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2018/11/30 #

Today’s links:

  • Interesting piece today in The Intercept about Google Dragonfly, how are we to view Google these days? Do we trust them still?theintercept.com #

  • Techmeme launches paid and free "Leaderboards" showing the most influential reporters around a specific news topicnews.techmeme.com #

  • Facebook’s new local news section could be a boon to social activists and researchersthenextweb.com #

  • Insane that I just had to run this incredibly hacky fix to get iTunes to recognize my iOS device again, why are you breaking things Apple?discussions.apple.com #

  • Cookie AutoDelete - Control your cookies! Auto-delete unused cookies from your closed tabs while keeping the ones you wantchrome.google.com #

  • Brexit - May not ruling out second MPs' vote on deal, the Norway+ option, Parliament could be forced to sit over Christmaswww.bbc.com #

  • Why we stopped trusting elites - Quite a long piece but touches on a lot of relevant shifts that are happening in the landscapewww.theguardian.com #

2018/11/29 #

Today’s links:

  • What, exactly, is the DOM? (Makes me think that it would be nice if browser devtools had pure DOM and CSSOM tabs)bitsofco.de #

  • Initab - Chrome new tab extension for Developers that replaces the new tab page with a dashboard of useful tools to make your job as a programmer easierinitab.com #

  • Bank warns no-deal could see UK sink into recession - says deal purgatory is good (personally I think deal purgatory is bullshit bullying tactics used by thugs and the mob)www.bbc.com #

  • Quantum mechanics and Kevin Spacey, JFK’s five assassins, and proof of reincarnation, in this week’s dubious tabloidsboingboing.net #

  • Doesn't the Brexit trade purgatory feel like the EU trying to exit quarantine the UK from the rest of the world?en.wikipedia.org #

  • Unbelievably bad internet connectivity problems today, resulting in a cascade of issues, just when you think you've been kicked in the teeth enough - how many independent software developers does it take to post a message - well it depends on how many kicks in the teeth they are receiving silly!en.wikipedia.org #

  • Remember to update systemd when changing Redis default path or else you eventually get - Redis: Failed opening .rdb for savingstackoverflow.com #

2018/11/28 #

Today’s links:

  • Climate change - CO2 emissions rising for first time in four yearswww.bbc.com #

  • The Fake News Inquiry Chair Says He's Seen Evidence A Facebook Engineer Flagged Russian "Entities" Pulling Data In 2014www.buzzfeed.com #

  • Hacker backdoors popular JavaScript library to steal Bitcoin fundswww.zdnet.com #

  • Google employees join together with Amnesty International to oppose Chinese censorship and surveillance - "We are Google employees. Google must drop Dragonfly."medium.com #

  • South Koreans lock themselves up to escape prison of daily life - “This prison gives me a sense of freedom” (At what point do we stop and say ok there is something seriously wrong with the world?)www.reuters.com #

  • The Future of Robots Won’t Be Like ‘The Terminator’ - It’ll Probably Be Worsemelmagazine.com #

  • Auschwitz Photographs Hidden from the Nazis Are Given New Life in Colorwww.artsy.net #

  • Incredible picture of May looking like an owl/eagle/dracula while with Trump - as for the news article it actually has some good Brexit analysis - the 21 month trade purgatory sounds a bit shit if you ask mewww.theguardian.com #

  • Dropping Acid - Describes an interesting and relatively rarely occurring moment in culture, when there is a radical inflection point, in this case the 1980s, musicians in Chicago built a new genre out of obsolete machinery - Listeners lost their mindslogicmag.io #

  • Amazon Web Services launches AWS Ground Station, a cloud service for satellite operatorswww.geekwire.com #

2018/11/27 #

Today’s links:

  • Brexit: Trump says May's Brexit plan could hurt UK-US trade deal - He says under the proposed deal the UK might not be "allowed to trade"www.bbc.com #

  • Facebook's YouTube competitor Watch - "shows have successfully captured younger viewers" (Are we perhaps using the wrong sort of language to describe social media?)www.cnbc.com #

  • It's worth remembering that most of the politicians and journalists will keep their jobs whether it's a good deal or a bad deal - Read / Scan through the actual Brexit document for YOURSELF!ec.europa.eu #

