Nelson's Linkblog 2017-09

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Trump is a monster

James Fallows with soothing words

2017-09-30 trump • politics • puertorico • monster • monstermonstermonster

Warrants for activists

DOJ requests personal Facebook info on political activists

2017-09-30 civilrights • facebook • america • doj • trump • politics

Trump Fog Machine

Impossible to keep a clear head in the face of so many outrages

2017-09-30 trump • politics • lies

Twitter is lying to you

Pushback from researchers on Twitter's claims of ignorance

2017-09-30 twitter • propaganda • russia

Trump golf vs Puerto Rico

Four days of no response as Trump golfed

2017-09-30 trump • politics • puertorico • golf • corruption

FAA vs Standing Rock

Another case of law enforcement abusing safety rules to shut down journalism

2017-09-30 firstamendment • tfr • faa • journalism • drones • aviation • freespeech

Mike Bostock's new company building a tool for thinking with code

2017-09-30 d3js • d3 • visualization • code • javascript

Soviet control rooms

Photos from 1960s-ish computing and logistics /cc @migurski

2017-09-30 art • computers • history • soviet • 1960s

Deep Learning overview

A good summary of the state of the art in AI

2017-09-30 ai • ml • machinelearning • deeplearning • research • computerscience • via:hackernews

Against collaboration

Thoughtful op/ed on not working with the Trump White House

2017-09-30 politics • trump • girlswhocode • whitehouse • principles • democracy

Grass Valley love walk

Community response to racist harassment

2017-09-30 racism • california • grassvalley

Twitter testimony inadequate

Criticism of Twitter's congressional testimony and disclosures

2017-09-29 twitter • russia • politics • trump • 2016

Twitter on Russian election tampering

Twitter's public statement

2017-09-29 twitter • russia • politics • trump • 2016

Fake news in Idaho

Detailed heartbreaking story of a rumor that spread out of control

2017-09-28 rumor • hatred • idaho • politics • journalism • fake • news

Ban Trump from Twitter

Clear editorial by Mike Monteiro

2017-09-28 trump • twitter • politics

Levandowski profile

Details on the self-driving car and alleged thief

2017-09-28 uber • Levandowski • ip • tradesecrets • lawsuit • google • waymo

Facebook and German election

Notes on combating propaganda

2017-09-27 politics • germany • facebook • propaganda • fakenews

How neural networks learn

A theory about information compression

2017-09-27 infomatics • ai • machinelearning • ml • deeplearning • complexity • adaptivesystems

Intel encrypted computing in practice

Signal is using an Intel CPU security feature for user privacy

2017-09-27 security • signal • crypto • privacy • intel

Germany 2017 election maps

Detailed visualizations

2017-09-25 Germany • politics • voting

How to sort by ratings on consumer sites

2017-09-24 rating • sites • algorithm • probability • via:reddit

Sexist backlash in tech

Men on the record saying stupid things about gender

2017-09-24 sexism • tech • gender • tirefire

Twitter Thread Reader

A UI that makes horrible tweetstorms more readable

2017-09-23 twitter • thread • tweetstorm • ui

Go: Ten years and climbing

Reflections on 10 years of GoLang

2017-09-22 go • golang • languages • google • robpike • programming

Trump news cycle

A timeline of scandals

2017-09-22 news • scandal • google • trump • politics

Hilarious lawyer-shaming of a man who beats women

2017-09-22 legal • funny • america

La vie privée du roi de Prusse

1784 scandal book written by Voltaire about Frederick the Great being gay

2017-09-22 gay • lgbt • history • french • germany • homosexual

Ben Franklin and von Steuben

Story of Franklin helping von Steuben escape prosecution for sodomy in France, to help the US military cause

2017-09-22 gay • lgbt • homosexual • history • germany • america • benfranklin

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben

Yet another gay Prussian leader; he was hugely important to the American Revolutionaries

2017-09-22 gay • lgbt • homosexual • prussia • america • history

Prince Henry of Prussia

Frederick the Great's younger brother, also gay

2017-09-22 gay • lgbt • homosexual • germany • history • prussia

German elections

Germany has proportional representation with an interesting two-stage ballot

2017-09-22 germany • voting • politics • proportional

Internet history from 1995 or so

2017-09-22 history • internet • web • webapps

One of Berlin's public transit routes is a rowboat ferry

2017-09-20 ferry • transit • berlin • boat

Berlin: The Spatial Structure of a Divided City

Detailed urban planning book about a uniquely divided city. /cc @enf

2017-09-20 berlin • urbanplanning • cities • books • maps

Google Timeline heatmap

Nice visualization of location data

2017-09-20 google • data • location • lbs • tracking

Small meeting for a far-right party in Germany, assault of a protestor

2017-09-20 protest • afd • germany • fascism • trump • politics

Boys' pee-pee physics

Crazy argument boys are better at physics because they play games with their urine

2017-09-19 boys • gender • funny • tirefire

Sections of France that still are unsafe because of WW1 munitions

2017-09-18 war • ww1 • france • bombs

Many examples of mail refused or marked for political reasons

2017-09-18 mail • war • postage • politics

When postal services go to war. Snarky stamps issued by East and West Germany

2017-09-18 germany • history • post • stamps • postage

Art project I helped with

2017-09-17 rivers • art • tamsie • mississippi

Sleazy browser company also raised money with a scammy sounding ICO

2017-09-17 ico • scam • brave • bravebrowser • brendaneich

Dogecoin and ICOs

A brief history of cryptocurrency scams

2017-09-17 ico • bitcoin • ethereum • dogecoin • scam

Berlin weekly markets

Lovely map overlaying food markets on the transit system

2017-09-16 berlin • transit • food • wochenmarkt • maps

Voter suppression email fraud

Trump commission avoiding Presidential Records Act by illegally using private email servers

2017-09-16 email • trump • voting • politics

Trump's petty grift

Receipt for overpriced hotel room at taxpayer expense. Trump personally benefits.

