Ico sequel announcement next week? — the Japanese Sony site is counting down (via) #

Bigha's Jasper laser — incidentally, it's one of the cleanest retail sites I've seen (via) #

MP3.com on Microsoft's four new digital music initiatives (via) #

What's wrong with digital music stores? (via) #

Cher's Hexadecimal Clock (via) #

Baby name ideas from the Lord of the Rings — Treebeard, Wormtongue, and Farmer Maggot are all nice (via) #

Software group falsely accuses Interactive Fiction archive of pirating Doom 3 — doom3.zip is a 114kb freeware DOS game from 1988 (via) #

Image: The Words Republican and Democratic speakers used — lovely chart design from the NYT #

37signals web design tips for Christmas retailers — good usability tips (via) #

PVR Blog on XM Radio and Time Trax — XM walks away from a huge opportunity #

Apache rejects Sender ID spec  #

Creative Commons search beta (via) #

Paul Ford's "Screenscraping the Senate" — converting the government to RDF (via) #

The Omegathon Collection gaming contest at PAX — to win, you need to win rounds of DDR, Halo, Doom, Mario Kart, and more #

Hostess Twinkies Sushi — also: Twinkie-misu, Twinkie Tacos, and Twinkie Kebobs (via) #

Second Life's in-world tribute to Burning Man — including a massive player piano #

"The Apprentice 2" profiles on Friendster — more fake Friendster marketing, since their profiles don't have any real friends #

MSN Music beta preview — sneak a peek at Microsoft's answer to iTunes (via) #

Smoking Gun takes on Photostamps — Milosevic and Kaczynski now on official U.S. postage (via) #

Banner Ads Invade Gamespace — including automatic downloads of new ads (via) #

Kick Ass Kung-Fu — EyeToy-like game installation, with a great video demo (via) #

BBC on political commentary in video games (via) #

MP3: Maciej's audioblogging manifesto — listen to this now, it's absolutely brilliant #

Disney's social software for vacation planning — Magical Gatherings is a Windows app with networking features (via) #

Brand mapping the presidential candidates — what brands do Bush/Kerry supporters associate with their candidates? (via) #

Mac sightings in the movies, with makes and models — obsessive "computers in media" lists are fun #

Fictional passwords and passcodes in movies — not a long list, but a nice idea #

BBC rereleasing Hitchhiker's Infocom game online with illustrations — you can play it online right now, with hints and a walkthrough (via) #

MovableType 3.1 released — also: the MT Contest Plugin Pack and the new Professional Network (via) #

GBA price drops to $80 — Nintendo DS will launch on November 11th at $179 (via) #

Engadget's interview with Jack Valenti — also: Ed Felten's debunking of the former MPAA head (via) #

Apple says new iMac G5 will run Doom III — look for the last sentence under "A Place for Everything" #

Amon Tobin making soundtrack for next Splinter Cell game — excellent choice for ambient gameplay (via) #

Adaptive Path's Extreme Usability series — a clever Burning Man parody by Mule Design (via) #

President Bush's nicknames for friends and foes (via) #

Friendster fires Joyce Park for blogging — this is an unbelievably stupid move on their part (via) #

What if Simpsons characters mated? — surprisingly good fan drawings (via) #

Ask Mefi poster performs mystery guitar riff, gets song identified — neat trick, it's like a manual search engine for music #

Liberated Games launches — commercial games officially released for free by their creators (via) #

NYT on eBay promoting dropoff stores — great service, but 30% is a serious cut #

Collin Brooke on Wikipedia's reputation — a Syracuse professor's take on the controversy (via) #

Woman's skin grows over wedding ring — impressive, but it's no match for dad's kidneys (via) #

History of the Apple.com homepage — I linked to the 1995 version (via) #

Scalable headlines in Flash — here's a funny side effect of the technique (via) #

Wikipedia's List of fictional companies — also: fictional video games, brands, radio stations, and much more #

A Lesson Is Learned, a beautiful web comic — surreal, but very funny (via) #

Analysis of an artificial meme — tracking of a small meme through social groups (via) #

Kempa on palindromic music  #

Justice Dept. censors Supreme Court quote — the irony of the blacked-out quote is thick (via) #

Construction photos of the Chubu Airport in Nagoya — here's the Wikipedia entry #