We Own The Internet

[hat tip: Ken W.]

"Tomorrow the internet will prove me right."

Words to live by. Eternally optimistic that somewhere out there, someone has posted something that proves your point. You hope. If not, just make it up and post it yourself. It's online, it has to be true!

[Hat tip, Scot]

Net Neutrality!

Save The Internets

Verizon, AT&T and Comcast are lobbying Congress hard to implement what used to be a joke: an Internet tax. They want users to pay to ensure access to content and high speed performance, blowing up the very system that has made them stupid rich. Hmmm, that's funny, I thought I already paid every month. Does that mean I get my monthly DSL fee refunded? Didn't think so. In effect, they want to hold your Internet hostage, and they're willing to pay off Congress to do it.

Sign the petition at savetheinternet.com, write your congresspeeps, and tell them to support the "Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2006" (S. 2917) amendment that will protect net neutrality from the bloated telco vipers.

When Chimps Attack II

Fred Durst shows you his 'O' face (WARNING: Spyware-laden link. Proceed at your own risk. Thanks, Nora).

WARNING: NSFW. Actually, not safe for anyone with the gift of sight.

More
everywhere
else.

Bypass Compulsory Web Registration

Sick of filling out stupid registration forms to read stories linked from this blog? I've been relying on the BugMeNot Firefox extension for quite some time now. Right-click on a login box at say, The Chicago Tribune, and the plugin grabs a login and pass from an online database. You can also just use their web-based form if you are too lame or lazy to use Firefox.

Harken back to those halcyon days...

One of the absolute Internet boom classics... Mr. Wong

"...he came with the estate / is it love or is it hate? / Mr. Wo-ong!"

I thought Icebox went PPV. I guess that revenue model didn't work either.

Dur. Like the crack dealer on the corner, the first one's free.

Fuck You and Your H2

Wow. The Internet has something for everyone.

CB2.com is Macromedia's Site of the Day

A couple months ago, Element helped Carlos, Jamie and Co. over at Crate and Barrel with their new site CB2.com. Today, it's featured at Macromedia. How cool is that?

Cell Phone Icon? Chat Icon? Web Page Icon? Amaze and Appall Your Friends!

The part of a face or the body is choose and a portrait icon is made on-line.

Nigritude Ultramarine

Oh Yes Wyoming!

Jerry Seinfeld teams up with The Man of Steel to hawk American Express in an online-only campaign. The usual Seinfeld hilarity ensues, if you're into that sort of thing. No confirmation, but I'm fairly sure that's Puddy doing Superman.

Be sure to sing-a-long...

Jay-Z Construction Set

The Jay-Z Construction Set is a toolkit with all of the necessary software and raw materials to create a new remix of Jay-Z's Black Album.

See, rather than fight this trend, I think Jay-Z should come out in support of it. It's like the next logical Information Wants To Be Free-esque step to the Tupac / B.I.G. phenomena of releasing more albums posthumously than they ever did while alive, only Jay-Z ain't dead! He still gets to be one rich mofo with a hot girlfriend!

Human-to-human TiVo/PVR suggestions via RSS

I first glanced at this proposed PVR RSS code earlier today, but didn't really have time to fully absorb it. Now there's a more detailed description, and it's a really cool idea.

My TiVo manages to suggest something I might watch perhaps once a week at the most*. I'm probably being generous with that estimate. I'd much rather have people I know send me shows I may want to watch but may not be aware of because I'm TiVo'ing through all the commercials. (All hail the 30 second skip.)

Besides, this also opens the door for all sorts of potential friendly TiVo hacking via RSS suggestions. What? You mean you didn't want to watch that Punky Brewster marathon?

* I admit I probably don't use the Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down as much as I should to get desired results.

What Goes Around

Too many elk shirts from loved ones at the holidays? (Let's not go there, okay?) Well, this site can help you avoid more crap you don't need and help those you like to help. Everyone wins, and you don't have to stand in line to return that acrylic sweater.

I first read about this in Anna Quindlen's latest article in Newsweek.

You can find my givelist here.

(They could use a little help with those URLs.)

Amazon's new search and potential copyright issues

For those of you who haven't heard, Amazon has introduced an amazing new service that allows users to search the entire text of over 120,000 books.

The Authors Guild has some (probably well-founded) issues with this. When I first read about potential lawsuits, I thought, "why would authors not want their works more accessible?"

When we learned of the program, we thought that it would be impossible to read more than 5 consecutive pages from a book in the program. It turns out that it's quite simple (though a bit inconvenient) to look at 100 or more consecutive pages from a single lengthy book. We've even printed out 108 consecutive pages from a bestselling book. It's not something one would care to do frequently, but it can be done. So a reader could choose to print out all the fish recipes from a cookbook in the program. Or the section on Tuscany from a travel book. We believe readers will do this, and the perplexing question is whether the additional exposure for a title -- and the presumptive increase in sales -- offsets sales lost from those who just use the Amazon system to look up the section of a book when they need it.

