What do you think this is, the Internet?
Posted: Friday, October 27, 2006 9:49 PM by Will Femia
"Bloggers are being asked to show their support for freedom of expression by Amnesty International."
Of course, you have to actually be able to view blogs in order for them to convey any kind of message.
Speaking of stuff you can't view, I'm surprised to read that NBC is blocking the Dixie Chicks' movie ad because it's too disparaging of the president. Um, NBC guys (not to mention, colleagues)? Have you seen the Olbermann show? The Chicks were on Hardball the other day, but managed to talk about their story without much Bush bashing. Their pet issue seems to be media consolidation. You can view the ad here. The official site here.
Speaking of President Bush, check out this cool toy. You drag the words from the bank into the speech pane to play a speech in President Bush's voice. Notice that the bank has multiple tabs. It takes some work to find pieces that make a coherent sentence, but it's better than the more common soundboards we usually see.
Concept Art is a community of fantasy artists workshopping each others' work. It looks like they do theme contests like they do on Worth 1000 too. NOTE: In the course of clicking I did see a pair of bare breasts. Not uncommon in fantasy art, but probably uncommon in your workplace. Take heed.
Neighboroo puts demographic data on an interactive map. My New York City neighbors should avoid clicking the air quality index. Yeesh!
13 Greatest horror movies ever. This is a pretty good list, but one that I'd sneak on there is the original (Dutch I think) version of The Vanishing. That was a mind blower.
The Michael J. Fox ad technique only works if your opponent is actually against stem cell research. Duh. UPDATE: As folks are pointing out in the comments, Russerts played the ads back to back on Meet the Press yesterday and the two candidates went at it for a bit. The difference is over embryonic stem cell research. Russert then pushes the anti-embryonic candidate into the classic "fertility clinic left-overs" trap. Good segment.
Today's thing the world didn't need: deep fried pizza (reportedly tastes good).
Lamborghini Gallardo vs. Ducati 999 - I guessed this one right.
How a Massachusetts carpenter got the highest Scrabble score ever. This is what it would sound like if Scrabble matches were televised and announced by a color commentator.
This ad looks like it was made in response to our look last week at sexy-themed women's costumes. NOTE: Contains a couple loud curses. The joke is "sexy." There's no nudity and it's not too lurid, but y'know, use your judgment at work. Also, clicking around the host site might find some actual NSFW material. OK, now click.
(Bill Maher is making jokes about this on this week's Real Time as I write this. [Just before he goes on a scathing Olbermann-esque tear about America not being number 1 -- look for that one to go viral soon.])
Speaking of oversexed costumes, a British supermarket caused a bit of a scandal for including a stripper pole in the toy section of its Web site.
Speaking of pole dancing, a new Popular Science blog analyzes the physics of that video of the pole dancing girl who falls on her head. Interesting to note that a YouTube link on this entry had to be removed for copyright reasons.
Speaking of removing stuff from YouTube, apparently they've pulled all the Comedy Central content, including Daily Show and South Park clips. Hopefully Comedy Central is picking up the slack and improving their own video offerings.
"Let's put this in terms crude enough for all cyber-dwellers to grasp. The Internet sucks." The main point is that the Internet isn't living up to its early billing.
"While it takes a critical mass of users to make these sites work, having too many users alienates some, especially when they attract an ever-growing cacophony of advertising and in some cases, spam." I have often argued that community doesn't scale. The more people who join in, the noisier it gets, the faster the quality drops. As it happens, I received an e-mail on this very subject not long ago:
Dear Will,
Have you ever clicked anything offering advice on how to keep the MySpace floozies away? Recently I checked my e-mail and had over thirty friend requests and/or messages from women who are clearly just trying to get people to sign up for their porn sites or webcam shows. This is just ridiculous. Seems every time a new means of communication is invented some ass thinks up a way to harass people with advertising they don't want to see.
Thanks,
SwordBuddha
The only advice I can think of is to find a smaller community.
Speaking of MySpace floozies, Jessica Simpson reportedly keeps a profile under a different name and actively socializes with it. That makes MySpace socializing such a bizarre lottery, the skeptic in my wonders if the whole thing is a MySpace advertising gambit.
Speaking of odd lotteries, there's a penny worth $500 out there somewhere.
But speaking of looking at pop stars on MySpace, did you know that Video Code Zone is the third most popular video sharing site by MySpace members? After YoutTube and Myspace, more than Google.
Google had better watch out or its name may instead become synonymous with petty pedantry. Put another way, stick it in your Google.
