Nelson's Linkblog 2014-11

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Nice short film encouraging space exploration

2014-11-30 space • sagan • astronauts

Potsdam Gravity Potato

Geoid models show variable gravity on Earth (attn @vruba)

2014-11-30 gravity • science • geoid • gps

Fruit and Spice Park

Tropical botanical garden in Florida

2014-11-29 florida • fruit • tropical • garden

Jalapeños are ruined

Details of the scourge of breeding heat out of chile peppers

2014-11-29 food • jalapeno • jalapeño • breeding • blandness

Sand Creek Massacre

Horrifying US massacre against Indians during the Civil War

2014-11-29 indian • history • massacre • civilwar • america • via:metafilter

Star Wars Christmas

Mercifully edited to the best 15 minutes

2014-11-29 starwars • funny • christmas

How linkers work

20 part essay on an essential part of the software toolchain

2014-11-29 linker • software • code

Jack Dorsey profile

Major new article; partly nasty, partly insightful.

2014-11-29 dorsey • twitter • square • gossip • startups

Op/Ed on gay blood

NYTimes supports allowing gay men to give blood

2014-11-28 redcross • blood • homophobia • gay • aids • hiv

Cheap static hosting

Various ways to host a simple website for cheap or free

2014-11-28 hosting • aws • web

The first Thanksgiving

A bit of historical record from Mann's _1491_

2014-11-27 indians • thanksgiving • america • history • squanto

Should you truncate the Y-Axis?

Data visualization lulz

2014-11-27 funny • statistics • visuialization

God's lonely programmer

Details about the guy behind TempleOS, the religious / schizophrenic outsider operating system

2014-11-27 computers • templeos • batshitinsane • programming

SQLite in Javascript via a cross-compiler. 1.5M minified JS file.

2014-11-26 sqlite • sql • database • javascript

Popular Electronics

PDF archives of the classic magazine

2014-11-25 electronics • hacking • via:reddit

A text editor for writers. Not a word processor, more of an outliner, notes, and prose writing tool.

2014-11-25 text • writing • software • mac

Silk Road Bitcoin analytics

Company traces drug market's currency through the blockchain

2014-11-25 bitcoin • money • drugs • crime • fraud

Magic Leap details

Info on the mysterious augmented reality startup

2014-11-24 vr • augmentedreality • tech • startups

a simple data charting tool from Medium

2014-11-24 charts • graphs • datavis • visualization

World Maps Without New Zealand

2014-11-24 maps • funny • newzealand

HandBrake 0.10.0

AV re-encoding tool gets a major update. Includes VP8

2014-11-24 video • codecs • software

PPTP VPN - TomatoUSB

Detailed notes, pretty manual process

2014-11-24 vpn • pptp • security • router • networking

A daemon for making a very fancy shell prompt

2014-11-23 bash • shell • prompt • software • unix

An archive tool designed for incremental backups

2014-11-23 via:onethingwell • software • compression • backup • zip

MacOS menu bar doodad that gives more details on wifi quality. Costs $0.99.

2014-11-23 wifi • osx • macos • mac • via:onethingwell • software

WashPo has a carefully researched, detailed story on rape allegations against Bill Cosby

