Ads via The Deck
October 31, 2004
Flickr's Squared Circle group (

try the slideshow

) [via]
Snopes on the rapidly spreading Texas vote mishap (

I've seen several friends mention this already

)
Slashdot trolls hack the Dremel homepage (

subtle hack, click the "Pumpkin Carving Kit" link at the bottom

) [via]
Economist's overall view of the changing music industry (

how they're trying to adapt

)
October 30, 2004
Simon Carless on the Fragdolls controversy (

exposing Ubisoft's Monkee-style manufactured girlgamer clan

)
NYT on Nick Nolte Diary (

Greg Allen mentions my role in the site's fast spread

)
Printable vintage Star Wars masks (

Forbes posted their annual collection of celeb masks, too

) [via]
October 29, 2004
"The Incredibles" merchandise (

a staggering list compiled by Alan

) [via]
Flash: Nucleus game (

I beat the game (final password is mtfpfd)

) [via]
Conqwest, large-scale touring treasure hunt (

employing phonecams, semacode, and giant animal balloons

) [via]
Flash: Nintendogs for the Nintendo DS (

Marc says it's a $200 Tamagotchi; here's another DS trailer

)
Video: Internet Archive's DIY book scanning robot (

direct link to the streaming Quicktime

) [via]
Spazz Wheelchairs (

inappropriate product naming

) [via]
Raffi is spidering radio station playlists (

one crappy Boston station played only 71 unique songs in one day

) [via]
National Geographic on Evolution (

Q: Was Darwin wrong? A: NO.

) [via]
October 28, 2004
Upcoming.org's most popular events and metros (

NYC is, by far, the most active on the site

)
Brown Paper Tickets (

impressive DIY ticketing site could break the Ticketmaster monopoly

) [via]
Grand Theftendo (

amazing homebrew port of Grand Theft Auto III to the NES!

) [via]
2004's Scariest Halloween Costumes (

Florida's touchscreen voting, Lynndie England, Nader, and more

)
Lots of Toes (

from the always-good Jogchem

)
Cluster Ballooning (

also: the tragic story of Larry Walters

) [via]
October 27, 2004
Tron, the 12-Minute Rock Opera (

featuring Brendon Small of Home Movies fame on guitar

) [via]
Flickr users cover tonight's lunar eclipse (

instant reporting, just add community

) [via]
New font to be used on US highway signs (

Clearview is a bit Meta-like

)
Secret Service visits a Livejournal user (

blog rule #36: never say you're going to kill the president

) [via]
Milner's Descriptive Atlas from 1850 (

fascinating and pioneering information design

) [via]
I'm Not That Adam Levine (

phone messages meant for the lead singer of Maroon 5

)
Ashlee Simpson-branded iPod (

the karaoke edition

)
GTA San Andreas to beat game sales record (

at $225m, it would be the biggest opening week across all media; Spider-Man 2 was only $192m

)
Wil Wheaton plays a news reporter in GTA San Andreas (

the rest of the voice talent includes George Clinton, Chuck D, Ice-T, James Woods, David Cross, Axl Rose, and Charlie Murphy!

) [via]
Video: Super Mario Ice Capades from 1989 (

starring Jason Bateman, Alyssa Milano, and Mr. Belvedere as Koopa; more info

) [via]
President Bush election site blocking non-US visitors (

banning his overseas supporters seems like a bad move

) [via]
October 26, 2004
Kaki King's Playing with Pink Noise (

very good acoustic guitar noise

)
Billboard debuts Top Ringtone charts (

the global ringtone market was $3.5 billion in 2003!?

)
Howard Stern drops in on FCC head Michael Powell's radio interview (

it's at 32:20 in the heated and excellent MP3

)
Glucoboy (

children's glucose meter for the Gameboy Advance

) [via]
Super Mario-playing Lego robot (

man, Engadget is finding really great stuff lately

) [via]
XM MyFi, portable XM Radio receiver (

at $350, it's way too expensive

) [via]
iPod Photo (

60 GB of music and photo storage for $600, plus AV out

) [via]
Guns return to Disneyland's Jungle Cruise (

the guns even had their own urban legends

) [via]
Sony PSP on the cover of Newsweek (

the cover headline is "Saving Sony"

