Nelson's Linkblog 2007-07

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Facebook outage

I've been impressed with how they've had no downtime. Oops today.

2007-07-31 downtime • facebook • outage • web

Sun had a profit!

Wow, never thought that'd happen again

2007-07-30 computer • earnings • profit • stock • sun

SF to LA, no highways

Google Maps will let you route anything

2007-07-30 california • google • highways • maps

nice casual puzzle game, runner up in Jay's competition

2007-07-30 casual • flash • games • puzzle

Solar eclipse map

Awesome visualization of totality for 25 years

2007-07-30 eclipse • infographics • map • sun • travel • via:digg • visualization

Screenscraping tips

Some comments I made about liberating data from websites

2007-07-30 beautifulsoup • python • robot • screenscraping • web

Advanced Python screenscraping; tries to infer document structure from multiple examples

2007-07-30 beautifulsoup • django • parser • python • screenscraping • template

Marvin Zindler RIP

Houston TV legend passes on.

2007-07-30 chickenranch • consumer • marvinzindler • obituary • rip • toupee • whorehouse

Google Earth / topo maps

Easily installed overlay with isoaltitude USGS maps

2007-07-28 google • googleearth • isoaltitude • map • topographic

Solaris 255 maxfiles

All Unices suck in some way. Solaris STDIO is limited to 255 files / process

2007-07-28 badtech • bug • fdopen • file • kernel • solaris • stdio • ulimit

iPhone resources

Good roundup of the first few weeks' of Internet churn on iPhone

2007-07-27 blogs • guide • hacks • iphone • reference • resources

Kirk and Spock as Lone Ranger and Tonto in love

2007-07-27 fandom • loneranger • photoshop • slash • startrek • tv

Paris bicycle culture

How casual bike rentals are altering Paris life

2007-07-27 bicycle • bike • france • paris • urbanplanning

Jason writes well about poker

2007-07-27 bluff • goldman • goldtoe • jason • poker

Was Tillman murdered?

Wow, this looks awful; some reason to think his death was more than just a friendly fire accident

2007-07-27 coverup • iraq • military • scandal • soldier • tillman • war

baby baby *luvya girl*

The song's main, and sole, lyrics, "Baby, baby, Luvya girl," are sung in a breathy male voice that alternates between a grunt and a falsetto.

2007-07-26 music • onion • pop • satire • theonion

Amazingly detailed technical article about how Ruby on Rails design choices can interact badly with MySQL's limitations

2007-07-26 database • mysql • optimization • orm • performance • rails • ruby • rubyonrails • webapp

Crates and Barrels

images of ubiquitous video game objects

2007-07-26 barrels • crates • culture • games • via:anildash

Space Invader / Second Life

There's a nice full circle aspect to this

2007-07-26 france • games • graffiti • paris • secondlife • spaceinvader • streetart

Space Invader / MySpace

French street artist shows up with a MySpace web page

2007-07-26 france • graffiti • myspace • paris • spaceinvader • streetart

Apache on iPhone

Also Python. The toolchain is working, how long until Apple breaks it?

2007-07-26 apache • gcc • hack • iphone • python

Predictor or cause?

Elderly people the cat sits near die two hours later

2007-07-26 bizarre • cat • health

Marc waxes about the implications of their opening access to bank data

2007-07-25 api • finance • marc • wesabe

Lovely little jwz rant; beware if you comment on his blog

2007-07-22 alt.fan.jwz • jwz • mpeg • rant • video

A binary XML format, very fiddly bitwise encoding

2007-07-22 compression • encoding • via:gregorio • w3c • xml

Update on how the Alberta group is doing

2007-07-22 ai • chess • computer • games • poker

Entrecote secret #2

Followup to the other article, in English with the basics of a recipe

2007-07-21 entrecote • food • france • paris • recipe • restaurant • sauce • steak

Le secret de l'Entrecote

Chicken livers, maybe

2007-07-21 dining • food • france • paris • sauce • steak • via:wikipedia

an infovisualization

2007-07-21 99problems • graph • infographics • via:goldman

Ask: search privacy

AskEraser will let a user tell ask.com not to log their searches

2007-07-20 ask • askjeeves • privacy • search

Google gambit 2

I'm really impressed with their public play for open wireless

2007-07-20 auction • fcc • google • internet • open • politics • spectrum

GameFAQs leadership

One of the best and simplest online content sites is about to lose its leader

2007-07-20 cnet • gamefaqs • games • media • via:digg

Google wireless gambit

Offers to bid on spectrum, but only if there are openness requirements

2007-07-20 auction • fcc • freedom • google • network • spectrum • wireless

Constitutional crisis

Good Harper's essay explaining the danger of the extension of executive privilege

2007-07-20 bush • contempt • coup • court • executive • politics • president • ruleoflaw • usa

Fat Wonder Woman

A loving reimagination. I always liked how big Lynda Carter was, she's hot.

