MetaFilter posts by mathowie.
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A retarded man in Texas is set to be executed tomorrow. Is this what "compassionate conservatism" is all about? Bush does not support laws that prohibit the execution of retarded people, even though such laws exist currently in 12 other states. Oliver Cruz commited a heinous crime, but isn't killing him tomorrow pre-meditated murder? Are we a better society after we kill Oliver Cruz? Does it send a message to other would be mentally-retarded killers that they will hear and will it convince them not to commit similar crimes?
posted on Aug-8-00 at 3:47 PM
John Scopes, the defendant in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, was born 100 years ago yesterday, but teaching evolution 76 years later is still considered controversial. Are we ever going to stop having to defend evolution?
posted on Aug-4-00 at 10:08 AM
Perhaps Lance was right. No maybe Peter was right. Regardless, the wheels of progress continue to turn, this time it's a p-to-p app that allows the swapping of console video games napster/gnutella-style, with the 17 year-old creator saying this about the possibility of getting shut down: "Sure, it is a concern that they may try to shut us down, despite the fact that we don't permit piracy, but I am confident in the law and believe we will prevail." Riiiiiight.
posted on Aug-2-00 at 5:28 PM
This is just sick and wrong. Convention Barbie? Do you really want to support a party with lame merchandising tie-ins like this? Sidenote: does this make Bush pro-Mattel and anti-Matt L?
posted on Aug-2-00 at 5:05 PM
The new weblog/site: take back vermont covers the the recent gay marriage ruling in Vermont and the flap it has caused for some of the more kooky right wing citizens. Many citizens have go so far as to openly display their bigotry by posting signs in their yards. The best part about the site? Putting it at the domain of the people that oppose gay marriage, and asking people to deface the signs by adding a ".COM" to them so they can see a site that asks folks to support the law and all the reasons why it should stand. Simply ingenious.
posted on Jul-30-00 at 1:46 PM
This just in: Napster's injunction to shut down tonight at midnight has been stayed (I'll add a url to a story when CNN writes it - BTW, how crazy is it that the napster news gets top level precedence as breaking news on a site as big as CNN? screenshot)
posted on Jul-28-00 at 2:59 PM
Napster may be down, but pandora's out of the box, baby. Get OpenNap as soon as you can (if anyone finds a link to OpenNap, by all means post the URL)
posted on Jul-26-00 at 5:38 PM
Awesome splash page spoof of KPMG's marketing-speak site. Of course now that web design is over, I guess it's better that sites start looking alike.
posted on Jul-24-00 at 7:47 AM
Is this the strangest contest ever? Guess what the winning couple's prize is for this? Answer: your wife's weight in beer. The even have a snazzy URL for the competition. Kooky.
posted on Jul-18-00 at 3:34 PM
Remember the movie Magnolia? One of the themes running through the movie was of amazing coincidences and chance. This story of a people getting hit by trains near San Francisco this week mentions one such coincidence. A man was hit by a train, and on that very train was the chairman of a "nonprofit group whose goal is to reduce the number of train-related collisions, deaths and injuries." The additional fact that this safety group leader was enroute to give a speech on grade-crossing safety makes it approach urban legend status, but it did indeed happen.
posted on Jul-15-00 at 9:02 AM
Oh great another "weblogs are stupid and they all suck" article came out, but what I really want to know is: why does the other article running this week at ALA acknowledge that "99% of everything is crap," but the weblog article doesn't? Comparing the cruft at the bottom of weblogs with the 1% best of writers (Ginsberg and Kerouac) seems unfair and pointless. And where are the solutions? Tell everyone to stop? Tell them to write better? What's so hard about ignoring the sites you don't like instead (I do that with most advertising)?
posted on Jul-14-00 at 1:50 PM
Open Secrets is a site for election information that takes the term "full disclosure" to the nth level. You can see how much money all the presidential candidates have taken and from whom. You can even do searches for "all the people in a single zip code that gave more than $1,000 to George Bush." And it's not just for would-be presidents, you can see who is filling senator's pockets too (like Philip Morris bankrolling Jesse Helms - big surprise there). It's all information that we deserve to know, and thanks to the web, it's there for the reading.
