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 Best Political Talk Show of 2006 The Rachel Maddow Show Best Music Radio Show of 2006 Sounds Eclectic with Nic Harcourt Best Technology Blog of 2006 We Make Money Not Art Best Interesting Links Blog of 2006 kottke.org Best Internet Newspaper of 2006 WashingtonPost.com Best Comments Section of 2006 Slashdot Worst Comments Section of 2006 YouTube Best News Program of 2006 The Colbert Report Best News Source of 2006 The Onion Worst News Source of 2006 Gizmodo Best Internet Radio Station of 2006 Proton Radio* Best Satellite Radio Station of 2006 XMU, XM* Best Major Podcast Provider of 2006 NPR Podcasts Best Independent Podcast Provider of 2006 TWiT.TV Best Online Video of 2006 Tickle Me Elmo X-treme On Fire Best Authoritarian Dictator to Die in 2006 Fidel Castro Worst Authoritarian Dictator to Die in 2006 Saddam Hussein Best Resignation of 2006 Donald Rumsfeld Best Magazine of 2006 Harper's Worst Magazine of 2006 In Touch Weekly Best Bigger Budget Film of 2006 Children of Men Worst Bigger Budget Film of 2006 Deck The Halls Best Smaller Budget Film of 2006 Pan's Labyrinth Best Documentary Film of 2006 An Inconvenient Truth Best Mockumentary Film of 2006 Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan Best Portable MP3 Player of 2006 iPod Shuffle 2G Worst Portable MP3 Player of 2006 Microsoft Zune Best Acquisition Acceptance of 2006 YouTube from Google for $1.65bn Worst Acquisition Refusal of 2006 Facebook from Yahoo! for $1.6bn Best Online CD Retailer of 2006 CD Baby* Best Independent MP3 Retailer of 2006 Beatport* Most Innovative DJ of 2006 Chris Fortier* Least Innovative DJ of 2006 ATB Best Cartoon of 2006 Venture Bros. Best Television Series of 2006 30 Rock Best Albums of 2006 Yonderboi - Splendid Isolation The Knife - Silent Shout The Raconteurs - Broken Boy Soldiers BT - This Binary Universe Math and Physics Club - Math and Physics Club Booka Shade - Movements Matmos - The Rose Has Teeth In the Mouth of a Beast Royal Sapien - Strip Poker Slot Machine Phoenix - It's Never Been Like That Lily Allen - Alright, Still Worst Album of 2006 Kevin Federline, Playing With Fire  The equally terrifying and majestic Grand Canyon glass walkway will officially open in March. Hatriotism: Proving your patriotism by hating the people the government tells you to hate. [via A.Whole] Nintendo is replacing 1st generation Wiimote straps by mail since they have a point of failure. If you have one of the early ones and plan to throw your controller with the force of a thousand robots, ask Nintendo to send you new ones for free. The Wiimotion Flickr pool has photos of people playing with their Wiis. [via Wonderland] One of the best moments from Fresh Prince. [YouTube via Digg] Animation-inspired lessons from Walt Stanchfield, drawing instructor for Walt Disney Studios. "we should learn to get that first impression down right away – while it’s fresh, while it’s still in that first impression stage – before it starts to fade…" A new poll reveals that only 25% of Americans know they eat genetically modified foods in their diet. Male circumcision has a 50-60% preventative rate from acquiring HIV/AIDS. Richard Dawkins is the guest on The Late Late Show, RTÉ 1, Ireland. [YouTube] "[P]ressure is building for Texas Gov. Rick Perry to commute the sentence of Tyrone Brown, who was sentenced to life in prison for smoking pot. In 1990, when he was 17, Brown took part in a $2 robbery in which the victim was not physically injured, a crime for which he received 10 years of probation. A few weeks later, he tested positive for marijuana, and the judge not only revoked his probation but inexplicably resentenced him to a life term." "ALBANY, N.Y. — The son of Miami Police Chief John Timoney was sentenced Wednesday to 18 months [instead of 40 years] in federal prison for trying to buy 400 pounds of marijuana from an undercover agent." xRez has gigapixel zoomable images that are simply astonishing. Fish have been discovered that thrive on 350 degree water near underwater volcanoes with a ph balance equivalent to sulfuric acid.  You Thought We Wouldn't Notice keeps track of graphic design ripoffs. The Shower Project is one gay man's quest to shower with 100 women and document it to make his straight friends jealous. The new Al-Jazeera English network hosted Samantha Bee from The Daily Show to get some advice on being TV journalists. Video at HuffPo. Wiimote GlovePIE script for using the Wiimote to control Google Earth. Mr. Show: The Pre-Taped Call-In Show. [YouTube] Gawker posted a really well-rounded collection of overused phrases relied upon by bloggers and media types to seem hip. I cannot deny that I am guilty of some of these myself. Effective January 1, all outdoor advertising in São Paulo will be prohibited. A new type of nano-cable converts light into electricity. "The cables are 16 nanometres in diameter and several micrometres long. They resemble the light-harvesting antennae used by some bacteria and transform light into electricity in a similar way to the semiconductors