I struggled with whether I should share this, but then decided: why not? At the very least, I’ve tried to be security conscious and transparent. The big takeaway is that I built something that, from what I can tell, works and it even has some basic privacy considerations built in.
So here it is: the Yo‑Yo Map, where throwers can show their general location and help identify pockets of yo‑yoers close enough for meetups and events.
The focus was honestly very Mid‑Atlantic / East Coast US, and the platform is very slow because I went with the “everything is free and low‑resource” approach to deploying a web app. However, technically the platform should be globally available, and it’s GDPR‑compliant, regionally compliant, and COPPA‑compliant.
It does tie back to the DMV Throwers main website because it’s easier to keep everything linked and living together.
As with any silly project I do, I’m as transparent as possible; so the GitHub repo is public. You’re welcome to submit a PR if you have a tweak you’re interested in adding (pending my review). All the details, including how it’s hosted and built, are there… plus some junk I need to clean up, but I’m too lazy to do that right now because it’ll break stuff.
If anyone has suggestions, questions, or concerns, feel free to message me, drop them here, or complain on the GitHub repo itself. You don’t have to be technical; feel free to share an idea even if you have no clue how it could be implemented.
Note: I’m not a developer. I had to use Claude to integrate the map because while I can build a basic website, do a little self‑taught Node.js, set up a database, handle hosting, and configure DNS, once it got to “make this map function actually work,” I was spinning my wheels.
Also, feature updates won’t be instant especially if it’s a request without a clear implementation path. It might take me a while to figure it out.
The only thing I won’t give you are the environment variables for the various API keys, which I had to rotate today out of an abundance of caution after @omissionfromgod forwarded me a security bulletin for my hosting platform. (My cybersecurity senses must be off because they weren’t tingling.) Either way, that’s posted on the site now and already addressed, but feel free to read it if you want:
V2 features I’m hoping to eventually add:
• Build a naughty‑word filter to keep people from adding garbage
• Optimize the database so entries load faster
• Optimize the codebase so the page is less sluggish
• Create a club overlay + submission feature so folks can find a club near them
• Create a yo‑yo store overlay + submission feature so folks can find in‑person shops
• Retire from IT and somehow live off yo‑yos and never look at a system security plan again (yeah, right)
Enjoy it, roast it, whatever — I’m good either way.