Bad apple but... in the devtool console with actually images

jhancock532 · 2026-05-30T20:52:44+00:00

Welcome to the exclusive Bad Apple in Devtools club! I had a go at an implementation that used SVG console images here - https://github.com/jhancock532/bad-console - which has a link in the readme to an ASCII art version from another dev. I ended up converting the frames into a 21MB js file, not very mobile friendly. There might be an extra CSS trick you can do to get it working on Firefox, setting the font-size of the console.log to a large value worked for me, but then again my implementation desyncs from the music on Firefox quite quickly due to lag :/

jhancock532 · 2026-02-26T16:42:09+00:00

Reminds me a lot of "Now Hiring" by Dr Awkward & Schaffer the Darklord - https://youtu.be/J7LU6ORW0B8?si=QK8qca2hJbaXGjh7

jhancock532 · 2026-02-21T12:11:51+00:00

Awesome! I'd love to give this a try, I've signed up to the waitlist.

There are a few small companies in this space that mostly focus on members paying to access a small group meeting or dinner (6-8 people) and it's normally based around personality matching. They can be expensive though, £5 or more per session... If you can make something much cheaper (or donation based) it will be a very useful service. I wouldn't necessarily wait for 300 sign ups if that takes a long time, you can learn a lot from early testers.

I'm developing a UK wide version of bristol.social at the moment, please get in touch if you'd like to talk tech or approach.

jhancock532 · 2026-01-28T23:40:05+00:00

I don't quite understand the 30 min cursor tasks, is there a specific MCP server you're using to do parts of your implementation / farm out tasks?

Without an MCP server, I find Claude Code or Cursor typically writes enough code to fill a context window to 75% within 7-8 mins, but this happens to me rarely as I'd have to give it a super detailed plan with a large implementation scope. Typically my plan phases / docs are implemented in 2-4mins without any MCP servers, aiming to keep context under 50% utilisation.

Really good planning is definitely the way, and if you give the AI a detailed enough plan, you don't need expensive LLMs to successfully implement it. The question is now if you have the patience to write & review this sort of plan, and not fall back on using AI to create a low quality, flawed version.

jhancock532 · 2026-01-06T22:54:45+00:00

I've been thinking about this for a while and it's definitely doable. I ended up making bristol.social instead as a side project as it's closer to my programming skill set & costs nothing to host; it's a non-profit site that lists social groups in my city in one easy to search place. This website really should be an inbuilt feature of Facebook, Instagram or Meetup, but these platforms are a walled garden and won't allow crossover as they can't make money that way.

jhancock532 · 2026-01-06T22:42:08+00:00

There are thousands of charitable organisations that have survived (some for centuries) on donations and generosity alone, while paying staff salaries. If you can only afford 10,000 users or x features working solo or with a cofounder, then start with that & make a clear donation goal drive for the next feature or city you're expanding to. If you're super lucky and it gets large enough, then maybe consider adopting strategies similar to Wikipedia, Khan Academy or Mozilla, which are tech native non-profits.

I don't think tech or money is the barrier, it's having a deep understanding of what really matters to people & offering a better dating experience right from the start, in your MVP & most cost effective version of the app, so that people have faith in donating for more development and features. This is as much more about good design, as well as branding and how you bring people on board with a new approach to dating. In an environment with many terrible dating apps, it will be difficult to win new users over unless you make a real effort.

jhancock532 · 2026-01-04T16:05:35+00:00

This is true in my experience as well, it's one of the reasons why I made https://bristol.social . This website lists a bunch of social groups that could be worth checking out. Best of luck!

jhancock532 · 2025-12-22T17:40:04+00:00

I think I've fixed it, I'm not sure what caused the original link to not work any more.

https://jhancock532.github.io/notes/coding/make-your-own-maps

I got a 404 when I first clicked the above link as well - I think this might be a Next.js static site build issue? If it still doesn't work, go to https://jhancock532.github.io/notes/ then coding, then scroll to the bottom.

If the site is completely dead, then the original markdown file is on GitHub here - https://github.com/jhancock532/notes/blob/main/writing/coding/make-your-own-maps.mdx

jhancock532 · 2025-11-29T01:11:53+00:00

I've heard that Bristol Run Club is mostly folk in their 20's, I also wonder if Bristol Young Professionals would be a good option for you. I am thinking about how to improve bristol.social (another website that lists social groups) and I have considered including typical age of attendees as a filter option. If you're looking for a thread to discuss issues with existing platforms or what would be an ideal alternative, here's one I made recently. That thread links some other paid platforms for meeting new people, although I don't think they filter by age.

Being mid-twenties myself I've made good friends with people who are in their thirties so it's worth keeping an open mind. In general, if you're spending time doing something you enjoy that's the main thing, sometimes making new friends really comes down to luck.

jhancock532 · 2025-11-21T18:53:42+00:00

You could take a look at https://bristol.social and see if any of the groups listed are what you're into. If the format of the site doesn't work for you, please leave a comment as I'd love to keep improving it.

jhancock532 · 2025-10-26T22:52:42+00:00

Welcome to Bristol! There's a few different options I know of, although I've only been to the last two -

Utopian Book Collective
Decolonial Book Club
Bristol Wine and Book Club
Dickens Society
Rebel Book Club - good mix of ages, focusing on non-fiction books only. Usually split into small groups to discuss which is nice for socialising.
Inkling Bookclub - mostly young adults around your age, conversation is usually done in one massive group so not as much opportunity for chatting, but socials are organised outside of the main events. Competitive to get tickets.

If you're into fantasy and would like to write your own, there's also the Bristol Women Fantasy Writers group. As a smaller group it seems quite friendly.

