Ads via The Deck
October 31, 2004
Flickr's Squared Circle group (try the slideshow) [via]
Snopes on the rapidly spreading Texas vote mishap (I've seen several friends mention this already)
Slashdot trolls hack the Dremel homepage (subtle hack, click the "Pumpkin Carving Kit" link at the bottom) [via]
Economist's overall view of the changing music industry (how they're trying to adapt)
October 30, 2004
Simon Carless on the Fragdolls controversy (exposing Ubisoft's Monkee-style manufactured girlgamer clan)
NYT on Nick Nolte Diary (Greg Allen mentions my role in the site's fast spread)
Printable vintage Star Wars masks (Forbes posted their annual collection of celeb masks, too) [via]
October 29, 2004
"The Incredibles" merchandise (a staggering list compiled by Alan) [via]
Flash: Nucleus game (I beat the game (final password is mtfpfd)) [via]
Conqwest, large-scale touring treasure hunt (employing phonecams, semacode, and giant animal balloons) [via]
Flash: Nintendogs for the Nintendo DS (Marc says it's a $200 Tamagotchi; here's another DS trailer)
Video: Internet Archive's DIY book scanning robot (direct link to the streaming Quicktime) [via]
Spazz Wheelchairs (inappropriate product naming) [via]
Raffi is spidering radio station playlists (one crappy Boston station played only 71 unique songs in one day) [via]
National Geographic on Evolution (Q: Was Darwin wrong? A: NO.) [via]
October 28, 2004
Upcoming.org's most popular events and metros (NYC is, by far, the most active on the site)
Brown Paper Tickets (impressive DIY ticketing site could break the Ticketmaster monopoly) [via]
Grand Theftendo (amazing homebrew port of Grand Theft Auto III to the NES!) [via]
2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes (Florida's touchscreen voting, Lynndie England, Nader, and more)
Lots of Toes (from the always-good Jogchem)
Cluster Ballooning (also: the tragic story of Larry Walters) [via]
October 27, 2004
Tron, the 12-Minute Rock Opera (featuring Brendon Small of Home Movies fame on guitar) [via]
Flickr users cover tonight's lunar eclipse (instant reporting, just add community) [via]
New font to be used on US highway signs (Clearview is a bit Meta-like)
Secret Service visits a Livejournal user (blog rule #36: never say you're going to kill the president) [via]
Milner's Descriptive Atlas from 1850 (fascinating and pioneering information design) [via]
I'm Not That Adam Levine (phone messages meant for the lead singer of Maroon 5)
Ashlee Simpson-branded iPod (the karaoke edition)
GTA San Andreas to beat game sales record (at $225m, it would be the biggest opening week across all media; Spider-Man 2 was only $192m)
Wil Wheaton plays a news reporter in GTA San Andreas (the rest of the voice talent includes George Clinton, Chuck D, Ice-T, James Woods, David Cross, Axl Rose, and Charlie Murphy!) [via]
Video: Super Mario Ice Capades from 1989 (starring Jason Bateman, Alyssa Milano, and Mr. Belvedere as Koopa; more info) [via]
President Bush election site blocking non-US visitors (banning his overseas supporters seems like a bad move) [via]
October 26, 2004
Kaki King's Playing with Pink Noise (very good acoustic guitar noise)
Billboard debuts Top Ringtone charts (the global ringtone market was $3.5 billion in 2003!?)
