Send along any of your finds and I'll add them to the pile:

• Upside-down 8's - The Uni Watch blog uncovers what sound like some mis-played 8's on Boston Red Sox uniforms and banners.
  
• Even A Cy Young Pitcher Apologizes For Not Updating His Blog - I just thought it was hehful that Curt Schilling started a blog entry with "I continue to fall behind but am trying to at least keep up with the season when it comes to blogging. " Welcome to the fraternity of apologists, Curt.
  
• Rick Rolling - Because I just heard about this myself, I'm not going to try to pull it on unsuspecting Earthling readers. It's a running gag where you try to fool people into clicking a link that ends up at Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" video.
  
• Childhood Dreams Become Reality - Anil heralds the introduction of a version of the Soundwave Transformer toy that really does play music! More on the twisted history of the Transformer toy line in this purged Stuffo.com article preserved by the Wayback Machine, penned by yours truly. [via IBRW]
  
• Bad Spock Blog - A blog that collects poorly done drawings of Mr. Spock, contributed by readers. [via Tom]
  
• Video Hehs:
  
  • The Hipster Olympics [via Cheengoo]
    
  • Breaking The Surfer Stereotype [via Don]

Posted by dave coustan at 3:05 PM |

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• Another Home Run For *PLAYER*! - A Wikipedia page devoted to John Dowd. He's the fake Barry Bonds character that EA Sports uses to represent Bonds in their video games, since he's not part of the MLB player's union. "In a similar fashion, Barry Bonds is known as "Joe Young" in 2K Sports' MLB 2K7 game, and "Reggie Stocker" in MLB 07: The Show. " [via Creevus]
  
• It Looks Good On You, Though - With both NCAA and NFL football nearly upon us, Cap'n Ken brings us a look at this year's crop of LSU hats.
  
• Blank Is The New Blank - This infographic traces and relates all of the things that are the new something else, as in "Dippin Dots is the new McDLT." [via Josh]
  
• Google Thinks I Am A Robot - Somehow the Googlebots got confused and accused Mojo of lacking humanity.
  
• iPhone Sexy Touch Time - Buy a little quality time with an iPhone. Someone in India is selling "...15 minutes to "see/touch/feel" the JesusPhone under supervision." via Travis]
  
• And a few video hehs:
  
  • Uhh... - This *appears* to be a verbal dispute ending with one of the parties chucking himself against a wall. [via Leah Jones]
    
  • Manager Ejected From Baseball Game - It has all the hallmark features of a classic manager/ump discussion -- the cap throw, chest-bumping, kicking dirt on home plate, and wild gesticulation. Then the manager really melts down and sets a whole new standard for baseball bufoonery. Watch for the grenade maneuver.
    
  • Nosy Bears - A nostalgic heh in the form of an afternoon/saturday morning toy commercial from 1992. [via Creevus]
    
  • The Entertainer By Hand - Somewhere between heh and groany, a clip of a guy who can perform "The Entertainer," instrument-free with only his hands. [via Tom]
    
  
  
• Yog's Notebook Coloring Contest - On the cute side of heh, this is a coloring contest put on by Sci-Fi/Horror zine and blog Yog's Notebook:
  

  Add Yog channel to your page

  
  They're using Splashcast to display entries, and I discovered it when SplashCast's Marshall K tweeted about it.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 4:13 PM |

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For about a year now, one of my evening rituals has been strolling through sketchblogs. If you're an artist, an aspiring artist or the type of person that likes to lean over artists' shoulders and ask probing questions, I highly recommend mixing some sketchblogs in with your wordy techy reading.

A sketchblog is simply a blog focused on illustrations, paintings, sketches, cartoons or other two-dimensional art. In their purest form, sketchblogs are focused on artwork from one artist or a small group of artists. Some are very diary-like, reporting daily life in sketches or comics. Others are more free-form. In most cases, sketchblogs generally end up being at least indirectly autobiographical. You see who the artist is based on what he or she makes.

These days, I usually jump straight past an artist's online portfolio to his or her blog. A portfolio has a formal, best-foot-forward feeling, like a job interview. Flipping through a sketchblog is more like visiting the artist's studio. The reverse chronological format is perfect, because you can see how the artist is improving and experimenting over time.

Here's a round-up of excellent sketchblogs to get you started:

Continue reading "Blogs, Without All the Reading"

Posted by Tom Harris at 11:26 PM |

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A round-up of hehful things from the Internet:

• Friends Trapped In An iPhone - Photojojo highlights a technique for taking contact photos of your friends that make it look like they're trapped inside the iPhone when they call you. I thought about including a photo but it's much better revealed after a click. [via Projectionist by way of Gregg]
  
• The Original iPhone - Circa 1984.
  
