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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Between BlogOrlando last week and an IABC panel discussion on Blogging today, I'm a little out of my usual rhythm on Earthling. Rather than let the day completely go without anything new, I'm switching over to linklist format today, to share a few from what's come through the filter of my bookmarking habits lately. It starts off with a straggler from my most recent "heh" list:

• A true mobile computing platform - I was saving that punchline for Friday, and then forgot about it. I think I found this at Thinking Stick, Jeff Utecht's blog about teaching and technology in China. I've also bookmarked a blog entry from Jeff about how dating has changed for teens.
  
• Ask Farecast when to buy - Farecast is kind of like a mortgage rate tracker for Airfares. It tells you when fares are likely to go up or down, and helps you find your best window to buy in.
  
• TurnHere Atlanta - Interesting video-based city guides delivered by locals. I've bumped into the guy who does the Little 5 Points Atlanta guide many times around town.
  
• Sizeasy gives you a reference to how big or small things are - Lifehacker.com brings a gem to anyone who deals with physical objects they don't get to see in person. At Sizeasy, you enter the dimensions of an object and it helps you compare it to reference points like a deck of cards or a wine bottle.

Posted by dave coustan at 2:58 PM |

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• The very first Dragon*con 2006 photo - Dragon*Con comes but once a year, and it brings with it some of the best photo opps in Atlanta. Keep your eye on the "dragoncon" tag or category for the next few days to keep up with the insane costumes and shenanigans. In fact add this feed to your Reader to grab photos on flickr tagged "dragoncon" (disclaimer: some people make skimpy costumes. Many photos may not be safe for work browsing). Here are some photos I took at the 'con a couple of years ago. [via Chris]
  
• Knit a slice of pizza - Thank you, I think I might.
  
• The uncanny valley - I know the "uncanny valley" as a computer science problem having to do with how our brains perceive the behavior and look of animated characters. There's clearly something more going on in this informative graphic. I love the name Robotobot, too.
  
• Tree ruled over the top - I consider this a swing and a miss. The potential for a good pun headline is off the comedy charts in this story about the Stanford Tree mascot being sanctioned by the NCAA. I feel like the SF Chronicle could have done better here. "Tree Cut Down To Size," maybe? I know there's a great pun here somewhere. [via Deadspin]
  
• The evolution of speech balloons - I'd never stopped to consider where the tradition of representing speech in a bubble or balloon came from. This gallery traces a transition from speech "bands" to speech balloons in art from the 1400's to the 1700's. [found via jzawodn, I think]
  

Posted by dave coustan at 2:14 PM |

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I wrote a while back about the apparent lack of new web applications and sites geared towards baseball fans. I wanted to list out some of my recent finds in sports-related sites:

• Faircatch.net - This is a conversation tracker for Pro Football, from the people that brought you Striketwo.net. I'm using the Custom Tracker RSS feeds in my Reader to keep track of blog conversations about the Oakland Raiders. Yeah, I know, Jeff George is old.
  
• Yardbarker.com - Yardbarker is a "digg-like" sports news site, where the users submit stories and decide on their popularity. There's a great rundown of how Digg works on Valleywag. I'm a big fan of the yardbarker icon.
  
• ArmchairGM - I mentioned them in my previous round-up. They have some changes and new features coming, including new partnerships with MetsBlog and the JetsBlog. From what I can tell, their goal is to use the expertise of team-specific blog communities to add features to the wiki, and in turn provide team blogs with a well-maintained, well-visited, supported wiki platform. They tell me they have more announcements on the way.
  
• AOL's Fanhouse - This is less a web app and more a new, pretty useful NFL-related group blog done by AOL. It has blog entries in the main column and stats and scores in the right column.
  
• Fanspot - Fanspot bills itself as a "sports social network." I haven't looked at it closely yet but in general, I think social networks centered around specific interests are too limiting to be worth the effort of joining. It takes a lot of effort and energy to invest yourself in something like this, and if you have more than one interest, you'd end up having to duplicate that effort in several different places. And make friends in one that wouldn't transfer to the other.
  
• Fanlete - This is another social network about sports, but it shows some promise with its special features. You can predict the outcome of games, and compare it to the actual outcomes, and compete against others in picking winners. I'd like to see these as features of a larger, more general social network site some day, instead of a separate site.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 3:42 PM |

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• Used FAQs - "A random round-up of frequently asked questions." It's a lot more entertaining than it sounds. "Are tigers’ teeth specially designed for flesh eating?" and "What does Husker Du mean?" are the kinds of things I might actually read if they popped up between "important" articles in my Reader.
  
