Nelson's Linkblog 2012-01

about • archive • mastodon • feed

Why Flickr failed at mobile

Kellan gives much insider detail on Yahoo's miasma of failure

2012-01-31 flickr • innovation • mobile • yahoo

At Twitter, The Future is You!

Amazing new recruiting video

2012-01-30 funny • parody • recruiting • twitter

Decent roundup of $10 / month server options

2012-01-30 cheap • hosting • via:hackernews • vps

ACME vs AdSense

Awesome small developer gets banned from Google AdSense, no explanation

2012-01-30 ads • adsense • google • publishing

Another approach to caching disks with SSDs in Linux

2012-01-29 cache • facebook • linux • performance • raid • ssd

Linux kernel patch to use an SSD as a cache in front of hard drives

2012-01-29 bcache • filesystem • linux • optimization • performance • raid

Twitter's filters

Nice view of what it's like to be an international operator

2012-01-28 censorship • civilrights • humanrights • twitter

Airplane cabin cat

Surprisingly mellow kitty

2012-01-28 aviation • cats • flying • planes

GPS jamming vs. flight safety

Jackasses in trucks endangered airplanes

2012-01-28 aviation • faa • flying • gps

Building a kernel on Ubuntu 11.10

This sure has gotten complicated

2012-01-27 compiling • kernels • linux • ubuntu

Pirating the Oscars 2012

Andy's latest roundup of online movie piracy

2012-01-26 copyright • movies • oscars • piracy • waxy

A Few Acres of Snow

Board / deck-building game about the French & Indian war

2012-01-26 deckbuilding • games • gaming • historical • war • wargame

Reference site for moving from Google Maps to open, free alternatives

2012-01-26 google • mapping • maps • openstreetmap • osm

The illusion of free choice

Modern game design

2012-01-26 choice • funny • games

Javascript framework, used by Square, client-heavy

2012-01-25 javascript • programming • web

Zynga cloning Tiny Tower

It's a pretty damning comparison. Only Zynga's looks better.

2012-01-25 games • nimblebit • ripoff • tinytower • zynga

Nice release, finally runs on Windows too!

2012-01-25 cartography • gis • maps • nodejs • tilemill

SpaceChem sandbox winners

Nerdy puzzle game has awesome creations

2012-01-25 games • sandbox • spacechem

SoMa food truck pod

SF borrows an idea from Portland

2012-01-25 dining • food • foodcart • foodtruck • portland • sanfrancisco

iPhoto iCloud -> Lightroom

A helper app that copies photos over

2012-01-25 icloud • iphoto • lightroom • photography • photos

Dissent within Google

I've been wondering what employees think at Google

2012-01-25 google • google+ • privacy

Very funny account of a script offer

2012-01-25 comics • via:metafilter • watchmen

Google on new privacy policy

This explanation sounds more like a clarification than a change

2012-01-25 gmail • google • google+ • privacy • security

Google's new privacy policy

Combining information across multiple products

2012-01-25 gmail • google • google+ • privacy • security

Kim.dotcom's gamer profile

Xbox Live account MEGARACER

2012-01-24 games • kimdotcom • megaupload • xbox

Private Equity evils

Simple explanation of what the bad actors do

2012-01-24 capitalism • investment • privateequity • stock

Bytebeat composer

Simple tool for making bytebeat in your browser

2012-01-24 bytebeat • generative • music • via:metafilter

Generative music experiments with very simple programs

2012-01-24 chiptunes • generative • generativeart • music

Google punctuation search

Seems to understand @ for Twitter, at least somewhat

2012-01-23 google • punctuation • search • twitter

Automated CAPTCHA solving

Farms of humans powering the Matrix

2012-01-23 bots • captcha • security

BitTorrent in the datacenter

Database replication. Oh, and a side of parallel SHA-1

2012-01-23 bittorrent • etsy • hacking • ops • optimization • sha1

Apache 408 errors

New apache log lines; empty requests, seem to be a result of browser prediction

2012-01-23 408 • apache • http • logs

Beautiful time lapse (view full screen)

2012-01-23 nature • photography • yosemite

Bagram: It gets better

Uniformed military with a message of support for GLBT youth

2012-01-23 civilrights • dadt • gay • glbt • military

Another GL tutorial, much more comprehensive

2012-01-23 3d • gl • graphics • opengl

OpenGL tutorial

Part 1 has a nice description of the basic pipeline

2012-01-23 graphics • opengl • progamming • via:hackernews

Doctor Who theme as dirge

Nice bit of arrangement

2012-01-22 doctorwho • funeral • music • soundtrack • via:monstro

State of the demoscene: 1991 - 2011

Great roundup of 20 years of creative computer hacking

2012-01-22 art • demos • demoscene • scene • via:waxy

Funny programmer talk

2012-01-22 funny • javascript • ruby • via:waxy

danah boyd profile

Nice coverage of the Internet anthropologist

2012-01-22 anthropology • brown • danah • danahboyd • fashion • mit • research • teenagers • teens

Crazy apartment building

What is this? Could be faked.