• Dramatic Chipmunk: Director's Cut - Here's the original source clip(sans suspenseful music) that the dramatic chipmunk must have come from. And another origin revealed -- decades before icanhascheezburger there were the classic Laugh-Out-Loud Cats in the funny pages.
  
• One Way To Get People To Your Conference - Get your company to send you to Rich Web Experience 2007, go home with a free iPod Video or Wii. [also via Gregg]
  
• Coolest Dog Costume Ever - [via Josh]
  
• Blood Puddle Pillows - Red velvet pillows in the organic, spilly shapes of pooled blood. Not nearly as gruesome as it sounds, and the photo gallery really sells it. Doesn't look all that comfortable, though.
  
• The Internet Crash of 2007 - an The Onion News Network special report. "Although the internet did restart, Tipton found that all data had been lost." "I feel like control-alt-deleting myself."
  

Posted by dave coustan at 11:47 AM |

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Earthling reader Hunt called foul last week when iPhone day coverage trumped the heh list, so today just for him I've put together a full complement of heh. If you come across something particularly hehful in your travels on the internet, feel free to send it my way:

• Shocking Cats - Hot on the heels of the dramatic chipmunk come the shocking cats. Be warned. It's quite shocking.
  
• The Announcer's Test - At one time, according to Wikipedia and its cited sources, this test was given to would-be broadcast announcers, and it developed from there into both a comedy routine and a piece of lore. It starts with "One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese, four limerick oysters, five corpulent porpoises..."
  
• New Favorite Hehful Blog - It's called Passive Aggressive Notes and it's a Flickr chronicle of hateful notes left for roommates, co-workers, and the like. Emperor Palpatine would be proud. [via crystalline9]
  
• Ugly Mailboxes - Second-favorite hehful blog. {via mabisa]
  
• Star Wars AT-AT Baby Stroller - There's always room in a heh list for Star Wars replicas. Blogs Daddytypes and Thingamababy tracked down the creator and put together an interview and photo gallery with all of the details.
  
• Japanese Human Tetris - The object of this game show is to adjust your body so you fit through the odd-shaped hole in a billboard coming at you at a fairly rapid speed. Sort of Kool-Aid Man meets Double Dare. Fittingly, if you fail, you are shamed with a fall into a pool of water and the words "NOT CLEAR."
  
• Floppy Disks' New Meaning - Most kids probably now associate floppy disks with "saving" since the only visual contact they have with them is through the "save" icons in various programs. [via jzawodn]
  
• Facebook In 40 Years - A glimpse into the social networks of a distant tomorrow.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 10:25 AM |

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• Ava Thursday's Letter To Rachel - Ward's daughter Ava writes a clear, concise letter to her bff Rachel. Awww.
  
• Grip Enhancement Rig - Though it's really for those who have a diminished ability to grip things, it might also appeal to the idle rich, the exceedingly lazy, and anyone who wants to become an instant superhero.
  
• Best, Worst, and Weirdest Airports - Salon's "Ask The Pilot" column publishes reader reviews of the world's airports. From a description of the Mumbai airport: "Sullen employees who wish you'd go away."
  
• Tiny Wooden Robots - Why haven't those three words hung out together before? [via Tracy]
  
• Kid's Show Love Song For The Frying Pan - Pans are pretty great, when you stop and think about it. A fitting ode.
  
• Pixellated Jewelry - Blurred out wearable necklaces. Heh.
  
• Mr. T's Core Competency - He excels in one particular area, as we all know. And It says so on his business cards. [via Tiny E]
  
• Rejected WiiPlay Games - Even if the first gag is just plain wrong, stick around and you're sure to enjoy at least a few of them.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:25 PM |

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Owing in small part to the impressive results of Helio's recent human-bot collaboration on the Ocean, I've ratcheted up my watch on all things robot. I'm now following blogs like Robots Dreams and Robot Gossip, and keeping my eye on some Google blog searches. Here are some highlights of the collected goodies I keep in the myFavorites tag robotstuff:

• Clocky Robot Alarm Clock - "Almost immediately after the alarm sounds, Clocky springs into action. His wheels drive him forward and back until he inevitably falls off your nightstand and begins freewheeling through your bedroom, until you manage to snag him and shut off the alarm. Watch your toes!"
  
• Glowbots Change Their Look Based On Interactions - "When the GlowBot is reintroduced to its robot colleauges, it starts to mingle with them and share its new pattern. The other robots are affected by it and start to evolve their own patterns and share them with their neighbors in turn. To observers, the effect is like sowing a seed that spreads among the robot population as they move around.“
  
• Retired Robots - Where MIT robotics projects go to hang out and play Wii for the rest of their robotic lives.
  