• Long Awkward Pose - Found this one just this morning. At first it seems like found hilarity, but it turns out it's deliberate. It's a blog that collects video clips where the subjects are tricked into holding a pose for a long time, as if they were posing for a still camera. "It's simple, really. People look foolish when posing for a picture. So tell your loved ones you would like to take their photo... then secretly videotape them the whole time." Heh.
  
• Pinger, A Pretty Cool Vmail Service - What's funny to me about this is that it's an entire business set up around the idea that you want to call someone and leave a voicemail while completely avoiding the risk of actually having to talk to them. Sure, some phone systems do this as a feature, but maybe we don't want to make it so easy. What used to be the territory of the schemer or the socially awkward has apparently become so socially acceptable there's a market for it.
  
• Scott Wade's Dirty Car Art Gallery - Very respectable tableaus made on the dust and mud on front windshields of cars. [via Jeff]
  
• Milkshake Song Translated Into Elizabethan English - Heh. "Rap translated into something" is a premise that just doesn't get old. [via robon]
  
• Cross-stitched Nintendo DS Game Holders - Tiny things are generally appealing to me anyway, but combine that with some Nintendo love and the near-utility of holding a small game cartridge, and you have a project I might actually complete.
  
• The Effects Of Cannabis On A Web-based Lifestyle - I found this while searching for "WebLife." Not what I was looking for at all.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 11:17 AM |

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A couple of weeks ago, Earthling reader John Blake asked for some more ideas about how teachers are using RSS and podcasting as part of their classroom practice. I'm fairly new to blogs about tech in the classroom, so I spent some time searching to see what I could dig up. It turns out I find this stuff pretty fascinating. I got a little far afield of the specific question of RSS in the classroom, but I found so many interesting links that I decided to broaden this round-up. Below you'll find a list of miscellaneous resources I found about tools, theory, and techniques for making best use of current web technologies in the classroom:

• First I have to include John's Junk EduBlog itself. It's a chronicle of his projects, approaches, and experiences as a teacher using RSS and podcasting. Reading about how these tools work in the real world for an end-user with a known, built-in audience and purpose can be a refreshing change from reading so much abstract analysis and opinion about the same tools.
  
• Edbloggernews - This is a digg-style user-submitted news site that specializes in education-related stories. It would be interesting to implement something like this at the classroom level, and it appears the technology behind it would let a teacher do just that. If anyone has done this, I'd love to see examples and hear about how it worked out. [via The Thinking Stick]
  
• EdTechTalk - This is a podcast that produces several episodes each week. According to their about page "EdTechTalk is a community of educators interested in discussing and learning about the uses of educational technology." Anyone can call in via Skype to participate in the discussions.
  
• NECC 2006 Podcasts - Judging by the blogs I read, NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) would have been one of *the* conferences to go to this year about technology in the classroom. They've published many of the sessions as podcasts, including subjects like "Choose Your Own Wiki Adventure: Using Wikis with K-12 Students" and "Electronic Constructivism: Compelling Ideas, Engaging Resources, A Dozen Ready-to-Use Techniques". You can get to all of them here.
  
• Weblogg-ed - This is Will Richardson's blog, who also created Edbloggernews above. I've seen references to his recent book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms throughout the "edublogosphere".
  
• Matthew Williams asks some good questions about how and why to use RSS in the classroom.
  
• ESL Handouts Feed - Here's a feed of free ESL handouts and lesson plans.
  
• Academhack writes about a project that brought blogging into the classroom for 60 university students in a writing class.
  
• Ebyblog writes about an article analyzing the use of Podcasting at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. Here's one of the interesting points: "One of the first findings was that most students seemed to prefer audio over video, which they attribute to being more portable. This is despite the students actually originally requesting video, which shows that it’s worthwhile doing more indepth studies like this."

As I come across more stuff I'll be collecting it in the myFavorites RSS in the classroom tag.

Posted by dave coustan at 3:43 PM |

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Here's another round-up of my bookmarks labeled "heh":

• Snakes Ahead, Planes Lag - Is it tacky to link to my own heh? Today is Snakes On A Plane day across America, and I did a little research this morning to try to find out which part is more of a draw. (There's plenty more movie pre-gaming to be had in the snakesonaplane tag in myFavorites.)
  
