Some Bits: Nelson's Linkblog aboutarchivemastodonfeed
Reddit deceptive ads
Company very proud to make ads that look just like actual organic content
2024-03-17 ads • reddit • ftc • deception
Consent-o-Matic
An open source extension for autofilling privacy / cookie consent forms on many popular publishing platforms
2024-03-17 consent • cookie • gdpr • privacy • web • plugin • chrome
Atkinson Hyperlegible
A sans-serif font designed for legibility for people with limited vision
2024-03-17 adaptive • blind • font • typography • readability
Dating app enshittification
Details of how Tinder / Bumble / Hinge / Grindr etc are getting worse, in part as a monetization strategy
2024-03-16 dating • grindr • romance • sex • hookup • culture • enshittification
On Colorblindness
Long, carefully researched and argued essay about racial justice in America
2024-03-15 affirmativeaction • racialjustice • justice • america • black • slavery • reparations • politics
nanofont3x4
A legible ASCII font in a 3x3 bitmap matrix
2024-03-15 fonts • tiny • pixelart
Political email blocklist
EveryAction has a global blacklist that will help you avoid a lot of political email
2024-03-14 politics • spam • email • campaign
FNET/GridEye
Global scale monitoring of power grids. Click the map links, etc for interesting views
2024-03-14 infrastructure • power • electricity • grid • ac • alternatingcurrent
Facebook and Mercurial
Details on why Facebook doesn't use git. Partly performance, partly the culture of git development.
2024-03-13 mercurial • facebook • git • versioncontrol • programming • via:lobsters
Museo Larco
A collection of Mesoamerican pottery, maybe specifically Moche pots? Those are famous for their sexually explicit ones.
2024-03-13 archaeology • mesoamerican • moche • pots • sexpots
Daily AI
Framework for using LLMs with voice applications
2024-03-13 voice • ai • llm • daily • generative • chatbot • python
Billionaires are a policy failure
Thoughtful essay explicating just how weird it is to have an enormous amount of money and how it is bad for American society.
2024-03-13 finance • money • politics • taxes • america • inequality • wealth
Attacking Biden effigy
Fascism on display in Kansas City
2024-03-11 politics • fascism • biden
Chinese thoughts on EV brands
Interesting Reddit post from a Chinese person talking about how people see the various Chinese electric car brands
2024-03-11 cars • evs • electric • china
Musk's charity fraud
Collected billions in tax breaks, doesn't distribute the foundation money to worthy causes unless they benefit him and his businesses directly.
2024-03-10 fraud • charity • taxevasion • elonmusk • spacex
Venus figurines
Roundup of speculation on prehistoric feminine sculptures that span millenia
2024-03-10 via:hackernews • sculpture • history • archaeology • venus
1963 NYT on Overt Homosexuality
Ugly newspaper article but somewhat well researched and balanced for its time.
2024-03-09 gay • lgbt • history • nytimes • homosexuality • mattachine
Starlink Latency improvements
Brief technical notes on a significant service improvement I've noticed
2024-03-08 starlink • latency • isp • performance • bufferbloat • lag • ping
British Library postmortem
Details of the ransomware attack on the institution and the recovery. Really nice to see this level of detail in public.
2024-03-08 security • ransomware • malware • badtech • library • it • recovery
Training LLM at home
Clever work to make AI training possible on cheaper lower RAM video cards instead of specialized AI processors
2024-03-08 ai • training • lora • quantization • llm
Apple cuts off Epic
Highlighting the danger of a monopoly platform
2024-03-06 apple • epic • games • competition • antitrust
St. Piran's Day
Grass Valley celebrates its Cornish history by tossing pasties
2024-03-06 cornwall • cornish • california • grassvalley • stpiran • community
Aptos design
Details of Microsoft's process for their new default fonts
2024-03-06 via:lobsters • typography • fonts • microsoft • aptos • bierstadt
Autobiography of an Androgyne
1918 narrative of a transgender woman's life
2024-03-05 lgbt • history • trans • america • transgender
Twitter leaking IP address
Geniuses launch a new feature which lets any Twitter user see your IP address, a major privacy violation
2024-03-05 twitter • privacy • elonmusk
ambient.garden
"can a composition be organized in space rather than time?"
