Nelson's Linkblog 2018-01

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A new kind of notebook for exploratory computing. Congratulations @mbostock and @tmcw!

2018-01-31 d3js • d3 • notebook • jupyter • observable • bostock

A website about an old newspaper bar

2018-01-31 sanfrancisco • history • bar • newspaper • chronicle • examiner

Gamble on Bitcoin with Square

Square adds Bitcoin gambling to the Cash app. No Bitcoin *use*, merely buying and selling.

2018-01-31 bitcoin • square • gambling • cash • finance

Accomplished peacock

That "emotional support peacock" seems to be some sort of art project

2018-01-31 peacock • art • bushwick • newyork • united

Twitter loves Nazis

Jew-hating verified Twitter user brags about how Twitter lets him speak

2018-01-31 twitter • nazis • jews • politics

Steve Jobs' 1973 resume

Funny thing from when he was 18

2018-01-30 reed • stevejobs • funny • resume

Minigo machine learning

A new AlphaGoZero clone written in Python using TensorFlow

2018-01-30 go • alphagozero • machinelearning • gogame • games • ai

Ben Matasar to the DNC

Former Twitter engineer joins the tech team at the Democratic Party

2018-01-29 democrats • politics • matasar • twitter

Paris history: la Bièvre

Nice description of the old creek that ran through the left bank

2018-01-29 paris • maps • metafilter • france • history • river • bievre

NYT overview of all the fake following accounts on Twitter

2018-01-27 twitter • spam • bots • via:metafilter

Google malware ads

YouTube showing ads that contain cryptomining malware

2018-01-27 malware • badtech • google • youtube • ads

Quirk quantum simulator

Build a quantum program with 14 qubits

2018-01-27 quantum • simulation • interaction • javascript

Google toxic tire fire

Employees at Google are getting monsters at right wing hate sites to harass other employees

2018-01-26 google • tirefire • harassment

Bob Lord hired to be chief security officer for the Democrats

2018-01-26 dnc • politics • security • badtech • boblord • democrats

The Atlas Of Redistricting

538 tackles different ways to draw district boundaries and shows their results

2018-01-26 gerrymandering • voting • votingrights • politics • visualization

Dutch intel on Russian hackers

Dutch intelligence service had hacked Cozy Bear

2018-01-26 cozybear • russia • trump • politics • hacking • denmark

Javascript library providing a bunch of basic data type functions

2018-01-25 javascript • programming • utility • clone

How to record video of a D3 animated visualization

2018-01-25 d3js • visualization • video • recording • d3

Police killing rates in G7 members

American Exceptionalism at work

2018-01-25 america • guns • murder • police

May be NSFW; odd little Internet meme

2018-01-25 sparkledog • internet • google • meme • fetish • art • color

AdWords API to stay open

FTC agreement expires but Google maintains more open terms of service

2018-01-24 adwords • google • api • monopoly • ftc • antitrust

Gun Sense in America

Inspiring podcast, Jason Kander interviewing Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action

2018-01-23 nra • guns • politics • kander • podcast

Matt Cutts interview

Former Google engineer now heads up the US Digital Service

2018-01-22 government • mattcutts • codeforamerica • politics • democracy

Bitcoin Hashrate Distribution

List of who controls Bitcoin. The two biggest (BTC.com and AntPool) together are Bitmain

2018-01-22 bitmain • bitcoin • hash • consensus • blockchain

Profile of the Chinese blockchain company that dominates Bitcoin mining with ASICs

2018-01-22 china • bitcoin • cryptocurrency • blockchain • bitmain

JavaScript Frameworks

2018-01-22 programming • javascript • react • angular • vuejs

RIP Paul Bocuse

Famous French chef passes away

2018-01-22 france • bocuse • lyon • finedining

Russian trolls and Black Lives Matter

More Twitter bot analysis

2018-01-21 twitter • russia • propaganda • politics • blm • blacklivesmatter

In Trump's first Muslim ban the border patrol deliberately ignored federal court orders

2018-01-21 court • justice • ruleoflaw • immigration • cbp • customs • trump • politics

Tradwave 伝統的な少年

Vaporwave meets Catholicism

2018-01-20 vaporwave • catholics • religion • funny • via:metafilter

FFmpeg VBR Settings

Short guide to video encoding quality settings

2018-01-20 codec • ffmpeg • avconv • x265

Twitter in 2016 election

Company trying to come clean about how they were used for Russian propaganda

2018-01-20 trump • politics • twitter

NRA Kremlin Connection

Gun lobbyists friendly with Russia, helped them help Trump

2018-01-20 politics • trump • nra • corruption

Stormy Daniels' story

Interview with the porn star that Trump later paid $130,000 to so she'd keep quiet

