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Five Minute Journal – Daily Journal Techniques and Tips
A quick daily practice with prompts for gratitude, intentions, and reflection. I've always struggled to journal consistently by opening a blank page and…
Topics /
Tools & Productivity
The most popular blog posts about tools & productivity on Hacker News. 4,415 posts.
1712
At the end you use `git bisect`
People rant about having to learn algorithmic questions for interviews. I get it — interview system is broken, but you ought to learn binary search at least.
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This is how I git
Every now and then I get questions on how to work with git in a smooth way when developing, bug-fixing or extending curl - or how I do it. After all, I work on open source full time which means I have very frequent interactions with git (and GitHub). Simply put, I work with git … Continue reading This is how I git →
1715
Explaining Code Using ASCII Art
I’ve done plenty of these, when I wanted to switch half my brain off but still do something time-consuming and fiddly, but still kind of productive. Very therapeutic!
1716
The Mac App Store Needs Paid Upgrades
The Mac App Store has been a huge boon to Mac software developers, but has an enormous flaw: it needs to allow developers to charge existing...
1717
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iDOS 3 Rejected by Apple
Earlier quite a few iDOS users and supporters reached out to me to let me know about the recent AppStore policy change (Thanks, EU). In light of this, I decided to resubmit iDOS. However, it looks like Apple has blacklisted iDOS 2, preventing me from even requesting a review under that title, and I had to submit under…
1719
Comparing Hobby PCB Vendors
An not-for-profit roundup of affordable PCB manufacturers. Originally published in 2023 and last updated January 2026.
1720
Node.js Tools for Visual Studio
Just when you thought it couldn't be crazier in Redmond, today they are ...
1721
Better Models: Worse Tools
About an aggravating tool-calling regression in newer Claude models.
1722
A Love Letter to Tinkerable Software
I work in product growth helping people discover and use great software, currently at SurveyMonkey. In the past I've done it at Prismatic (acq. by LinkedIn), Clara Lending (acq. by Sofi), Right Side Up, Hubstaff. I've also enjoyed consulting with interesting companies like DoorDash, Empower, StitchFix, Calm, Dell…
1723
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Obsidian-Copilot: A Prototype Assistant for Writing and Thinking
Writing drafts via retrieval-augmented generation. Also reflecting on the week's journal entries.
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1726
How Compiler Explorer Works in 2025
How we handle 92 million compilations a year without everything catching fire
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Unable to open links in Safari, Mail or Messages on iOS 9.3
Update Five 11:44 March 29/03/2016: I've posted a shorter fix - here's how to fix it with an iTunes sync and Airplane mode! Update Four 11:10 March 29/03/2016: there's a fix! There are a lot of steps, but if you really want to get back in action Wojtek Pietrusiewicz has a fix. Apparently he spent four hours getting it…
1729
Hand Drawn QR Codes (2025)
I really like QR codes. Recently I purchased a new sticky-note-like pad from a new local stationery store in Minneapolis. The sheets have a 10x10 grid and 2x10 grid. I knew what I wanted to...
1730
You can legally get and run WordPerfect for free
In fact, there are two free versions: one for Classic MacOS, made freeware when WordPerfect discontinued Mac support, and a native Linux version, for which Corel offered a free, fully-working, demo version. But there is a catch of course: theyre both very old and hard to run on a…
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CSS Reminification: A crazy idea that worked
CSS Remynification: A completely crazy idea that worked -- Remy Luisant's whimsical take on squishy computing science things
1733
Writing my own text editor, and daily-driving it
A programmer's text editor is their castle
1734
Install OS X 10.10 Yosemite in VirtualBox
A nice blog
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Writing like a pro with Vale and Neovim
Learn how to setup and use vale, a syntax-aware prose linter with neovim for technical writing be it personal blogs or technical documentation.
1737
Cryptic Rumblings Ahead of First 2020 Patch Tuesday
Sources tell KrebsOnSecurity that Microsoft Corp. is slated to release a software update on Tuesday to fix an extraordinarily serious security vulnerability in a core cryptographic component present in all versions of Windows . Those sources say Microsoft has quietly shipped a patch for the bug to branches of the U.S…
1738
How to Write an Opening Sentence
Bioinformatics, genomics, and Javascript
1739
Socat – A utility for data transfer between two addresses (2018)
I learned about socat a few years ago and am generally surprised more developers don’t know about it. Maybe I appreciate it all the more…
1740
Don't link to line numbers in GitHub
Today I saw a co-worker take a link from a specific line number in our team’s github repository and place it in the comments section of a user story. This is very helpful for those who need to see a quick reference to the code that could be causing a defect, but it’s wrong . Here’s what you need to do instead.