2024-03-04 generative • art • music • electronica • via:reddit
Voter suppression
Trump allies misapplying regulations to disenfranchise voters
2024-03-03 politics • trump • votingrights
Feeds All Around
Shows RSS feeds related to Mastodon users
2024-03-03 rss • feeds • socialmedia • mastodon • via:adactio
Bissextus
Leap Day is actually February 24, according to historical calendars
2024-03-03 calendar • via:jwz • leapyear • leapday
Observable Framework ideas
Simon Willison breaks down the innovations in Mike Bostock's new data science publishing system
2024-03-03 datascience • observable • visualization • infovis • javascript
REST reconsidered
A lament on how the distributed systems term REST has gotten watered down
2024-03-03 soap • rest • xmlrpc • rpc • http • webservices • api • programming
Avast fraud
Anti-virus software / malware has been selling browsing data for years and misleading customers
2024-03-03 avast • malware • privacy • scam • fraud • security
One billion rows in Go
Nice explication of optimization and profiling techniques
2024-03-03 golang • go • programming • optimization • parallelization • hashtables
Mastodon for Apple II
Now with video?!
2024-03-03 apple2 • appleii • mastodon • socialmedia • retrocomputing • hacking
DONOTREPLY.CARDS
A website for Dan Hon's brilliant "don't reply to my social media message in a dumb way" project
2024-03-02 funny • socialmedia • via:waxy • tirefire
Radio Squirrels
Photo essay on some folks keeping an old maritime radio station alive
2024-03-02 via:simonw • ham • radio • pointreyes • history • photos
Tumblr / Mullenweg analysis
A thoughtful commentary on the mess over at Tumblr lately centered on the CEO Matt Mullenweg responding to a complaint of anti-transgender bias
2024-03-02 tumblr • mullenweg • socialmedia • trustandsafety • moderation
NYC Trash
Excellent feature on the most baffling of American civic problems; a great city that leaves its garbage mounded on the sidewalks
2024-03-02 newyork • nyc • trash • sanitation • infrastructure
LGBTQ+ representation in games
Report on a GLAAD study showing 1 in 5 gamers are queer, then reflecting on the lack of representation in games
2024-03-01 games • gayming • lgbt • glaad • via:reddit
2024 Leap Day bugs
A depressing list of sloppy programming
2024-02-29 programming • bugs • leapyear • leapday • feb29
Save the gay whales
First instance of humpback sex observed, between two males. Article includes some complex explanation for homosexual behavior. Maybe they're just good buddies?
2024-02-29 sex • whales • gay • lgbt • nature • science
SRENITY ONLINE
Affirmations for tech workers
2024-02-28 funny • krazam • tv • devops • sre
DoorDash Gremlins
Unflattering photos of people picking up their delivery food
2024-02-28 doordash • funny • delivery • food • candid • photos
Friends of Sophia
Queer sci-fi short with Nana Visitor. Looks fun.
2024-02-27 movies • scifi • gay • lgbtq • nanavisitor
The Calculator
1970s Casio QL-10 calculator came with a built-in cigarette lighter
2024-02-27 funny • casio • calculator • smoking
pkgx drama
Software packager uses AI to write nonsense descriptions of various projects
2024-02-27 homebrew • brew • mxcl • pkgx • ai • opensource • drama
Weak Jalapeño
An argument that the special TAM II peppers bred to have little heat now have infiltrated the nation's chile supply
2024-02-26 jalapeno • food • spice • pepper • via:hackernews
Cert expiry RSS
Simple solution for monitoring when an SSL certificate is about to expire
2024-02-26 monitoring • rss • ssl • cert • certificate • via:lobsters
AI supervision
Interesting results looking at how an AI overseer has changed the way tennis umpires do their jobs
2024-02-26 ai • supervision • tennis • hawkeye • research
Turkish TV
Turkey exports a lot of TV shows that are popular in Europe and elsewhere, but not so much the US / UK
2024-02-26 tv • television • turkey • soapopera
Delicious in Dungeon
A new Netflix show that's sort of D&D fantasy, sort of a food show
2024-02-25 tv • fantasy • netflix • dnd • dungeonsanddragons • cooking
Electric factories
Detailed article on efforts to replace industrial fossil fuel heating with electric. Heat pumps, thermal batteries, etc. In lieu of carbon capture.
