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michael_forrest

202 karma · joined July 24, 2017

Indie dev, maker, sometimes artist. https://squares.tv
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michael_forrest··on Show HN: Presentations for your webcam, not a projector
> A screenshare takes over the layout This is exactly what I'm trying to avoid :-)

When a screen share takes over, a conversation turns into a broadcast, which isn't always what you want.

There will always be scenarios where the improved resolution of a screen sharing codec will be necessary (and nothing is stopping you!), but I find a lot of the time there's a big white screen with a bit of branding and one bullet point on screen, and I can't see the face of the person who is talking.

I was on a group call recently where the speaker presented in this way for half an hour as a tiny thumbnail and I found it quite painful, thinking "I've been listening to this person for ages but I wouldn't recognise them in real life".

Sure enough, a couple of weeks later I had an awkward conversation where this exact person kinda recognised me but I didn't recognise her, so I felt pretty vindicated .

If we avoid the overhead of screen shares, the conversation flows a lot better, and everybody can be seen without the host having to turn anything off. And don't forget, if somebody's on a phone screen then they can't see all the detail anyway. This is why I prefer zooming in on important content than sharing my whole screen (I zoom in on my desktop using a pinch gesture in Video Pencil on my iPad and it feels magical).

michael_forrest··on Show HN: Presentations for your webcam, not a projector
Thank you. > the yearly cost for the full product is quite high for a "nice to have" As I will probably say a few more times as I work through these comments, I know the price is on the high side, but I've spoken to lots of people who need to do this sort of thing on a daily or weekly basis. Many of my users are paying >$300/year for Ecamm Live so I've priced my offering to sit alongside something like that.

> the scenario where I'm speaking to slide notes is central. Although your introductory video is very good, it's unclear how this works with Presenter View. * CueCam is built around the idea of cue cards. You write your notes on cards and then advance through them when presenting. You see your notes in a window on your teleprompter or using my companion app "Shoot's" built-in teleprompter

> You emboldened "Eye Contact", so are you doing the "magic eye contact" thing that FaceTime does? Not at all, it's all about your teleprompter - putting the text you're reading and the person you're talking to directly in front of your camera lens (or using Shoot, as close as possible to your camera lens!)

> Does CCP integrate with things like Stream Deck to help minimize the need to use the GUI? Absolutely. I have a fully-featured Stream Deck plugin. I have a Stream Deck Mini set up with a "next" button, an "aside" button and a couple more for screen sharing and quickly exiting a share. But it does a lot more, including allowing you select drawing tools on the iPad when you're drawing, with the correct drawing tool and colour being visible on the Stream Deck button (THAT was a lot of work to get right...)

michael_forrest··on Learn how modern JavaScript frameworks work by building one
What a simultaneously wonderful yet horrifying idea!
michael_forrest··on The Small Website Discoverability Crisis (2021)
It’s a fine proposition but in practice, with a list of bare urls, the author asking me to click on random links with no context[1], and I have to override my instincts, shaped by decades of internet use, to be very wary of doing so.

I don’t think this works without a summary provided with each link. Or even just fetching the open graph tags or something.

[1] it’s not a 100% fair test because I don’t have a relationship with the author, so there is no trust to leverage. But I don’t even like clicking on bare links in WhatsApp messages from close friends without a word or two on why I should do so! There’s always a possibility someone’s account is compromised, and without being able to evaluate that the link is accompanied by their “voice”, I err on the side of caution and usually ignore…

michael_forrest··on Show HN: Changes – Mood tracker with augmented reality data insights
Hi, since I quit contracting last June this has been my primary (self-funded) project. I've released a few evolutions of this concept over the years but this is the first one where the focus is on actionable insights.

There are lots of reasons it is useful to track mood but on of the larger benefits I've found with this sort of tool is the way that a visible change inflection point on a happiness chart can really help cement a good life decision. My best change was to quit alcohol back in 2012. Seeing how much happier I became made it very easy not to ever go back to drinking the way so many people do.

I'm hoping that this app will help people get the most out of the self-tracking mechanism - I think I've found a balance of speed and potential complexity in quite a simple tracking UI.

