Darcelle XV

A half hour TV documentary about Portland's permanent drag show

2023-03-25 drag • darcelle • portland • history • lgbt

EV ranges

Electric cars ranked by maximum range

2023-03-25 cars • evs • range • battery

Rodney Brooks on GPT-*

AI professor reflects on the current AI trend

2023-03-24 ai • intelligence • mit • rodneybrooks • chatgpt

RIP Darcelle

Walter Cole, Portland's drag institution, has passed away at the age of 92

2023-03-24 obituary • darcelle • portland • drag • lgbt

Placemark Play

A free / no login version of Tom's amazing map editor

2023-03-23 maps • placemark • tmcw • editor • geojson

Twitter API Client

No need for API keys with this Python client

2023-03-22 twitter • python • scraping • api • code

Hurdy Gurdy / Kraftwerk

Amplified medieval drone string instrument shredding through Das Model

2023-03-22 funny • music • hurdygurdy • kraftwerk • foreveralone

ChatGPT shell suggestions

A little tool for creating little shell commands by using ChatGPT

2023-03-21 chatgpt • ai • programming • shell

Satellite balloon tracking

Planet's writeup of how they used their satellite imagery and AI to track the Chinese balloon

2023-03-21 raic • planet • satellite • aerial • imagery • balloon

PG&E vs new housing

Murderous power company is taking six months to install power, forcing new housing to stay empty

2023-03-21 pge • piggy • electricity • california • corruption

Starlink fake reviews

SpaceX is posting reviews which are the same text in different languages, attributed to different people

2023-03-20 starlink • fraud • falseadvertising • spacex

Automatic Chinese conversion

Wikipedia has one text for various versions of Chinese, including simplified vs. traditional. It translates between variants automatically based on user preferences

2023-03-20 language • chinese • wikipedia • translation • writing

DeSantis endorsing torture

Verified details of the Florida governor's time at Guantanamo, advising that force feeding is OK (it is not)

2023-03-20 torture • politics • desantis • florida • president • guantanamo • humanrights

Human Cell Atlas

A writeup of the ambitious global project to map every type of cell in the human body and what proteins they express

2023-03-19 science • biology • humancellatlas • histology

Broken EV chargers

Some data on the problem of broken public car charging infrastructure; something like 25% of chargers don't work

2023-03-19 ev • electriccar • charging • electrifyamerica • gasstation

Android old app deprecation

Google made a change end of January where old Android apps no longer will install even if they probably could run, claiming security concerns (Apple does this too)

2023-03-19 google • android • compatibility • apps • api

About Web Components

An overview of the latest HTML standard

2023-03-19 development • web • internet • react • javascript • components • html

aCropalypse

Android image editor doesn't correctly truncate the original file, which means in some cases the original image data can leak through

2023-03-18 badtech • security • crop • truncate • posix • open • android

Google / Samsung phone hack

Significant security hole; silent remote takeover of a phone based on a bug in the modems used by Google's flagship phones. There is no fix.

2023-03-17 security • badtech • hacking • phones • googlepixel • google • samsung

Fuxley

A bunch of image parodies of 60s-80s culture

2023-03-16 funny • parody • fuxley • nostalgia

Dennis Ritchie Thesis

The odd story of an important computer systems hacker and his finished-but-not-accepted doctoral thesis

2023-03-16 history • computing • unix • dmr • dennisritchie • harvard • phd

ntopng

A fancy network connection monitoring tool

2023-03-16 diagnostics • networking • linux • internet

Scene Optimizer

Samsung explains their tech for producing fake moon photos

2023-03-15 photos • photography • ai • samsung • moon • astrophotography

Modern Font Stacks

A quick reference for fonts you can use in CSS without downloading

2023-03-15 fonts • css • via:hackernews • design • web • html

Metaverse experience

Detailed, somewhat snarky summary of the social milieu of Facebook's virtual reality chat room

2023-03-15 vr • meta • facebook • oculus • oculusquest • games

GPT system card

Paper for the AI; appendices D, E, and F contain examples of the various offensive things it would say before it was trained not to say them

2023-03-15 ai • hatespeech • machinelearning • culture • ethics • openai • gpt4

Abortion access in the US

Subtle visualization of the impact of healthcare availability if various states ban abortion

2023-03-14 abortion • politics • visualization • maps • civilrights

Kottke at 25

One of the most influential of the old school webloggers

2023-03-14 weblogs • kottke • linkblogs • writing • web • internet • culture

Kouri-Vini

The Louisiana Creole language, a lot of French mixed with West African language.

