Nelson's Linkblog 2018-01

about • archive • mastodon • feed

A new kind of notebook for exploratory computing. Congratulations @mbostock and @tmcw!

2018-01-31 bostock • d3 • d3js • jupyter • notebook • observable

A website about an old newspaper bar

2018-01-31 bar • chronicle • examiner • history • newspaper • sanfrancisco

Gamble on Bitcoin with Square

Square adds Bitcoin gambling to the Cash app. No Bitcoin *use*, merely buying and selling.

2018-01-31 bitcoin • cash • finance • gambling • square

Accomplished peacock

That "emotional support peacock" seems to be some sort of art project

2018-01-31 art • bushwick • newyork • peacock • united

Twitter loves Nazis

Jew-hating verified Twitter user brags about how Twitter lets him speak

2018-01-31 jews • nazis • politics • twitter

Steve Jobs' 1973 resume

Funny thing from when he was 18

2018-01-30 funny • reed • resume • stevejobs

Minigo machine learning

A new AlphaGoZero clone written in Python using TensorFlow

2018-01-30 ai • alphagozero • games • go • gogame • machinelearning

Ben Matasar to the DNC

Former Twitter engineer joins the tech team at the Democratic Party

2018-01-29 democrats • matasar • politics • twitter

Paris history: la Bièvre

Nice description of the old creek that ran through the left bank

2018-01-29 bievre • france • history • maps • metafilter • paris • river

NYT overview of all the fake following accounts on Twitter

2018-01-27 bots • spam • twitter • via:metafilter

Google malware ads

YouTube showing ads that contain cryptomining malware

2018-01-27 ads • badtech • google • malware • youtube

Quirk quantum simulator

Build a quantum program with 14 qubits

2018-01-27 interaction • javascript • quantum • simulation

Google toxic tire fire

Employees at Google are getting monsters at right wing hate sites to harass other employees

2018-01-26 google • harassment • tirefire

Bob Lord hired to be chief security officer for the Democrats

2018-01-26 badtech • boblord • democrats • dnc • politics • security

The Atlas Of Redistricting

538 tackles different ways to draw district boundaries and shows their results

2018-01-26 gerrymandering • politics • visualization • voting • votingrights

Dutch intel on Russian hackers

Dutch intelligence service had hacked Cozy Bear

2018-01-26 cozybear • denmark • hacking • politics • russia • trump

Javascript library providing a bunch of basic data type functions

2018-01-25 clone • javascript • programming • utility

How to record video of a D3 animated visualization

2018-01-25 d3 • d3js • recording • video • visualization

Police killing rates in G7 members

American Exceptionalism at work

2018-01-25 america • guns • murder • police

May be NSFW; odd little Internet meme

2018-01-25 art • color • fetish • google • internet • meme • sparkledog

AdWords API to stay open

FTC agreement expires but Google maintains more open terms of service

2018-01-24 adwords • antitrust • api • ftc • google • monopoly

Gun Sense in America

Inspiring podcast, Jason Kander interviewing Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action

2018-01-23 guns • kander • nra • podcast • politics

Matt Cutts interview

Former Google engineer now heads up the US Digital Service

2018-01-22 codeforamerica • democracy • government • mattcutts • politics

Bitcoin Hashrate Distribution

List of who controls Bitcoin. The two biggest (BTC.com and AntPool) together are Bitmain

2018-01-22 bitcoin • bitmain • blockchain • consensus • hash

Profile of the Chinese blockchain company that dominates Bitcoin mining with ASICs

2018-01-22 bitcoin • bitmain • blockchain • china • cryptocurrency

JavaScript Frameworks

2018-01-22 angular • javascript • programming • react • vuejs

RIP Paul Bocuse

Famous French chef passes away

2018-01-22 bocuse • finedining • france • lyon

Russian trolls and Black Lives Matter

More Twitter bot analysis

2018-01-21 blacklivesmatter • blm • politics • propaganda • russia • twitter

In Trump's first Muslim ban the border patrol deliberately ignored federal court orders

2018-01-21 cbp • court • customs • immigration • justice • politics • ruleoflaw • trump

Tradwave 伝統的な少年

Vaporwave meets Catholicism

2018-01-20 catholics • funny • religion • vaporwave • via:metafilter

FFmpeg VBR Settings

Short guide to video encoding quality settings

2018-01-20 avconv • codec • ffmpeg • x265

Twitter in 2016 election

Company trying to come clean about how they were used for Russian propaganda

2018-01-20 politics • trump • twitter

NRA Kremlin Connection

Gun lobbyists friendly with Russia, helped them help Trump

2018-01-20 corruption • nra • politics • trump

Stormy Daniels' story

Interview with the porn star that Trump later paid $130,000 to so she'd keep quiet