2018-01-20 porn • trump • politics • stormydaniels

Trump's hooker company

Details on the LLC Trump established to pay off one of his prostitutes

2018-01-20 trump • politics • scandal • prostitute • stormydaniels

Confident masculine rhetoric

2018-01-19 feminism • rhetoric • masculinity • tedious

2018-01-19 brexit • stamps • politics • britain • funny

The 29 Stages Of A Twitterstorm

2018 social media in a nutshell

2018-01-19 twitter • culture • tweetstorm • funny

Uber / Kalanick details

Nothing new, but very detailed accounting of all the various failures that came to light so swiftly

2018-01-19 kalanick • uber

Shithole details

Durbin on the record about the immigration meeting with Trump

2018-01-19 trump • politics • immigration • daca • shithole

Dual auto Glock with 100 round drum mag

Gun culture is really fucking dumb

2018-01-18 guns • america

Tech vs Free Speech

Thoughtful essay on how the modern tech world does not enable truly free speech

2018-01-18 freespeach • press • tech • twitter • politics

Pornhub during Hawaii false alert

Searches for porn dropped 77% during the false Hawaii missile alert. Day's total never recovered

2018-01-17 pornhub • hawaii • porn • politics • armageddon

Heat maps vs hot spot maps

Two separate geographic density techniques

2018-01-17 maps • heatmaps • hotspots • visualization

Felon voting ban is racist

History of Florida law

2018-01-17 florida • racism • votingrights • voting • politics

Trump lies about his height

Various photographs prove he's nowhere near the 6'3" he claims. Not a big lie, but the silliest kind.

2018-01-17 trump • lying • politics • height

Immigration raid on the SF Bay Area

Trump's ICE rumored to be making a show of force

2018-01-17 trump • politics • bayarea • immigration

OpenStreetMap data cut into vector tiles with open source styles. Looks designed to be used with MapBox GL JS

2018-01-17 mapbox • openstreetmap • maps • opensource • free • mapboxgljs

Google Memory Loss

Google's search engine no longer comprehensively has old documents

2018-01-16 google • search • history

Bruce Lee with Lightsabers

What makes a good kung fu action sequence even better? Laser swords

2018-01-16 lightsaber • brucelee • effects • kungfu • hongkong • movies

Folium map library

Python library that renders to Leaflet maps. Integrates well in notebooks

2018-01-16 maps • visualization • python • javascript

George Clinton AMA

Legendary Dr. Funkenstein brings the space knowledge to Reddit

2018-01-16 funk • pfunk • music • reddit • ama

Going "Serverless"

Some details on how my Wanderin.gs project works

2018-01-16 openpaths • maps • location • gps • googletimeline • tracking • serverless • server • implementation

My new location tracker project: iOS app + website

2018-01-16 openpaths • maps • location • gps • googletimeline • tracking

Bitcoin price manipulation

2013's runup from $150 to $1000 was artificially pumped

2018-01-15 bitcoin • mtgox • fraud • scam • pumpndump

Russian cyberwar

NotPetya attack against Ukraine attributed to Russia

2018-01-14 russia • ukraine • cyberwar • notpetya • badtech

Visualization of snowfall; I like how simple the code is

2018-01-14 snowfall • visualization • python • gdal

Linguistic map of Europe

Lovely detailed map, excellent colors and key

2018-01-14 maps • languages • europe

Bitcoin Millionaires

Burn it all down, an NYT Style article

2018-01-14 nytimes • style • bitcoin • cryptocurrency

tweetdecking; thousands of dollars a month to retweet spam

2018-01-13 tweetdecking • twitter • spam • ads

Steamed Hams / Nier: Automata

Semi-obscure meme meets semi-obscure videogame

2018-01-13 games • funny • simpsons • steamedhams • nierautomata

Meltdown patch impact

System monitoring graphs from a large AWS deployment

2018-01-13 aws • amazon • meltdown • performance • badtech

Embracing despair

No one is coming to save us from Trump's racism, a strong NYT op/ed

2018-01-13 trump • racism • politics

Open Web Analytics

Alternative to Google Analytics for web visitor stats

2018-01-13 analytics • googleanalytics • web • publishing • website • tracking • stats

Twitter can still occasionally be funny.