2017-09-16 trump • maralago • hotel • corruption • fraud • politics

Trump's latest embarassment

Jackass tweets just hours after a terrorist bombing

2017-09-16 trump • politics • embarassment • london

Facebook Jew-hating ads

When automated ad categories go wrong

2017-09-15 facebook • jews • politics

Doublelift came to win

Sports hype video for a League of Legends player

2017-09-15 games • lol • leagueoflegends • esports • doublelift • tsm

Mister Rogers' obscene gesture

Even the smiling bird flipping turns out to be entirely innocent

2017-09-15 misterrogers • tv • sincerity • funny

Pritikin mansion for sale

Chenery House, a weird mansion in Noe Valley

2017-09-15 noevalley • sanfrancisco • sf • pritikin • realestate • house

Tetris in Game of Life

An insane project of building up abstractions

2017-09-15 life • gameoflife • gol • ca • cellularautomata • programming • tetris

Eve Online heist

Leader of a large coalition flips sides

2017-09-14 eve • betrayal • ccp • games • scam

Ugly details of sexual harassment, etc at finance startup

2017-09-13 sofi • socialfinance • sexualharassment • sex • tirefire

Yet another scammy fundraise from a tech company. Kik is infamous for child porn, btw.

2017-09-13 ico • scam • kik • childporn

Hakim Bey and pedophilia

Famous anarchist writer and his having sex with children

2017-09-12 hakimbey • taz • pedophilia • anarchism

Not voter fraud

Detailed takedown of Kobach's claim of New Hampshire vote fraud

2017-09-11 votingrights • voting • newhampshire • politics • trump • kobach

Taxi Medallion collapse

What happens when an artificial monopoly is dismantled

2017-09-11 taxi • nyc • newyork • uber • medallion

Foot juggling tables

Odd variety act from the 60s

2017-09-11 tv • via:reddit • funny • juggling

MIT Senior House

Even-handed treatment of MIT's funky dorm, now gone

2017-09-11 mit • culture • campus • college • seniorhouse • sportdeath

Recent article about the manuscript being decoded is junk

2017-09-11 voynich • crypto • manuscript • hoax

Google employee salaries

Women are paid less than men

2017-09-10 google • salaries • women • tirefire • spreadsheet

Cajun Navy dispatch

Intense, personal story of trying to help during Hurricane Harvey

2017-09-10 harvey • hurricane • rescue • zello • cajunnavy • dispatch • emergency

Detailed article on Tex-Mex favorite item

2017-09-08 food • texmex • mexican • via:metafilter • chileconqueso • queso

Machine learning can pick gay people out from straight ones

2017-09-08 machinelearning • gay • lgbt • ai • ml • dating

The first white president

Powerful Ta-Nahesi Coates on the racism of the Trump presidency

2017-09-08 racism • politics • trump

Reed anti-racism protests

Left wing at my college goes very far

2017-09-08 reed • protest • racism • academics • politics

Raffi at the DNC

Nice profile of the new head tech guy

2017-09-08 raffi • dnc • politics • cto • tech

Polygonal Map Generation v2

Amit updates his excellent procedural map generator

2017-09-05 maps • generator • procedural • games • amitp

An ignominious end to one of the best Unix companies

2017-09-04 sun • oracle • unix • history

Neural Network mistakes

Some basic things AI programmers need to do

2017-09-04 programming • ai • neuralnetwork • via:douwe • ml • machinelearning

A minimal program to run as PID 1 for a Docker image

2017-09-03 docker • container • linux • unix • init • systems

Driving movie made entirely from Google Streetview images

2017-09-03 google • maps • streeview • via:metafilter

Waiting for a Perfect Protest?

Excellent historical perspective on violence at progressive protests

2017-09-02 protest • nytimes • tactics • nonviolence • history • civilrights • trump • politics • antifa

Keyword in context

A maximalist machine-generated text index

2017-09-02 text • index • books • publishing

IBM mainframe terminal font

2017-09-02 fonts • ibm • mainframe • tn3270

Justise Winslow

Basketball player; went to my high school in Houston

2017-09-02 houston • sjs • stjohns • basketball • miamiheat

Kelly and Trump

More on the new chief of staff, gossip about Omarosa

2017-09-02 trump • politics • kelly • whitehouse

Kelly and Trump

President's new Chief of Staff may not be long for the job

2017-09-02 trump • politics • kelly

All Güt Things

A documentary about Texas Germans

2017-09-02 texas • german • culture • language

Reddit goes closed source

Code that runs the service was open source

2017-09-02 reddit • opensource • code • business

Russian election tampering

More evidence the 2016 vote was manipulated by hacking

2017-09-01 election • voter • voting • russia • politics • trump

Colorado election auditing

Security expert company helping Colorado conduct secure elections

2017-09-01 election • voting • politics • colorado • freeandfair • voters

Voting security

2016 squabbling led to non-secure voting systems

2017-09-01 voting • security • badtech • voters • elections • politics

Collection of near real time data streams about the planet; climate, earthquakes, etc

2017-09-01 earth • data • maps

Lovely animations of public transit in cities

2017-09-01 transit • maps • animation • visualization

Nazi private chats

More analysis of the Discord logs from Charlottesville

2017-09-01 charlottesville • politics • trump • nazis • rightwing

A Serf on Google’s Farm

Details of just how much market power Google has

2017-09-01 monopoly • antitrust • google • internet • ads