November 11, 2008
Google.org tracking flu spread using search queries
— brilliant use of search data; get a flu shot before it gets to your state! (via) #
Google Groups expands to search web-based message boards
— if "Sort by Date" appears to be missing, check your ad blocker #
"Dark Days" director explains how the Pentagon cancelled his followup film on the Iraq war
— after two years of filming, he sold all his equipment on the same forum #
Dark Days, 2000 documentary about NYC homeless living in abandoned train tunnels
— classic documentary with music by DJ Shadow #
Interview with the NASA writer behind the MarsPhoenix Twitter account
— written in the first person, more than 38,000 people have followed its adventure (via) #
Touching story of Eugene Allen, a butler who served 34 years in the White House
— a must-read with a sad ending (via) #
Google Reader adds automatic feed translation
— I'm testing it out by throwing some Japanese blogs into a special non-English group #
Worst. Bug. Ever.
— the Android phone executes all typed text, so don't text "rm -rf /" to a friend #
CaptionX, multiplayer photo captioning game
— built on App Engine with CC-licensed photos on Flickr, with clever YouTube interstitials (via) #
WikiDashboard, Wikipedia mirror with real-time infoviz of edit history
— for example, see Barack Obama or Star Wars Kid; I need a Greasemonkey script to pull this into Wikipedia proper #
How many guys in Spider-Man suits can fit inside Jamba Juice?
— one customer in the store recorded the madness (via) #
Tetris recreated in LittleBigPlanet
— a jetpack-powered sackboy readjusts all the falling pieces (via) #
MS Paint Adventures
— interactive games where the artist acts as parser, drawing the results of the community's actions (via) #
Girl Talk's "I'm A PC" testimonial for Microsoft
— no mention of Apple, but still a refreshing approach (via) #
2009 Dance Your Ph.D. Contest
— science grad students do interpretive dances on their obscure thesis topics #
Stairway to Heaven played on the iPhone Ocarina app
— also, the Zelda theme; surprisingly deep for a $1 app #
Spit DNA evidence leads to arrest in Craigslist/inner-tube robbery
— the story keeps getting stranger #
Investigative report into the "Single?" lawn signs across America
— completely OCD net research, tracing them all back to a huge Texas dating franchise (via) #
Ze Frank's From 52 to 48 With Love
— help repair the damage from the election cycle with a small gesture #
Howard Stern rants on blogs, Facebook, and Myspace
— Gary V. responds to the King of All Dead Media #
Salon rounds up the worst election predictions from political pundits
— also, Nate Silver's electoral predictions were dead-on across the board; go math! #
Jim Ray's collection of election night homepages
— automated screengrabs every half-hour from 3pm-10pm Tuesday night (via) #
United Features' website goes free, including every Peanuts strip
— and, finally, full comics in RSS feeds #
Mark Newman's 2008 election maps and cartograms
— weighted by population, fun to compare to the 2004 election #
South Park's "About Last Night…"
— absurd reimagining of the election as an Ocean's Eleven-like diamond heist #
Tim Schafer releases Grim Fandango's 70-page design document
— tons of unreleased information; character sketches, layout, cutscenes, and every puzzle #
Newsweek's exclusive Election 2008 report, embargoed behind-the-scenes story from both campaigns
— they were given major access on the condition nothing would be released until today #
The Onion: Nation Finally Shitty Enough To Make Social Progress
— this feels the 2008 counterpart to their unbelievably prescient 2001 article #
Sean Tevis, the xkcd candidate for Kansas state rep, discusses last night's loss
— his opponent used deceptive robocalls and direct mail borrowing photos from Sean's Facebook and Flickr accounts #
Kottke's collection of election maps
— interesting to see how each designer tackled the same problem so differently #
Yes We Did
(Credit: Michael Buchino, also available as a shirt)
Video of CNN's first hologram interview
— a bit glitchy, definitely different from Cisco's Telepresence #
99 Bricks, like Tetris meets World of Goo
— build the tallest stable structure with 99 Tetris bricks (via) #
CNN to interview 3D hologram guests on tonight's election coverage
— guests will be interviewed from remote locations, Star Wars-style #
ABC News streaming raw video feed on Ustream.tv
— including reporters applying their own makeup and chatting with cameramen #
Philipp rounds up every YouTube video I've ever linked to
— about 20% are no longer online, proving linkrot is alive and well in YouTube #
How Nate Phelps escaped the Most Hated Family in America
— inside story of living with the Phelps family, with comments from Shirley Phelps-Roper herself #