Nelson's Linkblog 2012-02

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Magazine for teen girls, suggested as a contemporary version of Sassy

2012-02-25 culture • girls • music • sassy • teenagers

Small plan for free map making with TileMill

2012-02-24 cartography • hosting • maps • service • tilemill

Another web scraping toolkit for Python

2012-02-24 api • code • crawling • python • scraping

Amazing OLED Globe

Geo-Cosmos, a spherical screen

2012-02-24 globe • led • oled • visualization

GOP candidate fabrication

Outrageous distortion of reality by Santorum on euthanasia in Holland

2012-02-24 dutch • euthanasia • gop • holland • lies • politics • santorum

Downton Abbey words

Textual analysis

2012-02-24 downtonabbey • language • tv • words

Personal archiving

Great set of notes on how hard it is to snapshot web pages

2012-02-24 archive • crawling • data • web

Classical music from current composers

2012-02-24 classical • music • streaming

Clever little game

2012-02-23 games • via:waxy

Dropbox Automator

2012-02-23 automation • dropbox

Old Fashioned 101

Make the drink proper

2012-02-23 alcohol • cocktails • culture • food • via:kottke

EFF gets a stupid lawsuit dismissed

2012-02-23 eff • freedom • software • time • timezone • via:hackernews

YouPorn chat logins

Another security breach. Top passwords: 123456 123456789 12345 melinda

2012-02-22 badtech • password • security • via:hackernews • youporn

Inertia nutcracker

Charmingly inept sales video

2012-02-22 nutcracker • nuts • pecans

Ridiculous graph

2012-02-22 github • infovis • via:waxy • wired

Sublime Build 2181

Nice subtle change; better text rendering

2012-02-22 editor • editors • programming • sublimetext • text

Live streaming video camera

2012-02-22 camera • lifestreams • streaming • video

World iPhone notes

Great writeup by Matt on using an unlocked iPhone

2012-02-22 iphone • travel • unlock

"Asia tech news for the world"

2012-02-21 asia • china • internet • startups • tech

Useful to explain to people who don't understand github

2012-02-21 coding • git • github • opensource • vcs

Project it Yourself!

Simple tool for playing with map projections

2012-02-21 cartography • maps • projections

LightSquared roundup

Even-handed summary of the GPS / data conflict

2012-02-21 fcc • gps • lightsquared • spectrum • wireless

LCD test images

Great set of images for seeing LCD performance

2012-02-21 calibrartion • color • lcd • monitor

Google Map Maker vs Open Data

World Bank uses a Google tool which restricts the reuse of gathered data

2012-02-21 cartography • google • maps • opendata

Web based packet analyzer

2012-02-21 ethereal • libpcap • networking • pcap • via:hackernews • wireshark

My Daguerreotype Boyfriend

Early photography meets hotness

2012-02-21 men • photography • photos • portrait

Google bypasses IE cookie settings

May be a simple misunderstanding of P3P, or something more sinister

2012-02-20 cookies • google • msie • p3p • privacy

Dashboard: Graphite + D3 + Backbone

2012-02-20 backbone • d3 • graphene • graphite

Point Roberts, WA

Brief overview of an odd border town

2012-02-19 border • canada • portroberts • washington

Highly efficient user-space raw access to network drivers

2012-02-19 networking • performance • saturation

key-based cache expiration

Interesting: never change the value of a cache entry, just the key

2012-02-19 caching • performance • ruby • via:hackernews

Weather forecast accuracy

Analysis of forecast vs. actual weather

2012-02-18 data • forecasting • sanfrancisco • weather

Cocoa HTTP Client

Like wget or curl, but with a GUI for building complex HTTP requests

2012-02-18 debugging • http • software • tool • web

Simple grid based window manager

2012-02-18 mac • macos • windows • wm

Soren Johnson on board games

Notable computer game designer's picks for board games

2012-02-17 boardgames • civilization • game • sorenjohnson

NYT victory over Apple

Finally a newspaper does actual journalism instead of just repeating a company's PR

2012-02-17 apple • journalism • nyt • nytimes

People with HIV depicted on postage stamps

2012-02-17 aids • postage • postal • stamps • via:metafilter

1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

"The cull and the mort are at clicket in the dyke"

2012-02-17 cant • dictionary • history • language • slang

Harry Street SF, CA

Crazy wooden stairway is officially a city street, complete with houses.

