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Robert Byrne

@kapitar.bsky.social
831 followers 233 following 831 posts

Founder / Web developer (F#) / Filmmaker Currently working on loosethought.com Film/Art: kapitar.com

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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 09/06/2026
Weary of #ai It poisons the task with a lot of stupid assumptions and clumsiness. You spend all day cleaning it up. The next day, when you're fresh and creative, you realise all the simple and obvious approaches. Even still, the whole thing feels like a net loss.
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 04/06/2026
Hey all, aware of any good 'done for you' site submission services? All the various listing/category places that you should submit your app to. Just updated loosethought.com and it's quite a drag doing it all manually.. #buildinpublic
loosethought.com
Visual Mindmapping for Creative Thinkers - Loose Thought
A mindmapping tool for visual thinkers who want to understand things deeply. Make sense of complex topics.
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
I think there's an obligatory xkcd that goes into this, but only for line endings!
A screen capture of some plain monospaced text, showing how words sometimes line up and create 'vertical text rivers'
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Added richer keyboard editing to loosethought.com Personally, I really love the the 'jump' tool, which assigns shortcut keys to each note you can see 🙂 Brainstorm, capture notes and run through research without using a mouse, and keep the benefits of visual thinking. #buildinpublic #ux
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Reposted by Robert Byrne
Braidpoint @braidpoint.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
Forward progress with #fsharp for #javascript with CloudflareFS. Three sample projects: "HelloWorker", "R2WebDAV" which is a port of the TypeScript project I updated, and a "Simple-CLI" that manages them both via management API (No TOML, no wrangler). @cloudflare.social github.com/speakeztech/...
default page for R2 WebDAV server sample projectDefault page for HelloWorker sample project
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 01/10/2025
Added fonts to loosethought.com ! It was based on feedback, so its ok to add features, right? 😊 Lets you set up really nice 'title cards' for research/writing projects. It's based on the idea of #web font 'defaults' (cursive, mono etc) to let you customize them at some point. #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
Dark mode! #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 07/09/2025
Got some fantastic feedback last week for loosethought.com and have been working away on it, what a relief to be doing things people ask for etc :) - Snap to grid (this really improved things!!) - Newlines inside notes - Better highlighting effect #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Anyone have any good 'tech person oriented' resources on building up SEO and web presence, before I hit the open web looking for some? I'm looking for something more tuned to non-marketeers, if that makes sense, something you would write yourself if you knew all about it. #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 18/08/2025
Website updated! Hopefully the messaging is clearer now. #buildinpublic loosethought.com
loosethought.com
Loose Thought
A visual notebook for figuring out complex ideas. Make sense of complex topics using a visual note taking tool thats easy to use
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 17/08/2025
Listenting to this while doing some website work. I like it, has a kind of retro modernism vibe - nature is indeed mysterious, and this is a technological homage. #buildinpublic youtu.be/5CgBR1ppzXs
youtu.be
Storm Pleiades [Full Album] | 1970s Berlin School Vibes | Vintage Atmospheres
YouTube video by Kosmische Wellen
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 16/08/2025
Something quite charming and nostalgic about coding 'raw' JS in a <script> tag, just like I would have done back in the 90s. There's also something cool about it - jQuery is more or less built in, and CSS transitions and grid layouts let you put things together in a few minutes. #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
I think this is where AI really shines, vibe 'donkeywork'. In this case, getting some landing page videos up into Cloudflare. I never want to spend days contemplating some vendors idea of what an API should look like, or pour through all their docs/forum/support/etc.. #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
At my regular coffee spot to do a bit of website copy writing. It's in the basement of a chain coffee shop in Dublin, I walked past it for years! Finding it more and more necessary to get out of the apartment to work these days.. Any other unusual spots you work in? #buildinpublic
Underground coffee shop in an old brick cellar with vaulted ceilings
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
Got my first bug report! Somebody signed up, used the app and took the time to report it in the internal feedback form and Discord. Well that's a strangely nice thing to get! Hopefully its easy to fix 🙂 #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Added multi-sheet workspaces to loosethought.com Researching a project or learning something new? it's now a lot easier to organize things! I think this really delivers on the promise - a paper like experience with the best of digital (links, editing, sharing). #buildinpublic #productivity