• Robot Army To Descend On NYC - "...artist Javier Tellez will unleash his army of minitature robots for a parade down NYC city streets. If that weren't already enough, our toy robot overlords will be holding placards written in collaboration with inmates of mental hospitals."
  
• Robots And Monsters: A Charitable Menagerie - "RobotsAndMonsters.org is a charitable art project which matches goodwill and charitable giving with custom-made commissioned cartoon and pop art. Giving just a little bit gets an original drawing of a robot or a monster of your specification sent to your door.." Count me in.
  
• Can Animatronics Make PowerPoint Interesting? - "On May 18, buildup Co., Ltd. unveiled the Tamanoi Vinegar Robot, the world’s first robot designed to make presentations about vinegar." The promotional video does look a lot more fun than PowerPoint.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:40 PM |

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As per this blog's motto and ground rules, I don't write for robots, just people. But from time to time my curiosity does get the best of me and I wonder what's going on in their world. This round-up aims to keep us all updated on the following question: what else have robots been up to besides comment-spamming your blog, sweeping your floors, protecting your PC from malware and invaders, and serving you Dippin Dots at the movie theatre?

• Make A Paper Robot - Free and printer-friendly kit for making a transformable Optimus Prime, or twenty. Heck yeah. [via Lifehacker]
  
• A Sad Realization - Merlin Mann sings the CAPTCHA blues. You know CAPTCHA -- it's that form validation system the industry uses where they give you crazy mixed-up letters and numbers and you have to type them into a box.
  
• A Soft And Fuzzy Robot Wearing A Soft And Fuzzy Sweater
  
• Steam-powered R2D2
  
• Do Robots Dream Of Electric Beer? Japanese beer brand Asahi has devised robots that can (slowly and deliberately) pour a can of beer into a glass for you. Brilliant!
  
• Yeah, What He Said - Not really sure what's going on here, but clearly there's a robot involved in the punchline.
  
• Keeping Up With The Robotobots - Apparently tiny robotic Run-DMC are working on a collaboration with the old Nintendo R.O.B. Will we see a R.o.b./DMC release some day?
  

Posted by dave coustan at 11:12 AM |

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• The new Topix - Topix has made some big changes to become more human being-focused instead of search engine-focused. I love their new home page design, and the way that they've employed Roboblogger to handle any editing tasks humans haven't yet stepped up to the plate for. I'm also impressed with the way their CEO framed up the changes on his own blog. More from Josh on what the changes at Topix mean to him.
  
• Nowpublic.com - I landed here after a search for somethingorother, and was glad I found it. I like that its mission is immediately intelligible and it effectively invites you into the process of newsgathering.
  
• If you haven't already, do a little work in Geni.com and send it to your parents or siblings. It's a fun and easy genealogy tracking site, and it's really addictive. I set up the basics of my own family tree and sent it to my folks, and within a couple of hour my dad had added 50 records to the tree. Since everyone can be responsible for their own nuclear family and no one person has to be the keeper of the whole thing, your tree can grow really fast and then keep growing over time as different participants get the itch to mess with it.
  
• The Swapatorium - This is a blog of interesting finds and the stories behind them. The tag line reads "Flea markets, thrift stores, antique shops,
  garage and estate sales, found photographs, collecting, odd finds, swaps and more." [ via navelgazer ]
  
• Futuremail (or Futurenag) - I've told at least three friends about this through literal word of mouth in the past couple of days. It's a system for sending yourself email reminders in the future. For their intended purpose, they are a nice and lightweight way to nag yourself instead of having to look at a calendar all the time. I also want to set some to ask me about the distant future. It would be an interesting experiment to send yourself emails at 5, 10, 20 and 50 years out to see if there's any chance both you and the world will be similar enough that you'll get them that far out from now. You could also ask yourself at varying intervals whether you're any closer to achieving your personal goals. Heh, I'd love to offer a service where I write futuremails for people. In fact, if you want to ask yourself something several years down the road but don't know exactly what, get in touch and I'll give you some suggestions.
  
• (Update: bonus for Red Sox fans) Curt Schilling blogs after his opening day start -- I knew that Red Sox ace Curt Schilling had started a blog of his own this year, but hadn't spent a ton of time looking at it yet. Today I'm really impressed that he's writing about his pitching performance. It's pretty unprecedented to have an All-Star level, top professional athlete critiquing his own performance and providing his own commentary without the filter of the sports writers. And he uses WordPress! Here's a snippet: "Not sure where to even start. Two words sum it up best, no command. Can’t remember a game where I couldn’t make adjustments but today was certainly one of those."
  

