Nelson's Linkblog 2025-08

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Volvo software bugs

Article about the terrible state of Volvo's EV cars software. My C40 is very disappointing

2025-08-31 volvo • cars • engineering • quality • bugs • software • evs

The Windows open source screenshot tool finally got new releases after many years

2025-08-30 screenshot • windows • utility • ocr • capture

Spy vs Spy Apple ][

Classic videogame, innovative split screen multiplayer

2025-08-29 games • spyvsspy • apple • retrogaming

A new diet tracker / food journal, this one has the ability to log food by simply taking a photo of it

2025-08-28 food • macros • diet • cronometer • tracking • diary • apps • android

Typepad shutting down

One of the old school blog platforms, it'd been pretty moribund for the last few years and is now closing

2025-08-27 typepad • shutdown • blogs • anildash • sixapart • weblogs

The New Life chapter 1

NSFW, porny text. Newish gay novel, I quite enjoyed the writing in this first chapter.

2025-08-27 books • gay • lgbt • tomcrewe • porn • nsfw • sex • frottage

Bounce social media tool

New service to help move followers between Bluesky, Mastodon, and Pixelfed

2025-08-26 fediverse • bluesky • mastodon • socialmedia • friends • freedom

Sub-millisecond time

Detailed experiments of trying to push the limits of time synchronization on Linux on commodity hardware. <1ms is easy, 20-60ns may be a practical limit

2025-08-26 linux • ntp • ptp • time • synchronization

Software package manager like Python's uv, but for Ruby

2025-08-26 ruby • python • software • programming • uv

Grinding the Bay Bridge

Skydiver maneuvers parachute to let him grind the cable on top of the Bay Bridge

2025-08-26 awesome • redbull • stunt • skydiving • xtreeeem • sanfrancisco • baybridge

Android lockdown

Google is threatening to make it much harder to sideload apps outside their ecosystem

2025-08-25 google • android • lockdown • jailbreak • opensource

MetaFilter activity stats

Disheartening statistics from an older online social community

2025-08-24 metafilter • stats • growth • death • socialmedia • forum

Build Factorio factories with Lean code, compile to blueprints of belts and machines

2025-08-24 games • factorio • programming • batshitinsane • functional • lean

A new 64 bit number to use as constants

2025-08-22 funny • acab • 8647 • politics • uspol • trump • deadbeef • cafebabe

Peter Thiel lectures on The Antichrist

Takes one to know one

2025-08-22 thiel • christianity • politics • fascism • hate

Google AI energy

Detailed report on how much energy their AI systems use

2025-08-21 ai • energy • google • scaling • datacenter • llm

NCHS online archive

A nonprofit I've helped with a little has digitized records and put them online

2025-08-20 nevadacounty • nchs • archive • history • search • photos • california

Starlink stupidity

Musk trying to use the political influence he bought to undercut broadband expansion in favor of his useful but not sufficient alternative

2025-08-19 politics • starlink • spacex • elonmusk • corruption • broadband • fcc

SF Leather district

San Francisco has created a formal cultural district for Leather & LGBTQ culture

2025-08-19 leather • folsom • gay • lgbt • bdsm • kink • sanfrancisco

Android hackery: open source software that pairs with various fitness trackers, headphones, etc so you can use the devices without the vendor's software

2025-08-18 android • hacking • fitness • tracker • privacy • watch

"Private and Uncensored", I think the porn world uses this?

2025-08-18 ai • llm • porn • generator

auth-results@verifier.port25.com will reply to an email telling you if it was delivered and with details of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.

2025-08-17 email • testing • smtp • spam • tools

check-auth@verifier.port25.com will reply to an email telling you if it was delivered and with details of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, etc.