• Wii Will Rock Who? - WayIPlay.com does the math to show how many sites have used the same dumb pun to describe the Wii.
  
• Set Your Ringtone To A Sneeze - It makes sense when you think about it. If you want an unobtrusive ring that will still catch your attention, how about a sneeze? That way if you forget to turn it off it still won't embarass you.
  
• TSA - Where We Stand - A bulletin describing the TSA threat level for snakes.
  
• Monster Laptop Sleeve - Man do I want one of these. Maybe I can make one. [via robon]
  
• Lipstick Is Back - "According to the Transport Security Agency, the laws of physics have changed since last Thursday, rendering lipstick safely non-explosive again. Whew." [via merlinmann]
  
• Web 2.0 Or Star Wars Character? - I think this quiz has been around for a little while, but it's still good stuff. See if you can pick out the names of web 2.0 products amidst the Kit Fistos and Dookus of the Star Wars galaxies.
  
• 30% Of Americans Don't Remember In What Year 9/11 Attacks Took Place - Wow. [via jzawodn, who I assume is "the" jzawodn(y), and has over 600 hehs]
  
• Tiny Animals On Fingers - A Flickr set of photos depicting just what the title says. Creepy and neat. [via villicious]
  

Posted by dave coustan at 10:33 AM |

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Here's a list of links to recent stories of interest in the security, privacy, and protection world, with a couple more about legal protection issues thrown in for good measure:

• Google adds malware warnings - In cooperation with a group called Stop Badware, Google.com will now warn you if some of your search results point to sites identified as purveyors of malware. Eventually you'll get an individualized report about the questionable site along with the badware warning.
  
• AOL releases user search data by accident(that's my bad - it was for research purposes) - The big news in the search world last week was that AOL had published a database of 20 million search queries by their users between March and May of this year. I've linked to a snapshot of Techmeme, where you can find a multitude of perspectives on it. Also check out Rocketboom today, where the word "EarthLink" makes a cameo appearance as the demonstration search in AOL Stalker. It's a web tool you can use to see what (unidenfied) AOL users have searched for. (I checked and no one at AOL searched for "earthling" in that time period. Sigh.) [Thanks for the heads-up, Gregg]
  
• New CDT report on adware - Wayne Porter points to a new Center For Democracy And Technology report on how nuisance advertising gets from a marketer out to your desktop. It showcases some good investigative reporting and suggests in the conclusion that companies should adopt and enforce more agressive policies around acceptible advertising practice.
  
• Is publishing screenshots fair use? - This question has come up countless times in my work on the web, and I'm never totally confident I'm giving a satisfactory answer when someone asks. This lifehacker story puts the question to resident law geek Stewart Rutledge.
  
• Guide to permissions for photography - Another good privacy and protection article via Lifehacker, this one covering when you most likely do and don't need permission to take photographs of people overseas.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:48 PM |

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The heh level in my myFavorites bookmarks is reaching dangerouly high levels. It's again time to spill them out onto Earthling. Clearly I need to do this more often.

As an aside, if you look at everyone's URL's marked heh, you'll see I'm dominating that tag (I'm Dave C in myFavorites). But I'm all for changing that. By next heh round-up, I hope to see at least a few things in myFavorites tagged heh by some people other than myself. Consider yourself conscripted. Not only does this make my job easier, it also gets some stuff in front of my face that I might not have seen otherwise.

• Series Of Tubes Is The New Internets - Since the last Heh round-up, Senator Ted Stevens has become famous for describing the internet as a 'series of tubes' and an e-mail as an 'internet'. Let's take a lesson from Valleywag with the heads-up that it's no longer cool to make the George Bush "the internets" joke anymore.
  
• A Wider Perspective On Flavor - Web comic Penny Arcade hits close to home with this strip about the overly obscure hints nerds leave themselves to try to remember passwords (warning: some salty language). Once I'm done using my current passwords, I've got a funny anecdote about what hint I usually leave for myself.
  
• A Pause To Praise A Great Game - Long-time 'heh' contributor Jeff wrote up what it sounded like on spanish-language channel Univision when Italy beat Germany in the World Cup semi-finals.
  
• Wilford Brimley: The Beetis - The way Wilford Brimley says "Di-a-beetis" on the old Liberty Medical commercials has always been strange and hi-larious to me. I recently discovered a cache of YouTube remixes of that ad from earlier this year. The one I link to in the title is one of the better ones. How did I miss this when it was going around? Still, no one has managed to create my dream remix, which would be a mashup of Run-DMC's "My Adidas" and the Wilford Brimley Diabeetis ad. Please steal this idea.
  