  • The only major news organisation that has published the full text of the Brexit deal on their website is CNN!edition.cnn.com #

  • The actual Brexit document is really not published in a modern format - there should be an outline/index, and each section should be linkable via url - the w3c's HTML spec is a good examplewww.w3.org #

  • A table of contents of the Brexit deal document is on Github! Makes it a LOT easier to find any section you might be interested in or that might affects yougithub.com #

  • New data suggests African audiences see significantly more misinformation than Americans dowww.niemanlab.org #

  • SpaceX CEO Elon Musk teases Mars breakthroughs as Starship design radically changeswww.teslarati.com #

2018/11/26 #

Today’s links:

  • Have any journalists actually bothered to read the deal? I haven't read a single news article that explains point by point what's in and whats not in the deal, nothing but high level hand waving non-factual rubbishwww.bbc.com #

  • Seems as though the journalists are just waiting to be spoon fed by the PM on her two week charm offensive, hundreds and hundreds of words, only note worthy fact is a tiny mention of fisherieswww.theguardian.com #

  • A small nugget of info about the deal's policy on immigration in this piecewww.irishtimes.com #

  • Some Brexit facts (sort of) in this piece even if they are all conjecture on what could happen nextinews.co.uk #

  • Suggestion - Every single major newspaper should be hosting a copy of the Brexit agreement for people to download and read, even the outline headings of the document would be useful, instead there is nothing but drivelwww.independent.co.uk #

  • The Brexit deal document isn't even available for download on the European Commission website front page!ec.europa.eu #

  • This appears to be the draft Brexit deal document, buried really deep on the European Commission website - An example of the EU's lack of transparency, IMO it should be on the front page!ec.europa.eu #

  • Plot twist - The evolution of the AI ham radio VR brain hackers is a new "Elite" of people who no longer read, instead they loiter outside the houses of people who read and hack their brains, straight to the source of knowledge! But there is a widespread Schrödinger problem, because they are not passive observers, creating massive distortions in the worlds reality. Oh noes!linkblog.io #

  • Summary of UK papers headlines - May begins Brexit 'hard sell'www.bbc.com #

  • How '50s And '60s Jazz Got Its Iconic Lookdigg.com #

  • Behind the scenes with Hollywood's creature making wizardsboingboing.net #

  • EU leaders agree UK's Brexit deal at Brussels summitwww.bbc.com #

2018/11/24 #

Today’s links:

  • Today all the tech press are reporting on the "We are not robots" protests from Amazon employees across Europe - It's the first I've heard about itwww.techmeme.com #

  • Brain-computer interfaces in JavaScript! (Her worse gripe with the tech is a little short sited, personally I would be more worried about another opium war style scenario but with no end because no one would know it was happening)medium.com #

  • Plot twist - Oh noes the AI ham radio brain hackers are back and they have hooked their rigs up to VR, now they can keep you suspended in a dream like state while interacting with you using javascript! Secret ai ham radio javascript labor camps everywhere! Arghlinkblog.io #

  • We have reached Peak Tech - Why tech is taking a hammeringwww.bbc.com #

  • Why Switzerland is worried about UK trade after Brexitwww.bbc.com #

  • Baseball in London is fantastic! Not liking this video edit though, "Buy great assets and own them for a very long time", was it really one take as it's made out to seem? Hmm.www.bbc.com #

2018/11/23 #

Today’s links:

  • Corbyn - EU (Brexit) agreement is 'worst of all worlds', '26 pages of waffle'www.bbc.com #

  • Corbyn & May - I'd like to know what you plan to do after Brexit to deal with the AI just around the corner that will make the indian caste system seem like Disney Landwww.youtube.com #

  • Just had to do a captcha image selection thingy, it took 4 minutes, and then failed me - "Oops! Robot detection failed"www.ghacks.net #

  • HINT - In the future this is going to get particularly unpleasant for everyone if we all keep blindly moving forward with all this AI stuffwww.imdb.com #

  • And now a nice cheery picture to go with the atmosphere here in helltopia...Happy Thanksgiving!www.flickr.com #

  • A majority of Americans don't think social networks are good for the worldnews.slashdot.org #

