Nelson's Linkblog 2017-10

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Tusheti shepherds

Excellent photo essay of sheep herding in the Caucasuses

2017-10-31 dogs • georgia • mountains • sheep • shepherd

Coates on John Kelly

Clear, firm pushback on the lionization of Robert E. Lee

2017-10-31 civilwar • politics • slavery • trump

Gatwick drone incident

Unauthorized aircraft shuts down a major international airport

2017-10-31 aviation • diversion • drone • via:metafilter • visualization

Google deleting docs?

People saying they lost their work because Google claimed it violated terms of service

2017-10-31 censorship • cloud • google • googledocs • tos

1Password and Windows

Clear statement the 1Password UI isn't as good on Windows but they're working on it

2017-10-31 1password • windows

Trump's very bad day

Holed up in the White House residence yelling at the TV

2017-10-31 indictment • politics • russia • trump • tv

Hacking my Bitcoin

Fabulous story of trying to recover Bitcoin from a PIN-locked device

2017-10-30 bitcoin • exploit • hacking • pin • trezor

Aerial Chicago 1914

Amazing dirigible film /cc @therealfitz

2017-10-30 aerial • aviation • blimp • chicago • dirigible • film • history • photography • video

Daily: video calls

Friend's startup, very easy video calling / screen sharing

2017-10-30 collaborate • screenshare • video • videocall

Figure out which streaming service has what TV and movie

2017-10-30 movies • streaming • tv • video

Celebrities endorsing financial flim-flam

2017-10-28 bitcoin • ico • investment • scam

Star Trek TOS snark

2017-10-28 funny • humor • juvenile • startrek • tv

Airplane donuts

Cub pilot showing off his ground control skills

2017-10-28 alaska • aviation • flying

Poor Eleanor Berry

A tragic story from the Gold Rush

2017-10-27 goldrush • grassvalley • history • robbery • wedding

Trump with media's kids

Skin-crawling Halloween press event

2017-10-27 kids • politics • trump

Comcast vs Fort Collins

Monopoly ISP tries to block community broadband

2017-10-27 colorado • comcast • fortcollins • internet • via:reddit

Liber Cure Cocorum

A 15th century Englishc ookbook, in verse

2017-10-27 cooking • england • haggis • history • recipes

Pope Francis opposition

An update about the Catholic Church

2017-10-27 catholic • culturewar • politics • pope

The Rite of Spring Workout

Stravinsky / exercise mashup

2017-10-27 exercise • funny • modernism • movies • perfect • riteofspring • stravinsky

Machine learning bias

Sentiment classifier is bigoted. That's not a surprise; the problem is when it's applied wrong.

2017-10-26 ai • bias • google • machinelearning • ml • racism • sentiment

Hindenberg dining

Food on a luxury airship

2017-10-26 airship • cooking • cuisine • hindenberg • via:metafilter • zeppelin

Georgia election fraud

Computer server wiped after lawsuit filed

2017-10-26 election • fraud • georgia • voting • votingrights

Facebook and genocide

Social media driving the disaster in Myanmar

2017-10-26 facebook • genocide • myanmar • rohingya

records: SQL for Humans

A wrapper to make working with databases in Python easier

2017-10-25 data • python • sql

Emoji and Unicode

Thoughtful piece on how frivolous emoji detract from Unicode's important political and cultural mission

2017-10-24 emoji • unicode

Randomized plans for Wisconsin

A second statistical treatment of how gerrymandered Wisconsin's districting is.

2017-10-24 gerrymandering • montecarlo • politics • wisconsin

Randomized tests of district plans

Detecting gerrymandering by careful Monte Carlo simulation

2017-10-24 gerrymandering • montecarlo • politics • wisconsin

Bump Stock legislation

58 people dead, Congress won't move to ban the specific murder toy that enabled the carnage

2017-10-24 congress • guns • law • nra

What a sexual harassment coverup settlement looks like

2017-10-24 harassment • nda • sexual • weinstein

Colorpicker for data

Handy little tool for perceptually correct palettes

2017-10-24 color • perception • visualization

The future is here

And everything needs to be destroyed

2017-10-24 funny • picture • shredding

New tool from Riot Games to diagnose latency and packet loss problems for League of Legends