2018-01-13 twitter • blacktwitter • funny • harrypotter

Male Fashions (1951)

Jaw droppingly gay clothing from London

2018-01-12 london • gay • lgbt • fashion • swimwear

How Haiti became poor

Interesting bits of historical detail and racism

2018-01-12 racism • america • trump • politics • haiti • history

Trump vs the UK

American president cannot visit London; this must be a first since 1776.

2018-01-12 trump • politics • america • london • uk • england • protest

قلب programming language

A Lisp variant in Arabic

2018-01-12 languages • programming • arabic • localization

Fantastic photography

2018-01-12 via:metafilter • pencils • manufacturing • factory • photos • photography

Women in pro Overwatch

Excellent roundup of stories about Blizzard's failure to have women professional players

2018-01-12 gender • women • gaming • overwatch

Translating "shithole"

A quandry for colorful language

2018-01-12 trump • politics • language • translation • shithole

Optimal driving routes

Visualizing getting from the middle of the US to every county

2018-01-12 america • maps • driving • routing • osm • openstreetmap

Neural network generates web page markup based on design pictures

2018-01-11 neuralnetwork • ai • via:raffi • machinelearning

Google Brain 2017

Summary of machine learning advances from Google

2018-01-11 google • machinelearning • ai • jeffdean

Mont St. Michel

Excellent aerial photograph

2018-01-11 montstmichel • france • photo • drone • photography • art

Uber evidence destruction tool

Ripley, an entire product built to hide evidence from law enforcement

2018-01-11 uber • ripley • legal

Russian spies in SF

Details of intelligence activities at the now-closed consulate in San Francisco

2018-01-11 russia • spying • trump • intelligence • politics • spies

Journalists don't let the US ambassador get away with something outrageous

2018-01-11 trump • politics • netherlands • journalism

Resume review bias

Tips on not limiting your applicant pool when hiring by avoiding unconscious bias

2018-01-10 hiring • diversity • tech • resume • racism

Davis v. Bandemer

1986 court case that found that partisan gerrymanders were subject to court review

2018-01-10 politics • gerrymandering • votingrights • voting • democracy • redistricting

Ancient Unix built to run on modern PC hardware

2018-01-10 v7 • unix • retro • pc • computers

AOMedia Video 1 is the name of a new royalty free video codec in development

2018-01-10 video • codec • av1

North Carolina gerrymandering case

NYT overview of the decision against partisan gerrymandering

2018-01-10 northcarolina • politics • gerrymandering • votingrights

2000 year old Roman shoe

2018-01-10 rome • history • shoe • archaeology

A Houston favorite

2018-01-10 felixes • texmex • queso • chileconqueso • cooking • recipe

Completing Desert Golf

Endless procedural game has an end

2018-01-09 games • golf • desertgolf • mobile

Singapore meme humor

2018-01-09 singapore • memes

Who Killed Captain Alex?

Ugandan film turned meme incubator

2018-01-09 memes • uganda • movies

Visualizing uncertainty

Guide to various data presentation techniques

2018-01-08 statistics • data • visualization

"Fire And Fury": Post-Truth

The sorry state of how journalism is consumed in 2018

2018-01-08 politics • journalism • posttruth • trump

Profile of a map nerd, great guy

2018-01-08 iandees • openstreetmap • osm • openaddresses • maps • engineers

mydlinkBRionyg / abc12345cba

Idiots at Western Digital shipped a hardcoded login

2018-01-08 westerndigital • security • badtech • password • login

Twitter should ban Donald Trump

Thoughtful editorial

2018-01-06 trump • politics • twitter

Alex Gulakov restraining order

CW: rape threats. A friend of mine has been the victim of this guy

2018-01-06 gulakov • alexgulakov • rape • kellyellis • threats • feminism

California cannabis licenses

Authoritative source for who has a license

2018-01-06 California • marijuana • pot • cannabis • license

WebGL2 Fundamentals

Comprehensive tutorial docs

2018-01-06 webgl2 • graphics • javascript • via:hackernews

History of Neural Nets

60 years of computer science in 4 short blog posts

2018-01-05 computerscience • neuralnetworks • ai • machinelearning • ml • deeplearning

