Mark Smith's Linkblog

Monday 8th October, 2018 #

  • John Gruber on the Bloomberg hacked chips story - "This is only beginning. Apple is not letting this go"
  • What are shorts and why does Elon hate them?
  • The ghostly radio station that no one claims to run
  • Interpol Chief, Detained by China, Resigns Under ‘Supervision’ of Party Watchdog

Sunday 7th October, 2018 #

  • eSIMs for Travel - A Great Idea, But Don’t Get Excited Just Yet
  • New Issue - express-redis-cache - Cache always skipped when redis client created earlier is specified
  • Critical Path Driven Development - Distributed traces, cross-stack debugging and visibility
  • New Issue - npm - npm install --production tries to install devDependencies with node v10.11.0 (npm v6.4.1)
  • New Issue - express-rate-limit - Upgrading to v3 - How to implement rate limiting with slow down?
  • New Issue - node - JSON error when building docs
  • How to read Kafka - part I
  • New North American trade deal has bad news for Canadian copyright
  • The Dutch Reach - A no-tech way to save bicyclists’ lives
  • Bytedance rises as Facebook falls, takes over most valuable startup from Uber
  • Should a Collapsing America Just Break Up? (Some of these issues are global imho)

Saturday 6th October, 2018 #

  • More on that weird Bloomberg spy chip story reveals the murky world of national security reporting
  • Node.js Foundation and JS Foundation Announce Intent to Create Joint Organization to Support the Broad Node.js and JavaScript Communities
  • Instagram’s Nametag feature makes it easier to follow people you meet IRL

Thursday 4th October, 2018 #

  • As we charge forward into an AI gene editing future let's remember that it's only been a few decades since the horrible policies of Eugenics
  • Weird story about a Bloomberg special report on China hardware hacking Amazon and Apple that everyone denies except for Bloomberg
  • Hey leaders of the world - instead (or in addition to) minimum wage, how about introducing a minimum number of minutes per day spent outdoors?
  • With all the talk about social credit scores etc, the only metric that is important: Number of minutes spent outdoors per day
  • IMHO concentrate on people of all ages spending at least as much outdoor time as inmates and chickens (perhaps gene editing can wait?)
  • Japan set to allow gene editing in human embryos (US, China and UK already do it) - Do we really want to live in gene editing arms race based societies?
  • 'Trump alert' - US mobile phone owners get test message
  • Breitbart and Infowars join the Daily Mail as banned from being used as a source for facts on Wikipedia
  • Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises

Wednesday 3rd October, 2018 #

  • Google to debut Chrome browser game streaming - Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (the graphics looks pretty darn good)
  • Accessibility isn’t a barrier -  it’s what removes them - It frees us from one path and gives us many
  • Reading Other People’s Code in a Large Codebase
  • How to Use the Animation Inspector in Chrome Developer Tools
  • Richard Stallman Explains Everything
  • See inside the universe in this stunning light sculpture
  • Interesting name for a company Free Speech Systems, sounds like a software company
  • A lot of people might not like him but dang he makes good promo material
  • InfoWars publisher Alex Jones sues PayPal

Tuesday 2nd October, 2018 #

  • What’s the Cost of Buying Links in 2018?
  • Physics Nobel won by laser wizardry – laureates include first woman in 55 years
  • Amazon increases minimum wage for all U.S. workers to $15 an hour
  • Mara Wilson - Matilda and Me at 30
  • The Internet Archive's annual bash is tomorrow - Building a Better Web
  • The Internet Archive fixes more than 9 million broken links on Wikipedia
  • Chrome 70 - Trustworthy Chrome Extensions, by default (access lists, no obfuscated code)
  • Inventor of JavaScript Brendan Eich writes to the US Senate: we need a GDPR for the United States
  • Inside look at modern web browser (4 part series on how web browsers work)
  • List of server-side JavaScript implementations

Monday 1st October, 2018 #

  • A look at the resilience of audio and specifically podcasting
  • Independent Music Podcast #200 – Shackleton, Jerusalem In My Heart, Etienne Jaumet, Tomás Urquieta, Lucinda Chua
  • Nafta - US and Canada reach new trade deal
  • Over the last 60 years in the UK the price of food has halved while the price of housing has doubled
  • "We used to sit and eat together, but now they behaved like they were not aware of what they were doing, like someone who had lost their memory after a car crash"
  • China's Muslim Uighurs 'crackdown' - Dealing with Islamic extremism by putting everyone in rehabilitation camps

