Extra Future

Hi, I’m Phil Nelson, a writer, developer, and audio-visual maker of stuff. I have been making stuff online for over 25 years. I run RetroStrange and Set Side B. Good to see you.

Blog Archives

Month: August 2012

  • Facebook Weirdness

    Today I made a [series][first] of [seemingly][second] [innocuous][third], though slightly filthy, joke tweets based on a vaginal rejuvenation cream being sold in India.

    [The Facebook thread][fb] (I have Twitter set to auto-post to Facebook) for the [third tweet][second] now has over 118,000 comments and 5,500 likes, and the comment threat is INSANE. This appears to have affected the posts of many, many people. The user who appears to be posting the majority of the comments (mostly replying with the single letter “r”) is identified as “Rahmi Özgündüz”, but that name (and the photo on the profile) belong to a [Turkish soccer player][turk]. It’s possible he/she/it started this, but without more info it’s hard to say. Could just be a regular ‘ol database ID bug.

    This has got to be the problem of the day for some poor Facebook engineer. Sorry, dude. Or lady.

    Update: [Ben Garvey][bg] has the idea that somehow a post ID has been duplicated across several different FB posts, which is making all of the comments be piled into one big thread. Sounds about right to me.

    Update Two: The responses, at least the ones in a language I speak, are hilarious. They range from [incredulous][incred], to [indignant][indignant] to [pleas for sanity to the uncaring universe][pleas].

    [turk]: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/en/rahmi-oezguenduez/profil/spieler_104716.html “Rahmi Özgündüz”
    [incred]: https://www.facebook.com/philnelson/posts/2231777543?comment_id=23556252&offset=0&total_comments=119429 ” Incredulity”
    [pleas]: https://www.facebook.com/philnelson/posts/2231777543?comment_id=23555037&offset=28&total_comments=119295 “Plea for sanity”
    [indignant]: https://www.facebook.com/philnelson/posts/2231777543?comment_id=23555049&offset=0&total_comments=119267 “Indignant response”
    [fb]: https://www.facebook.com/philnelson/posts/2231777543 “Facebook thread for the tweet”
    [first]: https://twitter.com/philnelson/status/240487313161990144 “First tweet”
    [third]: https://twitter.com/philnelson/status/240487857163235328 “Third Tweet”
    [second]: https://twitter.com/philnelson/status/240487680947937280 “Second tweet”
    [bg]: https://twitter.com/bengarvey/statuses/240496533638873089 “Ben Garvey’s theory”

  • Tent

    [A sort of counterpoint to App.net, Tent is a truly decentralized social media protocol][link]. It even integrated with Tor to help those in nations that which to stifle free speech.

    It’s a protocol, like HTTP or email, not just a service. It’s fully open source. This is interesting. I hope that it becomes more friendly and stable and active than, say, Jabber.

    [link]: http://tent.io/ “Tent – the decentralized social web”

  • Node-Twilio, A Twilio API Client for Node.js

    Another useful Node.js module for Sekrit Projekt #14.

  • Kickstarter’s Spam Problem

    [Garrett Murray on a troubling trend in Kickstarter projects:][link]

    >At least once a week I receive an unsolicited request to fund a project. These messages are rarely offensive in and of themselves–they’re usually just information about the project and a paragraph or two of generic “please help us out” text–but they’re still spam. They’re usually sent to a blind carbon copy list, but occasionally someone will screw up and send it out via plain CC, exposing all the email addresses they’ve targeted.

    This is spam, plain and simple. Kickstarter needs to decide if it’s the kind of company who wants to allow this (in order to potentially make more money in the short term, ala Facebook, at the expense of user satisfaction and damage to their brand) or come down hard on it (do the right thing for their users AND backers). I know what I hope they do.

    [link]: http://garre.tt/kickstarters-spam-problem?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter “Kickstarter’s Spam Problem by Garrett Murray”

  • node-etsy, An Etsy API Library for Node.js

    Something I needed for a little project of mine.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about how insanely good node.js is for doing simple tasks that I’d normally use a webserver (Apache) running a scripting language (PHP) and interfacing with an enterprise database (MySQL). If your server has to handle one, or even a handful of different kinds of requests, node should be where you look first.

  • Patricio Palladino Demonstrates Non-Alphanumeric Javascript

    [This is some head-screwing, eyeball-hurting mojo.][link] The tl;dr:

    >”I just made a tool to transform any javascript code into an equivalent sequence of ()[]{}!+ characters. You can try it [here][demo], or grab it from [github][git] or [npm][npm]. Keep on reading if you want to know how it works.”

    [link]: http://patriciopalladino.com/blog/2012/08/09/non-alphanumeric-javascript.html “Brainfuck beware: JavaScript is after you! | Patricio Palladino”
    [demo]: http://patriciopalladino.com/files/hieroglyphy “hieroglyphy Demo”
    [git]: https://github.com/alcuadrado/hieroglyphy “hieroglyphy on Github”
    [npm]: https://npmjs.org/package/hieroglyphy “hieroglyphy on NPM”

  • FitVids

    Being “[A lightweight, easy-to-use jQuery plugin for fluid width video embeds.][link]” (via [@zeldman][zeld])

    [link]: http://fitvidsjs.com/ “FitVids.JS – A lightweight, easy-to-use jQuery plugin for fluid width video embeds.”
    [zeld]: http://twitter.com/zeldman “Jeffrey Zeldman”

  • Docracy

    [A repository of community-curated legal documents.][link] Someone is going to try to troll this hard, mark my words.

    [link]: http://www.docracy.com/ “Docracy – Free Legal Documents”

  • Aptus

    Sounds like a good deal to me:

    >[“Aptus is a dedicated browser that lets you preview, edit and screenshot your responsive site at any size from mobile through to large desktop.”][link]

    Just $2.99 of your Earth dollars.

    [link]: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/aptus/id510487565?mt=12 “Mac App Store – Aptus”