Some Bits: Nelson's Linkblog about • archive • mastodon • feed
70 links
Midjourney wins State Fair
Guy submits an AI-generated art piece to the Colorado State Fair, wins prize
2022-08-31 ai • art • colorado • gan • generative • machinelearning
Firefox temporary containers
An addon to create web browser tabs that have cookies but only temporarily, deleted after a short time
2022-08-31 containers • cookies • extension • firefox • isolation • privacy
End priviliged ports
A clear argument about why Linux shouldn't treat ports 0-1023 as special anymore
2022-08-31 badtech • internet • linux • programming • security • via:lobsters
ML image dataset
Details on what Stable Diffusion is and a search engine for a subset of the corpus
2022-08-30 ai • gan • images • machinelearning • stablediffusion • trainingset
Twitter vs porn $
A plan for subscriptions for adult content on Twitter ran into their inability to police content
2022-08-30 culture • onlyfans • porn • safety • sex • tirefire • twitter
Trump and QAnon
Trump is now directly quoting and amplifying QAnon conspiracy content
2022-08-30 batshitinsane • fascism • politics • qanon • trump
Linux syscall table
Big list of numbers for different architectures
2022-08-29 assembly • linux • programming • syscall
plotbitrate
A Python tool to graph the bitrate of a video file over time
2022-08-29 bitrate • ffmpeg • graph • python • streaming • video
Creative Commons on AI
Thoughtful copyright and licensing group's opinions on issues of copyright an AI art
2022-08-27 ai • art • cc • copyright • creativecommons • gan • generative • licensing
Opening the Pandora's Box of AI Art
Thoughtful essay on ethical risks associated with AI art
2022-08-27 ai • art • copyright • ethics • gan • machinelearning
Lexica
Search art generated with Stable Diffusion GAN
2022-08-27 ai • art • gan • generative • via:waxy
Peter Talisman
An idle game with interesting graphics, music, and a story
2022-08-27 games • glitch • idlegame • incrementalgame
Pay to stay jail
In California, convicts can pay to serve time in humane facilities or take their chances in county jail
2022-08-27 business • california • corruption • jail • prison
Twitter and MPX hate
Study of how Twitter failed to manage all the anti-gay hate speech associated with monkeypox
2022-08-26 gay • hate • lgbt • moderation • monkeypox • mpx • tirefire • twitter
Nat King Cole / Look Out for Love
Classic Jazz track with particularly clever wordplay in the lyrics
2022-08-24 jazz • lyrics • music • natkingcole • rap
Lean Web Club
Online courses, etc for vanilla Javascript, simpler web programming
2022-08-24 javascript • programming • web
SF Sewer Map
AMazing detailed map of every sewer pipe. When you zoom out you get a view of sewersheds (in blue)
2022-08-24 infrastructure • maps • sanfrancisco • sewers • sf • via:jwz
Black bodies
Lovely story about the actual way quantum mechanics was invented compared to the just-so story of modern education
2022-08-24 history • physics • planck • quantummechanics • robpike
Maya and drought
Summary of new scholarly research on the interplay of drought and politics in pre-Columbian Maya
2022-08-23 archaeology • climatechange • drought • history • maya • mayapan • yucatan
The Views From the Top
Collection of photos of buildings on top of rocky pinnacles
2022-08-20 architecture • photography • photos • tourism
Avocado Oil fraud
82% of American avocado oil is either spoiled or not actually avocado oil
2022-08-20 avocado • food • fraud • oil • scam • ucdavis
Heizer’s City
Excellent photo essay on a monumental new art earthwork
2022-08-20 nevada • art • earthwork • misanthropy
JWST and JavaScript
Scripting environment for the space telescope is based on a 2003 JavaScript implementation
2022-08-19 javascript • jwst • nasa • programming • space • via:hackernews
Email innovation timeline
A comprehensive history of email
2022-08-19 email • history • internet • multics • via:metafilter
Passphrase generator
Diceware-like passphrase generator with a reasonable word list
2022-08-18 diceware • passphrase • passwords • security • xkcd
Python monkeypatching
Example of modifying a library's code at runtime with patchy, a nice library for such hackery
2022-08-17 code • http • monkeypatch • python • requests • timeout
Security mitigation cost
10-25% performance cost for security measures to prevent side channel attacks like Spectre.
2022-08-17 cpu • linux • optimization • security • sidechannel • spectre
DALL·E copyright
An exploration of the IP law muddle of AI generated art
2022-08-17 ai • art • copyright • dalle • gan • machinelearning
The Netflix look
Details on cinematographic choices that make all Netflix shows look kinda samey
2022-08-17 cinematography • colorgrading • netflix • tv • video
Café Achteck
19th century design public toilets in Berlin
2022-08-16 bathroom • berlin • history • klo • pissoir • toilet
Mass timber
Engineered wood as an alternative to steel and concrete
2022-08-14 building • construction • material • plywood • sustainability • wood
Movie of the Night
A website for recommending movies based on various criteria
2022-08-14 movies • netflix • ratings • recommendation
Australia's gay prison
Summary of a podcast that unearthed the story of a hideous prison that collected gay men and performed experiments on them
2022-08-12 50s • australia • cooma • gay • history • lgbt • nsw • prison
Fox News fake photos
Prime time show airs a fake image, then tries to claim it was just a joke a day later
2022-08-12 foxnews • kilmeade • lies • propaganda • trump • tuckercarlson
Linux Magic SysRq
Low level kernel thing to force a reboot and other stuff from the keyboard or /proc
2022-08-11 admin • kernel • linux • panic • reboot • sysadmin • sysrq
CDC’s Daskalakis on Monkeypox
Frank interview with a gay doctor at CDC about public health, gay stigma, and prevention.
