Nelson's Linkblog 2012-01

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Why Flickr failed at mobile

Kellan gives much insider detail on Yahoo's miasma of failure

2012-01-31 yahoo • flickr • innovation • mobile

At Twitter, The Future is You!

Amazing new recruiting video

2012-01-30 funny • twitter • recruiting • parody

Decent roundup of $10 / month server options

2012-01-30 via:hackernews • vps • cheap • hosting

ACME vs AdSense

Awesome small developer gets banned from Google AdSense, no explanation

2012-01-30 google • adsense • publishing • ads

Another approach to caching disks with SSDs in Linux

2012-01-29 linux • facebook • performance • raid • ssd • cache

Linux kernel patch to use an SSD as a cache in front of hard drives

2012-01-29 bcache • linux • filesystem • performance • optimization • raid

Twitter's filters

Nice view of what it's like to be an international operator

2012-01-28 twitter • censorship • civilrights • humanrights

Airplane cabin cat

Surprisingly mellow kitty

2012-01-28 cats • planes • aviation • flying

GPS jamming vs. flight safety

Jackasses in trucks endangered airplanes

2012-01-28 flying • aviation • faa • gps

Building a kernel on Ubuntu 11.10

This sure has gotten complicated

2012-01-27 linux • kernels • ubuntu • compiling

Pirating the Oscars 2012

Andy's latest roundup of online movie piracy

2012-01-26 movies • piracy • copyright • oscars • waxy

A Few Acres of Snow

Board / deck-building game about the French & Indian war

2012-01-26 games • gaming • war • historical • wargame • deckbuilding

Reference site for moving from Google Maps to open, free alternatives

2012-01-26 maps • mapping • google • osm • openstreetmap

The illusion of free choice

Modern game design

2012-01-26 games • choice • funny

Javascript framework, used by Square, client-heavy

2012-01-25 javascript • programming • web

Zynga cloning Tiny Tower

It's a pretty damning comparison. Only Zynga's looks better.

2012-01-25 games • zynga • tinytower • nimblebit • ripoff

Nice release, finally runs on Windows too!

2012-01-25 maps • nodejs • tilemill • cartography • gis

SpaceChem sandbox winners

Nerdy puzzle game has awesome creations

2012-01-25 games • spacechem • sandbox

SoMa food truck pod

SF borrows an idea from Portland

2012-01-25 food • foodcart • foodtruck • portland • sanfrancisco • dining

iPhoto iCloud -> Lightroom

A helper app that copies photos over

2012-01-25 photos • photography • lightroom • iphoto • iCloud

Dissent within Google

I've been wondering what employees think at Google

2012-01-25 google • privacy • google+

Very funny account of a script offer

2012-01-25 via:metafilter • watchmen • comics

Google on new privacy policy

This explanation sounds more like a clarification than a change

2012-01-25 google • privacy • gmail • google+ • security

Google's new privacy policy

Combining information across multiple products

2012-01-25 google • privacy • google+ • gmail • security

Kim.dotcom's gamer profile

Xbox Live account MEGARACER

2012-01-24 games • kimdotcom • megaupload • xbox

Private Equity evils

Simple explanation of what the bad actors do

2012-01-24 privateequity • stock • investment • capitalism

Bytebeat composer

Simple tool for making bytebeat in your browser

2012-01-24 music • generative • bytebeat • via:metafilter

Generative music experiments with very simple programs

2012-01-24 music • generativeart • generative • chiptunes

Google punctuation search

Seems to understand @ for Twitter, at least somewhat

2012-01-23 twitter • google • search • punctuation

Automated CAPTCHA solving

Farms of humans powering the Matrix

2012-01-23 bots • captcha • security

BitTorrent in the datacenter

Database replication. Oh, and a side of parallel SHA-1

2012-01-23 bittorrent • sha1 • hacking • ops • optimization • etsy

Apache 408 errors

New apache log lines; empty requests, seem to be a result of browser prediction

2012-01-23 apache • http • 408 • logs

Beautiful time lapse (view full screen)

2012-01-23 yosemite • nature • photography

Bagram: It gets better

Uniformed military with a message of support for GLBT youth

2012-01-23 glbt • gay • military • dadt • civilrights

Another GL tutorial, much more comprehensive

2012-01-23 graphics • gl • opengl • 3d

OpenGL tutorial

Part 1 has a nice description of the basic pipeline

2012-01-23 opengl • progamming • via:hackernews • graphics

Doctor Who theme as dirge

Nice bit of arrangement

2012-01-22 music • doctorwho • soundtrack • funeral • via:monstro

State of the demoscene: 1991 - 2011

Great roundup of 20 years of creative computer hacking

2012-01-22 scene • demos • demoscene • art • via:waxy

Funny programmer talk

2012-01-22 via:waxy • javascript • ruby • funny

danah boyd profile

Nice coverage of the Internet anthropologist

2012-01-22 danah • danahboyd • mit • brown • fashion • anthropology • research • teens • teenagers

Crazy apartment building

What is this? Could be faked.

