Nelson's Linkblog

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Francis Williams painting

Extraordinary art history study of a painting of a Black Jamaican man from the 18th century

2024-11-20 via:metafilter • art • arthistory • jamaica • haleyscomet

The Platonic Blow

W.H. Auden's 1948 gay erotic poem. NSFW.

2024-11-20 gay • lgbt • auden • poetry • 1940s • erotic

Fun new Bluesky firehose visualization

2024-11-19 bluesky • visualization • emoji • via:waxy

Bantam Tools Artframe

New computer controlled plotter with a fully controllable z-axis so you can use paint, variable pressure on pens, etc

2024-11-19 plotter • plotterart • computers • emsl • bantamtools

Using OSM vector tiles

Exciting news, vector tile data is live from OpenStreetMap!

2024-11-19 maps • via:hackernews • vectortiles • programming

Starlink sold out

Parts of the western US have a waitlist to get Starlink service again

2024-11-19 starlink • internet • isp • broadband • congestion

Fine-tuning LLMs at home

Surprisingly technical article on how you can customize a Llama model to your specifciations

2024-11-19 ai • llm • training • lora • llama

Bluesky starter packs

Third party site with a database of 52,000 starter packs

2024-11-19 bluesky • socialmedia • starterpack

New global warming emissions dashboard from Planet Labs imagery of methane, etc

2024-11-18 globalwarming • data • maps • carbonmapper • planetlabs • satellites • methane

Love, Acceptance, and Screeching Modems

Notes on early LGBT community online, including my old home of soc.motss

2024-11-17 gay • lgbt • history • socmotss • motss • bbs

Voyager 1 backup radio

After partial failure a radio makes its first transmission in 43 years

2024-11-17 space • voyager • resilience • engineering • via:hackernews • satellite

Butt interview with an activist in the nation of Georgia. (One mild NSFW picture.)

2024-11-17 gay • lgbt • georgia • tblisi • sex • nsfw

Usenet feed growth

Usenet still exists and lately the amount of traffic is growing enormously

2024-11-17 usenet • networking • socialmedia • scene • nzb

Methane mapping

Fighting climate change with Planet Labs satellites detecting methane emissions

2024-11-17 methane • globalwarming • satellite • remotesensing • planetlabs • environment

City99 console font

A creative new programming font inspired by the aesthetics of the game Stray

2024-11-17 fonts • console • fixedwidth • stray • mhoye

Lorraine Gervais

Local singer in Grass Valley, also an ally to LGBTQ youth and just a lovely person

2024-11-16 lorrainegervais • music • grassvalley • nevadacounty • ally • lgbt

A "show me top links" based on your Mastodon and Bluesky feeds

2024-11-16 bluesky • mastodon • linkblog • links • via:waxy

Justin's Linklog

Details on how a linkblog is implemented

2024-11-16 jmason • linkblog • blogging • pinboard

Thune 2004 blog campaign

Interesting story of Republican strategists starting a deceptive pair of blogs to influence local newspaper coverage

2024-11-16 politics • uspol • southdakota • thune • blogs • socialmedia

Open source garage door

Radio receiver for $50 is open

2024-11-15 via:hackernews • home • opensource • garage • garagedoor • radio • remote

NZ parliament protest

Te Pāti Māori interrupts a vote on an anti-Māori bill

2024-11-14 newzealand • kiwi • maori • nz • parliament • protest

A tool kind of like rsync but using ZFS snapshots and other features to manage files

2024-11-13 zfs • filesystem • rsync • sysadmin

BenQ Programming Monitor

The coding marketing is silly but a high quality display with extra features like a KVM seems really nice

2024-11-13 monitor • display • programming • hardware • pc

California slow vote counting

Detailed explanation of why California takes so long to count ballots

2024-11-12 california • politics • voting • votingrights • elections

Sand pile visuazliation

2024 election voting depicted as piles of grains of sand, effective at showing individual and collective