  • A Thanksgiving prayer from William S. Burroughs - (Not a fan of all the words, but the general tone feels appropriate)boingboing.net #

2018/11/22 #

Today’s links:

  • Slow Software - an investigation into the various causes of software slowness (latency)www.inkandswitch.com #

  • The VPN provider that I use has cut me off from the internet, on the day before the biggest online sales day of the year - posting this using highly constrained methodsen.wikipedia.org #

  • Just another independent software developer getting kicked in the teeth (AGAIN) ... nothing to see here ... please move alongen.wikipedia.org #

  • The launch of the linkblog.io redesign will have to wait - oh well it will happen some day very soon!linkblog.io #

  • The House on Mayo Road - Dur e Aziz Amna considers the year in Pakistan when everything changedlongreads.com #

2018/11/21 #

Today’s links:

  • A Binary Star Is About to Go Supernova, And Could Produce a Gamma-Ray Burst (more energy in 10 seconds than the Sun could in 10 billion years)www.sciencealert.com #

  • The Attention Economy Is Eating Our Brainsmedium.com #

  • Elon Musk renames his BFR spacecraft Starshipwww.bbc.com #

  • Transactions (new in MongoDB 4.0 and Mongoose 5.2.0) - execute multiple operations in isolation and potentially undo all the operations if one of them failsmongoosejs.com #

2018/11/20 #

Today’s links:

  • There has been some movement on the Bitbucket deploy keys issue - "We will add support for Deploy Keys on v2 apis" :)bitbucket.org #

  • It's the final few yards of the NYT wave from last week - Facebook is at ‘War’ with the Media - Presumably some sort of "come down" will ensue nowmedium.com #

  • Spain Brexit - PM Sánchez threatens to vote no over Gibraltarwww.bbc.com #

  • Inside the British Army's secret information warfare machine - the 77th Brigade edit videos, record podcasts and write viral postswww.wired.co.uk #

2018/11/19 #

Today’s links:

  • Why are tech companies making custom typefaces?www.arun.is #

  • The "C" in CSS: The Cascade - includes a useful definitive guide to css styling order diagramcss-tricks.com #

  • The ultimate web design tool - a browser (Some Firefox design features look pretty great)logrocket.com #

  • With all the money LinkedIn is making you’d think they could afford a customer support email address!www.axios.com #

  • Emmanuel Macron - "Our strength - our true strength - lies in unity"www.bbc.com #

  • New PR: Client side ejs compiled with express middleware examplegithub.com #

  • Interested to see how Mark Zuckerberg confronts the mainstream media companies, maybe he'll buy one like Bezos or perhaps something more radical?www.businessinsider.com #

2018/11/18 #

Today’s links:

  • French mother jailed for hiding baby in car bootwww.bbc.com #

  • It's worth remembering that Brexit is really a tale of two unions, the smaller one leaving the bigger one (quite an important detail)www.theguardian.com #

  • Brexit - "UK not standing up to Brussels bullies"www.bbc.com #

  • Kind of fascinating to watch how the news cycle works these days - NYT creates a massive wave with a Novella News piece, then everyone jumps onto the wave writing really serious and factual articleswww.nytimes.com #

  • Another kick in the teeth - It's official, Bitbucket will knowingly break users systems (mine included) by deprecating deploy keys in their v2 API - So much disappointment this weekbitbucket.org #

  • Can someone please turn off the failover / high availability enforcement machine that has engulfed the world ensuring each and every one of us spends our entire life glued to a computer? Cheers. /notsarcasmen.wikipedia.org #

2018/11/17 #

Today’s links:

  • A followup piece to the NYT novella news reconstruction piece on Facebook - completely different writing style, much more factual "real news" stylewww.nytimes.com #

  • How strange that digg.com's SSL cert scores a T in SSL tests, distrusted by Mozilla and Googlewww.ssllabs.com #

  • digg.com won't load in Chrome and in Firefox the page loads but there is some sort of certificate/security error icon next to the urldigg.com #

  • Oil Demand for Cars and Transportation Is Already Falling - Might explain why the Saudis are so interested in Silicon Valley at the minutewww.bloomberg.com #

