Hacker News: kilian

New comment by kilian in "Experimenting with Random() in CSS"

kilian — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 13:34:04 +0000

The point isn't showing what they look like, it's that the result is randomized. Screenshots aren't, so that kind of defeats the purpose.

The article starts with instructions on how to actually see and interact with the demos (the easiest is to use https://polypane.app ), as well as a video showing all the demos from the article running in Polypane.

New comment by kilian in "The Xteink X4 E-Ink Reader"

kilian — Thu, 25 Jun 2026 08:11:50 +0000

Apparently the cable to the screen is to blame and the workaround is a piece of tape to block UV light reaching that component: https://www.reddit.com/r/xteinkereader/comments/1qlyq3s/this...

Personally, I've found that just moving the screen out of the sun (for example by turning it upside-down, or holding my hand in front of it) when refreshing a page is enough to prevent it.

Experimenting with Random() in CSS

kilian — Wed, 24 Jun 2026 12:51:21 +0000

Article URL: https://polypane.app/blog/experimenting-with-random-in-css/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48658960

Points: 23

# Comments: 10

New comment by kilian in "iOS 27 is adding a 'Create a Pass' button to Apple Wallet"

kilian — Tue, 05 May 2026 13:47:05 +0000

The wallet app UI is the peak of Apple's 'single 20y/o in sf' design.

Anyone that has multiple card from the same bank (because, say, you have a personal account and a shared account with your partner) has to do the "pick between the two identical looking top 20px of cards" dance every time they use Wallet to pay for something. It is mind-boggling that the current UI persists.

Programming principles for self taught front-end developers

kilian — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 11:41:15 +0000

Article URL: https://piccalil.li/blog/programming-principles-for-self-taught-front-end-developers/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45925887

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Using Chrome-devtools-MCP with Polypane

kilian — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 15:17:43 +0000

Article URL: https://polypane.app/blog/using-chrome-devtools-mcp-with-polypane/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45876779

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by kilian in "Stop Building Products Nobody Wants: The Validation Method That Works"

kilian — Wed, 16 Jul 2025 20:55:28 +0000

Hey, Polypane founder here hoping to get feedback and iterate ;)

Needing to fill in the paperwork for a saas is a PITA. Is there anything I could add to the site or elsewhere that would have made that easier for you?

New comment by kilian in "But what if I want a faster horse?"

kilian — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 13:25:53 +0000

A short, compressed, small video that's edge-cached beats always out a 4K stream, so it even works as a tactic to keep you in that overview longer.

New comment by kilian in "But what if I want a faster horse?"

kilian — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 12:21:29 +0000

This is strongly in tin-foil hat territory but: streaming video costs a lot more money than streaming some JSON to populate a UI. Every minute you spent browsing the catalogue over playing a video is probably a significant costs saving for Netflix.

The WebAIM Million 2025: Solving the most common issues

kilian — Thu, 03 Apr 2025 14:54:34 +0000

Article URL: https://polypane.app/blog/the-web-aim-million-2025-solving-the-most-common-issues/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43570662

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Fri, 28 Mar 2025 11:39:34 +0000

This reasoning misses a very large portion of Polypane, which is that you use it while developing, not just testing. It's a replacement for your time in Chrome/Firefox/Safari, not your time testing across devices (real or through online tooling like Browserstack).

It does however minimise that device testing time. So it all depends on how valuable that time is for you.

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:18:37 +0000

Sure. Chromium is an evergreen browser, which means it's continuously patched and updated in the background. Getting a pinned Chromium version takes quite a lot of work, and really only happens in very specific, controlled environments.

If you happen to work in such an environment you have vastly different considerations from the other 99% of developers building websites and apps on the public facing web.

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 14:10:27 +0000

> It just seems insincere for you to advertise browser features that are built in as features of your app specifically

Sorry but I honestly don't understand this line of reasoning. Advertising a product having a feature in no way means claiming other products do not have the same or similar features.

I could list dozens of things not in Firefox, Chrome or any other browser that Polypane has (and in fact, you list off a few that definitely aren't in Firefox. ) but even so, listing the features a specific product has is the whole point of a marketing website.

Do you also expect Apple to list HP and Acer laptop alongside their Macbooks because those also have screens and keyboards, or otherwise it would be insincere they advertise (on their own marketing website) the screen of a Macbook?

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 09:45:14 +0000

It should be better now, as I made tweaks to the starfield canvas at the top of the page.

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:23:06 +0000

I don’t see how you can come to that conclusion with even a superficial reading of the homepage, unless you count ‘shows web pages’ as ‘almost all features’.

And even then the homepage only lists about 30% of what Polypane does.

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:18:34 +0000

Well that’s embarrassing, thats been there for literal years.

At least the icons are right!

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 06:16:06 +0000

I hired Igalia to work on Chromium recently. Give me a month or two ;)

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 22:13:21 +0000

I explain my reasoning elsewhere in the thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43472234

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 22:09:31 +0000

Those are customers. Just like for example on netlify.com.

I had a title stating that for the longest time, then I noticed nearly all other landing pages simply have it without title and just a clean list of logos, so I changed it to that as well.

New comment by kilian in "Polypane, The browser for ambitious web developers"

kilian — Tue, 25 Mar 2025 17:47:23 +0000

Haha, email me and we’ll see