2024-02-25 electrify • globalwarming • factory • industry • heating • carbon
Reddit IPO plan
Details on a program to let major Reddit users buy a taste of the stock offering
2024-02-25 reddit • finance • investment • ipo • money
Reddit IPO plan
Details on a program to let major Reddit users buy a taste of the stock offering
2024-02-25 reddit • finance • investment • ipo • money
Self hosting maps
Covering the open source GIS options for hosting web maps in 2024. Protomaps, MapLibre,
2024-02-24 maps • opensource • hosting • protomaps • slippymap • mapbox
UnReal World
An early roguelike RPG that still gets updates
2024-02-24 games • survival • roguelike • rpg
Reno vote-by-mail problems
Degradation of postal service might mean it gets difficult to vote in Reno, Nevada
2024-02-23 usps • voting • votingrights • votebymail • washoecounty
Anthropology Yesterday
A history of anthropology blog
2024-02-23 rex • golub • blog • anthropology • academics
Fixing Atari E.T.
Detailed notes on patching the infamously buggy game
2024-02-22 atari • programming • 2600 • et • games • hacking
Niue .nu TLD
Long, sad story of a country's Internet identity being sold and not reclaimed
2024-02-21 niue • internet • tld • sweden • colonialism • registry • nic
Mother 3 fan translation
Unauthorized translation of the 2006 GBA game
2024-02-21 games • earthbound • mother • gameboy • japan • nintendo • mother3
Mother 3 / Switch (JP)
Legendary unobtainable game has gotten a new release, but once again Japan only.
2024-02-21 games • switch • nintendo • earthbound • mother • mother3 • japan
Wilhoit's Law
An aphorism about conservative politics that is often misattributed
2024-02-20 language • politics • wilhoit • conservatism • hypocrisy
Jeremy Zawodny leaves Craigslist
Old school engineer at an old school Internet company, leaves after 15+ years.
2024-02-20 craigslist • yahoo • zawodny • engineer • internet
Shaarli
A self-hosted bookmark manager like Pinboard or Raindrop
2024-02-19 bookmarks • linkblog • selfhosted • pinboard
Numberbarn
An Internet-centric solution for when you need a phone number but don't want a landline or cell contract. An alternative to Google Voice
2024-02-19 phone • landline • call • phonenumber • parking
htmz
A trivial version of a web page that loads dynamic content from a server. Sort of a troll, sort of a real demo of the power of the modern web platform.
2024-02-19 html • htmx • via:hackernews • web • development • javascript
GoAccess
A simple web access log visualizer
2024-02-19 apache • web • analytics • access.log
Dark Bombadil
2011 essay with an alternate perspective on one of Tolkien's most perplexing characters.
2024-02-19 tolkien • lotr • bombadil • fantasy • books
Sea Ranch Connect
Community fiber ISP in a wealthy California development
2024-02-18 internet • isp • searanch • california • fiber
USGS Topo maps
Nice collection of historical maps
2024-02-18 maps • topomaps • history • us • usgs • topography
Exploding face
"Every Time We Meet for Ice Cream Your Whole F*cking Face Explodes", a sci-fi short of adolescent love (gorey)
2024-02-18 funny • shortfilm • scifi • adolescence
Diversi-Dial
DDial was a 1980s dialup chat system, a little like IRC but for 7 (or later 12) users
2024-02-17 bbs • history • computing • apple2 • applecat • chat • socialmedia
Another Hour Another Planet
Jason Rohrer announces plans for a new game, a sort of sequel to the experimental MMO One Hour One Life
2024-02-17 games • rorher • mmo • content • usercreated
git configs
Julia Evans surveys people as to what configurations they apply to git
2024-02-16 git • programming • versioncontrol • code
Navalny dead
Brave Russian opposition leader dies in Russian prison, just a few years after recovering from Russia poisoning him. Presumably he was murdered in prison at Putin's orders but we'll probably never know.
