TheForce.Net - Fan Films
Just because they've stopped making Star Wars movies doesn't mean that fans have lost their interest in the characters or the plots. In fact, Star Wars has some of the most passionate fans, and they've been dreaming up creative new stories about The Force, and filming them on their own.
TheForce.Net has a huge archive of these fan films for you to download for free. You will not believe how many there are!
Get your geek on!
mad decent worldwide radio #12
The mad decent podcast is a monthly mix created by Diplo, a dj from Philladelphia that mixes Brazillian ghetto funk with the earliest NYC hiphop.
This 28 minute remix of James Brown tracks was lovingly crafted by guest dj, Cosmo Baker. It's fantastic! The mix could go on for hours, and be even better; James Brown's music is just so innovative and funky!
Subscribe to the mad decent radio podcast for Diplo's monthly 30 minute mix of wild, funky music you definitely haven't heard before.
James Brown, Rest In Peace.
senduit - share easily
There have been so many times when I've wanted to share files with people, and the files were just too big to email. Now, there's a really easy, free way to share those files.
Easier than FTP, instant messaging or whatever other work-arounds you can think of, senduit is bare bones, but free and so easy to use. As they say on their site, the two steps are:
Step 1 Upload your file
Step 2 Get a private web link to share
You can specify how long until the link expires, between 30 minutes to 1 week. The only minor downside is that there is a 100 MB file limit.
Upload file. Email link. Download file. Free.
BibleMap.org
Pick any chapter in the Bible, and click on the link under any place name. You will instantly be transported to an overhead view of the location today, courtesy of Google Maps. If you click on the red pushpin in this mashup, you can read a description of the place and maybe see some photos.
While the project is still officially in Beta mode, the Events link shows a lot of promise. It currently tracks St. Paul's three missionary journeys from the book of Acts, but hopefully they will add more Bible events in the future.
Piracy is Good? How Battlestar Gallactica beat broadcast TV
Want to know where broadcast TV is heading?
This hour-long talk by Mark Pesce in Australia discusses tons and tons of opportunities for advertisers; TV, film and video producers and media companies created because of the explosion of Bit Torrent (peer-to-peer) video downloads. There are just so many new opportunites for marketing companies, advertisers, media producers, broadcasters, and new ways to distribute video (not just Youtube, either).
Once again, it looks like the huge media companies have it all backwards. Instead of trying to reinforce and tightly control the current system with increasingly strict copyright restrictions; they could be trying out all these new opportunities.
Oh yeah, did I mention that VideoSift is a pretty good online video aggregator?
Threadless
Threadless brings cutting edge t-shirt design, coolhunting, and exclusive designs to the masses.
Web 2.0 is about "social networking"; it's about users interaction and contributing content to websites. Threadless has 3 different ways for users to interact with their website.
1. Design and submit a small gif file of the coolest t-shirt that noone else in the world has never seen before.
2. Rank other people's design submissions. Of course, if you submitted a design, you could encourage your friends to vote for your own design. Only the best designs actually get printed on t-shirts. Winning designers get $2,000.
3. Of course, you can always shop for one of these cool designer shirts as well.
The Tyee
It's tough to get different opinions in the news in Vancouver, as the 2 local daily newspapers, one of the national papers, and the most popular TV newscast are all owned by the same company. As documented elsewhere, there are problems that come with the concentration of media ownership.
Thank goodness for The Tyee. The Tyee is an online-only newspaper that brings well-written, solid journalism to British Columbia. They do local, provincial, national and international news, as well as Editorials, Art and Culture, and the occasional sports column. Their most famous columnist is ex-politician and ex-talk show host, Rafe Mair (thank you Vancouver Radio Museum), who exhibits a surprising amount of non-partisan common sense despite his credentials.
They have RSS feeds and a weekly email newsletter to keep you up to date.
NHL.com - Radio
As the NHL prepares for the All-Star game today in Dallas, today's link lets you listen to every single NHL game live.
No matter where you live in the world, you can listen to your favourite team play every game over the internet. As so many sports leagues try to increase their "revenue stream" by gouging their fans for every penny they can get, it's uplifting that the NHL is doing something so right. The NHL is using this technology to make it easy and free to be a fan.
