Nelson's Linkblog 2011-08

about • archive • mastodon • feed

User space filesystem for the Mac is in a bit of flux

2011-08-31 fuse • macfuse • filesystem • macos • opensource

Virtual machine images for versions of Internet Explorer

2011-08-31 vhd • vm • virtualbox • browser • msie • windows

More DigiNotar hacks

The Dutch CA has been compromised for two years?!

2011-08-31 Badtech • ssl • hacks

Memory price graph

Note the logarithmic price axis

2011-08-31 memory • mooreslaw • ram

SSL design problems

Detailed analysis and some insights into a solution

2011-08-30 ssl • web • security • badtech

Simple directory of operating systems you can boot from CD/USB

2011-08-30 linux • livecd • iso • software • sysadmin

Eve market data

The online game with the most robust economy is releasing data for study

2011-08-30 games • eve • eveonline • ccp • market • economics • database

Linux retrospective

Nice piece on 20 years of Linux history

2011-08-30 linux • history • opensource • unix

Lovely, depressing little Flash art game

2011-08-30 games • elderly • old • loneliness • flash

Simple map showing the addition of Wikipedia articles

2011-08-30 wikipedia • maps • triposo • douweosinga

Elsevier shilling

Fraud from the scientific publisher: they had entire fake journals promoting pharmaceutical companies

2011-08-30 elsevier • publishing • fraud • academics • merck • science

SF cable car history

Map showing all the old routes; used to run down Castro, Valencia, and Howard!

2011-08-30 sf • sanfrancisco • transit • cablecar

One entrepreneur's very detailed story of trying to raise a significant funding round

2011-08-29 vc • financing • venturecapital • entrpreneurs • startups • seomoz

Iran attacking Gmail?

Claim there's a rogue SSL certificate allowing man in the middle attacks

2011-08-29 security • badtech • iran • google • gmail • ssl

Minecraft vs Steam

Notch says they don't distribute via Steam because Valve places too many restrictions on developers

2011-08-29 steam • minecraft • valve • ea • games • business

Microsoft UI mess

Scathing counter-interpretation of Microsoft's UI stats

2011-08-29 microsoft • ui • hci • design

Big Apple open source project, a new and better compiler

2011-08-29 compilers • clang • c++ • objc • programming • llvm • opensource • c

Apple open source

Detailed list of Apple's open source packages, one stop download site.

2011-08-29 apple • opensource • code • programming • macosx

Payment company is going mainstream. Nice set of usage maps

2011-08-29 maps • square • data • payments • startups

SWIG complexity

A poetic declaration on the complexities of C++

2011-08-29 programming • code • badtech • python • swig • c++

Amusing article about how to make counterfeit gold bars

2011-08-29 counterfeit • tungsten • gold • funny

Nice iOS game, now for Mac and Windows too

2011-08-28 games • mac • windows • ios • roguelike • retro

Zite interest map

Breaks down what people in every state are interested in reading about

2011-08-28 culture • usa • map • zite • magazine

Deus Ex versions

Detailed tech comparison of consoles and PC versions

2011-08-28 games • deusex

Nice simple map of just hurricane tracks

2011-08-28 weather • hurricanes • irene

A simple HTTP log analysis program. Seems pretty good

2011-08-28 via:mattc • visitors • apache • httpd • access_log

Apple and open source

Nice rundown of all the open source built into Apple's products. It's a shame they don't contribute much open code back.

2011-08-28 apple • opensource • bsd

Making "Industrial Revolutions"

The story behind the lovely bike stunt video

2011-08-27 bikes • bicycles • stunt • video • film

RSA Hack payload

Flash: is there nothing it can't do?

2011-08-26 security • badtech • flash • adobe • rsa • china

@joshu's new project, a social site for getting help from others

2011-08-26 jig • twitter • social • joshshachter • delicious • memepool

Stream name map

Beautiful map plotting the generic names stream, slough, arroyo, etc in the US

2011-08-26 maps • us • language • stream • river

Steve Jobs’ Patents

Nice visualization of 313 patents with Jobs' name on them.