Posted by dave coustan at 11:02 AM |

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I just realized the last time I published a list of Friday hehs was several weeks ago. Time to get back on it and make some room at the top of my heh queue:

• Two good Thriller clips: Here's a wedding party and an Indian Bollywood production paying homage to the Michael Jackson classic.
  
• Feel like ESPN's Bill Simmons is a little too formulaic these days? Here's a site that will let you write your own "Sports Guy" column in the style of Bill himself.
  
• Rappin Rove: Just your standard clip of a White House senior adviser to the president displaying his understanding of hip-hop culture. Rove himself doesn't rap much; he sort of does a cross between the brooklyn stomp and walking like an egyptian, and says "MC Rove" whenever the mic is passed his way. And the lead MC's style resembles Fred Flintstone in the old Fruity Pebbles commercials. [via Earthling's mom]
  
• Mario On Ice with Jason Bateman and Alyssa Milano: A classic -- Mr. Belvedere as King Koopa attacks Jason Bateman's NES with a "virus".
  
• The MacGyver paperclip: heh.
  
• Dear Internet: "dearinter.net offers consensus life coaching. can't decide if you should eat that three day old pizza or whether you'll be alone for the rest of your week? ask the internet, we'll tell you."
  
• Japanese Golden Poop Cellphone Charm: This has made several tours on the gadget sites, but it still baffles me. Apparently the most popular cellphone charm in Japan is a golden pile of poop. This Gizmodo article reports they've sold over 2 million of them.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 11:10 AM |

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Your occasional Friday round-up of web-based things that make you quietly say "heh":

• Do you have a Liberty Tax Service branch in your neighborhood? I get a heh every day on the way to work as I pass Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty hustling those in need of tax help into the shop. From what I can tell, this is going on throughout the U.S. and will be until tax day. Some cities think of them as "human signs" and want them removed or regulated via code enforcement. Personally, I kind of enjoy seeing them each morning. Here's a video on YouTube of some of the Uncle Sams and Lady Libs in action, and to the right is a photo from my local branch.
  
• Today's Very Short List e-mail is a music video for The Go! Team's song "Junior Kickstart." It's a live-action Ms. Pac Man situation that pays homage to an actual street game from 2004 called Pacmanhattan.
  
• Crackerjack Junction sings The Ewok Celebration Song - Barbershop quartet sings the Ewoks' greatest hit. {via Dr. Zon]
  
• New Mac/PC ad About Vista Security - If you've ever been hassled by too-persistent alert boxes, you'll appreciate this. [via Ken]
  
• World's Simplest Role-playing Game - Heh.
  
• 3-year Anniversary Of Dr. Geek's Online Presence - Cable subscribers of a certain vintage, and visitors to Venice Beach will remember Dr. Geek of Blublockers ad fame. In the dark days before February 2004, there was no dedicated online Dr. Geek presence. Crvs sent me a link to Dr. Geek's Wordology, and a search of the Wayback Machine revealed the site's first known appearance was Valentine's Day, 2004. It hasn't changed much at all since then, but think of the geek fondly as you celebrate next week.
  
• Vista Ultimate Upgrade Signature Edition - Be the nerdiest nerd around and own a Vista upgrade kit signed by the notorious BG, Bill Gates himself. Actually, please don't.
  
• Running From Camera Blog - "The rules are simple: I put the self-timer on 2 seconds, push the button and try to get as far from the camera as I can." [via splodinvark]
  

Posted by dave coustan at 2:28 PM |

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A few other technologies I saw at ShowStoppers, and then links to the previous articles:

• I tried on the stylish Jawbone noise-cancelling bluetooth headset, and also managed to get their representative to demonstrate how it looks for Earthling readers:

  
  Far less geeky than your average bluetooth headset

  Some people are dead-set against wireless headsets of any kind. But if you're willing to sport something in your ear, you'd be more fashion-forward and less geeky wearing this one. There's no flashing blue light, it's reasonably sized, and it has a certain industrial chic thing going for it. It has a little bump that sticks into the side of your jaw -- I tried it and you can't feel it there -- and that helps it to distinguish your speech from background noise and selectively amplify the former. The noise filtration feature was developed for military applications at DARPA and is pretty impressive. They're currently for sale at some Cingular stores for around $120, and Jawbone.com is offering an interesting promotional deal on silver, black, and red models: "We are currently taking preorders for those headsets and will offer free ground shipping (US only) to any customer who emails their name, address, and color preference to buy@aliph.com by January 20th."

