dev

• How we made Befriendus ludicrously accessible

  • “Structured programming” on Wikipedia

• Stanley and the Death of Sourcemods

  • “Making a Moddable Game?” Thread, 2015
  • “Mod Support comes to Robo Recall” Unreal Engine announcement
  • “Godot sandbox & modding support” github issue
  • “Safe multiplayer modding” reddit thread
  • “Allow to import and load external assets at run-time” godot proposal
  • “Managed Extensibility Framework (MEF)” on .NET docs

• Tabs or Spaces?

  • /u/ChaseMoskal, Nobody talks about the real reason to use Tabs over Spaces
  • Alexander Sandberg, Tabs for Accessibility
  • Jamie Zawinski, Tabs versus Spaces: An Eternal Holy War.

fandom

• Psycholonials Commentary, selections

  • Victoria (@arachonteur), “Psycholonials – Part 1: A Post-Homestuck World”
  • Victoria (@arachonteur), “Psycholonials – Part 2: Text and Subtext”
  • Victoria (@arachonteur), “Psycholonials – Part 3: Sword and Crown”

• The Sarah Z Video Fallout

  • hbomberguy, “PewDiePie Is A Nazi”

• Trouble a-brewin' at Redbubble

  • Eevee, “Copyright is broken”
  • Tom Scott, “YouTube’s Copyright System Isn’t Broken. The World’s Is.”, video
  • Katharine Trendacosta, “Why Is It So Hard to Figure Out What to Do When You Lose Your Account?”

• W.D. Gaster and fake depth

  • /u/Karibil_Watar, Further Stratifying Gaster and Sans Development
  • Folding Ideas, The Stanley Parable, Dark Souls, and Intended Play
  • hbomberguy, Perverted Sentimentality: An Analysis of UNDERTALE
  • Adam Millard, What Was Undertale Actually About?
  • The Unbearable Now: An Interpretation of The Witness

• More on the Hiveswap Odd Gentlemen Debacle

  • Sarah Z, “A Brief History of Homestuck”, a video essay about the Homestuck fandom that includes a summary of my Hiveswap work

• Why Act 6 Hits Different

  • Func McLovin, Slurs in Homestuck (Video)

• The Hiveswap Fiasco

  • GiovanH, “Hussie Exploited The Odd Gentlemen & Backers”
  • Shadok, “HIVESWAPQUEST” (video)
  • everythinghiveswap.tumblr.com is a blog that has a large historical backlog of Hiveswap news and rumors
  • Sarah Z, “A Brief History of Homestuck”, a video essay about the Homestuck fandom that includes a summary of my Hiveswap work
  • Fredrik Knudsen, “Star Citizen - Down the Rabbit Hole” (video)
  • Jason Schreier, “12 Successful Kickstarters That Never Delivered”
  • posts tagged #hiveswap on thewebcomicsreview.tumblr.com
  • Funk McLovin, “What PR? A response to Sarah Z”, a video response about the aftermath of Sarah Z’s video and What Pumpkin’s PR in general
  • A much briefer recap, but only up until 2017.

gaming

• Hack 'n' Slash is awe inspiring

  • “The Hack 'n' Slash Puzzle Collection”, Guillaume Fortin-Debigar
  • “Making It to Break It: Designing Hack ‘n’ Slash”, Brandon Dillon (GDC Video)
  • Secret room - Hack ‘n’ Slash - Double Fine Action Forums
  • Double Fine’s ‘heartfelt and personal’ Hack ‘n’ Slash: A postmortem

• Post-Ch2 Deltarune Theories

  • suzyundertale, “How we know the person in the intro of Deltarune is almost certainly Gaster”
  • inbarfink on the lack of consequences in the Weird Route
  • inbarfink on Ralsei’s knowledge and characterization
  • agnesmontague possible isolated vocals in Big Shot “Please Knight, answer the phone, pleaaaase–ha ha ha, all the suspense is making me wait, to tell you how much it’s ringing! Please Knight, answer the phone, pleaaaase–ha ha ha, all the suspense is, all the suspense is, tell me what you’re really selling!”

• 20 Absolutely True Things about Sonic '06

  • Andrea Ritsu, Just How Did Sonic 2006 Happen?

