Ask HN: What rabbit hole(s) did you dive into recently?

Different table top roll playing game systems

I've been doing some modernization on an old scripting language used by the game engine I work on [1]. Added a garbage collector, simplified how internal symbols are defined, added a VS code extension with some niceties like syntax highlighting, "Go to Definition", and doc tooltips. Also recently added support for websockets and plan to tackle JSON soon. Oh, and so much refactoring.

https://github.com/ZQuestClassic/ZQuestClassic

Fun exercise to try and list them out! My last couple of weeks:

- 3D-printable parts storage solutions (via: I found some part storage bins in the discard pile at a local hackerspace)

- MITM proxy to snoop on Github Copilot API requests (via: we're building an jupyter AI assistant thing and got curious how other players do it).

- DIY robot arms (via: I'm making several for a nested 'you pass butter' joke, via a casual conversation about robotics being accessible now. YouTube is amazing at surfacing smaller makers once you start watching a few videos on a given topic)

- Learning about Oauth and JWT (via: 'why is auth still a pain?')

- Invertebrate UV fluorescence (via: that millipede is glowing under my UV torch!)

(a small subset of these end up documented https://johnowhitaker.dev/all.html eventually if you're curious to see a longer historical list)

I like rabbit holes where following the curiosity gradient to a satisfying conclusion is possible. "How does X work" leads eventually to code that does X. I'm less happy when they lead into a tangle of complexity, like digging into a library only to find weird abstractions 6 layers deep or trying to compare 18 different alternatives in a field I don't know very well.

OP I'd also like to hear yours!

i've been attempting to switch to neovim off and on for about a year now. VS Code is so much much easier to get started with though. And adding support for a new language is just an extension-install away.

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