• Japanese Darth Vader Ad - Not sure what this is, but it's a uniquely Japanese Darth Vader gag.
  
• 50 Worst Video Game Names Ever - Just as it sounds, Game Revolution rounds up the dumbest actual names given to video game titles. One of my favorites is #17 -"Tactics Ogre - Let Us Cling Together".
  
• Nigerian Letter Scammer Convinced To Carve Replica Commodore 64 - Enterprising scam busters have managed to get Nigerian scammers to do all sorts of things by stringing them along as potential victims. Here's a particularly elaborate task. There's a whole forum about baiting the scammers.
  
• Old Pole Position Ad - Back in the birth of the video game era, you could get away with the kind of ad where a voice-over guy yells threatening lines at the characters from off-screen.My favorite comment in the discussion thread: " Who was the guy with the giant hand? Was that God?" [via BoingBoing]
  
• Abominable Snowman With A Junior Consumer Tip - If you lived in New England in the 80's, you saw an awful lot of this public service announcement. I don't know if you'll find it heh-ful if you've never seen it before, but it's worth a try. Here's to hoping more old local PSA's make their way onto YouTube. Also from New England in the 80's - this New England Aquarium commercial.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 11:07 AM |

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Here's a collection of municipal wi-fi-related stuff that's ended up in my bookmarks (currently straddling myFavorites and del.icio.us).

• A Times-Picayune story went over EarthLink's Wi-Fi efforts in New Orleans in some good detail. Some of the highlights -- we're on track for a September 1st launch of the first 15 square miles of coverage, and that we'll continue to build after that date, as we are doing in Anaheim. Prominent local blogger Ernie The Attorney was quoted in the piece. Best wishes to outgoing NOLA CIO Greg Meffert, who resigned earlier this week.
  
• Google (who else?) released a really nice and simple Google Maps implementation showing their Mountain View Wi-Fi network, its access points, and holes in coverage.
  
• In Anaheim, Mayor Curt Pringle announced that the city just started providing streaming video of City Council meetings on Anaheim.net. Mayor Pringle also has a sort-of blog (trackbacks but no comments) in the news and commentary section here.
  
• A couple of weeks ago, Katie Fehrenbacher at GigaOm wrote on EarthLink's plan to sell Wi-Fi phones and service for use on our municipal Wi-Fi networks. Today Skype announced that in Q3 2006, they'll be offering Wi-Fi phones as well, though only for use with Skype and on open (unauthenticated) hotspots.
  
• Glenn Fleishman published a counter-editorial to Nortel Executive Richard Lowe's editorial on Cnet about the Google/EarthLink Wi-Fi network plans and 3G vs. Wi-Fi. Note: this is Wi-Fi nerd territory.
  
• Taylor Wimberly runs a blog to cover news about the city Wi-Fi network in Corpus Christi, TX. There's also an official site. EarthLink is in negotiations to provide retail Wi-Fi service on the network .
  

Posted by dave coustan at 2:17 PM |

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• 40 Folk Songs About The Nintendo Wii - I only count 4 here so far, maybe each one has the power of 10 songs.
  
• How Is A Golazo Different From A Goal? - This question has plagued me for three consecutive World Cup Tournaments, or ever since I relied on Univision for my World Cup coverage. Usually a goal is just a "Gollllll!" but occasionally you'll hear "gollllll-azo!" Thanks to Metafilter (and Earthling submitter Jeff), I now know.
  
• UFO Hacker Tells What He Found - A Wired magazine interview with a guy who allegedly hacked into NASA's classified web sites. This only makes the 'heh' list because of this line, "My dialup 56K connection was very slow trying to download one of these picture files." While dial-up provides excellent value and connectivity, I personally might have opted for broadband if I knew I'd be doing some high-level cracking.
  
• A 50 cent Mac - Making this stuff up is difficult. Rapper 50 cent is in talks with Apple to create a computer to appeal to inner-city consumers. The goal is noble, but it's still a heh.
  
• Active Players In RBI Baseball, Tecmo Bowl, and Tecmo Super Bowl - "The following is a run-down on which players are still active in the three greatest video game sports titles of all time: R.B.I Baseball, Tecmo Bowl, and Tecmo Super Bowl." It's a short list.
  
• Little Girl Giant - This one falls under both 'heh' and 'wow'. Just...wow. It's video of a massive marionette.
  