• VR First Thoughts

  • “Leaked Zuckerberg Email Reveals Facebook’s XR Strategy, ‘Our goal is not only to win, but to accelerate its arrival’” Ben Lang on roadtovr, 2019
  • You Will Lose All Your Oculus Games If You Delete Your Linked Facebook Account” Adam Bankhurst on IGN, 2020
  • “Oculus co-founder is leaving Facebook after cancellation of ‘Rift 2’ headset” Lucas Matney on Techcrunch, 2018
  • “The Design of the Portal Locomotion”, Freya Holmér

pages

• Hiveswap

  • hbomberguy, “PewDiePie Is A Nazi”

politics

• people who know more than me talk about Epic acquiring Bandcamp

  • “Our Incredible Journey”, a catalog of startup acquisitions and subsequent destructions
  • Cory Doctorow, “Private equity doesn’t create value, it destroys it”, 2020
  • Cory Doctorow, “Private equity’s nursing home killing spree”, 2021
  • Damon Krukowski, “A Tale Of Two Ecosystems: On Bandcamp, Spotify And The Wide-Open Future”, 2020
  • Ethan Diamond, “Cheaper than Free”
  • postmodernpostal, “Bandcamp: An Alternative to Music Piracy”, 2017
  • Matthew Jinoo Buck, “How America’s Supply Chains Got Railroaded”, 2022

• Client CSAM scanning: a disaster already

  • Apple, Child Safety (Feature Announcement)
  • Bugs in our Pockets: The Risks of Client-Side Scanning
  • Mack DeGurin, “Infrastructure Bill’s Drunk Driving Tech Mandate Leaves Some Privacy Advocates Nervous”
  • Brian Doherty, “Secret Police”
  • Qingying Hao, Licheng Luo, Steve T.K. Jan, Gang Wang, “It’s Not What It Looks Like: Manipulating Perceptual Hashing based Applications”
  • Nick Locascio, “Black-Box Attacks on Perceptual Image Hashes with GANs”
  • Chaim Gartenberg, “‘Sideloading is a cyber criminal’s best friend,’ according to Apple’s software chief”
  • Patrick Howell O’Neill, “Apple says researchers can vet its child safety features. But it’s suing a startup that does just that.”“
  • Joseph Menn, “Apple appeals against security research firm while touting researchers”
  • Jordy Zomer, “A story about an Apple and two fetches”
  • Riana Pfefferkorn, “The Earn It Act: How To Ban End-to-end Encryption Without Actually Banning It”
  • Andi Wilson Thompson, “Separating the Fact from Fiction - Attorney General Barr is Wrong About Encryption”
  • Ellen Nakashima, “Apple vows to resist FBI demand to crack iPhone linked to San Bernardino attacks”
  • Tim Cook, “A Message to Our Customers”
  • DOJ, Open Letter to Facebook
  • Ina Fried, “DOJ and Apple reignite dispute over encryption”
  • EFF, “Ninth Circuit: Surveillance Company Not Immune from International Lawsuit”
  • Facebook’s Public Response To Open Letter On Private Messaging
  • Mike Masnick, “Senate’s New EARN IT Bill Will Make Child Exploitation Problem Worse, Not Better, And Still Attacks Encryption”
  • Diksha Madhok, “Indian police visit Twitter after it labels a tweet from Narendra Modi’s party”
  • Selina Cheng, “Google handed user data to Hong Kong authorities despite pledge after security law was enacted”
  • nytimes, “Censorship, Surveillance and Profits: A Hard Bargain for Apple in China”
  • EFF, “NSA Spying Timeline”
  • ACLU, “Surveillance under the USA/Patriot Act”
  • Joseph Cox, “China Is Forcing Tourists to Install Text-Stealing Malware at its Border”
  • Reuters, “Apple moves to store iCloud keys in China, raising human rights fears”
  • Diksha Madhok, “Twitter is a mess in India. Here’s how it got there”
  • Manish Singh, “Twitter restricts accounts in India to comply with government legal request”
  • Diksha Madhok, “Silicon Valley is in a high-stakes standoff with India”
  • Joanna Chiu, “A Chinese student in Canada had two followers on Twitter. He still didn’t escape Beijing’s threats over online activity”
  • Reuters, “Putin signs law forcing foreign social media giants to open Russian offices”
  • EFF, “Mass Surveillance Technologies”
  • Maureen E. Brady, “The Lost “Effects” of the Fourth Amendment: Giving Personal Property Due Protection”
  • CNN, “Trump’s DOJ Secretly Subpoenaed Records of 2 Dem Lawmakers”
  • Carrie Johnson, “Barr Blasts His Own Prosecutors: ‘All Power Is Vested In The Attorney General’”
  • Matthew Green Twitter thread
  • Paul Rosenzweig, “The Apple Client-Side Scanning System”
  • Apple’s child protection features spark concern within its own ranks
  • Kurt Opsahl, “If You Build It, They Will Come: Apple Has Opened The Backdoor”
  • AccessNow Amicus Brief
  • Apple Holic, “Apple’s botched CSAM plan shows need for digital rights”
  • EFF, “Apple’s Plan to “Think Different” About Encryption Opens a Backdoor to Your Private Life”
  • Zach Whittaker, “Apple confirms it will begin scanning iCloud Photos for child abuse images”
  • WSJ, “Apple Executive Defends Tools to Fight Child Porn, Acknowledges Privacy Backlash”
  • Zach Whittaker, “Apple delays plans to roll out CSAM detection in iOS 15 after privacy backlash”

