Hacker News: brainbag

New comment by brainbag in "Why the Sanitizer API is just `setHTML()`"

brainbag — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 17:14:47 +0000

With context, this article is more interesting than the title might imply.

> The Sanitizer API is a proposed new browser API to bring a safe and easy-to-use capability to sanitize HTML into the web platform [and] is currently being incubated in the Sanitizer API WICG, with the goal of bringing this to the WHATWG.

Which would replace the need for sanitizing user-entered content with libraries like DOMPurify by having it built into the browser's API.

The proposed specification has additional information: https://github.com/WICG/sanitizer-api/

New comment by brainbag in "Show HN: FlashSpace – fast, open-source, macOS Spaces replacement"

brainbag — Sun, 09 Feb 2025 05:50:45 +0000

I've been using Choosy.app for easily managing different browsers for work and personal (and testing), and it works great. You set it to your default browser, and then anytime something opens a browser it pops up a picker. Lots of global and per-site configuration options like browser profile selection, private windows, etc.

New comment by brainbag in "AI isn't going to kill the software industry"

brainbag — Fri, 24 Jan 2025 04:44:18 +0000

Would you say more about your experience writing it in Rust? It worked well, what didn't, anywhere you found that you struggled unexpectedly or that was easier than you expected?

New comment by brainbag in "Allstate used GasBuddy and other apps to track driving behavior: lawsuit"

brainbag — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:36:03 +0000

Even in the flood of terrible news about privacy and other things, this exposé stands out as especially disturbing. I was considering getting a new electric car to replace my combustion, but now I'm going to stretch it for as long as I can instead.

New comment by brainbag in "Mastering Ruby debugging: From puts to professional tools"

brainbag — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 14:50:57 +0000

pry is what I miss most when using other languages. I've used all kinds of debuggers all kinds of hardware with many different languages, and pry is by far the best tool for development and debugging. People talk about the REPL in Lisp for good reason, but pry takes that concept to infinity and beyond. When I think about the future of AI assisted programming, it's something much more like the pry interactive development loop than a code editor's suggestions.

New comment by brainbag in "Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter?"

brainbag — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 12:04:24 +0000

Reminds me of the story of the kids in Ethiopian village that were given tablets by One Laptop Per Child. The kids had figured out how to turn it on within minutes, in five days they were using 47 apps per child, in two weeks they were singing the English alphabet, and then within five months they had hacked Android. https://www.theregister.com/2012/11/01/kids_learn_hacking_an...

New comment by brainbag in "Are there individual protons and neutrons in a nucleus?"

brainbag — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 12:48:19 +0000

You do a great job explaining these concepts, better than most. I have appreciated all of your replies in this post. Do you have a blog or podcast or teach somewhere? I would tune in.

New comment by brainbag in "Five Most Productive Years: What Happened and What's Next"

brainbag — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 22:14:11 +0000

I like this take. I'd be interested to hear more what you gained from studying them. What ways do you model your companies after Valve and Wolfram?

New comment by brainbag in "Affinity six-month free trial"

brainbag — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 13:09:09 +0000

Has anyone found or made a great set of tutorials for "Affinity for Photoshop Experts"? I've been using Photoshop for more than 30 years (now Photopea), and I don't think I've ever felt more like an alien than the two times I've tried in earnest to learn Affinity tools. A six month trial could be generous enough for me assimilate.

New comment by brainbag in "Mozilla Builders Accelerator 2024"

brainbag — Wed, 05 Jun 2024 12:06:50 +0000

Thanks for this link. Firefox has been getting worse for me stability-wise on my Mac M1, even with tab discarding it consumes huge amounts of power, and at least two or three times a day it will just stop loading webpages and show errors in the network tab and need to be restarted. I spend a couple of hours every few weeks trying to track down the issues and Firefox and even in the bug tracker can't find answers.

I also have a bizarre problem where any Chromium-based browser (Chrome, Brave, Edge) are extremely slow to load any page since upgrading to Sonoma, where Firefox or Safari are near-instant - like taking 60 seconds to even start DNS lookup. After a couple of minutes it will eventually fully load a page. I've seen other people mention the same issue online, but no fixes. I have spent hours trying to debug and track down problems for that too.

It's discouraging how much it feels like every software tool I use on every device has gone to shit, especially things as fundamental as a web browser.