2025-08-17 email • testing • smtp • spam • tools

New derogatory slang for AIs and bots online

2025-08-16 language • ai • culture • bots • spam

Facebook friends feed

Facebook has a feature to just show you posts from your friends

2025-08-15 facebook • friends • socialmedia • filter • ads

An app for running LLMs on iOS

2025-08-15 ai • llm • ios • apple • iphone • app

An Android app for running LLMs locally on your phone

2025-08-15 android • ai • llm • phone • app

Google released a new LLM that is very very small and intended as a building block for your own tuned systems

2025-08-14 gemma • google • ai • llm • hacking • simonw • fun

Wplace - Paint the world

Web game where people draw pixel art on the world map

2025-08-14 maps • games • multiplayer • place

A storygame platform using AI and well known books

2025-08-13 ai • games • reading • vampires • startup

Company is starting a commercial package repository as an alternative to PyPI

2025-08-13 pypi • python • pyx • vc • astral • uv

Code comparison tool that understands programming language structure instead of just giving line or word diffs

2025-08-13 programming • diff • git • change • coding

A programming library for syncing state between multiple instances. Sort of like git or syncthing, but designed for embedding

2025-08-13 programming • sync • syncthing • git • crdt • library

The Nazi abuse of justice, a second legal system for victims allowed most Germans to live ordinary lives. The US is establishing something similar.

2025-08-13 fascism • trump • politics • uspol • nazi • german • history

A privacy-oriented RAG + LLM toolkit in Python, for building custom AI stuff that you can run locally

2025-08-12 llm • ai • rag • query • python • programming

git manpage generator

A parody, something generating plausible but fictional documentation for git

2025-08-12 funny • git • dvcs • vcs • unix • documentation

You Got the Power

A 2000 magazine article about my startup

2025-08-11 popularpower • me • nelson • marc • computing • startup

Experienced engineer wondering why the latest AI integration stuff ignores 40+ years of expertise in distributed systems

2025-08-11 ai • llm • mcp • programming • rpc • distributed

WordPress asset leaking

It's easy to download any asset uploaded to WordPress, even if it's not published

2025-08-11 security • wordpress • scraping • privacy

America's most popular dial-up ISP is shutting down dial-up service

2025-08-10 aol • history • internet • dialup • modem

Directory of Retrieval-Augmented Generation tools for AI work

2025-08-10 ai • llm • rag • retrieval • search

RIP Chromebook Steam

Google removes the popular gaming option for Chromebooks. A whole lot of schoolkids are going to be devastated

2025-08-09 gaming • chromeos • chromebook • steam • google • games

Tiny electric jet boat

Weird EV from China, goes 30mph and fits in a car

2025-08-09 boats • evs • electricvehicles • china

Netnews: The Origin Story

Steve Bellovin's paper about the beginning of Usenet

2025-08-08 internet • usenet • netnews • history • socialmedia

The Human Line Project

A group providing support to people who have had mental health problems as a result of talking to AI

2025-08-08 llm • chatgpt • mentalhealth • ai

SimonW on GPT-5

Analysis from an expert

2025-08-07 ai • openal • llm • chatgpt • gpt5 • simonw

Introducing GPT-5

Details of OpenAI's new LLM release. It's better at lots of things, they say, and a big emphasis on agentic stuff

2025-08-07 ai • llm • openai

Women's health privacy violation

Meta and Google were buying private information from Flo Health in their advertising systems, learning things like which women were trying to get pregnant

2025-08-07 privacy • health • women • menstruation • facebook • meta • google • ads • surveillance

Home battery power plant

Batteries installed in people's homes participated in an experiment to provide significant grid power when needed

2025-08-05 california • electrify • battery • tesla • sunrun • power • pge

Satellite destruction

Trump administration wants to destroy working climate monitoring satellites

2025-08-05 nasa • trump • politics • uspol • vandalism • climatechange • globalwarming • science

Mothership Strategies

Newsletter claiming a lot of fundraising spam is really one company set up for self-enrichment, with less than 2% of donations getting through to campaigns

2025-08-04 uspol • politics • dnc • dccc • fundraising • scam • pac

A version of Wireguard designed to be harder to detect by deep packet inspection

2025-08-04 privacy • vpn • wireguard • networking • internet