Best of 2021

The blog posts Hacker News loved most in 2021. 3,497 posts.

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515

A different kind of keyboard

I’ve always been attracted to chording keyboards in theory, but I lack whatever childhood musical training is required to wrap my fingers around them. So I made something else: an arpeggio keyboard. Peggi is an eight-key keyboard that fits on the back of your phone. While chording keyboards require you to press…

528

Signal Adds Cryptocurrency Support

According to Wired, Signal is adding support for the cryptocurrency MobileCoin, “a form of digital cash designed to work efficiently on mobile devices while protecting users’ privacy and even their anonymity.” Moxie Marlinspike, the creator of Signal and CEO of the nonprofit that runs it, describes the new payments…

533

Whatever Happened to UI Affordances?

I am grumpy. As my very clever wife summarised, I hate when designers prioritise their æsthetic preferences over my usability needs. I tried sharing a website using Google Chrome for Android. I hit the share button, and a panel popped-up from the bottom of the screen. Hmmm. It didn't have the share destination that I…