Posted on 22 Sep 2023

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[ rust, programming, browsers ] 

This blogpost starts with me switching of my car radio, and ends with me writing a browser. There is some stuff
in between as well.

Some ten years ago, I used to travel a lot by car to customers. I listened to news radio to keep myself occupied during the daily commute. In the Netherlands, I would listen to Business News Radio (BNR)
and/or Radio 1. I liked having people talk and discuss the daily news and not being interrupted by the latest music I didn’t like anyway. I think I still had a car with MP3 CDs.

All was well until one day, I decided to switch off my radio. I didn’t want to hear the news anymore. And that evening on the way back, the radio stayed off. I still didn’t want to listen to the news. In fact, I didn’t want to listen to the news like ever again!

Why? I don’t know exactly, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this was also around the time my wife
got pregnant (although I cannot say for sure if this was before or after we knew). But when I thought about it, the
more apparent it got: the ONLY thing you hear on the news.. any news.. are bad things(tm). War, corruption, you name it.
We still should be thankful we still call these things news because often it feels like it would be more newsworthy if
politicians weren’t corrupt, or not kept their promises, or screwed another group of people over. And the problem is
that I – as a single person – have no ways or means to do anything about it. Nothing. Not even if I tried.

Ba