Comparing PDF readers for my finance app
I compared eight readers on 78 financial PDFs. The results show what I still need to check before trusting my capital gains estimates.
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Let's talk about the $200 ChatGPT Pro plan
Promotions and resets made 20× feel like what $200 bought. The allowance can shrink on schedule while the expectation outlasts the offer.
Dot is helpful, but not clever enough yet
Dot made airline miles easier to understand. It also made me ask what it takes to trust a personal agent with work beyond a chat.
Building a San Francisco map feels a bit like cheating
I’ve always wanted a small, animated SVG map of just San Francisco. The city’s open data was already there. Codex made the rest feel easy.
The AI Slowdown Protects the Labs Already Ahead
Anthropic says frontier AI is dangerous but keeps racing. Regulation makes its competitors pay for the slowdown it will not take alone.
Why I built ChHeader
ModHeader's ad injection put me off. I built ChHeader to edit HTTP headers without ads, with local profiles and source anyone can inspect.
What’s There to Learn from WordPress?
The WP Engine fight, the Valkey fork, and agent-written code raise a harder question: what keeps an open-source project honest?
Optimizing Cubbly After Moving Away from SSR
Removing SSR simplified Cubbly but delayed useful inventory. I compared four client-loading compositions and kept the one that made real route content 31–42% faster.
Removing React SSR from Cubbly to Simplify Lingui
I removed React SSR from Cubbly because maintaining Lingui across the Worker and browser was not worth the speed it bought on a private application.
Choosing When Hermes Agent Automations Need an LLM
I use Hermes Agent to interpret and configure automations, then let Home Assistant or a script execute repeatable actions with visible failure states.
AI Pricing Is Becoming UX
GPT-5.6 turns capability into a price ladder, while Codex Spark turns speed into a separate button. AI pricing is becoming part of the interface.
Evaluating a TanStack Table v9 Upgrade
I wanted to keep a shared table component current without accepting migration work on faith. A side-by-side benchmark made the trade-off much easier to judge.
React Router v8 Learned to Make Upgrades Boring
React Router v8 keeps the framework-mode API familiar and moves v7's future flags into defaults. That restraint matters after an expensive v6-to-v7 migration.
Claude’s Guardrails End at Claude
Closed-model guardrails remain tied to the provider, even as comparable open weights spread. Public safety needs controls that survive that reality.
AI-Generated Code Review: What Reviewers Should Still Block
Models make awkward code cheaper to replace. Review should block future risk and leave private ideas of neat to automated conventions.
The Best Coding Agent Is the One You Can Keep Using
Grok Build produces useful patches, but its weekly limit changes how I use it. The harness and quota now matter more than the model.
Learning Rust with Claude Code Through Local Hardware Projects
Claude Code lowers the cost of being a Rust beginner. It kept two local-hardware projects moving while I learned the language inside them.
Cloudflare Redirects for Static Blog URL Migrations
I keep changing this blog. One small Cloudflare Worker lets the URLs survive the changes while the site itself stays static.
GLM Is Cheap. Steering It Isn't.
A lower token price pushed me toward GLM, but slow responses and manual mode switches made the work harder to steer.
I Can't Avoid the Price Gap Anymore
My company merged separate AI tool budgets into one shared pool. That's when Opus versus GLM stopped being an abstract question.
I Found Three Thread Network Names on My Home Network
dns-sd found three Thread network names. Discovery showed more than I expected, but did not establish credential sharing or radio connectivity.
My Home Assistant Light Group Disappeared
My YAML light group vanished after an update. I blamed Home Assistant 2026.5 too quickly; the Helper fixed it, but YAML is still supported.
Tripsy Now Has a CLI (and an MCP)
Tripsy released an official CLI and MCP server in May 2026. The CLI is the better tool. It replaces the unsupported SQLite writes I used before.
Papra Was Running. SQLite Still Couldn't Write.
Papra looked healthy on my NAS while registration failed. The browser hid the useful detail: SQLite belonged to the wrong user.
I Ordered a Fitbit Air Because I Won't Sleep in My Apple Watch
I ordered a Google Fitbit Air to test whether a lighter band can solve the sleep-data gap my Apple Watch leaves.
How to Connect Hermes Agent to Home Assistant
Two environment variables and a gateway restart. I said 'turn off all my lights' and they went off two seconds later.
How to Run Hermes Agent on a UGREEN NAS with Docker
UGREEN said my Hermes container was running. The gateway couldn't read its config. Two user IDs explained the failure—and the fix.
Your Linter Needs to Be as Fast as Your AI
Biome keeps my AI coding loop moving, but it doesn't replace TypeScript. Here is the current setup and the trade-off I kept.
Reading and Writing Tripsy's SQLite Database on macOS
Tripsy stores all your trip data in a local SQLite file that iCloud syncs to your Mac. The file is already on your disk — no export needed.
Why Adobe Animate's Flash-to-HTML5 Bridge Failed
Adobe Animate kept the Flash timeline alive for HTML5, but the web moved on. Maintenance mode confirms the bridge could not hold.
Getting a DBA in San Francisco: The Real Process and Costs
I registered a San Francisco DBA for $236. It took two City Hall stops, one newspaper email, and four weeks of publication.
Claude Code Plugins Turn Instructions Into Dependencies
I expected Claude Code plugins to be heavy infrastructure. The frontend-design plugin is mostly Markdown; the marketplace makes it installable and scoped.
Vite’s ?url Import Gives You a URL, Not jQuery
In Vite, ?url changes a JavaScript import into an asset URL import. Here is the fix—and when the suffix is actually useful.
jQuery 4: I Can't Believe They Actually Did It
jQuery 4 finally drops old browser baggage while keeping the DOM API that still earns its place in legacy interfaces.