Nelson's Linkblog 2018-03

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Cambridge Analytica's models

Technical details on what it did with Facebook data

2018-03-31 facebook • politics • ca • cambridgeanalytica • svd • netflix

Description of the creepy children's magazine

2018-03-29 tirefire • teenboss • magazine • culture • business • teenagers

pre-Columbian Amazon towns

Armchair archaeology using Google Earth

2018-03-29 archaeology • amazon • via:hackernews

"Colonizability" of Africa in 1899

A hideous historical map

2018-03-29 maps • africa • colonialism • genocide

Parkland students demands

List of gun control changes requested by victims of one of America's mass school shootings

2018-03-29 guns • guncontrol • politics • parkland • students • nra

Unprisoning your Think Rhino

Whiteboard techniques from TED-future

2018-03-29 funny • bullshit • whiteboard

J Frank Parnell

Excellent scene from Repo Man

2018-03-28 repoman • movies • crazy • lobotomy • neutronbomb • radiation

Trump v Mueller

Worried about a legal investigation? Smear the investigator.

2018-03-28 trump • politics • mueller • russia

Mercer, NM sheriff

Hedge fund billionaire moonlights as a volunteer sheriff so he can carry a concealed gun anywhere in the US

2018-03-28 guns • mercer • politics • newmexico • trump

GDC unsafe in SF

Twitter discussion from conference attendees on how unsafe and shitty San Francisco felt

2018-03-28 sanfrancisco • safety • tenderloin • gdc • conference • business

2018-03-27 parody • trump • politics • craigslist

FEMA and Puerto Rico

Details from Trump administration shows favoring Texas over Puerto Rico

2018-03-27 hurricane • fema • politics • trump • shame • puertorico • texas

Facebook Container

Mozilla publishes an addon to let you keep using Facebook while limiting data leakage

2018-03-27 facebook • privacy • mozilla • firefox • addon • browser

1970s Custom Vans

A celebration of sex and drugs

2018-03-27 drugs • sex • funny • 70s • van • vanlife • cars

Maria LoL update

Pro gamer and trans woman talks about her personal situation with botched gender reassignment surgery

2018-03-26 surgery • trans • leagueoflegends • lol • games

SF names history

Map of names of streets, etc and their history

2018-03-25 maps • history • sanfrancisco • sf • via:reddit

2016 election precinct map

Still unmatched, a student made an unprecedentedly detailed map of the 2016 presidential election

2018-03-24 maps • politics • elections • precincts • data

OpenStreetMap in Jerusalem

Academic paper about the lack of Palestinian mappers

Google Apps Script

Scripting language for Calendar, Gmail, etc

Rocks vs School Shooters

More American sickness

#MeToo in China

A summary of anti-sexual-harassment as it has played out in China

Cambridge Analytica methods

Some details on the kinds of advertising they did. It's not very complicated.

Cow Clicker vs. Cambridge Analytica

Satirical stupid game from 2010 "stole" personal data as much as the evil political firm

Guccifer 2.0 is Russia

Supposed lone hacker of DNC email is actually the GRU, possibly Fancy Bear

Stats vs gerrymandering

The power of well communicated statistics

Details on Uber fatality

Technical details on how a self-driving car should have been able to avoid killing the pedestrian

Theranos fire alarm

Reporter's story of a fraud coverup

Fair Play Alliance

Bunch of game companies working together to fight abusive behavior

Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission

Insane commission to suppress civil rights in Mississippi by intrusive investigations

Jihadi reform in the US

Detailed story of a Somali-American who got a second chance

Social Enterprise Is Not Social Change

Clearly written article about problems with neoliberal social enterprise initiatives, charter schools, etc

Facebook + Cambridge Analytica

Tech/legal analysis of details of what happened, particularly the transitivity of trust

100 Māori words

Some very basic language, with recordings

2018-03-20 maori • newzealand • language • Māori

Chinese tech ascendant

Deep dive on the growth of tech in China, particularly AI

2018-03-20 china • politics • america • tech • siliconvalley • ai

Blockchain for child porn

Bitcoin has images of child sexual abuse embedded in its history

2018-03-20 bitcoin • porn • troll • blockchain

Hawaiian blood test

Colonialist legacy about land and race persists in Hawai'i

2018-03-20 hawaii • hawai'i • land • native • homelands • hawaiianhomelands

Machine learning reproducibility

In practice training AI is not always reproducible

2018-03-20 machinelearning • ai • programming • ml

Buying something on Craigslist

2018-03-19 funny • craigslist • ecommerce • movie

Uber self-driving fatality

Not clear whether there was a backup human driver

2018-03-19 tempe • uber • selfdrivingcar

Hope Hicks profile

Details of part of Trump's inner circle

2018-03-19 trump • politics • hopehicks

Race and social mobility in the US

Black American males are doing very poorly

2018-03-19 america • race • income • inequality • demographics

Kansas disenfranchisement

Update from Kris Kobach's un-American efforts to stop citizens from voting

2018-03-19 voting • votingrights • politics • kobach

Screenshots of bad mapping with snarky commentary

2018-03-19 funny • osm • openstreetmap • maps • fail

About @anonymaps

Interview with some part of the shadowy collective behind a snarky mapping Twitter account

2018-03-19 maps • funny • twitter • osm • openstreetmap • anonymaps

Revenge porn on Slack

I feel the company is not equipped to deal with this kind of trust and safety issue

