Waxy.org: Links Archives: September 2008

Splicd, permalink to a YouTube timecode (conveniently hackable URLs, too)

Try Google Search as it looked in January 2001 (extremely surreal flashback only available for one month; predates 9/11, YouTube, Sarah Palin, or this blog) [via]

Rososo, the peaceful newsreader (clean and minimalist approach to feedreading for newbies) [via]

Twitter's Biz Stone charts popular terms tweeted during the presidential debate (you can reconstruct the entire debate this way)

I Wish I Were the Moon (experimental gameplay with four endings, part of Daniel Benmergui's Moon Stories mini-trilogy)

SF Gate's profile on Flickr community manager Heather Champ (virtually nobody can understand the job's difficulty or the impact her work has on Flickr's culture)

Very Small Array visualizes #1 hit singles by genre, geographic origin, and song length (great stuff; see also: the Whitburn Project, part one and two)

Metafilter user tracks down the lead singer of Sonseed, the Christian ska band (sometimes, journalism is just picking up the phone)

xkcd draws the universe from top to bottom, on a logarithmic scale (in-jokes galore, inspired by this logarithmic map of the universe)

Footage from Sarah Palin's 1984 Miss Alaska swimsuit competition (video was deleted, here's my local copy on Waxy)

Twitter Elections (based on candidate-related tweets, looks like only 2% of the Twitterverse is conservative)

Shrub, proxy for Amazon S3 with RSS, JSON, and Muxtape-style output (for sharing S3 buckets with the world; more from the creator)

Cisco accidentally removes all letter "T"s from official homepage (regex gone awry) [via]

Justin Ouellette on the meteoric rise and fall of Muxtape (I'm surprised there aren't invite-only Muxtape clones, flying under the RIAA's radar) [via]

Inside a North Korean video arcade (I love the modded Aero City cabinet)

Current TV partners with Twitter to broadcast tweets on live presidential debate broadcast (the first real-time backchannel on live TV?)

Vimeo Toys, real-time interactive visualizations of Vimeo social activity (I'd love to see new comments appear as word balloons in Vimeo Land) [via]

A Car's Life, interactive game built on YouTube annotations (they claim it's the first, but this Spanish adventure game came out in July) [via]

David Letterman on John McCain's cancelled appearance tonight (leaked video, expect this one to disappear shortly; the live feed of him talking to Katie Couric is pretty damning)

Dominoes Made of Dominoes (note the one column of blue trying to hold out) [via]

Hardcore "Claymates" respond to Clay Aiken coming out of the closet (a strange mix of heartbreak, support, and disgust) [via]

Suzanne Vega talks about Tom's Diner, remix culture, and being the "mother of the MP3" (Karlheinz Brandenburg used the 1984 song to help debug the MP3 codec)

Wario Ware Inc: Doc Brown's Microgames (much better) [via]

Larry Lessig's analysis of Sarah Palin's experience (in this very important presentation, he examines every single VP in history to see how she stacks up)

Superconducting maglev toy train (needs more Doc Brown) [via]

Abe Vigoda still alive (thanks for the update, CNN; also, Twitter, Facebook, and single-serving)

Parsons students design Little Big Planet levels (the scale of the Shadow of the Colossus-inspired creature is insane)

Bernanke/Paulson FAIL (is it just me, or am I seeing more of current net culture leaking into mainstream media?) [via]

Nintendo's Wario Land meta-ad destroys YouTube UI (inspired by the HEMA ad? try dragging the UI elements around at the end)

Google Maps adds NYC public transit directions (finally! not perfect yet, but HopStop must be panicking a bit)

SweetAfton23's MyHope ("I hope your MySpace stays forever... and I hope that your kids find it")

Dragon's Lair walkthrough using YouTube annotations (impressive! now, will someone make it playable with clickable annotations?)

Boxer, Mac-friendly DOS emulation (built on DOSBox, perfect for playing classic DOS games) [via]

Technorati's State of the Blogosphere 2008 (detailed demographic study and analysis from Technorati's index, five parts posted over the next five days)

Zen Bound, serene rope-twisting game, coming to the iPhone (based on Moppi's Zen Bondage for the PC, released in 2005)

Versionista, track changes to any website (the author's writing a political column for Slate; sadly, his background is in nasty SEO software)

MixTube, Muxtape-like playlists built on public YouTube videos (who needs video?)