Howard Stern drops in on FCC head Michael Powell's radio interview (it's at 32:20 in the heated and excellent MP3)
Glucoboy (children's glucose meter for the Gameboy Advance) [via]
Super Mario-playing Lego robot (man, Engadget is finding really great stuff lately) [via]
XM MyFi, portable XM Radio receiver (at $350, it's way too expensive) [via]
iPod Photo (60 GB of music and photo storage for $600, plus AV out) [via]
Guns return to Disneyland's Jungle Cruise (the guns even had their own urban legends) [via]
Sony PSP on the cover of Newsweek (the cover headline is "Saving Sony") [via]
Sim Horror, a massive haunted house in Second Life (the game world continually rewards creativity)
NYT's unfocused article on web memes (it feels like it was thrown together overnight)
Republican insider e-mails accidentally sent to georgewbush.org (his real site is .com, not .org) [via]
TextArc, Java applet visualization of large texts [via]
Legendary DJ John Peel, RIP (sad day; this site has MP3s of songs he played)
October 25, 2004
MP3: Wired Magazine's Creative Commons CD (download the free and legal torrent, here's a track list) [via]
The Web's Favorite Words (googling "my favorite word is *")
Spinalcat, amazing DIY optical turntable made with a CueCat (don't miss the photos and the 83-page thesis PDF) [via]
Apple adds game trailers (but only for Mac games, which isn't much) [via]
Google Answers on how to whistle loudly (you just put your lips together and blow, hard!)
Correlating "cool cities" with blogging culture (he uses Meetup, Upcoming.org, and Craig's List as sources in his study)
Ask Mefi on overly accurate domain names (growing list of one-page domains) [via]
Amazon adds uploading of user's product photos (user generated media to complement user reviews) [via]
Foxylicious (easily integrate your Delicious bookmarks into Firefox) [via]
Fun World, abandoned Disney World mod for GTA Vice City (the Half-Life 2 engine would be perfect for a Disneyland mod)
Snopes on the Beach Boys' recorded sex sounds (including an MP3 excerpt from 1969's "20/20" album)
October 24, 2004
Something Awful's Misinterpreted Movie Posters (if movie titles were the literal description of the poster) [via]
I'm Feeling Spendy (put in a price, find a random Amazon product; another version here) [via]
Ashlee Simpson's disastrous SNL performance last night (she walked off after the wrong lip-sync track was played, more details)
October 23, 2004
XM Radio launching wearable receiver next week? (I'm sure people would pay for an XM-aware MP3 player) [via]
Forbes' list of top-earning fictional characters for 2004 [via]
October 22, 2004
Flickr now lists related tags (unbelievable, we were just talking about this idea today)
Socks the Cat, unreleased SNES game (yes, that's Bill Clinton on the cover) [via]
Video game censorship on the NES (a history of Nintendo's ridiculous content changes)
Some truly awful political chart design (someone get them this book, stat!)
The Children's Scientology Pageant (an all-kid ensemble humorously acts out the L. Ron Hubbard story) [via]
Video: Lie Girls (phone sex parody of the Bush administration) [via]
Crash Ballet contest winners (Coudal readers set NASA crash videos to music) [via]
LED Porn (nicely designed and photographed) [via]
Gizmodo's outstanding analysis of DVD's successor (they predict a clear win for Blu-Ray over HD DVD) [via]
Google volunteer translators strike back (the message is perfect for CAPS LOCK DAY) [via]
TODAY IS CAPS LOCK DAY (RANDOM SILLINESS FROM THE MEFI PEANUT GALLERY) [via]
Video: Conan O' Brien show on outsourcing (they send a writer to an India tech support center) [via]
MP3: Cisco System's "Peter Packet" theme song (why does Cisco needs a kid's section, anyway?) [via]
Extend Bluetooth by a mile (hack a 2.4GHz antenna onto your Bluetooth adapter) [via]
Japanese commercials for a tilt-sensitive Wario Ware (there are six more on the second page) [via]
Defective Yeti's Joke roundup (there are some great ones in the comments)
October 21, 2004
Yahoo Image Search upgrades to one billion images (their advanced search makes finding, say, wallpaper-size b&w photos easy)
