Nelson's Linkblog 2022-01

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Solar power estimate code

Jupyter notebook showing using pvlib python to do a full estimate of solar production

2022-01-31 solar • python • programming • calculator • pvlib • pvwatts • tootme • jupyter

Yemen's two currencies

Odd wartime reality, banknotes differ based on the year they were printed

2022-01-31 yemen • war • economics • via:hackernews • tootme

The Day Coffee Stopped Working

A global warming short story from 2013

2022-01-31 fiction • climatechange • globalwarming • coffee • funny • tootme

Bad Google Pixel support

Stories like this are common: the Pixel Pro 6 has a lot of problems and Google has a terrible customer support system

2022-01-31 google • pixel • android • support • tech • badtech • tootme

Swiss COVID certificates

A solution for an international Covid vaccine passport; they'll issue an internationally recognized document for you.

2022-01-31 covid • switzerland • swiss • vaccine • passport • documents • travel • tootme

Using web fonts well

Tricks for fast loading and avoiding layout shifts

2022-01-30 fonts • web • typography • via:hackernews • css • tootme

Browser math paper

Rust/WASM code that runs in a browser to find counterexamples to a simple algebraic conjecture

2022-01-29 math • euler • rust • wasm • webbrowser • via:reddit • tootme

Excellent video meme treatment

2022-01-29 funny • startrek • ds9 • garak • bashir • gay • lgbt • tootme

Slavery through a data lens

Deep, thoughtful editorial on the scholarship of collecting statistics on American slavery and trying to avoid the risk of dehumanizing the people you are trying to document

2022-01-29 slavery • history • datascience • data • slavevoyages • genealogy • tootme

Queen Opens Cruachan Dam

1965 pumped hydro power station in Scotland

2022-01-28 scotland • queen • power • energy • electricity • hydroelectric • cruachan • tootme

Maus as Jewish story

Nuanced comment about the famous book about Jews under the Nazis, and how the story doesn't fit American evangelical hero narratives

2022-01-28 maus • jewish • holocaust • nazis • germany • criticism • tootme

Antiques Roadshow: NFT Edition

2022-01-28 funny • comedy • nft • crypto • scam • cryptocurrency • tootme

Fake Covid test sites

Details on East Bay scams; we have these in Grass Valley too

2022-01-28 scam • covid • fraud • medical • doctor • testing

Possible alternative to The Root; a web news site with many Black perspectives. Michael Harriot is writing here now.

2022-01-28 culture • politics • news • writing • black • harriot • america • tootme

Detailed instructions for 3d printing your own pen plotter using a Raspberry Pi for the controller

2022-01-28 art • plotting • plotter • rpi • hacks • tootme

Texas furry panic

They've moved on from lying about transgender kids to making up fantasies about furries out of whole cloth

2022-01-27 texas • furry • politics • lies • gaypanic

Decline at The Root

Important online outlet for Black perspectives has been run into the ground by G/O Media

2022-01-27 black • culture • theroot • hariott • media • tootme

Reading out the WashPo's racism

Very sharp Michael Harriot Twitter thread on a Washington Post editorial about Supreme Court nominees

2022-01-27 racism • washpo • washingtonpost • supremecourt • politics • crt • harriot

SF siren debacle

A history of the emergency warning sirens in San Francisco, now silent for two years

2022-01-27 sanfrancisco • sirens • emergency • government • tootme

A "where are they now" article for a 1980s phreaker

2022-01-26 susanthunder • hacking • phreaking • scene • history • tootme

Numbers station pirates

Russian shortwave military station taken over by unauthorized transmissions

2022-01-26 radio • cyberpunk • numbers • military • spies • russia • tootme • via:jwz

Facebook crypto failure

Facebook's stab at a digital currency business venture falls apart

2022-01-26 cryptocurrency • money • facebook • diem • badtech • tootme

A Muppet Wicker Man

Cult 70s horror film reimagined as a Muppet protection

2022-01-25 movies • wickerman • parody • funny • muppets • via:metafilter • tootme

Copyleft trolling

Greedy lawyers exploit a foible of Creative Commons licensing to demand payments. Absolute bad faith, the exact opposite of what CC is about.