New comment by brainbag in "The Guide to Git I Never Had"

brainbag — Sun, 05 May 2024 12:54:37 +0000

I've also taught git to dozens of beginners in a classroom setting, and I have to agree that the OP and GP articles aren't great for beginners, even if they have a technical background. The problem I have with git media is that everybody begins by teaching git's user interface, which is a usability disaster. On the other hand, the internals of git are elegant and simple, and if you start by teaching from the inside out, it makes it far easier to understand why and when we use certain commands.

The video you mentioned, "Git For Ages 4 And Up" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m7BgIvC-uQ, is the best resource for explaining how it works internally, once they have a rudimentary understanding of what git is and why we use it. Watching this video makes future explanations way more digestible. I still sometimes conceptualize difficult git operations in tinker toys.

I highly recommend it even to experienced people.

New comment by brainbag in "From Pomona to Oakland, a skater mapped California block by block from his board"

brainbag — Sun, 28 Apr 2024 19:53:13 +0000

That's what I was expecting too. I was excited to see some kind of topographic map, or an open web map with pins for particularly good skating areas, etc. Could be a cool project.

New comment by brainbag in "Ask HN: Daily practices for building AI/ML skills?"

brainbag — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 11:01:39 +0000

Do you have any recommended resources on those topics? I'm coming from a strong ~30 year software engineering background which has been excellent, until now, as ML requires a completely different background. I'm trying to decide if I should start a new game+ with academic background, or get some expansion packs with what I already know and move into ML that way. I've found plenty of resources for the former and practically nothing for the latter.

New comment by brainbag in "AI’s big rift is like a religious schism"

brainbag — Wed, 13 Dec 2023 01:08:35 +0000

I remember a sci-fi book where they were talking about one of the characters hacking on thousand-year-old code, but I could never remember what book it was from. Maybe this was it and it's time for a reread.

New comment by brainbag in "Ask HN: Best UI design courses for hackers?"

brainbag — Sun, 10 Dec 2023 16:28:55 +0000

I am a longtime developer but I'm passionate about design and UX. I'm always on the lookout for materials that I can give my team and other developers to help them get better at design. It's not a course, but "The Non-Designer's Design Book" (ISBN 978-0133966152, Robin Williams) is the best material for design fundamentals I've found. It's very approachable for anyone and it's broadly applicable across all kinds of design. Everyone I have convinced to read it has loved it, and I've seen an improvement in output and understanding. I highly recommend this if you have an interest in design.

Refactoring UI is also valuable and can be impactful, though it's heavily web focused and is more like a Web Component Design Cookbook rather than foundational knowledge.

New comment by brainbag in "High blood pressure may contribute to cognitive decline"

brainbag — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 03:08:46 +0000

Do you have any more information about this? It would explain the challenge I've been experiencing as I enter my early 40s with a family history of hypertension; my blood pressure has been going up, which makes sense, but my ADHD has also been getting harder to manage, which doesn't.

New comment by brainbag in "Cicadas are so loud, fiber optic cables can ‘hear’ them"

brainbag — Sun, 03 Dec 2023 02:33:06 +0000

I enjoy the sound of crickets and cicadas (which are much louder) except for the one particular kind of cicadas we get occasionally in Texas that make a singular unwavering high pitched ambient buzzing sound, like the whine of an old tv cranked to 11, coming from everywhere. It's a horribly unpleasant sound, but thankfully they don't stick around long. The other cicada sounds are nice.

New comment by brainbag in "MonadGPT – What would have happened if ChatGPT was invented in the 17th century?"

brainbag — Sun, 26 Nov 2023 00:48:31 +0000

The book Accelerando by Charles Stross has some bits about this and many other oddly prescient recent technology.

New comment by brainbag in "Is my toddler a stochastic parrot?"

brainbag — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 21:37:59 +0000

I had heard about this before my son was born. We didn't try to teach him anything, anytime we remembered (which was sporadic) we just used the gestures when talking to him. I was amazed at how quickly he picked up on it, and he was able to communicate his needs to us months before he was able to verbalize.

It took very minimal effort on our part, and was very rewarding for him; certainly a lot better than him crying with the hope that we could guess what he wanted. Definitely recommended for any new parents.

The best moment was when he was sitting on the floor, and looked up at his mom and made the "together" sign, it was heart melting.

New comment by brainbag in "I accidentally a scheme"

brainbag — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 12:57:55 +0000

Until I read all the way down here to the bottom of the comment thread, I was thinking about the older people who didn't get this reference since I've been hearing it for decades. But now I see, thanks to your comment, that it is I that is the old one, and it's the youngsters that don't know it.