2017-10-23 games • leagueoflegends • logsoflag • riotgames

Accidental Rockwell

Subreddit of recontextualized images

2017-10-23 cliche • normanrockwell • photographs • photos • reddit • rockwell

Browder's visa revoked

US state department helps the Kremlin cover up a murder

2017-10-23 corruption • kremlin • politics • russia • trump

Nah just trolling

Crooked wife of crooked Trump cabinet member says she was just thinking out loud about quarantining people with HIV

2017-10-23 aids • hiv • politics • trump

A JSON formatter that works client-side, does not post data to a server

2017-10-23 javascript • json • privacy • programming • tool

Live coding music environment

2017-10-22 music • programming • supercollider • via:reddit

SQLite alternate for Python

2017-10-22 database • programming • python • sqlite

Quarantine people with HIV

2017-10-21 aids • disease • hiv • politics • price • trump

Trump lies on family contacts

He hasn't called nearly as many families of fallen soldiers as he said

2017-10-21 goldstar • lies • military • politics • trump

Subverting the Judiciary

Trump personally interviewing US Attorneys, traditionally an independent position

2017-10-21 judiciary • politics • trump • usattorney

Project Loon in Puerto Rico

Crazy plan to provide Internet with balloons running live in disaster area

2017-10-21 google • internet • isp • projectloon • puertorico

Dissolve Equifax

Strong editorial that the company deserves the death penalty

2017-10-21 badtech • credit • equifax

Exploring maps with simple line drawing

2017-10-20 cartography • design • lines • maps • mapzen

Trimmigrants in Nevada County

Local story on the impact of the marijuana business

2017-10-20 grassvalley • marijuana • nevadacounty

Cycling the Faroes

Beautiful set of photos

2017-10-20 cycling • faroes • kiteboarding • travel

Russian troll operations

Russian newspaper does some investigative reporting

2017-10-19 politics • propaganda • russia • trolls • trump

Uber charging drivers

Gambling scheme; pay up front for bonus pay during the week

2017-10-19 abuse • economics • regulation • scummy • uber

Robert Scoble and Me

Another story of sexual assault in tech, with a remarkable conclusion

2017-10-19 foocamp • scoble • sexism • tech

Judge Alsup's code

A justice with a programming hobby works on tech cases. /cc @amac

2017-10-19 alsup • code • competence • google • judge • oracle • programming • uber • waymo

