Nelson's Linkblog 2011-08

about • archive • mastodon • feed

User space filesystem for the Mac is in a bit of flux

2011-08-31 filesystem • fuse • macfuse • macos • opensource

Virtual machine images for versions of Internet Explorer

2011-08-31 browser • msie • vhd • virtualbox • vm • windows

More DigiNotar hacks

The Dutch CA has been compromised for two years?!

2011-08-31 badtech • hacks • ssl

Memory price graph

Note the logarithmic price axis

2011-08-31 memory • mooreslaw • ram

SSL design problems

Detailed analysis and some insights into a solution

2011-08-30 badtech • security • ssl • web

Simple directory of operating systems you can boot from CD/USB

2011-08-30 iso • linux • livecd • software • sysadmin

Eve market data

The online game with the most robust economy is releasing data for study

2011-08-30 ccp • database • economics • eve • eveonline • games • market

Linux retrospective

Nice piece on 20 years of Linux history

2011-08-30 history • linux • opensource • unix

Lovely, depressing little Flash art game

2011-08-30 elderly • flash • games • loneliness • old

Simple map showing the addition of Wikipedia articles

2011-08-30 douweosinga • maps • triposo • wikipedia

Elsevier shilling

Fraud from the scientific publisher: they had entire fake journals promoting pharmaceutical companies

2011-08-30 academics • elsevier • fraud • merck • publishing • science

SF cable car history

Map showing all the old routes; used to run down Castro, Valencia, and Howard!

2011-08-30 cablecar • sanfrancisco • sf • transit

One entrepreneur's very detailed story of trying to raise a significant funding round

2011-08-29 entrpreneurs • financing • seomoz • startups • vc • venturecapital

Iran attacking Gmail?

Claim there's a rogue SSL certificate allowing man in the middle attacks

2011-08-29 badtech • gmail • google • iran • security • ssl

Minecraft vs Steam

Notch says they don't distribute via Steam because Valve places too many restrictions on developers

2011-08-29 business • ea • games • minecraft • steam • valve

Microsoft UI mess

Scathing counter-interpretation of Microsoft's UI stats

2011-08-29 design • hci • microsoft • ui

Big Apple open source project, a new and better compiler

2011-08-29 c • c++ • clang • compilers • llvm • objc • opensource • programming

Apple open source

Detailed list of Apple's open source packages, one stop download site.

2011-08-29 apple • code • macosx • opensource • programming

Payment company is going mainstream. Nice set of usage maps

2011-08-29 data • maps • payments • square • startups

SWIG complexity

A poetic declaration on the complexities of C++

2011-08-29 badtech • c++ • code • programming • python • swig

Amusing article about how to make counterfeit gold bars

2011-08-29 counterfeit • funny • gold • tungsten

Nice iOS game, now for Mac and Windows too

2011-08-28 games • ios • mac • retro • roguelike • windows

Zite interest map

Breaks down what people in every state are interested in reading about

2011-08-28 culture • magazine • map • usa • zite

Deus Ex versions

Detailed tech comparison of consoles and PC versions

2011-08-28 deusex • games

Nice simple map of just hurricane tracks

2011-08-28 hurricanes • irene • weather

A simple HTTP log analysis program. Seems pretty good

2011-08-28 access_log • apache • httpd • via:mattc • visitors

Apple and open source

Nice rundown of all the open source built into Apple's products. It's a shame they don't contribute much open code back.

2011-08-28 apple • bsd • opensource

Making "Industrial Revolutions"

The story behind the lovely bike stunt video

2011-08-27 bicycles • bikes • film • stunt • video

RSA Hack payload

Flash: is there nothing it can't do?

2011-08-26 adobe • badtech • china • flash • rsa • security

@joshu's new project, a social site for getting help from others

2011-08-26 delicious • jig • joshshachter • memepool • social • twitter

Stream name map

Beautiful map plotting the generic names stream, slough, arroyo, etc in the US

2011-08-26 language • maps • river • stream • us

Steve Jobs’ Patents

Nice visualization of 313 patents with Jobs' name on them.

