Nelson's Linkblog 2010-11

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Django without SQL

Python webapp framework Django has ported its persistence layer to work with Google's AppEngine Datastore and MongoDB, with Cassandra coming. This is a big deal.

2010-11-30 nosql • django • python • appengine • developers • code

Group plans a peer to peer domain name system that can't be shut down

2010-11-30 p2p • dns • internet • bittorrent

Replacement for the ancient, awful console UI in Windows

2010-11-30 windows • software • goodtech • opensource • console • cmd.exe • command.exe

Comments on JSON supplanting XML as the object goo

2010-11-30 xml • json • webservices • html • technology • javascript

3d fanfic movies

One guy working alone makes 3 hours of 3d movie for a fanfic Star Trek story

2010-11-30 fanfic • startrek • animation • movies

Swedish Internet host specializing in "international clients with special needs". Ie: political targets

2010-11-30 hosting • sweden • internet • freespeech

Twitter account of someone who directs DDOS attacks for political purposes

2010-11-30 ddos • internet • tcpip • wikileaks • badtech

Data from the attack suggests 2-4Gbps

2010-11-30 network • tcpip • internet • wikileaks • badtech

New government website for aviation weather. The UI is pretty good, looks actually modern!

2010-11-30 aviation • weather • flying • noaa • nws

WikiLeaks was leaked

NYTimes was not given an advance copy; they were gifted it by the Guardian

2010-11-30 wikileaks • journalism • nytimes • guardian • news

Classic Detroit Grand Pubahs. You can be the bun and I can be the burger, girl

2010-11-29 music • funny • detroitgrandpubahs • electro • sandwiches • wtf

Fun with ham radio

Nice overview of some things you can do with modern amateur radio

2010-11-29 radio • ham • amateur • gprs

Google TCP tweaks

Evidence that Google may be running outside TCP spec to make connections faster

2010-11-29 tcpip • internet • google • speed • standards • congestion

WikiLeaks release

NYT's roundup of what's in the latest bunch of leaked cables

2010-11-28 wikileaks • politics • diplomacy • google • china

What's up on aprs.fi

Singapore swimsuits

Is that an Islamic crescent moon or are you just happy to see me?

2010-11-28 penis • singapore • swimsuits • islam • funny

Great photo series from the extreme northern island

2010-11-28 via:pb • photos • photography • svalbard • norway • frozen • seedbank

Trolling for profit

Turns out you can get Google juice with any sort of link, whether positiev or negative

2010-11-28 fraud • google • seo • eyeglasses

Django in Vista

Great explanation of the hoops you jump through. Main thing is running as Admin to install.

2010-11-27 django • python • windows

Little utility script for extracting pieces from a JSON blob

2010-11-25 json • data • grep • unix • python

Mesoscale analysis

Nice combination of various weather forecasting data in a readable presentation

2010-11-25 weather • aviation • flying • noaa • radar • winds

Archive of prevailing winds all over the US

2010-11-25 weather • climate • wind • windrose • data • flying • aviation • visualization • winds

Fantastic little cartoon

2010-11-25 troll • 4chan • funny

You can buy people's time to solve CAPTCHAs: $0.50 / 1000

2010-11-24 captcha • spam • security • mechanicalturk

Georgia Guidestones

Crazy modern day granite monument of mysterious origin

2010-11-24 arcadefire • georgia • rosicrucians • conspiracy • eugenics

Kirby's Epic Sound

Roundup of music samples from the latest Nintendo Kirby game

2010-11-24 sound • music • games • kirby • wii • nintendo

What Android is

Great explanation of the components in Google's phone OS

2010-11-24 android • google • software • dalvik

Firesheep explained

Good layman's explanation of how insecure the web is

2010-11-23 firesheep • security • badtech • http • cookies

Spike Jonze / The Suburbs

disturbing but excellent video

2010-11-23 war • music • via:kottke • arcadefire • spikejonze

Google App Engine regrets

It's a bit ranty, particularly the comments, but a useful discussion on the good and bad things about Google App Engine

2010-11-23 appengine • hosting • cloud • google • gae

Mod for the interesting but flawed procedural racing game

2010-11-23 games • fuel • mods

White House missiles

Image of a missile launcher on the roof next door to the White House

2010-11-23 security • whitehouse • aviation • missiles

Printing brick roads

Machine lays paved roads and walkways

2010-11-23 construction • bricks • pavers • machinery • holland • dutch

The Moon Museum

Anonymous engineer smuggled some tiny art aboard Apollo 12. Warhol contributed a scribbled penis.