The NO!SPEC campaign vs. crowdSPRING (the same group of design pros that attacked the very promising Pixish)

Robot Chicken on Excitebike (anus shattering) [via]

Z-Rox, like Flatland as a Flash game (trains your mind to think in 2D)

Google Goatse t-shirt (classic, I bought one)

The Pirate Bay hits 15 million unique simultaneous peers (has any other illegal behavior been this mainstream in history? update: from my readers, alcohol (during Prohibition), speeding, marijuana, and sodomy)

Hoshi Saga 3 (don't miss the first two in the series)

Clay Shirky on ~~information overload~~ filter failure (speculative Web 2.0 keynote says fixing overload requires a shift in social norms)

Bill O'Reilly on Sarah Palin's hacked email and the First Amendment (related: someone hacked into the O'Reilly Factor's admin interface two days ago)

Daft Punk's "Something About Us" on Nintendo DS, vocoder, and theremin (the LED display was added in post-production)

Wine Library's Gary Vaynerchuk at Web 2.0 (I could care less about wine, but I absolutely adore this guy)

Stack Overflow on favorite programming-related cartoons (they're doing some interesting things with reputation, like gaining points to acquire new powers)

Star Simpson speaks out for the first time about her Boston Airport "hoax device" ordeal (her year-long battle's over, and chose Boing Boing to tell her story because they had the most responsible news coverage)

Dan Hanna's Daily Photo Aging Project (the mother of all photo-a-day projects, he shot himself front-to-back for 17 years)

Google adds pirate translation for Talk Like A Pirate Day (be ye feelin' lucky?)

TechCrunch posts the three new Microsoft "I'm A PC" ads (much better than the Seinfeld ads)

Sergey Brin starts blogging (his first entry's interesting, about his predisposition to Parkinson's he discovered using 23andme) [via]

Twitter launches redesign (small, subtle improvements all over; FriendFeed and Yahoo redesigned, too)

4chan member explains the Sarah Palin hacking (I hate to link to Malkin, but this is the definitive story, quoting deleted posts from the original 4chan member who did the hack)

Inside Obama's Gmail Account (nicely timed parody from The Onion) [via]

Ben Walker's "You're No One If You're Not On Twitter" (you might as well not have existed) [via]

Sarah Palin's Yahoo! Mail account hacked, password posted to 4chan (excellent summary of the events; screencaps on Wikileaks, discussion on Reddit)

Crazy rumor of the day: Google to buy Valve Software? (update: Valve's Doug Lombardi said it's false) [via]

Artemis Fowl author asked by Douglas Adams's widow to write new Hitchhiker's novel (a Slashdot user imagines the results)

Atari Modern Classics (related: TIGSource's bootleg demakes contest)

Summary of Pew Internet survey of teen gaming habits (a staggering 99% of boys and 94% of girls, and half of teens surveyed played a game yesterday; read the full report)

Fifty People, One Question (what do you wish would happen by the end of today?)

Soulja Boy reviews Braid (that's a sentence I never thought I'd write) [via]

Cabel Sasser tracks down Sonseed's full album (the 1980s Christian ska band is very real)

Portal: Prelude trailer, fan-made Portal prequel (coming soon; eight months in development with a new storyline, NPCs, and longer than the original) [via]

Google Audio Indexing (a dedicated site for their YouTube transcription experiments, hopefully soon expanding beyond political videos) [via]

Wild Beasts' music video using the Droste effect (extensive recursion; see more on Flickr)

Gruber debunks excuses for Apple's removal of the Podcaster app from App Store (idiotic policy that should make every iPhone developer question their participation)

Pakimono, bizarre Mac game about streaking (run the naked Japanese guy through Copenhagen and jump in front of tourist's photos) [via]

Ninja Cat (and the inevitable remix)

Meme Breaks 1.0, famous Internet memes in turntable-friendly format (Peanut Butter Jelly Time is the new Amen break)

Everymoment Now, charting election news coverage (from the developer of Buzztracker) [via]

Hip-hop songs that sampled video games (they mention ytcracker's N.E.S. from 2005, available as a free download)

David Foster Wallace, dead at 46 (sigh)

Every Filter (Dorothy applies every Photoshop filter, in order, to a photograph)

Joshua Schachter's Mechanical Turk experiment with behavioral economics (where else can you get 2,100 people to answer a question for a total $30 in three hours?)

Redrawing the Obama/McCain tax plan chart to scale (the original chart doesn't visualize the extent of the disparity)

The Big Picture on the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games (NBC's waiting until October to air the coverage, but they're posting highlights daily online)

Adam Kimmel's Claremont HD, downhill skateboard speedrun (absolutely insane, just watched it for the second time; Sippey has the route)

PleaseDressMe, the t-shirt search engine (been playing around with Gary Vaynerchuk's new startup and it's great; also, Gary's broadcasting live on UStream)

The Mountain Goats and Kaki King's "Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is in Another Castle" (wistful song sung from the perspective of Toad)

Anil Dash on September 11, Seven Years Later

When Algorithms Attack (how Googlebot, the Chicago Tribune's CMS, and a careless Bloomberg analyst killed United Airlines' stock)

Dopplr open-sources their "find and invite" feature (Rails plugin for locating your friends on other social networks)

Bioshock creator Ken Levine talks about growing up nerdy in the '70s (finding his tribe, losing it in Hollywood, and finding again in game design) [via]

EepyBird's Sticky Note Experiment (from the Mentos/Diet Coke guys, soon to be seen everywhere) [via]