2011-08-26 patents • jobs • apple • nytimes • stevejobs

Earthquake tweets

Nice animated map by Eric Fisher

2011-08-26 ericfisher • maps • visualization • twitter • earthquake

Slide + Google failure

Only a one year lockup? Wow

2011-08-26 google • acquisition • slide • maxlevchin • paypal

Animated GIF attack

2011-08-25 corgi • dog • gif • tetherball

A user-written tutorial for the Javascript library

2011-08-25 javascript • d3 • code • programming • tutorials

Earthquake tweet map

Animation of the spread of tweets about the Virginia quake

2011-08-24 earthquake • virginia • visualization • twitter

Top 1000 web sites

Google's ad-oriented list of top web properties. Data seems to come from their own sources.

2011-08-24 google • ads • data • websites • metrics

MacRuby on iOS 5?

Not sure if there's a better source of info on this

2011-08-24 macruby • ruby • apple • iphone • ios • development

STM with students

User study of software transactional memory; programming students found it hard but wrote better code

2011-08-24 stm • locking • threads • programming

Take a GPS track and look up the elevation profile

2011-08-24 python • code • gpx • geohacking • srtm • elevation

nice animated gif

2011-08-24 gif • 4chan • opticalillusion

GameStop is evil

Horrible game retailer is removing coupons for a competitor's product

2011-08-24 games • gamestop • online • consumer

Weird attack: register domain names that are a single cosmic ray bit-flip from well known domains, collect traffic from memory errors

2011-08-24 badtech • security • dns • domains

Aporkalypse tour

Video showing off the Minecraft server I play on

2011-08-24 games • minecraft • metafilter • mefightclub

Lynda Barry tumblr

The beloved cartoonist has a tumblr of her work!

2011-08-24 erniepook • comeek • lyndabarry

Chinese cyberwar

Chinese military video shows their cyberwar team attacking a Falun Gong site via a US university.

2011-08-24 china • falungong • cyberwar • badtech • hacking

Dragon's Breath

My friend has an app on the app store: helps you know when you have a new move to play in Go

2011-08-24 macos • apps • go • games • dgs

"Google Wave done right". You've gotta give this Y-Combinator startup credit for moxie

2011-08-23 startup • entrepreneur • stypi • wave • googlewave

A proposal for using software transactional memory to do concurrent programming in the new Python VM

2011-08-23 python • concurrency • stm • threading • pypy

Felt the Virginia quake?

USGS has an amazing real-time site where people indicate what they felt

2011-08-23 earthquakes • virginia • nyc • usgs • crowdsourcing

MIT's annual roundup of brilliant young engineers includes moot

2011-08-23 moot • tr35 • mit • techreview • 4chan

Nervous System | Shop

Generative artist makes beautiful fabricated jewelry with algorithmic design

2011-08-23 generative • art • jewelry • gifts

NATO Libya propaganda

Flyers that NATO is dropping over tripoli

2011-08-23 libya • propaganda • tripoli • nato • psyops

Elder Scrolls races

new graphic comparing the games' character design, goes way back

2011-08-22 games • bethesda • skyrim • oblivion • elderscrolls • morrowind • daggerfall • arena • battlespire • via:reddit

Ian Bogost's groundbreaking Cow Clicking game is now a playable Interactive Fiction work

2011-08-21 games • funny • parody • bogost

Tomato connection problem

Since my ISP changed their network around I've been having network trouble. The problem seems to be this.

2011-08-21 network • tomato • firmware • router

HTTP headers for security

Analysis of all the extra headers Google+ sets to increase browser security. Another interpretation is browser security is deeply broken.

2011-08-21 security • http • cookies • browser • xss

MacOS HiDPI mode

Lion contains support for higher DPI screens by letting you double all the pixels, sorta like Retina displays on iOS

2011-08-21 lion • macos • dpi • hidpi • resolution

Twitter web referer

Twitter's t.co redirector means that it's easier to track when web traffic comes from twitter

2011-08-21 twitter • analytics • web • referer

Has anyone really been far even as decided to

use even go wantto do look more like?

