Some Bits: Nelson's Linkblog about • archive • mastodon • feed
78 links
$YEAR rugpull scam
Yet another cryptocurrency fraud; this one despite the smart contracts being carefully reviewed
2021-12-31 cryptocurrency • ethereum • fraud • scam
Junk NFTs steal art
A report from the brave world of unregulated finance meeting the art world
2021-12-31 art • copyright • fraud • junk • nfts • theft
rqlite
A distributed database built on top of SQLite with Raft consensus
2021-12-30 cluster • database • distributed • programming • replica • sqlite
sqlite strict tables
The lightweight database now has an option for strict typing of data
2021-12-30 database • programming • sqlite • types
Cryptocurrency and Nazis
This bold new financial fraud world turns out to be a bonanza for terrorist and hate groups.
2021-12-28 bitcoin • crypto • cryptocurrency • fascism • finance • nazis • racism • whitesupremacy
New Riot Games settlement
Laughable $10M settlement was challenged, currently bumped up to $100M
2021-12-28 games • riot • riotgames • sexualharassment • tirefire
NFTs of people
Some sleazeball is selling NFTs representating people without their permission
2021-12-26 cryptocurrency • nft • privacy • scam
Favourite maps of 2021
Interesting selection of mostly new-to-me maps
2021-12-26 2021 • bestof • cartography • maps • visualization
Matt Mullenweg profile
Article about the WordPress founder and his different kind of tech empire
2021-12-24 automattic • mattmullenweg • publishing • tech • wordpress
That's My Ape!
Assert ownership of digital assets without planet-destroying blockchain transactions
2021-12-23 blockchain • cryptocurrency • funny • nft • via:hackernews
NFT Replicas
Mint any new category of NFTs by cloning someone else's NFTs.
2021-12-23 cryptocurrency • forgery • funny • nft • via:hackernews
Electrify Everything in Your Home
A practical guide (they'll accept anything that looks like an email address)
2021-12-22 climatechange • electrification • energy • globalwarming • home • solar
Without Copyrights
More on the 19th century courtesy of the trade, the informal American publishing arrangement that predates modern copyright
2021-12-22 america • copyright • intellectualproperty • opensource • publishing
Courtesy of the trade
19th century American intellectual property. No formal copyright, but an informal agreement to share wealth
2021-12-22 america • copyright • intellectualproperty • opensource • politics • publishing
Rocchetta Mattei
An eccentric 19th century Italian castle with interesting design
2021-12-19 architecture • castle • dazzle • design • italy
Civilian deaths in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan
Major investigation into various times the US military killed civilians
2021-12-19 afghanistan • airstrike • drone • iraq • military • politics • syria • war
Art NFTs
A good balanced overview of what the digital art market is like today
2021-12-18 art • basel • cryptocurrency • nft
Trump coup theory
An exploration of what could have happened; if leftist activists had taken the bait and fought the coup, it might have escalated terrifyingly
2021-12-18 antifa • coup • jan6 • politics • trump
Movies and older LGBT people
Excellent analysis of the depiction of older queer people in movies
2021-12-18 culture • elders • film • gay • lgbt • movies • older • queer
TikTok and GPL
New streaming system uses OBS, a GPL video system. So far they have not complied with the GPL license
2021-12-17 gpl • intellectualproperty • obs • opensource • tiktok • via:hackernews
Pixel 6 bad signal
December update seems to have broken the cell phone radio for many users, at least in Europe
2021-12-17 android • bug • google • phone • pixel
Emoji flag sequences
Unicode weirdness; flags are a combination of two separate characters, leading to strange behavior
2021-12-17 emoji • flags • sequence • unicode
Cryptocurrency scam data
Some data on the rise of "rug pulls"
2021-12-16 cryptocurrency • fraud • scam • via:hackernews
QNAME Minimization
A privacy-preservation technique where subdomains aren't sent up the recursive resolver chain
2021-12-16 bind9 • dns • internet • privacy
PNG Parser Differential
Another Apple image decoder bug, this image looks different depending on whose PNG decoder you use.
