Nelson's Linkblog 2021-07

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Grindr response on outing

Thoughtful details on location privacy from Grindr's CEO in response to the homophobic journalists who destroyed a man's career for being gay

2021-07-31 lgbt • gay • catholic • privacy • location • grindr • tech

Pac-Man and porn (NSFW)

1982 article in a porn magazine is remarkably detailed about Pac-Man and its culture. Also contains some burlesqueish images of naked women.

2021-07-31 porn • games • pacman • via:metafilter • culture • 1980s • tootme

Inter font family

Lovely simple sans-serif font, open source

2021-07-30 via:hackernews • fonts • typography • sansserif • design • tootme • opensource • free

Safari is killing the web

Detailed criticism of Apple's browser being underdeveloped

2021-07-30 browser • safari • webkit • apple • web • tootme

Trump's other coup attempt

Explicitly told the Justice Department to declare a corrupted election and "leave the rest to me"

2021-07-30 politics • trump • democracy • corruption • election • coup

Amanda Knox's words

Victim of a bad prosecution talks about the problems of being famous and yet without any power as other people appropriate and misrepresent her story

2021-07-30 identity • movies • amandaknox • celebrity • culture • tootme

Texas and slavery

One big motivator for the 1835 Texas Revolution was to reinstate slavery of Blacks; Mexico had outlawed it

2021-07-29 mexico • texas • history • slavery • racism • revisionism

Dyson Sphere designs

Youtube channel for someone who's making beautiful designs in the game Dyson Sphere Program

2021-07-29 games • dsp • dysonsphere • factorio • tootme

Criticize Simone Biles?

A handy flowchart of who is allowed to express their opinion

2021-07-29 simonebiles • gymnastics • black • culture • funny

Some statistics on changes in American behavior during Covid

2021-07-29 covid19 • coronavirus • behavior • america • work • tootme

Small airplanes still use leaded fuel; after many, many years a no lead alternative was finally approved

2021-07-28 gami • aviation • planes • fuel • 100ll • environment • tootme

Grass Valley ransomware

Our little town paid money to crooks who stole city data

2021-07-28 security • badtech • grassvalley • ransomware • california • it

Trump promises wild protest

From Dec 2020, a reminder that the coup attempt was planned weeks in advance

2021-07-28 jan6 • coup • trump • politics • insurrection • sedition

Max Steiner for Congress

Democratic candidate running for CA-1 in 2022

2021-07-28 politics • california • congress • maxsteiner • tootme

A detailed article about the inhalant drug popular with gay men

2021-07-27 drugs • poppers • alkylnitrate • amylnitrate • gay • lgbt • via:metafilter • tootme

OneTrust Cookie Consent

A decent UI for user privacy management on websites

2021-07-27 cookies • privacy • gdpr • web • development • tootme

Firefox extension to color tabs based on the domain name of the site. Doesn't seem to change the window title though :-(

2021-07-27 firefox • tabs • colors • ui • tootme

Activision Blizzard harassment summary

Excellent overview of the explosion of criticism about Activision / Blizzard and their horrible culture of sexual harassment

2021-07-27 sexualharassment • tirefire • blizzard • activision • wow • tootme

Excellent aerial photo of astonishing city architecture. It's just as impressive from the ground.

2021-07-26 madrid • spain • photos • aerial • plazamayor • tootme

Lifecycle wind carbon

The full carbon cost of generating electricity with wind power

2021-07-26 globalwarming • wind • windmill • power • generation • electricity • carbon • emissions • tootme

Life-cycle carbon of cars

Detailed study very recently published

2021-07-26 climatechange • cars • manufacturing • carbon • emissions • tootme

Rewiring America

Saul Griffith's plan for fighting climate change by electrifying things now. He's working on an actual dead trees publication for October

2021-07-25 electrification • climatechange • carbon • saulgriffith • electrify • tootme

An important year in Hungary as Orban scapegoats and attacks LGBT Hungarians

2021-07-25 hungary • pride • lgbt • politics • tootme • orban

Pigeon seduction

People who train their pigeons to seduce, lure, and then steal other people's pigeons

2021-07-25 pigeons • sport • scotland • funny • birds • tootme

Twitter banned Sci-Hub

over a "counterfeit policy", apparently

2021-07-24 scihub • twitter • copyright • tootme • science

An example of a website that explains their terms of service in plain language

2021-07-24 legal • language • photos • usability • tootme

Benin City history

The grandeur of a pre-Colonial African state

2021-07-24 africa • history • benin • beninbronzes • british • colonialism • nigeria • tootme

A scientist in the 1910s-1920s who made enormous contributions to physics and math, without much reward

2021-07-24 science • math • noether • abstractalgebra • physics • women • jewish • tootme

Clubhouse data for sale

Stupid VC-beloved product leaks 3.8 billion phone numbers. (Or not, there is some skepticism.)