2012-02-16 sanfrancisco • stairway • walking

Hands on with Gatekeeper

Details on Apple's new locking down of applications on MacOS

2012-02-16 apple • freedom • gatekeeper • licensing • mac

Patent troll trolls

Unsurprisingly, Intellectual Ventures claims a monopoly on various essential mobile telecom technologies

2012-02-16 intellectualventures • mobile • myhrvold • patents • trolls

Mac sandbox problems

New app store model is too restrictive

2012-02-16 apple • mac • macos • sandbox • security • usability

Bowie movie posters

Some pretty great photoshop

2012-02-16 bowie • davidbowie • funny • movies • photoshop

Conceptual project of a virtual airship adrift with the winds

2012-02-16 art • aviation • maps • twitter • via:waxy

Pilot / photographer

2012-02-16 aerial • art • aviation • flying • photography • photos

A CDN for lesser known Javascript libraries

2012-02-16 cdn • hosting • javascript • optimization

LeFrench Mobile

Prepaid SIM option for travellers to France

2012-02-15 cellular • france • gsm • mobile

Microblogs in China

How Twitter-like services are breaking down secrecy in China

2012-02-15 china • freedom • twitter • web • weibo

Andy Baio's awesome web-hosted interactive fiction system

2012-02-15 adventures • games • infocom • inform • interactivefiction

Club Bing closing

Microsoft finally shuts down their embarassing pay-for-searches program

2012-02-15 bing • marketing • microsoft • promotion

Arty visualization of a user's habits at the keyboard

2012-02-15 d3 • infovis • keyboard • presence • visualization

Benchmark DNS servers

2012-02-15 benchmark • dns • internet • optimization • speed

Google DNS stats

800,000 queries / second. It's a great service.

2012-02-14 dns • google • performance • stats

PHP Horde backdoored

ugly; for months they were distributing a Trojaned version of the PHP framework

2012-02-14 backdoor • badtech • horde • php • security • trojan • via:hackernews

Facebook's romance graph

Info on dating relationships, frustratingly limited view

2012-02-14 facebook • relationships • romance

Project development for Stamen's recent demographics map in Esquire

2012-02-14 design • maps • process • stamen

Funny memeish thing

2012-02-14 funny • sanfrancisco • whereilive

Silicon cesspool

Why Arrington and Siegler are hopelessly compromised as journalists

2012-02-13 crunchfund • sleaze • techcrunch • via:hackernews

A simple Alfred extension for rating music in iTunes

2012-02-13 alfred • applescript • itunes

Tumblr architecture

Lots of technical details

2012-02-13 architecture • development • finagle • scalability • tumblr • via:hackernews

Realm of the Mad God interview

Talking to the developers of the indie game

2012-02-13 games • indie • mmos • rotmg

Web performance golden rule

Most of the time is spent in the brower loading assets

2012-02-13 browser • http • optimization • speed • webapp

A roundup of all the process innovations at Etsy

2012-02-13 culture • development • engineering • etsy • programming • startups

Microsoft plaintext passwords

Microsoft site was hacked, jackasses didn't encrypt the passwords

2012-02-12 badtech • microsoft • passwords • security

Renders OSM maps entirely in Javascript, using HTML canvas

2012-02-12 canvas • gis • javascript • mapping • maps • openstreetmaps • osm

A weekly board / card gaming group

2012-02-11 boardgames • games • sanfrancisco

Halftime satanic ritual

Deconstruction of Madonna's Super Bowl performance

2012-02-11 batshitinsane • madonna • satan • via:metafilter

Coding: college vs real

Funny because it's true

2012-02-11 funny • programming • school • via:stellario

RunwayFinder Shutting Down

What a shame: a great aviation site is closing

2012-02-10 aviation • charts • maps • pilot • runwayfinder

Landing on a dirigible

1930s video of Sparrowhawks catching the trapeze on the USS Macon

2012-02-10 1930s • airship • aviation • dirigible • flying • navy • ussmacon • zeppelin

F9C Sparrowhawk

A tiny biplane meant to be launched from a dirigible

2012-02-10 airship • aviation • dirigible • flying

Eve time dilation

Stats on their technique of slowing down game time when it gets busy

2012-02-09 eveonline • games • mmo • optimization • performance

SSL certificate that let an unnamed customer impersonate any site on the internet

2012-02-09 badtech • security • ssl • trustwave

MapReduce Patterns

Great little summary of useful algorithms

2012-02-09 computation • hadoop • mapreduce • performance • via:hackernews

Inside Instagram

Nice profile of the startup

2012-02-09 instagram • startup • twitter

In 1962, the Mansfield, Ohio police filmed men having sex in a public restroom. Here is the film.

