Nelson's Linkblog

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Passkeys in current deployment

Interesting stories from the reality of passkeys. Particularly interested how non-technical people are getting autoenrolled with them.

2025-09-02 passkeys • authentication • login • identity

Minecraft Kowloon City

Fascinating urban experiment recreated in the game

2025-09-02 minecraft • kowlooncity • hongkong • games • modelling

Cormac McCarthy's library

Sensitive article about the famous author's home stuffed with 20,000 books

2025-09-01 via:metafilter • mccarthy • sfi • hoarder • literature

A reverse proxy for web services but specialized to a few specific home hosting things like Immich and Nextcloud

2025-09-01 proxy • security • internet • services • immich

GPT-5 prompting guide

Advice from OpenAI about how to induce better answers from their LLM

2025-08-31 programming • openai • chatgpt • promptengineering • ai • llm

Volvo software bugs

Article about the terrible state of Volvo's EV cars software. My C40 is very disappointing

2025-08-31 volvo • cars • engineering • quality • bugs • software • evs

The Windows open source screenshot tool finally got new releases after many years

2025-08-30 screenshot • windows • utility • ocr • capture

Spy vs Spy Apple ][

Classic videogame, innovative split screen multiplayer

2025-08-29 games • spyvsspy • apple • retrogaming

A new diet tracker / food journal, this one has the ability to log food by simply taking a photo of it

2025-08-28 food • macros • diet • cronometer • tracking • diary • apps • android

Typepad shutting down

One of the old school blog platforms, it'd been pretty moribund for the last few years and is now closing

2025-08-27 typepad • shutdown • blogs • anildash • sixapart • weblogs

The New Life chapter 1

NSFW, porny text. Newish gay novel, I quite enjoyed the writing in this first chapter.

2025-08-27 books • gay • lgbt • tomcrewe • porn • nsfw • sex • frottage

Bounce social media tool

New service to help move followers between Bluesky, Mastodon, and Pixelfed

2025-08-26 fediverse • bluesky • mastodon • socialmedia • friends • freedom

Sub-millisecond time

Detailed experiments of trying to push the limits of time synchronization on Linux on commodity hardware. <1ms is easy, 20-60ns may be a practical limit

2025-08-26 linux • ntp • ptp • time • synchronization

Software package manager like Python's uv, but for Ruby

2025-08-26 ruby • python • software • programming • uv

Grinding the Bay Bridge

Skydiver maneuvers parachute to let him grind the cable on top of the Bay Bridge

2025-08-26 awesome • redbull • stunt • skydiving • xtreeeem • sanfrancisco • baybridge

Android lockdown

Google is threatening to make it much harder to sideload apps outside their ecosystem

2025-08-25 google • android • lockdown • jailbreak • opensource

MetaFilter activity stats

Disheartening statistics from an older online social community

2025-08-24 metafilter • stats • growth • death • socialmedia • forum

Build Factorio factories with Lean code, compile to blueprints of belts and machines

2025-08-24 games • factorio • programming • batshitinsane • functional • lean

A new 64 bit number to use as constants

2025-08-22 funny • acab • 8647 • politics • uspol • trump • deadbeef • cafebabe

Peter Thiel lectures on The Antichrist

Takes one to know one

2025-08-22 thiel • christianity • politics • fascism • hate

Google AI energy

Detailed report on how much energy their AI systems use

2025-08-21 ai • energy • google • scaling • datacenter • llm

NCHS online archive

A nonprofit I've helped with a little has digitized records and put them online

2025-08-20 nevadacounty • nchs • archive • history • search • photos • california

Starlink stupidity

Musk trying to use the political influence he bought to undercut broadband expansion in favor of his useful but not sufficient alternative

2025-08-19 politics • starlink • spacex • elonmusk • corruption • broadband • fcc

SF Leather district

San Francisco has created a formal cultural district for Leather & LGBTQ culture

2025-08-19 leather • folsom • gay • lgbt • bdsm • kink • sanfrancisco

Android hackery: open source software that pairs with various fitness trackers, headphones, etc so you can use the devices without the vendor's software

2025-08-18 android • hacking • fitness • tracker • privacy • watch

"Private and Uncensored", I think the porn world uses this?

2025-08-18 ai • llm • porn • generator

auth-results@verifier.port25.com will reply to an email telling you if it was delivered and with details of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.

2025-08-17 email • testing • smtp • spam • tools

check-auth@verifier.port25.com will reply to an email telling you if it was delivered and with details of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.