Seth MacFarlane's AdSense Cartoons Now Available (new videos weekly, subscribe on Burger King's YouTube channel)

Hands-on demo video of the Plastic Logic Reader (cool stuff, but someone needs to take lessons from Apple)

OiNK admin charged with "conspiracy to defraud" (his bail date was extended five times; related: Elite Torrents admin sentenced to 18 months in jail)

TIGSource's brilliant Bootleg Demakes game dev competition (the entries remade famous games for retro systems; my other favorites are parodies of GTA, Burn the Rope, American McGee's Alice, Silent Hill, Bioshock, Legend of Zelda, and Shadow of the Colossus)

Heroes in Guitarland, NES-style remake of Guitar Hero (download the game from TIGSource)

Super 3D Portals 6, remaking Portal for the Atari 2600 (and yes, it actually runs on 2600 emulators)

Why do people participate in Mechanical Turk? (he asked the Turker community, by creating a HIT paying ten cents per answer)

Road Trip: Southwest USA (Penn & Teller's Desert Bus remade as a 1980s text adventure)

Sasha Frere-Jones on the use of laptops in live music (Gregg Gillis covers his laptop with saran wrap and reconstructs his mix nightly) [via]

Being a List of Songs Related to the Switching-On of the LHC (and, just to be sure, no and nope) [via]

Freestyle Rap Battle, Translated (here's the original)

Simon Carless announces FingerGaming, new iPhone gaming blog (promising site from the same group that runs GameSetWatch, Indiegames, and Gamasutra)

Schulze & Webb commercially releasing the Availabot (and it's "almost ready"! ) [via]

World Names Profiler, find people with your last name globally (also shows the name's roots, top cities, and most common first names) [via]

Little Hands, documentary short vocalizes the daily conversation of deaf children (mesmerizing to watch; I liked the kids caught "whispering" on camera at 2:55)

Atmosphir, collaborative 3D platform designer (announced at TC50 today, still in private beta; watch the demo for more)

MoreCowbell.dj, add cowbell to any MP3 (built on the lovely Echonest API; this Paul Simon remix is perfect) [via]

FlowingData announces winners of the Personal Visualization Project (see also: Daytum and Mycrocosm)

Adam Savage inhales sulphur hexafluoride (I'd never heard of the gas; more demonstrations on YouTube)

Google Turns 20, speculative fiction by Philipp Lenssen (blog posts from a parallel future world)

Audio Puzzler, game that creates timestamped audio transcripts (like Luis von Ahn's Games with a Purpose) [via]

Rock Paper Shotgun on the Spore anti-DRM activism on Amazon (for better or worse, it's an effective protest; my aunt bought a copy as a gift, but is returning it today because of DRM fears)

John McCain gets BarackRoll'd (or: what happens when you speak in front of alternating blue and green screens) [via]

Craigslist Missed Connections, Visualized (also, maps by hair color, age, and by exact location; from the very talented Dorothy of Cat & Girl) [via]

Bloons Tower Defense 3 (Friday afternoon Flash fun) [via]

Viddler's 15 Seconds, short videos twittered (records from your webcam, then tweets the link and note)

Bre Pettis's pilot on history hacking coming to History Channel on September 26 (set your DVR, he hacks historical inventions using stuff in his closet)

Microsoft debuts new Vista ad with Gates and Seinfeld (aside from Bill's mugshot, a rambling and unfunny ad) [via]

Jason Scott on Phil Lapsley's upcoming book on the history of phone phreaking (wonderful goodies within, including the YIPL/TAP FBI files and readable guides to filing FOIAs and reading FBI files)

Metallica thrilled new album leaked online a week early ("happy days")

PDF Format's 8-bit cover of the Beach Boys' "God Only Knows" (see also: Julia Nunes' uke cover, and even more ) [via]

John McCain and Tina Fey's LIFE cover photo from September 2004 (yes, it's totally real)

Tomorrow Museum on Elitism in the 2008 Elections (I've been reading way too much about the elections, but this resonated with me)

Unplug Your Friends, Meetup.com's viral video about "screen addiction" (beautifully made)

Amazon's Mechanical Turk used for fraudulent activity (I've noticed the search engine spam myself)

The American People (time to revisit Greg's project, extracting mentions of the cliched phrase from the news)

The Reemvoweler (came in handy trying to read the modified comments in this Boing Boing thread)

New Yorker's candid profile of Alec Baldwin (Kottke left off an underrated favorite of mine, Prelude to a Kiss)

"about:internets" Easter egg in Google Chrome (don't clog the tubes!) [via]

Wired documenting the development of a feature article in real-time (emails, pitches, assignment, design, editing, and production for a Charlie Kaufman profile in November's issue) [via]

Aether, thoughtful art game from Gish artist (solve each planet's unique puzzle) [via]

Picasa adds facial recognition for tagging photos (watch the demo for an example)

Google leaks details on Google Chrome, new open-source browser (with a comic book drawn by Scott McCloud)