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The new google bookmarklets are amazingly simple and useful. I've been wanting to do something like this for a while, and after seeing them, I decided to rework the code to make the web-based spellchecker I always wanted. If you bookmark this: Dictionary.com bookmarklet, highlight a word on a web page, and hit the bookmark for it, it will load that word into dictionary.com's site. It's IE-only, but I'll redo the Netscape one too.
posted by mathowie at 10:35 PM PST - 7 comments

Sad but True. For me its a toss up between Hessian #5's vulnerable charm, and Hessian #6's straight-forward honesty.
posted by Awol at 5:33 PM PST - 6 comments

While we're still mulling over possible country-wide internet taxes in the states, the European Union is proposing a digital sales tax on any downloads of music, software, or videos from outside the Europe. It's just a proposal though, we'll have to wait and see if it actually goes through.
posted by mathowie at 1:26 PM PST - 5 comments

Irony King and Staggering Genius Dave Eggers after reading from his book to a banjo and spoons accompaniment, talking about elephant art, and having panties thrown at him [no, I am not joking, though I suspect a publicity stunt by our local hipster newspaper] revealed what some may have already known: that he is the voice behind McSweeneys favorite, Lucy Thomas! The Trib article says he's buried the link to her articles, but I've tracked it down in all its resplendent glory.
posted by jessamyn at 12:56 PM PST - 3 comments

Quitting? Again? Here's an interesting interview with Robert Smith, full of contradictions as usual. The most interesting part is the supposed trilogy of Pornography, Disintegration, and their newest album, Bloodflowers.
posted by Awol at 10:36 AM PST - 0 comments - Post a Comment

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the web. Now it turns out that the damned ad companies can inadvertantly learn a LOT about you that you didn't realize you were telling them.

You know, I'm really glad I use AtGuard and have closed off DoubleClick and FocaLink and all those other guys in my firewall by blocking their IPs. (It's now part of the Norton Internet Security 2000 package, and I recommend it highly.)

From me, they learn nothing because they never even see the requests.
posted by Steven Den Beste at 9:44 AM PST - 17 comments

Silly Putty turns 50. I suspect I'm older than most of you, and I grew up with Silly Putty, "The toy with only one moving part".
posted by Steven Den Beste at 7:30 AM PST - 3 comments

Indie Planet 's design is impressive, though a little overbearing and CPU-intensive (and somehow, "next page" takes me to the "top of the page"). Its humor section features some McSweeney's writers, including Neal Pollack, who I learned to love from his work at the Chicago Reader.

The site launches next week, and I'm not sure who is behind or what exactly its motives are. Its manifesto says it's all about "freethinking individuals," but since creating a "storefront" is giving the same weight as creating a "home page," I guess it's more about "selling" "stuff." How indie.
posted by luke at 1:12 AM PST - 2 comments