2021-07-24 clubhouse • data • privacy • vc • security

Juden Raus! game (CW)

A hideous board game from Nazi Germany making a lark of forcing Jews out of the country

2021-07-24 history • games • racism • jews • jewish • nazi • holocaust

AWS’s Egregious Egress

Cloudflare talks shit about Amazon's bandwidth pricing

2021-07-23 pricing • bandwidth • via:hackernews • cloudflare • aws • amazon • cloud • hosting • tootme

No athiests in foxholes

Anti-vax radio jerk gets serious Covid, is now a vaccine believer

2021-07-23 covid19 • coronoavirus • hypocrisy • disease • vaccination

Framework Laptop

A Windows/Linux laptop designed to be repairable

2021-07-23 laptops • windows • linux • hardware • tinkerable • repairable • tootme

Doodle Champion Island Games

Google invents a whole 16 bit Japanese RPG as an Olympics themed doodle

2021-07-23 google • sports • games • doodle • jprg • 16bit • tootme

GPT-3 which generates tweets like yours

2021-07-23 twitter • machinelearning • generative • gpt3 • text • tootme

Political bubbles

Excellent personalized visualization of American political affiliation

2021-07-23 politics • maps • america • visualization

ECMA 4: flow charts

A 1960 standard for computing

2021-07-22 standards • ecma • history • flowchart • programming • tootme

Kavanaugh never investigated

No surprise but the supposed FBI vetting was a sham

2021-07-22 trump • corruption • politics • supremecourt • kavanaugh • sexualharassment • tirefire

Satellite kidnapping details

Much more detailed article about the CIA briefly stealing a Soviet satellite

2021-07-22 satellite • soviet • coldwar • espionage • space • tootme

Satellite kidnapping

Wacky Cold War story of the CIA briefly "borrowing" a Soviet satellite when it was being shipped from one city to another

2021-07-22 cia • soviets • coldwar • espionage • spies • satellite • via:metafilter • tootme

Burrill and ethics

A clearly written editorial against Catholic witch hunts

2021-07-21 catholic • politics • lgbt • burrill • gay • grindr

Covid: Trump vs blue states

Detailed report from July 2020 on how the Trump response to Covid was influenced by the idea that it was mostly killing Democrats

2021-07-21 politics • trump • covid • coronavirus • corruption

App data weaponization

A thoughtful article on the meaning of the homophobic attack on a gay man based on purchased location data from his phone

2021-07-21 lgbt • gay • privacy • location • via:metafilter • catholic • homophobia • grindr

Multics Security Evaluation

1974 Air Force report

2021-07-21 multics • unix • security • airforce • computing • history • tootme

Pornhub art project

Sort of hilarious; porn company makes short films re-enacting classical works of art. This link is SFW.

2021-07-21 porn • pornhub • art • museum • tootme • nsfw

Catholic gay witchhunt

Nasty homophobic Catholic publication buys location data, finds a church leader has been going to gay bars. So of course he resigns. Meanwhile, the Church continues to protect its leaders who sexually abused children.

2021-07-21 gay • catholic • lgbt • homophobia • privacy • location • via:metafilter

Sacred garment discussion

Mormon's unique undergarments now a topic of discussion about practicality and health. "It isn’t bringing me closer to Christ, it’s giving me U.T.I.s"

2021-07-21 mormon • lds • underwear • feminism • ritual

Source for displays with old fashioned electromagnetic elements that flip between white and black

2021-07-21 display • electronics • flip • flipdot • art • tootme • hardware

Flip digit display

Neat display of a liquid simulation

2021-07-21 art • display • simulation • flipdigit • tootme

Emoji similarity

A map of clusters of emoji used together

2021-07-20 emoji • twitter • meaning • signifier • visualization • tootme

This city does not exist

Use a GAN to create plausible Japanese municipal flags

2021-07-20 flags • gan • neuralnetworks • generative • japan • art • tootme

It rains, it pours

Map of where it rains and pours in the world

2021-07-20 rain • map • weather • earth • maps • visualization • tootme

Automattic buys Pocket Casts

Best podcast app bought by best weblog company. Cautiously optimistic

2021-07-16 companies • acquisition • podcast • pocketcasts • wordpress • automattic • tootme

M.2 screw alternatives

Various options for replacing the horrible screw that attaches an SSD to a motherboard

2021-07-16 m.2 • motherboard • ssd • screw • computer • hardware • tootme

Retrocomputing magazine; the folks behind The Print Shop Club

2021-07-16 retrocomputing • apple • history • computing • tootme • printshop • australia