2012-01-22 apartments • architecture • building • images

Kitchen Nightmares scoresheet

Gordon Ramsay's victims

2012-01-22 cooking • food • gordonramsay • realitytv • via:metafilter

MacOS Temperature Monitor

Includes a command line tool for reporting temperatures

2012-01-22 commandline • macos • monitoring • shell • temperature

Another charting system built on top of D3, designed for usablity

2012-01-22 charting • code • d3 • graphing • javascript

Very popular gay hookup app, apparently no security

2012-01-22 badtech • gay • grindr • hack • ios • iphone • sex

A fork of ImageMagick, seems preferred

2012-01-21 conversion • graphics • graphicsmagik • imagemagick • images

Etsy's image processing

Great notes on building a scalable system for data manipulation

2012-01-21 data • graphicsmagick • imagemagick • images • performance • scalability

Aeronav Dec 13 meeting notes

Details from the meeting where FAA wants to charge for digital charts

2012-01-21 aeronav • charts • faa

Google+ statistics distortion

Critical analysis of how Google is communicating on user uptake

2012-01-21 actives • google • google+ • statistics

Mercator visualization

Clever display of how a sphere gets turned into a rectangle

2012-01-21 d3 • geo • mercator • projections • visualization

Rickshaw graphing

Declarative wrapper around D3 for Javascript graphs

2012-01-21 d3 • graphs • javascript • visualization

Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut

15 second fan-made snippets of Star Wars, cut to a full film

2012-01-21 amazing • art • movies • starwars • via:metafilter

A character whose sole purpose is to be hated by the audience

2012-01-20 emotion • mpaa • trope • writing

NMA on Google Search+

Anti-trust explained with animated robots

2012-01-20 animation • funny • google • google+ • nma • search

Real-time Internet attack map

Akamai's view of broad Internet traffic stats

2012-01-20 hacking • heatmap • internet • map • traffic • visualization

Megaupload briefing

Summary of the case

2012-01-20 copyright • law • megaupload • piracy • rights • via:hackernews

iBooks monopoly

Stupid lawyer tricks from Apple

2012-01-20 apple • ibooks • licensing • publishing • scam

Roundup of projects from the design firm

2012-01-19 cartography • design • mapping • moma • stamen

ext3fs on MacOS Lion

Modern notes on what to install to mount Linux filesystems on a Mac

2012-01-19 ext2 • ext3 • ext3fs • filesystem • fuse • linux • lion • macfuse • macos

Mario vs Pac-Man

nice little animation

2012-01-18 animation • games • mario • pacman

Just dropped off 750 CDs at a ripping service: they use this app

2012-01-18 alac • cd • metadata • mp3 • music • ripping

World IPv6 Launch

2012-01-17 internet • ipv6 • networking

China's online ads market

Data from the parallel Internet

2012-01-17 ads • advertising • business • china • internet

Biden / Obama price sheet

Handy list of what it costs to meet your elected representative

2012-01-17 biden • campaign • corruption • democrats • financing • obama • politics