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 04/08/2025
Added multi-sheet workspaces to loosethought.com Researching a project or learning something new? it's now a lot easier to organize things! I think this really delivers on the promise - a paper like experience with the best of digital (links, editing, sharing). #buildinpublic #productivity
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 20/07/2025
When AI works.. Probably saved myself a whole afternoon of pain debugging a complex constraint solver. Half rubber-ducking, half "AI keeps suggesting this, I should actually consider it, oh its the key to the solution" 😊
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 17/07/2025
Well this all works as one big pipeline, but somehow I feel morally obliged to break things up, its too wild 😊 #fsharp
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 11/07/2025
Happy Friday all! Loose thought is now live, so feel free to check it out at loosethought.com In this demo, I show you how to set up a creative project in a few minutes and share it with your team. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWul... #buildinpublic #pkms #creative #project
youtube.com
Set up your creative project in 10 minutes
YouTube video by Loose Thought
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Reposted by Robert Byrne
Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Loose Thought has launched on Uneed 🚀 5 votes so far, but hoping to get thst number up before the day is out. 👍 Head over there and upvote! #buildinpublic www.uneed.best/tool/loose-t...
uneed.best
Discover Loose Thought on Uneed
Discover Loose Thought on Uneed - Plan your projects using the tools you already know. Cards on paper | Knowledge Bases, Learning, Project Management in Business
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Loose Thought has launched on Uneed 🚀 5 votes so far, but hoping to get thst number up before the day is out. 👍 Head over there and upvote! #buildinpublic www.uneed.best/tool/loose-t...
uneed.best
Discover Loose Thought on Uneed
Discover Loose Thought on Uneed - Plan your projects using the tools you already know. Cards on paper | Knowledge Bases, Learning, Project Management in Business
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Any recommendations for a simple replacement for Netlify forms? Just a signup form, as simple as it gets! It's been working fine for ages, but now, alas, bots have found it and keep submitting bogus emails. Honeypot wont work, and reCAPTCHA is really lousy for users. #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
Looking at the the emerging strategies for ‘large scale’ agent based #AI development . The way you need to start specifying every aspect, all the style and constraints, in great detail, up front. Future software projects may end up looking like the old phone book waterfall projects of the past
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 10/06/2025
Added backlinks/references to loosethought.com Getting ready to open the app up for users this week, nervous but excited. 😱🚀 #ux #pkms #buildinpublic
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Reposted by Robert Byrne
Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
Having great image support in loosethought.com really comes in handy for doing AI exploration and research. Here I'm doing some experiments and research for a short film 🎞️ I can put these findings together as I go, and share them with the rest of the crew! #ai #buildinpublic #film
Screenshot of an image board with some experiments and AI generated ideas for a short film
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
Having great image support in loosethought.com really comes in handy for doing AI exploration and research. Here I'm doing some experiments and research for a short film 🎞️ I can put these findings together as I go, and share them with the rest of the crew! #ai #buildinpublic #film
Screenshot of an image board with some experiments and AI generated ideas for a short film
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
New post! 👁️ #buildinpublic #knolling loosethought.com/blog/what-is...
loosethought.com
What is knolling and how can it help you to to focus? - Loose Thought
Find out how tactile ordering helps you to stay calm and focused when things get overwhelming.
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
🤘👹
Screenshot of a profile with 666 followers
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
btw! #fsharp is also quite nice for low level stuff, not just all the fancy algebraic types etc. #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
So this is the future. Responses that are usually right, but sometimes flat out wrong.. You point them out and it reverses itself sure enough, but if you don't? The idea that you're going to let this loose on a real codebase with important/tricky stuff in it.. #copilot #ai
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
Hi all! Apparently I'm launching on #producthunt today, I totally forgot about it 🙃 I must have set it up as part of a submission frenzy! Feel free to head over and vote, would be much appreciated! #buildinpublic www.producthunt.com/posts/loose-...
producthunt.com
Loose Thought - Visual note taking for exploring complex topics | Product Hunt
Loose Thought is a simple tool for exploring complex topics. it works like paper. Capture notes anywhere on the page then move things around as you refine your understanding. Collaborate in real time ...
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
