Lobster Roll

Stories by freetonik

Experimental search engine for developers (quickref.dev)
Hi all, I put together an experimental search engine for developers: quickref. Features: - index is a community-curated subset of the web - can filter between docs/forums/QAs/blogs/repos - explicit by default - custom helper cards and bangs I am not sure this is a viable thing, curious ...
How do you do, fellow web developers? A growing disconnect (rakhim.exotext.com)
How many links overlap between Lobste.rs and HN? (lobhn.skyshelf.app)
Often, there are the same links on the front pages of Lobste.rs and Hacker News. I was curious how many, actually? This small web app fetches the links from both sites (ignoring non-link "stories"), and shows the statistics and listings. Updates every 10 minutes.
Software disenchantment (tonsky.me)
Is it ok (ethical) to scrape and display full-page content when blog author did not include in it RSS?
Hi everyone, I'm seeking advice and opinions. I'm building a web-based RSS reader/search engine/discovery tool. Like any RSS reader, my app fetches content from feeds and displays it to subscribers. Often, blog authors include only a short summary to the RSS, and the user has to visit the blog w...
I made a little puzzle game about a rogue chess knight (rakhim.exotext.com)
Thought to share this simple game I made last ~~k~~night; it turned out to be pretty addictive (for me, at least). Also discovered that native HTML audio elements play with bad delay in Safari, and found people complaining about this for years. Switched to [soundjs](https://createjs.com/soundjs) and...
We shouldn't let people get used to the idea that software fails (rakhim.org)
Podcasting is not walled (yet) (rakhim.org)
Grumpy Website: Showcase of bad UX (grumpy.website)
We are three guys who notice annoying and bad UX solutions everywhere. So we decided to write about it. (The engine is written in Clojure, btw https://github.com/tonsky/grumpy)
Local web-based notes app inspired by "One Big Text File" with webpage downloads (github.com)
I really like the idea of "One Big Text File" ([old Lobste.rs discussion](https://lobste.rs/s/ettc1n/my_productivity_app_is_single_txt_file)) as a simple productivity tool. So I made a very simple UI on top of a single `notes.md` file with a few features: - Notes are rendered on a HTML page, serv...
Products aren't for people yet (hello.rakh.im)
EmacsCast: podcast about Emacs from beginner's point of view (emacscast.org)
Hi all, I'm not sure if this is okay to post, but I've seen links to other podcasts from time to time... I started learning Emacs a few months ago, and decided to document my exploration in the form of audio podcast. One might think that audio is not the best medium to discuss a software p...
Very simple fast static blog generator (github.com)
Designing good DSL (tonsky.me)
Zeal: REPL meets Clipboard Manager (notion.so)
A Broken Heart (allenpike.com)
Systems Ideas that Sound Good But Almost Never Work—"Let's just…" (hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com)
Utilizing highly synchronized clocks in distributed databases (muratbuffalo.blogspot.com)
Problem Driven Development (staysaasy.com)
Castlemacs: modern, minimalist Emacs for macOS (github.com)
Interface is evil (artgorbunov.ru)
Advanced Self-Aware ed(1) (aartaka.me)
The rule of least client-side complexity (rubenerd.com)
Full-stack quantum computing, from hardware to compilers and algorithms (youtube.com)
I gave this talk at PyCon Estonia recently, and thought it may be interesting to someone here. It's an overview of what quantum computing is in principle, how a particular technology (superconducting QC) attempts to implement it, how the full stack looks like (from chip fabrication to high-level alg...
How Does C Code Become Assembly (xta0.me)
Filter, Map, Reduce explained in less than 2 minutes (youtube.com)
Hi all, I had this idea of explaining filter/map/reduce with fruits and graders for a while, and last week finally filmed it. The quality isn't that great, but I still wonder if this could be helpful to beginners. The idea is not to explain these things from scratch, but rather provide a mental i...
Repodig: determine maintainability and development pace of gh repos (repodig.com)
Hi all, Often I'm not sure if a particular open source project (especially a library I want to add as a dependency) is maintained well enough. So I created this small analyzer.
Yet another strange job scheduler bug (iafisher.com)
The Einstein AI model (why AI won't bring a "compressed 21st century") (thomwolf.io)
Real-time chess (youtube.com)