Top all-time · #19744
Joel Dare
Personal blog · joeldare.com · on HN as codazodaprogrammingstartups
Joel Dare's personal blog at joeldare.com covers programming and startups. Since 2015, 3 different Hacker News readers have linked it 104 times, most often “The Raspberry Pi 400 in My Bedroom”. The last post was in 2020, but the archive is still widely read.
Field notes on shipping fast, privacy-first, evergreen web products.
Most-linked posts?
- The Raspberry Pi 400 in My Bedroom2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-10-20
- Small Go Binaries (2021)2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2022-01-23
What Hacker News says?
I geeked out a bit, after reading another blog post, and used my thermal printer for this. I've been using it for a few weeks now. The little sticky notes it makes are great. https://joeldare.com/trying-to-stop-procrastination-with-my-... I am starting to collect too many of them though. I kinda like the idea of ops text-file because it is renewed from day to day. I'm still not quite sure how to deal with the items…
Comment linking /trying-to-stop-procrastination-with-my-receipt-printer
on “I tried every todo app and ended up with a .txt file”Submitted Using HTTP Basic Auth in 2022 as a story · 524 points
HN discussionI run a website with hundreds of documents simply explaining how I resolved issues. It keeps me going when people simply email me to say thank you. As an example, one of my most popular pages is a set of instructions on how to install 20 year old sewing machine software, that requires hardware keys, on modern Windows machines. https://www.joeldare.com/wiki/installing_husqavarna_3d_embro...
Comment linking /wiki/installing_husqavarna_3d_embroidery_on_windows_vista
on “Just Wanted to Say Thanks”Submitted The Raspberry Pi 400 in My Bedroom as a story · 187 points
HN discussionI think Next.js has its place in enterprise software. For the rest of us I think it's time to simplify. I like to do that to the point of absurdity. Why I'm writing pure HTML and CSS in 2025: https://joeldare.com/why-im-writing-pure-html-and-css-in-202...
Comment linking /why-im-writing-pure-html-and-css-in-2025
on “Next.js is infuriating”Submitted Gains I'm seeing from my second brain tool as a story · 156 points
HN discussionI find her use of the words "me" and "our" refreshing. I've created a bunch of mostly unsuccessful businesses(1) and haven't really resolved this language for myself. Here are a couple quotes from the first paragraph... > exactly one engineer - me followed by > our current tech stack This is something I struggle with when I'm writing about my own business or product. Sometimes "our" feels like the right thing to say…
Comment linking /how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-failed-businesses
on “The tools and tech I use to run a one-woman hardware company”Submitted How to Lose Money with 25 Years of Failed Businesses as a story · 52 points
HN discussionI'm not the person you're responding too but I thought I'd mention some of mine. I wrote a blog post called "How to Lose Money With 25 Years of Failed Businesses" where I discuss some of the little side hustles I've managed to kill over the years. https://joeldare.com/how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-fail... I build a lot of tiny projects and Ben (original blog post) is inspiring me to get them better organized.
Comment linking /how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-failed-businesses
on “I spent two years launching tiny projects”Submitted Show HN: I built my own second brain software tool as a story · 41 points
HN discussionLike other posters said, maybe a local model is a good option. I've found the Qwen3:4B (reasoning) model works pretty well for many things. I'm planning to run a local model on a $149 mini-pc and host it for the world from my bedroom. You can read a bit more about my thinking below. https://joeldare.com/my_plan_to_build_an_ai_chat_bot_in_my_b... These hosted models are better but it feels like the gap is closing and…
Comment linking /my_plan_to_build_an_ai_chat_bot_in_my_bedroom
on “Claude Code is all you need”Submitted Why I'm Writing Pure HTML and CSS in 2025 as a story · 34 points
HN discussionReally an aside, but yesterday I got the Gemma-4-12b (128k context) to build it's first web app in the minimal Dark Software Factory I've been building for myself. https://joeldare.com/a-local-open-weight-model-builds-its-fi...
Comment linking /a-local-open-weight-model-builds-its-first-web-app
on “Qwen 3.8 27B available on Cerebras at 1500 tokens/s”Submitted A Draft of the ImageMagick Field Guide as a story · 12 points
HN discussionIf you’re worried about your VPN provider but you can trust your VPS provider, try an SSH Tunnel. https://joeldare.com/ssh-tunnels-my-vpn-alternative-for-priv...
Comment linking /ssh-tunnels-my-vpn-alternative-for-privacy-on-the-go
on “Who owns Express VPN, Nord, Surfshark? VPN relationships explained (2024)”Submitted That Time I Built a Crack for Nearly All Shareware as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI standardized on pure HTML and CSS and wrote about why: https://joeldare.com/why-im-writing-pure-html-and-css-in-202...
Comment linking /why-im-writing-pure-html-and-css-in-2025
on “Personal blogs are back, should niche blogs be next?”Submitted How to Lose Money with 25 Years of Failed Businesses (2022) as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThe problem described is exactly why I wrote a short "How to Code" primer a couple years ago. It teaches some basics of Javascript. Javascript, at least in the browser, can be run with no extra dependencies. Everyone has a web browser these days. https://www.joeldare.com/blog/post/how-to-code/
Comment linking /blog/post/how-to-code/
on “Learning to program is getting harder”Submitted Small Go Binaries (2021) as a story · 4 points
HN discussionYeah, it’s no big deal for static content. My little Raspberry Pi had no trouble with it even though it uses a SQLite DB. https://joeldare.com/private-analtyics-and-my-raspberry-pi-4... Granted, it was a Sunday.
Comment linking /private-analtyics-and-my-raspberry-pi-400
on “Each visit to the page deteriorates the main image”Submitted When Bugs Feel Like Sabotage as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis is what I did as well. Not wanting to take away my users privacy I built my own simple counter in 2022. I wrote about The Raspberry Pi 400 in My Bedroom on my blog at the URL below. I just downloaded a click sound and I think I'm going to see if adding it drives me crazy. https://joeldare.com/private-analtyics-and-my-raspberry-pi-4...
Comment linking /private-analtyics-and-my-raspberry-pi-400
on “Hacker News Hug of Deaf”Submitted I Replaced Google Analytics with a CSV File and an AI Agent as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI just ordered this book and wrote a blog post about it because the _description_ spoke to me. Which kinda proves the point, I guess. I have been lucky enough to turn my passion into a successful software career working for someone else but I’ve always wanted to be self employed. https://joeldare.com/im-a-scanner
Comment linking /im-a-scanner
on “Ask HN: I'm interested in so many disciplines, but what can I do with that?”Submitted The 14kb Problem as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI've been trying things for 25+ years and I'm about to kick off a test of a whole bunch of new business ideas. You might have read my article, How to Lose Money with 25 Years of Failed Businesses. https://joeldare.com/how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-fail... I've created a mailing list. Please sign-up if seeing all my new business tries is something you might be interested in. https://tally.so/r/wvggOX
Comment linking /how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-failed-businesses
on “Ask HN: What are you working on? (April 2025)”Submitted 52 Launches in 52 Weeks as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI use GitHub to host my markdown files. A bit more information is in this article I wrote about it. I actually have 4 or 5 similar articles with various thoughts on this. I'm trying to find a way to make it simpler, maybe even for non-technical users, but I'm not there yet. https://joeldare.com/using-neat-css-on-github-pages
Comment linking /using-neat-css-on-github-pages
on “Using static websites for tiny archives”Submitted A Local Open-Weight Model Builds Its First Web App from a GitHub Issue as a story · 2 points
HN discussion