• Ethical Source is a Crock of Hot Garbage

  • Mastodon’s statement regarding Gab
  • Darragh Roche, “Donald Trump’s TRUTH Social Prohibits ‘Excessive Use of Capital Letters’”
  • Joseph Cox, “Mastodon’s Founder Says Trump’s New Social Network Is Just Mastodon”
  • Kyle Morris, “Trump announces ‘TRUTH Social’ network will be rolled out first quarter of 2022” (Fox News)
  • Adi Robertson, “Trump’s social network has 30 days to stop breaking the rules of its software license”
  • Robert Morgus and Justin Sherman, “How U.S. surveillance technology is propping up authoritarian regimes”
  • Klint Finley, “A Developer Deletes His Code to Protest Its Use by ICE”
  • Daniel Sieradski, “Microsoft: Drop ICE!”
  • Colin Lecher, “GitHub will keep selling software to ICE, leaked email says”
  • Johana Bhuiyan, “GitHub is trying to quell employee anger over its ICE contract. It’s not going well”
  • Russell Brandom, “It’s not just Microsoft: lots of tech companies are quietly helping ICE”
  • Camilo Montoya-Galvez, “New pictures show “dangerous overcrowding” at Border Patrol facilities in Texas”
  • Douglas MacMillan, “The war inside Palantir”
  • April Glaser, “Microsoft Workers Say the Company Is War Profiteering, and They’ve Timed Their Protest to Hurt”
  • “Advancing Human-Rights-By-Design In The Dual-Use Technology Industry”
  • Michael Tiemann, “What I Learned from the Libertarians”
  • Technodrone, “Thoughts on Ethics and Open Source”
  • Brett Watson, “Philosophies of Free Software and Intellectual Property”
  • The Ruby Community Conduct Guideline
  • debian, “jsonevil“
  • gnu, “What is Free Software?”
  • mjr (Marcus J. Ranum), “The Six Dumbest Ideas in Computer Security”
  • W3C TAG Ethical Web Principles
  • Andrew C. Oliver, “Should open source be ethical?”
  • Tatum Hunter, “Is Your Open-Source Code Fueling Human Rights Abuses?”
  • Don Goodman-Wilson, “Open Source is Broken”
  • RandomErrorMessage, “TypeScript, JavaScript, Homophobia and Brendan Eich” (this is possibly a deliberate false flag?)
  • Coraline Ada Ehmke, “A Six-Month Retrospective on Ethical Open Source”
  • rubytogether, “a vision for ethics in open source software”
  • The Hippocratic License
  • The Contributor Covenant
  • The Organization for Ethical Source

• Is (git) master a dirty word?