Anyway, I'll await your thoughts...

michael_forrest··on How do you resist working when you shouldn't?
Some sort of divine intervention answered my panicked cry for help by disabling my laptop soon after I posted this. It had just finished a backup when it went into some sort of “kernel task” CPU overdrive which stopped the battery charging and now it refuses to turn on. (2018 MacBook Pro - it exhibited this symptom when I first got it so I’m pretty sure that the worst case scenario is a trip to the Apple Store and a little time to work on things away from the computer). Fingers crossed it miraculously recovers tomorrow morning
michael_forrest··on How do you resist working when you shouldn't?
Working for myself which I think exacerbates the situation since I have full ownership of any success I can achieve.

I actually have ended up thinking about my marketing efforts and watching videos about that instead of tinkering with the app (or other appealing ideas that inevitably emerge during down time).

michael_forrest··on I quit contracting 6 months ago
Love that :)
michael_forrest··on I quit contracting 6 months ago
Exactly. I know it's an awkward and inefficient way to share a blog post but I liked the idea of people being able to explore all the data.
michael_forrest··on I quit contracting 6 months ago
A Coda document that evolved as time progressed. I had the idea of reporting back at some point motivating me to keep everything up-to-date.
michael_forrest··on I quit contracting 6 months ago
One of the implications of "quitting contracting" for me is that I'm not letting myself compare anything to my contractor day rate. Suffice to say for the last six months, compared to contracting, my income has been basically 0.
michael_forrest··on I quit contracting 6 months ago
Thanks for all the comments so far. I know Coda isn't designed as a blogging platform but I liked being able to directly connect the interactive charts. It's better on desktop than mobile. That said, I did spend quite a while copying it over and reformatting it for Medium this afternoon - there's a link right at the top - just in case people didn't want to deal with Coda!

I would have liked to make the charts a bit clearer but the customisation in Coda is quite limited. Nobody I showed it before posting it on HN had any complaints. I can add some more context to the bits that aren't clear.

As for how long I spend tracking my time... not too long really? I've been tinkering with my document here and there as I go, and now generally I just switch to the right project and hit "Start activity", pressing "Save" when I finish. I've been using Coda rather than bootstrapping (yet another) private time tracking web server because it provides a different sort of agility to what I'd get if I was programming everything myself.

michael_forrest··on I quit contracting 6 months ago
I've been tracking my time in great detail as I work on various projects and I am hoping others will find this interesting!
michael_forrest··on Explaining My Live Music and Realtime Visuals Rig
Just threw it up here if you want to poke around https://github.com/michaelforrest/live-visuals-explainer
michael_forrest··on Explaining My Live Music and Realtime Visuals Rig
Thanks! It's a d3 force-directed layout running in a quick create-react-app :)
michael_forrest··on Explaining My Live Music and Realtime Visuals Rig
Hi, some of you were interested in my mechanical modular last year and this is a larger scale video that shows it how it fits into everything else I'm trying to do.

I hope that some people on here will enjoy for the sheer technical complexity while others will enjoy the monkey to whom I am explaining it...

michael_forrest··on Building a Eurorack Mechanical Sequencer [video]
Yeah sorry I haven't quite got around to preparing all the materials (I spent 2 days this week just getting the project off the prototyping board and into something I could slot into my rack permanently).

I forced myself to complete this video without worrying too much about total accuracy (which I probably wouldn't have managed if I hadn't given myself such a hard deadline) but it did mean it resulted in a tighter story.

I was hoping anybody who might actually want to build one of these would start badgering me in the YouTube comments :)

michael_forrest··on Building a Eurorack Mechanical Sequencer [video]
Yeah the whole point is to make it loose and organic instead of rigid and quantized :)
michael_forrest··on Building a Eurorack Mechanical Sequencer [video]
I like passive engineering - allowing behaviour to emerge naturally rather than forcing it with reams of conditional code or complex mechanisms. This is why I am quite pleased with how this project turned out. Use the right architecture and you hardly need any code!
michael_forrest··on Shoebox – my virtual hand-drawn, hand-coded live band
I wasn't - I'll have a look
michael_forrest··on Shoebox – my virtual hand-drawn, hand-coded live band
Thanks. I guess there's scope for a web service where people could make their own videos by uploading their music and artwork and although that would be a pretty huge job. If there are any programmers who would want to do something with this I might be open to putting aspects of it up on Github.
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