Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot • Hacker News Board

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#161

Post by dpark » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 8:09 PM UTC

eudamoniac wrote: post #152

nunez wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up. (This is probably the most common no-no I see. People will clean their glasses with anything on them and smudge/scratch them instead.) Two cloths are ideal: one for cleaning and another for polishing. If you're using soap and water, apply a tiny amount of soap onto both sides of the lens --- less than a grain of rice --- then apply water and rub…

I don't know why people say this. When I wore glasses I cleaned them with my cotton shirts for over a decade and they didn't get scratched up, at all. I don't see how cotton would scratch glass to begin with.

They live in an imaginary world where no one ever cleaned glasses until microfiber cloths were widely available.

To clean glasses safely you basically need a soft, clean cloth. Cotton is totally fine. You could get away with a soft clean sponge, too. Or even a soft-ish piece of paper (which is what most disposable lens words are.)

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#162

Post by ErroneousBosh » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 8:13 PM UTC

lee_ars wrote: post #15

Stumbling across Ian's site almost two decades ago was kinda-sorta life-changing, because I'd been tying the "granny knot" my whole life and had to resort to double-knotting to keep my damn shoes tied. Ditched the granny knot for the Ian's Secure Knot ( https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/secureknot.htm ), and have been using that ever since for every pair of laced shoes I own.

If you just tie a reef knot, that'll work just as well.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#163

Post by vedtopkar » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 8:22 PM UTC

alper wrote: post #21

I use Ian's (Fast) Knot and that's good enough for me. https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/ianknot.htm

I use this one to tie my scrub pants and also to quickly tie my sterile gown when in the operating room. So handy!

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#164

Post by coldtea » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 8:39 PM UTC

nunez wrote: post #148

whitepoplar wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, how do you properly clean glasses?

Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up. (This is probably the most common no-no I see. People will clean their glasses with anything on them and smudge/scratch them instead.) Two cloths are ideal: one for cleaning and another for polishing. If you're using soap and water, apply a tiny amount of soap onto both sides of the lens --- less than a grain of rice --- then apply water and rub…

>Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up.

No, it wont. I'm cleaning mine for decades with anything at hand (cotton shirts, napkins, etc) and not a scratch.

And of course there's the little fact that microfiber cloth is a recent synthetic thing. People used cotton and linen squares, or chamois leather ones if they felt fancy, to clean their glasses.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#165

Post by coldtea » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 8:41 PM UTC

eudamoniac wrote: post #152

nunez wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up. (This is probably the most common no-no I see. People will clean their glasses with anything on them and smudge/scratch them instead.) Two cloths are ideal: one for cleaning and another for polishing. If you're using soap and water, apply a tiny amount of soap onto both sides of the lens --- less than a grain of rice --- then apply water and rub…

I don't know why people say this. When I wore glasses I cleaned them with my cotton shirts for over a decade and they didn't get scratched up, at all. I don't see how cotton would scratch glass to begin with.

Most believe whatever marketing material or sponsored "expert" advice is presented to them for "proper care", without actually checking. At least glasses clenaning is a harmless area - people do the same for supplements, diets, and all kinds of health advice too.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#166

Post by angiolillo » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 9:00 PM UTC

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #119

angiolillo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Content creating is not maintenance. And hosting of a static site is dirt cheap, caching works flawlessly. It could've been a two-million-dollar website if he'd tried to roll his own CMS and Javascript framework, for zero benefit over the one-million-dollar website he actually built.

> Content creating is not maintenance.

Technical maintenance isn't the only kind of website maintenance. Unless you're ready to put a site into hibernation, maintaining the content is an ongoing cost. For example, Ian adds testimonial photos and quotes that people submit via email not to mention corrections and improvements based on feedback.

> It could've been a two-million-dollar website if he'd tried to roll his own CMS and Javascript framework

Sure, and it could have been a three-million-dollar website if he wrote a web server from scratch in a language he invented to host the bespoke CMS and JavaScript framework he created.

But more reasonable alternatives to a personal HTML/CSS site like this would be either an off-the-shelf CMS or a third-party website builder. Those seem like they'd be more expensive in some ways and cheaper in others.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#167

Post by LeoPanthera » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 9:22 PM UTC

I started buying laceless shoes about a decade ago and I’m never going back.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#168

Post by brikym » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 9:37 PM UTC

I love the cute little page navigation buttons. I learned this knot ten years ago and I love it. Pro tip is to make sure the loops are longer than the ends otherwise the ends have more tension and will loosen the knot.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#169

Post by codesnik » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 9:40 PM UTC

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…

Instead of relearning how to knot bunny ears, I make the first crossing the opposite way to granny knot, it's somehow easier for me.

Re: Ian's Secure Shoelace Knot

#170

Post by codesnik » Thu, Jun 04, 2026, 9:42 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #164

nunez wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up. (This is probably the most common no-no I see. People will clean their glasses with anything on them and smudge/scratch them instead.) Two cloths are ideal: one for cleaning and another for polishing. If you're using soap and water, apply a tiny amount of soap onto both sides of the lens --- less than a grain of rice --- then apply water and rub…

> Use a clean microfiber cloth. ANYTHING ELSE will scratch your lenses up. No, it wont. I'm cleaning mine for decades with anything at hand (cotton shirts, napkins, etc) and not a scratch. And of course there's the little fact that microfiber cloth is a recent synthetic thing. People used cotton and linen squares, or chamois leather ones if they felt fancy, to clean their glasses.

but glasses were made of glass, and nowadays most are plastic.