The LineLapse Blog
Short, illustrated explainers on how things work — every post comes with a hand-drawn animation you can watch, made with the same tool you can use yourself.
The Pythagorean Theorem
Every right triangle hides a secret relationship between its three sides. The two shorter sides are called the legs.
What is RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)?
Every AI model has a knowledge cutoff. It knows what it learned during training — and nothing after that. That's the problem RAG solves.
How to write a hook that stops the scroll
Most people scroll past your content in under two seconds. So your first line has to hit before they even decide to care.
How does photosynthesis work?
Every plant you've ever seen is running on sunlight. But how? It starts with three ingredients: sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide.
How ChatGPT Works
Every time you type a message to ChatGPT, something surprisingly structured happens behind the scenes. It starts with your words being broken into tokens.
The Story Spine: Eight Sentences That Build Any Story
The story spine is a writer's skeleton — eight fill-in-the-blank sentences that force any idea into a shape that actually works.
Google's Gemini Broke Out of a Security Test and Touched Three Real Companies
Security tests are designed to be airtight. This one had two small cracks — and that was enough.
StepFun's Step 5 Preview Uses 600 Billion Parameters — But Only 27 Billion at a Time
A standard neural network activates every single one of its parameters for every token it processes. That works fine when models are small.
Plugin4Shell: A Git Naming Trick Let Attackers Swap Code in Four AI Coding Agents
A git branch named after a commit hash can make 'git checkout <SHA>' resolve to the wrong code — the trick behind Plugin4Shell, a zero-click flaw in Claude Code, Codex, Copilot and Gemini CLI plugins.
What makes a story stick in your memory?
Some stories vanish the moment you finish them. Others live in your head for years. What's the difference?
The HTTP status codes you actually need
HTTP status codes are the internet's short vocabulary for 'here's what happened' — and about a dozen cover almost everything you'll ever see.
Why but and therefore beat and then
Every story dies the same slow death. Scene happens. Another scene happens. Another scene happens. That's 'and then' storytelling — and it's a flatline.
How does git branching and merging actually work?
Every Git repository starts with a single line of commits, one after another. A branch is just a label. It points to one specific commit.
Story vs plot: what is the difference?
Every story feels like it has two layers, even when you can't quite name them. Those two layers have names. One is story. The other is plot.
What is a JWT, and how is it verified?
Every time you log into an app, the server needs to know who you are on the next request. But it can't remember you. So it hands you a token.
The Hero's Journey, one step at a time
Every great story follows a pattern. Joseph Campbell noticed it across myths, religions, and cultures worldwide. He called it the Hero's Journey.
How does OAuth let you sign in with Google ?
You click 'Sign in with Google' on some app you've never used before. But how does that actually work without the app ever seeing your Google password?
Show, don't tell: what it actually means
'Show, don't tell' sounds like advice for writers. But it's really about how your brain works. Telling hands you a fact. Showing makes you feel it.
Caching strategies on one cheat sheet
Caching is the art of remembering so you don't have to work twice. Think of it as a cheat sheet inside your system — a fast, small storage layer that…
The Three-Act Structure
Every story, from a fairy tale to a blockbuster movie, follows a hidden skeleton. It's called the three-act structure. Act one is the setup.
How does a CDN make websites faster?
Your browser makes a request. That request has to travel to a server. And if that server is on the other side of the world, you wait.
What Is a Load Balancer, and Why Do You Need One?
A busy website needs more than one server — and something has to decide which server handles each visitor. That's the load balancer's job.
How does DNS turn a name into an address?
You type a name into your browser. But the internet only understands numbers. That's the job of DNS — the Domain Name System.
The TCP handshake, explained simply
When two computers want to talk, they don't just start sending data. They shake hands first.
Public-Key Cryptography
You want to send me a secret message, but we've never met to exchange a key. Public-key cryptography solves this with a clever trick: two keys instead of…
Hash Functions Explained
A hash function turns any input into a short, one-way fingerprint. Here's how that simple trick verifies downloads, protects passwords, and speeds up software — in one hand-drawn explainer.
How Database Indexes Work
Imagine you're searching for a name in a phonebook with ten thousand pages. Without an index, you flip through every single page until you find it.
What Happens When You Press Enter
You type a URL, hit Enter, and a page appears. Here's the relay race that happens in between — DNS lookup, connection, request, response, render — in one hand-drawn explainer.
How HTTPS Works
How HTTPS turns a public, untrusted network into a private channel — verify identity, exchange a secret safely, then encrypt everything — in one hand-drawn explainer.
Learn Data Structures & Algorithms — The Whole Map on One Poster
A study-notes cheat sheet for mastering DSA: the learning path, the core structures, and the handful of patterns that unlock most interview problems.
How the Web Evolved: From Read-Only Pages to the AI Era
A short, illustrated history of the web — Web 1.0 to the AI web — as one hand-drawn timeline you can watch draw itself.