  • International System of Units overhauled in historic vote - Good news but IMO I think they should have a yearly ceremony where they check that there has been no driftwww.npl.co.uk #

2018/11/16 #

Today’s links:

  • Facebook responds to the novella news reconstruction NYT piece (That was quick!)newsroom.fb.com #

  • Faster async functions and promises in V8 - good to see improvements but I’m still not convinced on promises and asyc functions, difficult to debug, too much magicv8.dev #

  • Vim in the Future - really nicely written piece intended as an intro, quite calmingemily.st #

  • Content-Security-Policy - HTTP response header that helps you reduce XSS risks on modern browsers by declaring, which dynamic resources are allowed to loadcontent-security-policy.com #

  • Pretty disappointed to discover that Bootstrap v4 isn't compatible with Content Security Policy (CSP) - Compatibility expected for v5 (probably several years + another painful upgrade away)github.com #

2018/11/15 #

Today’s links:

  • CSS Frameworks Or CSS Grid - What Should I Use For My Project? (Timely piece as I just finished a somewhat laborious upgrade to Bootstrap 4)www.smashingmagazine.com #

  • CSS and Network Performance - Very practical info about how to construct your page efficientlycsswizardry.com #

  • Mocking is a Code Smell - Overall I like this article but it is very waffley, quite long and there aren't enough code examples, always slightly to high level and abstract (imho :))medium.com #

  • "Functional CSS" seems interesting but it sort of feels like it could be another oh-my-zsh (I now use plain bash shell)blog.rangle.io #

  • This New York Times piece covering recent Facebook activity reads like some sort of crime fiction novel, like one of those clichéd reconstructions on the tele with stand-in actors (with text only it's much more difficult to spot)www.nytimes.com #

  • Plot twist - Most of the world's population has lost the ability to tell the difference between real and fake news because of the ham radio ai brain hackers! Oh noeslinkblog.io #

  • Page Flip Layout - A template with a two-sided, magazine-like layout and a flat page flip animation, layout powered by CSS Gridtympanus.net #

  • Exoplanet discovered around neighbouring starwww.bbc.com #

  • The BBC publishes a very factual sounding story about the Facebook story/novella/crime-fiction-reconstruction piece published by the NYT earlierwww.bbc.com #

  • Good to see some movement on the Bitbucket API deploy keys issue, less than 2 months until they discontinue this critical feature, some more votes/comments would be great!bitbucket.org #

2018/11/14 #

Today’s links:

  • Theresa May continues to defy the laws of probability by looking like a french super villain and also announces the agreed Brexit dealwww.bbc.com #

  • Gitlab - How This Startup Made $10.5 Million in Revenue With Every Single Employee Working From Homewww.inc.com #

  • Nigerian firm takes blame for routing Google traffic through Chinawww.reuters.com #

  • What’s going on with Web Components anyways?medium.com #

  • You’re All Following Henry Rollins’ Manager’s Instagram Account, Right?noisey.vice.com #

  • Christine Lagarde of the IMF says governments could set up their own cryptocurrencieswww.theguardian.com #

  • Yanis Varoufakis on capitalism's incompatibility with democracyboingboing.net #

  • Apple confirms its T2 security chip blocks some third-party repairs of new Macswww.theverge.com #

  • Medium is a poor choice for blogging (Quite ranty but makes some interesting points)medium.com #

2018/11/13 #

Today’s links:

  • School responds after photo of teens making nazi salute goes viralwww.thecut.com #

  • French president and superhero lookalike Emmanuel Macron released an international agreement on cybersecurity principles, more than 50 nations have signed the pact so farwww.axios.com #

  • Plot twist - ham radio enthusiasts have hooked up their rigs to AI and have been scanning/harassing the brains of their neighbours, many of which now have either been committed or have severe PTSD as a resultwww.ke6mt.us #

  • Plot twist - an alarming number of top rate musicians, actors and university students are ham radio enthusiasts and have been since the 60s!www.ke6mt.us #

  • Google open-sources AI that can distinguish between voices with 92% accuracyventurebeat.com #

  • web.dev - actionable guidance and analysis, helps developers learn and apply the web's modern capabilities to sites and apps (by Google)web.dev #