2011-08-26 apple • jobs • nytimes • patents • stevejobs

Earthquake tweets

Nice animated map by Eric Fisher

2011-08-26 earthquake • ericfisher • maps • twitter • visualization

Slide + Google failure

Only a one year lockup? Wow

2011-08-26 acquisition • google • maxlevchin • paypal • slide

Animated GIF attack

2011-08-25 corgi • dog • gif • tetherball

A user-written tutorial for the Javascript library

2011-08-25 code • d3 • javascript • programming • tutorials

Earthquake tweet map

Animation of the spread of tweets about the Virginia quake

2011-08-24 earthquake • twitter • virginia • visualization

Top 1000 web sites

Google's ad-oriented list of top web properties. Data seems to come from their own sources.

2011-08-24 ads • data • google • metrics • websites

MacRuby on iOS 5?

Not sure if there's a better source of info on this

2011-08-24 apple • development • ios • iphone • macruby • ruby

STM with students

User study of software transactional memory; programming students found it hard but wrote better code

2011-08-24 locking • programming • stm • threads

Take a GPS track and look up the elevation profile

2011-08-24 code • elevation • geohacking • gpx • python • srtm

nice animated gif

2011-08-24 4chan • gif • opticalillusion

GameStop is evil

Horrible game retailer is removing coupons for a competitor's product

2011-08-24 consumer • games • gamestop • online

Weird attack: register domain names that are a single cosmic ray bit-flip from well known domains, collect traffic from memory errors

2011-08-24 badtech • dns • domains • security

Aporkalypse tour

Video showing off the Minecraft server I play on

2011-08-24 games • mefightclub • metafilter • minecraft

Lynda Barry tumblr

The beloved cartoonist has a tumblr of her work!

2011-08-24 comeek • erniepook • lyndabarry

Chinese cyberwar

Chinese military video shows their cyberwar team attacking a Falun Gong site via a US university.

2011-08-24 badtech • china • cyberwar • falungong • hacking

Dragon's Breath

My friend has an app on the app store: helps you know when you have a new move to play in Go

2011-08-24 apps • dgs • games • go • macos

"Google Wave done right". You've gotta give this Y-Combinator startup credit for moxie

2011-08-23 entrepreneur • googlewave • startup • stypi • wave

A proposal for using software transactional memory to do concurrent programming in the new Python VM

2011-08-23 concurrency • pypy • python • stm • threading

Felt the Virginia quake?

USGS has an amazing real-time site where people indicate what they felt

2011-08-23 crowdsourcing • earthquakes • nyc • usgs • virginia

MIT's annual roundup of brilliant young engineers includes moot

2011-08-23 4chan • mit • moot • techreview • tr35

Nervous System | Shop

Generative artist makes beautiful fabricated jewelry with algorithmic design

2011-08-23 art • generative • gifts • jewelry

NATO Libya propaganda

Flyers that NATO is dropping over tripoli

2011-08-23 libya • nato • propaganda • psyops • tripoli

Elder Scrolls races

new graphic comparing the games' character design, goes way back

2011-08-22 arena • battlespire • bethesda • daggerfall • elderscrolls • games • morrowind • oblivion • skyrim • via:reddit

Ian Bogost's groundbreaking Cow Clicking game is now a playable Interactive Fiction work

2011-08-21 bogost • funny • games • parody

Tomato connection problem

Since my ISP changed their network around I've been having network trouble. The problem seems to be this.

2011-08-21 firmware • network • router • tomato

HTTP headers for security

Analysis of all the extra headers Google+ sets to increase browser security. Another interpretation is browser security is deeply broken.

2011-08-21 browser • cookies • http • security • xss

MacOS HiDPI mode

Lion contains support for higher DPI screens by letting you double all the pixels, sorta like Retina displays on iOS

2011-08-21 dpi • hidpi • lion • macos • resolution

Twitter web referer

Twitter's t.co redirector means that it's easier to track when web traffic comes from twitter

2011-08-21 analytics • referer • twitter • web

Has anyone really been far even as decided to

use even go wantto do look more like?