posted on Jul-13-00 at 12:02 AM
Mersenne Prime Search is a distributed computing project much like Seti@home, except instead of searching for aliens, you're in the running for $100,000 and a place in math history (shouldn't your computer actually be the one that goes into the math history books?).
posted on Jul-7-00 at 9:53 AM
While I'm not a fan of Harry Potter books (yet - I'll get around to checking them out someday soon), I find it interesting to see some folks still strongly oppose the stories of sorcery, while it seems the average CNN.com reader doesn't see a problem with them (the poll is 97-3 as I write this). It seems that every few years, some fiction strikes the fancy of kids, and parents rally against it, even though it piques kids' imaginations and gets them reading. What's so wrong with Potter books?
posted on Jul-6-00 at 9:16 PM
The story of Huang Qi, the man who started the first human-rights website in China, is one of the most depressing internet stories I've read. Now that he is jailed for "subverting state power," no US internet firms are sticking for him, as they're too busy trying to market their sites and services in China. I've participated in protests before, but I really wish we could get together and protest bigger things, things that might improve or save others' lives. I hope the proposed data havens like Sealand get online and allow sites such as Qi's to continue.
posted on Jul-6-00 at 9:14 AM
Napster Says RIAA Trying to Stifle Technology. Aw yeah, it's nice to see Napster get on the offensive. Armed with data showing that CD sales have increased with the rise in mp3 trading, Napster is now alleging that record companies are against the software because it reduces their 100% control of the music distribution business. But will a court allow Napster to go on while their users walk the fair-use tightrope?
posted on Jul-4-00 at 11:01 PM
The Go.com translator is a pretty good alternative to babelfish. This very site looks pretty good, and I can finally read my favorite spanish-language blog. Is computer power/translation programming advancing enough to enable real-time translation, or will this continue to be the impossible dream? I've always wanted an icq client that would let me chat with a spanish speaker without any lag. Of course, if that were possible, my cell phone would do real time vocal conversions as well. Someday, I guess, someday.
posted on Jul-3-00 at 6:19 PM
Boy Scouts: 1 Gay Memebers: 0 Court Says Boy Scouts Can Bar Gays, which is slightly troubling, in that a psuedo-national organization can make rules that go against government policy. I don't see how a scoutmaster being gay has anything to do with teaching kids how to tie knots and go camping though.
posted on Jun-28-00 at 12:00 PM
Top Secret Recipes is a site that aims to reveal the secrets of almost any popular restaurant's items. They have McDonalds Shakes, Orange Julius, Hot Dog on a Stick (complete with video), and Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mints. Oh my god, they actually reverse-engineered McDonalds' Secret Sauce. Be careful with the knowledge of that last one, you could be killed just for possessing it. If food is considered a restaurant's intellectual property, how does this site continue without being sued silly?
posted on Jun-26-00 at 12:22 PM
Porn on the net is not a problem. Readers chime in on an opinion column with opinions of their own. My favorites "All one has to do if you don't want to read such garbage is to delete it when you first sign onto the Internet" (this guy obviously has no clue how the web works) and "Is there software I can buy to block out you?" In this article, Porn site supporters and detractors both seem to agree that users have to go out of their way to see pornographic content on the web. You have to click on the link to see porn. Funny how the writer of the original article couldn't figure that out. Is porn really that much of a problem on the web, or are some people just too embarrased to admit that due to some curiosity, they wanted to follow the links?
posted on Jun-24-00 at 5:13 PM
Three words: Charlie's Angels Trailer. This looks pretty funny, especially with Bill Murray involved. I guess the real question this movie raises is "are the re-makes of yesteryear successes going to continue in the 00's?" Personally, I thought it was a 90's thing, which I often call the "recycled decade." Side question: why don't the angels have guns in the ending silhouette? Is that because of the current anti-gun climate? [thanks Kristin]
posted on Jun-23-00 at 3:19 PM
Dru Jay has a good article on voluntary micropayments, and the theme is something the failed micropayments crowd never thought of: instead of forcing the charge before you see it, treat a site as shareware, and pay after you've enjoyed it. Thanks to two individuals, I'm $0.50 richer today. Are voluntary paypal donations the wave of the blogging future?