2023-03-14 language • louisana • creole • french • music • zydeco • via:languagelog

Boxy SVG Editor

Supposedly good at producing clean SVG

2023-03-13 svg • editing • images • graphics

Resenting Ke Huy Quan

Complex piece about Asian American representation in cinema

2023-03-13 movies • films • racism • asian • stereotypes

PG&E gift cards

Bizarre, badly handled.. gift? relief program? ... from PG&E, randomly giving $200 to anyone who asked

2023-03-13 pge • piggy • nevadacounty • power • politics

Samsung fake moon photos

Camera app is enhancing photos with a static image of the moon

2023-03-13 samsung • photos • camera • moon • funny • astrophotography • ai

Vehicle-to-Grid challenges

History and current state of the failed effort to let your car power your home

2023-03-12 power • electricity • ev • battery • grid • solar

Nevada County snowstorm

Long, detailed article about the second major snowstorm in a year

2023-03-11 nevadacounty • snow • weather • california

Unbreaking The Bank

2009 narrative of what it's like when the FDIC takes over a failed bank

2023-03-10 via:waldo • banking • economics • finance • fdic • svb

DeSantis at Guantánamo

Details of the Florida governors' years at America's torture detention facility

2023-03-09 torture • guantanamo • gitmo • desantis • florida • politics • prison

Priest harassment

Catholic hate group buys location data from gay dating apps (via ad networks) and uses it to try to destroy the lives of gay priests

2023-03-09 gay • lgbt • privacy • location • catholic • priest • closet • badtech

Silvergate shutdown

A regulated US bank doing cryptocurrency garbage shuts down, but at least appears to be able to give its customers their money back

2023-03-09 cryptocurrency • scam • bank • silvergate • crypto

Miss Bouvèé

Drag queen working in Fort Lauderdale, really fun performer

2023-03-05 drag • gay • lgbt • wiltonmanors • fortlauderdale • music

Golden Girls Take Manhattan DX

Geriatric sitcom turned into a retro JRPG

2023-03-04 games • goldengirls • tv • jrpg • funny • indie

Car as house backup power

The state of bidirectional charging, using an electric vehicle to power your home. It's nowhere near as real as you'd like.

2023-03-02 cars • ev • home • power • backup • battery • ups

Helping Tweetbot and Twitterrific

If you subscribe to those apps you can do a kindness to the developers whose businesses were just destroyed

2023-03-02 twitter • thirdparty • apps • clients • refunds • tweetbot • twitterrific

Ron DeSantis, torturer

Details from a torture victim at Guantanamo

2023-03-01 politics • desantis • torture • guantanamo

AI copyright

US Copyright Office against AI-generated image copyrights

2023-02-23 ai • art • copyright • intellectualproperty • ip

Proud Boys vs story hour

Another fascist attack on parents taking their kids to listen to stories being read

2023-02-22 fascism • america • politics • proudboys • storyhour

Early net lingo

A timeline of network culture terms going back to the 1970s.

2023-02-22 slang • internet • culture • history • usenet • via:metafilter

Fox News perfidy

Inside the lie factory; Fox employees privately mocked Trump's conspiracy theories while spreading them to their viewers

2023-02-18 foxnews • fox • propaganda • trump • politics • news • journalism

Stripe equity problem

Employee's RSUs expire if the tech company doesn't go public, causing a lot of financial and tax drama. Paywall bypass: https://archive.is/8bCAp

2023-02-18 stripe • equity • rsu • option • tech • startup

GoDaddy multi-year hack

Sleazy hosting company has been infiltrated for 3+ years, spreading malware via customers' properties

2023-02-18 hacking • godaddy • badtech • sleaze • malware

Open source map stack

Free software replacements for stuff MapBox provides

2023-02-17 maps • via:hackernews • mapbox • opensource

Black American History

Video series of history recommended by a teacher friend

2023-02-17 history • black • africanamerican • america • usa

Nevada City Mardi Gras

An explanation of one of the great local public events we have in Grass Valley

2023-02-16 mardigras • nevadacity • grassvalley • nevadacounty • california • party • tradition

SondeHub Amateur

Site tracking amateur radio balloon releases

2023-02-16 balloons • radio • ham • science • windsaloft • maps

Lost pico balloon?

