Nelson's Linkblog 2014-04

about • archive • mastodon • feed

How to Win at eBay

Simple rules for bidding to buy things

2014-04-30 auction • ebay • sniping

Paul Ford muses on 5 great pieces of software for the ages

2014-04-30 code • history • software

sonic.net on net neutrality

My awesome ISP takes a stand against bullshit pricing

2014-04-29 dsl • fcc • internet • isp • sonicnet

Rim Fire Landsat

Amazing satellite image of the big fire in California last year

2014-04-29 california • fire • landsat • maps • rimfire • yosemite

Tim Bray joins advisory board for an identity login provider

2014-04-28 identity • login • oauth • openid • passwords

Heroes of the Storm impressions

Good overview of Blizzard's new MOBA

2014-04-28 blizzard • games • hots • moba

Satoshi's 50 BTC

Bitcoin inventor only ever spent 50 bitcoins; here's where they are now

2014-04-27 bitcoin • blockchain • satoshi

Various optional features to rsync that are distributed separately

2014-04-26 code • rsync • unix

Javascript library for storing view state in a #hash in the URL, as for maps

2014-04-26 hash • history • javascript • leaflet • maps • state

Chosen (jQuery)

Better select UI for browsers

2014-04-26 form • javascript • jquery • select • ui

A fun dynamic DNS service

2014-04-25 ddns • dns • domain • name • router

SDL Mac fullscreen bug

Explains the annoying behavior of some games

2014-04-25 bug • games • macs • sdl • via:metafilter

Larry Page hagiography

Some details wrong, but good retrospective reporting

2014-04-24 google • larrypage

site:secret.ly search

You can search the anonymous messages posted to Secret

2014-04-24 anonymous • google • secret

Secret - Vic Gundotra

News about Google+ exec showed up as a rumor on Secret a week ago

2014-04-24 google • rumors • secret

Vic Gundotra out of Google+

Primary guy responsible for Google+ leaving the company

2014-04-24 google • google+ • social

TLD proliferation will never stop giving

2014-04-24 dns • icann • whois

Warhol 1985 Amiga art

Floppy disks turn up Warhol computer art experiments

2014-04-24 amiga • art • history • preservation • warhol

1909 Paris Air Show

2014-04-24 1909 • aviation • balloons • paris

Nien leaves CLG

Top LoL player quits, cites the discouragement of nasty fan trash talk

2014-04-23 athletes • clg • confidence • esports • impostorsyndrome • lol • nien • sports

Source Multiplayer Networking

Valve's documentation of netcode lag compensation in games

2014-04-23 games • lag • netcode • steam • valve

Intellectual Ventures fail

Big patent case backfires

2014-04-22 hawhaw • myhrvold • patents • trolls

Another Cisco back door

More nonsense in consumer routers

2014-04-22 badtech • cisco • linksys • netgear • security

1/3rd of Americans are gay

Or so a bunch of surveyed people thought

2014-04-22 america • gay • statistics

McKellan / Stewart marketing

Stats on the amazing social media campaign for the actors

2014-04-19 acting • advertising • twitter • via:metafilter • viral

Time is a flat Circus

True Detective / Family Circus mashup

2014-04-16 comics • familycircus • funny • truedetective • via:metafilter

Tom of Finland stamps

official postage featuring the iconic gay artist

2014-04-14 gay • stamps • tomoffinland • via:reddit

VLC region lock

iOS app will play audio for Canadian users, not American

2014-04-14 america • canada • ios • legal • vlc

Nice picture of the bridge with a hole in it

2014-04-13 bridge • cantilever • engineering • sanfrancisco

Passwords are Obsolete

Provocative essay saying online SMS/email verification is sufficient

2014-04-13 authentication • heartbleed • passwords

Mapbox Vector Tile Spec

a data format for efficient vector map data

2014-04-13 data • geo • mapbox • maps • vectortile

Data Science Toolkit

Free data sources, particularly a non-OSM geocoder

2014-04-12 geocoding • maps • osm

James Cameron AMA

Direct answers from the director

2014-04-12 aliens • avatar • cameron • films • movies • terminator

Dropbox welcomes Condi Rice to the board

Nasty bit of satire

2014-04-12 dropbox • funny • satire • torture

Artist who does skateboards, etc

2014-04-11 art • skateboard • skater • streetart

A Dropbox alternative without a torturer on the board of directors

2014-04-11 dropbox • spideroak • storage • sync

Google XXE attack

it's 2014 and this old XML bug is still around

2014-04-11 badtech • google • security • xxe

Turn Down for What (NSFW)