2024-02-16 murder • russia • assassination • politics • putin • resistance • navalny
Frontiers AI paper
Hilariously bad generated images in a supposedly peer reviewed science journal
2024-02-15 funny • ai • frontiers • peerreview • academia • publishing
Observable 2.0
Data exploration platform has a new architecture around webapps with precompiled extracted data
2024-02-15 observable • bostock • data • visualization • dashboard • development
Smoke Taint in Wine
Notes on wine with grapes made near a fire
2024-02-15 smoke • wine • hafner • california • fire • agriculture
China Hugo mess
Lots of details come out of self-censorship of the 2023 scifi awards. This article is a summary with context.
2024-02-15 china • chengdu • scifi • hugo • worldcon • scandal • censorship
Codpieces
Fun article about a 16th century sexualized fashion trend
2024-02-14 via:metafilter • fashion • clothing • codpiece • penis • sex
Every Noise at Once
A map of music genres that was generated from Spotify. (No longer updated.)
2024-02-14 music • spotify • genres • maps
WebGPU in Python
Portable GPU code
2024-02-13 programming • ai • gpu • parallelism • cuda
Stickers for Replies
Warning labels for various forms of anti-social Internet behavior
2024-02-13 internet • replyguy • funny • socialmedia • etiquette
Dragon Quest Builders 2 translation
Discussion on Reddit about an amazing localization of a Japanese videogame with lots of clever slang
2024-02-13 games • dqb2 • dqb • dragonquest • polari • language • translation
WSL and systemd
Comprehensive discussion of systemd in the WSL Linux VM
2024-02-13 systemd • wsl • sysadmin • linux • windows • init
Amazon Prime Video further enshittification
Not only do they have ads, but now they're removing high fidelity video and audio encodings unless you pay extra.
2024-02-13 amazon • enshittification • video • prime
Federation and reach
Ryan's thoughtful essay on the complicated questions about bridging social media systems and expectations of privacy and reach.
2024-02-13 federation • mastodon • bridgy • activitypub • fediverse • privacy
RIP Steve Ostrow
The proprietor of the famous Continental Baths in NYC
2024-02-12 gay • lgbt • bathhouse • music • bettemidler • tubs • newyork • obituary
AMD AI chips
Update on the business that could be a competitor to NVidia in AI hardware
2024-02-09 ai • hardware • llm • cpus • gpus
purple burglar alarm
A language meme; the phrase is awkward to say for people from Scotland. (And many others; what a weird mix of liquid consonants.)
2024-02-09 phonology • funny • scotland • language • accent
Evolution of the Scrollbar
A nice little interactive demo
2024-02-09 design • ui • hci • via:flowingdata • computers
Toothbrush botnet untrue
Story good enough it should be true, but is not
2024-02-08 hoax • botnet • ddos • toothbrush • iot • security
1.5C
Global warming milestone hit for the duration of the last year
2024-02-08 climatechange • globalwarming • environment • politics
New Mozilla CEO
Mitchell Baker is out, Laura Chambers it temporary CEO
2024-02-08 mozilla • firefox • opensource • tech • ceo
Wikimap
A simple dots-on-a-map for Wikipedia articles
2024-02-07 maps • wikipedia
Fediverse explained
A good overview of Mastodon, ActivityPub, etc
2024-02-07 mastodon • fediverse • activitypub • socialmedia • tech • internet
Toothbrush botnet
The Internet of Things has fully arrived
2024-02-06 security • badtech • ddos • botnet • toothbrush
Lou Harrison
American composer who incorporated a lot of different world music into modern American classical. Also an early out gay man.
2024-02-06 gay • lgbt • music • gamelan • composer • reedcollege
Reiswitz's Kriegsspiel
Brief appreciation of a 200 year old Prussian wargame that was a predecessor of modern RPGs
2024-02-05 games • dungeonsanddragons • germany • prussia • rpgs • wargames • history