SvN notes an unusual coincidence (Google and eBay both earned $805.9 million in 2004 Q3)
Bush and Kerry living together in the Sims 2 (also featuring cameos by Saddam, Osama, and John Edwards) [via]
Regret the Error (a new blog covering media retractions) [via]
Ghouls with Attitude (51-song mix of rare Halloween songs) [via]
Threading related blog posts together with sparklines (more on Tufte's sparklines, or word-size graphics) [via]
October 20, 2004
NYT commentary on Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance (a great breakdown of why it was so satisfying)
Google saves Australian hostage (if they used Ask Jeeves, he'd be dead by now)
Bar Bot, a beer drinking robot (it begs for beer money, and then orders a drink before socializing) [via]
Slashdot's outstanding interview with Neal Stephenson (his answers are verbose, like his writing) [via]
Sun and Intel geek tattoos
October 19, 2004
Jandek played a live set in Glasgow (the enigmatic musician's first public performance, ever)
E! Online's interviews the creators of Nick Nolte Diary (regardless, it beats the crap out of his official site)
Forbes on the Apple/U2 deal and custom black iPod (Bono is visiting our office right now, no joke)
Business Week on Bugmenot and Mirrordot (Matt's corrections and Adrian's unused interview exposes the reporter's biases)
Flash: Treasure Box (surreal exploration game, in the style of Samorost) [via]
Bling Bling Medallion, the most branded object in the world (here's a closeup of one section) [via]
Jason Scott's detailed review of The Last Starfighter musical (the big finale is a song called "Caves of the Heart (The Battle)") [via]
Video: Jon Stewart comments on the "Crossfire" appearance (the Washington Post has Crossfire's response) [via]
October 18, 2004
Gmail begins signing outgoing mail with DomainKeys (adopting the standard would eliminate spam for good)
Flash: Collaborative fridge magnets (the emerging behaviors here are fascinating) [via]
Half-Life 2 to ship on November 16 (more than a year late, but I'm still very excited)
Effect of presidential election on the markets (Table 5 talks about using the market to predict elections)
"Crossfire" downloads exceeds TV broadcast audience (it's been downloaded at least 500,000 times in three days)
P2P Politics (Lessig's new project freely hosts political videos on Archive.org) [via]
Compare and contrast the Carlsons (CNN's Tucker Carlson vs WKRP's Mr. Carlson) [via]
Nick Denton releasing rare Ed Wood porn film (under the new "Fleshbot Films" title) [via]
October 17, 2004
Urbz online promo uses indie comic stars (James Kochalka, Peter Bagge, Evan Dorkin, and more) [via]
Game Tunnel Client Links Xbox, PS2, and GC Games (free alternative to Xbox Live and PS2 online play)
October 15, 2004
GTA San Andreas is gold (rumors say Half-Life 2 is gold, as well!)
Irony level high on Disney's Peter Pan lawsuit (Disney wants to profit from the public domain, while keeping its own work from it)
Mobster, recommendation addon for iTunes (uses the Musicmobs community to recommend music)
Neal Stephenson classic on Unix and the Hole Hawg drill (remember that the next time you 'rm -rf /')
Jon Stewart bitchslaps CNN's "Crossfire" show (the CNN transcript is jaw-dropping, here's the video)
Benchmarking 101 video cards on 14 games (even my Radeom 9700 Pro is showing its age) [via]
Found Item Clothing (t-shirt reproductions from movies and TV, but mostly just Real Genius for now) [via]
October 14, 2004
Halo 2 leaked to Usenet (French audio with English subtitles, you can read the release NFO here) [via]
Tracing the Evolution of Social Software (from the Memex and EIES to wikis and Del.icio.us) [via]
Early T.Rex ancestor was furry (happy fluffy dinosaurs) [via]
Poynter Institute's Eyetrack Heatmaps (interactive maps of eye movements reading news webpages) [via]
Google announce Desktop Search! (a huge announcement, many details in Rael Dornfest's overview) [via]
October 13, 2004
Cherry OS may be a PearPC clone (Slashdot and Wired News are convinced it's real) [via]
Seven die in "Internet Suicide" pact (just because they met online, that makes it an "Internet Suicide"?)
