Big Pickles

Kottke has assembled a bunch of end-of-decade best-of lists. This will take some time to get through.

Labels: internet, lists

Whenever you write, you should have your audience in mind. Even if you're just updating your status on Facebook. But if you've amassed a substantial number of friends, then that audience can be a pretty diverse group.

Bone up on your Facebook privacy settings and make sure that only your close friends see your goofy side while you maintain your public image for professional contacts (and parents).

Labels: internet

Techcult brings us a pretty comprehensive list of 150 online Flash games. I was familiar with maybe 20% of these, and was reminded of a few I had forgotten. Remember Yeti Sports?

Pick a winner and settle in. But keep this recent xkcd comic in mind as you do.

Labels: games, internet

I've found this procrastination flowchart to be eerily accurate.

Labels: internet

This is one of those political gotchas that's only possible because of the Internet.

You know Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speech writer, current Wall Street Journal columnist and occasional on-air conservative pundit. Here she is today in the WSJ, doing her thing, talking up Sarah Palin, McCain's running mate.

Now here she is on MSNBC, giving her true opinion about Palin in a candid conversation with fellow conservative pundit Mike Murphy and NBC analyst Chuck Todd (none of them realizes their mics are still live).

If you can't make out what she says, there are transcripts out there, and her quotes are already on her Wikipedia page (of course). Let's just say that it would appear that she doesn't believe her own rhetoric.

Labels: internet, politics

Maybe you've seen this before, but it was new to me. VideoJug is chock full of instructional videos about how to do most anything. I ended up there while looking for instructions on how to operate a Trangia stove.

It appears to be British or European in origin, and professionally done. Some of them are pretty funny.

Labels: internet, video

Just like it sounds, Urban Prankster documents creative pranks carried out in an urban setting. Many of the groups submitting material are satellites of New York's Improv Everywhere, but there are submissions independent groups and individuals from all over the world as well.

Labels: internet, pranks

If you haven't been rickrolled yet, just give it time.

If you don't know what rickrolling is, check out this article in the Guardian. The interview with Rick Astley at the the end is particularly entertaining.

Once you're up to speed, check out how this dude managed to pull off a live rickroll of his boss.

But, as with most things, the prize for best rickroll ever has to go to xkcd.

Labels: internet

There are a ton of websites I use regularly that I don't think I've ever mentioned here because they seem like common knowledge, but today I got to thinking that maybe they aren't. For example, no matter how many times I mention it, it seems like there is always someone in our office who has never heard of Snopes. (That probably says more about our turnover than anything else.) So here's a few:

IMDB: Just kidding, everyone already knows this one.

Google Maps: ...is the best! True dat! Double True!

Okay, seriously now...

AMG: All Music Guide, like IMDB but for music. In fact, I actually like its sister site, All Movie Guide, better than IMDB, though it's still in beta.

Metacritic: Collects reviews on all kinds of media from various sources and combines them into an aggregate "metascore."

Snopes: Urban legend and hoax debunker. Whenever you get an email warning you about the latest carjacking scheme or that Barack Obama is a terrorist, you can usually count on Snopes to make you feel stupid for having believed it for a second.

(This website has become so popular that email hoaxes now tend to include "I checked it on Snopes and it's TRUE!" Notwithstanding, check it on Snopes and you will probably find that it's not so much.)

The Drudge Report: Not always the most accurate, but almost always the first with breaking news. Mostly politics, some entertainment gossip.

ConsumerSearch: Sort of like Metacritic but for consumer goods, they gather multiple professional reviews from various sources and use them to determine a winner. Epinions is a good site for consumer reviews, but it's gotten cumbersome lately.

Weather Underground: My favorite weather site, it has very detailed information from neighborhood weather stations, if you need that data for a project or a log or something.

Dinkytown: I don't know what's up with the name, but this site has every kind of financial calculator you can imagine. Very useful for simple models and projections (How long will my money last, etc.) I use it at work all the time.

Zillow: Map of real estate values. Careful, if you haven't seen this one before, you may end up spending the rest of the day looking up the market value of all your friends' houses.

That's probably enough for now, but I'm sure there are tons I've forgotten.

Labels: internet

You don't see too many websites like this anymore. It's too bad, really. Someday our kids won't believe us when we tell them how bad it used to be out there.

Note: Be sure to hit refresh several times. It gets better.