• Scarves For Tech Addicts - Keeps your public screen viewing habits hidden from prying eyes, while keeping you warm at the same time. Thanks to Tracy for this one.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 3:31 PM |

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There's a somewhat freaky story going around today about a newly discovered set of security exploits that could allow someone to gain control of a laptop computer via its Wi-Fi card by hacking the device drivers. All of the details aren't available yet, but Glenn Fleishman writes:

Most horrifying? Half the flaws they found don’t require the Wi-Fi adapter to be connected to a network—just active.

• Neat Ultraviolet Security Features On Credit Cards - If you shine a blacklight on your credit cards, you'll see these anti-counterfeiting logos printed with special uv inks. One of my favorite parts of this story is how they thought to look - "We discovered this accidentally when using a UV "stink flashlight" in an attempt to locate a cat accident."
  
• NSA To Crawl Social Networking Sites - The U.S. National Security Agency is working on collecting and searching the data people publish about themselves on social networking sites like MySpace, Friendster, and Facebook. The first court cases that use this information should generate some high drama..."You wrote in your profile on 5/14 that Taylor Hicks rules. But you were seen on the night of June 11th adding "SoulPatrolSuxors" to your friends. Well, which is it?"
  
• Online Security Tips - As part of Microsoft's Protect Yourself This Summer campaign, you can find a list of online security tips and resources on EarthLink's mySecurity pages.
  
• .New Tool To Disable Windows Genuine Advantage - A company called Firewall Leak Tester has developed a tool to stop Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage system from contacting and sending information back to the Windows security servers from your computer on a daily basis.

Posted by dave coustan at 10:36 AM |

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Rocketboom has their casual friday, and I (occasionally) have a round-up of selected things that ended up in my del.icio.us heh collection.

• The Origin of "My Bad" - Can this be? Was the phrase "my bad" popularized by extremely tall basketball legend Manute Bol?At a certain point in high school, I remember "my bad" making the transition from hip to awkward back to hip again. First time I think I heard it: Fellow JV soccer scrub Yossi touched his chest and said "my bad" after missing a scoring opportunity. Coach V. Moses appeared puzzled.
  
• Finger Moustache Tattoos - Yeah, you earned it. Heh.
  
• End The Whine - I missed the boat on this one. It's a group of users banded together to whine to Apple about the whining they hear in their MacBook Pros. I did end up getting one, by the way, but I haven't been bugged by any whining other than the whining inside my head.
  
• Tommy's Beard - Watch the guy's beard grow. From multiple angles. (found on Rocketboom)
  
• Waaalt! - I think I need to have a special category of heh just for Lost-related hehs. Here's a tribute to the most annoying signature line of dialogue on Lost. In the absence of a video gallery devoted to Michael wandering deserts, cityscapes, the insides of paintings, and landmarks wailing for his son, this'll do. Add two a's for annoying. (suggested by Jeff)
  
• Thanks. No. - The perfect way to tell a friend, acquaintence, or friend of acquaintence not to include you in their group e-mail blasts.
  
• The Protomen - A band based on the video game Megaman. Haven't listened yet, but I likes what I see.
  
• Too Many Puppies - Not the most hard-hitting heh, just a video of a standoff between a gaggle of puppies and a cat. Sometimes you need that too.

Posted by dave coustan at 9:24 AM |

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I don't have a Slingbox yet, and (that's maybe because) the Slingbox doesn't have a Mac player yet. So when I'm on the road and need to miss an episode of Lost, it's a huge relief to know that I can buy, download, and own a commercial-free version of each episode shortly after it airs, from iTunes. Neil Kjeldsen published a handy history and round-up of the network TV shows you can download or stream, and how they work. These are all of the options that are officially blessed by the networks, and his list excludes sharing networks and technologies, unofficial sites, and video upload hosts like YouTube.

Download Your TV (at TechCrunch)

Personally, I very much prefer downloadable web content to streaming, and am happy to pay a couple of bucks for the right to *own* a commercial-free version of a show and the ability to do what I want with it. This isn't totally the case with iTunes today, since they have their own Digital Rights Management system built-in, but at least I can move my episodes of Lost from my computer to my iPod, and watch them without an internet connection whenever i feel like it.

Posted by dave coustan at 11:15 AM |

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As is customary every now and then, here's a round-up of things that have ended up in the del.icio.us heh tags of me and others.

Also, don't forget to vote in the Earthling header referendum before 10pm Sunday.