2025-08-17 email • testing • smtp • spam • tools

New derogatory slang for AIs and bots online

2025-08-16 language • ai • culture • bots • spam

Facebook friends feed

Facebook has a feature to just show you posts from your friends

2025-08-15 facebook • friends • socialmedia • filter • ads

An app for running LLMs on iOS

2025-08-15 ai • llm • ios • apple • iphone • app

An Android app for running LLMs locally on your phone

2025-08-15 android • ai • llm • phone • app

Google released a new LLM that is very very small and intended as a building block for your own tuned systems

2025-08-14 gemma • google • ai • llm • hacking • simonw • fun

Wplace - Paint the world

Web game where people draw pixel art on the world map

2025-08-14 maps • games • multiplayer • place

A storygame platform using AI and well known books

2025-08-13 ai • games • reading • vampires • startup

Company is starting a commercial package repository as an alternative to PyPI

2025-08-13 pypi • python • pyx • vc • astral • uv

Code comparison tool that understands programming language structure instead of just giving line or word diffs

2025-08-13 programming • diff • git • change • coding

A programming library for syncing state between multiple instances. Sort of like git or syncthing, but designed for embedding

2025-08-13 programming • sync • syncthing • git • crdt • library

The Nazi abuse of justice, a second legal system for victims allowed most Germans to live ordinary lives. The US is establishing something similar.

2025-08-13 fascism • trump • politics • uspol • nazi • german • history

A privacy-oriented RAG + LLM toolkit in Python, for building custom AI stuff that you can run locally

2025-08-12 llm • ai • rag • query • python • programming

git manpage generator

A parody, something generating plausible but fictional documentation for git

2025-08-12 funny • git • dvcs • vcs • unix • documentation

You Got the Power

A 2000 magazine article about my startup

2025-08-11 popularpower • me • nelson • marc • computing • startup

Experienced engineer wondering why the latest AI integration stuff ignores 40+ years of expertise in distributed systems

2025-08-11 ai • llm • mcp • programming • rpc • distributed

WordPress asset leaking

It's easy to download any asset uploaded to WordPress, even if it's not published

2025-08-11 security • wordpress • scraping • privacy

America's most popular dial-up ISP is shutting down dial-up service

2025-08-10 aol • history • internet • dialup • modem

Directory of Retrieval-Augmented Generation tools for AI work

2025-08-10 ai • llm • rag • retrieval • search

RIP Chromebook Steam

Google removes the popular gaming option for Chromebooks. A whole lot of schoolkids are going to be devastated

2025-08-09 gaming • chromeos • chromebook • steam • google • games

Tiny electric jet boat

Weird EV from China, goes 30mph and fits in a car

2025-08-09 boats • evs • electricvehicles • china

Netnews: The Origin Story

Steve Bellovin's paper about the beginning of Usenet

2025-08-08 internet • usenet • netnews • history • socialmedia

The Human Line Project

A group providing support to people who have had mental health problems as a result of talking to AI

2025-08-08 llm • chatgpt • mentalhealth • ai

SimonW on GPT-5

Analysis from an expert

2025-08-07 ai • openal • llm • chatgpt • gpt5 • simonw

Introducing GPT-5

Details of OpenAI's new LLM release. It's better at lots of things, they say, and a big emphasis on agentic stuff

2025-08-07 ai • llm • openai

Women's health privacy violation

Meta and Google were buying private information from Flo Health in their advertising systems, learning things like which women were trying to get pregnant

2025-08-07 privacy • health • women • menstruation • facebook • meta • google • ads • surveillance

Home battery power plant

Batteries installed in people's homes participated in an experiment to provide significant grid power when needed

2025-08-05 california • electrify • battery • tesla • sunrun • power • pge

Satellite destruction

Trump administration wants to destroy working climate monitoring satellites

2025-08-05 nasa • trump • politics • uspol • vandalism • climatechange • globalwarming • science

Mothership Strategies

Newsletter claiming a lot of fundraising spam is really one company set up for self-enrichment, with less than 2% of donations getting through to campaigns

2025-08-04 uspol • politics • dnc • dccc • fundraising • scam • pac

A version of Wireguard designed to be harder to detect by deep packet inspection

2025-08-04 privacy • vpn • wireguard • networking • internet

Motherfucking Wind Farms

Samuel L. Jackson in a video for a clean energy company

2025-07-31 funny • globalwarming • climatechange • windmills • windfarms • samueljackson

Details of the torture that Venezuelans suffered in a Salvadoran prison after the US sent them there

2025-07-30 uspol • politics • torture • ice • immigration

Map search engine for every word seen in a Street View photo of every street in New York

2025-07-29 newyork • maps • ocr • geography

Debian 64 bit time

Getting ahead of an obsolence problem, switching to a larger time type early

2025-07-28 linux • y2k • y2038 • time • debian

Projectivy Launcher

Replace GoogleTV's ad-ridden home screen with something else

2025-07-28 ads • google • googletv • tv • adblocker • launcher • android

Scientology keyboard

Bizarre custom keyboard for the cult

2025-07-27 scientology • religion • cult • keyboard • incomm • cherry • via:jwz

Harper's CLAUDE.md

One engineer's take on getting Claude Code to work better for him. Lots of interesting and tested ideas here.

2025-07-26 harperreed • ai • claude • claudecode • llm • programming • prompting

Poly-1 computer

A 1980s computer developed in New Zealand for schools. Included networking!

