Benin Bronzes

Huge trove of remarkable West African art stolen by the British in 1897, now scattered around the world

2019-03-31 art • benin • culture • history • nigeria

Saudis v Bezos

Bezos' security advisor talks in detail about how the Saudis are going after Bezos, at least in part because they ware mad about the Washington Post

2019-03-31 amazon • bezos • harassment • journalism • politics • saudiarabia • saudis • trump • washingtonpost • washpo

Zuckerberg on Internet regulation

Thoughtful op/ed on how Facebook, etc should be regulated to protect the world

2019-03-30 dataportability • facebook • hatespeech • politics • privacy • regulation • terrorism

About Sci-Hub

Alexandra Elbakyan writes about the formation of the world's most important index of scientific papers

2019-03-30 catalog • library • piracy • publishing • scihub

WiGLE

Public map of wifi networks found

2019-03-30 maps • networks • wifi • wireless

Sexism in Finland tech

Caterina Fake on appalling behavior

2019-03-30 finland • sexism • tech

Roy's tiger mauling

New testimony about the tragedy at a Siegfried & Roy show

2019-03-29 gay • lgbt • siegfriedandroy • tiger

Crowdfunding against homeless

San Francisco homeless shelter being opposed by a crowdfunded lawyer

2019-03-29 crowdfunding • homeless • politics • sanfrancisco

Nancarrow: Studies for Player Piano

Experimental music for machines unfettered by limitations of human performance

2019-03-29 cage • history • music • nancarrow • playerpiano

Office Depot fraud

Computer service department faked finding malware on PCs

2019-03-28 computers • fraud • geeksquad • officedepot

Capsicum cultivars

The varieties of different chiles grown around the world

2019-03-28 capsicum • chile • chili • cooking • farming • food • pepper

Mapping Broadband Speeds

The FCC can't be trusted to report broadband speeds accurately, so this independent organization will instead

2019-03-28 broadband • fcc • internet • politics • speedtest

M-Lab

New tools for measuring Internet performance with a public policy / activist bent

2019-03-28 google • internet • measurement • mlab • speedtest

Redesigning bad charts

Economist graphics team revisits some visualizations

2019-03-28 charts • data • economist • graphics • visualization

ASMR for white liberals…

Hilariously on point

2019-03-28 asmr • comedy • funny • race

What Three Words is bad

Another essay on why the proprietary addressing system is bad for the world

2019-03-28 badtech • geography • maps • what3words

The Chinese Burner

Thoughtful essay from an outsider perspective

2019-03-28 burningman • china • culture • via:metafilter

Microsoft vs. April Fools

Hooray, leadership in ending Internet Stupid Day

2019-03-28 aprilfools • aprilfoolsday • microsoft

WebGL terrain shading

Nice tutorial from start to finish

2019-03-27 maps • rendering • terrain • webgl

The bong course

Food industry inside-joke at the French Laundry

2019-03-27 bong • dining • frenchlaundry • funny

Grindr sale undone?

Claim that the US is retroactively blocking the sale of the gay hookup app to a Chinese owner

2019-03-27 china • gay • grindr • lgbt • regulation • sex

Vision Fund details

How's the monster $100B VC fund doing?

2019-03-26 investment • masa • softbank • venturecapital • visionfund

Medium's evolution

Publishing tech company continues to look for a model that works

2019-03-26 blogs • internet • medium • publishing • writing

Baba is You is Turing Complete

CA Rule 110 emulated in the game

2019-03-26 babaisyou • computation • games • turing

Zuckerberg in Hawaii result

Auctions of small parcels of land in the middle of Zuckerberg's holdings in Kauai

2019-03-26 facebook • hawaii • realestate • zuckerberg

Sandy Hook harassment

America is a country where when your child is massacred at school you are subject to a lifetime of harassment by gun nuts who claim you are part of an elaborate hoax

2019-03-25 awful • gunnuts • guns • nra • politics • sandyhook

Women in bathtubs

Fun snarky responses to silly staged ad photos

2019-03-25 advertising • bathtub • funny • women

O(n log n) multiplication

New lower bound on the time complexity of multiplying integers. The algorithm's secret sauce doesn't kick in until the numbers have billions of digits though

2019-03-25 algorithm • bigo • complexity • math

Precise ASUS malware

ASUS-signed software updates contained malware targeting just a few hundred machines with specific MAC addresses

2019-03-25 asus • badtech • malware • precision • targeting

hot Trump supporters

Botnet declares itself not a Russian bot, in triplicate

2019-03-25 bots • funny • politics • propaganda • russia • trump • twitter

What to Make of Bill Barr’s Letter

Detailed analysis of what we can learn from the summary of the Mueller report, and how important it is the full report is released

2019-03-25 barr • corruption • mueller • politics • treason • trump

Hexagonal Cross Stitch

Math meets crafts

2019-03-25 crafts • crosstich • math • symmetry • via:hackernews

ArchiveBox

Tool for easily archiving URLs, like the ones you visit, etc.