2014-11-23 cosby • rape • crime

Reddit FCC rebellion

FCC Commissioner does a bad IAmA on Reddit, gets called out

2014-11-22 reddit • netneutrality • politics • fcc

GAME OF THE YEAR: 420BLAZEIT

Parody game, MLG montages made playable

2014-11-22 funny • games • montage • mlg

Solving Earth Problems

Various tools for dealing with spatial data; spatial indices, etc

2014-11-21 geo • maps • coding • gis • kdtree

Cheezburger: Behind the Music

Personal detailed story of the struggle running the cat meme joke sites

2014-11-21 memes • startups

Reed Software Design Studio

A project I'm helping set up at my old alma mater

2014-11-21 reed • dlab • students • programming • education • mentors

Uber financials leak

Details of revenue, etc for Dec 2013

2014-11-21 uber • financials • leak

A year later, they are more or less the same

2014-11-21 games • xbox • playstation • consoles

Fake journal accepts troll paper

David Mazières up to some hilarious pranksterism

2014-11-21 funny • stanford • journal • publishing • fuck

A simple viewer of BGP routing data. Requires guest login

2014-11-20 peering • bgp • internet • networking

open address machine

Migurski's work on OpenAddresses automation

2014-11-20 maps • osm • openaddresses

Browser Unicode normalization

WebKit browsers screw up user input when POSTing data to a server

2014-11-20 unicode • chrome • bug • webkit

Vib-Ribbon revival

Odd story of a quirky Playstation games

2014-11-20 games • vibribbon • playstation • sony

San Francisco, the city where people shit on the sidewalks

2014-11-19 sanfrancisco • homeless • shit • shame

Uber vs another journalist

More concerns that Uber may misuse its rider data

2014-11-19 uber • privacy • journalism

ASL writing systems

Overview of various options for writing ASL

2014-11-19 asl • sign • deaf • language • writing

One approach to transcribing a sign language to web pages

2014-11-19 language • asl • deaf • sign

A complete Tweet index

Engineering details for a large search engine

2014-11-18 search • twitter • indexing

EFF project to make a very easy to set up SSL certificate

2014-11-18 security • ssl • encryption • ca

Google profile tools

Simple collection of 6 sites at Google that shows data they have on you

2014-11-18 via:reddit • google • privacy

Simple leaderboard listing of static site generators

2014-11-18 sites • web • development • jekyll • pelican

Fix the one drawback of HandBrake

2014-11-18 converstion • video • handbrake • mp4

Uber opposition research

Yet more evidence of a corrupt internal culture

2014-11-18 uber • journalism • ridiculous • batshitinsane • pandodaily • sarahlacy

Uber CEO profile

Great article by @elcush about Travis Kalanick, the thorny guy in charge

2014-11-17 uber • sanfrancisco • startups

Worth a reload or three

2014-11-17 toomanycooks • funny • tv • via:waxy • smarf

Scarlett profile

Excellent detailed article about a top Starcraft 2 player

2014-11-17 via:metafilter • scarlett • starcraft • esports

Funny old hack; kill processes by playing the FPS game

2014-11-17 games • fps • doom • unix • process

Satellite company that provides AIS monitoring to track ship postions

2014-11-17 data • space • ais • shipping

Satellite visualization

Every satellite in orbit, graphed by altitude

2014-11-17 space • satellite • visualization

ISPs stripping email encryption

Technical measure against spam backfires, prevents security

2014-11-17 encryption • badtech • isp • endtoend

Twitter election shenanigans

GOP posted information they couldn't share privately in public, but only barely

2014-11-17 twitter • fraud • gop • republican • election

English words from indigenous Americans

Words borrowed from Indian languages

2014-11-16 language • etymology • america • indians

MSN Messenger's last gasps

Apparently Microsoft is shutting down service; a bunch of third party clients broke this week

2014-11-16 im • messenger • msn • chat

TCPINC working group

IETF group to add encryption extensions to TCP

2014-11-15 tcp • internet • tcpip • security • encryption

Hire More Women In Tech

A list of simple things companies can do

2014-11-15 diversity • women • tech • hiring

The Faze Clansman

A parody of a parody of gaming videos

2014-11-15 mlg • games • via:metafilter • parody • funny • noscope

Netflix API death

Today is the day Netflix shuts off their public API

2014-11-14 api • netflix • business

New d3.js wrapper for simple kinds of data graphs

2014-11-14 data • visualization • d3js • javascript • bootstrap

Simple visualization of the problematic comet landing

2014-11-14 philae • space • comet

D3 Deconstructor

Reads data + marks out of a D3 visualization so you can restyle

2014-11-14 d3 • d3js • code • javascript • visualization

online code reviews for git repos

2014-11-14 code • review • git • google

Net Neutrality is just a symptom

Excellent editorial calling for more ISP competition

2014-11-14 internet • isp • sonicnet • broadband • fcc • netneutrality

Some detailed science lite for the old school cooking implement

2014-11-13 cooking • food • castiron • via:kottke

Retro adventure game for iOS and Mac

2014-11-13 games • ios • mac • adventure • via:waxy

“Too Many Cooks:” an analysis

Detailed explication

2014-11-13 funny • parody • tv • via:jwz • toomanycooks

Ninja / Waddy Jones

Amazing background on Die Antwoord's frontman

2014-11-13 music • via:metafilter • ninja • southafrica

Weaponized review embargoes

Game company Ubisoft abuses the gaming press

2014-11-12 games • reviews • ubisoft • assassinscreed

Flour tortillas you buy and cook yourself

2014-11-12 tortillas • food • cooking

Philae landing preview

Details of the comet landing taking place in about 16 hours

2014-11-11 comet • astronomy • rosetta • philae • space

Javscript text rendering in canvas

2014-11-11 canvas • html5 • javascript • typography • fonts

Why Does United Airlines Still Exist?

Oligopolies entrench bad service

2014-11-11 airlines • united • competition

Lovely story of Blizzard's World of Warcraft writing

2014-11-11 games • warcraft • lore • wow • blizzard

Browser databases

War stories from PouchDB, making WebSQL and IndexDB work

2014-11-11 javascript • database • browser • pouchdb • couchdb

Fred Wilson on Uber

Calls Uber's attempts to manipulate Lyft funding unethical. (and also pointless)

2014-11-10 ethics • uber • vc • lyft • startups

Deregister iMessage

Apple finally made a tool to recover your SMS number

2014-11-10 sms • imessage • apple • iphone • ios

Life in the potato pits

Remarkably great Metafilter comment about working peeling potatoes

2014-11-10 potatoes • food • funny • metafilter

Javascript Terrarium

A way to run code in a separate process so it can be inspected, etc

2014-11-10 javascript • code • vm

Berlin wall vs Palestine wall

2014-11-10 israel • palestine • berlin

Turing, marathon runner

He ran a 2:46 marathon in 1946!

