Some Bits: Nelson's Linkblog about • archive • mastodon • feed
Genshin Impact exploitation
Interviews with the victims of game gambling
2023-01-31 scam • genshinimpact • games • gacha • lootbox • exploitation • gambling
Helene An
A profile of the woman behind Thanh Long and its famous garlic noodles in San Francisco
2023-01-31 food • sanfrancisco • vietnamese • restaurant • garlicnoodles
Flent
Internet connection tester from the Bufferbloat folks; various tests nicely packaged
2023-01-26 internet • networking • bandwidth • latency • bufferbloat • performance
Carbon offset sham
Study on results from a major carbon offset company find their projects are useless or worse
2023-01-26 globalwarming • climate • scam • carbonoffset • greenwashing
Google ads antitrust
Long time coming, DoJ suing Google over its ads monopoly
2023-01-24 google • ads • monopoly • antitrust • politics
Mayor of Slow Sanchez
Neighbor who takes care of the somewhat pedestrianized street in Noe Valley
2023-01-24 slowstreets • sf • sanfrancisco • community • activism • sanchez
irtt: Isochronous Round-Trip Tester
A network tool for measuring connection latency with regular UDP packets
2023-01-24 internet • monitoring • latency • jitter • ping • networking
mozilla.org's 25th anniversary
Some memories of the good old days when "open source" was magic
2023-01-23 mozilla • netscape • jwz • opensource • firefox
EV across the Nullarbor
Driving a Polestar across the loneliest road in the world
2023-01-23 australia • ev • polestar • charging • travel • roadtrip
Harvey’s closes
Gay restaurant / bar that's a mainstay of the Castro closes
2023-01-23 harveys • sanfrancisco • gay • lgbt • harveymilk • restaurants
Huge Pages are a Good Idea
Linux boxes still use 4k memory pages even though 1GB of RAM for a process is now common. Bigger pages perform better but trigger bugs.
2023-01-22 memory • optimization • linux • via:hackernews • tlb
HC-Tree (sqlite)
Experimental high concurrency backend for sqlite, supports row level locking and multiple writers
2023-01-21 sqlite • scaling • database • concurrency
Wikipedia redesign
Detailed notes on changes at Wikipedia from one of the developers who created the new presentation
2023-01-21 wikipedia • web • development • javascript • design • frontend
Kerrygold butter ban
New York and California aren't allowing Kerrygold butter to be sold because of a new law requiring PFAS be labelled
2023-01-19 food • butter • kerrygold • california • regulation • pfas
Twitter API key workaround
Looks like Twitter's own API keys are available should your app's key have been blocked
2023-01-17 twitter • api
Inside Elon Musk’s “extremely hardcore” Twitter
A detailed, well written summary of the disaster so far at Twitter
2023-01-17 elonmusk • twitter • tirefire • debacle
Ham Stand new owners
Local Grass Valley news: our purveyor of top quality cured meats has changed hands
2023-01-17 food • hamstand • nevadacounty • grassvalley • butcher • salami • charcuterie
Python packaging
An excellent survey on the state in 2022 and the need to improve it. Mostly focuses on using packages, not building them.
2023-01-16 python • pip • venv • pypi • pypa • badtech • packages
Berliner Schnauze
A Berlin cultural oddity, hostile public commentary that's partly word game and partly accent
2023-01-15 berlin • germany • language • german • culture • snark
sqlean
A collection of extensions for SQLite, thoughtfully chosen and ready to go
2023-01-15 database • sqlite • programming • extensions
USGS Mars Map
New beautiful geological map of Mars
2023-01-14 maps • mars • astronomy • gis • usgs • via:hackernews
London: Pavement Oddities
Fun list of strange things embedded in the pavement
2023-01-14 london • pavement • utilities • infrastructure • via:hackernews
Deadbird
A third party Grafana dashboard measuring the health of Twitter's systems as the service continues to deteriorate
2023-01-13 twitter • elonmusk • systems • grafana • dashboard
Starlink reflection mitigation
Some of the engineering Starlink is doing to try to lessen the visual impact of their satellites
2023-01-13 starlink • spacex • space • engineering • astronomy • darksky
Airalo eSIMs
Cheap short term mobile data for travellers
2023-01-13 sim • esim • mobile • roaming • europe • travel • via:metafilter
David Cronenberg's Galaxy of Flesh (1985)
AI art project creating an imagined 1985 horror movie
2023-01-13 horror • cronenberg • midjourney • via:metafilter • art • gan
Neo Store
Install Android apps, an alternate to F-Droid, itself the open source alternative to the Google store
2023-01-13 android • fdroid • apps
Windows 0xc000021a error
A software update in December 2022 caused a problem with Windows 10 booting. There's a fix now, also a manual workaround.
