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Can your terminal do emojis? How big?
Emojis are great. They're particularly useful to put in the output of scripts and get some eye catching output. At least provided they aren't overused, just like colour.
Topics /
Tools & Productivity
The most popular blog posts about tools & productivity on Hacker News. 404 posts.
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Dear GitHub: no YAML anchors, please
This was a good thing . YAML anchors in GitHub Actions are (1) redundant with existing functionality, (2) introduce a complication to the data model that makes CI/CD human and machine comprehension harder, and (3) are not even uniquely useful because GitHub has chosen not to support the one feature (merge keys) that…
273
Text case changes the size of QR codes
Changing the case of text can change the size of the corresponding QR code. This is one of the reasons Bitcoin moved from Base58 to bech32 encoding.
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Using an $8 smart outlet to avoid brainrot
I wrote a small script that runs in the background, polling for the state of an $8 smart plug .
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Little Snitch feature nobody knows about
Little Snitch by Objective Development is the first app that I install on a new Mac. In fact I just bought a new Mac, an M4 MacBook Pro with nano-texture display, and I installed Little Snitch via thumb drive even before connecting the Mac to the internet. While setting up my new Mac, which came with macOS 15.2…
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Tools I love: mise(-en-place)
Once in a while you get introduced to a tool that instantly changes the way you work. For me, mise is one of those tools.
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Writing a Gimp 3.0 Plugin
GIMP 3.0 is almost out, and I'm thrilled. Not only will this version bring new features and improvements, but it finally modernizes the technology stack in two important ways:
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Software Development at 800 Words per Minute
How I develop software at 800 words per minute with a screen reader
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Magit Is Amazing
I was reading a post about Jujutsu version control system the other day and that just made me realize how awesome is Magit!
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Editing Code in Emacs
When you write code, you want to focus on the code, not on the text of the code. This means a) you have to have a good text editing setup, and b) you need to have a muscle-memory level instinct for using that setup. The second comes with practice and with consistency (i.e. not changing your config too much too…
282
I was wrong about robots.txt
Recently, I wrote an article about my journey in learning about robots.txt and its implications on the data rights in regards to what I write in my blog. I was confident that I wanted to ban all the crawlers from my website. Turned out there was an unintended consequence that I did not account for. My LinkedIn posts…
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Checklists are hard, but still a good thing
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
285
Monitoring My Homelab, Simply
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that they’re essential for large fleets of services with fast-changing software and teams of oncallers working around the clock to understand the complex ways that complex systems fail… but my stuff doesn’t change that often, failures are mundane and low-scope, and I’m the only person…
286
Using a laptop as an HDMI monitor for an SBC
Though I spend the majority of my time working with microcontroller class devices, I also have an embarassingly robust collection of single board computers (SBC), including a few different Raspberry Pi models, the BeagleV Starlight Beta (RIP), and more. Typically when setting up these devices for whatever automation…
287
Which NPM package has the largest version number?
I spent way too much time on this
288
Using LLMs and Cursor to finish side projects
Struggling to finish side projects due to limited time? In my latest blog post, I share how I improved my productivity using AI tools like LLMs and Cursor IDE. Learn to refine specs, bootstrap code, and iterate effectively to rapidly build and deploy your projects—even with a busy schedule.
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Building a Knowledge System That Enhances Rather Than Replaces Thought
Preserving and augmenting human insight in an age of automated knowledge with Zettelgarden
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Getting decent error reports in Bash when you're using 'set -e'
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
291
How to Install Windows NT 4 Server on Proxmox
Should I host my blog on here?
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Customize Nano Text Editor (2022)
DevOps Engineer and Full-Stack Developer with 4+ years of experience in cloud infrastructure, CI/CD, and scalable web applications.
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How to tame a user interface using a spreadsheet
Many years ago, while working at Apple and running a lab at WWDC, I met a guy who was using a piece of Apple software designed for creating interactive ads t...
295
I've been loving Claude Code on the web
It’s very much a “v1” product. You type a prompt to start a new thread, it launches a little container for your agent to work in, and you can keep talking to it. It produces a branch, which you can open a PR for (that’s the only way to see a diff of the changes Claude Code made, for now). Or if you want to keep…
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AI tools I wish existed
The models are powerful as is. But where are the tools?
297
Perfetto: Swiss army knife for Linux client tracing
How Linux kernel, systems and embedded developers can use Perfetto for debugging performance issues.
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Raspberry Pi Pico audio player
A weblog about technology including Arduino, Raspberry, Attiny, 3D printing, Electronics, tinkering and all kinds of diy projects.
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What's New in Emacs 30.1?
What is new in Emacs 30.1? I go through every change in the NEWS file and talk about the most interesting and useful changes.