2010-11-22 art • moon • via:metafilter • apollo • grumman • warhol

Great collection of portraits of Lee Harvey Oswald

2010-11-22 jfk • president • murder • assassination • oswald • photos

Glitch Alpha Trailer

New social game from some of the Flickr founders

2010-11-22 games • glitch • stewart • flickr • gne

Tuning Canabalt

great article about game design

2010-11-21 games • canabalt • iphone • tuning • gamedesign

Git branching model

advice on how to use Git to manage software

2010-11-21 coding • software • git • vcs • versioncontrol • processing

Boehner more equal

Incoming Speaker of the House whisked around the TSA security line

2010-11-19 republicans • politics • tsa • airtravel • flying • boehner

Crazily detailed story of a private investigator solving a rape case

2010-11-19 crime • pi • detective • via:kottke

Gear up landing

Ugly to watch this, such a dumb mistake

2010-11-18 airplane • aviation • flying • gearup • accident • cessna

Strange meta-humor about some crazy right wing complaints about NPR

2010-11-18 twitter • npr • funny • politics

the anti-social network

2010-11-18 4chan • moot • facebook • parody

Microloans gone bad

Turns out people want their loans paid back

2010-11-18 money • lending • india • development • microloans • microcredit

As always, Taiwan's finest news animation explains the story

2010-11-17 nma • funny • tsa • privacy • civilrights

jQuery-style XML manipulation in Python

2010-11-17 jquery • python • coding • xml

Javascript to efficiently work around same origin policy by using a variety of transport methods depending on the browser

2010-11-17 badtech • sameoriginpolicy • javascript • web • code • twitter

Eve CPU use over 1.5 years

Great graph of the overall health of the server application

2010-11-16 eve • eveonline • games • ccp • performance • data • statistics

Driving Lubumbashi to Kinshasa

Incredible travelogue of some Belgian tourists driving across Congo. Very long, but great photos and stories

2010-11-16 congo • travel • drc • offroad • via:metafilter • adventure

Facebook messaging criticism

A variety of challenges Facebook is facing in making their Google Wave competitor

2010-11-16 facebook • email • messaging • google • wave

Flickr / Twitter iPhone

Third party solution for posting photos from Twitter iPhone client to Flickr

2010-11-16 flickr • twitter • integration • gdzla • iphone

Free walking tours of San Francisco

2010-11-15 tourism • travel • sanfrancisco • california • guides

Great collection of photos

2010-11-15 islam • muslims • hajj • mecca • photography • photos

Detailed Turing test

Guy plays 2 poker hands / second. PokerStars investigates, and even with someone standing there watching him have a hard time being sure he's human

2010-11-15 poker • via:jwz • turingtest • batshitinsane

Javascript Treemaps that render as simple HTML boxes, not canvas/svg

2010-11-15 treemap • visualization • google • javascript

Chrome binary size

Evan publishes some details about figuring out why the Chrome binary is 28 megs

2010-11-15 chrome • software • google • optimization • treemaps

The Bay Citizen

A new journalism venture in the Bay Area, non-profit. They are syndicated in the New York Times

2010-11-15 nytimes • news • journalism • sanfrancisco • bayarea

A simple message

2010-11-15 tsa • civilrights • security • benfranklin • protest

Pornoscan profits

Profile of who's making money selling the new TSA scanners

2010-11-15 tsa • terrorism • security • privacy • civilrights • corruption • government

Stuxnet's purpose

Detailed analysis of what Stuxnet's sabotage payload actually does. Strongly looks like it's targeted at Iranian centerfuges

2010-11-13 cyberwarfare • badtech • stuxnet • virus • iran

A community's response when a loved member had a serious illness

2010-11-12 mathowie • community • metafilter • internet • twitter

Cute little space invader remix

2010-11-12 games • spaceinvaders

Foreclosure fraud

Taibbi digs deep into the terrible mortgage paperwork banks are trying to foreclose with

2010-11-12 finance • fraud • economy • mortgage

Long profile on the crazy Taiwanese outfit making hilarious animated news interpretations

2010-11-12 china • taiwan • hongkong • news • nma • applenews • nextmedia

Proxy filter for Twitter; strip out tweets you don't want to see

2010-11-11 twitter • spam • proxy • chrome

Simple ambient display; tweets are turned into bird chirps

2010-11-11 visualization • auralization • twitter • raffi • medialab • sound • chirp

