Top all-time · #3230
Shallow Thoughts
Personal blog · shallowsky.com/blogprogramminghardware
Shallow Thoughts is a personal blog at shallowsky.com about programming and hardware. Since 2008, 24 different Hacker News readers have linked it 29 times, most often “The Fibonacci Spiral and the Nautilus”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-21, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers mostly link this blog for its GIMP save/export plugin and its notes on Linux setup, Palm OS, terminal escape codes, and a science piece debunking the Fibonacci spiral in the nautilus shell.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- The Fibonacci Spiral and the Nautilus3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2008-09-14
- Exorcising the Evil Alternate Screen2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-12-31
What Hacker News says?
This has been my experience exactly. I switched from Linux to OSX/MacOS around eight years ago, and the better and (to me) more intuitive modifier keys have been one of the features that have kept me there; along with the convenience of Emacs/Readline keybindings for text editing everywhere. Getting keybindings to work the same way in Linux currently involves a Rube Goldberg setup of GTK3 key themes [1] and AutoKey…
Comment linking /blog/linux/gtk3-emacs-key-theme.html
on “From Mac to Linux – the setup I've grown to love”Submitted “Cookies are small text files” – what? (2009) as a story · 55 points
HN discussionThis little Gimp plugin will get you the old shortcuts back: http://www.shallowsky.com/software/gimp-save/
Comment linking /software/gimp-save/
on “Heroku Fucking Console”Submitted Slope Soaring Tips for Beginners (2004) as a story · 34 points
HN discussionIt was called Palm Pilot - the one pictured as the very first image in Wikipedia [1]. It still works, except for some bleeding/damage on a portion of the e-Ink screen. I probably need to find the appropriate Linux based tools to load the .PRC. I wonder if this [2] still works [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PalmPilot [2] https://shallowsky.com/linux/palmlinuxdev.html
Comment linking /linux/palmlinuxdev.html
on “A MiniGolf game for Palm OS”Submitted The Fibonacci Spiral and the Nautilus as a story · 29 points
HN discussionJoel on Software - joelonsoftware.com Coding Horror - blog.codinghorror.com Schneier on Security - https://www.schneier.com/blog/ Things of Interest - qntm.org In Pursuit of Laziness - manishearth.github.io Still Drinking - stilldrinking.org Shallow Thoughts - http://shallowsky.com/blog/ Captain Nemo - https://captnemo.in/archive.html
Comment linking /blog/
on “Ask HN: What are your favourite developer blogs?”Submitted PyTopo – An Open-Source Tiled Map Viewer and Track Editor as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI've been using Gimp for ages (15 to 20 years) and it was always solid for me. Maybe I was just using the more stable features? But I've mostly used it on Linux. My major gripe was the Save / Export fiasco [0] but even that is OK now thanks to Saver plugin [1]. [0] http://www.gimpusers.com/forums/gimp-user/14339-hate-the-new... [1] http://shallowsky.com/blog/gimp/saver.html
Comment linking /blog/gimp/saver.html
on “GIMP 2.9.6 Released”Submitted The Fibonacci Spiral and the Nautilus (or, don't believe everything you read) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAgree 100%. About save/export debacle, someone made a plugin which makes saving to non-xcf easier [0] - big thank you to them. It allowed me to still use Gimp when I had to manually edit 100s of PNGs. It is incredibly frustrating to see good software (I love Gimp otherwise) tarnished with such rookie mistakes/decisions. [0] https://shallowsky.com/software/gimp-save/
Comment linking /software/gimp-save/
on “Cinepaint: The long forgotten GIMP fork that once powered the cinema industry”Submitted Slope Soaring Tips for Beginners as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI upvoted you because i thought people were in these things a belief sadly shown to be false by http://www.shallowsky.com/planes/weasel/slopetips.html Aerial combat should have alerted me!
Comment linking /planes/weasel/slopetips.html
on “How to get a Pilot's License in (just about) a week”Submitted Slope Soaring Tips for Beginners as a story · 2 points
HN discussionToo bad the shell on the cover doesn't show a fibonacci spiral. http://www.shallowsky.com/blog/science/fibonautilus.html
Comment linking /blog/science/fibonautilus.html
on “The nicest math book I own”Submitted Becoming Kaylee: Thoughts on Making and Fixing (2011) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionGimp 2.8 frustrated me: I could no longer open a .png, edit it and easily resave it back to .png. The Gimp developers knew better and made the UI strongly favor saving as .xcf, which makes sense in some use-cases, but not mine. I found this fix, which made quick uses of GIMP less painful for me: http://shallowsky.com/software/gimp-save/ I'm assuming the new save behavior persists in Gimp 2.9.x, but I don't know.
Comment linking /software/gimp-save/
on “GIMP 2.9.4 and our vision for the future”Submitted Distributing Python Packages Part II: Submitting to PyPI as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIf you don't like the default save/export behaviour, use a plug-in that changes it: https://www.shallowsky.com/software/gimp-save/
Comment linking /software/gimp-save/
on “GIMP and GEGL in 2018”Submitted Play notes, chords and arbitrary waveforms from Python as a story · 2 points
HN discussionIll never forget the comments in termcap: "Brain dead", "Very Brain dead" and "Brain? What brain!" I think most of that was terminals that CTEOL Clear to end of line was just garbage. We just knew that at some point in time, all the Hazeltine terminals were going to end up in the garbage, which is what they deserved, and no one would rescue them. https://www.shallowsky.com/linux/noaltscreen.html The parent post is S…
Comment linking /linux/noaltscreen.html
on “Inspect ANSI control codes and escape sequences”Submitted A More Time Zone Tolerant Datetime Class as a story · 1 points
HN discussionThe Nautilus Shell does NOT have a Fibonacci Spiral. http://www.shallowsky.com/blog/science/fibonautilus.html
Comment linking /blog/science/fibonautilus.html
on “The most iconic scientific images”Submitted A Homebuilt CO2 Meter as a Virus Risk Proxy (Shallow Thoughts) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Ray-Tracing Digital Elevation Data in 3D with Povray (2019) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Slope Soaring Tips for Beginners as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Evil Alternate Screen as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Fibonacci Spiral and the Nautilus as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Exorcising the Evil Alternate Screen as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
