Ads via The Deck
July 31, 2006
Aaron releases Filtr, the Flickr image preprocessor (

it turns cameraphone photos into a thing of beauty

)
The Plight of the Colorblind Gamer (

some surprisingly good comments in the Digg thread; good to know I'm not alone here

) [via]
July 29, 2006
Video: Microsoft Vista speech recognition demo gone bad (

Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all

)
Dicewars (

highly addictive simple strategy game, but needs multiplayer badly; instructions

) [via]
July 28, 2006
Video: 787 Cliparts [via]
Video: Solla Solla Enna Perumai (

other good stuff in the same vein

)
Video: Nike McFly commercial (

with new power lacing technology!

)
Owen Wilson responds to Steely Dan letter (

very funny

)
Anthony Bourdain writes about watching Beirut die (

he was there to record a TV show when everything started falling apart

)
Smoking Gun finds angry letter to Lindsay Lohan from Hollywood brass (

studio head blasts her for disrupting movie shoots with no-shows from heavy partying

)
Secret Google services uncovered (

all sorts of speculation fodder, "Google Guess" sounds interesting

)
On Piracy, a 2-hour documentary on file sharing (

Julien McArdle's made his prerelease version free for viewing

)
July 27, 2006
Cyworld launches in US (

insanely popular Korean MMO comes to the states

)
Google announces hosting for open source projects (

some badly needed competition for Sourceforge; an example project

) [via]
Amy Hoy's Javascript Boot Camp (

her three hour OSCON tutorial for "everyone who feels their Javascript skills just aren't up to snuff"

) [via]
Hotwired demo site from 1995 (

a wonderful snapshot from November 1995

) [via]
Video: Enchantment Under the Sea Revisited (

synchronized split-screen of both dance scenes from "Back to the Future" I and II

) [via]
Life2Life, Amazon store within Second Life (

build on Amazon's web services, including spatial positioning based on sales and relevance

) [via]
Billy Bragg prompts Myspace to change musician's rights (

Myspace safe for musicians again

) [via]
July 26, 2006
Sneak preview footage of the Simpsons movie (

animated storyboards, but still cool

) [via]
Next-gen Microsoft Flight Sim uses Navteq data for mapping the real world (

seamless intercontinental flights that look like the real thing

)
Unofficial Digg API (

deconstructed from the Digg Labs Flash files

) [via]
Video: Justin Hall on Passively Multiplayer Online Games (

a concise description of his earlier experiments, now with an official site

)
Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence (

Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T. Honored

)
Video: Sims 2 "Sk8ter Boi" machinima music video (

bleh music, but I'm impressed how good Sims 2 machinima can be; more from the same author

)
July 25, 2006
Lost Experience reality game character confronts Lost cast at Comic-Con (

they seem genuinely surprised; more background here

)
Python on the Nintendo DS (

also: HelloDS voice over IP

)
PBS Kids Sprout host fired for abstinence spoof videos (

see both fake commercials here

) [via]
Digg Labs (

the Stamen Design visualizations go live

)
Famous logos redone Web 2.0 style (

hilarious; Digg's hitting the original YayHooray thread hard

) [via]
July 24, 2006
Details on Tenori-On, Electroplankton creator's new musical instrument (

the official site has samples and details on two-way collaboration; don't miss the demo video

) [via]
Doom 1 ported to Doom 3 (

very meta hack lets you play Doom on a virtual screen inside of Doom 3

) [via]
July 22, 2006
Pointer Kite (

wonderful kite imitating a GUI cursor

)
July 21, 2006
Learning from Atari (

Jason's scans of the Atari Game Catalog, 1981

)
July 18, 2006
Video: Trailer for Valve's Portal game (

holy cow; like the gravity gun, it's amazing how one weapon can revolutionize gameplay

)
Video: The Big Lebowski - F_cking Short Version (

incredible editing work

) [via]
AOL's customer retention manual revealed (

"You gotta love it!" ...or else

) [via]
Boing Boing Analysis (

don't miss the acronym use by author; related: my BB stats

) [via]
Wal-Mart Tries to be Myspace, Seriously (

sorry, not nearly ugly enough

)
July 17, 2006
Comcast censors critical Nightline story (

stupidity by obscurity

)
Video: The Hotwired Archive from 1998 (

internally produced video of Hotwired's design and redesign; a must see

)
Happy iCal Day! (

celebrating the default day on the static iCal icon

) [via]
Five TV pilots "leaked" to torrent sites from new fall season (

is it piracy or pseudo grassroots promotion?