posted on Jun-20-00 at 4:43 PM
The man who came up with the Etch-A-Sketch died. So sad. *shake* *shake* *shake* Gone, but not forgotten.
posted on Jun-13-00 at 7:49 PM
Reel.com is dead. Anyone care to speculate why they failed?
posted on Jun-12-00 at 10:35 AM
The Megaball needs your help. Mouser is still building the almighty Megaball, and every rubber band counts. It looks impressive, especially the catscan. Only you can help the Megaball.
posted on Jun-6-00 at 10:59 PM
A digital camera that plays mp3s? Convergence is a steam train that can't be stopped. In the future, will every piece of electronics priced over $100 include a mp3 player in it? Stuff like this makes me think the mp3 format will definitely surpass CDs and tapes as a delivery medium. Too bad the record companies still want to stop it, they're losing money everyday by not offering mp3 albums.
posted on Jun-4-00 at 10:50 AM
You probably didn't know this site existed, and that it's as useful as dictionary.com and thesarus.com. The Rhymezone is quick to become the poet and songwriter's killer app. I wish it had better dictionary integration though.
posted on Jun-4-00 at 10:36 AM
"On Monday, a small international group of computer rebels plans to introduce what they are calling a data haven, perched precariously on a World War II military fortress six miles off England's coast." Sealand will become their refuge for rebel data. Will they remain sovereign? Will they get away with anything?
posted on Jun-4-00 at 2:16 AM
This is the most action-packed webcam site I've seen in ages. Look at it grow! I think I saw a seedling sprout! It's hours and hours of fun, you can't see it all in one visit...
posted on Jun-3-00 at 1:15 PM
My Winamp Locker appears to be a free online storage space for your music files, hosted by Winamp. At 3Gb, and the offer of sharing and listening to your songs anywhere, how on earth do they expect to A) make any money back from all the server hardware they'll buy to support this, and B) not get sued by the RIAA? I thought it'd be a great service to exploit for my personal 2-3Gb collection, but it turns out you have to upload your files one at a time. ugh.
posted on May-31-00 at 9:39 PM
Stupid new marketing word of the day: "Advertorial" (spotted on this NY Times page). Here's a screenshot - what exactly are they trying to say? Do their advertisements now contain editorial copy that should help shoppers make a more informed decision, or are they just trying to fool us into thinking these advertisements have more credibility because they are "editorialized"? (disclaimer: I hate marketing BS)
posted on May-31-00 at 10:12 AM
(close-up on my face, quickly zooming out to an overhead shot as I yell) Noooooooooo!!!!! TicketWeb, one of the last places you could buy a ticket to a concert that wasn't Ticketmaster, just got bought out by Ticketmaster. TicketWeb's slogan is "The Online Ticketing Alternative." Not anymore....hello, monopoly anyone?
posted on May-30-00 at 2:12 PM
Jeremy's CyberCafe and Beer Haus is up for sale, but what's really cool about it is that it is located just outside of Joshua Tree National Park in the Southern California desert, and they have a full T-1 line that they're selling along with the business. Hmm...T-1 access plus nearby national park? Maybe we should take up a collection and buy it ourselves? :)
posted on May-29-00 at 11:20 AM
Yahoo released their mp3/CD/other media player today, complete with skins. How long until there is a Yahoo! browser?
posted on May-26-00 at 4:44 PM
Internet Explorer too hard for you? Confused by all the choices in Netscape? Like AOL? Maybe this this browser is more your speed.
posted on May-26-00 at 11:35 AM
So I stumbled upon this Britney Spears Auction at Yahoo (yeah, right, just like I stumble upon episodes of Dawson's Creek or 90210 - I swear I was just flipping channels!) and there's two notable things up for sale. This action figure/doll scares the bejesus out of me, there's something just plain wrong about a doll sporting a bare midriff, pigtails, and a short skirt (and did ya notice that she dots her "i" with heart? ugh.). Then this outfit from the Saturday Night Live episode is kinda creepy too, what on earth would someone do with her outfit? Put it up on the wall or let people rent it out for halloween?
