Auto-generating a graphic novel from blog posts
— this makes me miss Radio vox Populi via Delicious #43 Things' Twinkler preview
— when expanded to any topic, this will be very interesting via 37signals.com #Blogging featured on the West Wing
— the character may have been modeled after Wonkette via sixapart.com #The Grey Video
The Grey Video is the brilliant Jay-Z/Beatles music video mashup of DJ Dangermouse’s “Encore” off the infamous Grey Album.
The official site is down, likely a result of popularity or legality, and I don’t know if it’s coming back. Until then, I’m going to mirror the high-quality Quicktime version.
Download: grey_video.mov (Quicktime, 22 MB)
BitTorrent: grey.torrent (thanks, Kyle!)
Also, Matt Haughey is mirroring it.
Debate about Firefox not supporting image tooltips for ALT tags
— someone wrote an extension to emulate IE’s behavior #Strongbad gets an e-mail virus
— lots of clever stuff here, plus a Livejournal reference via ned.suckahs.org #Flash: EPIC, a prediction of the Google-enabled future
— if this is the dystopian future, count me in via Ryan Gantz #Vicepoker, free strip poker game for the Gameboy Advance
— possibly the first porn for Nintendo’s kid-friendly handheld? via gbaemu.com #Textfiles.com gets a threatening letter from a catheter manufacturer
— they want him to remove enema references in years-old BBS text files via Delicious #Library of Congress putting 30 million newspapers online
— papers published from 1836 through 1922, and available by 2006 via Creative Commons #2004 Interactive Fiction competition results
— Dan Shiovitz and Andrew Plotkin posted their reviews of all the free games via Simon Carless #Second Life citizens create Neverlend virtual theme park
— they continually impress me via Simon Carless #TiVo to add banner ads when fast forwarding
— as Matt said in the article, this is a slippery slope via Paul Bausch #Disney Suppressing the Kleptones
I received a cease-and-desist from the Walt Disney Corporation for hosting the Kleptones’ Night at the Hip-Hopera mashup. (Disney owns Hollywood Records, who owns the rights to Queen’s catalog.)
The irony is that I’m not even hosting the files anymore… The links on my site are all redirected to someone else’s server, and have been for weeks. At any rate, I’ll be forced to remove the direct links by November 23.
As far as I know, I was the first person to put the DJ Dangermouse’s Grey Album on the Web. Now, I see the suppression of artistic freedom again with the Kleptones album, which has always been freely-distributable and never made a dime. It’s depressing to think that our horribly broken copyright law means that nobody can legally hear this album or create others like it.
The cease-and-desist is below. The album itself can still be downloaded from the mirrors on the official Kleptones site, but I’m not sure for how long. If anyone has any ideas for creative protest, now’s the time.
Update: I’ve compiled a list of active mirrors to download the album. If you want to be added to the list, e-mail me or add a comment.
Edelman on Grokster's outrageous spyware package
— no less than 15 bundled programs; some install even if you hit Cancel! #PDF: Ben Edelman's economic analysis of Google Answers
— many researchers answer questions at night, for around $8-10/hour #US senator's portfolios beating the market by 12 percent
— likely insider trading, but the SEC won’t investigate via Kottke #BusinessWeek piece on corporate blogging software
— KnowNow is charging $50k to $100k for blog software? insane via Matt Haughey #Eliot's Previously Owned Vessels
This morning, Eliot was constantly flailing his arms around while lying in his playpen. It reminded me of Stan, the used-boat salesman from the Secret of Monkey Island:
Yeah, I’m a geek.