• Is Lost A Repeat? - This is a question we ask ourselves every Wednesday afternoon. Now, there's a simple site (with RSS feed, though I haven't tested it) that can answer just that. No frills, no ads, just a "YES" or a "NO". It's the ultimate in streamlined user interface.
  
• Free Bill Stickers - Won't you? (suggested by Doug)
  
• So You'd Like To...Buy Loud Children's Gifts - For the cruel-hearted gifter who seeks revenge on giftees with kids, here are some suggestions via Amazon's "So you'd like to..." for making parents' ears bleed.
  
• Star Trek Does Joan Jett - I'm a sucker for clumsy but heartfelt hand-drawn animation. Here's an animated, home-grown music video showing Picard and others from Star Trek mouthing(I hesitate to say singing) the Joan Jett version of the standard "Let's Do It...".
  
• ROI at Pizza Hut - I think this is fairly old, but it was new to me. Enjoy this photo gallery of ways Taiwanese students took advantage of Pizza Hut's salad bar rules.
  
• Kami-Robo - This appears to be Japanese Fighting Paper Robots. Good stuff, world. (suggested by robon)
  
• Late Entrant: Love Song About Web Standards - This mp3-based ode to code best practices comes to Earthling via Jeff. Here's an excerpt: "Tonight I need your CSS, coding in the darkness. From now on no more tables nest; you will meet web standards." Heh?
  

Posted by dave coustan at 2:40 PM |

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Here's another salvo of links that have ended up in the heh tag of my del.icio.us account.

This guy wants his S.O.A.P. (Photo courtesy Flickr user creevus)

• Snakes On A Blog - Thank goodness for blogs. We'd otherwise have no way to get daily news, fan art, and speculation about what could turn out to be the greatest cinematic achievement of our time, upcoming summer blockbuster Snakes On A Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson.
  
• Pipecleaner Dance - Not sure how old this is, but it was new to me when fellow Revenue Avenue (where I sit at EarthLink) denizen and friend-of-Earthling Ashley Harris sent it over to me.
  
• King of Eight - I was poking around in YouTube.com this weekend looking for old commercials from the 80's and came across a ton of old Sesame Street clips. This was my favorite of the bunch. It's almost a rap by a king obsessed with eights. I can relate. When I was little I was obsessed with green twos.
  
• The FireFox - No, the real firefox. I think.
  
• Get Off My Ball - This is a panel from a daily web comic. I think I'll add it to my reader.
  
• Best Invention Ever - Meet the Bac-Spin. Are you sick of having to turn your whole hat around when really all you want to do is spin the visor? That's so late 2005. Thanks to Robert Valdes for this one.
  
• The Leprechaun - This news clip about a Leprechaun in Mobile, Alabama is making the rounds via e-mail and link aggregator sites. It's good stuff all the way through. You come for the police sketch; you stay for the gold seekers.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 1:30 PM |

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• Instant Messaging and Peer-to-peer Security Incidents On The Rise - According to a recent analysis by FaceTime.com, reported IM and Peer-to-peer incidents rose by a factor of 100 from 2004 to 2005.
  
• Cryzip Virus Demands Ransom - Here's a new one. Researchers have discovered instances of a new computer virus that locks up your files, and then asks you to deposit money into an online payment account to get them back. Cryzip is believed to be part of a batch of e-mail spam.
  
• Security-enabled Blogging For Kids - Few details are available yet, but a company called Industrious Kid is working on a blogging tool they say will have "easy-to-use access to the necessary insight and controls related to the communications and content development activities of their children."
  
• Digital Rights Management Shortens Battery Life - All of the extra encoding and checking that portable mp3 players do to make sure you own some of the music you play can reduce the life of your battery by as much as 25%. Yahoo Executive Dave Goldberg suggested recently that maybe the music industry should think about getting rid of Digital Rights Management completely. Would anyone complain?
  
• Del.icio.us Adding A Private Bookmarking Toggle - It used to be that everything you saved in Del.icio.us was automatically shared with other users. Now each time you save a bookmark, you can choose whether to share it or not. I just tried it -- when you go to save a bookmark, if you want it to remain private you check a box that says "do not share". Seems pretty simple.
  
• Even Deleted E-mails May Be Seized - A court asked Google to turn over all of the contents of a defendant's Gmail account, including the deleted e-mails. In their privacy policy, Google is very up-front about the fact that your deleted messages may stick around. They explain, "Even if a message has been deleted or an account is no longer active, messages may remain on our backup systems for some period of time." This is apparently standard to most webmail providers. I bet most people still think that deleting e-mails from a webmail provider automatically gets rid of them for good.
  

