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IBM, with the latest attempt to put the genie back in the bottle. Their fatal flaw is betting on a post-napster world, though I bet their EMMS technology gets cracked before that ever happens.
posted on Jan-22-01 at 10:41 AM

If only we backed this guy's mission or these folks, the national nightmare may have never come to fruition. They even offer a reward if you can prove Texas is part of the union. Don't forget to ask your congressional leaders to support the secession amendment, and support their real leader.
posted on Jan-21-01 at 12:04 AM

Microsoft unleashes their TiVo killer and it looks like it has everything you could ever want in a personal video recorder. Two tuners so you can tape one thing and watch another, DSS, 35 hours of recording time, and webtv/email functionality. Is it too much or will TiVo owners want these increased features?
posted on Jan-8-01 at 2:26 PM

Etoys to lay off 70% of its workforce in their never ending quest for profitability. Does it really take 1,000 employees to run an e-commerce site? I hope not, since there will only be 300 left after today. I imagine most of those employees were in the fulfillment end of the business.
posted on Jan-4-01 at 4:54 PM

Here's a gift for all. Someone got a deceptively simple card game as a stocking stuffer. Three shapes. Three colors. Three shades. Three different numbers of objects. Put 3 things together that are completely similar or completely different, for all four variables. It's a card game that instantly sucked several of us in and felt like playing Tetris the first time. Go ahead and give it a try (note, I've been playing this for a couple hours today and I could only find 4 of the 6 possible sets).
posted on Dec-25-00 at 1:26 PM

Clemency time for Clinton. Now that he's got just a few weeks left, President Clinton has the opportunity to let a few people go. While he may be pardoning corporate criminals like Tyson food executives and a couple drug offenders, I prefer this coalition's call for freeing all non-violent drug offenders and Leonard Peltier's request.
posted on Dec-22-00 at 1:02 PM

Colin Powell to become the secretary of state, which seems ok on the surface, but after looking at the functions of the position, wouldn't he make a better secretary of defense instead? I can't say I'm comfortable with the thought of the leading US diplomat and negotiator being someone so closely tied with military force (side question: would a war man negotiate peace treaties or get us into more bombing missions?). I also find it odd that in the acceptance speech, he can speak of the horrors of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and in the same breath talk about how the US should build up a missile defense system (our missiles aren't capable of mass destruction?). What do you think about the appointment?
posted on Dec-16-00 at 10:20 AM

The Virgin Mary in uh... well, a format you've probably never her seen her in. If that's not blasphemous enough for you, there's also jesus, satan, and buddha models [warning: sexual content. thanks for the link swifty].
posted on Dec-15-00 at 12:42 AM

Evolt relaunches a redesigned site that has been months in the making. Now with article ratings to go along with the existing categorization and commenting abilities. Interface customization is coming soon, but my hat's off to the great collaborative programming and writing on evolt.
posted on Dec-14-00 at 2:25 PM

Remember the MetaFilter election contest? Well, it seems we finally have a winner. Thanks rcade for the great contest!
posted on Dec-13-00 at 9:54 AM

Sony's latest ad campaign has been pulled from the networks for being too edgy. It's certainly got an edge that I doubt children would understand, but they're still pretty funny (part 2 and part 3). Is this what happens when we have to protect everyone from anything remotely racy? Do you agree with the decision to pull them off the air?
posted on Dec-5-00 at 4:13 PM

Mini-MOMA is all the wonder of a large US city Museum of Modern Art, crammed into tiny pixelated goodness. Mouseover the pieces to see titles and artist names. [via archinect]
posted on Dec-5-00 at 12:44 PM

Homer Simpson is doing the Matt Drudge thing, exposing neighborhood scams and crimes. Is this a legitimate way of poking fun at Drudge's style or simply a commercial tie-in with the show?
posted on Dec-2-00 at 12:24 AM

Needle exchanges reduce the number of new HIV infections, rid the streets of dirty needles, while not increasing drug use among those participating in exchanges. Too bad the US gov't refuses to fund them.
posted on Dec-1-00 at 1:50 AM

Today is World AIDS Day, and to commemorate this event (and the day without art and day without weblogs), I'll be posting AIDS/HIV-related links and I ask you all to do the same. A good information resource for today is the CDC's FAQ on AIDS. And I bet you've never seen the virus' life cycle before.
posted on Dec-1-00 at 12:00 AM

Fans of Red Meat (an internet comic classic. If you're not a fan already, you really should be) will be amazed to find a great application of web technology: a php-powered red meat comic strip comedy builder! You have to come up with the comedy, but if you check out the top 30, there are a bunch of great reader-submitted gems [thanks schampeo].
posted on Nov-29-00 at 10:30 PM