posted on May-24-00 at 4:55 PM
Man who helped save Elian says raid violated civil rights, sues for $100M. The title says it all...crazy. I wonder if Elian's father could sue the extended family for kidnapping Elian and holding him hostage?
posted on May-23-00 at 5:42 PM
Coming to a toy store near you: Cease and Desist Barbie. Very funny stuff Justin, I expect you'll be getting a letter soon.
posted on May-23-00 at 3:15 PM
Yet Another Domain Name Dispute Develops (YADNDD): chunkymunky.com gets a Cease & Desist from chunkymonkey.com. One is a windows software site, the other a fan site about a cartoon character. Is there any cause for confusion on the part of users wanting to visit either site (actually, one would have to misspell "monkey" in order to get to the windows site)? Should the chunkymunky.com site owner have taken down his/her site? Who is going to protect domain owners from future things like this happening?
posted on May-23-00 at 10:07 AM
Guns save lives? (I suppose it's the bullets that kill people) The NRA today staged the "400 Man March" to show their support for guns and opposition to last week's Million Mom March. On CSPAN today, I also caught a bit of their convention, where they were openly talking about Bush being "their president". I don't know what scares me more, seeing the speeches from their convention on TV, or someday going to an NRA-themed restaurant ("I'll take the saturday night special please, with armor piercing sauce on the side.").
posted on May-20-00 at 11:57 AM
My prediction of the aftermath from this epinions imac commercial: email discussion lists will be roasting with the PC vs. Mac (religious) flame wars for the next week or so.
posted on May-18-00 at 7:37 PM
First Boo.com goes down, now DEN. The Digital Entertainment Network is closing it's doors after running out of cash. After raising over 33 million dollars, they burned it at rate of up to $3 million per month, pulled their $75 million stock offering, and with no revenue model in place, they had to close up shop, with 150 people suddenly out of work.
posted on May-18-00 at 9:33 AM
Nupedia is an open source encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to, much in the spirit of DMOZ, the open directory project. It's an attempt to combine the world's experts into one knowledge resource. I guess the question is now...can it work?
posted on May-16-00 at 1:36 PM
Amtrak is running one of the most bizarre promotions ever. Yesterday, I saw a bunch of billboards along the freeways saying "Do you have a face that can stop a train?" Below that was this URL: winafacelift.com. How a train company and facelifts go together, I don't know. It's almost as if they want their slogan to be "when you're too ugly for plane travel, take a train."
posted on May-14-00 at 8:44 AM
Chuck D vs. Lars Ulrich, tonight on PBS' Charlie Rose Show. I can't wait.
posted on May-12-00 at 12:11 PM
Although this story doesn't sound like much, the FTC coming down on Time Warner, the effects could be great. Time Warner has agreed to ban their minimum pricing on featured new CDs, admitting that for the last seven years, these compact discs have been artificially overpriced. Do you think making CDs cheaper for the first time in years had anything to do with all the attention mp3s have been getting from consumers?
posted on May-10-00 at 11:50 AM
Adbusters' Design Manifesto 2000 is an interesting read. In accordance with what many people believe, and the result of corporations going too far, the question becomes, do we need something like this for web creators? A Pledge to pursue personal interests and experiments on the web, instead of just your daily e-company work? Would you sign such a thing?
posted on May-9-00 at 10:01 AM
Unbelievable news nugget of the day: my friend Matt Lavallee has been slapped with a cease-and-desist order from the Mattel Toy Corporation for his personal domain, mattl.com. I guess no one with a name that sounds like a misspelled company is allowed to buy domains from now on? Something needs to be done, corporations do not own the web.
posted on May-8-00 at 4:50 PM
The new MetaTalk is now live as is the MetaFilter Network site, which also mentions another new site in the works. Discuss the MetaTalk site, and if you want to take issue with me, of all people, self-blogging, do it here.
posted on May-7-00 at 8:35 PM
Public embarrasment as a tool to stop child pornography trading. The Wall of Shame highlights Gnutella users searching and downloading kiddie porn, carrying this disclaimer: "I'm all for freedom of data sharing but not when it comes to exploiting children. A secret gnutella server has bogus image files with very obvious names. If you search and download thesefiles from the server your IP, time of D/L and DNS will be logged. You have been warned!"