Architectural oddity from around Vermont

2017-10-19 architecture • house • vermont • window

Trump donation lies

New NPR story that a Trump golf club did not make claimed donations

2017-10-19 charity • donation • lies • politics • trump

Alex Jones / A Scanner Darkly

Infowars nutjob was in two Linklater films

2017-10-18 alexjones • infowars • linklater • scannerdarkly

Trump campaign and @Ten_GOP

Don Jr and Kellyanne both promoted Russian propaganda tweets during the campaign

2017-10-18 collusion • politics • russia • scandal • trump

Maps are Weapons

1942 propaganda poster

2017-10-18 maps • poster • war • weapons • ww2

Major new machine learning result; fully self-taught

2017-10-18 ai • game • go • machinelearning • ml

Voter suppression + Child porn

Arrest of a researcher on Trump's voter suppression committee

2017-10-18 childporn • politics • trump • voting • votingrights

Air Berlin shows off

Pilot does an insane maneuver on the last flight /cc @testastretta

2017-10-18 airberlin • aviation • germany • pilot

Online ad fraud

Large network producing fake ad video views

2017-10-17 ads • advertising • badtech • brands • fraud

Tillerson profile

Details on the mess at the State Department

2017-10-17 diplomacy • politics • state • tillerson • trump

Mike Migurski's project to fight abusive gerrymandering

2017-10-17 districting • gerrymandering • maps • politics

LIGO and distance

Gravity wave detection gives us a new way to measure cosmic distances

2017-10-17 astronomy • distance • ligo

Buddy copy movie in a High Fantasy LA

2017-10-17 fantasy • la • movies • trailer

Cambridge Analytica code

Intern for right wing political / tech group has code on GitHub

2017-10-17 cambridgeanalytica • github • nominatim • politics • trump • twitter

Discord postmortem

Interesting system failure from cloud hosting

2017-10-16 discord • engineering • googlecloud • postmortem • redis

Keyboard latency

Empirical study with notes on perception

2017-10-16 gaming • keyboard • lag • latency • via:hackernews

We Put 700 Red Dots On A Map

A crucial new visualization technique from ClickHole

2017-10-16 funny • maps • parody • visualization

Mark Twain and Dueling Scars

From A Tramp Abroad, Heidelberg 1881

2017-10-16 dueling • germany • heidelberg • marktwain

Criticism of brilliant loners no one can work with

2017-10-16 10x • engineering • genius • software

Wine Country fires

Excellent story telling about the first night of fire

2017-10-16 california • disaster • fire • napa • sonoma • winecountry

Cliff Judkins' survival

Fun first person account of surviving an aircraft failure

2017-10-16 aviation • badass • flying • via:metafilter

A new black hole

First simultaneous observation of gravity waves and EM radiation

2017-10-16 astronomy • blackhole • gravitywaves • ligo

Monteiro on Twitter

"Twitter today is a cesspool of hate. A plague of frogs."

2017-10-15 harassment • trump • twitter

Vikings for Allah

Evidence of cultural exchange in 10th century Sweden

2017-10-15 history • islam • muslim • silkroad • viking

St Helena Independent

Newspaper from remote British territory

2017-10-15 britain • island • journalism • news • newspaper • sainthelena • sthelena • uk

Windows tool for enabling compressed storage on folders and files

2017-10-15 compression • windows

Damning description of the state of a broken standard

2017-10-14 hardware • laptops • thunderbolt • usb • usb-c

Camp John Waters

Misfits weekend at a campground

2017-10-14 camping • culture • johnwaters • lgbt • trash

Bad scientist spreading fake science around America

2017-10-13 badscience • gop • mercers • politics • science • trump

Trump at the Family Research Council

President gives a 30 minute speech to a hate group

2017-10-13 familyresearchcouncil • gay • hate • hypocrisy • lgbt • perkins • politics

Charley Shively

Gay liberationist from the 70s with unfashionably radical ideas

2017-10-13 1970s • gay • history • lgbt

Equifax hacked. Again.

Consumer site serving malware.

2017-10-12 badtech • equifax • hack • liability

Yet more Uber sleaze

2017-10-11 ethics • scam • uber

Essential django packages

A list of addons for web development

2017-10-11 django • python • web

CIA torture techniques

Details from the Bush Administration's torture program

2017-10-11 bush • cia • humanrights • torture

Kaspersky security concerns

Intelligence agencies fighting the battleground of private company security software

2017-10-11 antivirus • badtech • israel • kapsersky • nsa • russia

National Tracing Center

America has no database of guns; we have boxes of paper. By law.

2017-10-11 america • gunculture • guns • policy • politics

RIP Michael Friedman

More about the young theater genius behind Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

2017-10-11 aids • hiv • newyork • theater

U-Bahn ridership 1927

Map visualization of passengers in Berlin

2017-10-11 1920s • berlin • maps • transit • ubahn

Corker breaks ranks

GOP senator finally says out loud what a disaster Trump is

2017-10-09 gop • politics • republican • trump

Jason super excited about being on Halt and Catch Fire

2017-10-08 0sil8 • haltandcatchfire • jason • jkottke • kottke • tv

Stencil Art Prize

Awards for a popular form of street art

2017-10-08 art • stencil • streetart

Jeffrey Hall's Nobel

Cranky scientist quit 10 years ago because funding sucked, now seems to be a grizzled hippie

2017-10-07 nobel • science

Monopoly Man IAmA

My new hero, a cause-playing activist

2017-10-06 activism • equifax • funny • monopolyman • protest

Computer gerrymandering

Overview of how software is used to pervert democracy

2017-10-06 democracy • gerrymandering • voting

Trump ACA sabotage

Personal intervention to make health insurance more expensive

2017-10-06 aca • healthcare • obamacare • ohio • politics • trump

Kaspersky NSA hack

Popular anti-virus was used to exfiltrate secrets from an NSA employee

2017-10-06 badtech • kaspersky • kremlin • nsa • russia • spies

Murderous fraternities

Penn State fraternity kills a pledge

2017-10-06 fraternity • hazing • murder • pennstate • psu

Loot box design

Behind predatory game design, gambling mechanics

2017-10-06 blizzard • gambling • games • hearthstone • lootbox • overwatch • skinner