2014-11-10 turing • history • marathon • running

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy

A book about Anonymous, the hacker identity

2014-11-09 hacker • 4chan • anonymous

Third-party login problems

Real story about "login with Facebook" and the hidden costs

2014-11-09 facebook • login • oauth • openid • authentication

Women fighting Twitter harassment

Organization takes it on themselves to fight awful people on Twitter

2014-11-09 gamergate • twitter • harassment • sexism • feminism

Estonia eResidenciy

Estonia's innovative online authentication system extended to foreigners /cc @timbray

2014-11-09 via:metafilter • estonia • identity • password • login • oauth • openid

South Korea's impressive national identity system is hopelessly compromised

2014-11-09 korea • southkorea • identity • oauth • openid • login • authentication • passwords • badtech

The Amazing Randi

Lovely profile, with an interesting story about his personal life

2014-11-09 randi • amazingrandi • skepticism • gay

A lovely local drinking establishment in the Mission

2014-11-09 beer • shotwells • mission

Seraphs colophon

How the generated book works

2014-11-09 nanogenmo • voynich • via:metafilter • books

Bitbucket VS. GitHub

A recently updated comparison. They're very similar now; I think GitHub has more fancy features, BitBucket has free private repos

2014-11-09 bitbucket • github • dvcs • code

A generative book based on the Voynich manuscript

2014-11-08 voynich • books • nanogenmo • via:metafilter

Gamergate eats itself

Disgusting awful people begin to act disgusting and awful to themselves

2014-11-08 gamergate • feminism • stupid • games • via:waxy

Coordinated effort to map areas in the developing world *before* the crisis

2014-11-08 maps • hot • osm • redcross

Red Pill misogyny

In which boys have a discussion about whether advocating "choking bitches" is a good strategy

2014-11-07 feminism • women • reddit • disgusting • rape

Brilliance from Adult Swim; may require being high

2014-11-07 funny • adultswim • parody • 80s

Hilarious gift from Matt Haughey to Stewart Butterfield; an oil painting of a great photo by Paul Bausch

2014-11-07 funny • art • photo • mathowie • stewart • slack • slackhq • pb

La Petite Ceinture

An abandoned rail right of way in Paris

2014-11-06 paris • train • park

What runs groups.io

A look at a modern web / email tech stack, using go

2014-11-06 golang • go • email • mailinglists • architecture • systems

36 people run Wikipedia

Article about the stewards, moderators for the entire site

2014-11-06 wikipedia • culture • osm • moderators • community

A Russian castration cult; had as many as 100,000 members

2014-11-05 castration • religion • russia • batshitinsane

Women Street Artists

Nice gallery site

2014-11-05 streetart • women • art • artists

YouTube: full album

Google runs the largest store of pirated music the Internet has ever seen

2014-11-05 google • youtube • copyright • music • napster

Bivariate color maps for climate data

Another 2d map technique, this one overloads hue in a way that seems to work

2014-11-05 maps • visualization • color • bivariate • climate

NYT bivariate election maps

Nice application of the value-by-alpha technique

2014-11-05 maps • election • visualization • colors

Value-by-alpha maps

Bivariate mapping technique; vary hue and value for 2 axes of data

2014-11-05 mapping • colors • datavis • visualization

Retro-Computing and nostalgia

Paul Ford expresses the feelings I have about the emotional weight of old computer systems

2014-11-05 emulation • nostalgia • 80s • history • computers

Referer is dead

Notes on how The Guardian can't tell how people get to their stories anymore

2014-11-04 news • guardian • referer • traffic • analytics • security

BuiltWith Trends

What web components are major sites built with?

2014-11-04 trends • analytics • web • technology

Top map technologies

Chart shows which map libraries various web sites use

2014-11-04 maps • metrics • leaflet

Alternative to voter ID; mark fingers so people can't vote twice

2014-11-04 voting • voterid • civilrights

Intelligent dance music

Learn how to dance to Autechre

2014-11-04 music • autechre • dance • funny

Gigabyte Brix review

PC manufacturers finally building Mac Mini competitors

2014-11-04 sff • server • linux • computer • pc • macmini

Google Maps for astronomy, nice treatment of different wavelengths

2014-11-03 maps • astronomy

Ferguson no-fly was press suppression

No surprise, but FAA authority abused to stop news helicopters

2014-11-02 ferguson • justice • faa • tfr • disney • press • freedom • civilrights • aviation