Amateur radio fans launch helium balloons with tiny radio payloads. One went missing right about where the US shot down an object

2023-02-16 balloons • radio • ham • windsaloft • politics

Election manipulation company

"Team Jorge" hacks and spams to sway elections all over the world, including the US

2023-02-15 politics • elections • fraud • socialmedia

Oliver Sacks' swim purchase

Famous writer talks about buying a house mid-way through swimming in the Bronx

2023-02-15 oliversacks • realestate • swimming • daddy • newyork

Squares in Squares

A collection of optimial square packing for small numbers of squares

2023-02-15 geometry • squares • packing • math

SmoothWAN

OpenWRT with Speedify integrated, so you can easily bond two separate ISP connections for one more reliable / faster link

2023-02-15 internet • starlink • bandwidth • openwrt • speedify • bonding

Pseudo-Kufic

Christian artists in the Middle Ages copied Arabic calligraphy but only as decoration, not meaningful writing

2023-02-15 art • middleages • kufic • calligraphy • via:metafilter

Musk's ranking change

Twitter's new owner told engineers at 2am to ensure his tweets got seen or they were fired. So they gave him a 1000x ranking boost

2023-02-15 elonmusk • twitter • ego • clown • shame

Z-Library returns

Elaborate hosting setup to avoid legal trouble

2023-02-13 zlibrary • books • ebooks • piracy

Sylvester

An appreciation of the disco star and queer icon

2023-02-13 queer • lgbt • sylvester • music • disco • cockettes • sanfrancisco

MRI gun death

Idiot keeps a concealed pistol near an MRI, it goes off and kills him

2023-02-13 guns • mri • stupidity • death

Space Invader

A profile of the Parisian street artist

2023-02-12 streetart • paris • invader • art • spaceinvader

Burning Man vs clean energy

Yearly "temporary" festival suing to block a geothermal plant

2023-02-12 globalwarming • climatechange • burningman • geothermal • nevada • gerlach

Bypass Paywalls Clean removed

Firefox extension for accessing websites was removed without explanation

2023-02-12 paywall • firefox • extension • appstore

Stewart and Jen's homes

Details on the $140M in properties the Internet startup couple have bought

2023-02-12 realestate • stewart • slack • jenrubio • away • wealth

ChatGPT lossiness

Excellent essay exploring the knowledge and correctness limits inherent in deep learning models

2023-02-10 chatgpt • ai • lossiness • scifi

Vertical pig farming

Awful photos of industrial pork production, 20+ story high rise buildings

2023-02-09 food • farming • pigs • china • dystopia

Security Envelope Patterns

Diverse patterns printed inside envelopes to keep their contents invisible

2023-02-09 via:metafilter • design • pattern • security • envelope • texture

0.1 + 0.2

A very deep and precise dive into the oddities of floating point math

2023-02-08 math • computers • floatingpoint • ieee

Chuck Csuri and D. P. Henry

Comments on two early generative artists. Including a wholesome perspective on NFTs

2023-02-07 art • generative • nft • algorithm • drawing

Shift Happens Kickstarter

Been waiting for this for years; Marcin's amazing book on the history of typewriters and keyboards is now on Kickstarter.

2023-02-07 marcinwichary • kickstarter • keyboard • typewriter • history • design

Jan 6 and Twitter

Original reporting on how Twitter helped Trump foment his coup, including details of special treatment that Twitter and Facebook gave him and his fellow plotters

2023-02-04 twitter • trump • politics • jan6 • coup • policy • facebook

Twitter and the Jan 6 coup

Details on how the Jan 6 report left out all their research on the role social media planned in trying to overthrow the US government.