A sort of Japanese writing pun; kanji used phonetically

2012-01-17 japanese • kanji • language • writing

OSM Bright Minimal

Beautiful, very spare / light basemap

2012-01-17 graphics • infovis • maps • openstreetmap • osm • visualization

Language detection library

Extracted from Google Chrome

2012-01-17 code • google • language • library • opensource

Startup hosting decisions

Data from YCombinator companies

2012-01-17 amazon • dns • godaddy • hosting • via:hackernews

Chrome extension to put cartoon moustaches on faces

2012-01-16 chrome • funny • moustache • prank

Business of the Black Eyed Peas

Details on will.i.am's commercial empire

2012-01-16 bep • blackeyedpeas • music • will.i.am

Numbers in 5000 languages

Comparative linguistics, with maps

2012-01-16 etymology • language • linguistics

1974 drag racing short, directed by a friend of mine

2012-01-16 cars • dragracing • kenru • movies • racing

Battlefield 3 Maps

2012-01-16 battlefield • battlefield3 • bf3 • games • guide • maps

Amit Patel moves his game development notes to his own site

2012-01-16 amitp • amitpatel • developer • games • google

Apple TV speculation

Nice analysis of where Apple could (or could not) go

2012-01-15 apple • appletv • television • tv

A sophisticated tool for showing network usage on your Mac

2012-01-15 1tw • bandwidth • littlesnitch • mac • macos • monitoring • network

The Z3 apocalypse

Very clever storytelling, start on Day 1

2012-01-15 apocalypse • art • memes • reddit • via:metafilter • zombies

Make a web page automatically reload CSS

2012-01-15 css • development • javascript • via:hackernews

Best street art 2011

Nice collection of photos

2012-01-15 art • france • photos • streetart

iPhone JailbreakQA

Readable summary of the state of the art in iPhone unlocking and jailbreaking

2012-01-14 att • attfail • cydia • faq • ios • iphone • redsn0w • ultrasn0w

Illustrated permutations

Nice demo of various shuffling algorithms

2012-01-14 algorithms • d3 • shuffling • visualizations

Bufferbloat paper

Gettys writes up his analysis of a big Internet problem as a proper paper

2012-01-13 buffer • internet • network • performance • speed • tcpip

Open source intertial guidance

Project to build an inertial guidance system in open source

2012-01-13 aviation • drones • gps • inertial • ins • location • navigation

iPhone 4 Gyroscope

Pictures of the MEMS magic

2012-01-13 gyroscope • ins • iphone • location • mems

Car location database

California police bypass privacy laws by using private firms' databases

2012-01-13 cars • civilrights • gps • location • privacy

Designy cases and covers for iPhones, etc

2012-01-13 art • case • design • iphone • ipod • via:marc

Duck Duck Douche

2012-01-13 douchebag • duckface • funny

GPS tracker / fitness timer for iPhone. Uses iPhone as a pedometer to correct flaky GPS reports.

2012-01-13 exercise • gps • gpx • runkeeper • running • tracking • walking

Moonrise Kingdom trailer

New Wes Anderson film: painfully Wes. Great cast!

2012-01-13 moonrisekingdom • movies • wesanderson

BitBucket postmortem

Downtime because syslog was running blocking TCP. How is that even possible?!

2012-01-13 badtech • bitbucket • blocking • io • syslog • tcp

Twitter: Who to Follow

My linkblog account picked up 8000 followers in two days, apparently because it was featured.

2012-01-13 follow • socialmedia • stats • twitter

Flickr Authentication Map

Comparison of their old system to OAuth

2012-01-11 api • flickr • oauth • programming

@Mat Honan channels JG Ballard

2012-01-11 ces • funny • gadgets

Goodbye, Google Maps

Geo-intensive site builds their own maps

2012-01-11 gis • gmaps • google • googlemaps • maps • openstreetmap • osm • tilemill • via:mattc

Danny Sullivan on Google Search+

Best search analyst in the industry writes up the latest Internet shitstorm

2012-01-11 google • google+ • search • seo • twitter

TellApart ad stats

Ad placement startup from former Google folks posts some impressive numbers. 9% CTR

2012-01-11 ads • adsense • adwords • google • tellapart

30 stories in 15 days

Rapid building construction in China. Neat modular design.

2012-01-11 architecture • building • china • video

Lightroom 4 beta

Better geotagging, photobooks, overhaul of exposure settings

2012-01-11 adobe • lightroom • photography • photos • photoshop

Kerguelen Islands

The only land mass antipodal to the continental US

2012-01-11 antarctic • france • island • remote

twitter-clocks-favourites

A list of automated Twitter accounts posting the time

2012-01-11 soundofthetone • swatch • time • twitter

They're still the devil's ISP, but this seems like a pretty good rollout

2012-01-11 comcast • dns • dnssec • isp • security

Runkeeper and privacy

Interesting: there's no way to make your overall profile page private

2012-01-10 data • gpstracking • privacy • runkeeper

Kickstarter 2011 stats

That worst pie chart evar wasn't intended as a pie chart. Also, Kickstarter is cool.

2012-01-10 charts • infovis • kickstarter • visualization

How to make a pretty woman

2012-01-10 advertising • beauty • dove • health • photoshop

Fotoshop by Adobé

The celebrity beauty secret

2012-01-10 adobe • ads • advertising • funny • parody • photoshop • via:metafilter

Strange set of requirements

2012-01-10 aero • aviation • dns • registrar

Hospital charge insanity

Partial explanation of how crazy medical billing is

2012-01-10 billing • hospital • medical • scam • via:hackernews

Google+ in Google search

They sure are aggressive about social

2012-01-10 google • google+ • googleplus • search • social

Worst pie chart evar

From Kickstarter's 2012 post

2012-01-10 infovis • kickstarter • piechart • statistics

SF Uber revisualization

Different view into Uber's data of car trips in SF

2012-01-10 d3 • infovis • sanfrancisco • sf • uber • visualization

How people use the private car service

2012-01-10 neighborhoods • sanfrancisco • transportation • uber • visualization

Parallel version of bzip2

2012-01-10 bzip • bzip2 • compression • parallel • threading

Unix tools for securely deleting files (in Debian)

2012-01-09 delete • rm • securedelete • shred

Bassnectar explains Dubstep

Nice little video. Never mentions the wobble!

