Waxy.org: Links Archives: December 2005

Public Domain Torrents (with iPod and PDA versions, too; try the top 20 movies)

Slate reflects on the Chronicles of Narnia rap (it's not just funny, it's good music)

Suck.com taken offline, replaced by porn portal (suck, suck, sucks)

iFilm's top 25 viral videos of 2005 (I'd seen all but two)

Philipp Lenssen's 15 search predictions for 2006 (some intelligent guesswork)

Java: Falling Sand game (try the effects of sand and water on the bouncing object; also: hell of sand with people)

Flash: My Humps Christmas card (I wonder if American Greetings is getting complaints about this one)

PopCap mini-games save lives (bizarre testimonial)

Guardian UK on the grassroots UK music boom (how the Internet and word of mouth is launching indie acts and singles into the top charts) [via]

I'm Feeling Silly (Googlers order 250 pounds of Silly Putty; hilarity ensues)

Gaming Digg (story of one jerk who used a bookmarklet and fake accounts to ruin Digg for a day)

Google to release feed reader API (don't like the Google Reader UI? roll your own with the underlying data) [via]

Regret the Error's year-end roundup of media mistakes (most are funny, but several upsetting) [via]

Flying Spaghetti Monster tree topper (or put it on your Festivus pole) [via]

Acquisitions and the Big 3 (that's us: fun, jagged, and dangerous)

Typographica's favorite fonts of 2005 (some very flexible choices; Garda is beautiful) [via]

DivX browser plugin for Windows released (Mac and Linux versions coming soon) [via]

Video: Pac-Man Puppet Show (lovely viral ad for the Gametap emulation service) [via]

Brett Tabke's robots.txt blog

Metafilter members on Google Earth (nice screenshots; also, I updated the Mefi Stats through December)

Million Dollar Homepage creator on verge of reaching goal (at this rate, he'll hit a million in a week; also, there are quite a few cheap imitators) [via]

Khoi Vinh joins NYTimes.com (they must have liked the Onion redesign) [via]

Xbox 360 costs $715 to manufacture? (they may be losing more than $300 per sale)

Rex Sorgatz' 2006 predictions (more predictions from Blake Ross, Tristan Lewis, Cameron Moll, John Battelle, Jason Calacanis)

Do you get less wet if you run in the rain? (the BBC does the math; reminds me of the shower curtain puzzle)

Top 50 Music Videos of 2005 (generally good songs, too) [via]

How shows on DVD suffer from music licensing (mentions the massive WKRP music changes) [via]

Video: Pants Pants Pants, "Fabio Salsa" (SF indie band recreates the opening sequence from Full House)

Double Feature Finder (nicely designed tool for theater hoppers) [via]

C64 PSP (Commodore 64 emulator for the PSP)

Animal Crossing character promotes file sharing (the story seems more suited to a blog post than an 1,100-word NYT article) [via]

Wikipedia founder edits own bio (and insists others stop editing it without contacting him) [via]

Google's 2005 Year-End Zeitgeist (the growth of Wikipedia queries reflects their traffic)

Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of 2005 (some surprisingly accessible choices throughout; also: Rex's growing list of year-end lists) [via]

Homebrew Lumines for the GBA (one less reason to own a PSP) [via]

Digg Spy v2 released (real-time view of Digg activity; very nice)

Federal judge rules intelligent design curriculum unconstitutional (the court opinion (PDF) is an amazing read; read about the Wedge Document on page 28)

Ari Paparo on why Delicious succeeded where Blink failed (design decisions prevented his social bookmarking service from getting popular) [via]

Pokemon gene renamed following legal threat (Nintendo didn't like "Pokemon" being associated with "cancer") [via]

Sloncek's story of the Suprnova shutdown (a year ago today) [via]

Video: Lazy Sunday, the Chronicles of Narnia Rap (easily the best thing I've seen on SNL in years)

Wife, lover held for murder of former Quark engineer (bizarre story involving a conspiracy involving an embezzling scheme at Quark)

MP3: Dog Eyed Welders - My Hump (best cover of the worst song ever)

43 People adds year-end calendars (aggregates info across all the 43 sites) [via]

Tim Berners-Lee starts a blog (first post!)

Bush authorized NSA to eavesdrop without warrants in U.S. (NYT exclusive finds the administration breaking federal law; also, no more Patriot Act!)

Animated Singing Santa Hack (hack a Wal-Mart Santa to be evil; don't miss the videos)

Facebook doubling as a CIA front? (some fun conspiracy theorizing)

Exclusive screenshots of King Kong for the Xbox 360 (cute riff on the "glitch" with non-HDTV setups) [via]

Alexa opens up search index and API (the pricing model is interesting) [via]

Google Homepage API (create Javascript modules that can be shared with others) [via]

Official Katamari t-shirts (collect all seven!) [via]

Video: Mockups of Nintendo Revolution controller demos (still bizarre, and still very promising) [via]

NYT on Rocketboom (whoa, I just found out about the TiVo/Rocketboom deal; some analysis)

A Yahoo Company (all your startups are belong to us)

The Museum of Modern Betas (needs more Under Construction icons) [via]

Myspace Deaths (something like this would be meaningful if they'd drop the morbid humor)

Vivendi grants "fan license" to unofficial King's Quest sequel (the name is changing, but the characters can stay the same)

Yahoo! acquires Del.icio.us (everyone I know now works at Yahoo)

Flash: Samarost 2 (sequel to the enchanting Flash game; server is very slow right now)

Windows Live Local's overhead shots of Disneyland (including a peek into the drained Submarine lagoon)

Windows Live Local escalates the maps arms race (the birds-eye view is insane; the entire world looks like SimCity)

Abusive NYC camera store threatens to break customer's neck (Thomas Hawk, himself a recent scam victim, reports on a new case with recorded evidence)

Yahoo! Answers (look out, Ask Metafilter!)

DJ Riko's Christmas mix (from the creator of Whistler's Delight)

Rest Of U2 Perfectly Fine With Africans Starving ("You don't win 14 Grammys feeding Africans.") [via]

New AIM worm chats with its victims (it's probably more coherent than most IM conversations) [via]

Mena Trott calls out backchannel critic Ben Metcalfe from the stage (when drama erupts at a blogging conference, you get video, photos, and tons of commentary)

CNET buys Consumating (not bad for two guys in their spare time; congrats!)

Alison Mealy's Unreal Tournament art (artworks combine portraits and data viz from UT games) [via]

Wikipedia to disallow anonymous users to create new pages (an experimental change to deal with their social scaling issues)

Pre-order Jason Scott's new text adventure documentary film (support his work, and get three copies and your name in the credits (like me))

NASA abandons IE for Firefox (next stop: widespread corporate adoption) [via]

Cloud Game (I played it to the end, and it was very satisfying in a Katamari way) [via]

Rex starts his 2005 List of Top Lists (as always, keep checking back over the next few weeks as it grows)

Image: What if the NYT owned Gawker? (the "National" column is good) [via]

Free wifi plan prompts BellSouth to withdraw New Orleans donation (infuriating) [via]

Digital effects reels from the '80s (from the effects houses who did the CG for Tron)

Wired magazine as a tech market barometer (as their page count goes up and down, NASDAQ follows)