Brain controlled computing a reality (he's able to operate a PC with his brain with 70% accuracy) [via]
Bloglines subscriber stats redux (Richard crunches some numbers for A-list bloggers)
BBS Documentary in pre-sale (the staggering history of the BBS is finally done)
Nick Nolte's Diary (the archives are priceless)
October 12, 2004
Flash: Honda's Grrr Game (surreal goodness, but does it sell cars?) [via]
City of Heroes players honor Christopher Reeve (some good screenshots of the tribute)
Six Apart profile in the WSJ (with hedcuts of Ben and Mena!) [via]
Cardhouse on odd Hawaiian food products (everything looks like the Tiki Tiki Room) [via]
Hands-on with Nintendo DS games (they look like low resolution N64 games) [via]
Blogging the debate within Second Life (they're created a virtual stage for both candidates)
Wired magazine internships (this would have been my dream job, in 1995) [via]
New Yorker on the broadcast spectrum giveaway (more information about the situation and McCain's proposal) [via]
Network Solutions takes Gawker offline (the domain expired a week ago)
October 11, 2004
The Perry Bible Fellowship (a wonderfully surreal weekly comic, like so and so and so)
Migrating your link list from MT to Delicious (a good howto, but I'd still like "via" support)
Alexa web services (I'm sure someone can use this for something good) [via]
How to Torture Your Sims (painfully funny) [via]
Background on the ABC News redesign (tableless XHTML, expanded RSS, and Flash headlines) [via]
Shakeskin Gallery (all you need is a camera and some loose skin) [via]
October 10, 2004
Flash: Dad's Home! [via]
October 9, 2004
Tour of Ghostbuster locations in Spiderman 2's modeled NYC (with photos of locations in real life and in-game)
Video: Instant Messenger Fight (a little fresh air) [via]
Ask PVRBlog (Matt launches a cousin to Ask Mefi) [via]
Goolery, a Gmail-based PHP photo gallery (obviously, there's a huge market for a hosted hard drive with a good API) [via]
Microsoft Word autosummarizes the second debate (entire transcript summed up in 100 words)
John Kerry is losing the logo war (the Bush team has a better visual identity) [via]
Katamari Damacy comic (has anyone done speed runs of the game yet?)
First look at Bioshock, the new System Shock sequel [via]
October 8, 2004
Jay Allen joins Six Apart (they managed to lure him out of Hungary)
Falling for the Podcasting Hype (this could be huge with MP3 blogs, as well)
Amazon recommending blogs along with products (people who bought this item also read these blogs...) [via]
Yahoo to launch Overture ads in RSS (I understand the appeal for publishers, but RSS ads feel slimy)
Baby Snowdeal goes home! (after 95 days in NICU, Eric's preemie son is home) [via]
64% of people named "George Bush" voting for Kerry (finally, some original blog research that matters) [via]
CDC's Disease Trading Cards (gotta catch 'em all!) [via]
Rumors about the 60GB iPod (a color screen, photo viewing, and audio/video out?) [via]
October 7, 2004
Alter Ego, photo exhibition of gamers and their avatars (there's a small gallery of some of the photos) [via]
Soldier posting Iraq photos on Flickr (I fear they'll get in trouble for this) [via]
1UP's history of video game comics (they forgot Atari Force!)
