Jake Van Alstyne · PopsicleBoat

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I'm the captain of this boat, and every letter gets read and answered. Write to me directly, or sign in to open a conversation onboard.

Posts: 35
Replies: 27
Spaces: 15

Jake (jvalol)'s blog

23 posts

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I had a house

1 reply

This is the comment section for I had a house .

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I should have gone to the hospital

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This is the comment section for I should have gone to the hospital .

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My use of AI

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This is the comment section for My use of AI .

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I popped the question, she said yes

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This is the comment section for I got engaged .

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The post you (almost) didn't publish

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This is the comment section for The post you (almost) didn't publish .

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Why did I call it PopsicleBoat?

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This is the comment section for Why did I call it PopsicleBoat? .

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My comment section is static HTML

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This is the comment section for My comment section is static HTML .

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We're all terminally online. I know I am. I know you are too if you're reading this

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This is the comment section for we're all terminally online. I know I am. I know you are too if you're reading this .

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I hid something fun on my blog

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Companion thread for I hid something fun on my blog

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AI is good. Scary good. Scary in a good way.

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Companion thread for AI is good. Scary good. Scary in a good way. . Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.

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My new post script

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This is the companion thread for My new post script . Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.

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Automatic comment threads for new blog posts

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This is the companion thread for I've made posting here with a companion thread on PopsicleBoat automatic . Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.

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23 languages, one I can check

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This is the companion thread for 23 languages, one I can check . Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.

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Commenting now works with two redirects

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This is the companion thread for Commenting now works with two redirects . Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.

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Posting here, start to finish

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This is the companion thread for Posting here, start to finish . Replies here also show up on the blog post itself.

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The easier way to post to my blog with comments already setup

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This is where the talking happens: Easier way to post to my blog with comments already setup

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Creating a Claude skill to simplify adding a comment section to my blog post

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I wrote about this in a little more detail here, but basically trying to reduce the steps necessary to making this work If you haven't poked around here, short summary: Comment area for your content, no libraries to imp…

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A glance is not a reading

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PopsicleBoat's new-posts badge needed some work. Details in this link. https://jva.lol/weblog/a-glance-is-not-a-reading/

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The notification that gave up after a minute

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I added the option of notifications, but it was buggy. So I fixed it. Full story in the link. https://jva.lol/weblog/the-notification-that-gave-up-after-a-minute/

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The page that rebuilds itself

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I added a build hook so your (and my) site can automatically rebuild itself when there's a new comment or post. https://jva.lol/weblog/the-page-that-rebuilds-itself/

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Your site can keep the comments

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Every thread's public replies are now plain JSON at the thread's address plus /replies.json. You can download it, do what you want. The content is yours even if this site vanishes. More in the link. https://jva.lol/webl…

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The panel that closed itself

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I had a painful bug dealing with video chat. A feature I'm proud of and worked hard on so wanted to get right. Details in the link. https://jva.lol/weblog/the-panel-that-closed-itself/

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Popsicle Boat as a comment section

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I wrote up how jva.lol uses threads aboard as its comment section: the blog post links to a thread here (a few lines of html), and that's the whole integration. No widget, no iframe, no tracker. A reader who wants the d…

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LogBook

8 posts

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The translation report link caught its first fish

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Yesterday I added a small link under the language picker: "Does this read wrong?" Today it brought the first report, about the Ukrainian translation, from someone who left no address. They said the translation is ridicu…

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What's new, late July

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The comment thread for What's new, late July .

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Keeping track of what's new

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A few changes for finding what's new: The sidebar's All Posts link now shows a badge — the number of posts you haven't read yet. Open the feed and those posts are listed under "New since your last visit," each linking t…

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Build hooks: your site rebuilds when replies land.

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For blogs using a thread here as their comment section: It can now tell your site when a new reply comes in. Static hosts (Netlify, Vercel, Cloudflare Pages, etc.) offer build hooks: a URL that rebuilds your site when s…

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Popsicle Boat by the numbers

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Right now: 21 members · 45 posts · 72 replies · 16 spaces. This entry updates itself — the numbers refresh automatically, and once a quarter I add a snapshot line below. Snapshots: 2026 Q3 — 8 members · 10 posts · 66 sp…

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How the boat is built

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One person builds and maintains this boat. It's written in Elixir and runs on a couple of small servers. No ads, no trackers. The analytics count pages, not people. Every space has an open feed you can read from any fee…

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What this Logbook is

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This is the one place I post news about the boat itself — new features, fixes, the occasional change of direction. A few promises: entries are occasional, not chatty. The little dot you might see next to "Logbook" in th…

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What's new (July 2026)

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Everything works the way it did before. Only additions, nothing you would need to relearn. Your words can take on styling now. Posts, replies, and messages understand simple formatting: bold , italic , code , lists, quo…

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Programming

4 posts

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Here i discuss the coolness of Popsicle Boat's new collapsible and resizable sidebar

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Companion to my post: https://jva.lol/weblog/collapsible-sidebar/

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Putting the boat on a diet

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New on the blog: a logged-out thread page went from 843 KB to 468. The interesting cut was lazy-loading the entire WebRTC call system behind a signed-in gate; the embarrassing one was three 923×1352 PNGs rendering at 40…

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The panel that hid itself.

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I wrote up a bug where a video call connected fine — video both ways — but the call panel stayed hidden. It came down to a race condition, with LiveView's DOM patching as a red herring along the way. Full story: https:/…

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Me working in 2015

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