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Skerritt.blog
Personal blog · skerritt.blogprogrammingsecuritysystems
Skerritt.blog is a personal blog at skerritt.blog about programming, security and systems. Since 2019, 21 different Hacker News readers have linked it 40 times, most often “Tips For Making a Popular Open Source Project in 2021”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-08-31, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Skerritt.blog for practical guides on making popular open source projects, how Tor works, and a post about a Japanese learning app winning an award.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Esoteric Computer Science Knowledge from your favourite local rust girlie
Most-linked posts?
- Tips For Making a Popular Open Source Project in 20215 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-03-22
- How Does Tor Work? The Definitive Visual Guide (2020) – Skerritt.blog4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2019-03-05
- Over-engineering my document storage system with Paperless-ngx4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-02-23
- We hacked Anki – 0 day exploit from studying someone else's flashcards2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-07-24
- The Ultimate Guide to Writing Effective Commit Messages2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-06-18
- Public Key Cryptography Simply Explained2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-02-05
- Timsort (2019)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2022-07-29
- Learn Functional Python in 10 Minutes2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2019-09-21
What Hacker News says?
This is not entirely correct. NFTs can and do exist entirely on-chain. For reference: https://skerritt.blog/response-to-moxie/
Comment linking /response-to-moxie/
on “Web3 is centralized and inefficient”Submitted Timsort, the Python sorting algorithm as a story · 407 points
HN discussionHow many times do we have to have the same misinformation shoved down our throats lol https://skerritt.blog/response-to-moxie/
Comment linking /response-to-moxie/
on “Web3 is centralized and inefficient”Submitted Tips For Making a Popular Open Source Project in 2021 as a story · 232 points
HN discussionBad design choices are a waste of time. Good ones are necessary. from an article about TOR as a great example: Tor needs a lot of users to create anonymity, if Tor was hard to use new users wouldn't adopt it so quickly. Because new users won't adopt it, Tor becomes less anonymous. By this reasoning it is easy to see that usability isn't just a design choice of Tor but a security requirement to make Tor more secure.…
Comment linking /how-does-tor-really-work/
on “UI redesigns are mostly a waste of time”Submitted In Response to My first impressions of Web3 as a story · 219 points
HN discussionThis is another resource which carries useful tips along the same lines: https://skerritt.blog/make-popular-open-source-projects/
Comment linking /make-popular-open-source-projects/
on “Art of README (2020)”Submitted Timsort (2019) as a story · 189 points
HN discussionHey! I have around ~15k GitHub stars and am generally known for nice READMEs. My 3 biggest tips are: 1. Show what you do (better yet: let the user use your software) 2. Show how you're better than competitors (feature comparison) 3. Network effect (thanking contribs, people, other projects etc) I wrote much more deeply about this on my blog: https://skerritt.blog/make-popular-open-source-projects/
Comment linking /make-popular-open-source-projects/
on “Ask HN: How do I improve boring README page?”Submitted Show HN: My app just won best iOS Japanese learning tool of 2025 award as a story · 25 points
HN discussionI have taken quite a few github projects to popularity and even written[0] about it GitHub does not support centreing images so you have to use HTMl. One tip I'll add is to avoid as much HTMl as possible so if you're in the terminal you can actually read it [0] https://skerritt.blog/make-popular-open-source-projects/
Comment linking /make-popular-open-source-projects/
on “How to Write a Great Readme”Submitted Timsort – the fastest sorting algorithm you've never heard of as a story · 5 points
HN discussionThe app seems to be Manabi Reader, by the way: https://skerritt.blog/best-japanese-learning-tools-2025-awar...
Comment linking /best-japanese-learning-tools-2025-award-show/
on “Show HN: My app just won best iOS Japanese learning tool of 2025 award”Submitted How Does Tor Work? The Definitive Visual Guide (2020) – Skerritt.blog as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHi there! One of the OP's here. Jay and I are around to answer any questions you might have, and you might want to check out my retelling of events here [1] which are less formal :) [1] https://skerritt.blog/anki-0day/
Comment linking /anki-0day/
on “Studying 0days: How we hacked Anki, the most popular flashcard app”Submitted Best Japanese Learning Tools 2025 Award Show as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThis company harvested user data and abused it by the https://skerritt.blog/screenpipe-ai-company-will-harvest-you...
Comment linking /screenpipe-ai-company-will-harvest-your-email-against-your-permission/
on “Launch HN: Screenpipe (YC S26) – Power your agents by your 24/7 screen recording”Submitted We hacked Anki – 0 day exploit from studying someone else's flashcards as a story · 3 points
HN discussionhttps://skerritt.blog/how-does-tor-really-work/#what-is-tor-
Comment linking /how-does-tor-really-work/
on “Ask HN: Is there a good description of a physical implementation of Tor”Submitted Learn Functional Python in 10 Minutes as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How Does BitTorrent Work? A Plain English Guide as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted How does TOR really work? as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Best Japanese Learning Tools: 2025 Award Show as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Ultimate Guide to Writing Effective Commit Messages as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Set Theory for Programmers as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Over-engineering my document storage system with Paperless-ngx as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Tips for Making a Popular Open-Source Project in 2021 [Ultimate Guide] as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Public Key Cryptography Simply Explained as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Public key cryptography explained as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted How does Tor work? (2023) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
