Nelson's Linkblog 2016-04

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Rethinking PID 1

Early writing about the motivation for systemd

2016-04-30 systemd • linux • init

A technical defense written in the middle of controversy

2016-04-30 systemd • linux • init • unix • redhat

Hi, Billy Mays here!

Exterminate all rational infomercial thought

2016-04-30 infomercials • tv • mashup • billymays

TED CRUZ BATHROOM PANIC

Going back to the hateful Republican playbook

2016-04-30 tedcruz • politics • lgbt • republicans • gop

CDNs aren't just for caching

Introduction to reasons CDNs improve web serving

2016-04-30 cdn • networking • performance • web • http

Google sheep view

2016-04-30 🐑 • sheep • google • maps

A nifty machine learning art piece

2016-04-29 ai • machinelearning • via:metafilter • art • previeux

Pentagon on Hospital attack

Some acceptance of mistakes, but no criminal charges

2016-04-29 pentagon • army • iraq • war • humanrights

Zero Hedge explodes

Anonymous writers for a crank financial site have a fight, go public

2016-04-29 zerohedge • journalism • finance

Spacecraft software error

Heartbreaking cascading failures in control systems of Hitomi

2016-04-29 hitomi • astronomy • space • badtech • software

Service that coordinates authentication from multiple identity providers

2016-04-29 authentication • oauth • openid • login • identity

Burundi concerns

Reminders of the leadup to the Rwanda genocide

2016-04-28 rwanda • burundi • africa • genocide • humanrights

Mapping organization trying to get GIS data for every land parcel in the US

2016-04-28 maps • openaddresses • parcels • openstreetmap • osm • gis • geodata

Machine Learning Curriculum

Old friend of mine from Google is working on learning machine learning; curriculum and notes

2016-04-28 machinelearning • ml • python • programming

Elon Musk financing

Eyebrow raising strategy of borrowing against one of his companies to fund the others

2016-04-27 spacex • tesla • solarcity • musk • elonmusk • financing

US tornado probabilities

Nice animation of tornado risk during the year

2016-04-27 weather • via:reddit • tornado • maps • visualization

Irish slaves myth

Dangerous fake history

2016-04-26 racism • america • slavery • irish • memes

Apple abusing MacOS

When Microsoft did this self promotion crap there was anti-trust actions

2016-04-26 microsoft • apple • antitrust • safari • macos

Ultra-macro insect photography. /cc @celesteramsay

2016-04-26 insects • photography • macro • via:metafilter

More Vinod Khosla ugliness

Famous venture capital investor acts like a jerk for coastal access

2016-04-26 vinod • beach • coast • california • vc

River map prints

Australian guy makes river maps like my US one, good enough to print and sell

2016-04-26 maps • rivers • prints • art

Make America Great Britain Again

2016-04-26 politics • funny • trump • america

Beyhive v Rachel Ray

Funny misidentification

2016-04-25 beyonce • music • lemonade • rachelray • rachelroy

Lemonade Transcript

Text of the poetry in Beyonce's new release

2016-04-25 lemonade • beyonce

SF property crime

My city is broken

2016-04-25 sanfrancisco • sf • crime

CA handgun permits

Correlation of Republican party membership and gun permits

2016-04-24 guns • california • politics • republicans • visualization • via:reddit

Web scraping as a service

2016-04-24 scraping • http • web • programming

Details of how processing garlic changes the flavor

2016-04-24 cooking • garlic • food

BBC on the royals

Amazing parody mashup

2016-04-24 bbc • mashup • northkorea • dprk • journalism

Reddit interview with one of the most prolific movie pirates

2016-04-24 yify • torrent • movie • scene • video

American Slavery

Modern visualization by decade

2016-04-24 maps • slavery • visualization

webaudio synthesis

Javascript programmed sound toys

2016-04-22 javascript • webaudio • music • synthesis

Facebook Tor: 1M users

Facebook explicitly supports Tor and it gets a lot of use

2016-04-22 tor • facebook • china • via:hackernews

Turgot map of Paris

1739 atlas, beautifully drawn and incredibly detailed

2016-04-22 maps • paris • cartography

Pyongyang metro

Photos from stations previously off limits to tourists

2016-04-22 northkorea • pyongyang • metro • photos • tourist • via:metafilter • subway

