Hacker News: _bramses

Use Claude to Annotate Handwriting and Photos on iPhone

_bramses — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 06:59:03 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/bramses/Brams-Bounding-App/tree/main

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47714527

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Show HN: A Question and Annotation Driven Parallel Reading App

_bramses — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 18:05:17 +0000

I run a book club where the club members read 60 books a year (https://www.sixtybooksayear.com/). When reading at a pace of ~5 books/month, there are skills you develop to increase your storage of concepts from any given book, but also your ability to synthesize ideas across books.

I've compiled some of my best working knowledge into this app on how to become a serious reader. Bram's Reading App will help you: (1) set questions you want answered before you even pick up a book [Questions Over Completion], (2) answer those questions as you read with deliberate annotations [Commonbase], and (3) learn to read and manage multiple books at the same time [Discursive Reading].

Other Features include: Widgets and Control Center Shortcuts, Save from Share Sheet, Configurable Per Book Reading Notifications, Vector Embedded Annotations Across Books, Reading Sessions with Live Timers, A Tactile Progress Wheel, Nested Commentary, Full Text Search, Quiz Mode (next release), Micro Essay Builder (future release)

I hope you enjoy, and let me know if you have any great tips about being well read!

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47091493

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by _bramses in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (February 2026)"

_bramses — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 04:55:28 +0000

Im working on a number of projects at once that are all under the umbrellas of: personal library science, booktech, and qualitative improvements to personal life [1]. Notable mentions:

- Life’s Articles, a personal Wikipedia

- Counting Worms, a very fast calorie tracker

- BookTalk, a audio based reading companion for capturing annotations

- Kindle Blocker, a Chrome Extension that earns you minutes on websites by reading with the Kindle app

[1] https://www.bramadams.dev/working-software/

BookTalk: A Reading Companion That Captures Your Voice

_bramses — Sat, 07 Feb 2026 15:54:59 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/bramses/BookTalk

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46924808

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by _bramses in "Track Your Routine – Open-source app for task management"

_bramses — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 17:38:58 +0000

I'm not OP, but heres how I connect Claude Code [1] to Linear MCP [2]. This allows CC to run a natural language type standup with your tasks when you type "standup". Other than that, I use Linear basically in the way they make it, using Projects to track long term initiatives and trying to honor my "in progress" list.

[1] - https://gist.github.com/bramses/d59fb1659ec53fda9ec33f60200f...

[2] - https://linear.app/integrations/claude

New comment by _bramses in "Ask HN: Share your personal website"

_bramses — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 18:44:24 +0000

https://www.bramadams.dev/

my pride and joy with many easter eggs, including:

- random post surfacing

- animated book progress html [1]

- creative code [2]

- code poetry [3]

and much more!!

1 - https://www.bramadams.dev/book-progress-1-11-26/

2 - https://www.bramadams.dev/202308081300/

3 - https://www.bramadams.dev/202306131131/

Swote: Swipe (or drag) Up Quotes from Books

_bramses — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 15:39:31 +0000

Article URL: https://swote.vercel.app/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46589891

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by _bramses in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)"

_bramses — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 03:50:52 +0000

I’m kicking off my 2026 book club! It’s probably a bit different from book clubs you’re familiar with.

Each of us is reading sixty books over 2026, five a month, where every book is self selected by each member.

It’s small, six people, all brought in by application only.

You can check out our shared bookshelf here! (Heavy inspiration from Stripe Press)

https://bookshelf-bookclub.vercel.app/book/cmj4pfpom001gqsbj...

(swipe left/right on mobile, up/down arrows on pc :))

My Working Thoughts

_bramses — Sun, 07 Dec 2025 07:22:03 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bramadams.dev/working-thoughts/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46179878

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by _bramses in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"

_bramses — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 11:53:56 +0000

Pretty easily doable by reading multiple books at the same time! Averages out to ~50 pages a day.

The trick is to always keep the book queue filled, so long books that take a while coexist for a while with a number of shorter length ones

New comment by _bramses in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"

_bramses — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 05:57:47 +0000

I’m starting a book club!

- Sixty books a year (five books a month)

- Self Chosen Books (no forced reading)

- Two recorded Salon style meetings monthly

- Bespoke software for the group including: shared embedding graph of highlights and annotations, IRC chat with @ for members and books and authors, collective bookshelf

- Six members max

Learn more here if interested!

https://www.bramadams.dev/sixty-book-club/

Sixty Books a Year Book Club

_bramses — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 16:54:18 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bramadams.dev/sixty-book-club/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45749590

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

My Five Favorite Inventions

_bramses — Sat, 27 Sep 2025 21:12:15 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bramadams.dev/my-five-favorite-inventions/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45399337

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by _bramses in "We can’t circumvent the work needed to train our minds"

_bramses — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 20:57:35 +0000

A lot of good ideas in this comment section.

I’ll say this: between store, search, synthesize and share, store and synthesize are consistently the most difficult to nail down.

A society that wishes to succeed in creating an activated and knowledgeable populous should be interested in how to train people to notice better, and to create insightful follows.

In the words of David Deutsch (paraphrasing): knowledge consists of conjecture and error correction

New comment by _bramses in "I Was Wrong About Mobile"

_bramses — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 03:15:26 +0000

Curious as to why you think so? The goal was to discuss my incorrect assumption of the mobile form factor for my software, but how did it read to you?

I Was Wrong About Mobile

_bramses — Thu, 07 Aug 2025 02:17:23 +0000

Article URL: https://your-commonbase.beehiiv.com/p/i-was-wrong-about-mobile-dbcc

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44819906

Points: 1

# Comments: 2

We Traded Fun for Practicality

_bramses — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 20:50:20 +0000

Article URL: https://your-commonbase.beehiiv.com/p/we-traded-fun-for-practicality

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44514606

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Show HN: The Commonbase Data Structure

_bramses — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 20:19:37 +0000

Article URL: https://github.com/your-commonbase/architecture

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44407842

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

Software is about promises

_bramses — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 00:04:28 +0000

Article URL: https://www.bramadams.dev/software-is-about-promises/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44220287

Points: 90

# Comments: 22

New comment by _bramses in "Embeddings are underrated (2024)"

_bramses — Mon, 12 May 2025 21:47:12 +0000

> Discoveryness. Even if the needed content exists, it’s hard to guarantee that users will find it.

I'm curious as to what you'll think of the UX layer I applied to embeddings for public perusal. I call it "semantic scrolling" since it's not searching exactly, but moving through the cluster by using

as a tree.

[1] is a single starting point (press the animated arrow to "wiki-hole") and [2] is the entire collection (books, movies, music, animations, etc.)

[1] - https://www.sharecommonbase.com/synthesize/1009?id=1009 [2] - https://www.sharecommonbase.com/