Note: I'm home battling a cold today and may be slow in responding to comments and e-mails.

Posted by dave coustan at 9:50 AM |

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Every once in a while, usually on Fridays, I offer a round-up of web bookmarks that have ended up in the Heh tag of my Del.icio.us account recently. Today I'm instead sharing some of the more hehful bookmarks I've found while poking around in other people's del.icio.us accounts. Based on my research, Del.icio.us' heh reserves appear to be dangerously low right now. I did my best. Here are some noteworthies from the set.

• Enjoy M.C. Hammer's blog. I have to say, the man has a pretty good grasp on the medium of blogging. Hear him out.
  
• Handy Extension Handler - Ok, this one is not actually all that hehful. Or particularly useful except for maybe a handful of people. But someone did tag it "heh."
  
• GiganticURL.com - Tiny URL is a helpful site that creates a nice and short web page URL out of a long and clumsy one. Gigantic URL does just the opposite, creating uselessly long URLs out of regular ones.
  
• What Can You Do With A Dead Computer? - Here's a message board thread that discusses computer recycling in excruciating detail ( RIP my iBook 2002-2006).
  
• A Yahoo Answers Result - Mike from San Antonio asks who named the planet Uranus. Yahoo Answers.
  
• Rate My Network Diagram - I'm giving that first one a solid six. Not the best I've seen, not the worst.
  

Posted by dave coustan at 1:52 PM |

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I've been wondering which computer to buy if I replace my aging Apple iBook any time soon. Should I go with the brand new MacBook Pro, wait for more Apple news, or look for a good price on last year's Powerbooks? Macworld published a first look at the MacBook this week, but what I'm really interested in is something that only Miss Cleo or insider information can tell you.

Is it a smart purchase right now? What's the likelihood that it'll have reliability problems, that Apple will quickly change it up and re-release it, or that there will be a better product coming along shortly?

No matter what you decide, you can depend on your your friends to mock you behind your back and in hindsight. If you can hold off their derision for at least a year, you've made out quite well.

I asked a few friends and colleagues what their gut feeling is telling them about the MacBook Pro, and what advice they might give to:

• A Mac nerd who doesn't need your stupid advice
  
• Someone who has used Mac products for a while but doesn't know much about their insides, and
  
• Someone who only has experience with iPods

Here's a round-up of what they had to say. Feel free to chime in in the comments.

Continue reading "MacBook Pro: Trusted Old Friend Or Inappropriately Friendly Stranger?"

Posted by dave coustan at 2:26 PM |

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Well, not really. Just a round-up of many of them. A quick timeline:

The Chris Parnell/Andy Samberg short Lazy Sunday ran on Saturday Night Live on December 17th.

The first recording of it on YouTube seems to have appeared on December 18th.

I saw the first reference to an online version in my e-mail inbox on December 21st.

By December 23rd, the short was made available for free download via iTunes(note: you need the iTunes software to download it).

The New York Times covered it extensively on December 27th.

It's now February 7th, less than two months from when the short first aired on television. Today I count at least a baker's dozen of videos online inspired by Lazy Sunday in one form or another. Some dub new audio over the video, some add flash or their own video over the audio, and some are full remakes.

Read on for a representative sampling of what's out there.

Continue reading "All Of The Lazy Sundays In The World"

Posted by dave coustan at 3:52 PM |

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These are a few of the web sites and articles that have landed in the "heh" tag of my del.icio.us bookmarks account in the past couple of weeks.

• The Advantage - This is a Sacramento-based Nintendo cover band. They only play music that has appeared in games for the original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) game console. Here's the band's official site, and a link to their mp3's. Looking forward to listening to their cover of the Contra theme song.
  
• Curry and Rice Girl - Friends and co-workers continue to prove me wrong about the lack of quality homemade video on the web. If Pasadena EarthLinker Joyce Li keeps sending me good stuff on a regular basis, I may have to officially change my tune. Got this homegrown music video yesterday. I assume it's self-parody, otherwise I wouldn't put it up here.
  
• Sony Asked To Clean Up NYC Graffiti Ads - This is a different kind of heh -- more of a "ha ha". You had to see this coming. Sony was offering cash for people who painted graffiti in public places advertising the Sony PSP(PlayStation Portable) according to their specifications. The New York City Council has asked Sony to rethink.
  