2019-03-25 archive • history • software • wayback • web

UUCP maps

Some history from the pre-Internet days

2019-03-24 history • maps • networks • uucp

Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good

A fresh perspective on the increasing role of display screens in our lives

2019-03-24 contact • healthcare • humanity • screentime • society

$100M invoice fraud

Lithuanian man stole a whole lot of money from Facebook and Google by sending phony invoices

2019-03-24 crime • facebook • fraud • google • theft

Killed by Google

Another database of dead Google products, fairly comprehensive

2019-03-23 google • history • products

VC Starter Kit

Everything you need to begin your career investing in the tech industry

2019-03-23 funny • parody • vc • venturecapital

95% of Bitcoin transactions are fake

Markets are making up transactions

2019-03-22 bitcoin • fraud • hoax • scam

Twitter amplifies extremism

Their bullshit engagement feature which shows you random tweets seems geared to promote the worst most unpleasant forms of rhetoric

2019-03-22 politics • propaganda • socialmedia • twitter

SF General pricing

In theory the city has been regulating the price of procedures at San Francisco's hospital. In practice the politicians have no clue

2019-03-22 healthcare • insurance • medical • medicine • politics • sanfrancisco

Adopted Unicode characters

Fundraising scheme where companies and people can adopt individual Unicode characters

2019-03-22 fundraising • silly • unicode

OSM and EU Copyright

New EU rules make OSM's acceptance of data from users much more complicated

2019-03-22 copyright • eu • maps • osm • politics

I am prepared

Remarkably good interview with someone who is a rare case of contracting HIV despite being on PrEP

2019-03-22 gay • health • hiv • lgbt • prep • sex

Procedurally generated garbage games

Art project / absurd demonstration of making total trash games makes $50,000

2019-03-22 ads • games • mobile • procedural

Coconet: Bach AI

The machine learning model behind the Google doodle

2019-03-21 ai • bach • coconet • google • music

Facebook plaintext passwords

200-600 million users potentially compromised by violating the most very basic tenet of password security

2019-03-21 badtech • bug • facebook • passwords • plaintext • security

Partisan Bias

Visualization of one measure of gerrymandering

2019-03-20 gerrymandering • northcarolina • politics • visualization

The Paris Pneumatic Clock Network

Crazy 19th century system for distributing time

2019-03-20 clocks • france • paris • time • via:hackernews

Map of sexual orientation laws

2019 report on which countries criminalize LGBT people, which protect them

2019-03-20 civilrights • gayrights • lgbt • map • politics

The Epochalypse

The perfect name for the Unix Year 2038 bug

2019-03-20 2038 • bugs • epoch • epochalypse • linux • unix

LIGO Orrery

A visualization of black hole merging events LIGO has detected

2019-03-19 astronomy • blackhole • gravity • ligo • science • space

Journalist detentions

CBP is questioning and detaining journalists at the US border if they are known for reporting on abuses at the border

2019-03-18 aclu • cbp • firstamendment • immigration • journalism • politics

Mochi pounding

Fun short video on hand-making a Japanese pastry

2019-03-17 cooking • food • japan • mochi

A viral massacre

On the carefully sculpted social media campaign of the Christchurch mass murderer

2019-03-15 christchurch • culture • facebook • media • murder • news • newzealand • viral

Beto, Cult of the Dead Cow

As a teenager the politician was "Psychedelic Warlord" in one of the bigger national hacker groups

2019-03-15 beto • cdc • cultofthedeadcow • politics • texas

Erica Joy Baker's home screen

What the engineering manager uses on her phone

2019-03-15 edc • ericajoy • phone • ui

Tether no longer claims dollar backing

Slowly unfolding cryptocurrency scam no longer claims to have full US dollar backing

2019-03-15 bitcoin • cryptocurrency • fraud • scam • tether • via:metafilter

AOC questioning Wilbur Ross

Like with Cohen, her questions are remarkably sharp and well prepared

2019-03-15 aoc • census • politics • votingrights • wilburross

Calculating Pi in GCP

Sort of a meaningless math stunt, but nice demo of Google cloud; particularly the CPU migration feature

2019-03-15 cloud • gcp • google • math • pi

DNC CTO stepping down

Raffi moving on after two years helping the DNC build a tech team

2019-03-14 democrats • dns • politics • raffi • raffikrikorian • tech

DNSSEC in practice

Statistics on usage, cogent arguments for and against it

2019-03-14 dns • dnssec • googledns • internet • security

CIA vs North Korean embassy

Spain says the CIA attacked North Korea's embassy in Madrid

2019-03-14 cia • northkorea • politics • spain

Video call API

A friend's videoconferencing startup has added a really simple API for embedding video calls in your website

2019-03-14 api • dailyco • pluot • startups • support • video • videocall • web

Genderless voice

Speech synthesis designed to sound neither male nor female

2019-03-13 gender • speech • synthesis • voice

Spotify v Apple

Nice timeline of anti-competitive behavior on Apple's part

2019-03-13 antitrust • apple • iphone • monpoly • spotify

The rise of Discord

Nice story about the Slack-for-consumers product, the new social media

2019-03-13 chat • discord • internet • slack • socialmedia

35mm film pirates

1960s hustle of buying grey market prints of movies and trading them

2019-03-13 film • movies • piracy • via:metafilter

Observable Teams

Javascript notebook computing environment now has a paid option for groups to work together.