2021-12-16 apple • bug • images • png • via:metafilter
Trump SPAC fraud
What looks like an illegal investment deal
2021-12-16 corruption • finance • fraud • politics • spac • trump
Windows double-tap Ctrl
New feature of Powertoys causes a sort of mouse spotlight when you press control twice. Annoying, easy to turn off.
2021-12-15 accessibility • control • microsoft • mouse • powertoys • windows
RDAP network lookup
The ~2013 era replacement for whois, returns data in structured format
2021-12-15 internet • json • network • rdap • whois
Mess with DNS
Neat learning tool; modify your own subdomain and see how it behaves
2021-12-15 dns • internet • learning
Web3 is going just great
A collection of NFT and Web3 horror stories
2021-12-15 badtech • crypto • cryptocurrency • nfts • scam • web3
PyTorch vs TensorFlow
Thoughtful and clear comparison of the two deep learning frameworks.
2021-12-14 ai • deeplearning • machinelearning • programming • pytorch • tensorflow
Supply chain story
Details on trying to order 300 $0.60 oscillators across shortages and misconfigured websites
2021-12-14 hardware • mems • oscillator • supplychain
CHUNGUS 2
A CPU built in Minecraft redstone. 8 bits, 1Hz, more or less as powerful as early home computers
2021-12-14 cpu • games • minecraft • programming • via:lobsters
Jan 6 texts
More details of behind the scenes at Trump's coup. I'm astonished at the way the Fox News journalists are colluding with Trump to try to manage events.
2021-12-14 coup • ethics • foxnews • jan6 • journalism • politics • trump
Writing self modifying Perl
Thin on reasons *why* you would want to do this, but the instructions for abomination are detailed
2021-12-13 hacking • perl • programming • selfmodifying • wtf
America’s Anti-Democratic Movement
Excellent, upsetting summary of how we are about to lose America
2021-12-13 america • democracy • elections • politics • republicans • trump • votingrights
Dust scifi shorts
New-to-me, a collection of high quality science fiction short films
2021-12-12 scifi • shortfilm • tv • video
U Up? A literary treatment
excellent parody of various authors writing a "u up?" 3am text
2021-12-12 books • funny • heterosexuals • parody • via:metafilter
mouse jiggler
Videos you play on your phone and put your optical mouse on, to simulate mouse movement
2021-12-10 funny • mouse • remotework • spyware • via:waxy
SPACs perform badly
High fees, bad acquisition targets mean the latest trend in going public has been bad for investors
2021-12-09 finance • investment • ipo • spac • startups • stockmarket
trumpcoup.ppt
Powerpoint from inside the Trump Administration, a plan to declare a national emergency and subvert the election
2021-12-09 coup • jan6 • politics • trump
Interactive map projections
Engineering notes on seamlessly changing projects on a modern web map
2021-12-09 javascript • mapbox • maps • mourner • projections
Bank Python
The idiosyncratic use of a programming language in the financial world
2021-12-09 banks • programming • python • via:reddit
Celsius cryptoscam
Details of a lending company that claims 10%+ returns on "safe" loans
2021-12-09 celsius • cryptocurrency • finance • scam • via:hackernews
RPi power consumption
Detailed measurements from various hardware models
2021-12-08 hardware • power • raspberrypi • rpi
Blockchain spaghetti
Literal spaghetti, the food, claims to be "blockchain certified". The linked attestations about the spaghetti do not work.