2012-01-22 images • apartments • building • architecture

Kitchen Nightmares scoresheet

Gordon Ramsay's victims

2012-01-22 cooking • food • gordonramsay • realitytv • via:metafilter

MacOS Temperature Monitor

Includes a command line tool for reporting temperatures

2012-01-22 macos • monitoring • temperature • shell • commandline

Another charting system built on top of D3, designed for usablity

2012-01-22 javascript • d3 • charting • graphing • code

Very popular gay hookup app, apparently no security

2012-01-22 gay • iphone • ios • hack • badtech • sex • grindr

A fork of ImageMagick, seems preferred

2012-01-21 imagemagick • graphicsmagik • graphics • conversion • images

Etsy's image processing

Great notes on building a scalable system for data manipulation

2012-01-21 data • images • graphicsmagick • imagemagick • scalability • performance

Aeronav Dec 13 meeting notes

Details from the meeting where FAA wants to charge for digital charts

2012-01-21 aeronav • faa • charts

Google+ statistics distortion

Critical analysis of how Google is communicating on user uptake

2012-01-21 google+ • statistics • google • actives

Mercator visualization

Clever display of how a sphere gets turned into a rectangle

2012-01-21 projections • geo • mercator • d3 • visualization

Rickshaw graphing

Declarative wrapper around D3 for Javascript graphs

2012-01-21 javascript • d3 • graphs • visualization

Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut

15 second fan-made snippets of Star Wars, cut to a full film

2012-01-21 movies • starwars • via:metafilter • amazing • art

A character whose sole purpose is to be hated by the audience

2012-01-20 writing • trope • mpaa • emotion

NMA on Google Search+

Anti-trust explained with animated robots

2012-01-20 google • google+ • search • nma • funny • animation

Real-time Internet attack map

Akamai's view of broad Internet traffic stats

2012-01-20 internet • traffic • hacking • map • visualization • heatmap

Megaupload briefing

Summary of the case

2012-01-20 megaupload • via:hackernews • law • rights • piracy • copyright

iBooks monopoly

Stupid lawyer tricks from Apple

2012-01-20 ibooks • apple • scam • publishing • licensing

Roundup of projects from the design firm

2012-01-19 mapping • cartography • design • stamen • moma

ext3fs on MacOS Lion

Modern notes on what to install to mount Linux filesystems on a Mac

2012-01-19 linux • ext3 • ext2 • ext3fs • lion • fuse • macfuse • macos • filesystem

Mario vs Pac-Man

nice little animation

2012-01-18 games • mario • pacman • animation

Just dropped off 750 CDs at a ripping service: they use this app

2012-01-18 mp3 • metadata • music • ripping • cd • alac

World IPv6 Launch

2012-01-17 ipv6 • networking • internet

China's online ads market

Data from the parallel Internet

2012-01-17 internet • china • ads • advertising • business

Biden / Obama price sheet

Handy list of what it costs to meet your elected representative

2012-01-17 politics • corruption • financing • biden • obama • democrats • campaign

