nrs26's comments

These are both awesome, thank you.

I agree! How did Netflix do this? Was this in Queen's Gambit?

This is very cool. I've been considering doing something similar for my family. Is there a hardware solution (like an open-source GPS-enabled Tile) that you found that could track people's location without installing Life360? I did some cursory research a few months back and couldn't find anything.

I have! It works very well together. We use Django Rest Framework to set up our APIs and haven’t had any issues. Anything in particular you’re worried about that I can help answer?

I am curious about this (and share the same fear) as well.

Interesting! Why do you get riled at "steep learning curve"?

Interesting -- was this indoors or outdoors?

Probably! But I haven't had any issues yet.

Oh you may be exactly the person I need to talk to! I'm looking for a soil humidity sensor that is able to permanently sit in my garden and accurately measure soil humidity and soil temperature. Do you have any advice?

Currently I'm using this one: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1298

But after 3-4 waterings, it reads 95-100% consistently, regardless of the temperature. I've tried 2 of their sensors and have had the same problem.

I am so excited to see this! I've been working on a very similar project to monitor my outdoor vegetable garden using a raspberry pi and some ESP8266's. Like you, I'm using this as a project to better learn javascript, angular and django. It's in the very early stages, but I'm really loving the experience so far.

Here's a picture of my setup. http://imgur.com/a/BV188

I have a enclosure (that I recently made waterproof) that sits out in my garden that has the ESP8266 wireless chip in there, which works very similar to an Arduino with built in WiFi. I have it reading data in from a soil humidity / temp sensor, an air humidity sensor, a light sensor, and a air temperature sensor.

That data gets sent back to a simple django webserver that I have running (indoors) off of a raspberry pi. It records all the sensor readings every 10 minutes and registers them to various plots in my garden. And then, if there are any big issues (no light for 2 days, lower than average soil humidity or soil temperature, etc), it texts me.

Eventually I'll connect it to my irrigation system, but I don't trust it enough yet!

I have the exact same problem with soil humidity sensors that you mentioned. I even sprung for some fancy ones (http://bit.ly/2sMNRnD) that claim to be waterproof. I cannot make them read useful information and, once it rains or I water outdoors, the sensors read 99% for the next few days. It's very frustrating and the missing piece to make all of this work.

Like you, this started as a quick, month-long project and now it's become something a lot bigger :)

I think eventually I'd like to build this out to be a vegetable garden planner, so I can plan my vegetable garden at the start of the season, monitor what's happening with them, and automatically trigger my irrigation system if needed.

Anyway - it was great to read this! I'd love to hear how this project evolves and would be happy to share any of my experiences as I've put this together.

P.S. And, it's a long shot, but if you (or anyone is reading this) figures how to accurately measure soil humidity temperature in a waterproof environment, I would be forever grateful!

The capacity of meta-psychopaths to justify their psychotic tendencies is just astounding. :)

That is very cool. Congrats on a great project - it looks awesome.

Love that story. Will share it with my team!

That's a cool trick. Didn't know you could do that.

Wish it was longer / more in depth. Seemed like he was rushing through it. Like he has more important things to do...

I think this is a great article and an awesome website in general. I've always been a big gamer and interested in videogame design but I haven't found many accessible essays for non developers. I'll be following the website and new essays from now on!

If anyone knows other websites or essays like this - that are an in-depth look at videogame design - I would love to know about them.

This is my favorite comment in the thread :)

You could create a twitter for bitcoin. ;)

I had the same problem with Chrome. A confirmation screen would be cool. The newsletter and sample chapter are both great though, definitely worth checking out.

This is fantastic. I have used the same system for the last 4 years and it is the single most useful productivity "hack" in my life. The only change I use is that my reference emails usually go into Evernote.

Kudos for such a useful and comprehensive post!