2007-07-20 comics • diet • fan • fat • lyndacarter • obese • wonderwoman

Internet health report

Useful general web page; shows major North American network problems

2007-07-20 internet • network • problem • report • tcpip

Level3 network problems

Massive packet loss in one of the big North American Internet carriers

2007-07-20 badtech • internet • level3 • outage • tcpip

How to get rid of crap; if I buy Merlin beer maybe he'll help me declutter?

2007-07-20 clutter • dump • organize • trash

"Security theater"

TSA head calls some of their own procedures a sham

2007-07-20 orwell • schneier • security • tsa

Twitter / jennyholzer

Even if fake, this is genius

2007-07-20 art • holzer • jennyholzer • via:boingboing

Hardcore CAPTCHA

funny because it's true

2007-07-20 captcha • funny • math

iPhone hello world

Unauthorized iPhone toolchain is on its way

2007-07-20 code • gcc • hack • iphone • software

Joel hates blog comments

I mostly agree with what he's saying

2007-07-20 blog • comments • culture • via:ryan • weblog

NYT Harry Potter review

The bastards broke the embargo

2007-07-19 book • embargo • harrypotter • nyt • review

Court documents reveal new law enforcement techniques

2007-07-19 fbi • government • penregister • police • spyware • via:digg • wiretap

iPhone webapp storage

Work around stupid iPhone limitations by using data: urls

2007-07-18 application • hack • iphone

the trailer video is breathtaking

2007-07-18 3d • email • mailbox • productivity

Murloc death metal video

Awesome bit of machinima

2007-07-18 games • machinima • murloc • music • video • warcraft • wow

Padding search stats

Outrageous; Microsoft is counting automated searches from a game towards their market share. Good luck with that, guys.

2007-07-17 chicktionary • microsoft • scam • search

Stock spam charts

Someone's graphing spam volume vs. stock activity

2007-07-17 badtech • finance • markets • spam • stock

Duke's wireless network being flooded with 18000 ARP requests / second

2007-07-17 arp • bug • iphone • network • tcpip • wifi

Metafilter comic

Awesomely hysterical if you're a mefi user. Otherwise, skip.

2007-07-17 cartoon • comic • mefi • metafilter • parody

Harry Potter leak

The book is out on bittorrent; and the thief left his camera's serial number in the release

2007-07-17 bittorrent • harrypotter • leak • pirate • torrent • via:digg

DSLR Remote Pro

Recommended software for driving a Canon Rebel via PC

2007-07-17 automatic • camera • photography • photos • remote • robot • software

Secure RSS syndication

Encryption + greasemonkey + RSS, wonder if anyone really uses it?

2007-07-17 atom • encryption • rss • security

Homer vs. Rude Man

Clever marketing

2007-07-17 advertising • art • earthworks • marketing • rudeman • simpsons

sort of like wikipedia, a page for every book. Congrats, Aaron!

2007-07-17 aaronswartz • amazon • books • library • wiki

Luxury submarines

For when your yacht and jet aren't enough

2007-07-17 affluenza • luxury • poverty • submarine • via:metafilter

I had a lovely Saturday outing with some friends from college

2007-07-16 gorge • hoodriver • mthood • oregon • portland • reed • travel

PDX airport free wifi

Portland gets a lot of things right

2007-07-15 airport • free • internet • pdx • service • wifi

Good roundup of webapps in an iPhone friendly format

2007-07-15 applications • iphone • safari • webapp

Ground effect planes

Didn't know this was ever in service

2007-07-15 aeronautics • groundeffect • lift • plane • via:metafilter • wing

iPhone ringtones

Slowly but surely, the hackers are figuring it out

2007-07-14 apple • hack • iphone • jailbreak • ringtone

Gut feeling threat level

The quote in the paper today was outrageous

2007-07-12 funny • homelandsecurity • homesec • hotdog • parody • security • theater • via:boingboing

Choose your own adventure graffiti

Clever street art

2007-07-12 graffiti • storytelling • streetart

Major new feature of Wesabe lets you get at your transaction data easily

2007-07-12 api • finance • money • wesabe

CCP has always been supportive of third party stuff, now they've got more API to get personal data out of the game

