Some Bits: Nelson's Linkblog aboutarchivemastodonfeed
uBlacklist
A spam filter for search sites, lets you set up a personal blocklist of search results you don't want to see
2023-12-31 spam • ads • search • google • via:hackernews
FoRK FAQ
A fossil of 2000 Internet culture, a small community of tech folks
2023-12-31 fork • community • internet • history • rohitkhare • adamrifkin
Alice Weidel
The head of Germany's far-right party is a lesbian whose partner is from Sri Lanka
2023-12-28 lgbt • gay • politics • germany • afd • lesbian • srilanka
Oulm Watch
A wild set of AliExpress men's jewelry, just absolutely bonkers watch designs
2023-12-28 watches • via:mhoye • design • jewelry • aliexpress • retail
Fix color banding
Various techniques for removing posterization in dark images, like movies set at night
2023-12-27 via:lobsters • graphics • dithering • banding • posterization
CyberChef
A general purpose tool for encoding and decoding data in various formats used in webapps
2023-12-27 encryption • encoding • base64 • software • web
Amazon Prime Video enshittifies
Streaming video service is going to shove ads into your face. Yet another reason why licensed video is often the worst experience.
2023-12-26 amazon • ads • prime • video • piracy • movies
Wine closures
An accessible summary of some real research on using corks and other closures to seal bottles of wine.
2023-12-26 food • wine • cork • screwtop • closure • ucdavis
Twitter lawsuits
An overview of the various legal problems Musk has put the company in
2023-12-26 elonmusk • twitter • x • legal • lawsuit
How Big is YouTube?
Notes on estimating size by random sampling
2023-12-23 via:hackernews • youtube • statistics • video • stats
xxHash
Seems to have one the contest for a non-cryptographic hash or checksum algorithm
2023-12-22 hash • crc • md5sum • crc32 • checksum • programming
FXYT
New code / art toy, a simple stack language you can make 256x256 graphics with
2023-12-22 generative • art • postfix • programming • via:lobsters
EV vs gas, a new accounting
Detailed work claims electric cars are cheaper per mile than gas in the US.
2023-12-21 evs • cars • energy
"China Export" mark
Marketing scam; a "made in China" logo is made to look almost exactly like the "certified safe for sale in Europe" CE mark.
2023-12-19 scam • china • ce • ul • electronics • safety
UMich security followup
Details on what happened in August 2023 that they shut off the entire campus Internet. Sounds like a garden variety intrusion and theft of personal information.
2023-12-18 umich • internet • security • university
Nevada City tourism
Nice article about my California Gold Rush town, for tourists
2023-12-18 california • tourism • sierra • goldrush • nevadacity
Tesla v. Disney
Elon's hateful crusade on Twitter spills over into Tesla products
2023-12-18 tesla • elonmusk • twitter • antisemitism • racism • disney
Nervous jigsaw puzzles
A short history of the digital design / fabrication company's innovative jigsaw puzzles
2023-12-17 games • puzzles • jigsaws • generative • art • computational • design
Queer Studio Ghibli
An LGBT reading on the lovely children's films that have no overt queer content
2023-12-17 movies • lgbt • gay • queer • ghibli • miyazaki • via:kottke
skimpflation
Mass produced foods taste worse because manufacturers are cutting ingredient costs, replacing fat with water or sugar with artificial sweeteners
2023-12-17 food • inflation • shrinkflation • junkfood
Monaspace
New monospace coding fonts; a group designed to work together with a fancy system for improving kerning (despite being fixed width)
2023-12-16 fonts • programming • monospace • github • vscode
Google Coral
Inexpensive AI hardware for development and production
2023-12-16 tpu • ai • google • coral • programming • ml
GSA launches notify.gov
New US government digital service for providing text message notifications to people
2023-12-16 government • gsa • services • .gov • usds
How to Hoagie
A detailed guide to baking sandwich bread and making sandwiches at home
2023-12-15 sandwich • hoagie • sub • baking • cooking • food
US electrification rebates
A simple calculator showing you what rebates for upgrading to electricity usage the IRA will give you
2023-12-15 ira • rebate • electrify • tax • america • us • heatpump • solar
NACS EV standard
New electric car charging standard has come out, is apparently good
2023-12-15 evs • cars • charging • tesla • nacs
Ubiquiti disclosure
Followup on the security mess: 2400 customers affected
2023-12-15 ubiquiti • security • badtech • privacy
movie-web
Stream any movie immediately in a web browser, seemingly without regards to licensing
2023-12-15 movies • video • superstream
Ubiquiti security disaster
Network manager is showing people other people's networks, including their camera images
2023-12-14 security • badtech • ubiquiti • caching • bug
Google Timeline history
Google is removing server storage of your location history. Probably good for privacy, worried about usability for my niche case.
