Nelson's Linkblog 2010-03

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Unicorn at Twitter

Better connection handling makes for faster response

2010-03-31 performance • twitter • unicorn • apache • ruby • mongrel

American's newest political movement has its own language

2010-03-31 teaparty • kkk • klan • politics • republicans

pwnat: NAT traversal

Cleverly uses ICMP and UDP behaviour in consumer NAT routers to bridge a connection without any mediation

2010-03-29 via:zawodny • nat • tcpip • hack • software • networking • internet

Every day the same dream

Poetic little indie game, takes some warming up

2010-03-29 games • indie • art • bartleby

Requiem For A Day Off

I love this genre of mashup

2010-03-29 movies • ferrisbueller • via:metafilter • film

reminiscence on writing early very user friendly software

2010-03-28 ui • hci • userinterface • software • kidpix • mac

10 second game. Mildly blasphemous, but also respectful within its medium.

2010-03-28 games • religion • via:waxy • jesus

Check out the black and white videos covering Daft Punk, Justice, etc.

2010-03-27 music • via:metafilter • video • daftpunk • justice

Facebook hates privacy

Yet more examples of the company mishandling your personal data

2010-03-27 facebook • privacy • badtech

Marine gay panic

"I would not ask our Marines to live with someone who is homosexual if we can possibly avoid it."

2010-03-27 gay • politics • marines • military • gays • equalrights • civilrights

Landing on a road

Terrifying collection of videos

2010-03-27 airplanes • landing • emergency

Look At This Fucking Teabagger

Collection of protest photos, many frightening

2010-03-26 teaklan • obama • president • politics • protest • photography • teaparty

Chinese Minitru

Chinese government's instructions to Chinese news sites on how to report Google.

2010-03-26 censorship • google • china • news • journalism

Arty, indie cooperative online game. Looks sorta interesting

2010-03-25 games • love • mmos • mmorpgs • indiegames

Girl toy or boy toy?

Crazy gender identification from McDonalds

2010-03-24 mcdonalds • happymeal • gender • toys • kids

Johannesburg taxi hand signs

Complex system of gestures to tell the jitny where you want to go

2010-03-24 taxi • language • southafrica • johannesburg • joburg

Simple Flash shim to allow creating files in client-side javascript

2010-03-24 javascript • flash • library • code

@font-face kits

shrinkwrap solutions for web font embedding

2010-03-23 fonts • web • eot • fontface • typography

Princeton study shows that high fructose corn syrup causes obesity faster than other sugars

2010-03-22 diet • metabolism • sugar • via:mathowie • weight • health

Google in the PRC

Simple dashboard of which services the Chinese government has blocked today

2010-03-22 google • china • censorship • prc • dashboard

Godfather Blu-Ray

Merlin's hysterical commentary on the new Blu-Ray release of Godfather films

2010-03-22 movies • coppola • godfather • merlin • bluray

Amazing Gay Randi

James Randi, famous conjurer and debunker of woo, comes out

2010-03-21 gay • via:metafilter • randi • science • skepticism • courage

H.264 vs. Theora

Careful comparison of formats. No doubt the results are controversial

2010-03-21 video • html5 • h.264 • theora • ogg • patents

$200m+ game budget?

EA claims they will only break even if 1 million people play Star Wars: The Old Republic

2010-03-20 games • starwars • mmos

Future of social gaming

Soren Johnson's musings on the impact Facebook has had on traditional game developers

2010-03-20 games • socialmedia • facebook • zynga • ethics • gdc

Finger vs. table saw

Inventor deliberately puts his finger into a spinning saw blade. No blood, promise.

2010-03-18 saw • safety • sawstop • tv

Roger Ebert on making out

Great personal reminescence

2010-03-18 rogerebert • sex • 1960s • blueballs

Google network size

Interesting analyis: 5-10% of all Internet traffic, > 60% direct peering

2010-03-18 google • internet • peering • network

10 anti-gay gays

I feel bad for closeted men, but politicians have an obligation to protect people's rights: gay, straight, or conflicted

2010-03-17 gay • politics • hypocrisy

SkyHook has published data on the last five years of geolookups. Lots of data about where people are, particularly iPhone users

2010-03-17 iphone • geo • skyhook • database

Social gaming vs MMOs

Thoughtful piece on how games like Farmville and Mafia Wars threaten the current MMO industry

2010-03-17 mmos • games • farmville • zynga

Twitter Blog: @anywhere

More info on twitter's new deal

2010-03-15 twitter • socialmedia • integration • anywhere

Twitter @anywhere

New Twitter service announced at SXSW

2010-03-15 twitter • anywhere • integration

Database privacy

Microsoft Research on how to publish data while maintaining user anonymity

2010-03-15 data • privacy • databases • microsoft

Mass Effect 2: Jack

One of my favourite characters in the game. She's cheezy fanboy stuff, but there's more going on

2010-03-15 games • bioware • masseffect2

Shanghai Expo architecture

Photos of crazy buildings for a big trade fair

2010-03-15 shanghai • china • architecture • expose

Super Mario 8x8

Great student project

2010-03-15 games • supermario • nintendo • arduino • via:justin

Tim Bray to Google

Focussing on Android!

2010-03-15 google • timbray • android • iphone

play for at least 3 minutes to see the full game

2010-03-14 games • breakout • via:Reddit • flash

Sugarcubes / Birthday (Icelandic)

Original version is really sweet. The video is awesome, great early digital video effects

2010-03-13 bjork • sugarcubes • iceland • music • birthday • video

Fiscal Chart of the United States

Beautiful census chart from 1872

2010-03-13 via:feltron • visualization • census • budget

Good collection of infovis stuff

2010-03-13 infovis • graphs • feltron

Javascript sprites

Who needs Flash?