) [via]
Sim Horror, a massive haunted house in Second Life (

the game world continually rewards creativity

)
NYT's unfocused article on web memes (

it feels like it was thrown together overnight

)
Republican insider e-mails accidentally sent to georgewbush.org (

his real site is .com, not .org

) [via]
TextArc, Java applet visualization of large texts [via]
Legendary DJ John Peel, RIP (

sad day; this site has MP3s of songs he played

)
October 25, 2004
MP3: Wired Magazine's Creative Commons CD (

download the free and legal torrent, here's a track list

) [via]
The Web's Favorite Words (

googling "my favorite word is *"

)
Spinalcat, amazing DIY optical turntable made with a CueCat (

don't miss the photos and the 83-page thesis PDF

) [via]
Apple adds game trailers (

but only for Mac games, which isn't much

) [via]
Google Answers on how to whistle loudly (

you just put your lips together and blow, hard!

)
Correlating "cool cities" with blogging culture (

he uses Meetup, Upcoming.org, and Craig's List as sources in his study

)
Ask Mefi on overly accurate domain names (

growing list of one-page domains

) [via]
Amazon adds uploading of user's product photos (

user generated media to complement user reviews

) [via]
Foxylicious (

easily integrate your Delicious bookmarks into Firefox

) [via]
Fun World, abandoned Disney World mod for GTA Vice City (

the Half-Life 2 engine would be perfect for a Disneyland mod

)
Snopes on the Beach Boys' recorded sex sounds (

including an MP3 excerpt from 1969's "20/20" album

)
October 24, 2004
Something Awful's Misinterpreted Movie Posters (

if movie titles were the literal description of the poster

) [via]
I'm Feeling Spendy (

put in a price, find a random Amazon product; another version here

) [via]
Ashlee Simpson's disastrous SNL performance last night (

she walked off after the wrong lip-sync track was played, more details

)
October 23, 2004
XM Radio launching wearable receiver next week? (

I'm sure people would pay for an XM-aware MP3 player

) [via]
Forbes' list of top-earning fictional characters for 2004 [via]
October 22, 2004
Flickr now lists related tags (

unbelievable, we were just talking about this idea today

)
Socks the Cat, unreleased SNES game (

yes, that's Bill Clinton on the cover

) [via]
Video game censorship on the NES (

a history of Nintendo's ridiculous content changes

)
Some truly awful political chart design (

someone get them this book, stat!

)
The Children's Scientology Pageant (

an all-kid ensemble humorously acts out the L. Ron Hubbard story

) [via]
Video: Lie Girls (

phone sex parody of the Bush administration

) [via]
Crash Ballet contest winners (

Coudal readers set NASA crash videos to music

) [via]
LED Porn (

nicely designed and photographed

) [via]
Gizmodo's outstanding analysis of DVD's successor (

they predict a clear win for Blu-Ray over HD DVD

) [via]
Google volunteer translators strike back (

the message is perfect for CAPS LOCK DAY

) [via]
TODAY IS CAPS LOCK DAY (

RANDOM SILLINESS FROM THE MEFI PEANUT GALLERY

) [via]
Video: Conan O' Brien show on outsourcing (

they send a writer to an India tech support center

) [via]
MP3: Cisco System's "Peter Packet" theme song (

why does Cisco needs a kid's section, anyway?

) [via]
Extend Bluetooth by a mile (

hack a 2.4GHz antenna onto your Bluetooth adapter

) [via]
Japanese commercials for a tilt-sensitive Wario Ware (

there are six more on the second page

) [via]
Defective Yeti's Joke roundup (

there are some great ones in the comments

)
October 21, 2004
Yahoo Image Search upgrades to one billion images (

their advanced search makes finding, say, wallpaper-size b&w photos easy

)
SvN notes an unusual coincidence (

Google and eBay both earned $805.9 million in 2004 Q3

)
Bush and Kerry living together in the Sims 2 (

also featuring cameos by Saddam, Osama, and John Edwards

) [via]
Regret the Error (

a new blog covering media retractions

) [via]
Ghouls with Attitude (

51-song mix of rare Halloween songs

) [via]
Threading related blog posts together with sparklines (

more on Tufte's sparklines, or word-size graphics

) [via]
October 20, 2004
NYT commentary on Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance (

a great breakdown of why it was so satisfying

)
Google saves Australian hostage (

if they used Ask Jeeves, he'd be dead by now

)
Bar Bot, a beer drinking robot (

it begs for beer money, and then orders a drink before socializing

) [via]
Slashdot's outstanding interview with Neal Stephenson (

his answers are verbose, like his writing

) [via]
Sun and Intel geek tattoos
October 19, 2004
Jandek played a live set in Glasgow (

the enigmatic musician's first public performance, ever

)
E! Online's interviews the creators of Nick Nolte Diary (

regardless, it beats the crap out of his official site

)
Forbes on the Apple/U2 deal and custom black iPod (

Bono is visiting our office right now, no joke

)
Business Week on Bugmenot and Mirrordot (

Matt's corrections and Adrian's unused interview exposes the reporter's biases

)
Flash: Treasure Box (

surreal exploration game, in the style of Samorost

) [via]
Bling Bling Medallion, the most branded object in the world (

here's a closeup of one section

) [via]
Jason Scott's detailed review of The Last Starfighter musical (

the big finale is a song called "Caves of the Heart (The Battle)"

) [via]
Video: Jon Stewart comments on the "Crossfire" appearance (

the Washington Post has Crossfire's response

) [via]
October 18, 2004
Gmail begins signing outgoing mail with DomainKeys (

adopting the standard would eliminate spam for good

)
Flash: Collaborative fridge magnets (

the emerging behaviors here are fascinating

) [via]
Half-Life 2 to ship on November 16 (

more than a year late, but I'm still very excited

)
Effect of presidential election on the markets (

Table 5 talks about using the market to predict elections

)
"Crossfire" downloads exceeds TV broadcast audience (

it's been downloaded at least 500,000 times in three days

)
P2P Politics (

Lessig's new project freely hosts political videos on Archive.org

) [via]
Compare and contrast the Carlsons (

CNN's Tucker Carlson vs WKRP's Mr. Carlson

) [via]
Nick Denton releasing rare Ed Wood porn film (

under the new "Fleshbot Films" title

) [via]
October 17, 2004
Urbz online promo uses indie comic stars (

James Kochalka, Peter Bagge, Evan Dorkin, and more

) [via]
Game Tunnel Client Links Xbox, PS2, and GC Games (

free alternative to Xbox Live and PS2 online play

)
October 15, 2004
GTA San Andreas is gold (

rumors say Half-Life 2 is gold, as well!

)
Irony level high on Disney's Peter Pan lawsuit (

Disney wants to profit from the public domain, while keeping its own work from it

)
Mobster, recommendation addon for iTunes (

uses the Musicmobs community to recommend music

)
Neal Stephenson classic on Unix and the Hole Hawg drill (

remember that the next time you 'rm -rf /'

)
Jon Stewart bitchslaps CNN's "Crossfire" show (

the CNN transcript is jaw-dropping, here's the video

)
Benchmarking 101 video cards on 14 games (

even my Radeom 9700 Pro is showing its age

) [via]
Found Item Clothing (

t-shirt reproductions from movies and TV, but mostly just Real Genius for now

) [via]
October 14, 2004
Halo 2 leaked to Usenet (

French audio with English subtitles, you can read the release NFO here

) [via]
Tracing the Evolution of Social Software (

from the Memex and EIES to wikis and Del.icio.us

) [via]
Early T.Rex ancestor was furry (

happy fluffy dinosaurs

) [via]
Poynter Institute's Eyetrack Heatmaps (

interactive maps of eye movements reading news webpages

) [via]
Google announce Desktop Search! (

a huge announcement, many details in Rael Dornfest's overview

) [via]
October 13, 2004
Cherry OS may be a PearPC clone (

Slashdot and Wired News are convinced it's real

) [via]
Seven die in "Internet Suicide" pact (

just because they met online, that makes it an "Internet Suicide"?

)
Brain controlled computing a reality (

he's able to operate a PC with his brain with 70% accuracy

) [via]
Bloglines subscriber stats redux (

Richard crunches some numbers for A-list bloggers

)
BBS Documentary in pre-sale (

the staggering history of the BBS is finally done

)
Nick Nolte's Diary (

the archives are priceless

)
October 12, 2004
Flash: Honda's Grrr Game (

surreal goodness, but does it sell cars?