2011-08-21 4chan • funny

2011-08-20 funny • wwf

About Time Machine

details on Apple's backup system

2011-08-20 apple • backups • macos • rsnapshot • rsync • timemachine

Hack utility to let you see what's inside all those Time Machine backups

2011-08-20 mac • macos • timemachine

2011-08-20 badtech • drm • funny • games • ubisoft

Dissent on Google+ nyms

I've been hearing this too: many folks inside Google don't like the policy about pseudonyms

2011-08-20 anonymity • freedom • google+ • googleplus • nyms • pseudonyms

Open source systems

Free book about how various open source sysetms are designed

2011-08-20 architecture • code • opensource

SSD+HDD: a plan

Advice on configuring a system that has both a small SSD and a big spinning hard drive ☃

2011-08-20 mac • macos • ssd

various services; working on putting my linkblog on twitter too

2011-08-20 facebook • integration • myspace • rss • twitter

FBI vs Anonymous

FOIA gives some insight into how FBI investigates hacking

2011-08-19 anonymous • badtech • fbi • hacking • security

Consistently excellent blog of interesting, useful software; mostly Mac stuff

2011-08-19 macos • software

Soviet space watch

Story of the Strela, the Soviet answer to the Omega for astronaut watches

2011-08-19 nasa • omega • space • strela • watch • watches

Stamen: The World

Design firm worked for National Geographic to make a map viewer for ipad

2011-08-19 design • maps • nationalgeographic • stamen

Glue between Python and Applescript

2011-08-19 apple • applescript • macos • python

Story of a lone assassin who almost killed Hitler with a bomb

2011-08-18 assassination • germany • history • hitler • ww2

Stats on web site tech

2011-08-18 http • web

Funny clickthrough license agreement, wonder if it's real?

2011-08-18 clickthrough • funny • license

Web malware trends

Interesting set of statistics from Google

2011-08-18 badtech • google • malware • research • security

C.H.U.N.K. 666 Outing

Portland's original post-apocalyptic bike gang goes amphib

2011-08-17 bicycles • portland

Tom Waits / Cookie Monster

2011-08-17 mashup • muppets • music • via:metafilter

Wingsuit BASE jump

Lovely filming of anticipation

2011-08-17 basejump • batshitinsane • crazy • wingsuit

Ghostcrawler on Warcraft threat

Blizzard is significantly simplifying one of the few remaining gameplay challenges in Warcraft; interesting to see their rationale

2011-08-17 games • mmos • warcraft

Interesting shack

2011-08-17 architecture • house • photo

archive.org scanning

Notes on the amazing effort to digitize print media

2011-08-17 archive • library • preservation

Nice giant chart of the industry

2011-08-17 games • history • mmos

The Git Parable

Explanation of some of the concepts behind git

2011-08-16 dvcs • git • programming

FAA on Lightsquared

2011-08-16 faa • gps • lightsquared

Kyle Franklin to fly

Famous airshow performer is getting back to flying and performing just a few months after his wife died in an accident in his plane

2011-08-16 aerobatics • aviation • courage • flying • kylefranklin

Gruber on Google/Motorola

A different take, that Google was in a very weak position

2011-08-16 android • apple • google • motorola • patents

Y Combinator innovation

Bryce is totally on point with this: the most exciting thing about Y-Combinator startups is many of them succeed with very little initial capital

2011-08-16 dropbox • entrepeneurs • startups • vc • vcs

Johnny Marbles' blog

The guy who threw a pie at Murdoch is apparently blogging from jail

2011-08-16 blogs • britain • england • jail • prison

Industrial Revolutions

Lovely street trials bike riding; really nicely filmed and edited

2011-08-16 bicycling • bikes • parkour • streettrials

8M file directory

libc readdir() fails on this big a directory; gotta go to system calls

2011-08-16 directories • libc • linux • unix

Not Rope-a-Dope?