Box breathing box

A small craft project for meditation

2018-01-05 meditation • boxbreathing • breathing • adafruit • tmcw

A simple calming meditation technique

2018-01-05 boxbreathing • via:tmcw • meditation • calming • breathing

Fox → DVR → Trump → Twitter

Details on the President's unhealthy obsession with a TV news show

2018-01-05 fox • tv • trump • politics • journalism • twitter

Kander on voting rights

Editorial after the voter suppression committee disbanded

2018-01-05 trump • politics • kander • voting • votingrights • kobach

Mapzen exit interview

Honest chat with an engineer at the closing map company

2018-01-04 maps • osm • mapzen • exitinterview

Þrídrangar lighthouse

Remarkable rocks in Iceland

2018-01-04 iceland • helicopter • lighthouse

My Insane Year Inside Trump's White House

More excerpt's from Michael Wolff's book, including how he got the story

2018-01-04 wolff • trump • politics

Voter suppression committee disbanded

Trump's sham apparently failed, but voter rights still in peril

2018-01-04 voting • politics • trump • kobach • kander

Meltdown and Spectre explained

Nice accessible technical article

2018-01-04 linux • intel • badtech • security • meltdown • spectre

2020 Census Manager

Trump's pick is virulently political

2018-01-03 trump • politics • votingrights • census

Meltdown and Spectre

Details on the Intel CPU security problem. Really it's a generic problem in almost all computers

2018-01-03 security • badtech • intel • x86 • kaiser • linux

Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President

Excerpts from Michael Wolff's upcoming book. Literally nauseating.

2018-01-03 trump • politics

White House statement on Bannon

Shit is entirely off the rails

2018-01-03 bannon • trump • politics

Intel flaw speculation

More details on what looks to be a serious CPU security bug

2018-01-03 cpu • security • intel • badtech • x86

12 ways to divide Poland

Stereotype maps (/cc @migurski)

2018-01-03 poland • maps • funny • stereotypes

Stealth Bomber aerial photo

Insane pilot / photographer process

2018-01-03 photography • aviation • photos • airplanes • stealthbomber • la • losangeles

Amazon/Microsoft sex trafficking

Men soliciting prostitutes from work email

2018-01-03 sex • prostitution • microsoft • amazon • seattle • sextrafficking

He is going to get us all killed

Insane Trump tweet

2018-01-03 trump • politics • northkorea • batshitinsane

Google tax dodges

Update on the legal but gross thing Google does to avoid paying taxes

2018-01-02 google • taxes • dutchsandwich • finance

Who's On First, Chapter Two

More from the Mapzen shut down; a permanent gazetteer has a plan for the future

2018-01-02 mapzen • whoseonfirst • gazetteer • maps • aaron

Banning hate speech

Academic research shows you can change communities by banning horrible behavior

2018-01-02 reddit • community • abuse • tirefire • hatespeech

Star Wars and female military power

Excellent feminist reading of Admiral Holdo in Star Wars

2018-01-02 starwars • gender • feminism • movies

Mapzen Alternatives

Remarkably good list of open source mapping tools and services, a sad side effect of the shutdown of Mapzen

2018-01-02 mapzen • maps • osm • openstreetmap • opensource

Mapzen shutdown

Very sad news, excellent open source mapping company is shutting down

2018-01-02 mapzen • maps • osm • openstreetmap

About Time's Up

New Hollywood organization of women fighting sexual harassment

2018-01-02 harassment • hollywood • women • feminism • via:metafilter

Watsonian vs. Doylist

Text vs author in criticism

2018-01-02 criticism • fandom • via:metafilter • text • writing

FBI's GamerGate investigation

Actual confessions, no prosecutions

2018-01-02 fbi • via:metafilter • gamergate • harassment

Voter suppression committee update

Recommendations due in March, committee doesn't meet

2018-01-01 votingrights • voterfraud • voting • politics

Sonoma fires burnt weed wealth

Marijuana businessmen can't use banks; many lost hoards of cash in fires

2018-01-01 fire • marijuana • banks • business • california

Machine learning test database; images of handwritten numerals

2018-01-01 machinelearning • data • exercise • programming • ai

Freedmen's Bureau Project

Documents from the end of slavery to be digitized

2018-01-01 slavery • reconstruction • genealogy • civilwar • history

Hostile programs can force bits to flip in the memory of other programs running in a different virtual machine on the same hardware

2018-01-01 hacking • badtech • rowhammer • memory • dram • parity

DIY Spectrometer

Build your own chemical analyzer

2018-01-01 spectroscopy • spectrometry • hacker • diy • maker

Mystery security bug

Evidence there's a serious bug in virtual memory management in CPUs that software can only fix with expensive workarounds

2018-01-01 security • vm • linux • nt • badtech