2007-07-12 api • eveonline • games • mmog • rest

WoW teleport hacks

A great example of the challenge of distributed systems and predictive synchronization

2007-07-12 design • games • synchronization • warcraft • wow

Design contest winner unveiled

2007-07-12 france • leshalles • paris • urbanism

How to visit SF

Acerbic and funny

2007-07-12 sanfrancisco • satire • via:anildash • visit

Bad Bush photo day

The article is digusting, and the photos were chosen to illustrate

2007-07-12 bush • editing • libby • photo • politics

reading iPhone backups

you can get data back out of the phone, sorta

2007-07-12 hacks • iphone • via:digg

They did a really nice job on adapting this to the iPhone

2007-07-11 design • digg • iphone • mobile • ui

iPhone dev wiki

Center of the folks hacking open the iPhone. In theory I'm not supposed to link to them.

2007-07-11 hack • iphone • via:metafilter

Fish heads video

Freaky short film with an old favourite song

2007-07-11 barnes • cult • film • fishheads • via:boingboing

Component video cables

Very nerdy guide

2007-07-11 av • cable • component • rca • via:saladwithsteve

iPhone meta viewport

How to hint a web page to give the iPhone an idea how wide to display it

2007-07-10 browser • html • iphone • safari • web

Videora converter

Download for the iPod/iPhone video converter

2007-07-10 avisynth • converter • ffmpeg • iphone • ipod • mpeg • transcode

iPod video convertor app for Windows, seems to work for iphone too

2007-07-10 avisynth • converter • ffmpeg • iphone • ipod • mpeg • transcode

Ajaxy terminal emulator via a web browser; iPhone optimized

2007-07-10 ajax • iphone • ssh • terminal • web • webapp

Dwarf Fortress story

This text game is insanely detailed but awfully difficult to play; read some other folks playing

2007-07-09 dwarffortress • games • simulation • via:gamesetwatch

Terrorist logos

From the design labs of violence

2007-07-09 design • logo • politics • terrorism • via:waxy

Cheap consumer routers

2007-07-08 badtech • hardware • internet • junk • router

Town freaks out that their traffic devices look phallic

2007-07-07 keizer • penis • phallus • traffic • via:dailyrotten

Geoghan killing video

Man killed in prison, his killer has allegedly posted police surveillance photos of the killing

2007-07-07 catholic • church • druce • geoghan • murder • news

Someone figures out the serial port

2007-07-07 hack • iphone • phone • via:digg

Count Gottfried von Bismarck

Awesome obituary of a "louche German aristocrat"

2007-07-05 gay • germany • obituary • via:metafilter

Traceroute for a world where ICMP is blocked

2007-07-05 code • icmp • internet • network • ping • syn • tcp • tcpip • traceroute

Beautiful kinetic sculpture

2007-07-04 catapult • kinetic • octapult • sculpture • via:metafilter • wood

Superhuman tetris

Turns out the game has some depth left in it

2007-07-04 games • puzzle • tetris • via:digg

Auto Assault failed

Such a shame, it was a great concept

2007-07-04 autoassault • games • mmog • mmorpg • ncsoft

Liberating the iPhone from AT&T. Now if only it were a GSM phone

2007-07-04 att • dvdjon • hack • iphone • nsa

New metro tickets

Paris changes to a one ticket for 90 minutes system

2007-07-04 carnet • france • metro • paris • subway • transport

iPhone root password

XUU7aqfpey51o = "dottie"

2007-07-03 apple • hack • iphone • r00t • rewt • root

Japanese custom vans

2007-07-03 anime • art • car • japan • japanese • via:metafilter

Self Mummification 2

Also, a bit crazy

2007-07-02 sokushinbutsu • buddhism • death • japan • mummification • suicide • via:metafilter

Self Mummification 1

Amazing story of extreme faith

2007-07-02 sokushinbutsu • buddhism • death • japan • mummification • suicide • via:metafilter

Logdriver's Waltz

Sweet Canadiana

2007-07-01 canada • logdriver • music • via:boingboing

The Hall of Panflutists

2007-07-01 flute • music • panflute • turkey • via:metafilter • zamfir

iPhone hates headphones

Nice, you build an MP3 player with a headphone jack that doesn't work

2007-07-01 apple • broken • iphone • lockin

Easy list of proxies to browse from different countries

2007-07-01 anonymous • http • jurisdiction • proxy • web