2023-02-04 twitter • facebook • socialmedia • politics • jan6 • coup • policy

SleepHQ

A newish web app for tracking sleep apnea and CPAP data, sort of an OSCAR clone in your browser

2023-02-04 medical • sleepapnea • cpap • oscar • data

Ikeda's pies & orchard

A local paper profile of the much loved fruit stand / pie shop / hamburger place in Auburn on I-80.

2023-02-04 fruit • ikeda • pie • food

Face license plates

Washington DC's growing problem of folks hiding their car's identity

2023-02-03 cars • safety • traffic • dc • washingtondc • law

RIP fun Twitter bots

Some details on the good content we're losing thanks to Musk's capricious leadership

2023-02-03 twitter • bot • via:waxy • api • elonmusk

Last of Us gay appreciation

Lovely queer essay about the 3rd episode of the show

2023-02-02 gay • lgbt • lastofus • zombies • queer

WinCompose

An excellent, simple way to type characters outside your normal language set on Windows. Modeled after the old Unix compose key.

2023-02-02 unicode • emoji • typing • windows • software • internationalization • xcompose

Sniffies sex stats (NSFW)

Gay hookup app publishes some stats, giving the lie to there being no tops

2023-02-01 sex • gay • lgbt • sniffies • cruising • sleaze • nsfw

Ted Chiang at SFI

Sci-fi author takes a residency at the complex systems science institute.

2023-02-01 writing • scifi • chiang • sfi • complexity • cormac

Genshin Impact exploitation

Interviews with the victims of game gambling

2023-01-31 scam • genshinimpact • games • gacha • lootbox • exploitation • gambling

Helene An

A profile of the woman behind Thanh Long and its famous garlic noodles in San Francisco

2023-01-31 food • sanfrancisco • vietnamese • restaurant • garlicnoodles

Flent

Internet connection tester from the Bufferbloat folks; various tests nicely packaged

2023-01-26 internet • networking • bandwidth • latency • bufferbloat • performance

Carbon offset sham

Study on results from a major carbon offset company find their projects are useless or worse

2023-01-26 globalwarming • climate • scam • carbonoffset • greenwashing

Google ads antitrust

Long time coming, DoJ suing Google over its ads monopoly

2023-01-24 google • ads • monopoly • antitrust • politics

Mayor of Slow Sanchez

Neighbor who takes care of the somewhat pedestrianized street in Noe Valley

2023-01-24 slowstreets • sf • sanfrancisco • community • activism • sanchez

irtt: Isochronous Round-Trip Tester

A network tool for measuring connection latency with regular UDP packets

2023-01-24 internet • monitoring • latency • jitter • ping • networking

mozilla.org's 25th anniversary

Some memories of the good old days when "open source" was magic

2023-01-23 mozilla • netscape • jwz • opensource • firefox

EV across the Nullarbor

Driving a Polestar across the loneliest road in the world

2023-01-23 australia • ev • polestar • charging • travel • roadtrip

Harvey’s closes

Gay restaurant / bar that's a mainstay of the Castro closes

2023-01-23 harveys • sanfrancisco • gay • lgbt • harveymilk • restaurants

Huge Pages are a Good Idea

Linux boxes still use 4k memory pages even though 1GB of RAM for a process is now common. Bigger pages perform better but trigger bugs.

2023-01-22 memory • optimization • linux • via:hackernews • tlb

HC-Tree (sqlite)

Experimental high concurrency backend for sqlite, supports row level locking and multiple writers

2023-01-21 sqlite • scaling • database • concurrency

Wikipedia redesign

Detailed notes on changes at Wikipedia from one of the developers who created the new presentation

2023-01-21 wikipedia • web • development • javascript • design • frontend

Kerrygold butter ban

New York and California aren't allowing Kerrygold butter to be sold because of a new law requiring PFAS be labelled

2023-01-19 food • butter • kerrygold • california • regulation • pfas

Twitter API key workaround

Looks like Twitter's own API keys are available should your app's key have been blocked

2023-01-17 twitter • api

Inside Elon Musk’s “extremely hardcore” Twitter

A detailed, well written summary of the disaster so far at Twitter

2023-01-17 elonmusk • twitter • tirefire • debacle