  • UFOs spotted off Irish coast under investigationwww.bbc.com #

  • How to Install and Use Bookmarklets in Microsoft Edge (Really quite disappointing)www.howtogeek.com #

  • Amazon selects New York City and Arlington, Virginia for its new headquarterswww.techmeme.com #

  • YouTube CEO warns of unintended consequences of EU's new internet laws and says YouTube may have to block videos in the EU to avoid liability under the new directiveyoutube-creators.googleblog.com #

2018/11/12 #

Today’s links:

  • Seems like Google lied about fixing the forced login, in the latest Chrome 70.0.3538.102 the logout button has disappeared, I can't logout anymore, trapped by "Don't do Evil" Googlenews.ycombinator.com #

  • A long list of companies leaving England because of Brexitthreader.app #

  • Actually I might be logged out of Google Chrome but there is no login button! And there is a sync button! Really lousy design9to5google.com #

  • Guy tries to recreate a famous pool shot, finds out it's absurdly difficultdigg.com #

2018/11/11 #

Today’s links:

  • Strong Europe - Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel sign reconciliation book of remembrance in a replica railway carriage of where Adolf Hitler accepted France's capitulation to Nazi Germany in June 1940www.bbc.com #

  • Armistice Day - Commemorations are taking place around the world to mark the centenary of the Armistice that ended World War Onewww.bbc.com #

  • Ev Williams (of Twitter fame) is raising more money for the longform publishing platform Mediumwww.businessinsider.com #

2018/11/10 #

Today’s links:

  • Test262 Report - up-to-date information on the state of new and existing language features across implementationsbocoup.com #

  • Leicester City fans in '5,000-1' walk for helicopter crash victimswww.bbc.com #

  • There is such blantant misinformation in some of the Brexit reporting, it's almost as if they are trying to tell us something they can't for some reason say directlywww.bbc.com #

  • Surely the 'New Arms Race’ between advertisers and add blockers can't be good for society at largemotherboard.vice.com #

  • Apple has put a software "kill switch” in the new MacBook Pros - imo does not inspire confidence in their productsmotherboard.vice.com #

  • Hackers stole income, immigration and tax data in Healthcare.gov breach, government confirmstechcrunch.com #

  • We should probably get some guaranties from Elon that there won't be an advertiser - add blocker type arms race in our heads (/adds/thoughts/g), probably a feature though, everything is a feature to someonewww.theverge.com #

2018/11/09 #

Today’s links:

  • Coinbase Users Can Now Buy and Sell Brave's Basic Attention Tokenwww.coindesk.com #

  • Chrome 71 will warn users about unclear billing charges & subscription sign-ups9to5google.com #

  • Sundar Pichai of Google: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’www.nytimes.com #

  • #GoogleWalkout update - Collective action works, and we need to keep working - True equity depends on itmedium.com #

  • The New York Times documents manipulation at the White House, increasingly technology based, next stop (presumably) AI based manipulationwww.newyorker.com #

  • Guess who's back, back again? China's back, hacking your friends - Beijing targets American biz amid tech tariff tiffwww.theregister.co.uk #

2018/11/08 #

Today’s links:

  • HF Ham Radio on a Budget - QRP Labs, QRPGuys, CW Academywww.ke6mt.us #

  • Big investors sue 16 banks in U.S. over currency market riggingwww.reuters.com #

  • Why There Will Never Be Another RedHat - The Economics Of Open Sourcetechcrunch.com #

  • enquirer - Stylish, intuitive and user-friendly prompt system (for building nodejs CLIs)github.com #

2018/11/07 #

Today’s links:

  • Dropbox introduces Extensions for deeper integration with third-party toolstechcrunch.com #

  • Russia - Now everyone who uses a messaging app must be identifiablewww.zdnet.com #

  • I love this Hot 8 Brass Band Joy Division cover, but can't stop thinking they should maybe share some of their food with the skinny umbrella girlcoolhunting.com #

  • Artificial Intelligence Hits the Barrier of Meaning - "The real problem is that they’re too stupid and they’ve already taken over the world”www.nytimes.com #

  • Girl Scouts sue Boy Scouts over trademark as boys welcome girlswww.reuters.com #

