GOOG-411 created to train speech-to-text software — running the free service to build up a corpus of voices? neat idea, but seems inefficient #

Pitchfork's Top 50 Music Videos — they include some fan-made videos and this charming cover from a high school trio #

Ryan Barrett's thoughts on SimpleDB — still catching up from my NYC trip, this was the best writeup I've seen so far #

Anil Dash on Google and the Theory of Mind — I had dinner with Anil on my first night in NYC last week, and he made me eat pig tails and cow glands; yum! #

Isometric pixel map of Hong Kong — insanely detailed with some odd photo collage bits; try the highest zoom level (via) #

Raiding the abandoned Sun Microsystems building — linked from a thread in this wonderful UK urban exploration forum (via) #

Ev's guide to evaluating new product ideas — for me, "personally compelling" is the only one that matters, since I can't build something I won't use myself #

Dopplr launches publicly at Le Web — even if you don't travel, it's worth signing up just to experience all the brilliant UI touches #

Pirate Bay launches Last.fm-powered Music section — mostly genre browsing, but suggesting torrents based on your listening habits is now feasible #

OptiMap, travelling salesman problem solver using Google Maps — neat, it supports passing addresses in the querystring; the methodology, for the curious #

Strange CPR/defibrillation fetish community on YouTube — with 192 subscribers (via) #

Aquaria finally released! — gorgeous underwater side-scroller won the grand prize at IGF; watch the movies (via) #

End of an era as New York Times closes recording room — NYT reporters tell their own stories in the comments #

NYT's The Year in Ideas 2007 — always a great read #

Richard Beymer's Twin Peaks photos — taken on the set of the final episode by the actor who played Benjamin Horne (via) #

Rails 2.0 released — multiviews, moving towards REST over SOAP, and better native security and performance #

James Kochalka's American Elf is now free! — he's been drawing a comic nearly every day since May 2002; highly recommended (via) #

RPS reviews Passage, an pixel art maze game about death — can a game that's only five minutes long make you sad? surprisingly, yes #

Google release chart image generator — 50,000 images a day? I'd definitely use this for smaller projects #

Inside the "Ron Paul" Spam Botnet — doesn't explain who paid to send the spams, but a great glimpse into how spambots operate (via) #

Kristin Hersh's thoughts on sustainability — "You don't have to suck in order to work here, but it helps." #

Kleptones releases "Live’r Than You’ll Ever Be" — a nonstop mix of greatest hits from a concert earlier this year, with some new songs too! #

Emerging Tech 2008 program announced — definitely a welcome move away from NowTech and back to its roots (via) #

n+1 Magazine's long profile of Gawker — the essay that kicked off the editorial shakeup there, but didn't cause it (via) #

Flickr adds photo editing tools — partnered with Picnik, it's seamless and handles 90% of what I use Photoshop for #

Halo 3 Cheat Codes, as Explained by Neglected Girlfriend Janet Iverson  #

Kristin Hersh on CASH Music — with subscription and patronage benefits, artists like Kristin can stay independent forever, as long as they have dedicated fans #

IRSeek IRC search engine shuts down after user backlash — using non-obvious bot names and using Tor to hide the IP addresses was very dumb (via) #

Said the Gramaphone on Brooklyn band Vampire Weekend — refreshing sound, Sean nails it as Spoon meets Paul Simon's "Graceland" #

Six Apart sells Livejournal to Russian media company — I guess that answers the question about how Vox fits with Livejournal (via) #

Google bans ads for paid link sellers — finally! taking money from spammers while banning them from the index was hypocritical #

MobileScrobbler — Last.fm client for the iPhone/iPod Touch, at last #

Square America's The Party — some photos are NSFW; don't miss the other exhibitions and the wonderful blog (via) #

Airball, an unreleased NES game, now available for sale — new games for dead systems make me happy; see the detailed review with video (via) #

Google Reader adds feed recommendations — they were deadly accurate for me #

Tay Zonday promotes Dr. Pepper with "Cherry Chocolate Rain" — strangely depressing, but I guess it's better than William Hung's commercial (via) #

Google tests thumbs-up voting on search results — no social feedback, but retains your setting across searches for the same terms (via) #

Stir-fried wikipedia — I think I'd prefer the steamed eggs with wikipedia #

PayPerPost's bloggers ask if the marketplace is dying — the PPP forums are fascinating right now, seeing how the community responds as the business collapses around them #

Technical overview of how the Facebook Beacon works — this could have been fun and useful, if it was only opt-in on a site-by-site basis (via) #

Gamespot reviews Deal or No Deal for the Nintendo DS — problems with the randomizer make this the worst game released this year #

What the Google Intranet Looks Like — to compare, I found recent intranet screenshots for Yahoo! and Microsoft #

Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein compares real bands to Rock Band — she continues the discussion on her own blog (via) #

Video: Gay bashing in Halo 3 — warning, offensive audio; very upsetting to hear, but not at all surprising (via) #

Undercover restorers fix Paris landmark's clock — the same group responsible for the secret cinema and bar built in a cavern under Paris #

Desert Bus for Hope hits $20,000 raised for Child's Play — they've been playing the world's most tedious game on live cameras for four days straight #

So You Want to be An Arcade Champion? — one man's quest to play all 4,000 games in the Twin Galaxies world records book alphabetically #

Managing RSS feeds with better groups — funny, this is almost exactly the way I organize my feeds in Google Reader #

Ron Paul Blimp — $235k in pledges so far; oh, the humanity #

ROFLCon's Guest List status report — shaping up to be one of the strangest conventions of all time #