Continue reading "ShowStoppers Round-up"

Posted by dave coustan at 3:53 PM |

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As I ease back in to the Earthling chair after some restful time off, here's a grab bag of stuff worth looking at from the past week or so:

• Web Mail Guy Explains Performance Monitoring - I've been meaning to point to this for some time. John put together an interesting and thorough explanation of one of the tools the EarthLink Web Mail team uses to keep tabs on system performance, complete with graphs that make sense.
  
• Blog-media Cliches - As Tom (new start page Tom) put it, it's like a Strunk and White treatment of commonly used phrases in blogs and comments. I guess in 2007 I should esolve to purge some of these from common usage. Sorry, I'm holding on to "heh".
  
• Still Don't Have A Wii, But Been Eyeing People's Miis - I haven't been Wii-hunting all that hard, but I do a periodic spot check at Best Buy and Target to see if I happen upon one in the wild. Looks like I'm missing out on all of the Mii fun. A Mii is the character you make to represent yourself within the Wii world. The link is someone's sweet Figrin D'an-lookin Mii, and here's a whole gallery of Miis.
  
• Blogging Wills - Problogger picked up an interesting story about whether you might want to organize your blog information so that they are taken care of in whatever way you prefer in the event of your death.
  
• MySpace Security Measures - Many news outlets picked up the story of MySpace's beefed up "Content Assurance Team" led by former Federal Prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam, with the mission of tracking down spammers and predators abusing the site.
  
• Wired's Foot-in-mouth Awards - It's got some of the best oops lines of 2006, including "series of tubes," and "the google."
  

Posted by dave coustan at 2:06 PM |

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December always used to be the month when I'd make a point of going to bookstores to buy the year-end Music magazines like Q and NME and The Face (R.I.P. The Face), for their "best music of the year" lists. The benefit of the year-end lists is that for most listeners and reviewers, it's not until your musical selections have had to compete with each other for your attention before you can really know what's good and what just seemed good when you first bought it. And annual hindsight is a good antidote to the inevitable layer of hype that surrounds new releases throughout the year.

Online lists have almost completely taken the place of the print mags for me, and the ability to listen to a track after you read a paragraph of description is a big improvement over the glossy but not interactive paper lists. But I wish there was still more thought given to how to make an onilne "bests" lists more utility-driven. I glanced over PitchforkMedia.com's Top 100 Tracks of 2006 this morning, and felt that it was a little unwieldy and dense. 100 of anything is tough to go through, but especially so when it's paragraphs of text about musical tracks, ten at a time, listed by rank rather than some other organizing principle. If you don't have much prior frame of reference, it's hard to get into.

The first question of the list designer should be: is the list intended to show off the listmaker's editorial prowess in making musical selections, or to expose the reader to lots of new music that they may want to buy? If there's a strong element of helping out those of us who may not have been keeping up with the year in music, you need to help us out a little more.

One suggestion I can think of is to present the whole list as a listenable mix of tracks, where I can skip around until I find something I like, and then read more about it. You wouldn't have to give the music away for free, just let me play it in the course of using the mix. I'll gladly buy what I like. The key is to make it easy for me to go between the words of the reviewer and the music itself. Maybe there are DRM issues here, but I'd think by now something could be worked out. On that same subject, how about setting up a package deal where if I buy your whole list of best tracks through iTunes or the like, I get a nice little discount?

Another thing that would help is cross-categorization. Offer your list ranked in order of greatness, but give me some other ways to organize it as well, to help me get past the arbitrariness of ranking unilke songs against each other.

I don't mean to single out Pitchfork's list -- I can't find many other lists online that make extra special effort to make themselves easy to cozy up to. For your consideration, I did also come across:

• emusic's best albums
  
• iTunes' lists (not available via the web that I can tell)
  
• the charts at Last.fm (wow, people still really like Wonderwall)
  
• Amazon's best of 2006 lists (a little easier to sink your teeth into)
  
• A Vox.com Question of the Day about it (fun to explore but unwieldy)
  
• Insound.com's top 100 sellers of 2006 (with a discount, no less)
  
• (updates):
  
• WFMU's best lists of 2006 [via John]
  
• Slate's Albums you may have missed is fairly manageable
  

Any other suggestions for helpful year-end music recommenders?

Posted by dave coustan at 2:45 PM |

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• Length is the new height - A very tall man saves a dolphin. It was a good day.
  
• An Indian Guitar Hero Utterlyboring.com calls this guy a Bollywood Austin Powers.
  
• How many dinosaurs is in a gallon of gasoline? - Thank you, internet.
  
• Arm-mounted task nagger - Be like an NFL quarterback and wear your daily playbook on your sleeve. If it didn't look so dorky I'd be all over it.
  
• As advertised, "banana suit guy sellin hats for a dolla". [via splodinvark]
  
• Conference Karaoke Gone Awry - I'm not qualified to say whether or not it's funny, but it's definitely awkward.

