Thoughts on reading, building software, and the tools I use.
A scanned 1950s typewritten PDF broke Readplace's reader view. The fix took two architectures: an LLM-first pipeline that didn't work, a Tesseract pipeline that did, and the LLM-as-post-processor stages that ship today.
Most AI reading tools replace reading with summaries and auto-curation. Readplace uses AI to help you read more of the right things, not less of everything.
The HTTP request already contains the fields that matter. The rest is a hash function and a log line, not a third-party tracker and a consent banner.
Honest comparison of read-it-later apps in 2026: Readplace, Readwise Reader, Instapaper, Raindrop.io, Karakeep, Wallabag, and Matter.
An honest look at what free really means for read-it-later apps, from hosted tiers to self-hosted options to paying a few dollars a month.
Readplace uses AI to generate short article summaries for triage, not replacement. Here's how it works technically, and why it avoids the usual AI content problems.
Omnivore shut down with two weeks notice. Readplace is a privacy-first read-it-later app built by a developer and no VC funding.
Pocket closed on July 8, 2025. If you never exported, your articles are often still recoverable. Here's how to find them and move to Readplace.
A fair comparison of two developer-focused read-it-later tools, one self-hosted and one managed, and the tradeoffs each makes.
You open 15 tabs from the HN front page and read 3. The rest haunt your browser for weeks. There's a better system.
You copy articles into ChatGPT for summaries. It works, but it's slow, manual, and nothing gets saved. Readplace does it in one click.
A fair comparison of two read-it-later apps that took different paths after Pocket shut down. One is familiar and stable. The other bets on AI and active development.
Most developers subscribe to far more newsletters than they read. The problem isn't the newsletters. It's the lack of a system to extract the few links worth reading from each one.
A fair look at two read-it-later apps with AI. Where Readwise wins, where Readplace wins, and how to pick the right one for you.