2012-02-09 cruising • gay • mansfield • ohio • sex • tearoom

A re-introduction to JavaScript

I love this kind of high level overview of a programming language

2012-02-09 code • javascript • programming • via:hackernews

A simple note taking app, based on Notational Velocity

2012-02-09 evernote • mac • macos • notes • osx

Beautiful D3 demo, a fancy word cloud layout

2012-02-09 d3 • javascript • tagcloud • tags • wordcloud • words

Lovely ascii animation

2012-02-08 animation • design • hack • javascript • via:twitter

Super Bowl ads on Twitter

Measure of engagement

2012-02-08 ads • socialmedia • twitter • via:hackernews

OpenPhoto on BrowserID

An endorsement from a real site

2012-02-07 authentication • browserid • identity • openid • openphoto • photos

A product for sharing photos that you manage hosting for yourself

2012-02-07 cloud • flickr • photography • photos • s3

HTTP debugging tool that understands ssl

2012-02-07 code • debugging • http • proxy • ssl • via:onethingwell

Chrome gives up on CRLs

A key Web security mechanism is a failure

2012-02-07 certifications • chrome • crl • google • revocation • security • ssl

Story of Temple Run

Great interview with an iOS game success

2012-02-07 games • imangi • ios • iphone • startups • templerun

Etsy: Direct Checkout

Payment options other than PayPal on everyone's favorite online store

2012-02-07 creditcard • etsy • payments • paypal • startup

Linux power saving fix

Long standing power management kernel problem now fixed

2012-02-07 acpi • linux • power • watts

Decent vs. Indecent

Commentary on MIA's silly stunt

2012-02-07 hypocrisy • mia • music • stupid • superbowl

Facebook RSU taxes

Employee stock taxed as income, not long term capital gains

2012-02-07 facebook • rsu • stock • taxes

Bob Marley: Judge Not

His first song, recorded ~50 years ago when he was 17

2012-02-06 bobmarley • jamaica • music • reggae

Map overlays for Google Earth

Load Google street maps, Bing terrain maps, etc on Google Earth. Some render bugs in GE.

2012-02-05 googleearth • mapping • maps • openstreetmap • osm • render

Nevada votes, in real time, via Twitter

2012-02-04 elections • politics • realtime • twitter • votes

Zuckerberg's personal tax

He didn't early exercise his Facebook options?! Also corporate tax shenanigans

2012-02-04 facebook • isos • options • taxes • zuckerberg

A player piano test reel

2012-02-04 automation • music • playerpiano • via:neatorama

Я больше не люблю Google

A Ukrainian site linked my blog post about Google

2012-02-03 cyrillic • google • russian • ukranian

Large git repos

Some statistics from a synthetic test at Facebook

2012-02-03 facebook • git • performance • via:hackernews

Mobile phone market

Apple takes a lot of revenue but even more profit

2012-02-03 apple • iphone • market • statistics

Google's statistics on web page encodings

2012-02-03 encodings • google • stats • unicode • utf8

Slab City Stories

Kickstarter project to do a multimedia documentary of the weird SoCal squat

2012-02-03 kickstarter • project • saltonsea • slabcity

Avería, the average font

Synthetic font, actually quite beautiful

2012-02-03 design • fonts • typography • via:waxy

NY beat cop photos

Great photography

2012-02-03 cops • newyork • photography • photos • police • via:metafilter

Marco Arment on Planet Money

Great, short podcast with the Instapaper guy

2012-02-03 business • instapaper • npr • podcast • startup

metadata tool for Apple's .m4a media files

2012-02-02 alac • apple • applelossless • id3 • id3v2 • m4a • metadata • mp3 • mp4 • music • tags

Jeppesen vs. Twitter

Pirated versions of an aviation database apparently get linked on Twitter

2012-02-02 aviation • dmca • jeppesen • piracy • twitter

Twitter DMCA takedowns

Nice picture of who is censoring Twitter in the US

2012-02-02 censorship • eff • media • movies • twitter

VeriSign security fraud

Company has hidden how many times they've been hacked

2012-02-02 badtech • fraud • security • verisign

In defense of vi

I never understood why people like vi; this helps

2012-02-02 editors • programming • ui • userinterface • vi • via:hackernews

mod_pagespeed filters

List of HTTP server tricks Google recommends for faster Web

2012-02-02 http • mod_pagespeed • optimization • pagespeed • performance • web

Live Tweets of the Nevada primary vote count

2012-02-01 news • politics • twitter

Before Watchmen

DC is going there.

2012-02-01 alanmoore • comics • watchmen

Bootstrap Buttons

Little CSS generation tool for Twitter's HTML UI toolkit

2012-02-01 css • html • twitter

Tracks Facebook and iOS app popularity

2012-02-01 apple • facebook • ios • iphone • market • statistics