New Lil Jon video, quite nuts

2014-04-11 liljon • music • thedrop • via:metafilter

Heartbleed exploit last year?

Recorded server traffic shows exploits months before publication

2014-04-11 badtech • heartbleed • nsa • security • ssl

BitTorrent Sync

Another system for keeping files in sync between devices

2014-04-10 bittorrent • dropbox • rsync • sync • unison

Roche suppressed info their flu drug doesn't work

2014-04-10 flu • healthcare • pharma • scam • via:metafilter

The Miracle of Bali

1969 half hour video of Balinese gamelan

2014-04-10 bali • gamelan • music • via:metafilter

Austin's awesome fusion sushi place is in Houston too

2014-04-09 food • houston • sushi • uchi

Wolf Hunters of Wall Street

Article about de-escalating the high frequency trader arms race

2014-04-09 hft • money • trading • via:metafilter • wallstreet

Theo on Firebleed

Pointed comment from OpenBSD guy on OpenSSL code quality

2014-04-09 badtech • firebleed • openbsd • openssl • security • ssl

20 ways to slice Europe

Funny map about prejudices

2014-04-09 europe • funny • maps

Flickr and Creative Commons

Apparently the geniuses at Yahoo broke one of Flickr's best features

2014-04-09 copyright • creativecommons • flickr • yahoo

Game of Thrones houses done as corporate branding

2014-04-09 design • funny • gameofthrones • logo

Readable overview of the new high energy physics discovery

2014-04-09 cern • physics • qcd • via:reddit

Game of Thrones, 1992 style

Funny illustrations

2014-04-08 1990s • funny • gameofthrones

Minecraft qCraft

Quantum properties applied to Minecraft blocks; great intro video

2014-04-08 computercraft • games • minecraft • qcraft

Microsoft's stats on usage; 20% or more in China

2014-04-08 badtech • china • ie • microsoft • msie

Twitter account of funny news stories

2014-04-08 florida • funny • news

Visit Singapore!

Hilariously bad tourist video; worth staying for the end

2014-04-08 cringe • funny • singapore • tourism

Chrome Extensions Reloader

Chrome extension to help you developing extensions

2014-04-08 chrome • code • development • extensions

Heartbleed patch

the specific fix for the OpenSSL security hole

2014-04-07 badtech • heartbleed • openssl • security • ssl

Serious flaw in OpenSSL

2014-04-07 badtech • openssl • security • ssl

Top Android App

It's an anti-virus. Worse, it's a scam.