) [via]
City of Heroes players honor Christopher Reeve (

some good screenshots of the tribute

)
Six Apart profile in the WSJ (

with hedcuts of Ben and Mena!

) [via]
Cardhouse on odd Hawaiian food products (

everything looks like the Tiki Tiki Room

) [via]
Hands-on with Nintendo DS games (

they look like low resolution N64 games

) [via]
Blogging the debate within Second Life (

they're created a virtual stage for both candidates

)
Wired magazine internships (

this would have been my dream job, in 1995

) [via]
New Yorker on the broadcast spectrum giveaway (

more information about the situation and McCain's proposal

) [via]
Network Solutions takes Gawker offline (

the domain expired a week ago

)
October 11, 2004
The Perry Bible Fellowship (

a wonderfully surreal weekly comic, like so and so and so

)
Migrating your link list from MT to Delicious (

a good howto, but I'd still like "via" support

)
Alexa web services (

I'm sure someone can use this for something good

) [via]
How to Torture Your Sims (

painfully funny

) [via]
Background on the ABC News redesign (

tableless XHTML, expanded RSS, and Flash headlines

) [via]
Shakeskin Gallery (

all you need is a camera and some loose skin

) [via]
October 10, 2004
Flash: Dad's Home! [via]
October 9, 2004
Tour of Ghostbuster locations in Spiderman 2's modeled NYC (

with photos of locations in real life and in-game

)
Video: Instant Messenger Fight (

a little fresh air

) [via]
Ask PVRBlog (

Matt launches a cousin to Ask Mefi

) [via]
Goolery, a Gmail-based PHP photo gallery (

obviously, there's a huge market for a hosted hard drive with a good API

) [via]
Microsoft Word autosummarizes the second debate (

entire transcript summed up in 100 words

)
John Kerry is losing the logo war (

the Bush team has a better visual identity

) [via]
Katamari Damacy comic (

has anyone done speed runs of the game yet?

)
First look at Bioshock, the new System Shock sequel [via]
October 8, 2004
Jay Allen joins Six Apart (

they managed to lure him out of Hungary

)
Falling for the Podcasting Hype (

this could be huge with MP3 blogs, as well

)
Amazon recommending blogs along with products (

people who bought this item also read these blogs...

) [via]
Yahoo to launch Overture ads in RSS (

I understand the appeal for publishers, but RSS ads feel slimy

)
Baby Snowdeal goes home! (

after 95 days in NICU, Eric's preemie son is home

) [via]
64% of people named "George Bush" voting for Kerry (

finally, some original blog research that matters

) [via]
CDC's Disease Trading Cards (

gotta catch 'em all!

) [via]
Rumors about the 60GB iPod (

a color screen, photo viewing, and audio/video out?

) [via]
October 7, 2004
Alter Ego, photo exhibition of gamers and their avatars (

there's a small gallery of some of the photos

) [via]
Soldier posting Iraq photos on Flickr (

I fear they'll get in trouble for this

) [via]
1UP's history of video game comics (

they forgot Atari Force!

)
Video: Compilation footage of stylus-based Nintendo DS titles (

also: the list of American and Japanese launch titles

)
Senate shelves Induce Act (

good riddance to bad bills

) [via]
"3 Notes and Runnin'" remix contest nears 150 entries (

every track uses this sample as the single source for all audio

)
Gmail Drive shell extension for Windows (

much more usable than the earlier hack

)
Help me identify the "Afro Ninja" (

if you know who he is, e-mail me and I'll give you $50

)
JotSpot Flash demo (

a walkthrough of the newly announced enterprise wiki

)
October 6, 2004
37 Signals' Intro to Using Patterns in Web Design (

a simple guide for laying out usable sites

)
Video: Extreme Unicycling (

they manage to make unicycles look cool

) [via]
I Am Learn, blog written by a Perl script (

a cousin of R Robot, created by Peter Cooper

) [via]
Luxology's Modo (

very innovative new 3D modeling app for Mac and Windows

) [via]
How MP3.com identified unknown bands based on user data (

fascinating analysis with insights into music marketing

) [via]
A Mario Sprite History (

excellent evolution of 2D Mario characters

) [via]
Ask Mefi on concepts that don't exist in the English language (

this thread developed nicely

) [via]
Video: Simon Robson's "What Barry Says" (

best animation winner at the 2004 Brooklyn Film Festival

) [via]
Image: AOL's new brand identity? (

triangles everywhere!

