Who Helped?

Saw this in the sidebar on Yahoo! News and did a double take:

Really?  Dr. Who (as in, the time traveler) helped us find Bin Laden?  Wow!  This will be interesting...

But then I realized I was skimming / mentally editing, and hadn't yet processed the last few words:

Um, yeah.  That makes more sense.

Full article for the record, with a full headline that is less open to geeky interpretation:

Pakistani Doctor Who Aided Bin Laden Hunt Gets 33 Years

A Wiki-less, Google-less World

Wikipedia, other websites go dark in anti-piracy bill protest

End Piracy, Not Liberty

Gmail is Like Cilantro

This one's for BoRyan:

Google's Wiltse Carpenter compared the frustration with threaded Gmail to the backlash over cilantro. "And just as an outspoken minority has banded together in unison to declare their distaste of one of nature's most delicious herbs, some of you have been very vocal about your dislike of conversation threading," he wrote in a blog post.

(via cnet)

How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web

A little old, but fascinating:

How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web

The Wilderness Downtown

Please go to the following URL using Google Chrome:

http://www.thewildernessdowntown.com/

(And don't skip the address part, even if it says it doesn't have enough info.)

Surfing

1. Found this crazy article (crazy in how it takes itself so seriously):

Boycott Bill Murray for a Better America

2. Based on the website the above article was from, I had a hunch that led to another search. My hunch proved false, but indirectly allowed me to naturally discover a Googlewhack without even trying!

3. And linked from the page the Googlewhack uncovered is yet another awesome (albeit old) headline, especially given the context/content:

When Cracked Objects Collide

Lost Cat Poster

Hilarious tale of a lady with a lost cat asking her designer friend to help make a poster for her.

Missing Missy

(via FYLost)

Flash

(Visiting The Oatmeal for the first time in awhile always has me getting caught up and following the occasional real world links he includes. I wasn't going to do two posts in one day, but this is the funniest thing I've read in forever -- and it's from 2003!)

Uproar over Anti-Flash Intro Survey Results

Quote from Macromedia employee (pre-Adobe buyout) on website Flash intros:

"When we have clients who are thinking about Flash splash pages, we tell them to go to their local supermarket and bring a mime with them. Have the mime stand in front of the supermarket, and, as each customer tries to enter, do a little show that lasts two minutes, welcoming them to the supermarket and trying to explain the bread is on aisle six and milk is on sale today.

"Then stand back and count how many people watch the mime, how many people get past the mime as quickly as possible, and how many people punch the mime out.

"That should give you a good idea as to how well their splash page will be received. That's the crux of it."

Email

I think Yahoo and Hotmail should be swapped, but otherwise spot on. Plus it has a great coincidental iNetNow inside joke...

What Your Email Address Says About Your Computer Skills

(via The Oatmeal)

Let Them Sing It For You

Just when you think you've seen every cool thing there is on the Internet, something like this comes along...

Let Them Sing It For You

(via All Songs Considered)

How To Use Wave In a Life or Death Situation

(from Gizmodo)

If you appreciated this, then head on over to your Wave account and respond to Gary! Otherwise, I'll have to pull out Ezekiel on you.

The Other Internet

Cool little short story:

The Other Internet

(via Novelr)

Triumphant Return

I've been away...

Jeeves Has Retired
"Jeeves, after years of loyal service is taking the opportunity to hang up his butler suit and take retirement."

...but now I'm back:

Why I'm Back
"I popped out three years ago to travel the world in a quest for knowledge and I've returned to Blighty armed with answers."


(with apologies to the Jesus and Mary Chain & Mazzy Star)

Sometimes Always - The Jesus &...

Google Axes

Not even Google is immune to the recession. Announced today, 6 Google products are being either shut down or scaled way back.

Webware has the details, but I thought I'd call out a couple that held a special place in my heart:

Google Catalog Search
Although I understand that it was becoming less and less useful in this day and age, I've loved having this as a secret weapon ever since we stumbled onto it in the iNetNow days. I believe Scott Whinery gets the credit if I recall correctly. This was one of the first secret "lab" type Google projects we were ahead of the curve on and it always came in handy for really obscure product requests from clients. (I actually used it a couple of weeks ago while researching gourmet pepper corns.) Plus it really gave us clout as Internet experts to throw out "Have you tried Google Catalog search?" every now and then.

Google Notebook
Eerily similar to the Zuma "track URL" functionality, though I never really got into using it for real world projects. This isn't actually being shut down, but active development is stopping. It has more or less been replaced by some combination of del.icio.us, Backpack, or Google's own bookmarks and search-wiki type structures nowadays, but I definitely recall the "we were on to something!" elation when Notebook came out and and it mirrored a lot of the whistles and bells regarding excerpts that BoRyan had built into latter day versions of Zuma's first killer feature.

So long, dear friends. We'll never forget you...

Downloading Is Wrong

So technically I suppose this would be considered using a virus for "good" purposes -- at least in theory.

Trojan Blocks The Pirate Bay and Mininova

A new trojan popped up at several torrent sites a few weeks ago, one that blocks access to The Pirate Bay and Mininova, while informing its victims that “downloading is wrong.” The trojan edits the hosts file on Windows machines, and redirects the BitTorrent sites to localhost, making them impossible to load.

Back-Button To The Future

Back-Button to the Future

They had me at "manipulating the temporal web." Essentially the next evolution of the Wayback Machine, and if it works as advertised I'm blown away...

Check out the video demo.

Questions of the Year

Top "question" searches of the year from Ask.com. (Yes, they still exist...)

Ask.com Top Queries

1. How do I get pregnant?
2. How do I lose weight?
3. How do I write a resume?
4. How much is minimum wage?
5. How much is my car worth?
6. How do I change my name?
7. What is the meaning of life?
8. How do I register to vote?
9. Why is the sky blue?
10. How do I download videos?

Tells you a little bit about the people who still type in full "how do I ______ ?" style quesitons into a search engine...

(via Webware)

Let me Google that for you...

A screencast is worth a thousand searches:

Let Me Google That For You

(via Webware)

Root Cause

Spam Volumes Drop by Two-Thirds After Firm Goes Offline

The volume of junk e-mail sent worldwide plummeted on Tuesday after a Web hosting firm identified by the computer security community as a major host of organizations engaged in spam activity was taken offline.

Layoffs Aren't Always Layoffs

TechCrunch article on recent layoffs and why they might not all be economy related. Interesting and probably very true.

Some Of These Layoffs Aren’t Really Layoffs

Some CEOs see this as a once-in-a-startup opportunity to get rid of the deadwood in the company.

A company that has made layoffs is branded a loser, and it becomes very hard to get positive press, recruit new talent and close new rounds of financing. Until now that is. Companies that have made layoffs in the last week are generally being given a pat on the back for being financially prudent.

They just wanted to fire the 5% of staff that weren’t really pulling their weight or putting in the effort.

Clearly not all, or even most, of the layoffs are hidden terminations of non-performing employees. But many of them are, CEOs are telling me off record. It’s not like the names are being drawn out of a hat at random. The superstars tend to stay.