Idle Words

https://pinboard.in/ It's run by idlewords here on HN, who also gives great talks and writes on https://idlewords.com/

Maciej is an outstanding writer. I recommend reading his blog (https://idlewords.com/) if you haven't already.

Idlewords https://idlewords.com/ - Maciej Ceglowski of Pinboard's blog. His essays are always worth reading

You should read some of the greatest hits form his blog: https://idlewords.com/ - an excellent writer indeed.

You're right, but it's also true that some exist. * Idle Words http://www.idlewords.com/ (while we're on this topic, http://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm is worth reading) * Programming In the 21st Century http://prog21.dadgum.com/ Are both extremely fast, filled with interesting content and amazingly manage this without loading any javascript from a google domain.

Pinboard is an awesome service. If you don't have an account, you should. It's especially refreshing for those (like me) who despise the Internet of JavaScript Bullshit. Pinboard is fast as hell because it doesn't waste your time with flashy nonsense. Second: Maciej is a great writer. If you're not reading his articles (http://www.idlewords.com/), you should be.

Tangential note: if you noticed that this was quite well-written for a blog post, and if you've never heard of Maciej Cegłowskiv[1], then you should absolutely start reading his blog, Idle Words[2]. The essays are simply sublime. Even though he only occasionally writes about tech stuff (it's mostly about his extensive travels), this is hands down my favorite blog and I await every new post eagerly. [1] http://idlewords.com/about.htm [2] http://idlewords.com/

The best thing in this post was a link to http://idlewords.com/ . Very interesting blog.

It's funny how now most people seem to know Maciej Cegłowski as "the creator of Pinboard." His blog, Idle Words [1] is one of the best I know of. I would even say that the piece about Scott and scurvy [2] was the most interesting thing I read on the Internet in the last few years. So, I am very happy about Pinboard.in being successful, but I think it's a bit of a shame that such frivolous endeavors take Maciej's time from writing his blog :P (A bit more seriously, it's really nice to find a compatriot doing something cool in more than one domain.) [1] http://www.idlewords.com/ [2] http://www.idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

I've been been a Pinboard fan for years. I paid $11 for lifetime access back in 2011, and "upgraded" to an annual plan with archival in 2021 (mostly because I wanted to support the continued development of Pinboard, and that the time Marciej mentioned new features that were supposedly coming). I love Maciej's work, writing[0], and general vibe. Pinboard acquiring del.icio.us[1] after Yahoo drove it into the ground is one of the most delicious (pardon the pun) acquisition stories in tech history I think. I also enjoyed his micro-incubator thing[2] (I think he was giving grants of $50 or something). Unfortunately over the past several years it just feels like he's gotten burnt out on Pinboard and has stopped developing and is barely supporting it. I guess that's fine if everything works properly, but I don't really have a lot of confidence in the future of Pinboard anymore. I personally haven't had any actual problems with Pinboard yet, but have read several accounts by others who have and have found support poor to non-existent. [0]: https://idlewords.com/ [1]: https://blog.pinboard.in/2017/06/pinboard_acquires_delicious/ [2]: https://blog.pinboard.in/2013/01/pinboard_co_prosperity_winners/

HTML5. Read Mark Pilgrim's Dive Into HTML5. And by read, I mean, both the material, and view-source and his stylesheets. The site itself is a tour de force of what he describes. CSS2 and CSS3. The latter is where CSS headed, though it's still in development. You can do a hell of a lot of sensible page design with just straight HTML5 and some modest amounts of CSS. Javascript for any automation. CodePen is a great place to play with (and explore for) ideas. StackExchange and Reddit's /r/WebDev and other subs for Q&A with other developers. Maciej Cegłowski's rants on current Web faults / advertising / privacy http://idlewords.com/ There are others who hit this point, and do it well, but Maciej makes a compelling case on all three points (with essays featured here on Hacker News). My read is that the Web is headed for a crisis on the point of design, on many grounds (readability, privacy, annoyances, accessibility), and that, despite much of what I've written above, read Web design may well die. With "Reader Mode" features being included in more browsers these days (Safari, Firefox, Chrome is coming up with it, Opera's had it, not sure about MSIE), readers can simply opt out of design. Which may be a Good Thing. Enjoy.