posted on May-5-00 at 11:36 AM
posted on Aug-8-00 at 3:47 PM
John Scopes, the defendant in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, was born 100 years ago yesterday, but teaching evolution 76 years later is still considered controversial. Are we ever going to stop having to defend evolution?
posted on Aug-4-00 at 10:08 AM
Perhaps Lance was right. No maybe Peter was right. Regardless, the wheels of progress continue to turn, this time it's a p-to-p app that allows the swapping of console video games napster/gnutella-style, with the 17 year-old creator saying this about the possibility of getting shut down: "Sure, it is a concern that they may try to shut us down, despite the fact that we don't permit piracy, but I am confident in the law and believe we will prevail." Riiiiiight.
posted on Aug-2-00 at 5:28 PM
This is just sick and wrong. Convention Barbie? Do you really want to support a party with lame merchandising tie-ins like this? Sidenote: does this make Bush pro-Mattel and anti-Matt L?
posted on Aug-2-00 at 5:05 PM
The new weblog/site: take back vermont covers the the recent gay marriage ruling in Vermont and the flap it has caused for some of the more kooky right wing citizens. Many citizens have go so far as to openly display their bigotry by posting signs in their yards. The best part about the site? Putting it at the domain of the people that oppose gay marriage, and asking people to deface the signs by adding a ".COM" to them so they can see a site that asks folks to support the law and all the reasons why it should stand. Simply ingenious.
posted on Jul-30-00 at 1:46 PM
This just in: Napster's injunction to shut down tonight at midnight has been stayed (I'll add a url to a story when CNN writes it - BTW, how crazy is it that the napster news gets top level precedence as breaking news on a site as big as CNN? screenshot)
posted on Jul-28-00 at 2:59 PM
Napster may be down, but pandora's out of the box, baby. Get OpenNap as soon as you can (if anyone finds a link to OpenNap, by all means post the URL)
posted on Jul-26-00 at 5:38 PM
Awesome splash page spoof of KPMG's marketing-speak site. Of course now that web design is over, I guess it's better that sites start looking alike.
posted on Jul-24-00 at 7:47 AM
Is this the strangest contest ever? Guess what the winning couple's prize is for this? Answer: your wife's weight in beer. The even have a snazzy URL for the competition. Kooky.
posted on Jul-18-00 at 3:34 PM
Remember the movie Magnolia? One of the themes running through the movie was of amazing coincidences and chance. This story of a people getting hit by trains near San Francisco this week mentions one such coincidence. A man was hit by a train, and on that very train was the chairman of a "nonprofit group whose goal is to reduce the number of train-related collisions, deaths and injuries." The additional fact that this safety group leader was enroute to give a speech on grade-crossing safety makes it approach urban legend status, but it did indeed happen.
posted on Jul-15-00 at 9:02 AM
Oh great another "weblogs are stupid and they all suck" article came out, but what I really want to know is: why does the other article running this week at ALA acknowledge that "99% of everything is crap," but the weblog article doesn't? Comparing the cruft at the bottom of weblogs with the 1% best of writers (Ginsberg and Kerouac) seems unfair and pointless. And where are the solutions? Tell everyone to stop? Tell them to write better? What's so hard about ignoring the sites you don't like instead (I do that with most advertising)?
posted on Jul-14-00 at 1:50 PM
Open Secrets is a site for election information that takes the term "full disclosure" to the nth level. You can see how much money all the presidential candidates have taken and from whom. You can even do searches for "all the people in a single zip code that gave more than $1,000 to George Bush." And it's not just for would-be presidents, you can see who is filling senator's pockets too (like Philip Morris bankrolling Jesse Helms - big surprise there). It's all information that we deserve to know, and thanks to the web, it's there for the reading.
posted on Jul-13-00 at 12:02 AM
Mersenne Prime Search is a distributed computing project much like Seti@home, except instead of searching for aliens, you're in the running for $100,000 and a place in math history (shouldn't your computer actually be the one that goes into the math history books?).
