Link Banana

You’ve all heard about how Chatroulette is the future past of the internet’s 4chan-based fad VC, right? Well, here’s the best thing Chatroulette has made.

(via @ironicsans)

I’d argue it’s required that both Dr. Seuss fans and aspiring artists like these Letters of Note.

(via @austinkleon)

I’ll just quote Kottke:

Maybe you’re tired of un-pop-music-like things being run through Auto-Tune, but I’m not quite there yet. This Auto-Tuned Carl Sagan mix is very nearly sublime.

Philosophistry has another great round-up of stuff you’re missing on Reddit. This one of the nascent sub-reddit “Does Anybody Else” (DAE). My selections (again a mix of his and my own):

• DAE freaking hate that when you have several tabs open in Firefox you can’t quickly find which one is producing sound?
• DAE have moments where they realize “Holy shit, I’m a living, breathing thing. I have a body, I am alive”?
• DAE feel like they look stupid/ugly/weird on every picture, but still feel like you look ok in the mirror?
• DAE set multiple alarms just because you like to wake up and fall asleep again?
• When taking a piss, DAE often flush mid-stream and engage in a race against time?

These posts call to mind the unexpected feeling of “you too!?” that I remember from playing Randall Munroe’s (of xkcd fame) constantly changing Best Thing game from a few years back.

I stumbled on a doozy of a puzzle — like a really complex game of Sudoku — and couldn’t resist solving it. You may well be stronger-willed or busier than I am, but I thought you might be interested. (I used solve problems like this one frequently for math competitions, and it felt good to chip away at the ten years of rust.)

(indirectly via Gruber)

This feels like it must be fake (or a publicity stunt), but AdAge reports that Kraft crowdsourced the name a new Vegemite and cream cheese concoction, “Vegemite iSnack 2.0” was the winner, and they’re actually planning on pushing the product to shelves labelled as such. (It’s been on shelves already, but with “Name Me” labels.)

(via The Awl)

Ever since I encountered the term a few months ago, my back of the brain aspiration has been to be made Benevolent Dictator for Life of something.

My most recent podcast discovery, and a very promising one at that. A “This American Life” for video games, seems to capture it about as well as anything else I’ve heard.

(via yewknee)

The Infrastructurist shares some of the most interesting, innovative, and annoying examples of advertising creeping further and further into our daily lives.

Whether or not it’s true, I found this story pretty interesting. The contention is that a Boston naval and aeronautical designer, rather than a British type consultant, created the typeface that The Times (of London) made famous.

(via Fresh Signals)

Though it’a hardly the most enlightening interview I’ve ever read, this interview with a Somali pirate does have some interesting tidbits. This, for example, shocked me:

How much does it cost to outfit a pirate mission?

A single mission with 12 armed men and boats costs a little over $30,000. But a successful investor has to dispatch at least three or four missions to get lucky once.

(via the Snarkmatrix, which also points to this more illuminating Planet Money story)

I noticed that my recent Netflix activity shows a heavy bias for full television seasons over two-hour movies. It brought to mind something Jason Kottke discussed a few months back:

Megamovies take television seriously as a medium. They have dramatic arcs that last longer than single episodes or seasons. …  They’re shot cinematically and utilize good actors. Plot details sprawl out over multiple episodes, with viewers sometimes having to wait weeks to fit what might have seemed a throwaway line into the larger narrative puzzle.

Episodes of these megamovies, Canby argued presciently, are best watched in bunches, so that the parts more easily make the whole in the viewer’s mind. For many, bingeing on entire seasons on DVD or downloaded via iTunes has become the preferred way to watch these shows. If stamina and non-televisual responsibilities weren’t an issue, it would be preferable to watch these shows in one sitting, as one does with a movie.

If nothing else, Esquire’s sending their reporter in blind — all he had was a first name and an address — made me read my first celebrity interview in about a year. It’s also pretty damn fun.

(via kottke)

I’ve been meaning to look at this site for weeks (since I first saw it here) and finally got around to it. Though I suspect that everyone has seen it in the meantime, I have share it because it’s a clever vehicle for some genuinely funny jokes. And they recently started a new “season.”

You’ve probably seen some of these photos elsewhere. Others are doubtless Photoshopped or just staged for amusement. But it doesn’t stop this site from being worth a little of your time.

(via DF)

The LA Times has an interesting Flash thing (game seems too generous): devise a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to balance California’s famously troubled budget. For some reason I can’t seem to devise a solution that no one would be upset about…

(via Mr. Arment)

It’s been too long since I read The Onion:

“Once you let go of the need to express your thoughts to your family, you suddenly feel much lighter,” Wilmot said. “You just float along blissfully, finally liberated from the burden of having any presence at all. It’s sort of like getting to return to the womb. Which is way more enjoyable than trying to explain to a tableful of Celine Dion fans why you can’t stand her.”

(via kottke)

This scares me. Really. It’s irrational, but my heart rate’s elevated.

Also, a time lapse of it.

(via Awesome Tag)

This collection is fun. The internet needs more sites that make Danny Glover the default avatar.

(via yewknee)

A CollegeHumor song about the loser+hottie relationship dynamics that exist within Judd Apetow-related movies.

I’m sorry and you’re welcome.

(via Vulture)