2024-11-12 datavis • visualization • uspol • via:flowingdata • politics

A popular RSS feed reader

2024-11-12 rss • atom • feedreader • reader • feedly • software

The Animal in Decorative Art

Remarkable 1896 book of art prints

2024-11-12 art • design • animals • via:bookscout • 1890s

A feature rich background noise generator, makes calm sounds of rain or quiet conversation or other sonic wallpaper

2024-11-11 noise • background • audio • whitenoise • rainfall • generator

Criterion Collection Supercut

1 second from every prestige film remastered by Criterion

2024-11-11 movies • criterion • supercut • via:metafilter • film

A simple framework for hosting bots on the Fediverse

2024-11-10 bots • activitypub • mastodon • rss • socialmedia

Chair causes display failure

Weird phenomenon: gas lift chairs generate an EMI speak when you sit or stand which can cause a monitor to momentarily blank out

2024-11-10 electricity • static • emi • chair • monitor

Bizarre oil platform city in the middle of the Caspian Sea

2024-11-10 via:hackernews • caspiansea • azerbaijan • soviet • oil • architecture

Self-hosted Bluesky

Most of the components in the social media system are federated, except the view application

2024-11-08 bluesky • bsky • hosting • fediverse • federation

Red crab migration

Wacky natural phenomenon, kind of slowly creepy

2024-11-08 nature • christmasisland • crabs • via:metafilter • migration

Shaunda Shane, skater

Sweet story of tracking down someone from a fantastic 1979 photo

2024-11-05 photos • fayetteville • skating • skateboard • skate • tonyhawk

curl -v https://google.com

HTTPS as metal song

2024-11-05 funny • internet • protocols • http • tls • html • metal • music

Anbernic RG35XX charging

The bizarre USB-C behavior of a popular Chinese handheld gaming / emulation console

2024-11-03 usb • usbc • charging • usbpd • anbernic • rg35xx

MacOS vs. software

Reports that MacOS 15.1 now *requires* applications be signed to be runnable. End of Macs as general purpose computing?

2024-11-02 apple • macos • security • antitrust • signature • badtech

Bridgy Fed future

Ryan considers options for the future of a useful bit of social media glue

2024-11-01 ryan • mastodon • bluesky • threads • fediverse • federation • socialmedia • governance

AI slop hoax parade

Thousands turned out in Dublin for a non-existent Hallowe'en parade, a rumor started by AI slop

2024-11-01 dublin • ireland • ai • scam • slop • ads • funny

Appreciation for 1960s Turkey's answer to Liberace

2024-10-31 gay • turkey • culture • lgbt • liberace • music

America PAC abuses

Musk's pay-for-votes PAC also hires people to knock on doors, then abuses them with unsafe rides and threats of non-payment

2024-10-30 musk • elonmusk • politics • trump • uspol • americapac • pac

Fascinating queer person from the early 1900s

2024-10-30 queer • lgbt • genderqueer • history • bahamas • england

Fun etymology for the word for safety covers on electrical switches.

2024-10-30 etymology • words • children • industrial

Old school website / database of people who've flown their single engine planes around the world

2024-10-30 aviation • flying • world • singleengine • batshitinsane • bonanza

Trailer for Queer

William S. Burroughs novel has been made into a film starring Daniel Craig

2024-10-30 movies • gay • lgbt • queer • burroughs • wsb • guadagnino

Texas disenfranchisement

Detailed story of a woman being denied the right to vote because some process decided she was not a citizen

2024-10-29 politics • votingrights • elections • citizenship • texas

RIP botsin.space

Useful Mastodon service for sharing automated posts to the Fediverse is going away

2024-10-29 bots • rss • mastodon • fediverse

Guerilla art mocking the Trump coup attempt

2024-10-28 uspol • politics • funny • satire • poop • jan6 • j6 • trump

Journey to the gold diggins

1849 comic about the Gold Rush. CW: racism

2024-10-27 california • history • graphicnovel • comic • goldrush

The Purely Functional Software Deployment Model

The PhD thesis that's at the core of NixOS

2024-10-27 nixos • research • academic • computerscience • systems • os • nix • phd