posted on Jul-7-00 at 9:53 AM
While I'm not a fan of Harry Potter books (yet - I'll get around to checking them out someday soon), I find it interesting to see some folks still strongly oppose the stories of sorcery, while it seems the average CNN.com reader doesn't see a problem with them (the poll is 97-3 as I write this). It seems that every few years, some fiction strikes the fancy of kids, and parents rally against it, even though it piques kids' imaginations and gets them reading. What's so wrong with Potter books?
posted on Jul-6-00 at 9:16 PM
The story of Huang Qi, the man who started the first human-rights website in China, is one of the most depressing internet stories I've read. Now that he is jailed for "subverting state power," no US internet firms are sticking for him, as they're too busy trying to market their sites and services in China. I've participated in protests before, but I really wish we could get together and protest bigger things, things that might improve or save others' lives. I hope the proposed data havens like Sealand get online and allow sites such as Qi's to continue.
posted on Jul-6-00 at 9:14 AM
Napster Says RIAA Trying to Stifle Technology. Aw yeah, it's nice to see Napster get on the offensive. Armed with data showing that CD sales have increased with the rise in mp3 trading, Napster is now alleging that record companies are against the software because it reduces their 100% control of the music distribution business. But will a court allow Napster to go on while their users walk the fair-use tightrope?
posted on Jul-4-00 at 11:01 PM
The Go.com translator is a pretty good alternative to babelfish. This very site looks pretty good, and I can finally read my favorite spanish-language blog. Is computer power/translation programming advancing enough to enable real-time translation, or will this continue to be the impossible dream? I've always wanted an icq client that would let me chat with a spanish speaker without any lag. Of course, if that were possible, my cell phone would do real time vocal conversions as well. Someday, I guess, someday.
posted on Jul-3-00 at 6:19 PM
Boy Scouts: 1 Gay Memebers: 0 Court Says Boy Scouts Can Bar Gays, which is slightly troubling, in that a psuedo-national organization can make rules that go against government policy. I don't see how a scoutmaster being gay has anything to do with teaching kids how to tie knots and go camping though.
posted on Jun-28-00 at 12:00 PM
Top Secret Recipes is a site that aims to reveal the secrets of almost any popular restaurant's items. They have McDonalds Shakes, Orange Julius, Hot Dog on a Stick (complete with video), and Girl Scout Cookie Thin Mints. Oh my god, they actually reverse-engineered McDonalds' Secret Sauce. Be careful with the knowledge of that last one, you could be killed just for possessing it. If food is considered a restaurant's intellectual property, how does this site continue without being sued silly?
posted on Jun-26-00 at 12:22 PM
Porn on the net is not a problem. Readers chime in on an opinion column with opinions of their own. My favorites "All one has to do if you don't want to read such garbage is to delete it when you first sign onto the Internet" (this guy obviously has no clue how the web works) and "Is there software I can buy to block out you?" In this article, Porn site supporters and detractors both seem to agree that users have to go out of their way to see pornographic content on the web. You have to click on the link to see porn. Funny how the writer of the original article couldn't figure that out. Is porn really that much of a problem on the web, or are some people just too embarrased to admit that due to some curiosity, they wanted to follow the links?
posted on Jun-24-00 at 5:13 PM
Three words: Charlie's Angels Trailer. This looks pretty funny, especially with Bill Murray involved. I guess the real question this movie raises is "are the re-makes of yesteryear successes going to continue in the 00's?" Personally, I thought it was a 90's thing, which I often call the "recycled decade." Side question: why don't the angels have guns in the ending silhouette? Is that because of the current anti-gun climate? [thanks Kristin]
posted on Jun-23-00 at 3:19 PM
Dru Jay has a good article on voluntary micropayments, and the theme is something the failed micropayments crowd never thought of: instead of forcing the charge before you see it, treat a site as shareware, and pay after you've enjoyed it. Thanks to two individuals, I'm $0.50 richer today. Are voluntary paypal donations the wave of the blogging future?
posted on Jun-20-00 at 4:43 PM
The man who came up with the Etch-A-Sketch died. So sad. *shake* *shake* *shake* Gone, but not forgotten.