2011-08-21 funny • 4chan

2011-08-20 wwf • funny

About Time Machine

details on Apple's backup system

2011-08-20 apple • backups • timemachine • rsnapshot • rsync • macos

Hack utility to let you see what's inside all those Time Machine backups

2011-08-20 timemachine • macos • mac

2011-08-20 ubisoft • drm • games • badtech • funny

Dissent on Google+ nyms

I've been hearing this too: many folks inside Google don't like the policy about pseudonyms

2011-08-20 googleplus • google+ • nyms • anonymity • pseudonyms • freedom

Open source systems

Free book about how various open source sysetms are designed

2011-08-20 opensource • code • architecture

SSD+HDD: a plan

Advice on configuring a system that has both a small SSD and a big spinning hard drive ☃

2011-08-20 mac • macos • ssd

various services; working on putting my linkblog on twitter too

2011-08-20 rss • twitter • integration • facebook • myspace

FBI vs Anonymous

FOIA gives some insight into how FBI investigates hacking

2011-08-19 hacking • fbi • anonymous • security • badtech

Consistently excellent blog of interesting, useful software; mostly Mac stuff

2011-08-19 software • macos

Soviet space watch

Story of the Strela, the Soviet answer to the Omega for astronaut watches

2011-08-19 omega • strela • watches • space • nasa • watch

Stamen: The World

Design firm worked for National Geographic to make a map viewer for ipad

2011-08-19 maps • stamen • design • nationalgeographic

Glue between Python and Applescript

2011-08-19 macos • apple • python • applescript

Story of a lone assassin who almost killed Hitler with a bomb

2011-08-18 germany • assassination • hitler • history • ww2

Stats on web site tech

2011-08-18 web • http

Funny clickthrough license agreement, wonder if it's real?

2011-08-18 funny • license • clickthrough

Web malware trends

Interesting set of statistics from Google

2011-08-18 badtech • malware • research • security • google

C.H.U.N.K. 666 Outing

Portland's original post-apocalyptic bike gang goes amphib

2011-08-17 portland • bicycles

Tom Waits / Cookie Monster

2011-08-17 via:metafilter • music • mashup • muppets

Wingsuit BASE jump

Lovely filming of anticipation

2011-08-17 wingsuit • basejump • crazy • batshitinsane

Ghostcrawler on Warcraft threat

Blizzard is significantly simplifying one of the few remaining gameplay challenges in Warcraft; interesting to see their rationale

2011-08-17 games • warcraft • mmos

Interesting shack

2011-08-17 house • photo • architecture

archive.org scanning

Notes on the amazing effort to digitize print media

2011-08-17 Archive • library • preservation

Nice giant chart of the industry

2011-08-17 games • mmos • history

The Git Parable

Explanation of some of the concepts behind git

2011-08-16 dvcs • git • programming

FAA on Lightsquared

2011-08-16 lightsquared • faa • gps

Kyle Franklin to fly

Famous airshow performer is getting back to flying and performing just a few months after his wife died in an accident in his plane

2011-08-16 flying • aerobatics • courage • kylefranklin • aviation

Gruber on Google/Motorola

A different take, that Google was in a very weak position

2011-08-16 google • motorola • patents • android • apple

Y Combinator innovation

Bryce is totally on point with this: the most exciting thing about Y-Combinator startups is many of them succeed with very little initial capital

2011-08-16 startups • vcs • dropbox • vc • entrepeneurs

Johnny Marbles' blog

The guy who threw a pie at Murdoch is apparently blogging from jail

2011-08-16 blogs • england • britain • prison • jail

Industrial Revolutions

Lovely street trials bike riding; really nicely filmed and edited

2011-08-16 bikes • bicycling • parkour • streettrials

8M file directory

libc readdir() fails on this big a directory; gotta go to system calls

2011-08-16 libc • directories • unix • linux

Not Rope-a-Dope?