Andy's a fan of democracy, but knows that on some level, people are drawn to communism or anarchy simply because of the cool hammer-and-sickle/A-in-a-circle imagery. He's proposing a new face for democracy. Angrier. In your face. Every movement needs a good logo, I suppose.
posted on Nov-28-00 at 6:53 PM

ISSNs for your blog? Joe Clark looks at the process, and urges authors to sign up, which puts your blog officially in the worldwide standardized encyclopedia of periodicals. It sounds like a good idea, and could help people using the periodical databases for research, since many blogs cover the same things magazines do.
posted on Nov-25-00 at 7:47 PM

Phil Agre thinks there was nothing spontaneous about that mob scene in Miami a couple days back.
posted on Nov-24-00 at 10:32 AM

The gopher manifesto. This is actually an idea I've been toying with for some time - bringing content back to gopher sites. My love of gopher was rekindled the day I got a WAP-enabled phone. I realized the new wireless web was nothing but menu after menu of hierarchical information. I know for a fact that Blogger can publish text files for gopher sites as well. I'd still love to launch a gopher site for essays and the like, if I could ever find a decent gopher server for windows or linux. (stolen from /.)
posted on Nov-23-00 at 12:54 AM

This Thanksgiving, get the whole family around your monitor to read Patrick Farley's Thanksgiving Special. It entertains as it informs.
posted on Nov-23-00 at 12:08 AM

Odd website of the day: Kween. Kween is a Queen tribute band, but not just any tribute band, they're "Japan's Best Queen Cover Band" (Best? You mean there are others?). They've certainly got the look and a pretty good sound. The photos of the band in action are amazing. You better catch them soon though, as they're breaking up on the 10 year anniversary of Freddy Mercury's passing.
posted on Nov-19-00 at 5:56 PM

There's nothing sadder than a dead midget (rapper).
posted on Nov-17-00 at 2:28 PM

The AAA is best known for free maps, 24-hr towing, jumpstarting cars, and now, ruining the environment. Opposing auto pollution controls? Funding highway construction lobbying groups? Against airbags? Did you know what the AAA was really up to?
posted on Nov-17-00 at 11:47 AM

This map, sized based on electoral proportions makes a lot more sense than the standard state-by-state or county-by-county one (that last one was marked up by peterme).
posted on Nov-13-00 at 6:40 PM

So the infamous ballot designer if feeling pretty low, but is protesting outside her office the correct thing to do? "Noisy demonstrators protested on Thursday outside her office, demanding a new election. Several lawsuits have been filed, claiming the ballot was illegal under Florida law. LePore, who has been named in at least two lawsuits, has been devastated by the controversy, friends and acquaintances have said."
posted on Nov-10-00 at 1:38 PM

Porter Glendinning on a weblist noted: "According to http://www.tcpalm.com/_special/pres_returns.shtml, David McReynolds, the Socialist candidate who had the hole beneath Gore's on the ballot, got no more than 36 votes in any county in Florida except Palm Beach, where he got 302. Seems questionable to me." So we've definitely got a problem with the ballot. Is it do over time yet?
posted on Nov-9-00 at 8:03 PM

OS X to support 2 button mice. Nice to see Apple finally catch up the cutting-edge, 1983 technology.
posted on Oct-31-00 at 2:16 PM

Patrick Farley's latest comic is a great halloween treat. Anyone know of other good online comic artists?
posted on Oct-30-00 at 1:30 PM

I was flooded with retro-memories of Commodore 64 music at c64audio.com. I distinctly remember playing boulderdash and hearing this for hours.
posted on Oct-28-00 at 10:15 AM

Rhino Records' anti-Napster PSAs are hilarious. Almost makes you want to stop using napster ("it's just not cool").
posted on Oct-27-00 at 2:14 PM

Kite aerial photography is basically hanging a remote controlled camera off a kite string and shooting pics high above the ground at random. How this guy gets such great shots is beyond me. It's amazing photography you probably haven't seen before.
posted on Oct-23-00 at 12:35 AM

Anonymous speech on the web is not protected. A Florida court ruling could force forum hosts to identify posters by name, if they post defamatory messages. Could this ruling lead to more civil exchanges on the net, or will curtailing unfettered speech reduce the amount and scope of many discussions?
posted on Oct-16-00 at 5:01 PM

These are TEST returns. They must not be broadcast or published. Except on the web I take it? It looks like the conspiracy theorists will put Bush on top, by 4 percent. It's kind of creepy in the "Brokaw doing fake Sinatra has died news spots"
posted on Oct-12-00 at 3:21 PM