2023-01-12 windows • bugs • error • 21a • update
RIP Dirt
The famous shop cat at the Nevada Northern railway has died at the age of 15
2023-01-11 cats • trains • nevadanorthern • dirt
Retiring Pinafore
A sad end for a good alternate Mastodon client
2023-01-11 mastodon • fediverse • activitypub • client • web • ui
Starlink backbone map (US)
A guess as to how Starlink's network is interconnected on the ground
2023-01-11 starlink • internet • isp • traceroute
Field Guide to NOTAMs
Funny snark about the irrelevant crap that goes into official pilot notifications
2023-01-11 funny • notam • faa • usability • aviation
Pointer Pointer
Genuinely funny microsite
2023-01-11 funny • pointer • images
Queers Read This!
The classic 1990 zine in PDF form
2023-01-10 gay • lgbt • queer • queernation • politics • activism • pride • newyork
Ad-5 Covid vaccines and HIV
An ongoing discussion about whether the type of vaccination used in Russia may be putting people at higher risk of getting HIV
2023-01-10 hiv • covid • disease • vaccination • medicine • science • adenovirus • aids
NEXRAD archive
6 days of historical weather radar images in the US. Interface is awkward but works.
2023-01-10 weather • archive • nexrad • radar • us
Apple privacy fine
France fines Apple for scraping personal data for advertising
2023-01-08 ads • apple • privacy • france • regulation
When splines were objects
Photos of draughtsman's tools, splines with duck weights
2023-01-08 drawing • design • drafting • splines • math • history • graphics
George Santos / White Power
Deeply troubled new Republican congressman flashes a Nazi handsign on the congressional floor
2023-01-07 nazi • politics • republicans • georgesantos • whitepower • batshitinsane
Gay family reunion
Heartwarming story of cousins meeting after the older man had been cut out of the family decades ago for being gay
2023-01-06 gay • lgbt • family • reunion • scotland
Mr Rogers: How It's Made
A playlist of classic industrial videos from the children's TV show
2023-01-06 misterrogers • manufacturing • howitsmade • factory • video • tv
Starlink in Ukraine
Details on how transformative reliable Internet access is to warfare
2023-01-05 starlink • internet • warfare • military • combat • satellites
C-SPAN camera work
Interesting note about why the House coverage in C-SPAN is so compelling right now; they get to control the cameras and do something more interesting than usual
2023-01-05 cspan • politics • camera • house • congress
Using the AMX coprocessor
Notes on using Apple's undocumented vector coprocessor that's in their M1 and M2 macs
2023-01-05 apple • hacking • code • simd • vector • m1 • arm • hardware • amx
USACE cat calendar
Army Corps of Engineers with a fantastic cat calendar for 2023
2023-01-05 funny • cats • via:metafilter • army • engineering • calendar
Sun Ra sampling
Recommended clips from the visionary jazz musician
2023-01-04 sunra • music • afrofuturism • jazz
Cruising in SF
On the renaissance of outdoor pickups for gay men in San Francisco
2023-01-04 gay • cruising • sf • buenavistapark • lgbt • sex
PyTorch compromise
Another software supply chain attack against PyPI
2023-01-04 security • pytorch • malware • pypi • badtech
Zeitgeist bar
Profile of everyone's favorite low key slightly grungy San Francisco outdoor bar
2023-01-03 bars • sanfrancisco • zeitgeist • mission • divebar
Shift Happens
Marcin's masterful website for his magnum opus, a 1200 page book about keyboards
2023-01-03 marcin • keyboard • typewriter • book • research
Why Not Mars
A fresh take on how difficult-but-uninteresting sending people to Mars is
2023-01-03 mars • space • nasa • science • engineering • spacex
Tâmega gigabattery
Detailed look at a Portuguese pumped hydroelectric storage plant
2023-01-03 globalwarming • energy • portugal • power • electricity
Wig In A Box
Lovely number from Hedwig and the Angry Inch, about the power of glam to invent a better you
2023-01-03 drag • movies • lgbt • hedwig
"Do you want to pet my pussy"
Part of the famous Johnny Carson / Zsa Zsa Gabor story; Jane Fonda recounting it, on Carson
2023-01-03 funny • lgbt • bawdy • johnnycarson • janefonda • zsazsa • zsazsagabor
Gay Bob doll
Mildly NSFW; a 1970s doll of a gay man
2023-01-02 gay • lgbt • 1970s • dolls • toys • funny
Ranked choice voting problem
Alameda County miscounted votes by applying the ranked choice algorithm wrong. It was an edge case affecting only 200 ballots, but it changed the outcome of one race.
2023-01-01 voting • votingrights • rankedchoice • instantrunoff • alamedacounty • politics
Fauci and ACT UP
A heartfelt appreciation of the public health scientist coming around on the AIDS crisis and becoming an ally
2023-01-01 hiv • aids • history • actup • fauci • publichealth
Hajj vs global warming
Excellent interactive on the stages of the Hajj and how they are affected by rising temperatures
2023-01-01 globalwarming • hajj • religion • islam • muslim • mecca • climate