Sunday 30th September, 2018 #

  • Internet, social media use and device ownership in U.S. have plateaued - "there just aren’t many non-users left"
  • Indonesia tsunami toll soars amid push to save survivors (800 people dead)
  • Tim Berners-Lee unveils Solid, an open source project to decentralize the web and give users control of their data
  • My Oxford interview consisted of 3 lecturers laughing at me for not being able to answer questions on topics not covered by the curriculum then saying "We'll put you out of your misery" when they eventually gave me the answers
  • Hundreds of academics at top UK universities accused of bullying
  • Remi on maintaining the popular open source nodemon library, receiving donations, tools and motivation
  • Remi Sharp lists his favourite improved CLI tools
  • UK intelligence agency admits unlawfully spying on Privacy International
  • Elon musk settles SEC fraud charges, agrees to pay penalty fees and step down as chairman of the board

Saturday 29th September, 2018 #

  • Static Marks - Convert your plain bookmark files into a static web app (and version control with git)
  • Facebook is another titan tech company that has removed support contacts from their "Help Center" pages
  • Facebook security update about having to force logout 90 million users
  • Society creates drug users and then calls them the abusers
  • BBC talks to Linus Torvalds about his "be more polite" personal direction
  • Indonesia earthquake and tsunami - At least 30 dead in Palu
  • Hacker changes his mind and cancels livestream deletion of Zuckerberg's Facebook page
  • Creating Users, Not Addicts
  • Creating meaningful micro-interactions
  • Burger King vs Artificial Intelligence
  • How to Brexit? - Explore the (im)possibilities of the different Brexit scenarios

Friday 28th September, 2018 #

  • Definition - Artificial Intelligence
  • SEC announces it is suing Elon Musk over “false and misleading public statements” (tweets), Tesla's stock price drops
  • LinkedIn appear to have removed ways to contact customer support from their website
  • node.cool - Delightful Node.js packages and resources
  • Javascript feature support for Node.js
  • I really like the idea of Google Trips, but why isn't there a web UI to go with the iOS and Android apps?
  • Google makes it easier to keep track of travel research
  • Daniel Johnston and the Rhythm Rats - "Hard Time"

Thursday 27th September, 2018 #

  • Native extensions for Nodejs - Useful in understanding the Nodejs stack in more depth
  • PM2 used to run Node.js processes in production deployments, now support running Python processes
  • You Need Feeds - Clear information about how to start using web feeds to read your favourite websites
  • T-Writer.js is a native typewriter-effect library
  • Interesting solar powered website out of Barcelona - How to Build a Low-tech Website?

Wednesday 26th September, 2018 #

  • HN Thread about the Google Chrome Forced Login Situation - Product Updates Based on Your Feedback
  • uBlock Origin gets option to block all JavaScript execution by default
  • Google addressing account sign-in, cookie clearing controversies in Chrome 70
  • New Copyright Powers, New "Terrorist Content" Regulations - A Grim Day For Digital Rights in Europe
  • What is Modular CSS?
  • Tethered Together or Poles Apart? Japan and India - A Cultural Comparison

Monday 24th September, 2018 #

  • A pretty good explanation of the tricky part of linux shell output redirection
  • US-China trade - US imposes biggest round of tariffs yet
  • White House proposes executive order to Trump that would examine tech companies’ practices
  • The history of the ice trade - Why Iceland doesn't actually have that much ice
  • Why I’m done with Chrome
  • News Site to Investigate Big Tech, Helped by Craigslist Founder Graig Newmark
  • Stunning Photos of Kyrgyzstan and Its Untouched Landscape
  • Amazon is looking more like a traditional retail company with a loyalty program, house brands and advertising
  • Chrome now auto logs you in (forced-login) to the browser when you log in to a Google service (confusing)

Sunday 23rd September, 2018 #

  • express-promise-router - Wrapper for Express 4's Router that allows middleware to return promises
  • Using async/await in ExpressJS middlewares
  • Discover the Incredible Story of One Man’s Mission to Paint a Massive Mural in Cairo
  • Anonymous stock-market manipulators behind $20B+ of "mispricing" can be tracked by their writing styles
  • PayPal bans Infowars for promoting hate
  • Inside Facebook’s Election ‘War Room’