2012-01-09 animation • dubstep • music • via:rchen

Battlestar Galactica RPG

Funny (and full of spoilers)

2012-01-09 battlestargalactica • bsg • funny • games • retro • snes • via:metafilter

Eraserhead (Japanese)

Nice little animated GIF

2012-01-09 davidlynch • eraserhead • gif • jacknance • movies

Balloon Mapping Kits

Kickstarter project for the cool citizen aerial mapping project

2012-01-09 aerialmapping • balloons • kickstarter • maps

Atomic Energy Lab

Play with Uranium. For kids!

2012-01-09 50s • science • toys • uranium

My Guantánamo nightmare

The continuing shame of America

2012-01-08 civilrights • guantanamo • justice • prison

EasyDNS DDoS debrief

"ponzi/HYIP sites, porn sites or gambling/casino/betting."

2012-01-08 ddos • dns • gambling • hacking • hosting • porn

Black Lotus DNS

DNS host for sites regularly attacked by DDoS

2012-01-08 ddos • dns • hacker • hosting • server

Magic server tool: inspects a server to find what's been set up, generates install scripts

2012-01-07 chef • deployment • ops • puppet • server

A stripped down Ubuntu for running in virtual machines

2012-01-07 jeos • linux • ubuntu • virtualization • vm • vmware

Distribution of tweet lengths

I suspect the spike around 30 is spam links

2012-01-07 data • graph • spam • twitter

Battlefield 3 for noobs

Roundup of hints, guides, etc

2012-01-07 battlefield • battlefield3 • games • xbox

Ho Chi Minh City timelapse

2012-01-06 hochiminhcity • timelapse • traffic • via:metafilter • vietnam

Skrillex / DubTrot

Fantastic My Little Pony video

2012-01-06 bronies • dubstep • funny • music • mylittlepony • skrillex • via:kottke

Doctor Who Timeline

Remarkably useful infographic

2012-01-06 bbc • doctorwho • tv • via:metafilter

Doctor Who space archives

50 year old BBC signals are bouncing back to earth, decodable. (Ooops, it's an April Fools joke.)

2012-01-06 bbc • doctorwho • signal • space • tv

Zen19s KGS rank

Ranking of the top playing Computer Go player

2012-01-06 ai • games • go • kgs

Simple CPUs for low power and embedded use

2012-01-06 centaur • cpu • intel • via • x86

Cheat for new MMO game The Old Republic: dance emotes make you invincible

2012-01-04 bugs • exploit • funny • games • mmos • tor

@wendideng vs @wendi_deng

How Twitter verified a fake account; no idea if this is true, but it's plausible.

2012-01-04 identity • murdoch • twitter • wendideng

Interviews with 1980s game developers

2012-01-04 apple • developer • games • interview

Classic Apple ][ fighting game

2012-01-04 apple • apple2 • bilestoad • games • nostalgia

Best Buy vs Amazon

Excellent analysis of a failure of customer service

2012-01-04 amazon • bestbuy • business • customerservice

a type of key with dots on the side

2012-01-04 dasracist • dimple • keys • locks • locksmithing

TVs are all awful

Even digital video is a bunch of awful hacks

2012-01-03 badtech • edid • hdmi • tv • via:hackernews • video

Code borrowing in computer chess

Influence of open source, reverse engineering in top tier chess AI

2012-01-03 chess • code • games • opensource

TileMill in 2012

Plans for the map development platform

2012-01-03 gis • mapbox • mapping • osgeo • tilemill

80s nostalgia appied to Skyrim

2012-01-03 funny • games • skyrim • tes

I had no idea this anatomical feature had a name

2012-01-03 anatomy • gay • men • sexy • skinny

MAME on Native Client

Great story of porting serious C code to run in a browser

2012-01-02 code • google • mame • nacl • nativeclient • porting • via:hackernews

Scientology apostate on Facebook

Wall with comments from critic

2012-01-02 cult • debbiecook • scientology

Scientology schism

Formerly high-up in the Church of Scientology now a critic, but still a member

2012-01-02 cult • debbiecook • flag • scientology • seaorg

Uber price confusion

The iPhone app doesn't do enough to disclose unusually high rates

2012-01-01 design • fare • pricing • uber • ui

Mystic Mayan Power Cloak

Protect yourself from the 2012 apocalypse

2012-01-01 2012 • funny • mayan • scam