posted on Jun-13-00 at 7:49 PM
Reel.com is dead. Anyone care to speculate why they failed?
posted on Jun-12-00 at 10:35 AM
The Megaball needs your help. Mouser is still building the almighty Megaball, and every rubber band counts. It looks impressive, especially the catscan. Only you can help the Megaball.
posted on Jun-6-00 at 10:59 PM
A digital camera that plays mp3s? Convergence is a steam train that can't be stopped. In the future, will every piece of electronics priced over $100 include a mp3 player in it? Stuff like this makes me think the mp3 format will definitely surpass CDs and tapes as a delivery medium. Too bad the record companies still want to stop it, they're losing money everyday by not offering mp3 albums.
posted on Jun-4-00 at 10:50 AM
You probably didn't know this site existed, and that it's as useful as dictionary.com and thesarus.com. The Rhymezone is quick to become the poet and songwriter's killer app. I wish it had better dictionary integration though.
posted on Jun-4-00 at 10:36 AM
"On Monday, a small international group of computer rebels plans to introduce what they are calling a data haven, perched precariously on a World War II military fortress six miles off England's coast." Sealand will become their refuge for rebel data. Will they remain sovereign? Will they get away with anything?
posted on Jun-4-00 at 2:16 AM
This is the most action-packed webcam site I've seen in ages. Look at it grow! I think I saw a seedling sprout! It's hours and hours of fun, you can't see it all in one visit...
posted on Jun-3-00 at 1:15 PM
My Winamp Locker appears to be a free online storage space for your music files, hosted by Winamp. At 3Gb, and the offer of sharing and listening to your songs anywhere, how on earth do they expect to A) make any money back from all the server hardware they'll buy to support this, and B) not get sued by the RIAA? I thought it'd be a great service to exploit for my personal 2-3Gb collection, but it turns out you have to upload your files one at a time. ugh.
posted on May-31-00 at 9:39 PM
Stupid new marketing word of the day: "Advertorial" (spotted on this NY Times page). Here's a screenshot - what exactly are they trying to say? Do their advertisements now contain editorial copy that should help shoppers make a more informed decision, or are they just trying to fool us into thinking these advertisements have more credibility because they are "editorialized"? (disclaimer: I hate marketing BS)
posted on May-31-00 at 10:12 AM
(close-up on my face, quickly zooming out to an overhead shot as I yell) Noooooooooo!!!!! TicketWeb, one of the last places you could buy a ticket to a concert that wasn't Ticketmaster, just got bought out by Ticketmaster. TicketWeb's slogan is "The Online Ticketing Alternative." Not anymore....hello, monopoly anyone?
posted on May-30-00 at 2:12 PM
Jeremy's CyberCafe and Beer Haus is up for sale, but what's really cool about it is that it is located just outside of Joshua Tree National Park in the Southern California desert, and they have a full T-1 line that they're selling along with the business. Hmm...T-1 access plus nearby national park? Maybe we should take up a collection and buy it ourselves? :)
posted on May-29-00 at 11:20 AM
Yahoo released their mp3/CD/other media player today, complete with skins. How long until there is a Yahoo! browser?
posted on May-26-00 at 4:44 PM
Internet Explorer too hard for you? Confused by all the choices in Netscape? Like AOL? Maybe this this browser is more your speed.
posted on May-26-00 at 11:35 AM
So I stumbled upon this Britney Spears Auction at Yahoo (yeah, right, just like I stumble upon episodes of Dawson's Creek or 90210 - I swear I was just flipping channels!) and there's two notable things up for sale. This action figure/doll scares the bejesus out of me, there's something just plain wrong about a doll sporting a bare midriff, pigtails, and a short skirt (and did ya notice that she dots her "i" with heart? ugh.). Then this outfit from the Saturday Night Live episode is kinda creepy too, what on earth would someone do with her outfit? Put it up on the wall or let people rent it out for halloween?
posted on May-24-00 at 4:55 PM
Man who helped save Elian says raid violated civil rights, sues for $100M. The title says it all...crazy. I wonder if Elian's father could sue the extended family for kidnapping Elian and holding him hostage?
