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December 30, 2006
The Flying Saucer, early mashup from 1956 (the artists ended up in court for sampling popular songs in their novelty break-in record)
December 28, 2006
Steve Wozniak interviewed by Compuserve members in 1983 (shortly before the introduction of Macintosh, lovingly scanned by Jason Scott)
What's Noka worth? (incredible 10-part expose of an insanely overpriced chocolate seller) [via]
December 27, 2006
This year's best selling album sold less than 4 million copies (tastes are splintering as music discovery and distribution gets easier)
Henry Jenkins interviews Gamelab's Eric Zimmerman (Gamelab is among the best of the small independent studios; every game is great) [via]
Noah K's everyday/celebrity project for VH-1 (the full series, including this real-life meme mashup with Lonelygirl15) [via]
Gerald Ford, dies at 93 (Dana Carvey covered his death in 1996)
December 26, 2006
Jay's Best of Casual Gameplay 2006 (incredible collection of the year's best web games and toys, many which I'd never seen before)
December 24, 2006
Nintendo Wii Controlled Smarthome (from the interesting Wii Hacks blog) [via]
Why Viva Pinata Is The Most Underrated Game Of 2006 (one of my E3 2006 underdogs, it's still the only intriguing game on the 360)
December 21, 2006
Line Rider Urban Run (pseudo-3D isometric style, from the creator of Jagged Peak Adventure) [via]
The Decemberists Vs. Stephen Colbert: Countdown To Guitarmageddon (with appearances by Henry Kissinger, Eliot Spitzer, Rick Neilsen, Robert Schneider, and Peter Frampton!)
PopMatters Best Indie-Pop of 2006 (a very personal list and my current favorite of this year's batch; I'll be using his definition of the genre from now on)
December 20, 2006
Sam Wintermute's Universal Text Imitator (my favorite of the examples: Beastie Boys structure using words from a linguistics textbook)
Bristolz' Half Bakery Illustrations (I just read that she passed away in August; very sad)
Digitized Doodle Dome (rigging an obscure spherical Etch-a-Sketch toy to drafting software) [via]
Pitchfork's Guest List Best of 2006 (top album lists from 30+ musicians, from Beck to Mastodon)
Paper Thin Walls' incredible 2006 Mixtape (31 writers pick their favorite songs of the year, then interview each artist about them) [via]
December 19, 2006
Six Apart's Holiday Video ("no, owls can't type")
December 18, 2006
Mates of State record a session with Daytrotter (including their 2-year-old daughter's recording debut)
Rogers Cadenhead battling MGM over Wargames.com (he's owned the domain since 1998)
GameSetWatch reviews "Heaven and Earth" from 1992 (I bought this wonderful puzzle game when it was new; you can download Mac and PC versions here)
Michael Crichton writes critic in as a child molestor in new novel (not a book critic, but someone who questioned his global warming denial)
Mozilla launches Operator microformats parser (using the microformats support we pushed in Upcoming and Y! Local as examples, too)
Archie comics getting a realistic redesign (ghastly!) [via]
December 17, 2006
FCC drops morse code testing for all ham radio licenses (end of an era)
December 16, 2006
How big of an Internet star was the Star Wars Kid? (Viral Factory explains how they arrived at 900 million views)
December 15, 2006
Threadless Deals With Plagiarism (they handled it very well)
December 14, 2006
Ask Mefi on cooling a warm Coke in two minutes (with thebest answer by Adam Savage from Mythbusters!) [via]
December 13, 2006
Turning a full-size Fender into a Guitar Hero controller (awesome mod)
Antville Music Video Awards 2006 (can you imagine if the MTV VMAs were like this?)
Google Patent Search (beats the crap out of the official patent search) [via]
xkcd's hand-drawn Map of the Internet (plot yourself on the map!)
Craigslist Meets the Capitalists (refreshing) [via]
ABC News launches Amanda Congdon's new show (here's a mildly positive review from the NYT) [via]
December 12, 2006
Flickr's Ho Ho Ho easter egg (try adding a "ho ho ho hat/beard" note to any of your photos) [via]
Honan fact-checks the supposed iTunes collapse (then again, the original article cited was by Orlowski)
i'm going to live forever (Leslie founded Smug and Hoopla, among other, writings; Zeldman interviewed her in 2001, which only hints at the depth of her contributions online)
Thank you, Leslie. (Leslie Harpold, one of the web's most influential and interesting writers and designers, is gone; memories from Merlin, Kevin, Brad, Emily, Robert, Lia, Chris, Lance, Dan and more)
How many taps in a URL? (the results are non-intuitive)
Video: Pre-Taped Call-In Show (Mr. Show goodness)
December 11, 2006
Redubbed Christmas classics (worth it just for the Charlie Brown Christmas alternate ending)
Money circulation science using Where's George data (here's the Nature article with some interesting info vis)
NYT's Year in Ideas (my favs: work rumors are usually true, social-cue reader, ambient walkman, fighting homophily, and publishing negative results)
VerizonMath (customer service reps try to learn the difference between dollars and cents)
Charlie Brown Christmas performed by the cast of Scrubs (with all new dialogue read by the actual actors; some backstory)
December 10, 2006
YouTube launches Quick Capture (using your webcam to instantly create videos for YouTube) [via]
December 9, 2006
Reuters tracks down Chinese Photoshop meme (don't miss the very bizarre accompanying video)
December 8, 2006
Niall Kennedy goatse's Microsoft blog (here's a NSFW screenshot of the blog posting)
December 7, 2006
Top 50 Music Videos Of 2006 (soon to be seen everywhere)
Math Professor divides by zero (nullity is nutty)
BitTorrent Inc. Acquires µTorrent (their community doesn't seem to be taking it well)
December 6, 2006
Video: Real-Life Leeroy Jenkins (some background, in case you missed it)
James Kim found, dead (tragic end to this incredible story of survival and loss)
December 5, 2006
iFilm legally showing Comedy Central clips (welcome to the new networks; Daily Show and Colbert Report updated nightly)
December 4, 2006
Wife, daughters of missing CNET editor found alive (James Kim is still missing, but this is amazing news)
December 3, 2006
Best Blogs of 2006 that You (Maybe) Aren't Reading (great list with some of my new favorites)
Kdice (multiplayer clone of Dice Wars; very fun)
December 1, 2006
eBoy's FooBar poster (view larger; spot the logos for 43 Folders, Laughing Squid, Rollyo, Newsvine, Feedburner, and tons more)
Video: Live Action Hamster Video Game (with background and music from Monty on the Run)