Trump and fascism

Careful analysis with many citations about Trump's fascism

2024-10-27 uspol • politics • fascism

Elon Musk worked illegally in the US

Came to the US on a student visa but was never a student, started working instead

2024-10-26 elonmusk • politics • immigration • uspol • hypocrisy • zip2

1619 Project: Visual

Illustrated version of the essential American history book

2024-10-26 history • america • black • africanamerican • slavery • 1619project

Kiribati survival

Wild story of two men surviving 33 days lost at sea

2024-10-25 kiribati • polynesia • pasifika • fishing • boating • survival

Keyboard layouts

Keychron's guides to compact but more or less traditional keyboard layouts

2024-10-25 keyboards • keychron • layout • tenkeyless • typing

Character Amnesia in China

How the prevalence of phonetic written Chinese is causing people to lose their knowledge of brushstroke characters

2024-10-25 chinese • language • linguistics • writing • via:metafilter • culture

Thermoradiative Photovoltaics

Theoretical idea of generating power sort of like a solar cell in reverse

2024-10-23 power • electricity • solar • energy • physics • science

Houston LGBT History

Fun old school website

2024-10-23 houston • history • gay • lgbt • bars

Trump's former right hand man discusses in detail how Trump is fascist and dangerous

2024-10-23 uspol • trump • politics • fascism

Political fundraising fraud

American politicians continue to defraud their donors, exploiting the elderly. The Republicans get 7x as many fraud complaints as the Democrats.

2024-10-22 fraud • via:metafilter • politics • uspol • creditcard • scam

Glitchy art turned into sweaters from Rachel Binx!

2024-10-22 gifts • sweaters • clouds • glitch • plotterart • plotter • binx

How Americans vote

A state-by-state breakdown of voting by mail, early voting, in person voting, etc

2024-10-21 visualization • voting • politics • uspol • america • votingrights

Marissa Mayer interview

Remarkably frank and personal

2024-10-21 google • marissa • marissamayer • feminism • geeks • yahoo

IPv6 Transition

A new state of the Internet post from Geoff Huston

2024-10-20 internet • ipv6 • via:lobsters • addressing • networking

Grass Valley artist, does amazing mixed media sculptures and wearables

2024-10-20 art • grassvalley • sculpture • mythology

Intense animated film about the weird lifecycle of Tears of the Kingdom. Apocalypse Now but with Bokoblin

2024-10-19 movies • via:metafilter • games • totk • zelda

revealing the fediverse's gifts

Erin Kissane on Mastodon community

2024-10-18 mastodon • socialmedia • fediverse • moderation • policy

Tech vs. Apartheid

1980s/90s story of spycraft aiding the ANC in dismantling South Africa's apartheid regime

2024-10-18 via:hackernews • apartheid • encryption • crypto • security • history • southafrica

HP calculator simulator

Nonpariel, high-fidelity simulation of classic scientific and financial calulators

2024-10-18 hp • calculator • emulator • retrocomputing

PikaPods hosting

Managed hosting for a bunch of open source apps. You can run these yourself but if you don't want to bother managing a server it's a cheap alternative

2024-10-18 hosting • docker • apps • server • managed

Self-hosted bookmarks, a Pinboard alternative

2024-10-18 pinboard • bookmarks • linkblog • selfhosting • software

China US immigration

Detailed reporting on the dangerous journey some Chinese take seeking asylum in the US, travelling from Ecuador to the southern US border

2024-10-17 china • politics • us • immigration • america • migration

RIP Ward Christensen

Nice obituary honoring the inventor of the online BBS

2024-10-16 bbs • history • computing • internet • socialmedia • modem • obituary

Chinese numerals

Chinese has a writing system with a character for the number to 10^44. (In modern usage, historical goes to 10^4096).

