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December 30, 2005
Public Domain Torrents (

with iPod and PDA versions, too; try the top 20 movies

)
Slate reflects on the Chronicles of Narnia rap (

it's not just funny, it's good music

)
Suck.com taken offline, replaced by porn portal (

suck, suck, sucks

)
iFilm's top 25 viral videos of 2005 (

I'd seen all but two

)
Philipp Lenssen's 15 search predictions for 2006 (

some intelligent guesswork

)
December 29, 2005
Java: Falling Sand game (

try the effects of sand and water on the bouncing object; also: hell of sand with people

)
Flash: My Humps Christmas card (

I wonder if American Greetings is getting complaints about this one

)
PopCap mini-games save lives (

bizarre testimonial

)
Guardian UK on the grassroots UK music boom (

how the Internet and word of mouth is launching indie acts and singles into the top charts

) [via]
I'm Feeling Silly (

Googlers order 250 pounds of Silly Putty; hilarity ensues

)
Gaming Digg (

story of one jerk who used a bookmarklet and fake accounts to ruin Digg for a day

)
Google to release feed reader API (

don't like the Google Reader UI? roll your own with the underlying data

) [via]
Regret the Error's year-end roundup of media mistakes (

most are funny, but several upsetting

) [via]
Flying Spaghetti Monster tree topper (

or put it on your Festivus pole

) [via]
Acquisitions and the Big 3 (

that's us: fun, jagged, and dangerous

)
Typographica's favorite fonts of 2005 (

some very flexible choices; Garda is beautiful

) [via]
DivX browser plugin for Windows released (

Mac and Linux versions coming soon

) [via]
Video: Pac-Man Puppet Show (

lovely viral ad for the Gametap emulation service

) [via]
Brett Tabke's robots.txt blog
Metafilter members on Google Earth (

nice screenshots; also, I updated the Mefi Stats through December

)
Million Dollar Homepage creator on verge of reaching goal (

at this rate, he'll hit a million in a week; also, there are quite a few cheap imitators

) [via]
Khoi Vinh joins NYTimes.com (

they must have liked the Onion redesign

) [via]
Xbox 360 costs $715 to manufacture? (

they may be losing more than $300 per sale

)
Rex Sorgatz' 2006 predictions (

more predictions from Blake Ross, Tristan Lewis, Cameron Moll, John Battelle, Jason Calacanis

)
Do you get less wet if you run in the rain? (

the BBC does the math; reminds me of the shower curtain puzzle

)
Top 50 Music Videos of 2005 (

generally good songs, too

) [via]
How shows on DVD suffer from music licensing (

mentions the massive WKRP music changes

) [via]
December 26, 2005
Video: Pants Pants Pants, "Fabio Salsa" (

SF indie band recreates the opening sequence from Full House

)
December 23, 2005
Double Feature Finder (

nicely designed tool for theater hoppers

) [via]
C64 PSP (

Commodore 64 emulator for the PSP

)
December 20, 2005
Animal Crossing character promotes file sharing (

the story seems more suited to a blog post than an 1,100-word NYT article

) [via]
Wikipedia founder edits own bio (

and insists others stop editing it without contacting him

) [via]
Google's 2005 Year-End Zeitgeist (

the growth of Wikipedia queries reflects their traffic

)
Pitchfork's Top 50 Albums of 2005 (

some surprisingly accessible choices throughout; also: Rex's growing list of year-end lists

) [via]
Homebrew Lumines for the GBA (

one less reason to own a PSP

) [via]
Digg Spy v2 released (

real-time view of Digg activity; very nice

)
Federal judge rules intelligent design curriculum unconstitutional (

the court opinion (PDF) is an amazing read; read about the Wedge Document on page 28

)
Ari Paparo on why Delicious succeeded where Blink failed (

design decisions prevented his social bookmarking service from getting popular

) [via]
Pokemon gene renamed following legal threat (

Nintendo didn't like "Pokemon" being associated with "cancer"

) [via]
December 19, 2005
Sloncek's story of the Suprnova shutdown (

a year ago today

) [via]
December 18, 2005
Video: Lazy Sunday, the Chronicles of Narnia Rap (

easily the best thing I've seen on SNL in years

)
Wife, lover held for murder of former Quark engineer (

bizarre story involving a conspiracy involving an embezzling scheme at Quark

)
December 16, 2005
MP3: Dog Eyed Welders - My Hump (

best cover of the worst song ever

)
43 People adds year-end calendars (

aggregates info across all the 43 sites

) [via]
Tim Berners-Lee starts a blog (

first post!