2022-01-25 licensing • copyright • copyleft • creativecommons • legal • tootme

Thuggery at Nevada County election office

Group of anti-mask zealots try to force their way into a county election office

2022-01-25 nevadacounty • fascism • covid • politics

OKLAB color space

Yet another perceptual color space

2022-01-25 colors • colorspace • perceptual • visualization • tootme

Patrick McHardy settlement

Agreement between netfilter team and a developer who had been suing companies for GPL violation

2022-01-24 gpl • licensing • copyright • mchardy • netfilter • linux • tootme

Patrick McHardy and GPL

Single Linux developer has been suing companies for years for GPL violations and taking personal payoffs.

2022-01-24 gpl • mchardy • linux • copyright • netfilter • tootme

Smart contract bug in the Tezos NFT project (from six months ago)

2022-01-24 tezos • nft • bug • badtech • hicetnunc • hen • tootme

UI bug / gas fees / wonky contract garbage means contracts that look cancelled aren't

2022-01-24 opensea • bug • nft • fraud • badtech • tootme

Game developers vs crypto

70% of surveyed developers have no interest in cryptocurrency or NFTs. Only 6% are very interested.

2022-01-24 games • developers • via:reddit • nfts • cryptocurrencies • crypto • scam • tootme

Oculus: Passthrough

Collection of games and experiments that use the passthrough IR camera on the VR headset for a mixed reality experience

2022-01-23 oculus • passthrough • augmentedreality • ar • mixedreality • mr • tootme • games

An excellent obituary for the Reed College professor

2022-01-23 reed • reedcollege • segel • history • gay • lgbt • tootme

Starlink FCC subsidies

Details on the $885M in broadband funding the FCC awarded to Starlink last year

2022-01-23 starlink • isp • fiber • internet • broadband • development • tootme

Draft coup documents

Drafted executive order which would have Trump using the military to seize power in the US

2022-01-21 trump • coup • politics • military • crime • sedition • fascism

Succession pizza

Remarkably good parody of the TV show

2022-01-21 succession • tv • pizza • funny • tootme • parody

Crop photos to hexagon

Web tool for cropping a photo to various simple shapes including a bonafide NFT hexagon

2022-01-21 crop • photo • tool • nft • hexagon • funny • twitter • tootme

19 year old flies solo around the world

Remarkable achievement. And in a very small single engine plane (a Shark) without an instrument rating.

2022-01-21 flying • aviation • pilot • shark • vfr • youngwomen • tootme

Amanda Gorman on her fear

Inauguration poet in 2021 almost didn't take the opportunity for fear for her safety. "My mom had us crouch in our living room so that she could practice shielding my body from bullets."

2022-01-21 poetry • politics • trump • fascism • inauguration

How Tornado Cash works

I asked some questions about how Ethereum's money laundering system works and got some good replies. (Summary: smart contracts.)

2022-01-21 ethereum • fraud • crime • moneylaundering • tornadocash • badtech • tootme

Roblox portmortem

Details of a 3 day outage at the game company

2022-01-21 roblox • postmortem • outage • ops • consul • boltdb • tootme

Twitter NFT Hexagon

A little web tool to make a picture into a Twitter NFT-like hexagon shape suitable for uploading as your profile pic

2022-01-21 hexagon • twitter • nfts • profile • funny • tootme • scam

Smart TV outage

Roku failure means a lot of TVs with Roku software did not work, even as dumb display panels

2022-01-20 roku • tv • outage • badtech • smarttv • tootme

Larsi adds a database to emacs

2022-01-20 emacs • sqlite • database • programming • tootme • larsi

IRS going to require images of your face to log in and pay taxes

2022-01-20 irs • login • badtech • authentication • biometrics • logingov • idme • tootme

crypto.com hack

Details of a security breach. To their credit, the company reimbursed anyone who lost money

2022-01-20 crypto • cryptocom • cryptocurrency • security • badtech • hack • fraud • tootme

covidtests.gov architecture

An external examination; it's a bog standard AWS app. Good!