2010-03-12 javascript • games • sprites • code • jquery • for:amitp@cs.stanford.edu

Dear Leader, On The Spot

Kim Jong-Il official photos of him giving wise advice at factories

2010-03-12 northkorea • batshitinsane • kimjongil • photography • photos

Flowfield Pathfinding

Beautifully organic formation movement

2010-03-12 games • pathfinding • astar • flowfield • algorithms • for:amitp@cs.stanford.edu

Paris 26 Gigapixels

Great megapanorama

2010-03-12 photo • photography • paris • france • via:metafilter • panorama

Sous-Vide steak

Low temperature poaching turns out delicious meat

2010-03-11 cooking • food • sousvideo • via:kottke • steak

HTML5 video and audio

Opera does a great job explaining how to serve HTML5 multimedia

2010-03-11 html5 • video • opera • browser • javascript • web

Chatroulette Map

The illusion of privacy disintegrates

2010-03-11 privacy • chatroulette • via:waxy • maps

Great idea: briefly mute a Twitter user for when they're getting spammy.

2010-03-11 twitter • mute • filter

Canadian water usage during hockey

Graph of toilet flushing during the Olympics final game

2010-03-10 hockey • canada • water • toilet • graph

Sugarcubes / Birthday

Great old song, from before Bjork was a brand

2010-03-10 via:merlin • bjork • music • 1987 • sugarcubes

Battery charger backdoor

Some crappy USB device Energizer sells has been installing back doors on PCs for over two years

2010-03-10 via:metafilter • energizer • badtech • arucer.dll • virus • botnet

iPhone dev agreement

Abusive contract

2010-03-10 iphone • apple • mac • software • eff

Vodafone Malware

New cell phone infects your PC when you plug it in

2010-03-09 malware • botnet • badtech • vodafone • google • android

UbiSoft DRM fail

Buy the game legitimately? Can't play. Steal it? Plays fine.

2010-03-09 ubisoft • games • drm • badtech

Eve alliance map

Nice visualization of the politics of Eve Online

2010-03-08 games • eveonline • eve • mmog

Torrent movie download stats

District 9 is the #1 movie

2010-03-07 movies • torrent • bittorrent • piracy • downloads

Mass Effect 2 criticism

Very thoughtful analysis of Bioware's latest RPG

2010-03-07 games • rpgs • masseffect • masseffect2 • bioware

Uncommonly good chocolate

2010-03-06 chocolate • gift • food • sanfrancisco

Air Traffic Control tech

Nice overview of how ATC works

2010-03-06 flying • airplanes • atc • radar • ads-b • nexgen • faa

A380 nosegear cam

Fun aviation footage, unusual perspective

2010-03-05 video • aviation • airplane • airbus • a380

They came from the USSR

Edward Hill's freaky singing multiplied. View full screen. See also http://www.jehsmith.com/1/2010/02/edward-anatolevich-hill.html

2010-03-04 ЭдуардХиль • music • edwardhill • russia • culture • ussr

Lat/Lon to Elevation

Web service for accessing a digital elevation model

2010-03-04 geography • maps • dem • ned • elevation • altitude

Gruber on Apple patent suit

Very thoughtful

2010-03-04 apple • google • htc • patents • iphone

The magic part of a plane engine that generates the spark to fire the piston

2010-03-04 engines • airplanes • flying • magneto

Logging PIC time

Flow chart of when you can log time as a PIC

2010-03-04 flying • aviation • pic • logbook • regulations

Top 25 code security bugs

Classification of bugs in code that lead to security problems

2010-03-03 programming • code • security

Apple vs HTC patents

Analysis of the named patents

2010-03-03 apple • htc • legal • google • patents

Tainted Love versions

All versions of the awesome song made famous by Soft Cell and Coil

2010-03-02 music • songs • taintedlove • softcell • coil

Great slow-mo advertisement

2010-03-02 dogs • food • pets • via:metafilter • slowmo • slomo • video

Black people Twitter

Awkward article, but there's an interesting social/demographic phenomenon happening on Twitter

2010-03-02 twitter • race • africanamerican • demographics

Chrome auto-translations

New feature in Google's browser: automatically translate web page text in the frame

2010-03-02 language • translation • google • chrome • browsers

Recognizing the new needs of startup funding

2010-03-02 angels • vcs • venturecapital • funding • startups

Series Seed financing

Standard form documents for seed capital

2010-03-02 legal • venture • investment • vc

Apple patent suits

This is gonna get ugly

2010-03-02 patents • apple • htc • ip • legal

Portal: Transmission Received

Valve added some amazing easter egg content to the game Portal: here's all the spoilers from the nerds who figured it out

2010-03-02 games • portal • halflife • valve • easteregg

Warcraft authenticator hacked

Physical login token is subjected to man-in-the-middle attack. Bad guys steal your account in the next 30 seconds

2010-03-01 games • mmos • hacks • blizzard • badtech • warcraft • security

Lessons from Doom

Interesting re-analysis of Doom in the context of contemporary FPS. Lots of things to learn.

2010-03-01 games • via:Waxy • doom • idsoftware • robotron • criticism

Sony broke the PS3

A firmware update went badly wrong and Sony Playstations are now incapable of playing games, both online and offline.

2010-03-01 updates • badtech • sony • playstation • games

FlightAware stats KSFO to KJFK

Data about commercial air travel: median ticket price, percent of seats filled

2010-03-01 airlines • travel • commerce • flight • airplane