Posted by dave coustan at 4:51 PM |

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I'm starting to see those catalogs show up that say "Guaranteed delivery if you order by December XX!" and that's usually my signal to start getting serious about getting the last few gifts figured out. I'm raiding the myFavorites buyinghelp tag yet again to offer a little assistance:

• As far as finding a super-low price, Chris at Voodoo Ventures compared shopping engines and found along the way that he likes Jellyfish.com best. There's also Boddit.com, which aggregates some of the better-known deal sites.
  
• If you're looking for a digital camera, BoingBoing and Lifehacker suggested that you can use Flickr's camera statistics to figure out what's most popular and thus probably a solid choice. David Pogue did an experiment on consumer cameras and found that resolution beyond 5 megapixels for printing just doesn't matter.
  
• Don't forget about Etsy.com for a wide variety of handmade stuff.
  
• Thanks to the crafting movement and how-to blogs, never has it been easier (says me) to make your own stuff for super-cheap. And it's not too late to do it and mail things off in time for your holiday of choice. Peruse instructables and the Craft blog for ideas (like how to grow your own loofah).

Posted by dave coustan at 1:50 PM |

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• Make A Tiny Star Wars Model - The Craft blog offers instructions on how to make a tiny X-Wing Fighter out of Paris Metro tickets. I'd love to gather in one place all of the rare souls who currently have in their possession (a)a bone folder, (b)more than one used Paris Metro ticket, and (c)enough nerdiness to admire the fine lines of the X-Wing. For the uninitiated, a bone folder is a tool made out of bone used to make precise folds in paper and other materials. More useful than it sounds if you're into crafting or fold invitations for a living.

• Helsinki Complaints Choir [via Why Oh Why]. "Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints." It's beautiful.

• Console Screens Of Death - Here's what the Next Generation video game consoles look like at their most private, embarassing moments.

• Rumsfeld Resignation Represented In Mac OS Dock - This is geeky, late to the game, and already propagated on BoingBoing(what isn't?), but it's a heh to anyone who knows their way around the Mac OS X Dock.

• Souvenirs Flickr Set [via Tom] - Don't think about it too much -- it'll hurt your head. This photographer took pictures of tiny souvenirs and used perspective and amazing framing to make them look like the actual things they represent. Just take a look.

• True Realism In NextGen Video Games - WayIPlay.com explains how lifelike games on the new consoles really are.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 1:01 PM |

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Guest-blogger John here, filling in for vacationing Dave. Party!

I thought it might be nice to switch up on the usual "Friday Heh" post with a roundup of some of my favorite music-related sites. The sites below are mostly pop music just like the radio, but you probably haven't heard of any of the artists. So put on your explorer's hat and get ready to hear something... new.

SomeSongs - This site is a large collection of links to tracks made by people who make music just because. The songs are all evaluated by listeners like you, resulting in a rating from 0.00 to 10. Yes, there are songs on there with almost a zero. Listen if you dare! Most of the artists on this site are very very indie, but try the list of top-rated songs and you're almost guaranteed to hear some top-notch tunage.

Song Fight! - One of the most venerable online music sites, SongFight.org is an online song competition held every week. A title is posted, and everyone on the Internet is invited to write a song for that title. The entries are posted, and you can vote for your favorite. Some entries are so good you wonder why they're not on the radio. Other entries make you wish you never evolved ears. Dig through the archives for literally DAYS worth of free music to listen to and hate add to your iTunes.

Garageband.com - Nothing to do with Apple's music-creation software, Garageband.com is another amalgamation of free, independent music that's been filtered and rated so you can get to the good stuff quick. The artists on Garageband are trying a little bit harder to be "pro" than the folks on SomeSongs and Song Fight.

Magnatune - This online record label's Googlesque tag line is "We are not evil." They try to do right by their artists and their audience. You can download the music in their catalog for free, or purchase uncompressed WAV files to burn a CD of an album like the groovy "I Don't Know What I'm Doing" by my pal Brad Sucks.

Posted by John Nolt at 2:20 PM |

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First, an update on a previously reported heh: Remember young Ava's Love Is Embarassing book? Ava gave the book to her classmate Alexander, and this week her dad reports back on how the book was received. As Ava predicted, Alexander was duly inbarist.

• Ghosts Of Halloween Past - Ava's dad Ward also offered a great look back at his old halloween costumes.
  
• Use Your iPod As A Ouija Board - This looks like it works well, but the thing is, there's a popular band named "Yes" but none named "No". That could slant some of the answers. I guess a true ghost would still find a way to get a No across.
  