Video: Compilation footage of stylus-based Nintendo DS titles (also: the list of American and Japanese launch titles)
Senate shelves Induce Act (good riddance to bad bills) [via]
"3 Notes and Runnin'" remix contest nears 150 entries (every track uses this sample as the single source for all audio)
Gmail Drive shell extension for Windows (much more usable than the earlier hack)
Help me identify the "Afro Ninja" (if you know who he is, e-mail me and I'll give you $50)
JotSpot Flash demo (a walkthrough of the newly announced enterprise wiki)
October 6, 2004
37 Signals' Intro to Using Patterns in Web Design (a simple guide for laying out usable sites)
Video: Extreme Unicycling (they manage to make unicycles look cool) [via]
I Am Learn, blog written by a Perl script (a cousin of R Robot, created by Peter Cooper) [via]
Luxology's Modo (very innovative new 3D modeling app for Mac and Windows) [via]
How MP3.com identified unknown bands based on user data (fascinating analysis with insights into music marketing) [via]
A Mario Sprite History (excellent evolution of 2D Mario characters) [via]
Ask Mefi on concepts that don't exist in the English language (this thread developed nicely) [via]
Video: Simon Robson's "What Barry Says" (best animation winner at the 2004 Brooklyn Film Festival) [via]
Image: AOL's new brand identity? (triangles everywhere!) [via]
Plink.org creator taking FOAF app offline (because there's no way to opt out of FOAF) [via]
How Six Apart got their funding (hmm, smells like a scam) [via]
Image: Best Team Portrait Ever (warning: this is a bit gross) [via]
Insane console collection on eBay (games sold separately) [via]
Six Apart gets second round of VC funding (from August Capital, Andrew Anker's former firm)
Cheney mixes up .com with .org, hilarity ensues (he meant to say this, but actually said this) [via]
Budweiser's new caffeinated beer (with the awful name "B to the E") [via]
New Meetup.com much more flexible (no more restrictions on venues, dates, or topics)
October 5, 2004
Cameron's VP debate analysis (Edwards' "american people" and Cheney's "fact of the matter")
Snap.com, new search engine with sortable results (the live refined queries are nice, but a stupid linking policy) [via]
Flash: Zoom Quilt (it's also available as a slideshow and movie) [via]
Installing OS X on the Xbox (using PearPC, of course) [via]
Wired on "The Long Tail" of the economics of scarcity (the biggest money is in the smallest sales) [via]
Flickr, "So Meta It Hurts" (photos of Flickr on Flickr, like this one)
Image: Eruption in Progress (new activity on Mount St. Halen)
DropCash via C# and .NET (drop-in Dropcash support for your Windows apps)
October 4, 2004
Evan Williams leaves Blogger (maybe he'll become a chef, too)
Graphic Novel Review (a promising new journal that takes graphic novels seriously) [via]
The Effect of Country Music on Suicide (the Medicine winner of the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize) [via]
SpaceShipOne wins the $10 million X Prize (commercial space travel just got much closer) [via]
Red Blue, mobile GPS utility that shows you nearby campaign contributions (like a Geiger counter for local political bias) [via]
Gmail adds Atom notifications, Drafts, and Contacts [via]
Google needs to retain newly-rich employees (60% of their workforce are new millionaires) [via]
Kotaku, Gawker's new gaming blog (also: they launched Screenhead and Jalopnik, which is sponsored by Audi)
October 3, 2004
Mirrordot, automatic Slashdot mirroring (attempting to dilute the Slashdot effect) [via]
Spaceballs sequel in development [via]
Jeopardy's "Blogs" category (links to the questions for all five answers) [via]
Image: NYT's excellent map of Iraq attacks in September (Tufte would be proud) [via]
Nintendo DS final packaging (with the stylus, can you use the DS as your PDA?) [via]
October 2, 2004
Disneyland souvenir book from 1960 (check out the pre-Mansion "Haunted House" sketch and the park map)
GNUmobile, a modded Oldsmobile (you can drive it from the commandline)
Shirky on the essential elements of all social software (groups and conversation are the very basics) [via]
Washington Post may buy Slate from Microsoft (the NYT should buy Salon and get rid of subscriptions) [via]
Penny Arcade on Katamari Damacy (the game completely sold out across the country!)
US Census shows recorded music replaced by other media (piracy is only part of the story) [via]
The Strangerhood, machinima sitcom using the Sims 2 engine (from the people that created Red vs Blue) [via]
Alan announces Amazon Light 4 (he ties Amazon web services into Delicious, Gmail, Dropcash, Blogger, Netflix, iTunes, and more)
Cameron's Presidential Debate Analysis (crunch your own stats with his Debate Spotter tool)
Peter Molyneux apologizes for features cut from Fable [via]
FPGameRunner, a treadmill for first-person games (get a workout while playing Doom 3) [via]
Sam and Max 2 team form new studio (they may be releasing the cancelled sequel on their own)
Half Life 2 release set for November 23 (it's about time)