in solar panels, albeit on a much smaller scale." Jason Kottke points to Regret The Error's top corrections of 2006, including, "She's got the patent resume of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football. She's African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that." Matt Damon as a shirtless Matthew McConaughey. [YouTube] The Apple iPhone will most likely be released in January and is rumored to be much like an iPod mini with a slide-out phone keypad. "Boeing's stolen laptop nudges the total number of lost or exposed personal records since February, 2005, past the 100 million mark, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse's excellent data breach chronology website." [via 27B Stroke 6] The new beta of Photoshop CS3 is now available on Adobe's website. Use a valid Photoshop serial number to unlock and use it or find a hack that's already been posted to lots of sites. This is the first time Adobe has released a public beta of Photoshop. A beta of the interesting-looking Adobe Soundbooth is also available. Bill Clinton responds to a heckler. [YouTube] The rooftop 3-story penthouse atop the Pierre Hotel in midtown Manhattan is on sale for $70 million. xkcd drew a map of the Internet, all 256 /8 subnets in the ipv4 space. Old VCRs can be hollowed out to make all sorts of fun things, like a media center PC. Labels: Sunday Reader  Big Hunter S. Thompson photography show at the M+B Gallery in L.A. View the collection online. [via BB] Pentagram designed the user interface for the One Laptop Per Child program. From the images they provide, I don't quite understand it. [via kottke] Cory Doctorow put together a wonderful guide to charitable giving for the holiday season. In addition to The Internet Archive, Creative Commons, the EFF, and the ACLU, I would also suggest City Harvest, UNICEF, Amnesty International, and The Hunger Site Network (it's free!). SantaCON is this Saturday in NYC. Enter your mobile number to get a text message with the location when it's revealed. [thanks Allyson] The Opera browser channel will be released for the Wii on December 23 with free use until June 2007. The forecast channel will be out December 20 and the news channel debuts January 27.  Over the weekend I was finally able to obtain a US-formatted copy of Series One of Look Around You, a program originally aired on BBC Two a few years ago. It's a classic British spoof of a series the BBC created for schools decades earlier and is hilariously funny. Amazon has the DVD but it's region 2 so it won't play in the States, and I haven't found a commercially available region 1 disc. Kind people have posted all 8 original episodes to YouTube. Look Around You - Module 1 - Maths Look Around You - Module 2 - Water Look Around You - Module 3 - Germs Look Around You - Module 4 - Ghosts Look Around You - Module 5 - Sulphur Look Around You - Module 6 - Music Look Around You - Module 7 - Iron Look Around You - Module 8 - Brain  Mini living room with working TV via Gizmodo. Avatars in Second Life consume as much electricity as Brazilians. "[L]ooking at CO2 production, 1,752 kWH/year per avatar is about 1.17 tons of CO2. That's the equivalent of driving an SUV around 2,300 miles." The RIAA would like to reduce royalty payments to artists. "Record industry executives said there was nothing strange about seeking a rate change that would pay less to the people who write the music." Dividing by zero? Well, I never. BBC News seems to be taking this idea of nullity pretty seriously, overlooking that the concept has been around for years and still yields no real results. [via waxy] The Ultimate Rejection Letter. "After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me an assistant professor position in your department." [via reddit]  The Nietzsche Family Circus pairs random Family Circus cartoons with random Nietzsche quotes. Do not attempt to teach the customer a lesson. "Either you're going to make someone happy or you're not. Doing the 'right' thing is irrelevant." New Spank Rock mp3 - Lindsay Lohan. Hot. "It's like the theme song to our deepest wishes! Someone had to say it." Joe Rogan ably demonstrates how to shut down a heckler. [YouTube] [NSFW] In case you haven't yet read it, Lindsay Lohan's awesome email. "Our people. Also because I have such an impact on our younger generations, as well as generations older than me. Which we all know and can obviously see. People are just mean." Somewhat related to Lindsay Lohan but more related to Paris Hilton, the Chinese government's recent attempted public shaming of prostitutes and their clients backfired with a display many citizens found unnecessary and distasteful. How often do you read design magazines, and how thoroughly? Vote in the survey at BaDG. Personally, I flip through them sometimes but find more inspiration walking in NYC. A fire at a Moscow drug clinic killed at least 45 people because "the building has metal grilles on all the windows and staircases, and the ward doors are always locked for the night."  