Link Dump 07 - May 2026

I haven't done a linkdump in a big while. On the menu are many small things. There's a lot of reading.

Parsing

I needed a parser for my stretchtext implementation, and for that, I had to define what my syntax is. So:

PeggyJS - a tool to generate your own syntax parser according to Parsing Expression Grammar rules

PEGSH - an online space to test out Parsing Expression Grammar rules by coloring the output text. It's a fun way to get into formal languages and understanding parsing.

Parsing Expression Grammar - Wikipedia - The Wiki page to learn how many parsers work.

Tools

A couple of interesting tools, standalone or embeddable.

Nutshell by Nicky Case - expandable, embeddable explanations, or bubbles that pop out when you click on a piece of text. This is sort of analogous to Stretchtext.

Tablesort - Apparently, you can sort HTML tables the easy way.

Hershey Font Editor by Heikki Lotvonen - a single-stroke font editor in the web, which uses an interesting method for curves.

Design

Websites with interesting design ideas.

DJR Typesetter by David Jonathan Ross is another, very nice way of showing a font catalog while leaving full control to the user.

Design of Gwern.net - a selfsplanation of the design and web typography choices on this beautiful website.

Reading

The Internet has no benches by Spencer Chang - where are the hangouts, the non-commercial spaces, the take-a-breathers of the Web?

No One is Bored, Everything is Boring by the late Mark Fisher - insight into today's anxiety-ridden world and the reasons thereof (spoiler: we are in cyberspace).

Theory of the Stretched Image by August Kaasa Sundgard - what's with the horor vacui? A dive into the systems that dictate our aspect ratios.

Toxic Pacifism, an interview by Solidarity Collectives, confronts anarchists and so-called anti-authoritarians who refuse to see why Ukrainians fight, and simplify their opinion down to platitudes about pacifism.

Your AI Use is Breaking my Brain by Jason Koebler - AI doesn't only impact its users, we are all affected somewhere down the line, and for the worst.

Listening

And because I got into Mark Fisher lectures lately, here's one:

All of this is temporary by Mark Fisher - capitalist realism, the cancellation of the future, the 80s decline of time, community, and spaces of cohesion...

See you later.

If you like what you just read,