MG Siegler debunks Dan Lyons' article

2011-08-16 apple • google • microsoft • motorola

Screenscrape websites after running Javascript

2011-08-15 javascript • scraping • search • via:onethingwell

Argument that Android manufacturer's non-compliance with the GPL may threaten their license to use Linux

2011-08-15 android • google • gpl • linux

Google rope-a-dope

Interesting analysis suggesting Google's Nortel bid was just a feint

2011-08-15 apple • google • microsoft • motorola • nortel • patents

2011-08-15 css • drawing • hack • via:waxy

Morrowind vs Oblivion vs Skyrim

Comparison of the various character graphics

2011-08-15 elderscrolls • games • modelling

Maps and game design

Analysis of the spatial mechanics of various classic games

2011-08-15 games • maps • via:metafilter

Game cultural criticism

Analysis of the cultural biases implicit in Civilization and other games that turn real nations into game characters

2011-08-15 civilization • criticism • culture • games • via:metafilter

Stop coddling the super-rich

Warren Buffet's annual plan for sanity when it comes to taxing rich people

2011-08-15 buffet • oped • taxes

Hands On: El Shaddai

Strange, homoerotic Japanese game. The demo was interesting.

2011-08-14 games • gay • japan

Lifehacker Mac pack

Nice list of free utilities for the Mac

2011-08-14 apple • macos • software

eBay prototype Mac

Interesting auction: an Apple prototype laptop with 3G hardware

2011-08-14 apple • ebay • history • laptop • mac

Wikipedia traffic

Basic web server stats that Wikimedia publishes

2011-08-14 google • stats • wikipedia

Javascript test framework, runs stuff asynchronously

2011-08-13 coding • javascript • node.js • programming • testing • tools

Ghostface reviews Watch the Throne

2011-08-13 music • rap • reviews

MacOS Mission Control

explanation of the new UI feature in Lion

2011-08-13 lion • macos

Google's real market share

Interesting question: hard to measure

2011-08-13 bing • google • microsoft • search

Big deal: a major website is running on the experimental new JIT VM for Python

2011-08-13 jitc • pypy • python • vm

Python database driver with no native code, just uses ctypes to talk to a shared library

2011-08-13 ctypes • database • mysql • python

Another Eve scam

Seems like a basic Ponzi scheme, not very interesting, but it was large.

2011-08-13 ccp • eve • eveonline • games • mmos • ponzi • scam

BART jams cellular to stop protest

Crazy, possible civl rights issue

2011-08-13 bart • cellular • firstamendment • protest • via:metafilter

Kameryn Gibson on Twitter

Twitter account of the young man in the most recent Republican gay scandal

2011-08-12 gay • politics • republic • scandal • twitter

Phillip Hinkle, homo

Another anti-gay Republican politician caught hiring young men on Craigslist. I wish these guys would just get their own issues sorted out already.