2022-08-11 cdc • disease • gay • health • lgbt • monkeypox • politics • safesex
Starlink loses FCC subsidy
FCC denies the $885M grant for rural broadband
2022-08-10 facebook • fcc • internet • isp • rdof • starlink • subsidy
Apple should fix texting
Aggressive but reasonable call to ask Apple to implement RCS, the cross-vendor text messaging standard
2022-08-10 android • antitrust • apple • google • imessage • interoperability • mms • rcs • sms • text
Posit numbers
An alternative to IEEE floating point
2022-08-10 floatingpoint • iee • ieee754 • math • numericalcomputation • programming
The Rhine is dry
Major European river goes basically dry for the second time in 4 years
2022-08-10 barge • climatechange • cruiseship • germany • rhine • river • shipping
Millet + Butt
A prominent, probably gay couple in the early 1900s, died on the Titanic
2022-08-10 gay • history • lgbt • love • roosevelt • taft • titanic
Brooklyn Bar Menu
An autogenerated parody of hipster bar menus
2022-08-09 brooklyn • funny • menu • parody • procgen • restaurant
Amtrak Explorer
Excellent simple schematic view of America's passenger train system
2022-08-09 amtrak • binx • maps • trains • travel • visualization
Twitter privacy mess
System would let anyone see what Twitter account a phone number or email address belonged to
2022-08-09 ftc • privacy • tirefire • twitter
Mexican Pizza
Authentic Mexican flavors like birria, mole, or tomatillo on a pizza crust
2022-08-09 cooking • food • mexican • pizza • syncreticism
VTuber
Live streaming video with virtual avatars instead of a live camera; lightweight puppetry animates
2022-08-09 animation • culture • games • japan • twitch • vtuber • vtubing • youtube
PGP web of trust failure
In 2019 the PGP web of trust slid from irrelevance to outright technical failure
2022-08-09 badtech • crypto • cryptography • gpg • identity • pgp • security
PyPI signature status
Python package repository *still* doesn't have any cryptographic signature verification, but it is in progress
2022-08-09 pep458 • pip • programming • pypi • python • security • software
Trump vs his Generals
Details of how Trump's military advisors tried to resist his most insane impulses
2022-08-08 america • coup • fascism • generals • military • politics • trump
Starlink scanning
6 hours of a satellite dish tracking LEO satellites
2022-08-08 internet • isp • satellite • space • starlink
Minecraft world generation
Overview of the algorithms and context for the remarkable game
2022-08-08 games • minecraft • perlinnoise • procgen • via:amitp
Slack Saver
Turn a Slack archive dump into a public website. Useful for liberating knowledge trapped in silos
2022-08-08 information • search • sharing • slack • via:hackernews
Presidio Tunnel Tops
New park in San Francisco is open
2022-08-08 park • presidio • recreation • sanfrancisco
We need to take away children
Book-length accounting of the Trump Administration's monstrous policy of separating children from their parents at the border
2022-08-08 borderpatrol • children • crime • dhs • fascism • humanrights • immigration • miller • politics • trump
Chinese vertical world map
Interesting projection
2022-08-08 china • maps • projections • via:reddit
Meta: feed update
New feed for my linkblog includes image previews. The old feed will still work but this is nicer. https://www.somebits.com/linkblog/index.atom
2022-08-07 atom • blog • feed • linkblog • nelson • rss
Facebook viral videos
Detailed story on a magician who has a new hustle making viral videos for Facebook, ones you've probably seen
2022-08-07 content • facebook • funny • magician • meme • video
The fox in Robin Hood
Clips and photos from the furry awakening of 1973
2022-08-07 animation • art • fox • furries • robinhood
Last Seen
An archive of 19th century newspaper ads from formerly enslaved people searching for their families
2022-08-07 archive • database • genealogy • history • newspaper • slavery
SF: no traffic enforcement
45 traffic officers, a total of 10 tickets a day written in the city
2022-08-06 corruption • police • politics • safety • sanfrancisc • traffic
AI and ancient languages
Efforts to use statistical machine learning to translate unreadable ancient scripts
2022-08-04 ai • archaeology • language • machinelearning • translation • writing
Monkeypox and gay fear
Excellent, emotionally complex essay about how monkeypox is affecting gay men traumatized by fear of disease, social stigma, and decades of the AIDS crisis
2022-08-03 aids • disease • gay • hiv • lgbt • monkeypox • tomstrong
Starlink data cap
ISP now trying a 250GB/month data cap in France
2022-08-03 broadband • datacap • france • internet • isp • starlink
Ookla open data
Fine grained info on average bandwidth per square on the globe
2022-08-03 bandwidth • data • internet • maps • ookla • speedtest
Max bandwidth map
Global map of maximum Internet speed from Ookla data
2022-08-03 broadband • internet • maps • speed • via:lobsters
Hospital prices
Site collects newly required medical billing data to compare costs of procedures at hospitals in SF, NY
2022-08-03 america • billing • data • healthcare • hospital • medical • price • via:reddit
Your data fits in RAM
A useful tool for estimating whether a data problem is easy or hard
2022-08-03 funny • performance • ram • via:hackernews
Caddy web server
Modern general purpose web server
2022-08-01 apache • golang • internet • nginx • server • ssl • web
Social Capital Atlas
Enormous new sociology study of friendships, wealth, and social mobility
2022-08-01 facebook • maps • socialcapital • sociology
watabou procgen
Page of various procedural generation experiments; caves, neighborhoods, cities
2022-08-01 city • games • maps • procedural • procgen • roads