Online Confessions of a Childhood Murderer — origins and fallout of a hoax on Kuro5hin; here's the Mefi thread #

Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker piece on predicting box office hits with algorithms — the problem with their technique is coming up with every possible meaningful variable #

Conflict of interest leads two to resign at Seattle's The Stranger — someone from ad sales was writing record reviews, which is a dangerous mix (via) #

Wallflower at the Web Party — in-depth NYT profile on Jonathan Abrams and the demise of Friendster (via) #

Scarlett Johansson releasing album of Tom Waits covers? — she has a Marilyn Monroe quality to her voice (via) #

E3 reborn into summer show in Santa Monica — PAX is the new E3 (via) #

Virtual economies attract real-world tax attention — note that the end of the article mentions Reuters' new virtual news bureau in Second Life (via) #

Patti Smith plays CBGB's last night before closure — as always, the Flickr and YouTube coverage is great, including Blondie on Thursday night #

Real Beauty vs Photoshop — the Dove film shows a vivid example of the Photoshop whitewashing of models #

Giant Bubble Helmet Gives 360-Degree View — I like to think that it's Jaron Lanier hiding in there #

Wired News' editor catches MySpace pedophile with Perl script — note that the author is Kevin Poulsen; also, I saw a very relevant banner ad below the Boing Boing post #

Bubble Bobble game for Nintendo DS ships with empty level — nice play testing! every cartridge shipped with this fatal bug, blocking gameplay beyond level 30 #

Top 10 ad-tricks in Tokyo's train stations — Ikea realized the only way to attract attention is by sponsoring whitespace (via) #

Comic Book Cover Browser — over 5,500 covers available, extracted using a number of available web APIs (via) #

Bill Murray attends late-night college party, washes dishes — also, note that CNN is soliciting for photos adn video from people who attended #

The Filter, Windows iTunes recommender plugin powered by All Music Guide — for OS X users, try Soundflavor or beaTunes (via) #

Elite Beat Agents track listing announced — I'm a sucker for rhythm games with interesting UI (via) #

Honda GPS to include social networking features — reviews make sense, but seeing the location of your friends en route can't be far behind (via) #

Children as text adventure game parsers — an anecdote that made me laugh #

NYT on YouTube's quiet third co-founder — Jawed Karim left the company to continue his education at Stanford, but maintained a large stake (via) #

Illegitimate — Caterina encounters some technical difficulties because of her surname, with similar stories in the comments #

Blogs and God's Youth — hilariously backwards religious rant about the moral dangers of blogging; "no one should have a blog or personal website" (via) #

Guy Kawasaki interviews panel of young adults on technology — I've seen panels like this before, and they're always insightful and interesting (via) #

Jobless man robs bank to get into jail — he asked for three years behind bars so he could get food and shelter (via) #

This American Life to offer free podcast — consider me subscribed #

Blip Festival — incredible chiptune music festival in NYC #

Counter-Strike Weapons Market — multiplayer shooter adds variable weapons pricing based on global weekly demand #

B. Kliban cartoon gallery — occasionally inexplicable, Kliban is one my favorite cartoonists ever; don't miss some of the analysis #

Future versions of Eudora will be built on Thunderbird — I've been using Eudora for a decade; guess it's time to switch #

Comparing Microsoft Flight Simulator X to reality — the detail level possible in the new game is staggering #

Video: Mick Bianchi's Youtubers — while the media focuses on copyrighted content, an entire blogging ecosystem is thriving #

Video: YouTube founders on the Google buyout — they seem giddy... I wonder why? #

YouTube users respond to Google buyout — nearly three times the Myspace deal, this is just madness; more video responses here #

Google Book Search increased book sales — hugely obvious, but most publishers are short-sighted, paranoid luddites (via) #

Video: Sensational news report on World of Warcraft addiction — complete with crying moms and scary voiceovers, WoW is the new D&D #

Video: Make Love, Not Warcraft — South Park's wonderful Warcraft machinima episode #

51 Birch Street — new film by Doug Block, director of Home Page (via) #

Video: Battle of the Bands — classic album covers fight to the death; brilliant work (via) #

More than half of MySpace now 35 or older — Slashdot says, "The truth: More predators, less victims." #

Video: For Your Consideration trailer — the new Christopher Guest film, a la Best in Show and A Mighty Wind (via) #

David Hasselhoff Says "Knight Rider" Car Was Gay — headline of the year #

RU Sirius interviews Neil Gaiman — a great coherent interview, available in MP3 or text #

Google Code Search — extremely useful search for open source code; for fun, search for profanities #

Line Rider Jumps the Shark — inspiring run from the addictive Flash toy #

Google Groups redesigns — first change since their last design in December 2004; this one is a big improvement #

Ask Metafilter on Steve Wozniak, and Woz responds! — he signed up for Mefi just to respond, which makes me love him all the more #

Google Gadgets For Your Webpage — add Google Desktop widgets to any site with a Javascript embed #

WFMU's The Reel Night John Lennon Died — nice followup with the unedited NYC FM radio dial scans from the night of December 8, 1980 #

What Is This Creepy Site Advertising? — Ask Metafilter investigates a viral marketing campaign; great read #

Who Killed TivoToGo in the TiVo Series 3 HD? — the EFF explains how CableLabs and Hollywood are deciding for us (via) #