The browser already does that. Short arguments for HTML and CSS over the JavaScript we keep reaching for first. https://hypermedia.lol/ 2026-09-09T00:00:00Z Brad Gesslerhttps://bradgessler.com https://hypermedia.lol/articles/a-worse-browser-inside-a-browser/ 2026-09-09T00:00:00Z 2026-09-09T00:00:00Z

Good intentions snowball into a shitty browser inside a browser. A team decides the server will speak JSON and the client will do the rest, and four runs later they've rebuilt the back button, the cache, scroll restoration and the URL by hand, worse. With a yeti.

Brad Gesslerhttps://bradgessler.com https://hypermedia.lol/articles/one-textbox-for-one-time-codes/ 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z

Websites build a six-digit login code like it's a nuclear launch console. Here's what that breaks, live, and the one HTML input that replaces all of it.

Brad Gesslerhttps://bradgessler.com https://hypermedia.lol/articles/the-motherfucking-website-canon/ 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z

Four profane single-page manifestos have argued for plain HTML for over a decade. I ran all of them through Lighthouse, plus craigslist, Legible News, and this site. The numbers are funnier than the pages.

Brad Gesslerhttps://bradgessler.com https://hypermedia.lol/articles/twenty-minutes-to-fix-a-typo/ 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z

In 2006 you opened the file over SFTP, fixed the character, hit save, and it was live. We traded that latency for safety, a good trade we then never revisited.

Brad Gesslerhttps://bradgessler.com https://hypermedia.lol/articles/most-modals-should-not-be-modals/ 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z 2026-09-08T00:00:00Z

The answer to a modal usually isn't a better modal. It's a page on the server, with a real URL, the actual data, and room for a challenge.

Brad Gesslerhttps://bradgessler.com