2019-03-12 javascript • jupyter • notebooks • observable • programming

Lil Pump

"He pours more cough syrup into his fluorescent Fanta and then onto his steak while someone records him."

2019-03-12 culture • lilpump • music • rap

Defending vote by mail

Local registrar for voters counters some crazy Tea Party rhetoric about Vote by Mail being dangerous

2019-03-11 elections • nevadacounty • politics • voting • votingrights

Rapa Nui for real

An alternate story for the collapse of Easter Island; post-colonial diseases and enslavement

2019-03-11 culture • easterisland • history • polynesia • rapanui

Operation Gladio

Crazy post-WW2 plan to station secret police and troops in NATO countries to fight back if the Soviets invaded. Led to some abuses.

2019-03-11 coldwar • europe • politics • soviet • ww2

Discord Data Package

Popular chat app lets you download all the data they have about you; here's what's inside

2019-03-10 chat • datatransparency • discord • privacy

Centurians of Rome (NSFW)

Detailed story of an armored car robber getting away and making a gay porn movie in the 1980s

2019-03-09 gay • lgbt • porn • via:metafilter

Selling access to Trump

Brothel owner in Florida has a side business selling Chinese businessmen access to Trump via Mar-a-Lago

2019-03-09 china • corruption • maralago • politics • prostitution • trump

FCC broadband report a lie

FCC took an ISP's incorrect data at face value, inflated broadband numbers significantly

2019-03-08 ajitpai • broadband • corruption • fcc • lie • politics

US partisan prejudice

Map of where people have more strongly held political beliefs. The treatment is symmetric but the factual data is not; Republicans tend to be more biased

2019-03-08 america • civilwar • demographics • politics • visualization

Actual European Discoveries

Map of all the places that were actually discovered for the first time by the European age of exploration

2019-03-08 discovery • europe • islands • maps

Trump with madame

Woman who runs various prostitution spas in Florida partying with Trump family

2019-03-08 corruption • florida • politics • prostitution • trump

The Onion on HIV cure

Wickedly sharp satire

2019-03-08 aids • funny • hiv • lgbt • theonion

Hatari - Spillingardans (NSFW)

Icelandic techno / metal band with gay BDSM heavy music videos

2019-03-08 bdsm • gay • hatari • iceland • lgbt • music

François Clemmons

Black actor on Mr. Rogers is also gay, stayed closeted for the show

2019-03-08 africanamerican • culture • gay • lgbt • misterogers • tv

Census defended

Court finds Trump appointee added a citizenship question illegally

2019-03-07 census • politics • statistics • trump • wilburross

QUIC considered

An interesting analysis of how QUIC solves problems in the modern Internet, particularly NATs and TCP limitations

2019-03-07 internet • nat • protocols • quic • tcp • udp

Nazis for Steve King

Overtly white supremacist group working to help white supremacist congressman

2019-03-07 congress • discord • identityevropa • politics • steveking • via:metafilter

Discord still used by Nazis

Despite some efforts the chat software hasn't really succeeded in banning hate groups

2019-03-07 discord • hate • nazis • politics

Misattributed paternity

Details on how often someone's father is not who they think it might be. (1-3% for America and similar countries)

2019-03-07 culture • family • genetics • paternity

Mexican chiles

Handy chart showing dried versions of fresh ones

2019-03-07 chile • chili • cooking • food • mexico • pepper

The Metric Society

Book review discusses the dangers of our increasingly quantified social lives

2019-03-07 bookreview • economics • measurement • metrics • quantifiedself

"Exponential"

Much needed explanation on how exponentially many people are misusing the word "exponential"

2019-03-07 exponential • language • math • writing

Boeing buys ForeFlight

Excellent aviation data / iOS app startup gets bought by Boeing.

2019-03-06 aviation • boeing • flying • foreflight • startups

Mister Rogers was bisexual?!

He apparently said he had attractions to men too

2019-03-06 bisexual • lgbt • misterrogers • queer • tv

Teotihuacán's tunnel

Near the temple of Quetzelcoatl a tunnel was found 16 years ago, now being painstakingly excavated

2019-03-06 archaeology • mexico • teotihuacan

A New Kind of Science bibliography

Wolfram's silly "theory of everything" book does have a bibliography, or at least half of one. No paper citations.

2019-03-05 books • cellularautomata • complexity • newkindofscience • wolfram

American medical system

A common story of a disaster trying to get prescription medicine

2019-03-05 america • health • healthcare • medicine • politics

The Heart of the Grand Canyon

Appreciation of a classic of handmade mapping

2019-03-03 cartography • grandcanyon • maps

Gerald Cotten details

Owner of crypto company at the center of what looks to be a massive fraud did seem to at least genuinely die in India

2019-03-03 bitcoin • cotten • crypto • fraud • quadriga

Trump's insane CPAC speech

The President is not well

2019-03-03 cpac • crazy • politics • president • trump