Phil Gyford
gyford.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Phil Gyford, a UK developer and writer, blogs about the web, software, photography and personal tech history.
What HN saysHN links his posts on the 'our incredible journey' shutdown cliché, a beginner's guide, and his search for Lightroom alternatives.
32HN people shared it
13linked it in comments
22stories submitted
128story points
3 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1My First Months in Cyberspace4 people · 7 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 2Our Incredible Journey4 people · 3 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 3Tech's tunnel vision2 people · 5 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 4A beginners guid2 people · first shared 2009
- 5Our incredible journey2 people · first shared 2020
- 6No Longer Posting to Pinboard1 people · 51 points · first shared 2025 · 86 comments on HN
- 7Face.com closes its API after Facebook purchase1 people · 30 points · first shared 2012 · 10 comments on HN
- 8Pen v keyboard v Newton v Graffiti v Treo v iPhone1 people · 7 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 9Is modern web design too like print design?1 people · 6 points · first shared 2009 · 2 comments on HN
- 10The thinking behind a UI for reading a newspaper on the web1 people · 6 points · first shared 2010 · 3 comments on HN
- 11Temporary archiving1 people · 3 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 12Twelescreen1 people · 2 points · first shared 2013 · discussion on HN
- 13Moving from Lightroom to Apple Photos1 people · 2 points · first shared 2025 · discussion on HN
- 14Novels Written and Illustrated by an “AI”1 people · 1 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 15About 'Today's Guardian' (2010)1 people · 1 points · first shared 2024 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
felixthehat · 2025-10-02
Phil Gyford just posted about "Trying out eight macOS alternatives to Lightroom Classic to see if I could switch to one of them." which covers some of those points
https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2025/09/27/escaping-lightroom/
ceejayoz · 2020-11-10
I'm referring to the trite overused cliches that often fill these sorts of blog posts.
https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2013/02/27/our-incredible-journey/
See also the recent example of https://www.slingbox.com/discontinued, which makes this funny pair of claims:
Q: Why is Slingbox being discontinued?
A: We’ve had to make room for new innovative products so that we can continue to serve our customers in the best way possible.
Q: Will Slingbox be releasing any new products?
A: No.
tptacek · 2009-09-28
I liked it. Another good one:
http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2006/10/26/a_beginners_guid.php
The only thing that jumped out at me about Jacques guide was the insurance section. In the US, plan on acquiring liability insurance, and plan on that process annoying the shit out of you. If you work for clients of any real size, it will inevitably be a requirement at some point. You don't want to be scrambling for it at the last minute.
Also, I disagree with the recommendation of lowballing your prices to start. The cardinal rule of selling things to businesses: they're not spending their own money. Pricing is more about sending signals in corp-corp transactions than it is about utility or pain or emotions. When you come in at 60% of the prevailing rate, you're sending a dubious signal.
"Gift to HN" was very smart marketing, jacques.
fuzztester · 2025-09-03
It's not only a meme, it's a Tumblog too, and I first saw it many years ago.
Google "our incredible journey".
https://www.google.com/search?q=our+incredible+journey
https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2013/02/27/our-incredible-journey/
https://www.tumblr.com/ourincrediblejourney
Philpax · 2025-02-12
Seems unlikely that someone with this profile [0] would be an oligarch booster. It seems more likely that it's about Maciej's slow rightwards shift [1].
[0] https://www.gyford.com/phil/about/
[1] https://bsky.app/profile/anildash.com/post/3lhkkre2h422z
dionidium · 2022-01-02
The urge to build a shed seems to be pretty common. I've been thinking about it for a couple years now. As David Lynch said, "whenever you can build a shed, you’ve got it made."
https://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/08/18/david-lynch-on-s/
kickscondor · 2020-01-01
Oh thank you and yes, link blogs - the biggest one for me right now is at imperica.com. The weekly 'web curios' roundup. I link this one a lot, so apologies if you've seen it already. (And I'm sure you mean Waxy in the 'usual' ones, right?)
I've also linked to these quite a lot, but hey:
* https://philosopher.life/ (see his 'link log' pages)
* https://www.gyford.com/
* http://tilde.club/~jonbell/
* https://thingstoclick.com
* http://fimoculous.com/recs/
The Internet is lacking good linkblogs - people don't run them nearly as much.
DonHopkins · 2016-11-03
>Soon, you’ll begin spending more time sharing stories with other founders to learn about their journeys than you spend talking to your customers and your prospects to learn about their needs.
Is it even still possible to use the word "journey" in this context without it dripping with snarky ironic reference to "Our Incredible Journey" [1], with the obvious implication that a start-up is doomed to sell out and shut down and screw all their customers? That the actual "journey" being taken is the wild goose chase of the unwitting customers being led down the garden path? [2]
[1] https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
[2] http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2013/02/27/our-incredible-journey.p…
to3m · 2014-03-26
See, for example: http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2013/02/27/our-incredible-journey.p…
DTrejo · 2010-04-29
For anyone who saw that the fuzzy link in the article was broken:
http://www.ai.uga.edu/mc/WriteThinkLearn.pdf (I think this is right)
and here is the wayback machine bookmarklet to make your life easier :)
http://www.gyford.com/misc/wayback.html
illumen · 2009-05-20
Definitely! $5k can last a year in india. Just freelance for your existing clients and live like a king for a year... on 1-2 jobs.
Only 7-25% of Americans own a passport... so I doubt that many people would actually do it.
http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01/31/how_many_america.php
Would be quite an adventure though... :)
My job was outsourced FROM India. So living there is just the next step I guess.
rcarr · 2023-01-26
Some good resources for finding blogs:
https://ooh.directory/
https://bearblog.dev/discover/
https://blogroll.org/
https://www.gyford.com/phil/blogroll/
https://interconnected.org/home/blogroll