It's all of the above, integrated with a maximum latency for each tier level. Not a new protocol, but adopting the best of the best, like QUIC over UDP: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QUIC#Client_support Apple is a vertically integrated company, so the idea is that a mobile carrier/ISP could help ensure the middle trunk from server to client arrive in a timely fashion. Often that involves good QoS and limiting streaming to 720p. But there are a lot of other things that can be done to limit slow page loading. For example, I tried loading Reuters on a slow data connection, and it took much longer than BBC. https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm

Thx, great read about Yemen from Maciej Cegłowski https://idlewords.com/2014/07/sana_a.htm

> I wish this mission took greater risks It's already risky enough: https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm

Enjoyed this. Reminds me of the great Idle Words (Maciej Ceglowski’s blog) travel posts. Shuffleboard At McMurdo: https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm

Firefox reader mode works ok for me. Chromium tells me there was 2.5mB of downstream traffic to load the page, rising to 4.3 if I scroll to the Recommended from Medium spam at the bottom of the page. That would be appalling if the bar weren't so low. I'm reminded of The Website Obesity Crisis, [0] where the author mentions reading an article about web bloat, then noticing that page was not exactly a shining example of lightweight design. He even calls out Medium specifically. [0] https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm , discussed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34466910

Why Not Mars - Maciej Cegłowski https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm //The goal of this essay is to persuade you that we shouldn’t send human beings to Mars, at least not anytime soon. Landing on Mars with existing technology would be a destructive, wasteful stunt whose only legacy would be to ruin the greatest natural history experiment in the Solar System. It would no more open a new era of spaceflight than a Phoenician sailor crossing the Atlantic in 500 B.C. would have opened up the New World. And it wouldn’t even be that much fun.// continue reading above

For me the beauty of idlewords's own blog (https://idlewords.com/) is that it's so good it makes me want to write. Similarly, I find Graham's writing so bad that it also makes me want to write. (note: idlewords, if you see this, your blog is misbehaving at the moment. For example, PHP is complaining bitterly on this page right now: https://idlewords.com/2018/10/ )

Similarly from Notes From An Emergency [1] by Maciej Cegłowski: "It's not clear that anyone can secure large data collections over time. The asymmetry between offense and defense may be too great. If defense at scale is possible, the only way to do it is by pouring millions of dollars into hiring the best people to defend it. Data breaches at the highest levels have shown us that the threats are real and ongoing. And for every breach we know about, there are many silent ones that we won't learn about for years. A successful defense, however, just increases the risk. Pile up enough treasure behind the castle walls and you'll eventually attract someone who can climb them. The feudal system makes the Internet more brittle, ensuring that when a breach finally comes, it will be disastrous." [1] https://idlewords.com/talks/notes_from_an_emergency.htm

Knowing there's an unpaid human writing the review is about the only thing that matters. I guess for repair services it has to be local, but the real point is, if I get a recommendation from friends or family, I can trust that they aren't affiliates, because they're staking the relationship on their review. <https://idlewords.com/talks/website_obesity.htm#fatads> > in dealing with advertisers you must remember they are professional liars. I don’t mean this to offend. I mean it as a job description. An advertiser's job is to convince you to do stuff you would not otherwise do.

Lovely article. It reminds me of the relationship of scurvy and Vitamin C. Despite scurvy being largely understood around 1750 the knowledge was forgotten or replaced with wrong theories as late as 1911. https://idlewords.com/2010/03/scott_and_scurvy.htm

strong recommendation for everything Maciej Cegłowski has ever written. especially the talks are very much worth your while: https://idlewords.com/talks/

Another lovely example of this format is https://idlewords.com/talks/.

Assuming that you're the same idlewords who wrote this [0] blog post in 2005: It's funny - as someone seemingly a little bit younger than you, I'm pretty sure your top recommendation, The Master & Margarita, did replace Kundera, at least in my experience. (which - no disrespect to Bulgakov and tongue planted in cheek - is a shame, because Kundera's better!) I like Murakami, but I think he'd make for a poor "sexually-transmitted book". Most women I know would treat a line-up of his work on a shelf as a bit of a red flag, actually. [0] https://idlewords.com/2005/11/dating_without_kundera.htm

I wrote a best practices document for time travelers back in 2003 that had an enormous impact on that community, judging by their continuing low numbers: https://idlewords.com/2003/09/best_practices_for_time_travelers.htm

https://pinboard.in/about/ Social booking site, rose to prominence a little over 10 years ago after del.icio.us was bought by Yahoo and started to suck. Wound up buying del.icio.us. The creator, Maciej Ceglowski, is a good writer with a blog at https://idlewords.com/

Why do you hate the idea of going to Mars so much? https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm I would love to go there, even if it meant I died the second I step foot on it. Getting back would be the last thing on my mind.

My favorite writing about Antarctica is "Big Dead Place": https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-30/big-dead-place-the-wikileaks-of… You can find the blog in the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20120402141259/http://www.bigdeadplace.com… or grab the book. Silver medal to Maciej for this one: https://idlewords.com/2016/05/shuffleboard_at_mcmurdo.htm

Also great on the topic of tagging, with more information about the AO3 scheme: https://idlewords.com/talks/fan_is_a_tool_using_animal.htm

This is an interesting counterpoint to “Hackers and Painters” and is worth a read. https://idlewords.com/2005/04/dabblers_and_blowhards.htm