Apple ][ print shop running in emulation in your browser with PDF output

2021-07-16 apple • graphics • printshop • retrocomputing • pdf • design

AI writing code

Excellent summary of research efforts that goes far beyond the recent GitHub announcement

2021-07-15 ai • ml • gpt • programming • machinelearning • code • tootme

Manu Cornet profile

Details on the talented cartoonist who recently left Google

2021-07-15 google • tech • cartoons • funny • twitter • tootme

Coup fears inside the White House

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs' comments on fearing Trump was going to stage a coup

2021-07-15 coup • politics • trump • military • milley

Twitter's failure to iterate on their product is a multi-year disastrous problem that starts at the top.

2021-07-14 twitter • fleets • clone • copy • socialmedia • business

Congratulations, San Francisco has a few thousand fewer reports of shit on the sidewalk or street than last year.

2021-07-14 sf • sanfrancisco • poop • shit • qualityoflife

Boys Will Be Boys

A little gay bit from a 1934 musical

2021-07-12 musical • lgbt • gay • dancing • tootme

Hating InDesign

Marcin Wichary on the difficulties of iterating a book design in InDesign

2021-07-12 software • books • indesign • typography • layout • tootme • via:waxy

93 meter free dive

Terrifying video of an astounding athlete

2021-07-12 diving • freediving • zharkova • via:reddit • tootme

Blue field entoptic phenomenon

You can see your own white blood cells when looking at a blue sky

2021-07-11 biology • eyes • optics • retina • tootme

Confederacy costs

A lot of these monuments to slavers and traitors are paid for with public funds

2021-07-11 america • politics • confederacy • slavery • history • welfare

A non-proprietary alternative to Google Authenticator and Authy

2021-07-11 2fa • security • login • password • authy • tootme • otp

A global map of indigenous peoples and their traditional lands

2021-07-10 maps • natives • indigenous • indians • america • history • tootme

Jello: JSON parser

Like jq for processing JSON data, but with a Python syntax

2021-07-10 json • programming • python • unix • linux • shell • tootme

jc: JSON Unix output

Tool to turn the free text output of various Unix tools into JSON

2021-07-10 json • unix • programming • shell • linux • tootme

Arrested for voting

Texas man's bail set at $100,000 because he voted while still on parole. No one told him that wasn't legal.

2021-07-10 voting • texas • politics • votingrights • tootme

Beddr sleep monitor

Sensor sticks to your forehead and measures blood oxygen, body position, etc

2021-07-10 sleep • sleepapnea • sensor • position • medical • tootme

America vs sex education

Infuriating story of a teacher being harassed out of a job at a private school by people with a twisted view of sexuality

2021-07-09 america • sex • lgbt • via:metafilter

Vaccine efficacy defined

A simple explanation of what reported efficacy numbers mean

2021-07-09 vaccine • covid19 • covid • efficacy • statistics • tootme

Oldschool PC Fonts

Another collection of retrocomputing fonts

2021-07-08 fonts • retrocomputing • typography • tootme

Huge collection of old bitmap fonts from various computers

2021-07-08 fonts • bitmap • retrocomputing • typography • via:hackernews • tootme

Goomics, Google comics

Collection of Google-oriented comics. I think these were originally for insiders only?

2021-07-08 google • funny • tech • parody • tootme

Subversive Joy of Lil Nas X

Fantastic profile of the rising queer music star, with excellent detail both on his history and locating his public sexuality and race in contemporary culture

2021-07-07 lilnasx • music • profile • lgbt • queer • tootme

Lil Nas X - Sonic Shit

Funny nerdy video from before the fame

2021-07-07 music • lilnasx • sonic • sega • tootme

California migration

Folks leaving LA and SF and moving to smaller semi-urban places in California

2021-07-06 california • demographics • migration • tootme

Starlink firmware

Folks taking apart the SpaceX Internet terminal

2021-07-06 spacex • starlink • hacking • firmware • teardown • tootme

UBC Visible Speech

Videos showing pronunciation of a bunch of IPA phonemes

2021-07-06 ipa • phoneme • phonology • linguistics • tootme • speech

Another Tesla victim

Autopilot encourages Tesla drivers to be unsafe

2021-07-06 tesla • autopilot • liability • cars • traffic

Nikole Hannah-Jones statement

Classy, poignant statement from the journalism professor about taking a job at Howard after racists associated with UNC tried to sabotage her career

