--- title: Soundprints, Syntax Highlighting, and 56k RuneScape date: 2026-09-01T18:00:00.000+02:00 week_number: 36 notes: "**TL;DR:** This week follows browser fingerprinting and Manifest V2's final Web Store exit, rethinks syntax highlighting and flex layout with newer CSS APIs, studies ruthless RuneScape networking, and collects small tools for configs, LLM routing, specifications, and tests." links: - title: Manifest V2 Support Timeline url: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/develop/migrate/mv2-deprecation-timeline comment: Chrome disabled Manifest V2 in 2025; on August 31 it removed the remaining extensions from the Web Store. If you still depend on MV2-only tools, Firefox-based Zen makes a browser switch easier with an Arc-like interface. tag: news - title: sibling-index() CSS Function url: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/Values/sibling-index comment: Newly available across current browsers, `sibling-index()` returns an element's one-based position as an integer. That makes staggered animations, calculated dimensions, and sibling-aware color scales possible without counters, custom properties, or generated markup. tag: news - title: Highlighting My Code Based on How Much I Care url: https://hank.bond/posts/highlighting-my-code-based-on-how-much-i-care/ comment: "Hank Bond replaces the usual rainbow with grayscale emphasis based on reading value: comments and definitions stand forward, while punctuation and routine keywords recede. It treats highlighting as an attention system, not decoration." tag: article - title: How 2004 RuneScape Fit a Multiplayer RPG Into 56k Dial-Up url: https://jkm.dev/posts/how-2004-runescape-fit-a-multiplayer-rpg-into-56k-dialup/ comment: A byte-by-byte tour of RuneScape's 2004 protocol, from delta-encoded path corners to bit-packed player updates and local simulation. Running a busy 3D RPG through roughly 5 KB/s required making every redundant byte somebody's problem. tag: article - title: Inaudible Sounds Used to Fingerprint Browsers Catch AliExpress Red-Handed url: https://arstechnica.com/security/2026/08/aliexpress-caught-fingerprinting-visitors-after-sending-inaudible-sounds-to-browsers/ comment: A researcher's multipoint headphones kept interrupting phone audio whenever AliExpress opened. That odd symptom exposed obfuscated scripts measuring a muted WebAudio oscillator, plus a broad fingerprint assembled from graphics, media, hardware, events, and automation signals. tag: article - title: Making React Testing Library Tests 43% Faster url: https://sigh.dev/posts/making-react-testing-library-faster/ comment: Profiling one large Sentry form uncovered repeated label scans, an unreachable selector fast path, and redundant event-path work in jsdom. The targeted fixes made that test 43% faster, though the author sensibly warns against universalizing one workload. tag: article - title: "Balancing Flex Items With flex-wrap: balance" url: https://ishadeed.com/article/flex-wrap-balance comment: "Ahmad Shadeed works through today's awkward techniques for balancing wrapped flex rows, then shows the proposed `flex-wrap: balance` and `flex-line-count`. The end state is wonderfully small, but currently Chrome-only rather than production-safe everywhere." tag: article - title: Syntax Highlighting Code Snippets With Prism and the Custom Highlight API url: https://www.bram.us/2024/02/18/custom-highlight-api-for-syntax-highlighting/ comment: "Bramus shows the technique behind MicroLighter: let a tokenizer find ranges, register them with `CSS.highlights`, and style `::highlight()` names. Syntax color no longer requires turning every token into another DOM element." tag: article - title: I Just Chose Words Carefully url: https://unsung.aresluna.org/i-just-chose-words-carefully/ comment: "A 17,000-word Super Metroid guide has a manually justified right edge: no formatter or hyphenation, only rewriting until every monospace line fits. This is technical writing as patient craft rather than content throughput." tag: article - title: Pkl url: https://pkl-lang.org/index.html comment: Apple's open-source configuration language combines classes, functions, types, and validation, then generates JSON, YAML, property lists, and other formats. It is configuration as a small programmable model rather than another pile of templated strings. tag: library&tools - title: MicroLighter url: https://davatron5000.github.io/microlighter/ comment: Dave Rupert's roughly 2 KB, dependency-free highlighter applies TextMate grammars through the CSS Custom Highlight API. Tokens stay as text ranges instead of injected spans, languages load on demand, and themes use readable semantic CSS variables. tag: library&tools - title: Codex Tool Reference url: https://codex-tool-reference.simonw.chatgpt.site/ comment: Simon Willison published a large searchable inventory of tool schemas exposed in one Codex environment, covering files, sub-agents, web access, connected apps, and automation. Handy when the interface is more discoverable through examples than memory. tag: ai - title: Bifrost AI Gateway url: https://docs.getbifrost.ai/overview comment: Bifrost is a self-hostable gateway that puts many LLM providers behind one OpenAI-compatible API, with routing, fallbacks, load balancing, virtual keys, budgets, and telemetry. Useful when several services should share provider policy without sharing integration code. tag: ai - title: OpenSpec url: https://openspec.dev/ comment: OpenSpec keeps evolving software requirements in a lightweight, configurable workflow shared by people and coding agents. The useful promise is not more planning ceremony; it is keeping the specification and implementation comparable as both change. tag: ai - title: A Walkable ASCII Cyberpunk City in One HTML File url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YtygAx_C6A comment: A first-person cyberpunk city renders its streets, buildings, traffic, and depth through a moving grid of ASCII characters. It is a lovely reminder that a convincing 3D world can begin with raycasting and a stubbornly limited alphabet. tag: other --- My favorites are the two very different approaches to syntax highlighting: MicroLighter removes DOM machinery, while Hank Bond asks which parts of code deserve attention in the first place. The AliExpress investigation is the other standout; a tiny headphone interruption led from an ordinary annoyance to a surprisingly broad fingerprinting system.