)
Bush authorized NSA to eavesdrop without warrants in U.S. (

NYT exclusive finds the administration breaking federal law; also, no more Patriot Act!

)
December 14, 2005
Animated Singing Santa Hack (

hack a Wal-Mart Santa to be evil; don't miss the videos

)
Facebook doubling as a CIA front? (

some fun conspiracy theorizing

)
Exclusive screenshots of King Kong for the Xbox 360 (

cute riff on the "glitch" with non-HDTV setups

) [via]
Alexa opens up search index and API (

the pricing model is interesting

) [via]
Google Homepage API (

create Javascript modules that can be shared with others

) [via]
Official Katamari t-shirts (

collect all seven!

) [via]
Video: Mockups of Nintendo Revolution controller demos (

still bizarre, and still very promising

) [via]
December 12, 2005
NYT on Rocketboom (

whoa, I just found out about the TiVo/Rocketboom deal; some analysis

)
A Yahoo Company (

all your startups are belong to us

)
December 11, 2005
The Museum of Modern Betas (

needs more Under Construction icons

) [via]
December 9, 2005
Myspace Deaths (

something like this would be meaningful if they'd drop the morbid humor

)
Vivendi grants "fan license" to unofficial King's Quest sequel (

the name is changing, but the characters can stay the same

)
Yahoo! acquires Del.icio.us (

everyone I know now works at Yahoo

)
Flash: Samarost 2 (

sequel to the enchanting Flash game; server is very slow right now

)
Windows Live Local's overhead shots of Disneyland (

including a peek into the drained Submarine lagoon

)
December 8, 2005
Windows Live Local escalates the maps arms race (

the birds-eye view is insane; the entire world looks like SimCity

)
Abusive NYC camera store threatens to break customer's neck (

Thomas Hawk, himself a recent scam victim, reports on a new case with recorded evidence

)
Yahoo! Answers (

look out, Ask Metafilter!

)
DJ Riko's Christmas mix (

from the creator of Whistler's Delight

)
Rest Of U2 Perfectly Fine With Africans Starving (

"You don't win 14 Grammys feeding Africans."

) [via]
New AIM worm chats with its victims (

it's probably more coherent than most IM conversations

) [via]
December 7, 2005
Mena Trott calls out backchannel critic Ben Metcalfe from the stage (

when drama erupts at a blogging conference, you get video, photos, and tons of commentary

)
CNET buys Consumating (

not bad for two guys in their spare time; congrats!

)
Alison Mealy's Unreal Tournament art (

artworks combine portraits and data viz from UT games

) [via]
Wikipedia to disallow anonymous users to create new pages (

an experimental change to deal with their social scaling issues

)
December 5, 2005
Pre-order Jason Scott's new text adventure documentary film (

support his work, and get three copies and your name in the credits (like me)

)
NASA abandons IE for Firefox (

next stop: widespread corporate adoption

) [via]
Cloud Game (

I played it to the end, and it was very satisfying in a Katamari way

) [via]
Rex starts his 2005 List of Top Lists (

as always, keep checking back over the next few weeks as it grows

)
Image: What if the NYT owned Gawker? (

the "National" column is good

) [via]
December 4, 2005
Free wifi plan prompts BellSouth to withdraw New Orleans donation (

infuriating

) [via]
Digital effects reels from the '80s (

from the effects houses who did the CG for Tron

)
December 3, 2005
Wired magazine as a tech market barometer (

as their page count goes up and down, NASDAQ follows

)