Oops. Yeah, that's probably no good. Technology, Ho!

I decided to see how difficult it would be to snake some free recipes from a cookbook, looked up "Jamie Oliver pecorino," and clicked to see the excerpt. In order to do so, you have to log in, and then provide credit card information for "verification." Sorry, I'm just not motivated enough to hand over my credit card information to Amazon to look inside a book. It's like online bookstore porn!

So, it looks like Amazon has taken steps to ensure abuses are kept to a minimum.

via kottke

TV's Tipping Point: Why The Digital Revolution Is Only Just Beginning

Ashley Highfield's speech on opening up the Beeb's archives, and on "The Way Things Ought To Be" in general. Good read.

via boing boing, naturally.

Google Yourself

So I got one of those hysterical emails that was forwarded 100 times with a dire warning on it, and in the spirit of the internet I played along. Only this one is for real.

If you go to Google and type in your area code and phone number, chances are you'll show up. A quick mapquest search would give some nefarious character (who overheard your number) a map with a star on it indicating your house. Not good.

So, if this bothers you, go to this here page and see about getting yourself easily removed.

Fast Chat

Walkie-talkie type messaging on your cell phone (via software). Not earth shattering, but still kinda cool.

Color me McDumbfounded

I don't even know where to start with this one. The prospect of wireless communication in such close proximity to raving lunatics, soaked in urine, eating griddled cow rectum? This should go over as well as the McCafe.

The Beeb: Archives open to the public

Smashing.

via boing boing

A Jihad on...um...Jack Valenti!

Earthstation 5 tells the MPAA and the RIAA to get in the ring, muthafuckas!

Jebus sez: "Thasss suhweeeet! Those whacky Palestinians!"

via boing boing, where else?

8.17 17:17:17

How many pictures of clocks do you think this guy is gonna get?

via harrumph!

Parents File Lawsuit Over Star Wars Video

The parents of Ghyslain Raza, the Quebec teenager who became a celebrity this spring after classmates posted on the Internet a video of him mimicking a Star Wars character, allege that their son was so humiliated by the experience that he had to get psychiatric care.

The new "all your base".

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) -- Parents just don't understand the new rage with Oakland kids. It's called a 'whistle tip' and it attaches to a car's muffler to make the car screechingly loud....... "The whistles go whoo whoo," says whistle fan Bubb Rubb.

Check out the sound board, oh man I about peed.

via Bryan Reckcamp

Sex.com, Sex.com, You're My Sex.com

The US Supreme Court has rejected the appeal by Stephen Michael Cohen in the sex.com case.

The decision brings to a close two years of pointless legal argument and leaves the way clear for sex.com owner Gary Kremen to concentrate on forcing .com registry VeriSign to admit its guilt in transferring the valuable domain to Mr Cohen in 1995.

_{-- snip --}

With the case finally put to rest however, Mr Kremen faces his toughest battle - forcing VeriSign to accept blame for transferring the domain without checking in the first place. He is expected to win although VeriSign is sticking to its defence that a domain name cannot legally be held to be property and as such it cannot be held to account for giving the sex.com away to someone else.

If VeriSign eventually loses, it will face a $100m fine and legal fee bill. It would also set a legal precedent that will encourage thousands of other domain owners to seek recompense for wrongly handing over domains (something VeriSign has become particularly famous for).

nowayout

Radiohead's new album, Hail To The Thief is (officially) out, even though anyone with enough initiative has had it in some form or another for some time now.

They've also got some video stuff going on over at radiohead.tv.

Why does a web site attract cooler, cuter, and more girls than I do?

via Gawker

Net Riddle

Solve the riddle, win the money.

Perfect for the recently (or soon to be) unemployed.

Advice for Satanic Web Page Design

Style is always more important than content in Satanic sites.

Amen, brutha! Err... I mean, isn't that so true?

(via Rini.org, home of the most excellent Iraqi Information Minister 404 page.)

Cast your vote for "Publius" to win a Webby Award

Support my grassroots campaign to get my brother's Web site, Publius, a Webby award. He's up againt NASA.gov and Weather.gov, and so far could really use your vote. If you could spare 30 seconds of surfing time, I'd appreciate it.

Ironically the site promotes "electronic democracy."

A great idea, poorly executed

Distributed computing projects have always been of interest to me. You really have to wonder what all those incredibly over-powered computers out there, for the most part, doing nothing, could actually do if they were put to use in a common cause. SETI@Home is probably the most well-known application. Cool? Check. Uber-geeky? Check. Really important and timely? Uhhh....