2025-07-25 computing • newzealand • networking • history • schools • education

Fun collaborative art project: draw fish, watch them swimming around in a tank with other people's fishes

2025-07-25 fish • art • game • online • via:metafilter

goo.gl burned down

$BBB company can't afford to keep a simple link redirector online, so destroying a big part of the Internet they encouraged people to trust them to make

2025-07-25 google • services • links • shortener

A frontend for self-hosted LLMs

2025-07-23 ui • ai • llm • webapp • selfhosted

Website with fitness info, exercises, etc

2025-07-23 fitness • gym • exercise • nutrition • diet

Painter considered

2025-07-22 gay • lgbt • queer • sargent • art • painting

Sargent & Paris

Major exhibition at the Met

2025-07-22 art • gay • lgbt • queer • sargent • nyc • newyork • metropolitan • met

Texas Courthouses

Some lovely civic architecture

2025-07-21 texas • courthouse • smalltown • america • architecture • government

Audio Test Files

A big batch of video and audio files in different formats

2025-07-20 test • audio • hometheater • plex • tv

Converts code into a format that's easy for an AI to ingest

2025-07-20 programming • ai • code • formatting

Rescuing Medium

Very detailed article about the complex business of taking a failing small company and restructuring and recapitalizing it

2025-07-18 startups • business • investors • medium • ev • tony

MechaHitler's origin

Nice overview of how LLMs have hate speech hiding in their machine hearts

2025-07-18 ai • llm • hatespeech • grok

Chain of Thought AI

Recent systems are having an LLM talk to itself as a sort of thinking out loud to produce better answers

2025-07-18 llm • ai • intelligence • programming

You can run decent AIs on a small computer

2025-07-18 llm • ai • inference • hardware • llama

Cadillac Publishing

Some info on a 1950s publisher of sexology books

2025-07-17 books • publishing • sex • sexology

Amazon kiro breakdown

Tech details of Amazon's new agent coding system

2025-07-16 ai • coding • llm • aws • amazon • kiro • programming

Analysis of the trend of older gay men being featured in TV shows

2025-07-16 tv • gay • lgbt • older • silverfox • yaoi • severance

Pope traffic spike

Wikipedia logs on the moment the pope's election was announced

2025-07-16 scaling • wikipedia • via:lobsters • web

Grok anime waifu

Prompt leaked for Grok's mode for entertaining creepy men

2025-07-15 funny • grok • anime • waifu • ai

Map of Pride flags

Visualization of the historical lineage of the various pride flags

2025-07-15 gay • lgbt • flags • vexology • visualization

Church of Robotron

Are you the mutant savior?

2025-07-14 funny • futel • games • robotron • portland • pdx • culture • karl

Simple webapp tools for working with video, audio, PDF. There are a zillion of these products but this one seems simple and not sleazy, at least on a quick test of the webcam recorder

2025-07-14 apps • pdf • video • audio • webcam • webapp

China digital IDs

China follows India and other countries in building a national online identity system. It is optional, for now.

2025-07-13 identity • china • privacy • login • password

Vocoder National Anthem

Dan Deacon does an unusual and effective performance at a ball game

2025-07-13 music • dandeacon • nationalanthem • laurieanderson

Traditional Hawaiian songs, humorous descriptions of genitals

2025-07-11 hawaii • sex • hawaiʻi • song • culture • history

Puddles Pity Party Show

Weird music shtick was turned into something more like a TV show

2025-07-11 music • puddles • clowns • tv

Nursing staff comes to the aid of a man being attacked by an unidentified armed assailant claiming to be a federal agent

2025-07-11 uspol • ice • civilrights • bravery • fascism

Not all ICE agents are happy about being Trump's brownshirts

2025-07-11 uspol • politics • fascism • trump • ice • dhs • military

Bypass Paywalls Clean

Useful browser extension keeps getting knocked offline: Twitter and this Russian hosting seem to be the best point of contact now

2025-07-11 chrome • extension • ads • paywall • firefox

Mamdani Headlines

Site parodying the NYTimes desperate efforts to smear the Democrat nominee for New York mayor.

2025-07-09 funny • parody • nytimes • nyt • newyork • mamdani • politics • uspol

DHS Christian Nationalism

Recruiting ad posted by the federal government juxtaposes militarism, Christianity, and nationalism

2025-07-09 uspol • politics • christian • religion • america • dhs • ice

ICE violence in SF

Federal thugs assault protestors

2025-07-09 uspol • politics • fascism • ice • sanfrancisco • sf

A frightening intimidation operation from Trump / ICE people in a Los Angeles park

2025-07-08 uspol • politics • fascism • la • losangeles • ice • immigration

Guadalupe escape

Account from a high school classmate of mine about evacuating the flooding in Texas

2025-07-08 flooding • history • sjs • davidbeebe • guadalupe • kerrville

nVidia GPU virtualization

Folks crack nVidia's limiting of virtualizing consumer GPUs

2025-07-07 gpu • nvidia • virtualization • proxmox • ai • hacking • vgpu

Cloudflare's stats on bot activity on the Internet

2025-07-07 internet • metrics • bots • crawlers