2022-01-20 covid • government • usps • usds • aws • websites • scalability • tootme

1Password funding

Valuation at $6.8B

2022-01-19 password • 1password • financing • investing • security • login • tootme

Building Covid test site

US government free Covid test site was built by USPS working with USDS

2022-01-19 covid • government • procurement • usps • usds • development • website • tootme

crypto.com $15M theft

Despite them claiming there was no problem, the magic bean exchange apparently lost $15M to thieves. It's now being laundered.

2022-01-19 crypto.com • crypto • cryptocurrency • fraud • theft • moneylaundering • tootme

1929 SF Streetcar map

Nicely done original map of all the competing public transit lines in San Francisco in 1929

2022-01-18 transit • muni • sanfrancisco • sf • streetcar • history • tootme

Bored Ape Nazi dogwhistles?

Cultural similarities between a flagship NFT and Nazi ideology? Not sure how credible all these connections are but it's an interesting read with references

2022-01-17 nfts • nazis • cryptocurrency • crypto

Browser addon that fills out cookie consent forms for you

2022-01-17 cookies • privacy • browser • gdpr • extension • firefox • tootme

Personalized stock indices

The rise in people investing in a basket of individual stocks that mimic an index

2022-01-16 indexing • investing • aperio • parametric • taxlossharvesting • finance • tootme

Cryptocurrency vs Gamers

Gamers already tired of being financially exploited by microtransactions; see NFTs for the obvious scam they are

2022-01-16 nfts • crypto • gaming • cryptocurrency • scam • tootme

Readable overview of the discrepancy between different methods of measuring the age of the universe

2022-01-16 cosmology • science • astronomy • hubble • cmr • tootme

Tonga shockwave

Visualizing the spread of the volcano shockwave by looking at pressure gauges across the US

2022-01-15 tonga • volcano • weather • sensor • shockwave • science • tootme

Berlin for people

Details of Kiezblocks, the effort to make people-friendly places in Berlin by priortizing pedestrians and bikes over cars

2022-01-15 cars • bikes • walking • berlin • city • livability • kiez • kiezblocks • tootme

A very basic web theme that makes ordinary HTML look decent

2022-01-14 html • css • webdevelopment • web • tootme • via:hackernews

Improving Blender relief

Some detailed notes on a terrain rendering technique for maps

2022-01-14 maps • terrain • blender • graphics • shading • tootme

One of the larger ransomware threats operating semi-openly was shut down by the Russian government in cooperation with US and other investigators

2022-01-14 revil • ransomware • badtech • russia • tootme

National vaccine card

California Covid digital record becomes a de facto national standard

2022-01-13 vaccine • covid • healthcare • california • richklau • tootme

PG&E SmartMeter data

Third party devices approved to stream data off a SmartMeter and display it in your home

2022-01-12 pge • smartmeter • energy • solar • electricity • tootme

Open Energy View

A third party open source view of house energy usage. Integrates with PG&E's API

2022-01-12 pge • power • electricity • api • solar • tootme

SF Covid testing failure

City Covid testing centers are understaffed, shut down today because the operator (Color) had a computer system failure

2022-01-11 color • covid • sanfrancisco • testing • medical • healthcare • government • competence

Sierra storm postmortem

Some details on what parts of our social systems failed

2022-01-10 sierra • nevadacounty • winter • storm • emergency • disaster • tootme

Blockchain tech challenges

Good mainstream article about the difficulty of building a scalable, efficient, decentralized blockchain

2022-01-10 blockchain • crypto • cryptocurrency • defi • tech • tootme

US Congress enslavers

Detailed statistics of 1700 men in early American government who enslaved people

2022-01-10 slavery • america • politics • history • tootme

Starlink availability map

Tool to check when Starlink might be available

2022-01-10 maps • starlink • isp • internet • tootme

Google anti-union propaganda

Project Viviane, an effort to persuade people unions were bad

2022-01-10 unions • labor • politics • google • tirefire

Detailed article on Roblox' value for children and their failure to meet the responsibility of protecting those children

