Hi HN, author here! As students facing online instruction, we built ZoomerBackgrounds to solve firsthand the everyday problems of having subpar backgrounds and spoke with several friends working in industry about their background needs. The result is a product we really think you're really going to love. We had a lot of fun making this over the weekend and hope you all enjoy :)<p>For the tech stack we used react on the front end with a Node.js server + Firebase for persistent storage. This was my first time writing Javascript in about 5-6 years and it's really neat to see how the ecosystem has matured - there are even real classes now! We also used the Google Cloud Vision API for detecting inappropriate images.<p>On the database side, we found that Firebase Store works really well until it doesn't -- when you want to do anything that isn't basic reads/writes (e.g. SQL-like IN queries, query pagination, programmatic queries like sorting by the HN ranking algorithm ~ points/(time since post)^(1.5)) the workarounds can get complex and a little weird.<p>One question we had is around AdSense approval! The Google Adsense approval team rejected our website for not having enough meaningful content / not having "valuable inventory" - it would be great to hear some insight about how to show Google we are a real website.<p>Happy to answer any questions here or at logan@mit.edu!
I’m confused why some of these backgrounds are mirrored. You know that when you see your background in Zoom it’s only flipped for <i>your</i> benefit, right? It’s sent to others the normal way round...
I wonder: does anyone know of a solution which does something similar in a more software agnostic way? I imagine a software that takes a webcam manipulates the image and emulates another webcam which one could select then in every software that supports webcams.<p>Does such a thing exist?
This has been my background for as many calls as I can do without it being unprofessional. <a href="https://v.redd.it/84tmrvcuqbs41/DASH_480?source=fallback" rel="nofollow">https://v.redd.it/84tmrvcuqbs41/DASH_480?source=fallback</a>
Here are some Archer backgrounds you could use for Zoom: <a href="https://twitter.com/archerfxx/status/1250472698049785856?s=20" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/archerfxx/status/1250472698049785856?s=2...</a>
I don't recommend these ones :)<p><a href="https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk01RY08kocvtpLMbKjtrOzoB_QJuGQ%3A1587140343993&source=hp&biw=1440&bih=788&ei=99aZXs_sOcHzkwXb3K7oCw&q=optical+illusions" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALeKk01RY08kocv...</a>
<a href="https://pixabay.com/videos/" rel="nofollow">https://pixabay.com/videos/</a> has some great background videos
There's a commercial service for this.[1] Those are backgrounds specifically intended for green screen use, and look reasonably convincing.<p>[1] <a href="https://videogrowthlab.com" rel="nofollow">https://videogrowthlab.com</a>
I've just taken to having something interesting on the wall behind me. I started with the classic, "This is a velociraptor-free workplace."<p>Currently I have a sign that says, "Will code for toilet paper."
If folks want to use video backgrounds, there is a simple way, if your source is on youtube.<p>youtube-dl <video><p>In many cases these days, it will yield a mp4 file that you can plug directly into Zoom. Sometimes it will download in other formats, you might need to convert.
I'm looking for a subtle way to give my coworkers a chuckle without being too distracting, I think it'd be funny to take a picture of my current background and then change it every day but I can't think of a decent way to do it without looking like a nut job.