2018-03-18 slack • moderation • discord • policy • porn • misogyny • anonib

Cambridge Analytica founding

Details on Chris Wylie, an architect of the "cyberwarfare for elections" company

2018-03-18 politics • trump • propaganda • mercer • bannon • cambridgeanalytica

Python 3.7 breakpoints

New API for easier debugging

2018-03-17 python • programming • breakpoint • debugger • pdb • pudb

Facebook v Cambridge Analytica

Facebook finally suspends the sleazy political firm

2018-03-17 facebook • cambridgeanalytica • politics • trump

Cambridge Analytica Facebook source

How the sleazy political firm got the Facebook data in the first place, exploiting Mechanical Turk workers

2018-03-17 facebook • mechanicalturk • amazon • aws • cambridgeanalytica • politics

Technical analysis of an Apple text rendering bug

2018-03-16 unicode • bug • apple • ios • macos • badtech

Forget flying cars

Carl Steadman lives!

2018-03-16 via:jwz • funny • stockphoto • youdontsurf

Fox News double standard

Video clips about Obama vs Trump meeting with North Korea

2018-03-16 northkorea • trump • obama • politics • journalism • foxnews • propaganda

Stormy Daniels' agency

Excellent editorial about how the President's sex worker is playing her hand very smart, exploiting Trump's own shtick

2018-03-16 trump • politics • sexworker • sex • prostitution • scandal

Russia vs US power plants

Cyberattacks already carried out, ready to sabotage

2018-03-16 russia • cyberwar • trump • politics • power • infrastructure • badtech

Ready Player One for Girls

Trashy 80s culture novel, now in pink!

2018-03-15 books • funny • parody • feminism • readyplayerone

Twitter's failure to stop harassment

2016 article still highly relevant

2018-03-15 twitter • abuse • harassment • tirefire

Cyberattacks vs petro plant

Saudi Arabian business destroyed by what looks like a government cyberattack

2018-03-15 warfare • petro • saudi • saudiarabia • iran • badtech

White men and guns

Light piece on research about American gun ownership

2018-03-15 guns • america • politics • masculinity

Women in OpenStreetMap

Gender diversity is important in mapping

2018-03-15 mapping • osm • openstreetmap • maps • diversity • gender • via:metafilter

LoL matchmaking

Stats from Riot's game creation system

2018-03-14 games • matchmaking • lol • elo • ranking

Social media working with experts to root out hategroups

2018-03-14 splc • discord • hategroups • nazis

Travel power / USB adapter

Used one of these in Australia and it worked great

2018-03-13 travel • australia • power • adapter

Project Veritas v Twitter

Scumbag activist group offers fake jobs and dates, illegal records victims

2018-03-13 twitter • projectveritas • politics • scumbag • tirefire

The complete galactic plane

Nice photo comp of the Milky Way

2018-03-13 astronomy • astrophotography • milkyway • space • stars • galaxy

ICE and Sessions lied

800 people did not elude arrest because of the Oakland Mayor

2018-03-13 ice • lies • trump • politics • sessions

Inside El Paquete

Details on Cuba's unique media piracy drops

2018-03-13 via:waxy • cuba • software • media

Sophisticated malware found hidden for six years

2018-03-13 malware • badtech • via:hackernews • nsa • government • mikrotik

National Geographic self examination

Acknowledging the racism of the magazine's past

2018-03-13 natgeo • nationalgeographic • culture • racism • geography

Telegram $1B ICO

Less scammy than most ICOs, but still sounds like a terrible idea

2018-03-10 ico • telegram • tech • fundraising

Private drone ATC

Tech companies building their own systems to manage flying UAVs

2018-03-10 drones • atc • via:hackernews • google • amazon • aviation

Olsen Twins witchcraft

2018-03-10 wicca • witchcraft • olsens • scam • funny

Long detailed story about Texas' other excellent cuisine

2018-03-08 texmex • food • texas • cooking

Slow news experiment

Two months of only print journalism

2018-03-07 nyt • nytimes • journalism • slownews • news • socialmedia

NSA APT detection

How NSA identifies cyberattack enemies in real time

2018-03-07 nsa • security • badtech • via:hackernews • apt

A watermark to indicate digitally manipulated imagery

2018-03-07 fake • counterfeit • authentic • images • ethics

Special New Zealand oyster that's in season right now. Very mild flavor, large, plump

2018-03-07 oyster • food • newzealand

Fox news authorized keys

Bad security practice at a news website

2018-03-06 fox • news • politics • funny • ssh • badtech

Simple web-based GIS tool for doing spatial calculations on data

2018-03-06 gis • maps • spatial • cartography

Reddit and Russian propaganda

Mealymouthed non-statement

2018-03-05 russia • politics • propaganda • reddit • moderation • policy

Māori placenames

Maps of which place names in New Zealand are in the indigenous language

2018-03-05 maps • maori • newzealand

Snake oil salesmen in Palm Beach

2018-03-04 palmbeach • blood • health • aging • scam

Prescription gag orders

Insane price gouging driven in part by abusive contracts

2018-03-04 drugs • america • healthcare • pharmacy

Bitcoin computer heist

Computers stolen out of a datacenter in Iceland

2018-03-04 iceland • bitcoin • via:hackernews • theft • crime

Scoring Pennsylvania

PlanScore's analysis of gerrymandering

2018-03-01 politics • planscore • pennsylvania • gerrymandering

Jared Kushner rant

Silly, but satisfying rant

2018-03-01 trump • politics • whitehouse • russia • kushner