MG Siegler debunks Dan Lyons' article

2011-08-16 google • apple • motorola • microsoft

Screenscrape websites after running Javascript

2011-08-15 javascript • scraping • search • via:onethingwell

Argument that Android manufacturer's non-compliance with the GPL may threaten their license to use Linux

2011-08-15 android • linux • gpl • google

Google rope-a-dope

Interesting analysis suggesting Google's Nortel bid was just a feint

2011-08-15 google • apple • microsoft • patents • nortel • motorola

2011-08-15 css • drawing • hack • via:waxy

Morrowind vs Oblivion vs Skyrim

Comparison of the various character graphics

2011-08-15 games • elderscrolls • modelling

Maps and game design

Analysis of the spatial mechanics of various classic games

2011-08-15 games • maps • via:metafilter

Game cultural criticism

Analysis of the cultural biases implicit in Civilization and other games that turn real nations into game characters

2011-08-15 games • culture • criticism • civilization • via:metafilter

Stop coddling the super-rich

Warren Buffet's annual plan for sanity when it comes to taxing rich people

2011-08-15 taxes • oped • buffet

Hands On: El Shaddai

Strange, homoerotic Japanese game. The demo was interesting.

2011-08-14 japan • games • gay

Lifehacker Mac pack

Nice list of free utilities for the Mac

2011-08-14 macos • apple • software

eBay prototype Mac

Interesting auction: an Apple prototype laptop with 3G hardware

2011-08-14 mac • ebay • laptop • history • apple

Wikipedia traffic

Basic web server stats that Wikimedia publishes

2011-08-14 wikipedia • google • stats

Javascript test framework, runs stuff asynchronously

2011-08-13 testing • javascript • coding • node.js • programming • tools

Ghostface reviews Watch the Throne

2011-08-13 music • rap • reviews

MacOS Mission Control

explanation of the new UI feature in Lion

2011-08-13 macos • lion

Google's real market share

Interesting question: hard to measure

2011-08-13 google • search • bing • microsoft

Big deal: a major website is running on the experimental new JIT VM for Python

2011-08-13 python • pypy • jitc • vm

Python database driver with no native code, just uses ctypes to talk to a shared library

2011-08-13 python • mysql • database • ctypes

Another Eve scam

Seems like a basic Ponzi scheme, not very interesting, but it was large.

2011-08-13 eve • eveonline • ccp • ponzi • scam • games • mmos

BART jams cellular to stop protest

Crazy, possible civl rights issue

2011-08-13 bart • via:metafilter • cellular • firstamendment • protest

Kameryn Gibson on Twitter

Twitter account of the young man in the most recent Republican gay scandal

2011-08-12 twitter • gay • republic • politics • scandal

Phillip Hinkle, homo

Another anti-gay Republican politician caught hiring young men on Craigslist. I wish these guys would just get their own issues sorted out already.

