Anonymous insider's details on the YouTube deal
— fascinating read about collusion between Google and the major media companies #Long New Yorker profile on Will Wright
— The Sims was partially inspired by his daughter’s dollhouse and his own house burning down #NBC's Heroes comic book tie-ins
— they’re releasing a comic book after every episode with additional backstory; clever! #Video: On the Edge of Blade Runner
— excellent BBC documentary on Blade Runner, with an unreleased scene at the 40:00 mark via jwz #Telephone Conferences: Phreaky Boys Collection
— collection of phone phreak voicemail messages from 1990; glimpse into a quirky subculture #FindMeOn
— identity aggregation; still way too hard to use, but a step in the right direction via abstractdynamics.org #Myspace phishing attacks using customized Myspace profiles
— it took me a second to realize how this was a phishing attack #
FBI raids "Fake Boarding Pass" programmer's house, seizes computers
— blaming a web programmer for inadequate airport security #Comedy Central DMCAs YouTube
— South Park, Colbert, and Daily Show clips removed en masse via Fimoculous #Guitar Hero 2's Hidden Tracks Revealed
— Strong Bad’s Trogdor and Dethklok hand-in-hand with Buckethead and Voivod #Geocoordinates from Wikipedia for Google Earth
— beyond Google Earth, this CSV of lat-long coordinates for 55,00 Wikipedia articles has tons of potential; thanks, Tom #Evan Williams and Biz Stone buy Odeo and Twitter
— the new company will follow a similar philosophy to Robot Co-op and 37 Signals #Fred Eerdekens typography with light and shadow
— incredible type built with trees, wire, and clouds; more here and here via justinspace.com #Lifehacker's top Firefox 2 config tweaks
— the default behavior for 2.0’s tab UI was frustrating, but this cleared it up in 15 seconds #Weird Al performs "Eat It" on Japanese TV
— Al seems completely lost, but it makes the clip that much better #Kim Jong Il's Ringtones and Wallpaper
In yesterday’s New York Times, Tom Zeller writes about Internet access in North Korea, touching on their almost non-existent web presence. Among the tiny handful of official sites mentioned is the Korea Computer Centre’s Naenara (or “My Country”) — the nation’s official portal. Hosted in Germany and translated into a number of languages, it’s a very entertaining glimpse into the public exterior of the DPRK.
In addition to being a mouthpiece for national propaganda and a free e-mail provider, they also have an unusual and quirky web-based store. Aside from the usual books, CDs, and software (?), they offer an entire section of both cell phone ringtones (“handphone melodies”) and wallpaper (“characters”). (Cell phones are banned in North Korea, so these must be designed for sympathizers outside of the country.)
The wallpapers section is particularly good. For only US$0.50, you could have an animated caricature of George W. Bush as a panting dog with American flag necktie. Or head to page two for delightful animations of burning American flags, giant fists crushing the White House, or what appears to be an American soldier with a missile embedded in his chest, sulking dejectedly to a graveyard. They take Mastercard and Visa, so buy now!
I couldn’t read the ringtone pages, but let me know if one of them has the melodious voice of Kim Jong Il. (I’d take that over Fergie any day.)
Oh, and they have really, really great error messages. If you try to link directly to any of their images (like this one), you get this error: “You are fool!”
