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Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

fieggen.com

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Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#91

Post by angiolillo »

SwellJoe wrote: post #56

I always use this site as a canonical example of The Good Internet. The kind of site that is rare today but used to be most of the internet, and we're all worse off for the change. Lightweight handmade HTML and CSS. Very little JavaScript. The site is fast as hell, instant transition between pages, it'd make a React SPA blush. The URLs don't change. The navigation is familiar and unchanging. Back button works as expe…

> It costs him almost nothing to run

> Maintenance cost is effectively zero...

His estimates[1] of ongoing costs seem different:

> I spend probably 60 hours a week continuously improving this website, answering visitors' questions, solving their shoelace problems – even granting permission for my material to be re-used by other educators.

> All of this effort earns me less than 1/5 of the Australian National Minimum Wage.

> I'm thinking of calling this my “Million Dollar Website” – not because it's worth a million dollars but because it has cost me a million dollars compared to what I could have earned at a regular job (based on an average Australian annual wage of $50,000 × 25+ years).

Granted it seems like you're commenting just on the cost of maintaining the site's HTML/CSS, and I agree that making the website simpler reduces those costs. But even with more complex websites the development costs are often less than the cost of developing good content, attracting people to your site, paying for hosting, etc.

[1] https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/support.htm

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#92

Post by nopurpose »

sunshowers wrote: post #82
Wistar wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site owner, Ian, says he is seeking an alternative to google ads. Seems the site may be struggling financially. https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/support.htm

Thank you for the link! Just donated. That site changed my life in a small but persistent way — my shoelaces haven't come undone in more than a decade now.

Which knot do you use?

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#93

Post by rdudek »

alt227 wrote: post #63
jonathanlydall wrote: post #13

I only realized in my 30s that I had been tying my shoelaces wrong my whole life and a super minor change in my method has changed them from coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted), to instead staying tied the whole day with just a standard shoelace knot [0] (also on Ian's site). This article's web page actually has the essential note: > NOTE: If your finished knot comes out crooked (eg. loops po…

> coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted) You have bad laces. I thought this too before I tried different laces. Turns out different tensions and elasticities give different strengths of knots. For example I have some military boots which came with slightly stretchy laces. They NEVER come undone, ever. They were the first pair that switched me on to this, and since then I have always bought laces…

Do you have a brand of those laces? The original ones on my Brooks runnign shoes are usually pretty good, but overtime they start getting more loose.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#94

Post by nikolay »

That's how I've been doing it since I was a kid (in the '80s) without anyone telling me about it. It's interesting how people put their names on some common-sense stuff! Disgusting!

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#96

Post by sunshowers »

nopurpose wrote: post #92
sunshowers wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the link! Just donated. That site changed my life in a small but persistent way — my shoelaces haven't come undone in more than a decade now.

Which knot do you use?

The secure/double slip knot that's linked in the story. I practiced it a few times (making sure the knots are in opposite directions took a bit of retraining muscle memory) and can tie it by heart now.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#99

Post by Arch-TK »

alt227 wrote: post #63
jonathanlydall wrote: post #13

I only realized in my 30s that I had been tying my shoelaces wrong my whole life and a super minor change in my method has changed them from coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted), to instead staying tied the whole day with just a standard shoelace knot [0] (also on Ian's site). This article's web page actually has the essential note: > NOTE: If your finished knot comes out crooked (eg. loops po…

> coming undone multiple times per day (unless double knotted) You have bad laces. I thought this too before I tried different laces. Turns out different tensions and elasticities give different strengths of knots. For example I have some military boots which came with slightly stretchy laces. They NEVER come undone, ever. They were the first pair that switched me on to this, and since then I have always bought laces…

I mean, yes, the lace quality is important too. But strictly speaking, not tying a granny knot will improve your results regardless of choice of lace.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#100

Post by rahimnathwani »

oldandboring wrote: post #27

Learned the Ian knot back in my early 20s (25 years ago now). Pound for pound this is easily in my top 10 highest value things I've ever done/learned. My shoes do NOT come untied anymore, period, ever. Funny thing is, if you don't know how to tie it, you probably just notice how it looks when it's done (almost exactly like the granny bowtie) so you (understandably) assume it's just a different method to arrive at the…

From the site "The finished Ian Knot is identical to either the Standard Shoelace Knot or the Two Loop Shoelace Knot."
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