2011-08-12 gay • politics • scandal • republicans

D3 for Mere Mortals

Terrific tutorial on the great Javascript library

2011-08-12 d3 • visualization • svg • javascript

bin Laden story discrepancies

Inconsistencies in the reporting on the assassination of bin Laden

2011-08-12 news • journalism • binladen

Firefox and Google

Analysis of the politics around the search / ads contract that funds Mozilla

2011-08-12 mozilla • firefox • google • microsoft • bing • business

Avilution for Android

Apprently this aviation app for Android tablets is not bad

2011-08-12 avilution • android • flying • aviation

Javascript this

Good explanation of the slightly magic variable in javascript

2011-08-12 javascript • programming • jquery

Five Levels of ISP Evil

CEO of my ISP speaks out against customer-hostile ISPs

2011-08-12 isps • freedom • network • internet

MacOS command line tools

Various Mac specific Unix programs

2011-08-12 macos • shell • terminal • unix

Building a Lancair Evolution

The author of X-Plane is building a real plane; a very fast, fancy real lpane

2011-08-12 lancair • evolution • airplanes • eaa • kitbuilt • aviation • xplane

Black POWER 2000

Kanye mixed with Black Knight 2000 pinball soundtrack

2011-08-11 music • mashup • kanye • blackknight • williams

Time lapse Oshkosh

Great bit of photography

2011-08-11 oshkosh • photography • photos • airplanes • aviation • flying

METAR and TAF archive

Historical weather data

2011-08-11 weather • metar • taf • aviation

DEF CON cell data hacking

Claim that CDMA and 4G were hacked at DEF CON, the Rio hotel had a MITM proxy stealing all cellular communications

2011-08-11 defcon • hacking • cdma • 4g

Image of mountain goats climbing a dam

2011-08-11 goats • dam

Fark vs patent troll

Another victim of a lousy patent

2011-08-10 patents • fark • via:metafilter • journalism

Steam Mac statistics

Valve publishes stats from Steam, their popular online game store. Interesting data about Mac gamers

2011-08-10 games • mac • apple • steam • valve

Restaurant websites suck

Some theories on why the vernacular for restaurants on the web is so awful

2011-08-10 design • web • websites • restaurants • branding

Accurate SNES emulation

Description of what it takes to build a really accurate game console simulator

2011-08-10 bsnes • snes • emulation • via:metafilter

MacOS capabilities

Lion includes a new app sandboxing system which seems quite complex

2011-08-10 lion • macos • sandboxing • security

Ars / Kindle results

Details on how Siracusa's massive Lion review sold on the Kindle. Not bad!

2011-08-10 kindle • apple • journalism • via:marc • siracusa

xkcd: Password Strength

funny because it's true

2011-08-10 passwords • xkcd • funny • comics

Breivik cryptoanalysis

Some weird things found in the Norwegian murderer's manifesto; what looks distinctly like lat/long pairs

2011-08-10 breivik • norway • murder • crypto

Wick Fowler's chili

A simple recipe, but a Texas classic. Note the tomato sauce: like to cause a fight.

2011-08-09 chili • wickfowler • texas • food • cooking • recipes

Texas chili recipe

This is roughly what I grew up with

2011-08-09 texas • chili • chile • food • recipe

Article on the legendary plane designer, defines "thinking outside the box"

2011-08-09 burtrutan • flying • aviation • design

Post office spread

Nice visualization of the growth of the US

2011-08-09 unitedstates • postoffice • america • visualization • usps

Comtoway (DON'T CLICK!)

Referenced in Gawker as the "nerve center" of Shady RAT. Looks to be a bunch of browser exploits; probably dangerous to visit.

2011-08-09 china • hacking • badtech

Shady RAT command server

Gawker visits the center of the Chinese hack

2011-08-09 china • hacking • badtech

Yemeni architecture

Beautiful clifftop buildings

2011-08-09 yemen • architecture • photos • via:metafilter

Consolas on Macs

A way to get Microsoft's C fonts on a Mac

2011-08-09 macos • fonts • microsoft • consolas

Jonathan's Card

Clever art / hack project. A community Starbuck's stored value card

2011-08-08 coffee • payment • art • property

Lycoming on 100LL alternatives

Details about airplane fuels; Lycoming is working on some alternative to the low-lead gas planes use now

2011-08-08 planes • flying • aviation • lycoming • fuel

Modern web login

Nice examination of the UI issues with various single sign-on systems

2011-08-08 login • password • signon

Nice little social report from the hacker con. Oh, there's Black Hat too

2011-08-08 defcon • blackhat • security • conference

1990s hacker con in Houston; I went to one of these.