Probably a big fan of Roy Cohn

2016-04-22 trump • gays • politics • lgbt

1964 gay rights protest

2016-04-21 gayrights • civilrights • lgbt • newyork

Raph Koster on virtual world history

6 minute video going over the history from MUDs to MMOs

2016-04-21 games • mmos • history • koster

Rumsey maps at Stanford

Big collection of maps housed at a university

2016-04-21 rumsey • maps • cartography • davidrumsey • stanford

Ad tech is broken

Some technical commentary on the shitshow of online advertising

2016-04-21 ads • adtech • badtech

Amilia St. John on women in tech

Estranged daughter of a toxic asshole tears her father's childish argument sto shreds

2016-04-21 sexism • feminism • tech • funny

Release day for a great Linux distribution

2016-04-21 ubuntu • linux • xenial • xerus

On the Road to Recap

Phenomenal essay by Bill Gurley on the distorted market for late-stage private companies

2016-04-21 finance • unicorns • startup • financing • investment • vc

US heating fuel

Map of how people heat their homes

2016-04-21 via:reddit • maps • visualization • energy • heating

Amazon delivery racism

Improved service not available in black neighborhoods. Direct racism? Economic decision? Why not both?

2016-04-21 amazon • race • racism • delivery

Filtered reviews of iOS apps; spam, etc removed

2016-04-20 apps • ios • appstore

Magic Leap skepticism

Reasonable counterpoint to Wired's fawning piece

2016-04-19 virtualreality • magicleap • journalism

Poi for Passover

Thoughts on Hawaiian and Jewish culture

2016-04-19 passover • poi • hawaii • hawai'i • judaism

Algorithmically generated prior art

2016-04-19 patents • ip • intellectualproperty • funny • via:reddit

Georgetown U's slaves

A well documented sale of slaves to fund a university

2016-04-18 georgetown • history • america • slavery

Inuit Cartography

Sculptural maps

2016-04-17 maps • inuit • anthrpology • greenland

More evidence that the disease was tragically brought by UN relief efforts

2016-04-15 disease • cholera • haiti • nepal • un • cdc

Fun esoteric programming language with arrows and threads

2016-04-15 programming • languages

TensorFlow Examples

Simple Python notebooks showing off using the machine learning library

2016-04-15 tensorflow • ml • machinelearning • python • via:reddit

Generate code projects from templates; sort of a poor man's wizard for open source

2016-04-14 programming • template • opensource • python • wizard

UC Davis pepper spray

Four videos from different angles, synced

2016-04-14 brutality • ucdavis • police • occupy

Gay children's book author

Sweet story of coming out and it not being such a big deal

2016-04-14 gay • lgbt • books • authors

BlackBerry back door

Canadian police have been able to decrypt messages

2016-04-14 crypto • badtech • civilrights • blackberry • canada • rcmp

Another human-friendly JSON

2016-04-14 json • data • configuration • format

Proposal for a JSON that's easier to edit and maintain by hand

2016-04-14 json • via:hackernews • data • configuration • format

Making a TV show

Nice feature on the work that goes into making The Americans

2016-04-14 tv • americans • via:metafilter • television • film • production

The Minecraft Generation

Excellent long feature on the unprecedentedly successful game

2016-04-14 games • minecraft

Eve Online historian

The process of Andrew Groen writing his history book about events in Eve Online

2016-04-14 eveonline • eve • games • ccp • groen • journalism • history

Portland startup providing a comment moderation product

2016-04-14 portland • comments • moderation • community

UC Davis SEO scandal

University wasted $175k+ trying to hide the truth about their cops assaulting students

2016-04-14 ucdavis • california • seo • scandal • katehi

Needlework Rivers

Lovely little cross-stitch maps

2016-04-13 maps • cross-stitch • crafts • rivers

CHASE ZEN BLIGHT Font

A deliberately illegible but kinda nifty font

2016-04-13 fonts • design • typography • graffiti

TensorFlow Playground

Nifty interactive demo of training a small neural network

2016-04-12 learning • visualization • ml • machinelearning • neuralnetwork

Riot Games API goals

Details on strategy for having an open API for developers

2016-04-12 games • api • business • riot • lol • leagueoflegends • riotgames

I am on the Kill List

Amazing editorial from a target of drone strikes in Pakistan

2016-04-12 drones • terrorism • politics • pakistan • afghanistan • waziristan • assassination

SF 1906 Quake photos

Excellent collection of photographs of the damage from the quake and fire

2016-04-12 sanfrancisco • 1906 • quake • earthquake • disaster • photos • journalism

Abusive comments

Major Guardian analysis of hateful comments left on articles. Specifically how women suffer more abuse.

2016-04-12 gender • women • comments • guardian • via:reddit • harassment • trolls

NYT on study abroad

Young people enjoy sex and alcohol and the New York Times IS ON IT. Terrible article.

