Top all-time · #4599
Rafał Pastuszak
Personal blog · untested.sonnet.io/notes · on HN as rpastuszakdesignwriting
Rafał Pastuszak writes Untested, a personal blog at untested.sonnet.io about design and writing. Since 2023, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 169 times, most often “Let's Hold Hands”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2025-09-23, and you can follow it by feed.
Projects, experiments and toys by Rafał Pastuszak
Most-linked posts?
- Let's Hold Hands4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-02-28
- Show HN: New Ensō – first public beta3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2025-06-30
- /Defaults+Matter%2C+Don't+Assume+Consent2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-06-05
- Disobey2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-09-24
- /rss.xml2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2023-10-30
- Share your unfinished, scrappy work (2023)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-09-23
- Show HN: 433 – How to make a font that says nothing2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-07-24
- Dog Mode2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-07-29
- Coffeeshop Mode2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-11-14
What Hacker News says?
A list of Adobe alternatives: https://untested.sonnet.io/Alternatives+to+Adobe
Comment linking /Alternatives+to+Adobe
on “FTC sues Adobe for hiding fees and inhibiting cancellations”Submitted Show HN: New Ensō – first public beta as a story · 251 points
HN discussionBalsamiq does something similar with their subscriptions: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/auto-hibernate-subscription... I think it’s a good balance between locking the user into your product and dealing with the cost of a constantly evolving service.
Comment linking /notes/auto-hibernate-subscriptions/
on “Fair Pricing”Submitted Insomnia, Control as a story · 72 points
HN discussionYou missed 0. - where does the budget come from https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume...
Comment linking /notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume-consent/
on “Let me pay for Firefox”Submitted Ensō: design constraints of a focussed writing tool as a story · 62 points
HN discussion> But also mission wise I have bad news for you my friend. For years, most of (+90%) Mozilla's revenue was ad partnership based*. Recently this has gotten worse: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43203096 * https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume...
Comment linking /notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume-consent/
on “Firefox tab groups are here”Submitted Show HN: 433 – How to make a font that says nothing as a story · 51 points
HN discussionOK, done on Android https://untested.sonnet.io/Sit.+Offline+Mode In a marvellously diabolical turn of events iOS nosleep support works as long as the app is not in standalone mode . aargh! Will post an update with that later.
Comment linking /Sit.+Offline+Mode
on “Sit.”Submitted Gregglogger as a story · 43 points
HN discussionHehe, I'm also working on a "metronome for my attention": https://untested.sonnet.io/Things+to+support+my+own+well-bei... hit me up via hello @ <website> or my newsletter on untested.sonnet.io and I'll message you when I have it.
Comment linking /Things+to+support+my+own+well-being+%E2%80%93+a+wishlist
on “Sit.”Submitted The modern Web has lost the User Agent (2023) as a story · 6 points
HN discussionThere is also an amazing “together” mode: https://nothing-together.sonnet.io/ https://untested.sonnet.io/Sit.%2C+(together)
Comment linking /Sit.%2C+(together)
on “Sit.”Submitted Disobey as a story · 4 points
HN discussionNope, it's just a dumb timer telling people to sit down and do nothing. More about that: https://untested.sonnet.io/MISS+–+Make+It+Stupid%2C+Simple Similarly, Ensō (enso.sonnet.io) is just a dumber <textarea>
Comment linking /MISS+%E2%80%93+Make+It+Stupid%2C+Simple
on “Sit.”Submitted New Ensō – first public beta as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI keep a list of alternatives to Adobe software (for posts like this): https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/alternatives-to-adobe/
Comment linking /notes/alternatives-to-adobe/
on “Adobe deletes Bluesky posts after backlash”Submitted Bedtime Doodles, an Anatomy as a story · 4 points
HN discussionHere's the list of indie web resources to I follow: https://untested.sonnet.io/Places+to+Find+Indie+Web+Content
Comment linking /Places+to+Find+Indie+Web+Content
on “Where Have All the Websites Gone?”Submitted Coffeeshop Mode as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI made a drawing app with programmable brushes inspired by tixy: https://fig.sonnet.io It’s pretty fun because the shape dynamics are time, and not pressure/tilt based, so you need to draw in a rhythm. Here’s how they work and how they’re implemented: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/fig-tree-brushes/
Comment linking /notes/fig-tree-brushes/
on “A simple 16x16 dot animation from simple math rules”Submitted How People Use Ensō as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> but Mozilla is an ad-tech company too now. The recent events related to FF are not that much of a shift, considering that Google pays $20B per annum to its (technically non-ad tech) partners, then 85% of Mozilla's total revenue comes from its partnership with Google . That ship had sailed long time ago. https://untested.sonnet.io/Defaults+Matter%2C+Don't+Assume+C...
Comment linking /Defaults+Matter%2C+Don't+Assume+Consent
on “Chrome is entrenching third-party cookies that will mislead users”Submitted Link in a Box – On Trust and 2-Hour Projects as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI think you can just add it to Control Centre, no need for shortcuts. I made an app for reading in the dark, minimising the amount of light hitting your eyeballs, but I'm still using the red color filter every night. The app is overall darker and more "strict" with how it handles content (esp. images) though: https://untested.sonnet.io/Heart+of+Dorkness and midnight.sonnet.io Overall, reduced the number of photons i…
Comment linking /Heart+of+Dorkness
on “Apple announces new accessibility features, including eye tracking”Submitted Dog Mode as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> Mozilla only problem is being transparent about telemetry. It's far from that: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume... (I still think FF is one of the best choices privacy wise, it's just that we don't have that many choices left) > HN is fine with tracking, smartphones, and every surveillance capitalist trick in the book (meta comment, thinking aloud here, feel free to skip) You might be c…
Comment linking /notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume-consent/
on “Orbit by Mozilla”Submitted How to Make a Font That Says Nothing as a story · 2 points
HN discussion> it would do a lot more and a lot more sustainably if it focused on the core mission of its browser. Some numbers to put things in perspective: https://untested.sonnet.io/notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume... FF is still a solid choice, privacy-wise (with some manual tweaking), but just in the past few years 80-90% of their revenue came from adtech partnerships, so expect a series of rug pulls like the recent ones.
Comment linking /notes/defaults-matter-dont-assume-consent/
on “Orbit by Mozilla”Submitted Let's Hold Hands as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
