August 31, 2005

CBGB's lease won't be renewed — legendary club to close despite rallies (via) #

Video: Cubic Tragedy — outstanding CG animation available as a very high-res download #

Flickr photobook printing with Qoop — here are some example pages of the book design (via) #

Kiko — nicely designed web calendaring with very low barrier to entry #

NYC subway flasher caught — Flickr cameraphone photo that made NY Post front page leads to his capture #

Racism in AP's Katrina photo coverage — everyone's talking about this one; you decide #

August 30, 2005

Image: Bush Extended Family Photo — geek political satire; reminds me of one ring #

Pandora Music Engine comes out of private beta — streaming music recommendation service #

The Onion redesigns, opens complete archives to all — Khoi Vinh comments on his top-notch work on the redesign; the new archives go back to 1996 #

August 29, 2005

Lego Factory — create and share digital Lego models, then buy custom-made kits of your designs (via) #

NYT on Flying Spaghetti Monster — classic net-style satire makes a comeback #

A judicial answer to the RIAA — RIAA sues mom for file sharing; judge kicks their asses #

Credible rumors on the IM war — Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL may be conspiring against Google Talk in the IM space (via) #

The Final Blow in the Doppler Wars — I'm waiting for Doppler Infinity+1 (via) #

Upcoming.org adds Groups — we just launched this; for example, SoCal Indie Rock and Flickr events #

August 27, 2005

TechCrunch's short review of Flock — the social web browser sounds interesting (via) #

Best CAPTCHA ever — next: captchas in Flash and VRML #

August 26, 2005

Hot Biscuit Mod — Nintendogs the next to be targeted after GTA San Andreas #

Image: Pac Man on Trial — best entry from b3ta's If Computer Games Were Real #

August 25, 2005

MovableType 3.2 released — looks like Greg updated MT-Upcoming for 3.2, too! #

Greasemonkey 0.5.1 final released — you may now resume remixing the web #

Matt Haughey writing reviews for the New York Times — I've always wanted to see my name in all-caps Times New Roman #

House of Cosbys, You See

Posted August 25, 2005 by Andy Baio

I know it’s strange to break a two-month silence for something like this, but I don’t care. This is my blog, dammit, and I’ll rant about six-month-old memes if I want.

For the last few weeks at work, we’ve been obsessed with House of Cosbys. So obsessed that other departments are starting to worry about us; it’s consuming our lives. I first linked to it back in March, long before the recent legal threats from Cosby himself, so I don’t know why it’s taken this long to infiltrate our brains. (I suspect one too many late nights on a recent deadline is ultimately to blame.)

But it has, so I want to share some Cosbyana for other potential Cosby-heads out there. If you haven’t seen the first episode, watch the high-res House of Cosbys pilot before proceeding.

To kick off Cosby Fest 2005, I’m hosting the entire Bill Cosby Talks To Kids About Drugs album from 1971. Don’t miss “Dope Pusher,” a song about hard drugs sung/screamed by Cosby and a choir of kids, backed by some serious funk. Download it now.

I’m Web-Surfing Cosby, You See

Outtakes from the Curiosity Cosby recording sessions
Amazing Cosby Team Triosby fan art one and two, from Episode 3
House of Cosbys exit theme song MP3s
Listen Up Theo, a not-safe-for-work House of Cosbys music video
Cosby Core tattoo
Cosby stencils and graffiti (and more) on Flickr
Cosby Show Season 1 was just released on DVD
Little Rascals/Bill Cosby urban legend on Snopes
The Bill Cosby Fun Game, Cosby goes on a murderous rampage
The Pac Man and Cosby Show, a comic apparently made by a blind man using MS Paint

Dear God, this has to stop now.

August 24, 2005

Playing a Platinum Record — it was recorded backwards and wasn't the song being awarded #

Last Stand for First Sale — sewing software publisher threatens woman who tries to sell her legal copy on eBay (via) #

Is MySpace deliberately ugly? — also, could crappy visual design have contributed to eBay's success? (via) #

I am not responsible for making Google better — concise counterpoint in the search engine spam debate with some good thoughts in the comments #

Trackback: A Tragedy in Three Acts — I wish more tech writing was done in the form of short plays #

TechCrunch reviews Pandora — new music recommendation engine for custom streaming radio #

China tries to remove Internet icon from Web — like always, Wikipedia's coverage of Sister Furong is essential #

Bricolage adds support for PHP templating — the open-source CMS we use at work keeps getting better #

Chris Anderson on "just enough piracy" — piracy can be useful, and there may be optimal piracy rates for different industries #

Kottke's essay on WebOS — lots of good thoughts and predictions #

August 23, 2005

Tim O'Reilly responds to accusations of supporting search engine spammers — thoughtful reply; this is a subtle issue that people are only now becoming aware of #

Google Talk launches — Skype must be freaking out right about now; here's a review #

Leaked info on logging into Google's new Instant Messenger service — using their Jabber-based IM with your Gmail username #

Dateline tracks down a porn spammer — odd bit of investigative journalism turns up the owner, web host, and spammer of a bestiality site; Joey has more (via) #

O'Reilly's search engine spam — read about this on my last day at Foo Camp, but couldn't get a quote from anyone there (via) #

TiVo adds support for moving video from PCs to DVR #

August 22, 2005

Google running Jabber server, fueling rumors of IM tool announcement on Wednesday — the talk.google.com domain resolves, too (via) #

A List Apart redesigns — lovely work, great typography #

Quake III source code released under GPL — Slashdot thread on the quality of the code with comments by Carmack himself (via) #

Pwntcha — project to decode Captcha images; more info in this article (via) #

Phone pirates in seek and steal mission — thieves using Bluetooth phones near locked cars to find laptops to steal (via) #

News Corp may buy IGN Entertainment — which includes Rotten Tomatoes (via) #

Engadget 1985 — the SYSOP is IN #

Dick Tracy introduces the bootleg DVD gang — this storyline is hilarious; Cellphone, Digit, Download, and Miss Laptop! #

Google Desktop 2 beta release — the sidebar seems a bit obnoxious #

Scans of the Target-sponsored issue of the New Yorker — the first comment made me laugh #

August 20, 2005

Dick Tracy busting DVD pirates in new storyline — "your living is costing the movie industry five billion a year!" #