2021-07-06 unc • howard • journalism • racism • nikolehannahjones • tootme

Socket activation

Appreciation of a technical trick to improve system boot time

2021-07-05 systemd • init • boot • unix • linux • tootme

Thin line flags

Americans of all stripes love their identity politics

2021-07-05 america • politics • thinblueline • flags • identity

Evan Martin moving on

At Google since 2004, just left for Figma

2021-07-05 google • evanmartin • livejournal • programming • engineer • career • tootme

Sci-Hub threats

Updates on the legal attacks on one of the most important achievements in scientific communication of the century

2021-07-04 scihub • elsevier • publishing • science • tootme • copyright

Covid-19 variants

Excellent, non-panic-inducing overview of Covid variants and what they mean

2021-07-04 covid19 • coronavirus • variants • disease • epidemic • science • medicine

Umurangi Generation review

Review of an indie photography game

2021-07-04 games • maori • photography • indie • review • tootme

C64 drive slowness

Accumulation of manufacturing errors and engineering mistakes is what made the C64 floppy drive so slow

2021-07-04 c64 • 1541 • computers • speed • history • tootme

6502 illegal opcodes

Analysis of the pattern of microcode inside the 6502

2021-07-04 6502 • programming • apple • microcode • hacking • tootme

Freespin 1451tro

Classic C64 demo. Only without the C64, just the hard drive plugged directly into the monitor

2021-07-04 c64 • demo • hardware • 1541 • via:metafilter • demoscene • scene • tootme

Dance performance

I have no idea what this but it's a fantastic video clip from a modern dance performance

2021-07-04 dance • bdf2021 • video • tootme

Coast Starlight closed

Fire near Mt Shasta closes the Union Pacific line Amtrak relies on

2021-07-04 amtrak • fire • california • tootme

McConnell's Jan 6 speech

In the teeth of a coup attempt the Republican Senate leader said reasonable things about voting and democracy. Shame his party has immediately turned its back on these principles.

2021-07-04 voting • votingrights • mcconnell • politics • republicans

A new subculture of literate young people with a sense of fashion

2021-07-03 darkacademica • culture • literacy • critique • criticism • tootme

Conjunto vs Norteño

A battle for Tejano music

2021-07-03 music • texas • tejano • conjunto • norteno • norteño • tootme

Alternative to React for building web apps; compiler does more work up front so the browser side is lighter

2021-07-02 programming • frontend • javascript • web • framework • svelte • react • js • tootme

Turboencabulator

A 1944 engineering breakthrough

2021-07-02 funny • engineering • parody • tootme

AWS Infinidash explained

Finally a clear short explanation of Amazon's newest cloud service

2021-07-02 amazon • aws • infinidash • architecture • tootme • i8h

Boy Scout settlement

$850M for decades of mishandling sexual abuse

2021-07-02 boyscouts • scouts • bsa • sexualabuse • settlement • legal

Nevada County's pandemic

One of a series of detailed interviews with healthcare providers in Nevada County, California and their experience of the pandemic

2021-07-02 covid • pandemic • women • nevadacounty • california • tootme

Target vs SF shoplifting

Store reduces opening hours because of theft and security problems

2021-07-02 target • sanfrancisco • shoplifting • tootme

Ships cats in hammocks

A photo series from the olden times

2021-07-02 cats • ships • hammocks • cute • tootme

Russiman considered

A 2015 overview of responses to a theory from 2003 that humans have been causing global warming for 8000 years now

2021-07-02 climatechange • ruddiman • anthropology • architecture • tootme

Climate change, 8000 years

Argument that human activity moved CO2 from 240ppm to 280ppm over the last 8000 years through agriculture

2021-07-02 globalwarming • science • anthropology • tootme • co2

Frodo and Sam's romance

A close queer reading highlights the joy of finding ambiguities and sexual representation in texts

2021-07-02 queer • lgbt • fiction • tolkien • lotr • tootme

Arabian farming following a straight line along a road. Worth heading to 23.255361°, 53.801306° on Google Maps to look at the patterns nearby

2021-07-01 farming • uae • agriculture • irrigation • oasis • tootme

Jan 6 coup, in detail

NYTimes doing what the Republicans refuse, putting together an understanding of what Trump's mob did when attacking the US Capitol

2021-07-01 jan6 • coup • insurrection • trump • politics • america

CO2 sensor vs temperature

Some consumer CO2 sensors give wildly different results depending on ambient temperature

2021-07-01 co2 • temperature • ndir • sensor • airquality • calibration • tootme

Lit web components

A simple framework for building webapps that's not React

2021-07-01 web • framework • javascript • html • css • webapp • tootme

Open source fork of Mapbox GL JS. Hooray!

2021-07-01 maps • mapbox • mapboxgljs • cartography • javascript • mobile • free • opensource • tootme