  • sfc, Regarding Git and Branch Naming
  • Mallory Knodel, Terminology, Power, and Inclusive Language in Internet-Drafts and RFCs
  • NISTIR 8366, Guidance for NIST Staff on Using Inclusive Language in Documentary Standards
  • Python Issue 34605: Avoid master/slave terminology
  • GitLab, The new Git default branch name
  • On Redis master-slave terminology
  • Catalin Climpanu, GitHub to replace ‘master’ with ‘main’ starting next month
  • Carolyn Heinze, Why GitHub renamed its master branch to main
  • Master/Slave terminology concerns on Wikipedia
  • Linus Torvalds banishes masters, slaves and blacklists from the Linux kernel, starting now
  • an old twitter thread in which I point out that GitHub making git changes while it still actively enables ICE is bad

• Your engine hasn't earned your rent

  • Bryant Francis, “Going forward, Unity devs will need Unity Pro to publish on consoles”
  • Daniel Sperl, “Flox is phasing out - a Post Mortem”
  • YoYo Games Subscriptions FAQ
  • Gregor Hohpe, “Don’t get locked up into avoiding lock-in”, on software lock-in in general

• 5G's standard patents wound it

  • Eli Greenbaum, “5G, Standard-Setting, and National Security”
  • Elyse Dorsey, “How the Google Consent Order Alters the Process and Outcomes of Frand Bargaining”
  • Wikipedia, “Reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing”
  • Raghav Bajaj, “What Are Standard Essential Patents and Why Do I Need to Know About Them?”
  • Theresa Hitchens, “US Risks Losing 5G Standard Setting Battle To China, Experts Say”
  • Brian DeLacey, “Strategic Behavior in Standard-Setting Organizations”

• YouTube broke links and other life lessons

  • Luke Plunkett, “Please Stop Closing Forums And Moving People To Discord”

• Twitter Blue is a late-stage symptom

  • Cory Doctorow, “Why it’s easier to move country than switch social media”
  • Tom Scott, “This Video has %s Views”, video
  • Failory, “What Was Google Reader”
  • Yahoo! Pipes on Wikipedia
  • Twitter, “About Twitter Blue”
  • RSS Bridge on github
  • Create a Problem, Sell a Solution meme

• Tweets about the attack on the Capitol

  • Social media footage from 2021-01-06 on the Internet Archive
  • Washington Post, “RED FLAGS — As Trump propelled his supporters to Washington, law enforcement agencies failed to heed mounting warnings about violence on Jan. 6.”

• Nintendo: It's about control, not piracy

  • Kotaku, “Nintendo Shuts Down Smash Tournament Over Some Absurd Bullshit”
  • Polygon, “Nintendo wanted to shut down Super Smash Bros. Melee Evo event”

• How Apple destroyed mobile freeware

  • Riley Testut, “Thoughts on the App Store”
  • Quora thread, “Can you make money on a free app without advertising?”
  • Forbes, “‘Malicious’ Subscriptions”
  • Doctorow’s example of the App Store as “felony contempt of business model”

rp

• ja, es kawaii

  • Barbarossa on Kickstarter

tech

• You can Google it

  • Safiya Umoja Noble, “Algorithms of Oppression - How Search Engines Reinforce Racism”
  • Ax Sharma, “Amazon Alexa slammed for giving lethal challenge to 10-year-old girl”
  • Alexa tells 10-year-old girl to touch live plug with penny - BBC News
  • Alexis Hancock, “Google’s AMP, the Canonical Web, and the Importance of Web Standards”
  • Tobie Langel, re: Alexa bbc article
  • Jon Porter, “Zelda recipe appears in serious novel by serious author after rushed Google search”
  • Breaking911, “VP Kamala Harris to Americans who can’t find a COVID test: “Google It””
  • Reddit, “Do food bloggers realize how awful their recipe pages are?”
  • Microsoft, “Microsoft’s New Search at Bing.com Helps People Make Better Decisions”
  • Russell Foltz-Smith, “Reactions to Wolfram|Alpha from around the Web”
  • Nick Slater, “How SEO Is Gentrifying the Internet”
  • Google, “YouTube Misinformation - How YouTube Works”
  • Google, “Our approach to Search”
  • Google, “Responses”
  • Google, “How Google’s featured snippets work”

• The joy of RSS

  • Get Fluent Reader on github
  • Adi Robertson, Are you still using an RSS reader?
  • Luke Smith, A Guide to Using RSS to Replace Social Media
  • https://getrssfeed.com
  • RSS Bridge on github