Nelson's Linkblog 2016-04

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Rethinking PID 1

Early writing about the motivation for systemd

2016-04-30 init • linux • systemd

A technical defense written in the middle of controversy

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

Hi, Billy Mays here!

Exterminate all rational infomercial thought

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

TED CRUZ BATHROOM PANIC

Going back to the hateful Republican playbook

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

CDNs aren't just for caching

Introduction to reasons CDNs improve web serving

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

Google sheep view

2016-04-30 google • maps • sheep • 🐑

A nifty machine learning art piece

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

Pentagon on Hospital attack

Some acceptance of mistakes, but no criminal charges

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

Zero Hedge explodes

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

2016-04-29 finance • journalism • zerohedge

Spacecraft software error

Heartbreaking cascading failures in control systems of Hitomi

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

Service that coordinates authentication from multiple identity providers

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

Burundi concerns

Reminders of the leadup to the Rwanda genocide

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

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

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

Machine Learning Curriculum

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

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

Elon Musk financing

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

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

US tornado probabilities

Nice animation of tornado risk during the year

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

Irish slaves myth

Dangerous fake history

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

Apple abusing MacOS

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

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

Ultra-macro insect photography. /cc @celesteramsay

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

More Vinod Khosla ugliness

Famous venture capital investor acts like a jerk for coastal access

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

River map prints

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

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

Make America Great Britain Again

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

Beyhive v Rachel Ray

Funny misidentification

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

Lemonade Transcript

Text of the poetry in Beyonce's new release

2016-04-25 beyonce • lemonade

SF property crime

My city is broken

2016-04-25 crime • sanfrancisco • sf

CA handgun permits

Correlation of Republican party membership and gun permits

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

Web scraping as a service

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

Details of how processing garlic changes the flavor

2016-04-24 cooking • food • garlic

BBC on the royals

Amazing parody mashup

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

Reddit interview with one of the most prolific movie pirates

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

American Slavery

Modern visualization by decade

2016-04-24 maps • slavery • visualization

webaudio synthesis

Javascript programmed sound toys

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

Facebook Tor: 1M users

Facebook explicitly supports Tor and it gets a lot of use

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

Turgot map of Paris

1739 atlas, beautifully drawn and incredibly detailed

2016-04-22 cartography • maps • paris

Pyongyang metro

Photos from stations previously off limits to tourists

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

Probably a big fan of Roy Cohn

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

1964 gay rights protest

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

Raph Koster on virtual world history

6 minute video going over the history from MUDs to MMOs

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

Rumsey maps at Stanford

Big collection of maps housed at a university

2016-04-21 cartography • davidrumsey • maps • rumsey • 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 feminism • funny • sexism • tech

Release day for a great Linux distribution

2016-04-21 linux • ubuntu • 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 • financing • investment • startup • unicorns • vc

US heating fuel

Map of how people heat their homes

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

Amazon delivery racism

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

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

Filtered reviews of iOS apps; spam, etc removed

2016-04-20 apps • appstore • ios

Magic Leap skepticism

Reasonable counterpoint to Wired's fawning piece

2016-04-19 journalism • magicleap • virtualreality

Poi for Passover

Thoughts on Hawaiian and Jewish culture

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

Algorithmically generated prior art

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

Georgetown U's slaves

A well documented sale of slaves to fund a university

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

Inuit Cartography

Sculptural maps

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

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

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

Fun esoteric programming language with arrows and threads

2016-04-15 languages • programming

TensorFlow Examples

Simple Python notebooks showing off using the machine learning library

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

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

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

UC Davis pepper spray

Four videos from different angles, synced

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

Gay children's book author

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

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

BlackBerry back door

Canadian police have been able to decrypt messages

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

Another human-friendly JSON

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

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

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

Making a TV show

Nice feature on the work that goes into making The Americans

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

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 ccp • eve • eveonline • games • groen • history • journalism

Portland startup providing a comment moderation product

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

UC Davis SEO scandal

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

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

Needlework Rivers

Lovely little cross-stitch maps

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

CHASE ZEN BLIGHT Font

A deliberately illegible but kinda nifty font

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

TensorFlow Playground

Nifty interactive demo of training a small neural network

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

Riot Games API goals

Details on strategy for having an open API for developers

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

I am on the Kill List

Amazing editorial from a target of drone strikes in Pakistan

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

SF 1906 Quake photos

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

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

Abusive comments

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

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

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 cablecar • castro • history • noe • sanfrancisco • transit

GoLang book: troff

New programming book typeset in a 30+ year old system

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

Slack Platform Roadmap

Clear business strategy for third party relationships

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

Internet of Things problems

Implications of software services attached to your appliances

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

ev on Medium goals

Thoughtful criticism of "junk food" media

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

Chinese restaurant names

New China Garden Panda Wok House. /cc @rchen

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

Trinity College clock

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

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

Fox News on eSports

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

2016-04-09 esports • games • lol

More Trump threats

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

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

Minnie Ingersoll on gender and tech

Thoughtful essay on aggression in the tech industry

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

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

2016-04-08 charts • graphs • service

Kinderhook plates

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

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

Trump + Roy Cohn

Yet more odious history of Donald Trump

2016-04-08 cohn • politics • trump

Apple products graphic

Nice timeline of things Apple has sold

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

Stereotyped males in games

Feminist critique of the portrayal of men in videogames

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

Bezos letter to Amazon investors

Inspiring leadership words

2016-04-07 amazon • bezos • business

Programming Da Funk

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

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

Paid for being famous

Bizarro world of Vegas nightclubs paying celebrities to show up

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

Trade and US economy

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

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

US aerial surveillance

Details on FBI and DHS flying spy missions over US cities

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

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

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

Nature on RiotLyte work

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

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

Overwatch netcode

Blizzard developer video talking about network lag

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

Google Nest vs old devices

Stopping service for three year old devices

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

Turkish citizen database

Full nation's list of citizens leaks

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

Gay Batman and Robin

Detailed examination of old comics, origins of the gay subtext

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

Mossack Fonseca

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

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

Panama Papers stats

Details from a massive whistleblower leak to journalists about offshore companies

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

Dwarf Fortress interview

Great discussion with the developer of the most idiosyncratic successful game

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

Colorful Image Colorization

Machine learning to add color to greyscale images

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

Redditor / amateur astronomer captured an amazing Jupiter timelapse

2016-04-03 impact • jupiter • reddit

Slides from a nice overview talk

2016-04-01 language • perl • programming

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

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