)
Video: Stop-Motion Human Space Invaders (

so very awesome

) [via]
Video: Bike Thief (

NYC bicyclist steals own bike four times on video in broad daylight, and nobody flinches

) [via]
CouchSurfing, back from the dead (

an incredible story of community participation

)
July 16, 2006
Wired cover story on Myspace (

the article certainly makes it sound like they don't have a clue what to do with it

)
Video: Stanford Prison Experiment (

"What happens when you put good people in an evil place?"

)
July 15, 2006
Video: Mac OS 7.5 running on Sony PSP (

also: System 6 running on the Nintendo DS

) [via]
QSL Card Museum (

ham radios exchanged QSL Cards to confirm two-way contacts; I love the antique and interesting cards

)
Gamespot interviews Klosterman about his Esquire article on game journalism (

if you missed it, The Lester Bangs of Video Games

) [via]
Ugly Myspace Contest Winners (

democracy isn't pretty

)
Janek Simon's Carpet Invaders (

playable art inspired by Space Invaders and woven Oriental rugs

) [via]
Last.fm redesigns (

the design is nice, but they're forcing bidirectional friend connections; the new Last.fm client handles all the plugins automagically

)
Google Visualizations (

chess boards, keyboards and Go

)
Video: Zefrank on Myspace and the democratization of design (

wonderfully coherent, prescient, and distinctly Ze

) [via]
A Slice of the Blogosphere (

pb breaks down blog tool usage for ORblogs

)
Lycos to shutter Webmonkey (

combined with the Hotwired closure, this is too much to take; I hate you, Lycos

)
Caleb's How-To Hottub an Email List (

harsh, but there's a certain beauty and elegance to this

)
July 14, 2006
Apple Switch ad's Ellen Feiss starring in French film (

star de la campagne publicitaire Switch de Macintosh

)
Veen discovers Hotwired is now a junk search portal (

when was it sold? this is a sad end to one of the first great websites

)
Dandelife, social biography network (

create your own personal timeline of stories, photos and video, like this one

) [via]
July 13, 2006
Video: Super Galdelic Hour for the PS2 (

absolutely insane Japanese game; gameplay footage starts at the 2:05 mark

)
Video: 8 1/2 Mile (

Fellini meets Eminem; Youtube Mirror

)
What's the best time and day to submit Digg stories? (

short answer is Friday and Saturday, but the rest of the stats are just as interesting

)
Video: Unflinching Triumph (

documentary of the National Staredown Competition

)
Hot Captcha, a Hot or Not mashup (

pick the three hot people to prove you're human

)
Weather Bonk (

winner of this year's Mashup Pit best mashup contest

)
July 12, 2006
Bakuten Domino (

more insane domino object stacking from the Japanese show devoted to it

)
Quantum Link Reloaded (

unbelievable; a Commodore online service from the '80s, reverse engineered and put online for use with C64 emulators!

) [via]
Video: House of Dominoes (

random household objects and media stacked into one long line of dominoes

)
Jeff Veen's history of the Hotwired homepage (

maybe he's getting nostalgic because Wired magazine and Wired News are in love again

)
SMS shorthand using server response codes (

except that "200" is longer than "ok"

)
Population One (

I feel insignificant; a good companion piece to this

)
July 11, 2006
Multiplayer Asteroids (

even without the asteroids, it's addictive

) [via]
Solve sudoku without thinking (

killjoy

) [via]
Zidane World Cup Headbutt Animation Festival (

Anil collects every Zidane remixed animated GIF into a single video; funny!

)
Daniel Raeburn's harrowing story of the stillbirth of his first daughter, Irene (

after reading that, don't miss the happier ending; thanks for making me cry at work, Jason

) [via]
Hitwise claims Myspace now #1 most popular website (

though Stewart's case study for Flickr shows that Hitwise has some accuracy issues

)
Syd Barrett, dead at 60 (

shine on, you crazy diamond

) [via]
Bradlands SXSW 2000 recollections (

stumbled on this from the comments on Matt Haughey's classic photo

)
July 10, 2006
Video: Weird Al interviews Eminem (

I missed this ballsy cut-up interview from 2003, y'know what I'm saying?

)
Pixhell (

Waferbaby's oddball animated series, now CC licensed

)
Cody's Books in Berkeley closes today after 50 years (

so sad, but almost inevitable; will Amoeba and Rasputin's be around by the end of this decade?