• The StickCam - Sure, we all know what it's like to chase a stick, but what's it's like to *be* a stick being chased by a Pug? [via John]
  
• Illustrated Seven Phases Of Owning An iPod - I've seen people utterly self-destruct around Phase 6. People always seem to forget that Apple does not actually disable the functionality of older iPods each time they come out with new ones. Word to the wise.
  
• Who Says Irony Is Dead - David Parmet found a CNN.com headline that kind of hurts my head.
  
• When Studio Effects Go Bad - I think the image was supposed to switch when this newscaster poked at the screen with his finger. This is the kind of thing I'd miss if YouTube found a way to magically and suddenly remove all of its broadcast content.
  
• Adopt A Microbe - Featured on Blogger. The illustrations are particularly hehful.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 1:36 PM |

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There's been a lot of action this week in the field of copyright and digital asset rights management, including YouTube's working on removing tens of thousands of video clips that contain copyrighted material. Mark Cuban had one of the most interesting and blogger-baiting bits of unsubstantiated gossip about how concerns about copyright lawsuits may have played into the negotiations as YouTube sold to Google.

During YouTube's rise, Om Malik observed back in February that the growing popularity of YouTube had "...less to do with amateur content, and more to do with copyright infringing content...I wonder how many people actually visit You Tube to watch broadcast content online." I wonder how long it'll be before one of the other video hosting services with fewer scruples and partners to worry about becomes the next destination for copyrighted video content. Any bets on which one it'll be? Is this a cycle that will go on for a while, or will someone figure out an efficient and kosher way to tap into the demand for sharing clips hastily grabbed off of TV and old recorded media?

Update: This probably won't be available for long, but Valleywag offers a clip on YouTube of the broadcast response by Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report to his clips being removed by his parent company.

Here are a few more of the week's DRM-related stories:

• MySpace To Block Copyrighted Music - Through a partnership with Gracenote, MySpace is getting serious about keeping copyright-protected music clips off of the site. Less of a worry than with YouTube since it's not central to what MySpace is about, but I do wonder if this will cut into MySpace's popularity when other social networks don't have similar policing practices. Less music playing on MySpace pages wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Instead of calling it a DRM crackdown, they could call it a user experience improvement.
  
• Kazaa Settles With Music Publishers - Peer-to-peer music sharing service Kazaa is getting some comeuppance in the form of a couple of class action lawsuit settlements rumored to total in the $100 million dollar range.
  
• Tape It Off The Internet Dot Com - On the other side of the DRM coin, I found this new television download/share/discuss community on del.icio.us today. It's invitation-only right now, so I can't tell much yet about what it is or how it works. I've applied for an invitation and will report back if I get one.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 1:55 PM |

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• Point-Counterpoint on the Hewitt Sandwich Lady - I'm reassured by this evidence that MySpace-generation college students still wage heated debates on dining hall comment cards. And thanks to blogs, now stories like this can be told.
  
• Huge Remote Control - I'll grant a heh to just about anything that's comedically large. Merlin Mann's notes in del.icio.us indicate he's with me on this. [via Random Good Stuff]
  
• Robotic Singer Crashes and Burns - Just tragic. "After a photo op wrapped, Ever-2 was being escorted to the exhibition hall when a central component that handles neck movements broke down. A researcher with the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology attempted emergency CPR, but Ever-2 was not herself for the rest of the day and could only lip-synch and perform simple hand movements." The photos are hauntingly creepy.
  
• George W. Bush Speech Writer - Generate your own Bush speech from actual audio clips and audience reactions. [via Matt McAlister]
  
• 1980 Coleco Catalog - Pages and pages of classic video game goodness, including the old football game with the l.e.d. lights that would blip across the field. The blinking one was the ball, just like real football.
  
• Teaching Crafts To Prisoners - I can't improve on that headline.
  
• Insanely Great Tees Shipping Options - Judson noticed an extra option in the shipping choices.
  
• Sorry I Haven't Posted In a While - Really really heh. This is a collection of bloggers apologizing for going AWOL on their blogs for a while. If this was a daily feed, I'd subscribe. [via splodinvark]
  

Posted by dave coustan at 12:23 PM |

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Here are some items from my running list of technology-related things that would be solid additions to anyone's life. You can also watch for them under the myFavorites tags buyinghelp and wantit:

• Belkin Concealed Surge Protector - Cord management built-in to the surge protector. Great idea. We all have to live with these things all over the place, and it's about time electronics manufacturers started to come up with better external case designs for them.
  
• Wi-fi Gmail and Flickr-enabled Photo Frame - This has been the talk of the internets recently. I know, it looks awfully geeky. But how great would it be to have a wallhanging that shows either your best photos or photos on a theme from all Flickr users? I puzzle over what to put on my walls and this would create lots more options. You can even e-mail it photos to add to the display. You might say $250 is a little steep, but think about what this is -- pretty much a fully functioning drone computer and 7" LCD display in a frame.
  