• Dr. Bronner's Soap Label Generator - Dr. Bronner's soap (official site here) was a popular item in college because it was cheap, multifunctional, cheap, and its labels offered hilarious shower reading. One of my favorites was always "Dilute! Dilute! Dilute! OK!" Now there's an online generator to create countless new passages of unintelligible pseudo-religious babbling.

Posted by dave coustan at 1:43 PM |

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With the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) opening tomorrow, rumors abound both about the show and about the tech/business world in general. On AM radio this afternoon I heard that Google might announce a new $200 computer, but Google already shot that down.

Another popular rumor is that Google will unveil the "Google Cube," a device that links your phone, computer, and television. Or maybe this is the same rumor as the Google Computer, hard to tell at this point.

This is a rumors round-up. Click the link below for more.

Continue reading "CES Pre-rumors"

Posted by dave coustan at 3:07 PM |

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I sat down to write a tutorial on how to back up your del.icio.us bookmarks, but a couple of thoughts intervened before it got out the door. First, I haven't had a chance to properly introduce you to del.icio.us, and here I am already trying to show you how to back it up.

Second, I tried installing the Foxylicious extension for Firefox, and had enough (small t) troubles with it that I'm not ready to recommend it yet as the most painless way to go troubles with it because I had the wrong version of Firefox installed. And there were a slew of other options out there too.

Nevertheless, last week's outages were an important reminder to back things up regularly, and my bookmarks are vital to what I do. Rather than write a tutorial *yet*, today I'm offering a list of some of the places you can look for ways to back up your del.icio.us account. Non-del.icio.us users, sorry for today's departure. I won't be offended if your eyes glaze over -- hope to see you tomorrow just the same.

• Use del.icio.us' export: Go to http://del.icio.us/settings/yourusername/export/ ( replace "yourusername" with your user name), hit "export to html", and save the resulting page as an html page.
  
• Another quick-and-dirty way: Go into your del.icio.us page, grab the RSS feed, browse it, and save it as an xml page. Thanks to Shawn for suggesting this.
  
• If you use Safari: Delicious2Safari might be the guy you are looking for. This was pretty much no muss, no fuss, easy pleasy for me. I downloaded the disk image, dragged it to my Applications folder, and ran it. Here's the developer's blog if you want to read more about it before you try.
  
• If you use Firefox: There is Foxylicious, an extension that pulls your bookmarks down into folders in Firefox. If you install the latest version of Foxylicious, make sure you are using Firefox 1.5.
  
• Via spreadsheet: (not yet recommended)This smart person made a spreadsheet that you can download that will *theoretically* suck down all of your del.icio.us data. I can't get it to work on my machine -- maybe it's not for macs.
  
• Command-line way: here's a curl command (and another) to write an xml file of all your stuff. Unless you know what a command line is and what curl is, better to leave this one alone.
  
• A few more for the developers: Here's a way that uses Python to back up del.icio.us to a gmail account. Or maybe you'd prefer a Ruby script. Good luck to you.
  

Now we've all been warned. No whining next time del.icio.us experiences some downtime.

Posted by dave coustan at 5:15 PM |

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With the recent launch of Yahoo's free service for answering questions about anything under the sun, I wanted to offer a round-up of many different ways you can use the web when you need to know something.

• Use Google. No, *really* use Google. By now everyone knows how to type a question or a few words into the Google search engine. But there are so many other indirect ways to use it. Be oblique. For example, search for a message board of people who are enthusiastic about the general subject you want to know about. Once you find it, search that message board to see if they've already addressed your question. If they haven't, register for the message board and ask. They are usually all too pleased to have someone new to talk to.

• Try a different search engine for a change. You're getting a little predictable with all of the googling. The neighbors are starting to wonder. Why not give the Google search elves a rest and try one of these new search tools? Keep your game fresh. Try Gada.be, Exalead, and Clusty.

• Shake down an expert. Look for a writer out on the web who specializes in the topic area you want to know about. Don't be shy. Many writers now publish their e-mail addresses at the end of each article and encourage readers to write in, including newspaper reporters, magazine writers, and nerdybird bloggers. If you have an aviation-related question, ask the pilot over at Salon.com.

• Or a non-expert. The Morning News has a feature where someone who is most certainly not an expert in the relevant field answers reader questions anyway. Write in and ask away.
  

Continue reading "Answers"

Posted by dave coustan at 3:58 PM |

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