2023-12-14 google • location • history • maps • wanderings • privacy • tracking
1860 US slavery map
Detailed county-by-county map of enslavement in the United Staets
2023-12-14 history • america • slavery • maps
LLM sizes
Reddit discussion about why AI models are 3b, 7b, 13b, etc. The answer is not as precise as I'd hoped!
2023-12-13 llm • ai • localllama • machinelearning • gpu • hardware
23andMe legal scam
Company that lost all its customers genetic data to hackers now trying to force everyone into a legal agreement not to sue
2023-12-12 23andme • privacy • dna • genetics
Fritz Bauer vs Nazis
Interesting short history of a German judge who without unauthorization helped Israeli intelligence capture Nazi war criminals
2023-12-12 history • lgbt • germany • nazi • holocaust • justice
Beeper Mini Is Back
Unauthorized iMessage client is back and working... for now
2023-12-11 beeper • imessage • apple • armsrace • lockin • proprietary • messaging
restic backups
Modern backup software with snapshots
2023-12-11 backup • restic • data • recovery • sysadmin • linux
National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure update
Biden administration project to build EV chargers around the US is going slowly
2023-12-11 evs • cars • infrastructure • biden • politics • charging
omg.lol
An oasis of fun chill people on the Internet
2023-12-10 web • culture • tilde • via:hackernews • mastodon • community • hacking
Volvo OrBit
Hack your car's firmware if you are very brave
2023-12-08 volvo • cars • orbit • hacking • evs • aaos
Origins of the steam engine
Simple graphical models of early experiments with varying pressure and heat
2023-12-07 engines • engineering • demo • steam • steampower • history • science
48V cars
Tesla encourages other car makers to use higher voltage in the car's electrical systems
2023-12-07 cars • tesla • 48v • voltage • power • evs
AudioWagon
An Android Automotive app for playing music from a USB drive
2023-12-07 music • car • aaos • android • app • usb
Krispy Kreme in Paris
Finally a place to get a decent pastry in Paris. At Les Halles, no less.
2023-12-07 paris • food • america • fastfood • donuts
AOL/MSN Chat Wars
The debacle of 1990s text message interoperation
2023-12-06 aol • msn • microsoft • chat • instantmessaging • sms • text • aim • messenger
LogoFAIL
The secure boot nonsense we've been crippling our computers with for 10+ years doesn't provide security because they decode marketing images with garbage code
2023-12-06 security • secureboot • uefi • firmware • hack • badtech
Phonestheme
Groups of words with the same phoneme that have a common meaning or sense. Ie: slick / slide / slither / slog
2023-12-06 language • phoneme • phonology • etymology • linguistics • onomatopoeia
Apple MLX
Programming framework for machine learning on Apple hardware
2023-12-06 apple • ai • ml • machinelearning • cuda • metal
Korean bandwidth fees
ISPs in Korea can charge content sites like Netflix for bandwidth. Twitch just shut down over this.
2023-12-06 korea • southkorea • internet • isp • fees • bandwidth • twitch • netflix
Why Clojure?
Jepsen, the database testing tool, is written in a Lisp variant
2023-12-05 programming • java • lisp • jepsen • clojure • concurrency
Top 50 games
More thoughtful than the usual, an end of year best of list from Polygon
2023-12-05 games • bestof • 2023 • reviews • via:mhoye
Against The Storm review
Excellent city builder game is coming out of Early Access, gets a glowing review
2023-12-05 games • roguelite • citybuilder • againstthestorm • pc • steam
Hertz vs Tesla
Bummer news; rental EVs aren't working out very well economically
2023-12-04 tesla • hertz • electrify • cars • evs
Carbon capture update
Helpful overview of the economic state of the carbon direct removal business. (Still basically non-existent, but with a plausible path forward if the tech works.)
2023-12-04 globalwarming • carboncapture • orca • carbon • business • startups
DC only UPS
Battery backup for devices that take DC power: USB, routers, etc
2023-12-03 ups • power • battery • backup • usb
Solar geoengineering
Update on the taboo technology; more folks are talking about it possibly being necessary. Also lots of skepticism.
2023-12-02 climatechange • geoengineering • solardimming • climate • cop28
Cody Dock Rolling Bridge
Whimsical approach to a drawbridge; rolls 180 degrees to allow boats to pass underneath
2023-12-02 architecture • design • bridge • uk
Facebook donation fees
Disappointing; Facebook used to cover the transaction cost of charitable donations
2023-12-01 chartity • facebook • donation • creditcard • fee • nonprofit
Plex privacy mess
Details of the UI dark pattern that tricked users into sharing their watch history
2023-12-01 plex • privacy • tv • video • darkpattern • ui • consent