Thursday 20th September, 2018 #

  • Professional photographer Zach Arias interviews Unsplash founder Mikael Cho
  • Surveillance news - Insurance companies are starting to require customers wear Fitbit tracking devices
  • Revue - newsletter building tool with Stripe integration so you can charge a fee
  • The Science Behind 100,000-View Blog Posts

Wednesday 19th September, 2018 #

  • Wade Shepard - Getting The YouTube Channel Caught Up (Vlog)
  • Interview with Vimsy Founder, creator centric online service for creating video channels
  • Shopify’s adds AR shopping support for 600,000 stores - preview items in your home using iOS AR
  • Mozilla releases Firefox Reality, it's web browser for VR, available in the Viveport, Oculus, and Daydream app stores
  • Following the lead of the Node.js project, AMP moves to an open governance model

Tuesday 18th September, 2018 #

  • Run node scripts using nvm and crontab without hardcoding the node version
  • AI Def - Bomb The Bass Ft. Will Self - 5 Ml. Barrel
  • Musk unveils first tourist for SpaceX 'Moon loop' - Japanese online fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa
  • US-China tectonic plates moving again, $200bn worth of opportunities for entrepreneurs
  • npm scoped packages - a way of grouping related packages together (they don't seem to be used much)
  • Stripe Terminal - The programmable point of sale (currently US invite only)
  • Stripe expands e-commerce offering into bricks and mortar in-person payments
  • Nice to see Twitter listening to it's users and adding chronological/algorithmic feed switcher feature

Monday 17th September, 2018 #

  • Salesforce billionaire Marc Benioff to buy Time magazine
  • Linus Torvalds is temporarily stepping away from Linux maintenance
  • Korean 'Uncle Service' - Great but what happens when the bullies team up with the bigger billies huh?
  • Astronomers have found the universe's missing matter
  • What is the meaning of LinkedIn?
  • The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Latest Coen Brothers Film Official Trailer)
  • Attack of the killer Jedi! The bizarre story of Turkish Star Wars
  • This Overview captures an incredible blanket of tones in the trees of Bow, New Hampshire

Saturday 15th September, 2018 #

  • Noam Chomsky - I would vote for Jeremy Corbyn
  • Back-end Developer Hiring Guide 2018 - Salaries, Freelance Rates, and More
  • Has anyone open sourced part of your company's software?
  • Six things that make a great software developer
  • The official mirror of the V8 Git repository
  • Node.js is a JavaScript runtime built on Chrome's V8 JavaScript engine
  • The original Google Chrome comic
  • Evolution of the V8 code base over the years (Best watched at x4 speed)
  • Celebrating 10 years of V8
  • How to Measure Churn Rate From Product User Activity

Friday 14th September, 2018 #

  • Disruptive Interfaces & The Emerging Battle To Be The Default
  • Node.js v10.10.0 released - fs.readdir withFileTypes option looks like it could be useful
  • Standard Library - Serverless platform to build, ship, host, document, scale and integrate with APIs
  • The Serverless Framework is an open-source CLI for building and deploying serverless applications
  • The definitive Node.js handbook - surprisingly concise yet comprehensive overview of Nodejs
  • List just the top-level modules - npm list --depth=0
  • Print the global node_modules directory - `npm root -g`
  • Definition - Artificial Intelligence
  • Bandcamp Daily - Your guide to the world of Bandcamp
  • Flowering Jungle by Monster Rally (Gold Robot Records) - Album Inspired by the sounds, visuals, and animals of a half-century's worth of travel and nature documentaries

Thursday 13th September, 2018 #

  • The “Developer Experience” Bait-and-Switch
  • Latest OSX issue that is literally killing me - trackpad gone rogue (I've had to completely disable my trackpad)
  • How can we find which process is using a particular port?
  • freeCodeCamp - Learn to code with free online courses, programming projects, and interview preparation for developer jobs
  • EU approves controversial Copyright Directive, including internet ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’
  • Switch Between Desktop Spaces Faster in Mac OS X with Control Keys
  • iPhone XS and 6.5-inch XS Max announced - Big phones are officially cool

