susam-net

The author reflects on their childhood computing experiences in the 1980s, including using IBM PC compatibles with floppy disks to run MS-DOS and LOGO at school, writing programs on paper due to limited computer time, and playing early games like Moon Bugs, Space Invaders, and Digger. These formative experiences, filled with wonder and exploration, remain vivid memories decades later.

The author argues that web developers should stop implementing custom browser features like scrolling, link navigation, text selection, password fields, and date pickers. Custom implementations break familiar user behavior, cause accessibility issues, and create inconsistent experiences across websites.

In 2008, the author worked at RSA, a company with a nerd culture fascinated by prime numbers. During a monthly HR game, teams were asked to list all prime numbers between 1 and 1000 in five minutes; the author's team won by copying a pre-existing list of all 168 primes from a mobile phone, and they spent the cash prize on pizza and drinks.

This page outlines the commenting guidelines for the website susam.net. Comments may include HTML or Markdown, are held for review, and are published at the author's discretion—typically only those adding insight, offering viewpoints, reporting errors, showing humour, or expressing appreciation. Rants are generally rejected to maintain quality and high signal-to-noise ratio.

Graduate-level mathematics textbooks often present proofs as high-level outlines that omit crucial steps, making them obscure even to professional mathematicians. The author argues this is a serious pedagogy problem, as students under deadlines may never fully understand why a proof works, and calls for more detailed, accessible expositions.

Susam Pal reflects on adding a referral query string feature to his Wander Console project despite reservations, only to find it broke working URLs like int10h.org's old-school PC fonts page. After reading Chris Morgan's post criticizing query strings for tracking and URL breakage, he removed the feature. He concludes he will never add query strings to URLs in future projects.

Wander Console 0.6.0 has been released. The main change is the removal of the "via" referral query parameter from recommended URLs, as it caused issues with some websites that refuse to serve pages with arbitrary query parameters. The release also includes minor user interface adjustments and fixes.

The author switched their personal website from RSS to Atom feeds in 2026, using Common Lisp and UUIDs. They highlight Atom's advantages like RFC 3339 timestamps and explicit content type, and exclude older posts from the feed to avoid spamming subscribers with changed IDs.

QuickQWERTY 1.2.3, a web-based touch typing tutor for QWERTY keyboards, has been released with two bug fixes. The broken licence link in the footer has been corrected, and a redundant dialog box that appeared when clicking the already-selected split option has been removed.

The author studied the proof of Tutte's theorem on s-arc-transitive finite cubic graphs from Biggs's Algebraic Graph Theory, and reviewed elementary coset results in group theory. They also updated their decentralized web project Wander Console, adding a network crawler that now catalogs over 50 consoles recommending more than 1400 personal web pages.

The author describes learning touch typing over 20 years ago and later creating a QWERTY typing tutor called QuickQWERTY. While standard methods assign the number 1 to the left little finger, the author trained themselves to use the left ring finger for both 1 and 2 instead, finding it more comfortable, and reports that old and new muscle memories now coexist.

A Git remote can have multiple URLs: the first URL is used for fetching, while all URLs are used for pushing by default. A separate pushurl can be set to restrict pushes to specific URLs only, but this should be used with care as it can cause the local repository to diverge from the primary remote if not managed properly.

QuickQWERTY 1.2.2, a browser-based touch typing tutor for QWERTY keyboards, has been released. The update fixes a bug where the 'Restart' link incorrectly directed users to Unit 1.1 instead of restarting the current lesson. Source code hosting has also moved from GitHub to Codeberg, the project's third home after starting on SourceForge in 2008.

The author shares monthly notes from January, focusing on algebraic graph theory concepts including Cayley graphs, vertex-transitive graphs, and Tutte's theorem. The notes also cover a JavaScript linear congruential generator implementation and line numbering with cat and nl commands.

The author reflects on 25 years of computing experiences, sharing personal stories from university days to professional career. These include learning HTML from a fellow student, experimenting with processor reset vectors, transitioning to software security work, and participating in a Capture the Flag event.

The author switched from ZNC to Soju as their IRC bouncer, finding Soju easier to set up on Debian. Unlike ZNC, Soju automatically configures itself without requiring manual file management. The article provides installation and configuration commands for Soju.

The Soju IRC bouncer uses a confirmation token for user deletion derived from the username via SHA-1 hash. The token is generated by taking the first 6 characters of the SHA-1 hash of the username, which remains consistent across user creation and deletion cycles.

The article contrasts how chess players maintain recognition despite computers surpassing them, while software developers face different challenges. Programmers may continue to enjoy their craft but credit and economic value will shift toward those who define problems and make technology useful in real-world situations.

Nerd Quiz #4 is a single-page HTML application that challenges users with a brief quiz to measure their inner geek. This release introduces five new questions covering topics like computing history, graph theory, and Unix.

The author shares monthly notes on algebraic graph theory, focusing on concepts from Norman Biggs's book. Key topics include vertex orbits, regular non-vertex-transitive graphs, and distinctions between vertex-transitive, edge-transitive, and symmetric graphs. The author aims to eventually understand Tutte's theorem on arc-transitive cubic graphs.

HN Skins 0.1.0 is a browser userscript that adds custom visual themes to Hacker News. It requires a userscript manager like Greasemonkey or Tampermonkey to install and use. The source code is available under the MIT license.

HN Skins 0.2.0 is a minor update to the Hacker News theming userscript that removes excessive vertical space below reply links, sorts skin options alphabetically, and fixes the Terminal skin's navigation bar color. The update addresses several minor styling issues from the initial release.

HN Skins 0.3.0 is a minor update to the Hacker News theming userscript. It fixes font consistency issues, mutes visited link colors for better distinction, and renames some skins like Teletype to Courier and Nox to Midnight.

HN Skins 0.4.0 is a minor update that fixes an issue with the commemorative black bar that appears on Hacker News when notable figures pass away. The update ensures the bar remains visible across all skins, with dark themes displaying it as a lighter grey for sufficient contrast.

The article explains how Git commands like checkout and reset map to the newer restore command introduced in Git 2.23. It provides a comparison table showing equivalent commands for resetting the working tree, index, or both. The restore command offers a clearer interface for these operations.

Wander 0.1.0 is a decentralized, self-hosted web console that lets visitors explore websites recommended by a community of personal website owners. It requires only two static files and can be hosted on basic web servers or platforms like GitHub Pages.

Susam has created a tool called Wander to explore personal websites. The Wander console is available at susam.net/wander/, and website owners can host their own instance by following instructions on Codeberg.

Wander Console 0.2.0 introduces sandboxed iframes for security, customization options including CSS/JavaScript and URL blocking, and an expanded Console dialog showing configuration details and wandering history. Over 30 people have set up Wander consoles since its announcement.

Wander Console 0.3.0 fixes bugs that prevented the console dialog from loading without an ignore list and resolved iframe loading issues for websites relying on same-origin context. The release also includes minor fixes for horizontal scrolling on small devices and duplicate recommendations.

The author tested whether Codeberg, like GitHub, allows accessing fork commits via the original repository's URL. While GitHub successfully displays commits from forks with a warning, Codeberg returns a 404 error for such requests.