2011-08-12 gay • politics • republicans • scandal

D3 for Mere Mortals

Terrific tutorial on the great Javascript library

2011-08-12 d3 • javascript • svg • visualization

bin Laden story discrepancies

Inconsistencies in the reporting on the assassination of bin Laden

2011-08-12 binladen • journalism • news

Firefox and Google

Analysis of the politics around the search / ads contract that funds Mozilla

2011-08-12 bing • business • firefox • google • microsoft • mozilla

Avilution for Android

Apprently this aviation app for Android tablets is not bad

2011-08-12 android • aviation • avilution • flying

Javascript this

Good explanation of the slightly magic variable in javascript

2011-08-12 javascript • jquery • programming

Five Levels of ISP Evil

CEO of my ISP speaks out against customer-hostile ISPs

2011-08-12 freedom • internet • isps • network

MacOS command line tools

Various Mac specific Unix programs

2011-08-12 macos • shell • terminal • unix

Building a Lancair Evolution

The author of X-Plane is building a real plane; a very fast, fancy real lpane

2011-08-12 airplanes • aviation • eaa • evolution • kitbuilt • lancair • xplane

Black POWER 2000

Kanye mixed with Black Knight 2000 pinball soundtrack

2011-08-11 blackknight • kanye • mashup • music • williams

Time lapse Oshkosh

Great bit of photography

2011-08-11 airplanes • aviation • flying • oshkosh • photography • photos

METAR and TAF archive

Historical weather data

2011-08-11 aviation • metar • taf • weather

DEF CON cell data hacking

Claim that CDMA and 4G were hacked at DEF CON, the Rio hotel had a MITM proxy stealing all cellular communications

2011-08-11 4g • cdma • defcon • hacking

Image of mountain goats climbing a dam

2011-08-11 dam • goats

Fark vs patent troll

Another victim of a lousy patent

2011-08-10 fark • journalism • patents • via:metafilter

Steam Mac statistics

Valve publishes stats from Steam, their popular online game store. Interesting data about Mac gamers

2011-08-10 apple • games • mac • steam • valve

Restaurant websites suck

Some theories on why the vernacular for restaurants on the web is so awful

2011-08-10 branding • design • restaurants • web • websites

Accurate SNES emulation

Description of what it takes to build a really accurate game console simulator

2011-08-10 bsnes • emulation • snes • via:metafilter

MacOS capabilities

Lion includes a new app sandboxing system which seems quite complex

2011-08-10 lion • macos • sandboxing • security

Ars / Kindle results

Details on how Siracusa's massive Lion review sold on the Kindle. Not bad!

2011-08-10 apple • journalism • kindle • siracusa • via:marc

xkcd: Password Strength

funny because it's true

2011-08-10 comics • funny • passwords • xkcd

Breivik cryptoanalysis

Some weird things found in the Norwegian murderer's manifesto; what looks distinctly like lat/long pairs

2011-08-10 breivik • crypto • murder • norway

Wick Fowler's chili

A simple recipe, but a Texas classic. Note the tomato sauce: like to cause a fight.

2011-08-09 chili • cooking • food • recipes • texas • wickfowler

Texas chili recipe

This is roughly what I grew up with

2011-08-09 chile • chili • food • recipe • texas

Article on the legendary plane designer, defines "thinking outside the box"

2011-08-09 aviation • burtrutan • design • flying

Post office spread

Nice visualization of the growth of the US

2011-08-09 america • postoffice • unitedstates • usps • visualization

Comtoway (DON'T CLICK!)

Referenced in Gawker as the "nerve center" of Shady RAT. Looks to be a bunch of browser exploits; probably dangerous to visit.

2011-08-09 badtech • china • hacking

Shady RAT command server

Gawker visits the center of the Chinese hack

2011-08-09 badtech • china • hacking

Yemeni architecture

Beautiful clifftop buildings

2011-08-09 architecture • photos • via:metafilter • yemen

Consolas on Macs

A way to get Microsoft's C fonts on a Mac

2011-08-09 consolas • fonts • macos • microsoft

Jonathan's Card

Clever art / hack project. A community Starbuck's stored value card

2011-08-08 art • coffee • payment • property

Lycoming on 100LL alternatives

Details about airplane fuels; Lycoming is working on some alternative to the low-lead gas planes use now

2011-08-08 aviation • flying • fuel • lycoming • planes

Modern web login

Nice examination of the UI issues with various single sign-on systems

2011-08-08 login • password • signon

Nice little social report from the hacker con. Oh, there's Black Hat too

2011-08-08 blackhat • conference • defcon • security

1990s hacker con in Houston; I went to one of these.