A sort of Japanese writing pun; kanji used phonetically

2012-01-17 language • writing • japanese • kanji

OSM Bright Minimal

Beautiful, very spare / light basemap

2012-01-17 maps • openstreetmap • osm • graphics • infovis • visualization

Language detection library

Extracted from Google Chrome

2012-01-17 language • library • google • opensource • code

Startup hosting decisions

Data from YCombinator companies

2012-01-17 via:hackernews • hosting • dns • godaddy • amazon

Chrome extension to put cartoon moustaches on faces

2012-01-16 chrome • funny • moustache • prank

Business of the Black Eyed Peas

Details on will.i.am's commercial empire

2012-01-16 will.i.am • music • blackeyedpeas • bep

Numbers in 5000 languages

Comparative linguistics, with maps

2012-01-16 language • etymology • linguistics

1974 drag racing short, directed by a friend of mine

2012-01-16 cars • racing • dragracing • movies • kenru

Battlefield 3 Maps

2012-01-16 games • battlefield • bf3 • battlefield3 • maps • guide

Amit Patel moves his game development notes to his own site

2012-01-16 games • google • developer • amitp • amitpatel

Apple TV speculation

Nice analysis of where Apple could (or could not) go

2012-01-15 tv • television • appletv • apple

A sophisticated tool for showing network usage on your Mac

2012-01-15 macos • mac • network • bandwidth • monitoring • littlesnitch • 1tw

The Z3 apocalypse

Very clever storytelling, start on Day 1

2012-01-15 zombies • apocalypse • via:metafilter • art • reddit • memes

Make a web page automatically reload CSS

2012-01-15 development • css • via:hackernews • javascript

Best street art 2011

Nice collection of photos

2012-01-15 streetart • art • photos • france

iPhone JailbreakQA

Readable summary of the state of the art in iPhone unlocking and jailbreaking

2012-01-14 iphone • ios • cydia • faq • attfail • att • redsn0w • ultrasn0w

Illustrated permutations

Nice demo of various shuffling algorithms

2012-01-14 algorithms • visualizations • d3 • shuffling

Bufferbloat paper

Gettys writes up his analysis of a big Internet problem as a proper paper

2012-01-13 network • tcpip • internet • buffer • speed • performance

Open source intertial guidance

Project to build an inertial guidance system in open source

2012-01-13 navigation • ins • inertial • gps • location • aviation • drones

iPhone 4 Gyroscope

Pictures of the MEMS magic

2012-01-13 iphone • location • ins • gyroscope • mems

Car location database

California police bypass privacy laws by using private firms' databases

2012-01-13 privacy • civilrights • gps • cars • location

Designy cases and covers for iPhones, etc

2012-01-13 case • iphone • ipod • art • design • via:marc

Duck Duck Douche

2012-01-13 funny • duckface • douchebag

GPS tracker / fitness timer for iPhone. Uses iPhone as a pedometer to correct flaky GPS reports.

2012-01-13 gps • tracking • gpx • running • walking • exercise • runkeeper

Moonrise Kingdom trailer

New Wes Anderson film: painfully Wes. Great cast!

2012-01-13 movies • wesanderson • moonrisekingdom

BitBucket postmortem

Downtime because syslog was running blocking TCP. How is that even possible?!

2012-01-13 syslog • badtech • tcp • blocking • io • bitbucket

Twitter: Who to Follow

My linkblog account picked up 8000 followers in two days, apparently because it was featured.

2012-01-13 twitter • stats • socialmedia • follow

Flickr Authentication Map

Comparison of their old system to OAuth

2012-01-11 oauth • flickr • programming • api

@Mat Honan channels JG Ballard

2012-01-11 funny • ces • gadgets

Goodbye, Google Maps

Geo-intensive site builds their own maps

2012-01-11 google • maps • gmaps • googlemaps • tilemill • openstreetmap • osm • gis • via:mattc

Danny Sullivan on Google Search+

Best search analyst in the industry writes up the latest Internet shitstorm

2012-01-11 google • twitter • search • seo • google+

TellApart ad stats

Ad placement startup from former Google folks posts some impressive numbers. 9% CTR

2012-01-11 ads • adwords • tellapart • google • adsense

30 stories in 15 days

Rapid building construction in China. Neat modular design.

2012-01-11 building • architecture • china • video

Lightroom 4 beta

Better geotagging, photobooks, overhaul of exposure settings

2012-01-11 photos • photography • lightroom • adobe • photoshop

Kerguelen Islands

The only land mass antipodal to the continental US

2012-01-11 france • remote • antarctic • island

twitter-clocks-favourites

A list of automated Twitter accounts posting the time

2012-01-11 twitter • time • soundofthetone • swatch

They're still the devil's ISP, but this seems like a pretty good rollout

2012-01-11 dns • dnssec • security • comcast • isp

Runkeeper and privacy

Interesting: there's no way to make your overall profile page private

2012-01-10 runkeeper • privacy • data • gpstracking

Kickstarter 2011 stats

That worst pie chart evar wasn't intended as a pie chart. Also, Kickstarter is cool.

2012-01-10 kickstarter • infovis • visualization • charts

How to make a pretty woman

2012-01-10 advertising • photoshop • dove • health • beauty

Fotoshop by Adobé

The celebrity beauty secret

2012-01-10 funny • parody • photoshop • adobe • via:metafilter • ads • advertising

Strange set of requirements

2012-01-10 aero • dns • aviation • registrar

Hospital charge insanity

Partial explanation of how crazy medical billing is

2012-01-10 medical • hospital • billing • via:hackernews • scam

Google+ in Google search

They sure are aggressive about social

2012-01-10 googleplus • google+ • google • search • social

Worst pie chart evar

From Kickstarter's 2012 post

2012-01-10 infovis • statistics • kickstarter • piechart

SF Uber revisualization

Different view into Uber's data of car trips in SF

2012-01-10 Uber • sf • sanfrancisco • visualization • d3 • infovis

How people use the private car service

2012-01-10 sanfrancisco • uber • transportation • neighborhoods • visualization

Parallel version of bzip2

2012-01-10 bzip • bzip2 • compression • threading • parallel

Unix tools for securely deleting files (in Debian)

2012-01-09 securedelete • delete • shred • rm

Bassnectar explains Dubstep

Nice little video. Never mentions the wobble!