Rep. Gosar is insane

Congressman suggests Charlottesville was all a secret Jewish Soros plot

2017-10-06 arizona • charlottesville • conspiracy • gosar • infowars

Harvey Weinstein, piece of shit

Years of sexual harassment

2017-10-06 feminism • harveyweinstein • movies • sexualharassment • weinstein • women

MongoDB marketing

How a dangerously bad database became a tech darling

2017-10-06 10gen • marketing • mongodb • usergroups

Andy Baio on Auerbach

Personal run-ins with a reporter named in the Breitbart article

2017-10-06 auerbach • breitbart • gamergate • politics

Inside Breitbart

Details of how the alt right operates, from Milo Yiannopoulos's private email

2017-10-06 breitbart • media • milo • news • politics

Performance dashboards for Firefox's new Quantum browser, an ultra-fast browser

2017-10-06 browser • engineering • firefox • performance • quantum

Dreamers Discord

American immigrants chat online

2017-10-05 america • daca • discord • dream • immigrations • politics

Karl-Marx-Allee

The Champs Elysee of East Berlin, now feels empty, a lost opportunity

2017-10-05 berlin • cityplanning • ddr • streets

1953 DDR uprising

Resistance from the people against the communist government

2017-10-05 1953 • ddr • demonstration • germany • history • rebellion • revolt • sovietunion • uprising

Uncle Moneybags vs Equifax

Some cosplay at a senate hearing

2017-10-05 equifax • funny • monocle • monopoly • politics

Always-on camera using AI to decide what photos to keep

2017-10-05 ai • camera • google • photos • wearablecomputing • wearables

Silencers for kidz!

Don Trump Jr makes gun nut infomercials

2017-10-05 america • death • guns • politics • secondamendment • silencers • trump

Dan Gillmor: New Co/Lab

Excellent tech journalist has a new project improving media literacy

2017-10-04 facebook • journalism • news

Efficiency Gap explained

NYT Upshot takes a crack at explaining the political science measure

2017-10-04 efficiencygap • elections • gerrymandering • politics • supremecourt • votingrights

Programmable computer from 1960s East Germany

2017-10-04 1960s • computer • ddr • eastgermany • germany • soviet

Russian ad targeting for Trump

Strange how the Russian ads exactly matched the Trump campaign strategy

2017-10-04 politics • russia • trump

Pot farming clashes

Cultural problems in rural California

2017-10-04 california • crime • farming • marijuana

Static type checking for Python

2017-10-04 programming • python • tests • typechecking

Report your neighbor! Bonus: ICE doesn't handle confidential data correctly

2017-10-04 america • ice • immigration • politics • voice

Gerrymandering at the Supreme Court

details on the hearing of the important Wisconsin case

2017-10-04 gerrymandering • politics • supremecourt • wisconsin

Uber / Levandowski details

Just gets uglier and uglier

2017-10-03 levandowski • otto • uber

Hedge Funds scamming ICOs

Scammy investments are themselves being scammed by hedge funds

2017-10-03 fraud • funny • hedgefund • ico

Truffle Man goes legit

San Francisco's open secret marijuana provider switches to legal sales

2017-10-03 marijuana • pot • sanfrancisco • sf • weed

Facebook ads and politics

Details of how online advertising works in the political sphere

2017-10-03 ads • facebook • politics • russia • trump

Donald Trump’s dog

Vicious op/ed about the state of diplomacy in the United States

2017-10-03 funny • politics • rextillerson • statedepartment • trump

Python spinners

Halo, a package for terminal spinner indicators

2017-10-02 halo • progress • python • spinner

NFL / kneeling spam botnets

Propaganda bots twisting the knife creating divisons

2017-10-01 nfl • politics • russia • takeaknee • trump

Javascript ES6 cheat sheet

Examples and discussion

2017-10-01 code • es2015 • es6 • javascript • programming • via:hackernews