Wednesday 12th September, 2018 #

  • Chrome DevTools - Debugging Node.js Application Using ndb
  • Neil deGrasse Tyson Talks Space Force and Space Debris
  • Oh noes - EU Approves Amended Copyright Filtering Law That Could Ruin The Internet
  • Legendary Steve Caballero on 'Skater's Favorite Skater'
  • Older folk smoking more weed
  • John Deere wins "right to tractor repair" battle against farmers in California
  • Jekyll::Compose - Streamline your writing in Jekyll with some commands
  • Building a Stats Page for Jekyll Blogs
  • Moving static sites from a VPS to Netlify
  • The man who can laugh for hours on end

Monday 10th September, 2018 #

  • Auschwitz concentration camp
  • Definition - Artificial Intelligence
  • This OSX issue is literally killing me: Preserve Window Spaces Placement Between Restarts
  • Algorithms are protected by the First Amendment (algorithm output is considered corporate speech)
  • Apple’s Shazam acquisition cleared by EU regulators
  • stream-handbook - how to write node programs with streams
  • Software developers are now more valuable to companies than money
  • Flipboard CEO Mike McCue - 'There's a real bright road ahead for publishers'
  • Additional Mac App Store apps caught stealing and uploading browser history
  • Popular mac app stole users' browsing history and sent it to China

Thursday 6th September, 2018 #

  • Gitcoin - Organises bounties on open source projects, developers get paid in etherium based coins
  • Google is investigating ways to replace the URL - Apparently "Everyone is unsatisfied by URLs"
  • Maker Magazine launches a job board - The Job Board for the Maker Community
  • Vimeo pivots business from media to tech - To selling subscriptions to tools for people to make content
  • Amazon’s Plan to Reach 500 Million Indians: Speak Their Language
  • In the three weeks following the Facebook and YouTube ban, Alex Jones' Infowars audience has fell by roughly half
  • How viral loops and good design can result in real-world product virality
  • Pinterest and Grubhub’s Former Growth Lead on Building Content Loops
  • Financial Modeling for Startups - An Introduction

Wednesday 5th September, 2018 #

  • MailMason uses Grunt, Handlebars, and Sass in conjunction with layouts and partials to create both the HTML and plain text versions of your transactional emails
  • Chrome 69 released - It’s been ten years since Chrome was first released!
  • EU officials announce that 30% local content quotas for streaming services to become law
  • Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level - "Designated communications providers"
  • Wikimedia warns EU copyright reform threatens the ‘vibrant free web’
  • Kubernetes 101 - Short article as a high-level overview

Monday 3rd September, 2018 #

  • India Pushes Back Against Tech ‘Colonization’ by Internet Giants
  • Experts Call for Transparency Around Google’s Chinese-Made Security Keys
  • UK media groups call for oversight of social networks
  • Communique to five eyes countries tech companies says governments want backdoors
  • The effort required to build a design system is tiny compared to the effort required to maintain it

Saturday 1st September, 2018 #

  • Mozilla announces Firefox will block trackers by default
  • Why you should replace forEach with map and filter in JavaScript
  • Why is a Java guy so excited about Node.js and JavaScript? (Interesting perspective)
  • Twitter is testing threaded replies and status indicators
  • California passes strongest net neutrality law in the country, EFF calls it "a gold standard net neutrality bill"
  • What questions would you ask a marketer?
  • How a SaaS startup got its first 1,000 users (Codegiant)

Thursday 30th August, 2018 #

  • Dutroux murders - Belgian child-killer's letter angers parents
  • Tips for Writing Lambda Functions in Node 8
  • hiproxy - lightweight proxy tool for Front-End developers based on Node.js that supports an NGINX-like configuration
  • JavaScript Promises with Node.js - Really clear explanation of how promises work in node
  • How to use Docker for Node.js development
  • The World’s Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995
  • No D'oh! DNS-over-HTTPS passes Mozilla performance test
  • Emails while commuting 'should count as work'
  • Picasso’s Incredible Childhood Paintings Reveal a Different Side of the Modern Artist
  • ‘Overtourism’ Worries Europe - How Much Did Technology Help Get Us There?
  • Germany, seeking independence from U.S., pushes cyber security research
  • Picular - Google, but for colors (extracts colors from a google search, strange results sometimes)
  • Free traffic sources for your project with ROI
  • How I acquired my first 10 customers for Cronhub
  • Getting Started with Service Workers