2012-01-09 music • dubstep • animation • via:rchen

Battlestar Galactica RPG

Funny (and full of spoilers)

2012-01-09 funny • bsg • battlestargalactica • retro • games • snes • via:metafilter

Eraserhead (Japanese)

Nice little animated GIF

2012-01-09 gif • eraserhead • jacknance • davidlynch • movies

Balloon Mapping Kits

Kickstarter project for the cool citizen aerial mapping project

2012-01-09 maps • balloons • kickstarter • aerialmapping

Atomic Energy Lab

Play with Uranium. For kids!

2012-01-09 uranium • science • 50s • toys

My Guantánamo nightmare

The continuing shame of America

2012-01-08 civilrights • guantanamo • justice • prison

EasyDNS DDoS debrief

"ponzi/HYIP sites, porn sites or gambling/casino/betting."

2012-01-08 dns • ddos • hacking • hosting • porn • gambling

Black Lotus DNS

DNS host for sites regularly attacked by DDoS

2012-01-08 ddos • dns • server • hosting • hacker

Magic server tool: inspects a server to find what's been set up, generates install scripts

2012-01-07 deployment • ops • server • chef • puppet

A stripped down Ubuntu for running in virtual machines

2012-01-07 jeos • ubuntu • linux • vm • virtualization • vmware

Distribution of tweet lengths

I suspect the spike around 30 is spam links

2012-01-07 twitter • data • spam • graph

Battlefield 3 for noobs

Roundup of hints, guides, etc

2012-01-07 games • battlefield • battlefield3 • xbox

Ho Chi Minh City timelapse

2012-01-06 traffic • vietnam • timelapse • via:metafilter • hochiminhcity

Skrillex / DubTrot

Fantastic My Little Pony video

2012-01-06 dubstep • skrillex • via:kottke • funny • music • mylittlepony • bronies

Doctor Who Timeline

Remarkably useful infographic

2012-01-06 via:metafilter • doctorwho • tv • bbc

Doctor Who space archives

50 year old BBC signals are bouncing back to earth, decodable. (Ooops, it's an April Fools joke.)

2012-01-06 space • signal • tv • bbc • doctorwho

Zen19s KGS rank

Ranking of the top playing Computer Go player

2012-01-06 kgs • go • games • ai

Simple CPUs for low power and embedded use

2012-01-06 cpu • x86 • intel • centaur • via

Cheat for new MMO game The Old Republic: dance emotes make you invincible

2012-01-04 games • bugs • mmos • tor • exploit • funny

@wendideng vs @wendi_deng

How Twitter verified a fake account; no idea if this is true, but it's plausible.

2012-01-04 twitter • murdoch • wendideng • identity

Interviews with 1980s game developers

2012-01-04 games • interview • developer • apple

Classic Apple ][ fighting game

2012-01-04 games • bilestoad • apple • apple2 • nostalgia

Best Buy vs Amazon

Excellent analysis of a failure of customer service

2012-01-04 bestbuy • amazon • customerservice • business

a type of key with dots on the side

2012-01-04 keys • locks • locksmithing • dimple • dasracist

TVs are all awful

Even digital video is a bunch of awful hacks

2012-01-03 tv • video • hdmi • edid • via:hackernews • badtech

Code borrowing in computer chess

Influence of open source, reverse engineering in top tier chess AI

2012-01-03 chess • games • opensource • code

TileMill in 2012

Plans for the map development platform

2012-01-03 mapbox • tilemill • mapping • gis • osgeo

80s nostalgia appied to Skyrim

2012-01-03 games • funny • skyrim • tes

I had no idea this anatomical feature had a name

2012-01-03 anatomy • men • sexy • gay • skinny

MAME on Native Client

Great story of porting serious C code to run in a browser

2012-01-02 nacl • nativeclient • google • mame • code • porting • via:hackernews

Scientology apostate on Facebook

Wall with comments from critic

2012-01-02 scientology • cult • debbiecook

Scientology schism

Formerly high-up in the Church of Scientology now a critic, but still a member

2012-01-02 scientology • cult • debbiecook • flag • seaorg

Uber price confusion

The iPhone app doesn't do enough to disclose unusually high rates

2012-01-01 uber • fare • design • ui • pricing

Mystic Mayan Power Cloak

Protect yourself from the 2012 apocalypse

2012-01-01 funny • scam • mayan • 2012