What's nice about #fsharp is how well balanced and sympathetic the features are, here we have: - Pattern matching - Immutability with updates - Currying - Pipelining - Algebraic types - Map / List / Seq - Lambda shorthand ( _.Name ) It's the integration of all these that makes it so satisfying 🚀
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 15/05/2025
I've had to disable #copilot autocomplete in @vscode.dev because it just keeps prompting huge amounts of kind of right but not right code as I type. I can't use tab any more, it keeps accepting all this stuff, like walking in a garden full of rakes. Perhaps its more of an issue with #fsharp ?
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
Active patterns make parsing so pleasant in #FSharp
Code screenshot showing a terse parse function which leverages active patterns in FSharp
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
Added points/estimates to loosethought.com 🚀 Add an estimate to a note, and see the total at the top of the card. Completed items knock the total down. #ux #saas #buildinpublic #indiehacker #productivity
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Reposted by Robert Byrne
Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Interesting gotcha. Say you want optional padding, with some fallback: padding: calc(10% + var(--p)); To skip it, you can't just use `0`, you have to include a unit: ❌ --p: 0; ✅ --p: 0px; Unitless zero is a number, not a length, and will cause the entire calc to be dropped. #css #web
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Interesting gotcha. Say you want optional padding, with some fallback: padding: calc(10% + var(--p)); To skip it, you can't just use `0`, you have to include a unit: ❌ --p: 0; ✅ --p: 0px; Unitless zero is a number, not a length, and will cause the entire calc to be dropped. #css #web
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Happy Friday all 🙂 Coding down in the Dublin docklands today 🇮🇪 I was part of #startupbootcamp in 2012, and none of these buildings were here back then! (None of the modern ones I mean!) #tfi #buildinpublic
A partial view of a laptopn near a paved dock
Some office buildings in a renovated dockland area
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
I really prefer 'index' over 'tasks' here. Right now I'm just indexing dates, but eventually tags, colours, keywords etc, feels more in keeping with the spirit of the thing. Thoughts? #buildinpublic #ux
Screenshot of app with red arrow pointing to a heading which reads 'INDEX'Screenshot of an app with a red arrow pointing to a heading which reads 'TASKS'
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Added deadlines/tasks to loosethought.com 🚀 Mark things with a date and build a prioritized task list from your plans! #ux #saas #buildinpublic #indiehacker #productivity
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
We took an hour on the train to work near the coast. When its nice in Dublin its quite nice! 😊 So many nice days you just grind away in a home office, how much of your life slips by that way.. #buildinpublic
View from Starbucks in Dun Laoighre
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Added a toolbar to loosethought.com 🚀 Some early feedback: "keyboard support is nice, but as an additional thing, not the only thing" 😊 #ux #saas #buildinpublic #indiehacker
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
You can now move multiple cards at once! 🚀 Some tricky semantics dealing with the selections.. You run into this a lot with canvas apps, gestures you take for granted are actually quite complicated when interactions might be a click or a drag (and you don't know yet which is which) #buildinpublic
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ཏོ་ཧ་ T0ha @t0ha.dev · 21/04/2025
🚀 Lama Bot's launch on ProductHunt is in 24 hours! See you on big AMA on www.twitch.tv/war1and at 10:00 UTC. www.producthunt.com/products/lama-b… 🙏 to our subscribers and supporters. Pls, RT #producthunt #buildinpublic #indiehacker #indiehackers #launch
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
It can be rather brutal posting endless, endless, endless submissions to sites, reddit etc, promoting a totally unknown thing. Then somebody comments somewhere 'ohh, that looks interesting' and it's like mana from heaven 🙂 #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
From @stackexchange.bsky.social newsletter. Not sure if it's snark or not 🙂 Desktop apps were "local-only". Local-first means true web apps, collaborative, browser based etc. But they work great offline, and restore agency back to the user in terms of the stuff you create. #localfirst
Screenshot of an email newsletter fragment which reads:

Links from around the web.

# What is local-first web development?
- Very exciting to see web devs reinvent the desktop application
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Would you rather be in a world where a tiny few are selected to be creative, or a world where there are millions of creatives, constantly churning, coming and going. The former is certainly more attractive as a fantasy, if you are picked. Do we want a 'liquid' market for human expression?
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
Quick Tip for anyone using @11ty.dev - not something I've really seen in the docs/examples. If you have a complex repeating thing, set up a Nunjuck macro, which acts like a small local template. #buildinpublic
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Robert Byrne @kapitar.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Morning all 👋 This year is moving fast 🏎️ Hopefully all your schemes and plans are moving too 🙂
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