Waxy.org
Waxy.org is the sandbox of Andy Baio, a journalist/programmer living in Portland, Oregon. I work on Kickstarter, created Upcoming.org, made an album, and some other stuff too.

Contact Me: log@waxy.org or waxpancake on AIM

ZombieURL

Posted Apr 18, 2008 (Updated Aug 10, 2009)

For the last few weeks, I've been spending every Friday with a small group of brilliant geeks — Rael Dornfest, Asha Dornfest, Chris Anderson, Greg Borenstein, and Adam Greene — for a weekly one-day hackathon. We call it Bottlecap Labs, a place to bounce around ideas, support each other's work, and occasionally whip up a project.

The first is ZombieURL, a TinyURL-clone with a twist.

Put in a URL, send it to a friend, and enjoy. Keep a camera nearby to capture the fun. (Here's a Zombie-fied version of Waxy, for example.)

(Warning: We're not responsible for emotional scarring, concussions, or heart failure as a result of using ZombieURL.)

17 Comments (Add Yours)

Apr 18, 2008
9:40 PM  
Lilly wrote:

Not as bad as a Rickroll by farrrrr. :)


Apr 19, 2008
3:16 AM  
Infested! wrote:

omg, my heart..

this is evil ^^


Apr 19, 2008
7:05 AM  
Hank wrote:

Ha, nice!

This is kinda like this service - http://tinyurl.com/5rnkto


Apr 19, 2008
11:28 AM  
Anonymous wrote:

Ah, sadly not iPhone compatible. Still, this really brings up a lot of ideas for non-prankish tinyurl value-additions, for lack of a better term.


Apr 19, 2008
5:42 PM  
Philipp Lenssen wrote:

I prefer this to TinyURL actually.

Are you overlaying something on a page wide iframe? What else could be done with this technique?


Apr 19, 2008
6:46 PM  
Andy Baio wrote:

Yep, that's pretty much it. JQuery for the effects, SoundManager for the audio. The source tells it all.

Not sure what else you could do with it... Create a soundtrack for a website that doesn't have one? Mash together two sites? GoatseURL?


Apr 19, 2008
6:51 PM  
Yaanu wrote:

Fucking brilliant.


Apr 19, 2008
7:32 PM  
range wrote:

Pretty cool. I was surprised. I expected the page to have another layout, some graphics and such.


Apr 20, 2008
12:38 AM  
Superdotman wrote:

I'm running Safari 3.1 (5525.13) on OS X 10.5.2, and the sound didn't play the first time I tried the link. All subsequent sounds played, but sometimes a moment after the image appears.
Awesome idea and execution, though!

A word of advice to pranksters: Try to URL-shrink text-only pages, rather than pages with sound (or sound and video).


Apr 20, 2008
5:00 PM  
Matt wrote:

hey, that was pretty awesome. My 4 month old daughter sleeping nearby thought differently, but she'll learn...


Apr 20, 2008
5:40 PM  
Rex Hammock wrote:

This is definitely 'fundable' -- and in your SXSW session. Thanks for the laugh.


Apr 22, 2008
9:13 AM  
Fubiz wrote:

Excellent link!


Apr 22, 2008
1:16 PM  
Jish wrote:

Baaaassssttttaaaarrrrddddd!!!!!!!


Apr 24, 2008
7:14 AM  
Charles Alves wrote:

Pretty cool!


Apr 24, 2008
1:38 PM  
Mr. Grass wrote:

LOL - this is awesome.

I've had a live webcam of my (uhhh) front yard for a couple of years - a surprising number of people surf on by to see the (uhhh) excitement.

Since I'm doing the first lawn mowing of the season this Saturday ... I just added a link to the Zombie'fied version on the main page for those coming by for live coverage of this (uhhh) entertaining activity.

P.S. Tidy says a couple of warnings with your web code/frame wrapper - maybe move the CSS code into the head section (?)


May 3, 2008
7:20 AM  
alesh wrote:

Wow cool.

However, something about the NYTimes defeats it. Try putting in this link.


May 3, 2008
9:45 AM  
Andy Baio wrote:

Yeah, we noticed that early on. The New York Times uses Javascript to break out of any frame. We figured if they were that concerned about people framing their content, we shouldn't try to find a workaround.


 

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Waxy Links
Ads via The Deck
September 1, 2010
Bear's Double Rainbow ad for Microsoft — also: meet Bear (via)
First details on Telltale's episodic Back to the Future game emerge — they also secured rights to make games based on Jurassic Park
Cee Lo Green's official video for F**K YOU — even better than the typography video, I'm perfectly content to have this song stuck in my head 24/7
Slate interviews Innocence Project cofounder about false convictions — over 250 people have been freed by new DNA evidence, many of them with false confessions
Unreal Engine 3 tech demo Epic Citadel for the iPhone/iPad — impressive tech demo, now available for free
GameSetWatch covers Assembly 2010's PC demo contest — if you have the hardware, I highly recommend trying out the two winners yourself
Apple announces Ping, a social network built into iTunes — their first foray into social, finally; seems inevitable that app/location/TV/music sharing will follow
August 31, 2010
All four issues of Daniel Raeburn's The Imp available for free download — highly recommended, covers Daniel Clowes, Jack Chick, Chris Ware, and dirty Mexican comics (via)
Eclectic Method's 8-bit Mixtape — not particularly great music, but the visuals make it (via)
Vanity Fair's glimpse into the day in the life of the President — long, must-read look at the insane complexity of today's political landscape
Lanyrd, social conference directory — brilliantly executed social event discovery; it should be pronounced "La Nerd"
Copyrighting Fashion — a new bill would subject fashion to copyright, but at what cost?
Tom Scott's Evil hack shows phone numbers exposed by Facebook users — culled from public "lost my phone" groups
Unhear It — replace one earworm with another
August 30, 2010
Stay Free's Illegal Art mix tape — the files all moved here
Mads Peitersen's paintings of gadget anatomy — love the iPhone guts (via)
Hark! A Vagrant's Nancy Drew covers — previously: the Gorey covers
Markov chaining Kickstarter blurbs — this also doubles as a Kickstarter project idea generator
Pomplamoose teams up with Ben Folds & Nick Hornby — Hornby wrote all the lyrics for Folds' new album (via)
The Wilderness Downtown — an HTML5 music video for Arcade Fire with some fun geo integration
August 29, 2010
Swarmation — like musical chairs for pixels (via)
August 28, 2010
Disney remixes old cartoons into "Blam!" — truly awful
August 27, 2010
PieLabPDX food cart makes customers play games to buy pie — they had to win a game of Rock Scissors Paper to get their choice
Dirpy — convert YouTube videos to MP3s with surprisingly deep transcoding options
Indie Game: The Movie interviews Adam Saltsman on Canabalt — every one of these shorts gets me more excited for the full-length film
August 26, 2010
Jerry Stiller Unscripted — an adorable encounter with the owners of the Costanza house
Members of Paramore, New Found Glory, and Relient K cover "Bed Intruder Song" — the original broke the Billboard Top 100 (via)
Happylife — prototype device ambiently shows a family's collective mood (via)
"Learning to Be Me" by Greg Egan — a better-written short story with a similar theme as "Where Am I?"
"Where Am I?" by Daniel Dennett — short sci-fi story from 1978 about where consciousness resides (via)

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