• Batteries that are USB rechargeable - Heck yeah. A functioning AA-cell battery that has a flip-out USB connector to recharge it with. It satisfies the Green disdain for disposable batteries, the cheapskate who likes anything that can be re-used, and the nerd who like to make everything a peripheral for his computer.
  
• Beautiful Keyboard - Ok, the practical value of this one is limited. It's still just a keyboard. And I don't think you can actually buy it. But just look at the thing.
  
• Laptop Lunches - It's an eco-friendly bento box sort of thing equally appropriate for kids or for adults of the American cubicle-going lifestyle. The FAQ's are chock full of interesting factoids like "Our survey revealed that most families pack one wet food per meal. " I wouldn't lump this in with the technology-related stuff except that it's one of the only lunch bag systems I've seen that comes with a user guide.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 5:15 PM |

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The Earthling strategic heh reserves are running a little low and need some time to regenerate, so here are just a few to get you through the weekend:

• Boy Scouts Create Copyright Merit Badge - So now scouts can earn a merit badge in "copyright" if they sit through a training developed by the MPAA. No, this one's for real. [via Cap'n Ken]
  
• The Best Candy Route - Using heatmaps at Zillow.com, the Capitol Hill Seattle blog offers a theory on the best places to trick-or-treat for maximum return.
  
• Shut Up Tim McCarver - If you've ever been puzzled, frustrated, or motivated to reach for the "mute" button during nationally televised baseball games, this site may be for you. [via Phil N.]
  
• Heisenberg's Principle and UPS - Thoughts regarding the effects of the "quantum view" tab. [via jzawodn]
  

Posted by dave coustan at 3:49 PM |

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Things that have ended up filed under "heh" in my bookmarks lately:

• Love Is Embarassing - Leading off this week, Ward's daughter Ava pens an illuminated masterpiece explaining how love works in these modern times. The next to last step is "The boy will get so embarrassed he will get mad." Here it is on Flickr as well.
  
• Send a Virtual Cassette - It generates a photo of a cassette tape in your choice of color and with your choice of text (see below). Man oh man, you could waste an entire day with this.
  
  
• Robots Don't Know It's Not Bacon - Heh, the wine-tasting robot thinks people taste like swine.
  
• All About Beards - Your informal guide to growing a beard. I like this guy's style - "Logically, the question would seem to be: Why NOT grow a beard?" I'm currently beardless but I've sported several variations in the past. [via Travis]
  
• KingArthur.com - I was trying to get to the King Arthur Flour site but found this at KingArthur.com instead. Huh? Wuzzat?
  
• Punctuation Makes All The Difference - Ideology aside, I just think the caption on this screenshot of President Bush is a heh. [via Gregg]
  
• Every Dog Should Have A Point Of View - It's a plastic fence portal so that your dog can peek out and see what's going on.
  
• Popular Mechanics On "In the Year 2000.." - Predictions for how things would turn out in the year 2000, from 50 years ago. No mention of a series of tubes, but they did seem to get this right: "...Though it is galeproof and weatherproof, it is built to last only about 25 years. Nobody in 2000 sees any sense in building a house that will last a century."
  

Posted by dave coustan at 12:40 PM |

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Another Friday afternoon's worth of heh:

• How to Make a Schadenfreude Pie - A pie recipe worthy of enjoying the misfortunes of others, complete with step-by-step before, during and after photos. [via splodinvark]
  
• Use your PC and Webcam as a security camera setup - All in all, a very useful how-to article on a nice security setup. The heh comes several pages down, where you get to see actual images taken by this person's camera.
  
• What geeks will be calling cookouts from now on - [via Brian]
  
• Roll your own Big Mac - "Full price is for chumps." How to build a better Big Mac from dollar menu items.
  
• Raider Nation Encounters Problems - My NFL team is in trouble, and this Craigslist entry really says it best. Sigh. [via Gregg, a Chargers fan and suspected Raider hater]
  
• Zombie Rights March Flickr set - "Zombie rights march to city hall that was protested by pirates"
  
• Camellia Grill Love Notes - After coming across this photo of love notes to the Camellia Grill in New Orleans, I just read the good news that it is planning on reopening in 2007. My love note to the C.G. would probably focus on the wonders of liquid butter poured from syrup pitchers.
  
• (late entrant/update:)Giant bug in Google Earth - I mean bug like insect, not bug like programming error. Creepy.[via Ken]
  

Posted by dave coustan at 2:11 PM |

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