I'm currently running Folding@home's screen saver, which helps to understand how protein folding affects major diseases.

So along comes a really, really, really great idea: use the now fairly well established dist computing community to help find promising candidates for SARS drugs. (If the link times out, don't be surprised.)

Unfortunately, their web servers do not appear to be up to the task of getting slashdotted, boingboinged, etc. etc., and talked about on the news. You gotta really want this thing. We're talking over an hour (or longer!) for 10 MB over a T1! WTF!?! Has anyone heard of a mirror site over there?

It also appears that their Mac OS X client doesn't work reliably. I think I've installed it, but nothing would indicate that. I'm in the process of downloading the WinXP client, which I may have downloaded by this afternoon.

Safety Sign Builder

Great friday afternoon fun...

Oldies but Goodies

Two links that bring back dot-com days of wine and roses memories...

• Mirsk-T
• Titler

Virtualstapler.com

Too few are the days when I come across a little gem like this site. It's both completely useless and completely fabulous at the same time! It features a gallery of staplers, stapler haiku, a chronicling of the stapler scenes in Office Space, and best of all, three virtual staplers that you can bang away on to your heart's content. Be sure to check out the letters section!

TinyURL dot com

So simple. So smart. So tiny.

Also gives rise to typing in short random number/letter combos behind tinyurl.com just to see what shows up... Or maybe I'm just bored.

A NINJA ROBOTIC camera mount!

Holy crap! Who doesn't need one of those?

I love the Internet

I know we've addressed this issue before, but the pin-point clarity of Google's technology is frightening.

Dogs. In Cars.

Like this. Sorta.

No. More like this.

Internet Traffic

So I guess there was some worm that crashed the whole friggin' internet int he last day or two. I didn't even notice, but if I'd checked this site I could have watched it happen. It's the internet version of the weather channel.

Yippee.

Died Online

Make sure your committed co-workers and friends haven't...

Death Clock

Here's a fun little activity!

Your Favorite Stars' Onscreen Deaths

Cinemorgue: The ultimate spoiler site...

Andrew's Secret House8 Sites

The one he's building for Tim.

Saratoga Student Creates Algorithm to Speed Internet

Interestingly, the name "Algorithm" takes its name from Albert Gore Jr., the man who invented the internet.

Just kidding.

: )

Googlism

"andrew falconer is currently being held in custody on his third animal abuse offense"

via evhead

Camper.es

The new Camper site is, aesthetically, a major improvement over their old site. Navigation is (to be kind) a bit convoluted and confusing, but it's the type of site you want to explore, which I think matches with their "The Walking Society" slogan.

However, one minor beef. Where the fuck are the shoes?

Update: Ah. They're in that tiny menu on the main window behind the pop-up.

By the way

Mozilla 1.0 was released today, and it's a blogger's dream. Tabbed windows, oi!

Japanese PC Error Messages

In Japan, they have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with their own Japanese Haiku poetry, each only 17 syllables, five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, five in the third ...

Stay the patient course. Of little worth is your ire. The network is down.

via My Brother Neal

Customatix - the latest crack

Design your own footwear. And none of that lame ass Nike shit, neither...

via Ryan D.

Hi-Tech Fake Firm Busted

The 140-count indictment against 16 members of a "sophisticated" ring of accountants, computer operators and others was the first of its kind, District Attorney Richard Brown said yesterday.

I ain't naming names, but it sounds familiar...

Time magazine: Aww, gee shucks, ain't Mozilla cool?

Initially, I was just going to let this one slide, but as I finished the article and clicked Back (in Internet Explorer), I got this.

I quote: Mozilla also lets you turn off all Web-based pop-up ads, for all eternity, with a single click. Beyond bliss.

You mean, like that one, AOL Time Warner? Loser of 54 Beeeellliiion dollars? Why would Time magazine even bother printing such a pointless, shameless plug-piece like this? Why not just shove Mozilla straight down the optical nerve of the 32 bagilzillion eyeballs^* they claim to have in those FUCKING ANNOYING AOL disks (like the one I threw away today) and be done with it?

* Seriously, that number changes faster than McDonald's serves hamburgers.

via Evhead

From Web Design to Topless Bars

Do you recall a stock known as Internet Advisory Corp. from back in the salad days of the dot-com boom?

Wonder whatÕs happened to it since then? Well, read on for the heartwarming tale of a Web-design outfit that crashed in the tech wreck, and is now trying to resurrect itself as a topless bar.

QIXO

Find the cheapest fares by searching 30 travel sites in one go.

via Seth