2018-01-20 politics • porn • stormydaniels • trump

Trump's hooker company

Details on the LLC Trump established to pay off one of his prostitutes

2018-01-20 politics • prostitute • scandal • stormydaniels • trump

Confident masculine rhetoric

2018-01-19 feminism • masculinity • rhetoric • tedious

2018-01-19 brexit • britain • funny • politics • stamps

The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm

2018 social media in a nutshell

2018-01-19 culture • funny • tweetstorm • twitter

Uber / Kalanick details

Nothing new, but very detailed accounting of all the various failures that came to light so swiftly

2018-01-19 kalanick • uber

Shithole details

Durbin on the record about the immigration meeting with Trump

2018-01-19 daca • immigration • politics • shithole • trump

Dual auto Glock with 100 round drum mag

Gun culture is really fucking dumb

2018-01-18 america • guns

Tech vs Free Speech

Thoughtful essay on how the modern tech world does not enable truly free speech

2018-01-18 freespeach • politics • press • tech • twitter

Pornhub during Hawaii false alert

Searches for porn dropped 77% during the false Hawaii missile alert. Day's total never recovered

2018-01-17 armageddon • hawaii • politics • porn • pornhub

Heat maps vs hot spot maps

Two separate geographic density techniques

2018-01-17 heatmaps • hotspots • maps • visualization

Felon voting ban is racist

History of Florida law

2018-01-17 florida • politics • racism • voting • votingrights

Trump lies about his height

Various photographs prove he's nowhere near the 6'3" he claims. Not a big lie, but the silliest kind.

2018-01-17 height • lying • politics • trump

Immigration raid on the SF Bay Area

Trump's ICE rumored to be making a show of force

2018-01-17 bayarea • immigration • politics • trump

OpenStreetMap data cut into vector tiles with open source styles. Looks designed to be used with MapBox GL JS

2018-01-17 free • mapbox • mapboxgljs • maps • opensource • openstreetmap

Google Memory Loss

Google's search engine no longer comprehensively has old documents

2018-01-16 google • history • search

Bruce Lee with Lightsabers

What makes a good kung fu action sequence even better? Laser swords

2018-01-16 brucelee • effects • hongkong • kungfu • lightsaber • movies

Folium map library

Python library that renders to Leaflet maps. Integrates well in notebooks

2018-01-16 javascript • maps • python • visualization

George Clinton AMA

Legendary Dr. Funkenstein brings the space knowledge to Reddit

2018-01-16 ama • funk • music • pfunk • reddit

Going "Serverless"

Some details on how my Wanderin.gs project works

2018-01-16 googletimeline • gps • implementation • location • maps • openpaths • server • serverless • tracking

My new location tracker project: iOS app + website

2018-01-16 googletimeline • gps • location • maps • openpaths • tracking

Bitcoin price manipulation

2013's runup from $150 to $1000 was artificially pumped

2018-01-15 bitcoin • fraud • mtgox • pumpndump • scam

Russian cyberwar

NotPetya attack against Ukraine attributed to Russia

2018-01-14 badtech • cyberwar • notpetya • russia • ukraine

Visualization of snowfall; I like how simple the code is

2018-01-14 gdal • python • snowfall • visualization

Linguistic map of Europe

Lovely detailed map, excellent colors and key

2018-01-14 europe • languages • maps

Bitcoin Millionaires

Burn it all down, an NYT Style article

2018-01-14 bitcoin • cryptocurrency • nytimes • style

tweetdecking; thousands of dollars a month to retweet spam

2018-01-13 ads • spam • tweetdecking • twitter

Steamed Hams / Nier: Automata

Semi-obscure meme meets semi-obscure videogame

2018-01-13 funny • games • nierautomata • simpsons • steamedhams

Meltdown patch impact

System monitoring graphs from a large AWS deployment

2018-01-13 amazon • aws • badtech • meltdown • performance

Embracing despair

No one is coming to save us from Trump's racism, a strong NYT op/ed

2018-01-13 politics • racism • trump

Open Web Analytics

Alternative to Google Analytics for web visitor stats

2018-01-13 analytics • googleanalytics • publishing • stats • tracking • web • website

Twitter can still occasionally be funny.