Labels: internet

ME: Hey, Michael, I heard they're coming out with a new Zelda game for the DS.

MICHAEL: You mean Phantom Hourglass?

ME: Um, yeah, that's the one. How did you hear about it?

MICHAEL: I saw it on YouTube.

ME: Oh. That's right, I guess it's already out in Japan. It's not going to be released in the US until Christmas.

MICHAEL: Yeah, maybe Santa Claus will bring it to me!

Labels: games, internet, kids these days

So I signed up for some Facebook. Everyone else needs to sign up now so I can have some friends.

It's a pretty slick interface, far superior to MySpace, as far as I can tell. I'm still not sure about the whole social networking thing, though. It's clearly geared toward kids who are still in school, so I find myself thinking about old friends I haven't contacted in years.

Still, Steve was asking me about a way to aggregate everyone's blogs, photos, videos, etc. this summer. Something like Facebook would be very useful in that regard.

Labels: internet, nostalgia, social networking

Have you ever noticed how fast Wikipedia updates? Whenever there is some breaking story in the news, you can usually go to Wikipedia to get the latest information.

Wikiclock takes that phenomenon to the extreme. It's a clock that runs solely on wiki technology. So far I haven't seen it off by more than 15 minutes.

Labels: internet, wikipedia

So this guy wants to create a video of Michael Jackson's live performance of Billy Jean, that's just his white glove, right?

And instead of writing a program that looks at every video frame and isolates the glove, he figures it would be easier to get 10,000 or so people on the internet to do the work for him.

So if you want to help him out, go to White Glove Tracking, draw a box around a white glove, and click to submit the frame. Hey, do two or three while you're at it--it's fun!

Labels: fun, internet

There's no point to this, as far as I can tell. You just have to try and see what you can do. For some reason, it's fun.

Labels: fun, internet

So we have this hot tube that came with the house. We used it once or twice that first year and haven't bothered with it since. I've filled it up and cleaned it out a few times since then, in case we ever wanted to use it, but we just haven't.

So this week we decided to get rid of it.

Melissa suggested we list it on Craiglist and see if someone will come haul it off for free. I can't believe anyone would want it, though, so I decide against it. I figured it would take about $500 to get it all fixed up and usable at this point, and I can't believe anyone would want to put that kind of money into it.

Today I asked my dad about borrowing his trailer so I can haul it to the dump on Saturday, and he suggested Craigslist as well. This time I decide it couldn't hurt, so I go ahead and list it. I mean, if someone really wants to come take it off my hands, that would be great! I'm staring at a major project this weekend, and I'm even considering hiring some company to haul it away.

I posted the listing at 12:00 pm. It's now 1:26 and I've received 14 responses from people who want to come pick it up tonight!

Please, do me a favor and check out the listing. Have I failed to communicate what bad shape this thing is in? Or have I simply underestimated the demand for dirty, run-down hot tubs in the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex? I'm baffled.

UPDATE:

I've taken the ad down. Too many responses. Plus, Melissa tells me that if you search Craigslist in DFW for "hot tubs," the listing right below mine is for a free hot tub removal service. Doh!

Labels: internet

About a year ago we had some sales people come into our office and give a presentation on this cool electronic whiteboard that would let you save whatever you wrote to a computer.

This was attractive to us because the financial planners use whiteboards a lot in their presentations, and this would allow the client to take home a copy of all the diagrams and notes and stuff. And it would be useful for other things in the office, too. I won't get into all of it.

Anyway, when I first encountered this website, I thought it would be a demonstration of this kind of technology.

Boy, was I wrong.

Labels: books, internet

Still using Google? Lame! Don't you know that these days, savvy web-searchers trust their queries to none other than Kevin Federline?

Actually, even if you choose to search with Kevin, you'll still be using Google. A company called Protege has made its "Search and Win" portal available to A-list celebrities while giving us all a chance to win prizes with every search!

If K-Fed isn't your cup of tea, you can also Search With Wynonna, Search With Meatloaf, or Search With Andrew Dice Clay.

Labels: internet

There was some chatter yesterday about how Google had messed up their Valentine's Day Google Doodle.

Everyone was all, "What's a Googe?"

A few people found answers in obscure references, such as Barnabe Googe, a 16th Century poet, and Debbie Googe of My Bloody Valentine.

But in the end, Google wants these people to know that they just don't get it. The extra long stem on the strawberry is the L. Case closed.

Labels: general, internet