2021-12-08 badtech • blockchain • cryptocurrency • food • funny • spaghetti
Ubisoft NFTs debunked
Detailed analysis of a new use of NFTs in videogames and how it makes little sense
2021-12-08 badtech • crypto • cryptocurrency • games • nfts • ubisoft
Rust in the Linux kernel
Major milestone, a second official programming language for the kernel
2021-12-08 goodtech • linux • programming • rust • security
Natural Earth POVs
New release of Natural Earth includes alternate datafiles for different points of view for disputed territorial borders
2021-12-08 data • gis • india • maps • naturalearth • politics • ukraine
Yankee Candle abstractions
The remarkable metaphysics of scented candles
2021-12-08 candles • funny • metaphysics • philosophy • yankeecandles
Forecast.Solar
Predict solar power generation at a site, adjusts for day, orientation, and weather
2021-12-08 api • calculator • solar
Trump's next coup
Detailed analysis of the coming end of America's democracy
2021-12-07 america • coup • politics • trump
Modern for Wikipedia
Browser extension that reskins Wikipedia pages for desktop browsers
2021-12-06 browser • design • desktop • extension • goodtech • via:hackernews • wikipedia
DNS updates in practice
Details of the reality of what happens when you update a DNS record
2021-12-06 caching • distributedsystems • dns • internet
Tesla's murderous cars
Details of the deadly inadequate system they market as "Autopilot" and "Full Self Driving"
2021-12-06 autopilot • badtech • cars • elonmusk • safety • tesla
SF holiday decorations
A map of houses with particularly nice decorations
2021-12-06 christmas • map • sanfrancisco • sf
Web3 is Bullshit
A simple statement
2021-12-05 badtech • blockchain • internet • nfts • web • web3
$120M Web3 theft
This new decentralized infrastructure sure is great
2021-12-05 badger • badgerdao • badtech • blockchain • crypto • fraud • scam • security • web3
Synthetic / Organic
Portfolio of a friend of mine who is doing interesting work combining photography with generative art algorithms
2021-12-05 art • moishe • photography • photos • slimemold
Covid normalcy index
Effort to quantify the impact on society Covid has, measure it over time
2021-12-04 commerce • covid • economics • pandemic
JWST science
Long detailed article on all the science the new space telescope will enable
2021-12-04 jwst • science • space • telescope • via:metafilter
James Webb telescope
A summary of the science and the development of the amazing new space telescope
2021-12-04 astronomy • jwst • space
Solar install
Nice simple post about what it's like putting solar on a home in 2021
2021-12-04 electrify • globalwarming • home • solar • solarpower
Courtney Love vs Elon Musk
Musician reads out Elon Musk with a Marxist analysis inflected by Succession
2021-12-03 celebrities • culture • economy • elonmusk • funny • marxism • succession • tirefire
Space war
US military says that their satellites have been other "non-kinetic" attack for years now
2021-12-03 china • politics • russia • satellites • space • via:hackernews • warfare
Is web3 bullshit?
Excellent orientation to the basics of the discussion. Also a nice ending: "Why am I in this awful, ugly, unfun casino in the first place?? Is there a way out of the casino??"
2021-12-02 badtech • bullshit • crypto • cryptocurrency • tech • web3
Trump's Covid test
Trump depravity extends to knowingly exposing colleagues and political opponents to a dangerous disease
2021-12-02 covid • monster • politics • scandal • trump
net.moguls
Suck's trading card parody of the tech industry from the late 90s; trading cards of all your founder and technorati insiders.
2021-12-02 funny • history • parody • suck • tech • tradingcards
Ubiquiti inside attack
Engineer at networking company alleged to have attacked his own company, then blackmailed them
2021-12-02 badtech • engineering • fraud • security • ubiquiti
NSS vulnerability
Jaw-dropping buffer overrun in an 18 year old security library. C is a bad language.
2021-12-02 badtech • c • mozilla • programming • security
Satellites vs astronomy
Balanced, detailed article on the impact of 100,000 planned satellite launches on observational astronomy
2021-12-01 astronomy • science • space • starlink
Amazon and climate modelling
Traditionally a supercomputing project, folks doing climate simulations on Amazon clusters instead
2021-12-01 amazon • beowulf • geoengineering • globalwarming • simulation
Looking for Abigail
Poignant story of a woman enslaved by John Jay and her miserable end in Paris
2021-12-01 america • history • johnjay • paris • slavery • via:kottke
Jack steps back
Gossipy analysis of palace machinations at Twitter
2021-12-01 cryptocurrency • jack • management • twitter
Simpson's Paradox
Great example of a counterintuitive result when inappropriately combining aggregate statistics
2021-12-01 covid • data • paradox • statistics
Inflation since 1960
Chart and analysis framing inflation in generational terms
2021-12-01 finance • inflation • via:flowingdata • visualization
Seatback Safety
Safety cards from airplanes
2021-12-01 airplanes • design • flying • via:kottke
Wikipedia finances
Details on Wikipedia's surprisingly strong cash position
2021-12-01 charity • donation • endowment • finances • internet • wikipedia