2018-01-13 blacktwitter • funny • harrypotter • twitter

Male Fashions (1951)

Jaw droppingly gay clothing from London

2018-01-12 fashion • gay • lgbt • london • swimwear

How Haiti became poor

Interesting bits of historical detail and racism

2018-01-12 america • haiti • history • politics • racism • trump

Trump vs the UK

American president cannot visit London; this must be a first since 1776.

2018-01-12 america • england • london • politics • protest • trump • uk

قلب programming language

A Lisp variant in Arabic

2018-01-12 arabic • languages • localization • programming

Fantastic photography

2018-01-12 factory • manufacturing • pencils • photography • photos • via:metafilter

Women in pro Overwatch

Excellent roundup of stories about Blizzard's failure to have women professional players

2018-01-12 gaming • gender • overwatch • women

Translating "shithole"

A quandry for colorful language

2018-01-12 language • politics • shithole • translation • trump

Optimal driving routes

Visualizing getting from the middle of the US to every county

2018-01-12 america • driving • maps • openstreetmap • osm • routing

Neural network generates web page markup based on design pictures

2018-01-11 ai • machinelearning • neuralnetwork • via:raffi

Google Brain 2017

Summary of machine learning advances from Google

2018-01-11 ai • google • jeffdean • machinelearning

Mont St. Michel

Excellent aerial photograph

2018-01-11 art • drone • france • montstmichel • photo • photography

Uber evidence destruction tool

Ripley, an entire product built to hide evidence from law enforcement

2018-01-11 legal • ripley • uber

Russian spies in SF

Details of intelligence activities at the now-closed consulate in San Francisco

2018-01-11 intelligence • politics • russia • spies • spying • trump

Journalists don't let the US ambassador get away with something outrageous

2018-01-11 journalism • netherlands • politics • trump

Resume review bias

Tips on not limiting your applicant pool when hiring by avoiding unconscious bias

2018-01-10 diversity • hiring • racism • resume • tech

Davis v. Bandemer

1986 court case that found that partisan gerrymanders were subject to court review

2018-01-10 democracy • gerrymandering • politics • redistricting • voting • votingrights

Ancient Unix built to run on modern PC hardware

2018-01-10 computers • pc • retro • unix • v7

AOMedia Video 1 is the name of a new royalty free video codec in development

2018-01-10 av1 • codec • video

North Carolina gerrymandering case

NYT overview of the decision against partisan gerrymandering

2018-01-10 gerrymandering • northcarolina • politics • votingrights

2000 year old Roman shoe

2018-01-10 archaeology • history • rome • shoe

A Houston favorite

2018-01-10 chileconqueso • cooking • felixes • queso • recipe • texmex

Completing Desert Golf

Endless procedural game has an end

2018-01-09 desertgolf • games • golf • mobile

Singapore meme humor

2018-01-09 memes • singapore

Who Killed Captain Alex?

Ugandan film turned meme incubator

2018-01-09 memes • movies • uganda

Visualizing uncertainty

Guide to various data presentation techniques

2018-01-08 data • statistics • visualization

"Fire And Fury": Post-Truth

The sorry state of how journalism is consumed in 2018

2018-01-08 journalism • politics • posttruth • trump

Profile of a map nerd, great guy

2018-01-08 engineers • iandees • maps • openaddresses • openstreetmap • osm

mydlinkBRionyg / abc12345cba

Idiots at Western Digital shipped a hardcoded login

2018-01-08 badtech • login • password • security • westerndigital

Twitter should ban Donald Trump

Thoughtful editorial

2018-01-06 politics • trump • twitter

Alex Gulakov restraining order

CW: rape threats. A friend of mine has been the victim of this guy

2018-01-06 alexgulakov • feminism • gulakov • kellyellis • rape • threats

California cannabis licenses

Authoritative source for who has a license

2018-01-06 california • cannabis • license • marijuana • pot

WebGL2 Fundamentals

Comprehensive tutorial docs

2018-01-06 graphics • javascript • via:hackernews • webgl2

History of Neural Nets

60 years of computer science in 4 short blog posts

2018-01-05 ai • computerscience • deeplearning • machinelearning • ml • neuralnetworks

