• Open secrets about Hacker News

    18 Feb 2021
    I spent a few days examining the mechanics of Hacker News (HN) and I discovered some open secrets. “Open” because they’re not private. “Secret” because they’re not well known. One of them can triple the chances of a story reaching the front page. They are listed below with a …
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  • My go-to tool for reading long JSON snippets

    10 Feb 2021
    My go-to tool for reading long JSON snippets
    JSON is ubiquitous and I often run into it whilst developing or debugging. When it’s in raw form like this … it’s hard for a human to interpret. For small snippets, I could copy-and-paste it into a text file and hand-prettify it. For long snippets, that’s obviously not scalable. I stumbled upon …
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  • A recipe for recreating the functionality of Web SQL

    9 Feb 2021
    Firstly, let’s step back briefly in history. Web SQL was a way for javascript (and web apps) to use a relational database (specifically, sqlite) that was stored in the web browser (ie. client side). It was popular amongst front-end developers for a while as it was a convenient and powerful method for storing and …
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  • App Startup vs Content Startup

    7 Feb 2021
    Here is something that occurred to me recently. It’s not a law or anything, but just a thought-provoking observation. I find it interesting, and maybe it’s useful as a tool in thinking about startups. Most startups are either an app startup or a content startup. What do I mean? Let’s back up a bit and …
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  • A New Beginning

    2 Feb 2021
    This blog represents a new beginning and I’m both excited and trepidatious. You see, I’ve considered blogging at one time or another over the last 15-20 years, but I’ve always been too busy with more important or fun ‘stuff’. Everytime I think about it, it sounds like a great idea … …
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