  • Zuckerberg rebuffs request to appear before "international grand committee"apnews.com #

2018/11/06 #

Today’s links:

  • Zuckerberg says the future is sharing via 100B messages & 1B Stories/daytechcrunch.com #

  • Gmail for iOS now lets you view all of your accounts in a single inboxwww.theverge.com #

  • Chrome 70 will ad-block an entire website if it shows abusive adswww.theverge.com #

  • The Copyleft Bust Up (aka How unimaginably mindbogglingly soul-destroyingly complicated it is to get on the software property ladder - "Software...it's great")writing.kemitchell.com #

  • We tried the world’s first folding phone, and it actually workswww.theverge.com #

  • Europe's massive plan to require open access for all science gets two new backersboingboing.net #

2018/11/05 #

Today’s links:

  • Around 10,000 flames have been lit at the Tower of London to mark the centenary of the end of World War Iwww.bbc.com #

  • U.S. imposed sanctions to Iran, only Italy, India, Japan, South Korea, Turkey, China and India are allowed to trade oil with themwww.bbc.com #

  • Foreigners living abroad invited to join the UK Armed Forceswww.bbc.com #

  • Why is there no way to disable the browser cache for specific hosts? (Really annoying for development)superuser.com #

  • In a court filing, Edward Snowden says a report critical to an NSA lawsuit is authentictechcrunch.com #

  • Prison time, hefty fines for data privacy violations - draft U.S. Senate billwww.reuters.com #

  • Google employees and contractors participate in global “walkout for real change”medium.com #

  • Acid rain is a rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH)en.wikipedia.org #

2018/11/04 #

Today’s links:

  • An article that attempts to over the important topic of how Google balances the opposing realities of user privacy with user trackingwww.wired.com #

  • Business leaders call for second EU vote on Brexit (It boils down to do we trust the PM to make a vaguely good deal with the EU?)www.bbc.com #

  • And if the PM doesn't get a good deal, I suppose the next logical sep would be general strike, so the people could get a "second vote" if it was absolutely necessarywww.bbc.com #

  • Why Oromo baby girls can be engaged on the day they are born (an example of a bad deal imho)www.bbc.com #

  • More Evidence Points to China as Source of Ozone-Depleting Gaswww.nytimes.com #

2018/11/03 #

Today’s links:

  • Radio DJ Paul Gambaccini has won damages from prosecutors over unfounded allegations of historical sex offenceswww.bbc.com #

  • Why Big Tech pays poor Kenyans to programme self-driving carswww.bbc.com #

  • Sononym is a sample browser that offers a fresh perspective on how sounds can be explored and organizedwww.sononym.net #

  • Stop biodiversity loss or we could face our own extinction - By 2050, Africa is expected to lose 50% of its birds and mammalswww.theguardian.com #

2018/11/02 #

Today’s links:

  • Really fascinating in depth comparison of Apple and Google maps - Has Apple closed the gap with Google’s map?www.justinobeirne.com #

  • padStart() method pads the current string with another string (requires polyfill for IE)developer.mozilla.org #

  • Flickr will end 1TB of free storage and limit free users to 1,000 photoswww.theverge.com #

  • I wonder does Google's spying/tracking everyone affect the Google work culture? And in what way?www.wired.com #

  • <input> elements of type datetime-local create input controls that let the user easily enter both a date and a timedeveloper.mozilla.org #

2018/11/01 #

Today’s links:

  • Google to start requiring javascript to run in your browser (for security!) and they "will help you get back to the beginning"security.googleblog.com #

  • An AI Lie Detector Is Going to Start Questioning Travelers in the EUgizmodo.com #

  • Zuckerberg gets joint summons from UK and Canadian parliamentstechcrunch.com #

  • The Brexit app to be used by EU citizens to apply for settled status in the UK won't work on iphoneswww.bbc.com #

  • Making the GPL more scary (Concerning the recent MongoDB and Redis license change)lwn.net #

  • HN thread on Google blocking nojs users (Something feels wrong here ... how does Google know they only make up 1% of users if all the bots are not using js? Maybe there aren't many bots? So why do they need to stop nojs users then?)news.ycombinator.com #

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