Beautifully functional yacht tables that rotate to serve twice the number of diners easily and comfortably. The engineering of the mechanism is art itself. [via BB] Here's a rotary reading desk from 1588. Diet Coke Plus will be launching in 2007 featuring vitamins and minerals added to the aspartame and caramel color. A moment with the Upright Citizens Brigade. [YouTube] Writers Dreamtools has remarkably thorough details about every decade from 1650 to 1990, from clothing to money to entertainment. So how's that novel you've been workin' on? [via kottke] The logo of the Max Planck Institute is continuously evolving based on a few factors, "employees = density, funding = speed, number of publications = activity. Different logos are being "bred" and then picked by fitness in relation to the parameters or voted for by the employees. Thus, everytime the logo is displayed on a website as an animated icon or printed out on a letter, it reflects the current state of the lab as a living organism." Even an obsession with life-sized dolls can get out of hand.  The Divine Fart is on display now in the lobby of Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art. [via BB] µTorrent and BitTorrent have become one. I'm not sure how I feel about that at all since BitTorrent is now in a relationship with the MPAA. Make a Wiimote into a drum set! Amazing. A Charlie Brown Christmas with the cast of Scrubs. [YouTube] [via Waxy] In French-speaking Canada, curse words are generally having to do more with the church than any sort of taboo act. "In America, you are so Puritan that the swearing is mostly about sex. Here, since we were repressed so long by the church, people use religious terms." "Peace Oil is olive oil produced in Northern Israel by a staff of Arabs, Jews, Bedouins and Druze working together." [via JS] If you've ever been curious how Google's PageRank system works, this is how. If you combine electricity, wine, and the strangest voiceover in promo history, you can make wine taste like it's older and, like, better. [YouTube] [via Gizmodo] Labels: Sunday Reader
This week's Sunday Reader discussed seasonal crafts, video games, illustration, data generation, resin sculptures, and functional brain improvement. And now for something completely different. (NSFW)
  With Apple's iTV coming out soon with the ability to stream media from iTunes to your TV, I began to wonder whether the Wii could do the same thing since it has wifi and a web browser with Flash capability. So here's the theory I came up with, and I don't know whether it's easy or incredibly system-intensive... What if there were a personal web server with a Flash interface that not only dynamically listed movies and music in a specific folder on my PC, but also transcoded them into Flash video and mp3 audio in real time? Is that ridiculous to even ask? Or simple to do? I think an open source Wii Player package would be tremendous.  A big gallery of Chris Ware stuff, plus his excellent cover for the Writers On Writers issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review. [via MeFi] Spresent lets users create very decent Flash-based presentations to share or send for free. HOWTO: Make a 3d paper snowflake. Game demos will soon come to the Wii Shop to download free onto the console or an SD card.  Eboy's new digital poster for web2.0! [via waxy] Giving gifts that aren't really gifts is an art I'd never considered taking up but seems quite fun. "Traditionally, if you hated parents you gave their daughter a Barbie doll. Just one set of clothes, however. And no accessories, and no dreamhouse, and..." [via kottke] Wonderful random data generator to use for graphs, charts, application testing... Some fun codes for finding extra stuff in Wii Sports. Watch The Ben Stiller Show for free on AOL TV.  One Ms. Beth Garrison stitched this excellent salute to The IT Crowd. It looks like NBC just picked the show up and is "redeveloping" it for the US. Fingers crossed. [via BB, BB] People are stirring in the wings of The Daily Show. "Ben Karlin, Executive Producer of both The Daily Show and co-creator/EP of The Colbert Report alolng with Jon Stewart has allegedly just announced his resignation from The Daily Show. The Apiary also reports that Karlin will likely be replaced by Daily Show head writer David Javerbaum." Lee Hungkoo's Animatus is skeletons of cartoon characters. (See Slimmer Angle) 22 ways to overclock your brain. Beautiful Wii spot that's both a parody of and an homage to the PS3 ads. [YouTube] Labels: Sunday Reader |
   
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August 2004 September 2004 October 2004 November 2004 December 2004 January 2005 February 2005 March 2005 April 2005 May 2005 June 2005 July 2005 August 2005 September 2005 October 2005 November 2005 December 2005 January 2006 February 2006 March 2006 April 2006 May 2006 June 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March 2007 April 2007 May 2007 June 2007 July 2007 August 2007  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
 
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