)
Zidane simulator (

8 of the top 20 YouTube videos right now are versions of the Zidane headbutt

) [via]
Insider's response to "Who Killed the Electric Car" (

I love a conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but the film's premise smells iffy

) [via]
Jason Scott's awesome deathbed dream (

hmm, I should get some of those kidney stones just to have dreams like this

)
Real-life version of George Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon" painting (

it feels natural; even the dog cooperated

) [via]
Video: Mr. Yuk poison control commercial from 1971 (

terrifying young kids on Saturday mornings

)
July 9, 2006
Profanity Adventures (

profanity recognition in Spectrum 48k adventure games; worth it just for vintage screen grabs

) [via]
July 8, 2006
Red Paper Clip guy gets his house (

does this mean the mayor of Kipling, Saskatchewan appear in a movie with Corbin Bernsen?

) [via]
July 7, 2006
Kevin Tiell's pinball-eye-view photography (

he'll be speaking at the California Extreme pinball and arcade game show in San Jose tomorrow

)
BBC homepage redesign winners announced (

and the runner-ups are good, too

) [via]
Vox adds cross-posting to Typepad, and more (

those crazy 6A kids have been doing nice work lately; [this is good]

)
Livejournal integrates Jabber messaging (

built on the high-performance DJabberd framework

)
July 6, 2006
Matt Haughey goatse's the new Mastercard logo (

if this makes no sense, consider yourself lucky

)
Okkervill River's Will Sheff on file-sharing, bootlegs, and digital music (

he worked at Audiogalaxy and has seen this from multiple sides; you can hear the internal conflict

) [via]
Indie rock and the Garden State effect (

"nobody thinks long and hard about music and what it means to them and then ultimately decides to listen to Toby Keith"

)
Ren and Stimpy's John K. angry at Warner Bros. on Youtube takedowns (

not sure I buy the "high-res" angle; at what resolution does promotion stop and piracy begin?

)
Web 2.0 in Japan (

I wish translation tools were good enough to make Japanese web surfing realistic for me

) [via]
LA Weekly on the Laurel Canyon music scene of the '60s-'70s (

juicy gossip, 40 years late

)
Amazon.com conspiracy theorist (

someone get this guy a Usenet newsreader

) [via]
Making Something Meaningful (

hear, hear

)
July 5, 2006
Origin of Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" (

the sample that inspired the entire tone of the song and underlying melody

) [via]
Amanda Congdon and Rocketboom part ways (

she implies she was fired, while Andrew says she quit, Amanda shoots back; vlog drama!

)
Red Swoosh relaunches with free ad-supported client (

their best feature is that they act as a mirror for all your files; unlike BitTorrent, no need to run a local server

)
Lyric changes in Disney's Devo 2.0 (

plus, links to every video and one of the first new Devo songs in 20 years

)
July 4, 2006
Video: Harry Nilsson on the Poet's Corner with Tommy Smothers (

syncing problem, but gorgeous versions of "Poli High," "One," and "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City"

)
July 3, 2006
NBC rumored to be acquiring Tribe? (

yes, two consecutive Valleywag links; it's a weirdly believable rumor

)
Anatomy of the Google Product Cycle
Crate Tetris
July 2, 2006
Sunday Mix Tape: Volume 22 (

a little sullen, but any mix with both late-era Monkees and Songs: Ohia is okay with me

)
Maritime records a Daytrotter session (

Daytrotter offers exclusive in-studio performances every week from great bands

)
FreeDB shuts down because of developer in-fighting (

more like a band breaking up than the end of a great service

)
Lullabyes records Tilly & the Wall's show on Thursday night (

Lullabyes serves up some of the highest quality soundboard recordings I've ever heard

)
July 1, 2006
Washington State declares June 30-July 1 to be official "RSS Days" (

only slightly more meaningful than a Universal Life Church ordainment

) [via]
Video: Secret of Monkey Island high school play! (

extremely faithful adaptation to the stage, with the entire thing hosted on Google Video

)
Secret of Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert interviewed on Gamespot's Designer Threads (

he's still holding onto Monkey Island's secret, just in case he ever gets the chance to do a sequel

) [via]
Free tech school in basement: GO RIGHT IN (

an older gentleman in the Bronx teaches electrical engineering for free to whoever wants to learn

) [via]
Advanced Computerized Metering (

digital e-meter software for "upper level auditing," for when those cheap Scientology E-meters won't cut it

)
Children's drawings of Winnie the Pooh, redrawn by talented artists (

nightmarish and wonderful; I like the Mark Bodnar painting

) [via]