2011-08-08 defcon • hackers • hohocon • houston

Faroe airport webcam

Quiet, remote airport

2011-08-07 airport • aviation • flying • webcam

Show producers fake an electric car running out of power

2011-08-07 bbc • cars • fraud • topgear

pbcopy / pbpaste

MacOS command line tools for accessing the clipboard

2011-08-07 clipboard • macos • shell

Current state of FAA deployment of GPS and ADS-B based services

2011-08-07 ads-b • aviation • faa • flying • gps • nextgen

Johnny Guitar‬‏

Lovely old song

2011-08-07 music • peggylee • westerns

Sims Gone Wrong

Screenshots of glitches in Sims 3

2011-08-06 funny • games • glitches • sims

TFR violator interview

Couple of minutes of video with the 75 year old pilot who accidentally violated a flight restriction near the president

2011-08-06 aviation • flying • funny • tfr

Petty corruption

Chinese story about fixing electrical meters. Could be anywhere, really.

2011-08-06 china • corruption • electricity

Hysterical story of a woman intercepted by NORAD for flying too close to Obama. She was in the wrong, but then again this is pretty damn funny

2011-08-06 aviation • flying • kitfox • security • tfr

Avoiding thunderstorms

Air traffic control view of airplanes avoiding a line of thunderstorms in Memphis

2011-08-05 atc • aviation • flying • thunderstorms • weather

ISPs stealing traffic

A company called Paxfire is working with ISPs to hijack consumers' search traffic

2011-08-05 ads • badtech • google • isps • paxfire • routing

MacOS: all keyboard events

Code for capturing every keystroke on a mac

2011-08-05 apple • macos • ui

Apple and OpenCL

Complaints about Apple's support for graphics standards

2011-08-05 apple • games • macos • opencl • opengl

Bastion soundtrack

Great indie game with a distinctive soundtrack

2011-08-05 bastion • games • music

2011-08-04 70s • ads • commericals • koolaid • tv

SF dive bar art

Great collection of art in bars in SF

2011-08-04 art • sanfrancisco • via:jwz

North Korean cartoons

Collection of odd North Korean kids cartoons

2011-08-04 animation • cartoons • korea • northkorea

Neat little laser cut model of the Sutro tower

2011-08-04 architecture • flatpack • lasercut • sanfrancisco • sutro

Grid Distortions

Artwork by Marius Watz; looks great in person on cut plywood

2011-08-03 art • generative • mariuswatz

McAfee's Shady RAT analysis

In an earlier decade this kind of espionage would be cause for war

2011-08-03 badtech • china • cyberwar • espionage • hacking

Focussed online espionage

"Operation Shady RAT", which looks to be focussed Chinese commercial hacking

2011-08-03 badtech • china • espionage • hacking • security

VVVVVV speed run

14 minutes, no deaths, no tools. Amazing gameplay for this twitchy modern game.

2011-08-03 games • speedrun • via:waxy • vvvvvv

Lighting solution for old sailing ships; glass refracted life belowdecks

2011-08-03 lighting • sailing • technology

Well meaning but sad and hilarious briefing on Ramadan for TSA employees

2011-08-02 islam • muslims • ramadan • security • tsa

2011-08-02 tron • movies • parody

Short story from 1985 about real money trade in games

2011-08-02 catacomb • dragon • games • rmt

North Korea photos

Nice set of big images

2011-08-02 korea • northkorea • photography • photos

Computer Go advances

Impressive: Go computers are now getting to professional level

2011-08-02 ai • games • go • via:marc

MacOS debugging story

Great example of using various debugging tools to figure out a tricky OS problem

2011-08-02 hacking • macos • safari • via:rafe

Patrick Bateman’s New York

Investigation into locations from American Psycho

2011-08-02 americanpsycho • movies • newyork • via:metafilter

MonkeyBrains wireless

New ISP offering 8-20MBPs wireless in San Francisco

2011-08-02 internet • isp • sanfrancisco • wireless

Twitter engineer talks about their shift from Ruby to JVM languages

2011-08-02 java • performance • raffi • ruby • twitter

More on Aaron and JSTOR

Some actual reporting and investigation

2011-08-01 aaron • aaronsw • copyright • jstor • mit

Diablo III: real money!

Lots of news from the anticipated game, but the ability to sell in-game items for real money is pretty shocking. How is that going to work?

2011-08-01 blizzard • diablo • games