2024-10-15 numbers • largenumbers • chinese • writing • incrementalgame

List of games of a very specific genre

2024-10-14 games • incremental • idle • clicker

Tempe terrorism

Democratic campaign office has to shut down after being shot up with guns three times

2024-10-13 politics • uspol • terrorism • violence • guns • arizona

325,000 children

Useful background on a Trump lie that gets repeated frequently

2024-10-11 lies • propaganda • politics • uspol • trump • immigration

Open source radio mesh networking for long range usage

2024-10-11 mesh • radio • network • communication • opensource • hacking

US wealth distribution

A visualization on a linear scale

2024-10-10 politics • uspol • inequality • wealth • money • visualization

Nevada County election dashboard

My small California county has a nice online monitor for voting

2024-10-09 elections • politics • votingrights • natalieadona • dashboard • democracy

Ta-Nahesi Coates interview

Excellent Terry Gross / Fresh Air with Coates about his new book on his trips to Senegal and Israel

2024-10-09 interview • politics • israel • slavery • america • journalism • freshair

Winnemucca Pride cancelled

Threats against a small Nevada town Pride celebration

2024-10-05 LGBT • Nevada • winnemucca • Pride • terrorism • threats • politics • uspol

Gay Native Hawaiian movie, modelled after South Korean boy love

2024-10-04 hawai'i • hawaii • movie • gay • lgbt • native • indigenous

Wordpress drama

Harsh conclusion, but summary of the conflict between Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine

2024-09-28 wordpress • business • mullenweg • licensing • trademark

A no bullshit free web map. Ambitious, I hope it succeeds

2024-09-28 maps • openstreetmap • osm • hosting

The leader of the Republican party is hawking cheap knockoff watches

2024-09-28 watch • trump • tacky • china • scam • dignity • uspol • politics

American friend of mine reports on news from Papua New Guinea, intense violence in Enga province and its valuable gold mine

2024-09-27 png • papuanewguinea • porgera • enga • gold • mining • violence

Indie Wiki Buddy

Browser extension to help you find good wikis instead of SEO spam sites like Fandom

2024-09-22 wiki • games • fandom • wikigg • browser • extension

Starlink research

Academic in Victoria, BC studies Starlink as a user

2024-09-22 starlink • networking • research • satellite

qntm pubishing deal

"There is No Antimemetics Division" is one of the most interesting sci-fi novels I've read in the last 5 years. He's got a publishing deal now and is doing a rewrite.

2024-09-22 qntm • books • publishing • scp • antimemetics

SF homeless shelters

Detailed and insightful stories of homeless people in SF and their relationships with shelters

2024-09-21 sanfrancisco • homelessness • sf • shelter • humanrights

We Were Illegal

Interview with the author of their family's history in Texas

2024-09-21 texas • history • crt • immigration • politics • mythology

485M year climate record

New science about Earth's temperature at a geologic scale

2024-09-21 globalwarming • climatechange • climate • science • paleontology • history

Project Skydrop

Game conceptualist Jason Rohrer has created a real life treasure hunt, having hidden a gold trophy in the woods somewhere

2024-09-20 games • treasure • map • rohrer • gold

US presidential elections

Detailed piece on how weird America's election is and what all could go wrong in 2024 as the Republicans try to subvert it

2024-09-18 politics • gop • republicans • trump • elections • votingrights • uspol

Rowboat data explorer

Fathom launches a tool for making sense of tabular data

2024-09-17 excel • csv • datasette • datascience • analysis • fathom

Mozilla Mastodon shutdown

mozilla.social is going away dec 17

2024-09-17 mozilla • firefox • mastodon • socialmedia • fediverse

Starlink offers NTP

GPS time from the dish at stratum 1

2024-09-17 starlink • gps • time • ntp • synchronization

Interesting engineering hero story for a NASA spacecraft

2024-09-17 nasa • engineering • europa • jupiter • mosfet • radiation • transistor • electronics