Google's Islamic logo

Nutjobs think the Veteran's day logo is somehow an Islamic thing

2010-11-11 google • islam • muslims • prejudice

xkcd discloses the secret password for getting competent tech support

2010-11-11 techsupport • support • customers • service • callcenter • xkcd

Salvaging a PV-2D Harpoon

Mechanic crew finds an old warbird airplane, gets it flying again

2010-11-11 harpoon • warbird • aviation • flying

Rubicon cancelled

Bummer, this was a good show

2010-11-11 rubicon • tv • television • cable • amc

Porting Flickr to YUI3

Crazy detailed Javascript performance notes

2010-11-11 performance • web • http • javascript • yui

US-Sino Currency Rap Battle

NMA comes through again!

2010-11-11 nma • funny • video • currency • g20 • china • via:metafilter

Credit card thief

Portrait of Albert Gonzalez, a prolific fraudster

2010-11-10 crime • hacking • shadowcrew • creditcards

A whole website opposing the new TSA body imaging scnaners

2010-11-10 privacy • civilrights • tsa • airtravel • flying

Digger simulator 2011

There's a whole world of industrial simulation games I know nothing about

2010-11-10 games • digging • bulldozer • steamshovel • simulation

The longest night

Crazy, short story about folks flying a little airplane to Hawai'i and suffering an engine failure, at night, in a rain squall over the Pacific

2010-11-10 aviation • rescue • flying • pacificocean

LA mystery missile

No one is taking responsibility for an unscheduled missile launch just off the California coast

2010-11-09 missile • airspace • california • military

Waterboarding for dummies

Details of how the US tortured prisoners

2010-11-09 warcrimes • torture • iraq • afghanistan • waterboarding • via:metafilter

Chinese crab party

A bit of mild political dissidence in Chine

2010-11-09 via:metafilter • humanrights • civilrights • art • shanghai • beijing • aiweiwei

Facebook ephemera

Field notes about teenagers who use Facebook in an unusual way, not allowing persistent offline updates

2010-11-08 facebook • privacy • social • kids • teenagers

Stack Overflow copy

An entire website is mirroring Stack's content in a license-appropriate way

2010-11-08 copyright • creativecommons • stackexchange

5 torrent records

Largest, oldest, most popular torrent files ever

2010-11-07 via:waxy • bittorrent • torrent • p2p • stats

A new pot dispensary opened in San Francisco, with a fresh, clean approach to marketing

2010-11-06 marijuana • pot • sanfrancisco • drugs • thc

Red Dead Redemption: Far Away

Beautiful song that defines the middle of the game, pl us lots of good in-game footage

2010-11-06 games • rdr • reddead • rockstar • music • western

Wayland architecture

New display server, possibly to replace X in Ubuntu

2010-11-06 display • xwindows • x • ubuntu • linux • graphics • desktop

Kinect teardown

See what's inside Microsoft's new UI device

2010-11-05 kinect • xbox • microsoft • natal • userinterface • hardware

Map Projections

Nice overview of map projection algorithms

2010-11-04 projects • maps • cartography

open source code for simplifying geographic shapefiles

2010-11-04 gis • shapefiles • mapshaper • stamen • code

Top down MMO design

A direct explanation of how to game balance an online RPG

2010-11-04 games • mmos • design • gamebalance

HTTP cookie problems

Thoughtful piece on how a simple protocol went terribly wrong

2010-11-04 security • badtech • http • cookies • internet

This is the scripting language Google uses with MapReduce to do logfile analysis

2010-11-03 awk • perl • python • scripting • unix • mapreduce • google

Genderless baby

Funny spoof animation about Echinacea, who will be loved no matter what he or she turns out to be

2010-11-03 video • gay • parody • lesbian • gender • transgendered • legos

Kenyan homebuilt

Amazing looking plane built from scratch "after Internet research"

2010-11-03 flying • aviation • kenya • africa

Confessions of an Arch wizard

Notes from running an online game in 1991

2010-11-03 games • gamedesign • gamemaster • management • mmos

Luke Perry at DragonCon

2010-11-02 lukeperry • celebrities • dragoncon • via:metafilter

Life on the ISS

Fun piece about life in space

2010-11-02 iss • space • nasa • via:jwz

Downloadable audio tour guides for your iPhone

2010-11-01 iphone • travel • guide

Microsoft online losses

Jaw-dropping chart of how much money Microsoft is losing online. It's a shame, the world needs competition for Google

2010-11-01 microsoft • google • bing • search • finances