The FBI is pushing for online ethics education in schools, but I wonder if it's even possible to teach good ethics in school anymore? It must be a great time to be a young geek: music is free, porn is plentiful, you can save anything on the web by simply right-clicking and choosing save as, you can easily trade and copy reports online, cracks and warez mean never having to pay for software or games again, hacking tools are freely available to anyone, and you can be male/female/old/young online and no one knows the difference. How could you possibly teach kids that all those are bad things?
posted on Oct-10-00 at 10:31 AM

Register.com and Staples are offering $1 domains for a limited time. What's the catch?
posted on Sep-30-00 at 9:30 PM

Celebrate banned books week by reading something good. This is my favorite often-banned book, what's yours?
posted on Sep-28-00 at 7:09 PM

Norm and Cliff may be headed to the Supreme Court to battle some sticky isssues. Should a studio own characters and use them in any way they see fit, despite the actors' wishes? Or do actors have a say in how their likenesses are used? Who really "owns" a character?
posted on Sep-27-00 at 7:56 AM

I have no doubts that people will get exercise from watching this workout video, but somehow, I don't think it's going to be aerobics. Check the reviews, I didn't even know there was a genre like this. This is the weirdest thing I've ever seen at Amazon, anyone seen anything weirder?
posted on Sep-16-00 at 10:25 AM

I'm sad to report, it looks like Ben's hanging it up for a while. Hopefully he'll come out writing well and feeling better on the other side. Good luck, Ben.
posted on Sep-15-00 at 7:58 PM

Fosters Beer's new site and ad campaign is a ripoff/parody of another certain beer ad campaign. What's with the small country pride? Tired of the Americanization of the world? Or just the (American) corporatization of the globe?
posted on Sep-14-00 at 11:00 AM

For Sale: FuckedCompany.com. What do think the person who buys it will do with the site?
posted on Sep-11-00 at 10:56 AM

Western Union's site is down, as hackers have accessed their "secure" database. Western Union's only suggestion so far is to tell all customers to cancel their credit card accounts. Is anything really secure on the internet? Do you trust amazon to hold your credit card numbers, Wells Fargo to keep your checking account private, and Kozmo employees not to pilfer your credit card numbers for fun?
posted on Sep-10-00 at 6:30 PM

mp3.com ordered to pay Universal $118 million for copying CDs to the Mymp3 service, a service designed for owners of those CDs (mp3.com made distribution agreements with the other record labels trying to sue). On the flip side, Yahoo scored a deal with the RIAA to let them webcast music. It's a wacky week in online music [via davenetics].
posted on Sep-6-00 at 2:04 PM

Jerry Springer guest pulls a Jenny Jones. A guest of the show is suspected of killing his ex-wife, who also appeared on the show earlier this year. I'll admit the Jenny Jones case was worse (getting the guests drunk, etc.), but you know Jerry doesn't really care about his guests when he says things like "The show is television ... this is life and death." What about the guests' lives and how the show affects them Jerry? Is that just television too?
posted on Sep-5-00 at 8:38 PM

This Salon article on the state of web sites aimed at women asks some interesting questions. Women-centric sites set out in 1997 and 1998 to start a revolution, and instead we have relationship quizzes, diet plans, TV reviews, and horoscopes. What went wrong? Are women really interested in these things? Did the sites start out edgy and adapt to the audience? Would anyone expect online magazine/lifestyle properties to be much different than their offline counterparts? I also wonder what anyone that has ever seen and/or used iVilliage, Oxygen, and Women.com think of each site's content? Is it enlightening, or pure fluff?
posted on Aug-31-00 at 2:51 PM

Yahoo now has a PayPal-style service. What is Yahoo not doing these days? And how does this relate to them being a media company? They've got the directory, bill payment, auctions, bookmarks, and a music player, among their many offerings. It seems like they've copied many major internet applications and put them in one place. Are they the "Microsoft" of the web in terms of innovation?
posted on Aug-30-00 at 9:05 AM

Jason found a pretty cool javascript/CSS hack so I took a stab creating a bizarro kottke one (bookmark and try it at kottke.org). I think it improves the page :). This might be a killer hack for usability tweaking. If you set your backgrounds dark with light, 28px text for easy reading, few web pages follow that convention. Here's your chance to see things your way. Can anyone think of any other uses for this?
posted on Aug-28-00 at 9:37 PM

Eddie Breen is one cool artist. He takes paintings bought at garage sales and flea markets and makes them better. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but I love this piece and everything on this page.
posted on Aug-17-00 at 11:03 AM

We all knew eventually TimeWarner would exert some pressure on AOL for owning/running winamp.com as a portal to steal TimeWarner artists' work. Yesterday, winamp took down their search engine (here's the current result for all searches). Is this just the first step by TimeWarner? How long will winamp continue to last?
posted on Aug-11-00 at 10:37 AM