2016-04-11 journalism • nytimes • students • studyabroad

Castro/Noe cable car

Nice history of a small public transit line in San Francisco /cc @burritojustice @enf

2016-04-11 sanfrancisco • transit • cablecar • noe • castro • history

GoLang book: troff

New programming book typeset in a 30+ year old system

2016-04-11 golang • go • programming • typesetting • typography • text • via:hackernews

Slack Platform Roadmap

Clear business strategy for third party relationships

2016-04-10 slack • strategy • business • api

Internet of Things problems

Implications of software services attached to your appliances

2016-04-10 internet • privacy • nest • google • iot • internetofthings • consumer

ev on Medium goals

Thoughtful criticism of "junk food" media

2016-04-10 ev • twitter • medium • evhead • journalism • media

Chinese restaurant names

New China Garden Panda Wok House. /cc @rchen

2016-04-10 china • restaurant • via:metafilter • chinese

Trinity College clock

Giant mechanical clock in Cambridge is accurate to 1 second in 4 months

2016-04-09 via:hackernews • clocks • escapement • cambridge

Fox News on eSports

Early days still, but real world slowly figuring out the appeal of esports

2016-04-09 games • esports • lol

More Trump threats

Trump power-behind-the-man sounds like he's intimidating delegates

2016-04-08 politics • trump • republicans • gop • brownshirts

Minnie Ingersoll on gender and tech

Thoughtful essay on aggression in the tech industry

2016-04-08 sexism • gender • startups • tech

Service to generate little charts as embedded images, with data entirely in the URL

2016-04-08 charts • service • graphs

Kinderhook plates

Interesting bit of Mormon history, perhaps a hoax perpetrated in 1843

2016-04-08 mormon • lds • religion • kinderhook

Trump + Roy Cohn

Yet more odious history of Donald Trump

2016-04-08 trump • cohn • politics

Apple products graphic

Nice timeline of things Apple has sold

2016-04-08 apple • hardware • products • infographic

Stereotyped males in games

Feminist critique of the portrayal of men in videogames

2016-04-07 games • feminism • masculinity • gender

Bezos letter to Amazon investors

Inspiring leadership words

2016-04-07 amazon • business • bezos

Programming Da Funk

Nice little tutorial on writing the melody for a electronica song with lisp

2016-04-07 programming • music • via:hackernews • clojure • leipzig • overtone

Paid for being famous

Bizarro world of Vegas nightclubs paying celebrities to show up

2016-04-07 celebrity • vegas • nightclub • gomorrah

Trade and US economy

Exhausting but thorough examination of how global free trade affects the US economy, particularly workers

2016-04-07 trade • economics • us • unitedstates • trump

US aerial surveillance

Details on FBI and DHS flying spy missions over US cities

2016-04-07 aviation • privacy • government • fbi • dhs • civilrights

A friend's startup: a concierge AI to coordinate the Internet of Things

2016-04-06 startup • devices • internet • coordination

Nature on RiotLyte work

Details of League of Legends' effort to curb antisocial behavior in the online games

2016-04-05 behavior • games • riot • lol • riotlyte

Overwatch netcode

Blizzard developer video talking about network lag

2016-04-05 lag • network • blizzard • overwatch • games • programming

Google Nest vs old devices

Stopping service for three year old devices

2016-04-04 nest • iot • internetofthings • google • badtech • via:metafilter

Turkish citizen database

Full nation's list of citizens leaks

2016-04-04 security • turkey • badtech • database • census

Gay Batman and Robin

Detailed examination of old comics, origins of the gay subtext

2016-04-04 gay • batman • comics • lgbt

Mossack Fonseca

2014 profile of the company at the center of the Panama Papers

2016-04-03 panama • fraud • taxes • offshore

Panama Papers stats

Details from a massive whistleblower leak to journalists about offshore companies

2016-04-03 offshore • legal • taxes • crime • via:metafilter • fraud

Dwarf Fortress interview

Great discussion with the developer of the most idiosyncratic successful game

2016-04-03 games • dwarffortress • roguelike • df

Colorful Image Colorization

Machine learning to add color to greyscale images

2016-04-03 color • machinelearning • ai • image • photos • photography • via:hackernews

Redditor / amateur astronomer captured an amazing Jupiter timelapse

2016-04-03 jupiter • impact • reddit

Slides from a nice overview talk

2016-04-01 programming • perl • language

Notes on manipulating the game's simulation of space. Now out of date

2016-04-01 games • mechanics • eve • eveonline • ccp