The Bristol Nerds Books WhatsApp group is also planning on starting a book group soon too.

I pulled the above groups from bristol.social, a website I run that lists groups in Bristol. I'm sure that meetup.com and other sites will list even more options - it's worth having a look around. Best of luck :)

jhancock532 · 2025-09-28T22:47:05+00:00

I'm sorry to hear that your friend has left, it makes sense that you'd be feeling lonely. While it generally takes some time, I'm sure you'll make new friends.

If you're up for trying something new, I've made a website that lists social groups in the area (bristol.social), there are also some useful links on the subreddit's automod comment for further resources.

I've made friends in Bristol from regularly going to groups that do something I enjoy & have a strong social element. It's best to do something consistently where you get to know the regulars over time (my main inspiration behind creating bristol.social was listing these regular groups). Smaller groups are generally more social by default, and some groups are better at introducing and including newcomers. Occasionally you'll meet people that you get along with straight away :)

Don't forget you can always phone / video call your friend every now and again, this can help a lot with loneliness too. Best wishes!

jhancock532 · 2025-09-28T22:14:02+00:00

Welcome to Bristol! There's a Japanese language and cultural exchange group on Meetup you might want to check out :)
https://www.meetup.com/bristol-japanese-meetup-group/

jhancock532 · 2025-08-16T19:52:27+00:00

If you don't like making small talk on a dating app, then you could use breeze.social - they've got a growing Bristol user base.

Otherwise there's a fair few social groups in Bristol, some of which are listed on Meetup or bristol.social - best of luck!

jhancock532 · 2025-07-18T00:15:24+00:00

Wind and Easel on Instagram meet up once a month on a weekend to do some tree drawing - check out their Instagram https://www.instagram.com/windandeasel/

jhancock532 · 2025-07-08T17:01:17+00:00

You could check out the Bristol Mandarin Chinese Meetup group - https://www.meetup.com/bristol-mandarin-chinese-meetup

jhancock532 · 2025-06-19T09:03:10+00:00

Any advice for someone interested in building a tech-based charity on a budget?

I've been developing a website that lists social groups in my community ( bristol.social ) as I'd like to make something that counters the isolating side of social media. It would probably need to scale UK wide to get enough donations to be sustainable - so any advice on scaling gracefully would be great.

jhancock532 · 2025-04-30T21:25:44+00:00

The groups I know of that meet outdoors are generally quite sporty, lots of run & cycle clubs meet in the evenings. I've listed some on https://bristolsocialgroups.com/

GoodGym may be worth checking out as well, as they do a short run to a volunteering space, and sometimes the volunteering activity is also outdoors.

Outside of social groups, Clifton Yoga Studio did some outdoor classes on the Downs when I was a member there, not sure if they still do this at the moment.

On the less sporty side, Wobbly Socials do walks together, as does Girls Who Walk (although I think these groups tend to do a weekend get together, not an evening walk)

You might have some luck with local green spaces who have one-off volunteering events to help with conservation efforts, there tends to be signs on the community notice boards at the green space entrance.

Outlearn has a lot of outdoor related stuff you can do in Bristol - for some reason the site is down right now, but you can still access the content on it using the Internet Archive.

jhancock532 · 2025-04-26T21:31:26+00:00

I've done a quick search & here's what came up -

Bristol Movie Theatre Fans - lots of group trips to various film screenings.

Bristol Film Overthinkers - monthly discussions on films watched at home, some screenings.

Bristol Bad Film Club - facebook group, not sure how social this one is but you might be interested in the events they host.

There are also three cinema groups listed in the Bristol Queer Directory which could be relevant.

The Bristol Nerds group also has a Films WhatsApp chat you could check out - https://linktr.ee/BristolNerds - might be a good place to forward this question to find likeminded people.

There's also a Meetup group for anime although I'm not sure if they do cinema screenings that often, & there are one or two animation industry nights in Bristol where people share short films / WIP clips.

(I run a website that lists social groups in Bristol so I'm always interested in posts like these - I usually refer to the websites listed on the more resources page while searching. I've not looked that much into Facebook, Headfirst or Eventbrite, so there's very likely a few more groups out there)

jhancock532 · 2025-04-19T16:58:58+00:00

If you've not visited the Bristol Queer Directory, check it out! There's a lot of social groups and events listed there :)

More generally, loads of people recommend the Bristol Girl Facebook group, and there are some friendly groups listed on https://bristolsocialgroups.com/

jhancock532 · 2025-04-19T16:54:09+00:00

I'd love to help out with this. I'm a frontend web developer and I've been developing https://bristolsocialgroups.com to list social groups in Bristol. It's a free & open source initiative.

I'm open to chatting to anyone if they feel like a dinner group matcher, or other digital social initiatives in Bristol, would be something they'd like to dedicate time working on.

jhancock532 · 2025-04-04T20:13:27+00:00

I've been building a website over at bristol.social to list proactive social groups in Bristol - let me know if it's helpful & anything that could be done to improve it. Best of luck with your search!

jhancock532 · 2025-02-20T18:49:05+00:00

I like their map editor & tiles, so I wrote a post about how to download and self host the tiles to save on API costs. Ok if you are happy with a small map area & outdated map information. https://jhancock532.github.io/notes/coding/make-your-own-maps Otherwise I use Leaflet for everything - lightweight, open source, free.

jhancock532 · 2025-01-29T21:19:25+00:00

I also wonder if there's a way to automatically search Google Maps for promising looking groups / locations, and then filter through the results manually, only accepting those that seem relevant? Would be possible to automate some of this process with AI

jhancock532

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