Wednesday 29th August, 2018 #

  • Useful flowchart for when you have a Git mess on your hands
  • Virtual Organized Crime - DJs are playing motion captured sets in Grand Theft Auto nightclubs
  • Paystack, with ambitions to become the Stripe of Africa, raises $8M from Visa, Tencent… and Stripe itself
  • DuckDuckGo Receives $10M Financing to Expand Global Impact
  • Facebook insiders describe intolerant liberal culture, often policed by mobs, seeks political diversity
  • Why is the USA one of the only countries that has no known Right to Food human right?
  • World’s leading human rights groups tell Google to cancel its China censorship plan
  • Trump points out Google's biased algorithms

Tuesday 28th August, 2018 #

  • Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for an organism
  • New Repo: nockback-test - how to mock an api using nock record/playback feature
  • Paul Irish - Debugging Node.js with Chrome DevTools
  • 99 Travel publications that pay freelance writers for articles
  • UK to start work on satellite system to rival EU's Galileo
  • How much electricity is consumed by Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Litecoin, and Monero?
  • Tech Industry Pursues a Federal Privacy Law, on Its Own Terms
  • Removing Myanmar Military Officials From Facebook

Monday 27th August, 2018 #

  • Who needs democracy when you have data? Here’s how China rules using data, AI, and internet surveillance
  • YouTube to start rolling out non-skippable 15-20 seconds ads - sites "more money for creators"
  • Tesla to stay publicly traded, Elon Musk says company is 'better off'

Saturday 25th August, 2018 #

  • How pioneering DJ Grandmaster Flash hacked together his first mixer
  • Sleepless City Streets of Rainy Tokyo Nights Lit by Electric Neon Signs
  • The Approval Economy - On infrastructure, advertising, and social norms
  • What's really behind the global rise in working longer and longer hours
  • Trump’s base may not like him, but they’re not about to ditch him
  • Stimulus - A modest JavaScript framework for the HTML you already have (from the creators of basecamp/37signals)
  • Uzbekistan's secret underground in pictures - art, architecture and nuclear-blast protection in Central Asia’s oldest subway system

Friday 24th August, 2018 #

  • Shortwave - Looks like an interesting modern podcasting platform with lots of useful transcoding tools
  • The 30% Tax - The Netflix App Store bypass is the start of the insurgence of the subscription bundling business
  • 'Xbox All Access' looks like a new subscription service with Xbox Live, Game Pass, and a console
  • More Than A Billion Downloads of Node.js
  • The Node.js Blogging Platform Ghost Releases v2.0

Thursday 23rd August, 2018 #

  • Chinese Surveillance State Is Basically The US Surveillance Apparatus Minus The Constitutional Rights
  • UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn proposes a publicly-funded alternative to Facebook
  • Type designer David Jonathan Ross has an interesting website with "Font of the month club"
  • Typeography exploration at the BBC - An Exploration of Variable Fonts
  • Former Facebook CSO says it's likely that the U.S. elections will become the world cup of information warfare
  • Creator Arcade - music education platform to learn and get feedback from world's best DJ's, music producers, and engineers (IH interview with founder)
  • Mocking External HTTP Requests in Node Tests with Nock
  • Stripe Mock Webhooks - Quickly test Stripe Webhooks against your application without hitting Stripe or requiring internet connectivity
  • mock-stripe-server - Mock Stripe API Server

Wednesday 22nd August, 2018 #

  • Schools are mining students' social media posts for signs of trouble
  • Jack Dorsey On Deleting Tweets, Banning Trump, And Whether An Unbiased Twitter Can Exist
  • Facebook is dealing with "Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior"
  • Facebook implements trust scoring for all users, but it can't tell you about the system in case you try to fix it
  • Netflix updates it's billing system to bypass iTunes and Google

Tuesday 21st August, 2018 #

  • EU to fine social media platforms that take more than 1 hour to remove extremist content
  • Karma raises $12 million for marketplace that helps restaurants and supermarkets reduce food waste
  • Twitch to start showing ads, the $9/month Turbo plan will keep ad-free viewing
  • A Giphy story - We Love Jurgen Klopp!
  • Giphy redesigns homepage to highlight new Story collections
  • Skype’s end-to-end encrypted Private Conversations feature now available across platforms
  • It’s Not Technology That’s Disrupting Our Jobs - A reflection on the gig economy
  • Venezuela just devalued the bolívar by 95% and pegged it to a cryptocurrency
  • RemoteOnly - Aggregates posts from several remote job boards
  • Your go-to tools for Keyword Research?
  • Anyone else managing multiple SaaS/software products?