin add on) and confirms that they were successfully submitted. I'm working to add support for general web forms in the next few months. Feel free to send me an email if you're interested in being notified when that feature rolls out — jon (at) creativeculturemedia.com

jonkratz··on I Created a $60K/Month App That Collects In-Person Payments Through Stripe
I had the opportunity to play a very small part in a previous project of Ryan’s. He’s a great person and I’m incredibly happy to see the success he’s had.

It’s encouraging to hear stories like this — you don’t know how any particular side project (hobby) might do, but the right product at the right time can be what makes all the difference. And you don’t need to have VC money and tens or hundreds of developers working on something to bring genuine value to people.

jonkratz··on To the Gulf of Minneapolis (2016)
It's interesting to consider how many details on our online maps might be there because of submissions from random people who may or may not be submitting official names or details. When you zoom in to see these minute details, there's no way that Google or Apple can fact check every suggested change, so they have to assume that most submissions are truthful in order to hopefully provide details down to the most local zoom level.
jonkratz··on Apple’s new APFS file system
Also interesting is Facebook's handling of cold storage (2015).

From their blog post:

> The easiest way to protect against hardware failure is to keep multiple copies of the data in different hardware failure domains. While that does work, it is fairly resource-intensive, and we knew we could do better. We wondered, “Can we store fewer than two copies of the same data and still protect against loss?”

https://code.facebook.com/posts/1433093613662262/-under-the-...

jonkratz··on MacOS Sierra
I use Plain Clip (https://www.bluem.net/en/mac/plain-clip/) which is a tiny application which will remove formatting from text in clipboard. It's meant to be triggered from a hotkey / launcher app like Alfred or Spotlight. One plus is that you can set preferences to remove extra spacing or new lines.
jonkratz··on Ask HN: Passive Income Suggestions 2016
Do you mind sharing the traffic you're getting that translates to the adsense revenue? Static single-purpose sites like this one are an interesting way to generate passive income (think a small network of useful pages).
jonkratz··on Google Capital Bets on Insurance Startup Oscar Health
So they currently serve New York and New Jersey, and adding California and Texas soon. Are there any other startups focusing on the health insurance space? I'm not from any of those states but would really like to use a service like Oscar Health.
jonkratz··on Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has died [pdf]
What are some good examples of games without a 3d engine? Your comment makes me feel like I'd like to check them out.
jonkratz··on Makerbot laying off 100 and closing down all retail stores
In a somewhat related note, I just finished watching Print the Legend (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3557464/) for the first time last week on Netflix. It's a fascinating documentary on 3D printing—and for someone who hadn't been following the 3D printing industry, the twists and turns in the stories of the main players really surprised me. I highly recommend watching it if you haven't.

That said, it's certainly interesting to see this pop up in the news. I'm curious what the general 3D enthusiasts consider the front players in 3D printing right now?

jonkratz··on Creating a Pure CSS Dropdown Using the :hover Selector
Thanks for posting this. In addition to the fact that it's a pure CSS solution, I appreciate seeing the process explained. Sometimes it gets too easy to drag and drop existing solutions into code without understanding why they work. It would be cool to see the same thing explained but with checkbox hack included.
jonkratz··on [dead]
I had the thought it may not be relevant, but added it anyways. In the future, I'll filter what content I submit better. It's been a long day....

Thanks for the explanation.

jonkratz··on [dead]
Thanks, appreciated and noted.
jonkratz··on [dead]
I don't understand what exactly you mean by that. And why flagged? Please let me know, I want to be good part of the community.
jonkratz··on [dead]
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make light of a medical condition. I was using the term in a way I commonly hear it used as slang, but I understand some people may suffer from it and I should be more sensitive.
jonkratz··on [dead]
This is amazingly OCD. You have to appreciate the commitment to an concept start to finish like this.
jonkratz··on Sparrow acquired by Google
Yeah, I feel the same. Obviously, they had an offer they couldn't refuse, I'm sure, and I don't blame them for taking it. But that said, I love Sparrow and am saddened that it could end that fast.