Box breathing box

A small craft project for meditation

2018-01-05 adafruit • boxbreathing • breathing • meditation • tmcw

A simple calming meditation technique

2018-01-05 boxbreathing • breathing • calming • meditation • via:tmcw

Fox → DVR → Trump → Twitter

Details on the President's unhealthy obsession with a TV news show

2018-01-05 fox • journalism • politics • trump • tv • twitter

Kander on voting rights

Editorial after the voter suppression committee disbanded

2018-01-05 kander • kobach • politics • trump • voting • votingrights

Mapzen exit interview

Honest chat with an engineer at the closing map company

2018-01-04 exitinterview • maps • mapzen • osm

Þrídrangar lighthouse

Remarkable rocks in Iceland

2018-01-04 helicopter • iceland • lighthouse

My Insane Year Inside Trump's White House

More excerpt's from Michael Wolff's book, including how he got the story

2018-01-04 politics • trump • wolff

Voter suppression committee disbanded

Trump's sham apparently failed, but voter rights still in peril

2018-01-04 kander • kobach • politics • trump • voting

Meltdown and Spectre explained

Nice accessible technical article

2018-01-04 badtech • intel • linux • meltdown • security • spectre

2020 Census Manager

Trump's pick is virulently political

2018-01-03 census • politics • trump • votingrights

Meltdown and Spectre

Details on the Intel CPU security problem. Really it's a generic problem in almost all computers

2018-01-03 badtech • intel • kaiser • linux • security • x86

Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President

Excerpts from Michael Wolff's upcoming book. Literally nauseating.

2018-01-03 politics • trump

White House statement on Bannon

Shit is entirely off the rails

2018-01-03 bannon • politics • trump

Intel flaw speculation

More details on what looks to be a serious CPU security bug

2018-01-03 badtech • cpu • intel • security • x86

12 ways to divide Poland

Stereotype maps (/cc @migurski)

2018-01-03 funny • maps • poland • stereotypes

Stealth Bomber aerial photo

Insane pilot / photographer process

2018-01-03 airplanes • aviation • la • losangeles • photography • photos • stealthbomber

Amazon/Microsoft sex trafficking

Men soliciting prostitutes from work email

2018-01-03 amazon • microsoft • prostitution • seattle • sex • sextrafficking

He is going to get us all killed

Insane Trump tweet

2018-01-03 batshitinsane • northkorea • politics • trump

Google tax dodges

Update on the legal but gross thing Google does to avoid paying taxes

2018-01-02 dutchsandwich • finance • google • taxes

Who's On First, Chapter Two

More from the Mapzen shut down; a permanent gazetteer has a plan for the future

2018-01-02 aaron • gazetteer • maps • mapzen • whoseonfirst

Banning hate speech

Academic research shows you can change communities by banning horrible behavior

2018-01-02 abuse • community • hatespeech • reddit • tirefire

Star Wars and female military power

Excellent feminist reading of Admiral Holdo in Star Wars

2018-01-02 feminism • gender • movies • starwars

Mapzen Alternatives

Remarkably good list of open source mapping tools and services, a sad side effect of the shutdown of Mapzen

2018-01-02 maps • mapzen • opensource • openstreetmap • osm

Mapzen shutdown

Very sad news, excellent open source mapping company is shutting down

2018-01-02 maps • mapzen • openstreetmap • osm

About Time's Up

New Hollywood organization of women fighting sexual harassment

2018-01-02 feminism • harassment • hollywood • via:metafilter • women

Watsonian vs. Doylist

Text vs author in criticism

2018-01-02 criticism • fandom • text • via:metafilter • writing

FBI's GamerGate investigation

Actual confessions, no prosecutions

2018-01-02 fbi • gamergate • harassment • via:metafilter

Voter suppression committee update

Recommendations due in March, committee doesn't meet

2018-01-01 politics • voterfraud • voting • votingrights

Sonoma fires burnt weed wealth

Marijuana businessmen can't use banks; many lost hoards of cash in fires

2018-01-01 banks • business • california • fire • marijuana

Machine learning test database; images of handwritten numerals

2018-01-01 ai • data • exercise • machinelearning • programming

Freedmen's Bureau Project

Documents from the end of slavery to be digitized

2018-01-01 civilwar • genealogy • history • reconstruction • slavery

Hostile programs can force bits to flip in the memory of other programs running in a different virtual machine on the same hardware

2018-01-01 badtech • dram • hacking • memory • parity • rowhammer

DIY Spectrometer

Build your own chemical analyzer

2018-01-01 diy • hacker • maker • spectrometry • spectroscopy

Mystery security bug

Evidence there's a serious bug in virtual memory management in CPUs that software can only fix with expensive workarounds

2018-01-01 badtech • linux • nt • security • vm