posted on May-23-00 at 5:42 PM
Coming to a toy store near you: Cease and Desist Barbie. Very funny stuff Justin, I expect you'll be getting a letter soon.
posted on May-23-00 at 3:15 PM
Yet Another Domain Name Dispute Develops (YADNDD): chunkymunky.com gets a Cease & Desist from chunkymonkey.com. One is a windows software site, the other a fan site about a cartoon character. Is there any cause for confusion on the part of users wanting to visit either site (actually, one would have to misspell "monkey" in order to get to the windows site)? Should the chunkymunky.com site owner have taken down his/her site? Who is going to protect domain owners from future things like this happening?
posted on May-23-00 at 10:07 AM
Guns save lives? (I suppose it's the bullets that kill people) The NRA today staged the "400 Man March" to show their support for guns and opposition to last week's Million Mom March. On CSPAN today, I also caught a bit of their convention, where they were openly talking about Bush being "their president". I don't know what scares me more, seeing the speeches from their convention on TV, or someday going to an NRA-themed restaurant ("I'll take the saturday night special please, with armor piercing sauce on the side.").
posted on May-20-00 at 11:57 AM
My prediction of the aftermath from this epinions imac commercial: email discussion lists will be roasting with the PC vs. Mac (religious) flame wars for the next week or so.
posted on May-18-00 at 7:37 PM
First Boo.com goes down, now DEN. The Digital Entertainment Network is closing it's doors after running out of cash. After raising over 33 million dollars, they burned it at rate of up to $3 million per month, pulled their $75 million stock offering, and with no revenue model in place, they had to close up shop, with 150 people suddenly out of work.
posted on May-18-00 at 9:33 AM
Nupedia is an open source encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to, much in the spirit of DMOZ, the open directory project. It's an attempt to combine the world's experts into one knowledge resource. I guess the question is now...can it work?
posted on May-16-00 at 1:36 PM
Amtrak is running one of the most bizarre promotions ever. Yesterday, I saw a bunch of billboards along the freeways saying "Do you have a face that can stop a train?" Below that was this URL: winafacelift.com. How a train company and facelifts go together, I don't know. It's almost as if they want their slogan to be "when you're too ugly for plane travel, take a train."
posted on May-14-00 at 8:44 AM
Chuck D vs. Lars Ulrich, tonight on PBS' Charlie Rose Show. I can't wait.
posted on May-12-00 at 12:11 PM
Although this story doesn't sound like much, the FTC coming down on Time Warner, the effects could be great. Time Warner has agreed to ban their minimum pricing on featured new CDs, admitting that for the last seven years, these compact discs have been artificially overpriced. Do you think making CDs cheaper for the first time in years had anything to do with all the attention mp3s have been getting from consumers?
posted on May-10-00 at 11:50 AM
Adbusters' Design Manifesto 2000 is an interesting read. In accordance with what many people believe, and the result of corporations going too far, the question becomes, do we need something like this for web creators? A Pledge to pursue personal interests and experiments on the web, instead of just your daily e-company work? Would you sign such a thing?
posted on May-9-00 at 10:01 AM
Unbelievable news nugget of the day: my friend Matt Lavallee has been slapped with a cease-and-desist order from the Mattel Toy Corporation for his personal domain, mattl.com. I guess no one with a name that sounds like a misspelled company is allowed to buy domains from now on? Something needs to be done, corporations do not own the web.
posted on May-8-00 at 4:50 PM
The new MetaTalk is now live as is the MetaFilter Network site, which also mentions another new site in the works. Discuss the MetaTalk site, and if you want to take issue with me, of all people, self-blogging, do it here.
posted on May-7-00 at 8:35 PM
Public embarrasment as a tool to stop child pornography trading. The Wall of Shame highlights Gnutella users searching and downloading kiddie porn, carrying this disclaimer: "I'm all for freedom of data sharing but not when it comes to exploiting children. A secret gnutella server has bogus image files with very obvious names. If you search and download thesefiles from the server your IP, time of D/L and DNS will be logged. You have been warned!"
posted on May-5-00 at 11:36 AM
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