2014-04-07 android • antivirus • badtech • fail • funny • google • phone

Replacement Mac menubar clock has a popup calendar

2014-04-07 calendar • mac • macos • menubar • via:onethingwell

Bali New Years photos

Nyepi, the celebration of the new year in Bali

2014-04-07 bali • nyepi • photos

Space Invader authenticity

Street artist points out you can't really steal his art

2014-04-07 paris • spaceinvader • streetart

The 49-U6U Slaughterhouse

Biggest space battle in Eve Online to date happened on the Chinese server

2014-04-07 ccp • china • eve • eveonline • games

IBM S/360 legacy

Fifty year old computing platform, still going strong

2014-04-07 ibm • mainframe • s360 • zos

Visual math demos

Great collection of diagrams explaining math concepts

2014-04-07 math • visualization

D3 blocks search

Organization for Mike's awesome way to share D3 examples with gists

2014-04-07 d3 • d3js • example • gist • github • search

Managing iOS battery life

Apple's added enough background processing that battery drain is now a problem

2014-04-07 apple • battery • ios

Level0 OSM editor

Edit OpenStreetMap with text, a humane UI for the underlying XML

2014-04-07 editor • openstreetmap • osm

loophole cocktails

Cocktails that don't require a California liquor license

2014-04-07 california • cocktail • drinks • licenses • liquor

A MacPaint clone in your browser

2014-04-07 mac • macpaint • software • ui

HBO should show dongs

2014-04-06 funny • gameofthrones • penis

Amazon Fire review

Matt gets one and tries it out

2014-04-05 amazon • fire • roku • tv

GemCraft: Chasing Shadows

new tower defense game in a classic series

2014-04-05 games • gemcraft • towerdefense • via:metafilter

MeyeA & Houston gaymers

Pro LoL player talks about being gay, building community

2014-04-05 games • gay • leagueoflegends • lol

18 million password database

Yet another hacker trove

2014-04-04 badtech • hackers • security • via:metafilter

"you’re going to want more stings to the penis over the nose, if you’re forced to choose"

2014-04-04 batshitinsane • bees • pain • via:metafilter

Yul Brynner fashion

Pharoah had an awesome wardrobe

2014-04-04 movies • tencommandments • yulbrynner

Google DNS intercept

Official statement that Turkey hijacked the Google service

2014-04-03 badtech • dns • google • turkey

Russian GPS alternative was broken for 12 hours

2014-04-03 glonass • gps • outage • satellite

Explaining gay parents to kids

Simple no-nonsense advice

2014-04-03 families • gaymarriage • gays • kids • via:metafilter

GameSpy shutdown

Classic game matchmaking service is ending; old games will be harder to play

2014-04-03 games • gamespy • multiplayer • pvp

"Game of Thrones" reportage

Funny spoofs of how the press would report GoT. Spoilers.

2014-04-03 gameofthrones • journalism • reporting

Scientific computing language with parallelism and distributed computing

2014-04-03 distributed • julia • math • matlab • parallelism • programming • r

FAA charts go digital

Pilot map production process eliminates the "print and scan" step

2014-04-03 aviation • faa • foreflight • maps

Microsoft scam bust

One of those "This is Windows" telephone scams got busted

2014-04-02 badtech • microsoft • scam • windows

Twitter Manhattan

details on Twitter's distributed database

2014-04-02 consistency • database • distributed • twitter

70M eSports viewers in 2013

Statistics on how many people are watching games online

2014-04-02 esports • games • lol • tv

formerly Dan Bunten, famous game designer who made M.U.L.E.

2014-04-02 games • mule • transgender

"Git is to source code as Dat is to datasets"

2014-04-02 data • database • git • versioncontrol

National Parks Voronoi

Nice map showing which park is closest to you in the US

2014-04-02 maps • nationalparks • parks • via:reddit • voronoi

iOS software that maintains a VPN connection

2014-04-02 cloak • ios • iphone • security • vpn

Resilient Distributed Datasets

Distributed programming model that's like mapreduce but allows efficient data updates

2014-04-01 distributed • mapreduce • rdd • spark

Hilarious musical video for the zeitgeist

2014-04-01 funny • instagram • music • selfie

Gmail after 10 years

Nice history of the launch

2014-04-01 email • gmail • google • paulbuchheit

Amateur-launched satellite was lost at launch, they found it!

2014-04-01 cubesat • satellites • skycube

The Korean cable channel dedicated to broadcasting computer games

2014-04-01 esports • games • korea • lol

Imgur-to-Gfycat

Chrome extension rewrites Imgur animated GIFs to smaller Gfycat hosted versions

2014-04-01 bandwidth • chrome • extension • gfycat • imgur

Image of Altair

One of a few stars to be directly imaged; spins so fast it's squashed

2014-04-01 altair • astronomy • star

Read the comments

AT&T customers tear apart AT&T's argument against net neutrality on AT&T's blog

2014-04-01 att • funny • netflix • netneutrality

Extended Random is NSA sabotage

Another baffling RSA technical choice turns out to be government sabotage

2014-04-01 badtech • cryptography • nsa • privacy • rsa • security