Top all-time · #8021
Nicolas Bouliane
Personal blog · nicolasbouliane.com/blogprogrammingwriting
Nicolas Bouliane's personal blog at nicolasbouliane.com covers programming and writing. Since 2020, 9 different Hacker News readers have linked it 120 times, most often “AI is killing All About Berlin”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-09-13, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 1 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link his posts on personal tooling and scripting, such as "no script is too simple", a personal data timeline project, and All About Berlin, a guide to German bureaucracy.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- One commenter called the motorcycle-maintenance post "a great post".
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
I'm a former software engineer in big, beautiful Berlin
Most-linked posts?
- /projects/timeline2 people · 15 mentions · first linked 2021-05-25
- AI is killing All About Berlin2 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2026-05-26
- All About Berlin: why I built it, how I run it2 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2024-01-05
- Duty to Document (2023)2 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2023-05-03
What Hacker News says?
> What software would you write if you could write whatever you wanted using whatever language/technology you wanted? The sort that solves problems I'm interested in. I love the idea of treating software as a home-cooked meal [1]: something you prepare with love for a small crowd of people. For instance, I added a recipes section to my personal website. I also added achievements to it some time ago[2]. Both were com…
Comment linking /achievements
on “I no longer build software”Submitted No script is too simple as a story · 268 points
HN discussionBrilliant! I have something like that, but for showing the amounts in different currencies. https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/currency-tooltips
Comment linking /blog/currency-tooltips
on “Microfeatures I love in blogs and personal websites”Submitted Trading Time for Money as a story · 190 points
HN discussionI really like this idea. It goes hand in hand with an older post of mine: "no script is too simple" [1]. A script is a recipe that your whole team can follow. It's easier to update a recipe than to propagate changes across the whole team. It's also similar to a flight check, which is a fancy name for a reusable to-do list. [1] https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/no-script-is-too-simple
Comment linking /blog/no-script-is-too-simple
on “Do-nothing scripting: the key to gradual automation (2019)”Submitted Digital Gardening as a story · 170 points
HN discussionI've done something like that at my last university internship. I wrote about it here: https://nicolasbouliane.com/projects/pratt-whitney-redesign It's the same story as yours, but with human effort. I was about to cut the human out entirely, and fix a ton of errors in the process.
Comment linking /projects/pratt-whitney-redesign
on “My £4 a month server can handle 4.2M requests a day”Submitted Duty to Document (2023) as a story · 148 points
HN discussionI've done something like that at my last university internship. I wrote about it here: https://nicolasbouliane.com/projects/pratt-whitney-redesign It's the same story as yours, but with human effort. I was about to cut the human out entirely.
Comment linking /projects/pratt-whitney-redesign
on “My £4 a month server can handle 4.2M requests a day”Submitted Making Quieter Technology as a story · 143 points
HN discussionThis might be a good way to explain my discomfort with online tracking. Machines categorising you based on your behaviour, without your knowledge nor your consent. It's not so bad when it serves you ads (unless it sells alcohol to alcoholics), but there's no telling what similar algorithms would say about you in the hands of a rogue government. They can find vulnerable people, people who hate certain people [0], peo…
Comment linking /projects/timeline
on “I got an FBI record at age 11 from dabbling in cryptography (2015)”Submitted How I built currency conversion tooltips as a story · 55 points
HN discussionI disabled comments on my websites and it made me a happier person. The other things you name are present on my other website (which I linked above). The site is still blazing fast. https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/no-comments-on-website
Comment linking /blog/no-comments-on-website
on “In spite of an increase in Internet speed, webpage speeds have not improved”Submitted Cool URLs Don't Change as a story · 4 points
HN discussionhttps://nicolasbouliane.com/projects/timeline It backs up personal data and puts it on a timeline. It's cool to pick a random day and see what I was up to. It also serves as a backup tool. Somehow, people find out about it and star it. One person even contributed a pull request. However I strictly built it for myself, with no intention to make a product out of it.
Comment linking /projects/timeline
on “Ask HN: What is your “I don't care if this succeeds” project?”Submitted Show HN: I built powered motorcycle panniers as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI maintain a list of things I have done here: https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/silence
Comment linking /blog/silence
on “Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (December 2025)”Submitted AI is killing All About Berlin as a story · 3 points
HN discussionAn appointment finder for the Berlin citizen's office. It looks for available appointments and broadcasts them to people via websockets. A frontend shows a calendar of available appointments and makes a sound when new slots are available. Now the city got its act together and appointments are easy to find, but for a while it was very useful. I'm glad to say that this service is ready to be shut down. https://nicolas…
Comment linking /projects/appointment-finder
on “Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?”Submitted I guess I'm an insurance salesman now as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI worked on the triggers and it was VERY effective. https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/silence
Comment linking /blog/silence
on “Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2024)”Submitted A Map for Every Journey as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI had a pretty serious issue because I didn't pin versions [1] and countless small problems. [1] https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/nextcloud-docker-upgrade-er...
Comment linking /blog/nextcloud-docker-upgrade-error
on “Docker Security Cheat Sheet”Submitted How to Write Clearly as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThere are still some issues with it (incomplete data, manually triggered data exports), but it's a notable improvement nonetheless. It's particularly valuable when it lets you export instant messaging conversations and shared photo albums. It means that companies cannot hold your data hostage to keep you on their platform. I use GDPR exports for a personal data thing I'm building [0][1]. It simply wouldn't work with…
Comment linking /projects/timeline
on “Data portability, the forgotten right of GDPR”Submitted Support networks as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThis habit has turned into a lifestyle business for me. I document German bureaucracy for a living. I gave a talk about the "why" which turned into a long blog post: https://nicolasbouliane.com/projects/all-about-berlin I really wish more people did this. I make it a point to show my gratitude when I encounter similar resources. One helped me cycle across Korea. Another helped me fix a very specific device. It's a s…
Comment linking /projects/all-about-berlin
on “The benefits of learning in public”Submitted The Duty to Document as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThere is a lot of room for better help for mechanics. Most of it is distributed as long-winded YouTube videos, and it's the wrong medium. Everything else is lost in the noise on various forums. I'd love something like ifixit for other fields and I can't possibly be alone. I want answers that aren't hidden in a 30 minute 480p video of a mumbling dad. Here's an example of what I mean, since I just finished it: https:/…
Comment linking /blog/v-strom-650-heated-grips
on “Dan's online motorcycle repair course (1999-2020)”Submitted AI (Google overviews) are killing sites like All About Berlin as a story · 1 points
HN discussion