Everything Is A Remix Part 4

Schemer.com

Productivity future rant by Bret Victor

A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

Essential Blogging (2002)

Farewell Facebook

Black Hat 2010 Abu Dhabi

Black Hat ® Technical Security Conference: Abu Dhabi 2010 // Home

Conficker worm

Very long and interesting write-up on the Conficker worm that appeared in 2008 and infected millions of PCs, and the task-force working to disable it. This great article reads more like a high-tech thriller!

The Enemy Within - Magazine - The Atlantic

Geocitiesizer

Wanna see how your web page (or any web page at that) would look if it were designed in the age of Geocities in the mid-nineties? Look no further than the Geocities-izer, this will give you the full package of animated gifs, Netscape logos, Comic Sans type and (most importantly) midi audio playback in the background - I can't stop laughing!

Geocities-izer - Make Any Webpage Look Like It Was Made By A 13 Year-Old In 1996

Denon dedicated link cable

Funny Amazon product reviews are funny: this time for the 500$ Denon premium audio cable.

This connection isn't sound. If my calculations are correct, it should be sometime around 2007 for whomever is reading this. DO NOT USE THESE CABLES. Something... happens with them. Something came through, something from somewhere else. We were overrun in days, not many of us are left. WE LIVE UNDERGROUND! ONLY YOU CAN STOP IT NOW. SAVE US. DO NOT USE THESE CABLES.

Amazon.com: Denon AKDL1 Dedicated Link Cable: Electronics

Filing the edges off a macbook

Ugh, we would usually use the word "nerd" in a rather positive sense, but his guy shows what it's like to be a nerd of the obnoxious type: if you have to "whine on Twitter" about the sharp edges of your Macbook then, well, you should consider stop blogging and "get a life".

How to File the Sharp Edge Off a MacBook Pro | One Man's Blog

Google China uncensored

Google has finally uncensored its search pages in China by redirecting all visitors to Google.cn to their unfiltered Hong Kong site. This move came after repeated hacking attempts that Google attributed to China.

Read the whole article on Wired for the full scoop-- it's interesting that while Google received a lot of bashing when starting to censor themselves in China in 2006, now other people are criticizing Google for moving out, claiming to "abandon the Chinese people" with even more censored search engines. ..the hell?

Google Uncensors China Search Engine | Epicenter | Wired.com

How Google street view works

Kind of cute: official Google Japan animated stop-motion video about how Google Street View works.

YouTube - ストリートビューのプライバシーについて

New top level domains

Is this a good move, or will this only confuse the hell out of everybody? Canon has announced that it is planning to buy the .canon domain if and when it becomes available in 2011. This might become possible because ICANN (the corporation that assigns domain names) is planning to loosen the conventions on top level domains (TLD), which currently are quite severely limited to country domains and a few like .com, .net, .gov etc.

Canon First in Line for Its Own Top-Level Domain, .canon | Epicenter | Wired.com

Google beast

Google bashing is en vogue right now, what with all the class action suits about privacy on Google Buzz, Google Maps etc. Above video is no exception-- it doesn't raise a lot of new points (we all know what a multi-tentacled octopus Google has become) but it does paint an informative allover picture.

The Presurfer: The Beast File: Google

How to make profile pictures

Honestly I usually don't like posting advertisements, but this one has a point: in this ad clip Samsung shows a few handy tips how to appear cool on profile pictures even when you're a zombie, vampire or otherwise disfigured.

Blame It On The Voices: Do not trust profile pictures!

Giant swiss knife

As absurd as this giant Swiss knife by maker Wenger, priced at a cool 700 Euros and including nearly 90 tools, may appear, what's even better are the hilarious comments left at the German Amazon page:

...some functions are just not very easily accessible or usable. For instance, the built-in particle accelerator is only function correctly if nail file and corkscrew are folded out by exactly 107,2 degrees. Also, the humming of the force field when hit by surface-to-air missiles is annoying.

Wenger Schweizer Offiziersmesser Giant Messer, mit Schatulle: Amazon.de: Sport & Freizeit

Cyanide & Happiness

I don't know what exactly it is about Cyanide & Happiness but I have found nearly any comic strip by them hilarious. And now I discovered their animated comic strips on the Youtube channel! Be sure to check out their amazing Cyanide and Happiness book -- yes, Internet literature is the best.

YouTube - ExplosmEntertainment's Channel

Shady URL

This, I like: don't just create a shortened URL for Twitter like with bit.ly, but make it suspicious and frightening looking: ShadyURL.

ShadyURL - Making Your Twitter Followers A Little More Uneasy

Amazon test product

Check out the great reviews on the Amazon "test product", maybe it's time to get one yourself.

Amazon.com: This Is a Test Product and Nothing Will Be Sent to You

Facebook closes Iron Sky's page, reopens it

Interesting: Facebook shut down the Iron Sky fan page, presumably because of some algorithm detecting the term "Nazi"; then, after some fan protests, they brought the page back 12 hours later, regretting the "misunderstanding":

On February 2nd Facebook closed down the Facebook fan page of Iron Sky, a Finnish-German science fiction comedy where the Nazis, who fled to the Moon in 1945, return to invade Earth in 2018. Apart from a generic note about Iron Sky having violated the terms of use of Facebook no reason for closing down the page was given.

Facebook’s decision to close down the Iron Sky page caused an outcry amongst the fans, who founded a support group in Facebook, changed their Facebook avatar to Iron Sky themed pictures and used Twitter and other social media to spread the news. The Facebook support group gathered over 1000 users in a very short time.

About twelve hours after the page was closed Iron Sky team received an e-mail from the Facebook team, where they were informed that the page is reopened. No reason for the initial decision to close it down was given.

Facebook re-opens Iron Sky fan page : Iron Sky :: Official Movie Site