) [via]
Plink.org creator taking FOAF app offline (

because there's no way to opt out of FOAF

) [via]
How Six Apart got their funding (

hmm, smells like a scam

) [via]
Image: Best Team Portrait Ever (

warning: this is a bit gross

) [via]
Insane console collection on eBay (

games sold separately

) [via]
Six Apart gets second round of VC funding (

from August Capital, Andrew Anker's former firm

)
Cheney mixes up .com with .org, hilarity ensues (

he meant to say this, but actually said this

) [via]
Budweiser's new caffeinated beer (

with the awful name "B to the E"

) [via]
New Meetup.com much more flexible (

no more restrictions on venues, dates, or topics

)
October 5, 2004
Cameron's VP debate analysis (

Edwards' "american people" and Cheney's "fact of the matter"

)
Snap.com, new search engine with sortable results (

the live refined queries are nice, but a stupid linking policy

) [via]
Flash: Zoom Quilt (

it's also available as a slideshow and movie

) [via]
Installing OS X on the Xbox (

using PearPC, of course

) [via]
Wired on "The Long Tail" of the economics of scarcity (

the biggest money is in the smallest sales

) [via]
Flickr, "So Meta It Hurts" (

photos of Flickr on Flickr, like this one

)
Image: Eruption in Progress (

new activity on Mount St. Halen

)
DropCash via C# and .NET (

drop-in Dropcash support for your Windows apps

)
October 4, 2004
Evan Williams leaves Blogger (

maybe he'll become a chef, too

)
Graphic Novel Review (

a promising new journal that takes graphic novels seriously

) [via]
The Effect of Country Music on Suicide (

the Medicine winner of the 2004 Ig Nobel Prize

) [via]
SpaceShipOne wins the $10 million X Prize (

commercial space travel just got much closer

) [via]
Red Blue, mobile GPS utility that shows you nearby campaign contributions (

like a Geiger counter for local political bias

) [via]
Gmail adds Atom notifications, Drafts, and Contacts [via]
Google needs to retain newly-rich employees (

60% of their workforce are new millionaires

) [via]
Kotaku, Gawker's new gaming blog (

also: they launched Screenhead and Jalopnik, which is sponsored by Audi

)
October 3, 2004
Mirrordot, automatic Slashdot mirroring (

attempting to dilute the Slashdot effect

) [via]
Spaceballs sequel in development [via]
Jeopardy's "Blogs" category (

links to the questions for all five answers

) [via]
Image: NYT's excellent map of Iraq attacks in September (

Tufte would be proud

) [via]
Nintendo DS final packaging (

with the stylus, can you use the DS as your PDA?

) [via]
October 2, 2004
Disneyland souvenir book from 1960 (

check out the pre-Mansion "Haunted House" sketch and the park map

)
GNUmobile, a modded Oldsmobile (

you can drive it from the commandline

)
Shirky on the essential elements of all social software (

groups and conversation are the very basics

) [via]
Washington Post may buy Slate from Microsoft (

the NYT should buy Salon and get rid of subscriptions

) [via]
Penny Arcade on Katamari Damacy (

the game completely sold out across the country!

)
US Census shows recorded music replaced by other media (

piracy is only part of the story

) [via]
The Strangerhood, machinima sitcom using the Sims 2 engine (

from the people that created Red vs Blue

) [via]
Alan announces Amazon Light 4 (

he ties Amazon web services into Delicious, Gmail, Dropcash, Blogger, Netflix, iTunes, and more

)
Cameron's Presidential Debate Analysis (

crunch your own stats with his Debate Spotter tool

)
Peter Molyneux apologizes for features cut from Fable [via]
FPGameRunner, a treadmill for first-person games (

get a workout while playing Doom 3

) [via]
Sam and Max 2 team form new studio (

they may be releasing the cancelled sequel on their own

)
Half Life 2 release set for November 23 (

it's about time

)