2011-08-08 hohocon • defcon • hackers • houston

Faroe airport webcam

Quiet, remote airport

2011-08-07 webcam • airport • flying • aviation

Show producers fake an electric car running out of power

2011-08-07 cars • fraud • bbc • topgear

pbcopy / pbpaste

MacOS command line tools for accessing the clipboard

2011-08-07 clipboard • macos • shell

Current state of FAA deployment of GPS and ADS-B based services

2011-08-07 flying • aviation • nextgen • faa • gps • ads-b

Johnny Guitar‬‏

Lovely old song

2011-08-07 westerns • peggylee • music

Sims Gone Wrong

Screenshots of glitches in Sims 3

2011-08-06 games • sims • glitches • funny

TFR violator interview

Couple of minutes of video with the 75 year old pilot who accidentally violated a flight restriction near the president

2011-08-06 tfr • flying • aviation • funny

Petty corruption

Chinese story about fixing electrical meters. Could be anywhere, really.

2011-08-06 china • electricity • corruption

Hysterical story of a woman intercepted by NORAD for flying too close to Obama. She was in the wrong, but then again this is pretty damn funny

2011-08-06 flying • security • tfr • kitfox • aviation

Avoiding thunderstorms

Air traffic control view of airplanes avoiding a line of thunderstorms in Memphis

2011-08-05 flying • aviation • weather • thunderstorms • atc

ISPs stealing traffic

A company called Paxfire is working with ISPs to hijack consumers' search traffic

2011-08-05 badtech • routing • paxfire • ads • google • isps

MacOS: all keyboard events

Code for capturing every keystroke on a mac

2011-08-05 macos • apple • ui

Apple and OpenCL

Complaints about Apple's support for graphics standards

2011-08-05 games • opengl • opencl • macos • apple

Bastion soundtrack

Great indie game with a distinctive soundtrack

2011-08-05 games • bastion • music

2011-08-04 koolaid • ads • 70s • commericals • tv

SF dive bar art

Great collection of art in bars in SF

2011-08-04 via:jwz • art • sanfrancisco

North Korean cartoons

Collection of odd North Korean kids cartoons

2011-08-04 animation • cartoons • korea • northkorea

Neat little laser cut model of the Sutro tower

2011-08-04 sanfrancisco • sutro • lasercut • flatpack • architecture

Grid Distortions

Artwork by Marius Watz; looks great in person on cut plywood

2011-08-03 art • mariuswatz • generative

McAfee's Shady RAT analysis

In an earlier decade this kind of espionage would be cause for war

2011-08-03 china • hacking • badtech • cyberwar • espionage

Focussed online espionage

"Operation Shady RAT", which looks to be focussed Chinese commercial hacking

2011-08-03 badtech • hacking • security • espionage • china

VVVVVV speed run

14 minutes, no deaths, no tools. Amazing gameplay for this twitchy modern game.

2011-08-03 games • vvvvvv • speedrun • via:waxy

Lighting solution for old sailing ships; glass refracted life belowdecks

2011-08-03 sailing • technology • lighting

Well meaning but sad and hilarious briefing on Ramadan for TSA employees

2011-08-02 security • muslims • islam • ramadan • tsa

2011-08-02 movies • tron • parody

Short story from 1985 about real money trade in games

2011-08-02 games • catacomb • dragon • rmt

North Korea photos

Nice set of big images

2011-08-02 korea • northkorea • photos • photography

Computer Go advances

Impressive: Go computers are now getting to professional level

2011-08-02 games • ai • go • via:marc

MacOS debugging story

Great example of using various debugging tools to figure out a tricky OS problem

2011-08-02 macos • safari • via:rafe • hacking

Patrick Bateman’s New York

Investigation into locations from American Psycho

2011-08-02 newyork • via:metafilter • movies • americanpsycho

MonkeyBrains wireless

New ISP offering 8-20MBPs wireless in San Francisco

2011-08-02 isp • internet • wireless • sanfrancisco

Twitter engineer talks about their shift from Ruby to JVM languages

2011-08-02 java • ruby • performance • twitter • raffi

More on Aaron and JSTOR

Some actual reporting and investigation

2011-08-01 aaron • aaronsw • copyright • mit • jstor

Diablo III: real money!

Lots of news from the anticipated game, but the ability to sell in-game items for real money is pretty shocking. How is that going to work?

2011-08-01 blizzard • diablo • games