2022-01-09 roblox • games • development • exploitation • tootme

Political philosophy of cryptocurrency

Tracing the history of Bitcoin, etc back to various extremist libertarian positions

2022-01-09 bitcoin • politics • cryptocurrency • crypto • fascism • libertarianism • tootme

10 years of Bridgy

Ryan Barrett's underappreciated indieweb project bridging multiple social media silos

2022-01-09 bridgy • socialmedia • twitter • facebook • internet • tootme • indieweb

Open source trolling

Developer of some popular NPM packages pushes broken code as a protest

2022-01-09 npm • opensource • zalgo • programming • tootme

Fletcher’s Mutiny Cyclorama

A 360 degree panorama painting on Norfolk Island

2022-01-09 norfolkisland • australia • pitcairn • norfolk • fletcher • mutiny • tootme

Alternative Python library for dates, times, and datetimes

2022-01-09 python • time • datetime • arrow • programming • code • tootme

Signal and payments

About the risk Signal is taking expanding into cryptocurrency payments; it creates legal threats to their status as a messaging platform

2022-01-08 messaging • signal • cryptocoin • security • badtech • crypto • privacy • tootme

Kiezplan von Berlin

A map of all the small neighborhoods in Berlin

2022-01-08 maps • berlin • kiez • neighborhood • tootme

Kinder Suprise Message

A celebration of a small bit of legal warning text translated into many languages

2022-01-08 translation • language • via:languagehat • toys • kindersurprise • tootme

iMessage and monopoly

Details of how Apple's strategy for proprietary messaging was a deliberate anti-competitive strategy to bolster their products

2022-01-08 apple • ios • monopoly • messaging • rcs • sms • text • phone • tootme

Futel conspiracy victim

An account of being at the center of a QAnon-style conspiracy theory

2022-01-08 futel • conspiracy • reddit • culture • internet • qanon • tootme

Making a 2020 census dot map

Details on producing a visualization of Us demographics that's pretty data-intensive

2022-01-08 maps • dotmap • census • tippecanoe • via:reddit • tootme

In 2017 someone painted a picture by creating and withdrawing Internet routes

2022-01-07 internet • bgp • routing • funny • cat • art • tootme

Proant Niche antennas

Wifi antenna used in Raspbery Pi Zeros; they etch a cavity in the PCB

2022-01-07 antenna • wifi • networking • radio • rpi • raspberrypi • magic • hardware • tootme

SQLite extensions

Nice collection of useful addons to the database

2022-01-07 via:lobsters • sql • sqlite • database • programming • tootme

Fun queer horror short story

2022-01-06 writing • gay • lgbt • horror • shortstory • fiction • grindr • tootme

A particular form of written communication that expresses emotion while typing kxjvajisad.

2022-01-06 keysmash • texting • writing • lgbt • culture • tootme

A social media manipulation tool in India for promoting right wing media messages.

2022-01-06 india • bjp • politics • twitter • facebook • tekfog • via:metafilter

Trump: "rise up"

Just a day before the anniversary of his coup attempt, Trump again uses war-like language to inflame his supporters against America

2022-01-06 politics • trump • civilwar • fascism • jan6

MySQL's broken Unicode

The actual commit that broke UTF8 in MySQL

2022-01-05 mysql • database • unicode • badtech • programming • tootme

Lenore Blum on math and gender

Famous cryptography mathematician shares her experiences being a woman in academia

2022-01-05 math • women • sexism • academia • crypto • cryptography

Itchy & Scratchy Money

A cynical read on contemporary cryptocurrency coming from the same history I do

2022-01-05 cypherpunks • crypto • cryptocurrency • fraud • scam • assassinationpolitics • jwz • tootme

NEM 2 Evaluation

Some data from the CPUC about how California's consumer solar program has worked

2022-01-04 cpuc • california • solar • power • economics • tootme

Bug in Microsoft Exchange date conversion means email doesn't work starting today

2022-01-01 bugs • software • mail • microsoftexchange • exchange • tootme