Through the miracle of Windows Media Player (also for Mac), every game's play-by-play is streamed live over the internet, using the same feed from each team's radio broadcast crew. If you're listening to a Montreal Canadiens game, you can even listen in French!
Acadamy Award Nominations - 2007
The nominees for the Academy Awards were announced this morning.
The best movie site, IMDB.com, has the complete list of nominees, with everything as clickable links. No speculation. No picks, predictions or oversights from the pundits; IMDB's simple, elegant, functional design lets you dive as deeply into each nominee’s resume as you wish to go.
And because this is the Tuesday music post, I want to mention that the nominees for Best Song and Best Score are included in the list of nominees.
World Heritage List
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has chosen to natural and cultural sites for protection, and inclusion on the World Heritage List. The criteria specify that they must "represent a masterpiece of human creative genius", "be areas of exceptional natural beauty", "contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity" or represent some other equally outstanding characteristics. In essence, the sites on the World Heritage List are judged to be the very best that our planet has to offer.
Currently, there are 830 sites, with at least 1 in every country, and many countries having many sites. There are many of the most famous sites, including the Great Pyramids, Machu Picchu, Angkor, and the Grand Canyon. There are also many lesser known sites, such as: the city of Pienza in Italy, the Japanese island of Yakushima, and the American Pueblo de Taos.
You could do a lot worse than using the UNESCO sites as your ultimate global travel checklist.
The Cellular Church - gladwell dot com
In a meeting of the best-selling authors, Malcolm Gladwell (of The Tipping Point) writes about Rick Warren (of The Purpose-Driven Life).
Subtitled, "How Rick Warren built his ministry", Gladwell goes in depth to discuss the life and ministry of Rick Warren, and the phenomenon of The Purpose-Driven Life in a compelling article, originally published in the New Yorker magazine.
Banksy
Banksy is one of the most interesting modern artists out there. This graffiti artist puts up whimsical and/or political paintings using stencil, usually without permission. His identity is a secret, but of course he has a website. His website has a "Shop" where many of his works are available for download, but everything is free.
Would You Visit These US States Based on Their Website? - Smiley Cat Web Design
I've travelled around the USA quite a bit, and there's a LOT to see!
Smiley Cat has checked out all the travel sites for all 50 sites, and rates all of them. Useful links for travellers, and great case studies for web designers.
The best and the worst links for all 50 states are all here.
How to get Google to notice you - USA TODAY
After nearly 3 weeks of writing this excellent daily blog, Google still hasn't noticed me. I googled "Linkjockey" 5 minutes ago and, essentially, I don't exist... at all. There are 9 results that show up from the search, and this blog is not one of them. Boo hoo.
So how does somebody get noticed by Google? Well, this article from USA Today provides a basic introduction into increasing one's ranking in Google searches.
Well, what are some of these ways? Well, I will attempt to use some of these examples in explaining today's post.
1. Have a clear title
Today, I will try to change the name of the blog from "Linkjockey" to "Linkjockey - The Best Site for Cool Daily Links"
2. Have descriptive content using cool words people will search for in Google
Maybe if the Link jockey includes words, such as: "links", "cool", and "daily" "everyday" in the "best blog" on the "web", Google will think highly of the Jockey.
3. Get people to link to you
Just like my dad, Brian Walks, did for my original links website on his Vancouver Radio Museum website
4. Use Google's Keyword Tool to find other helpful Keywords
This is the best way to find cool new keywords for this daily blog site everyday. Or maybe it didn't help at all.
One thing that the article didn't mention is that if you go overboard trying to attract Google's attention, you can your Google ranking can decrease significantly if you try to hype your site too much.
Well, I've made a few adjustments; now I just need help from a few people linking to me.
Please?
Damn Interesting
Damn Interesting has all kinds of really great, but little known, true stories.
What happens if an astronaut is exposed to the vacuum of space?
Can we travel through the middle of the earth using gravity if someone drilled a really big hole?
How can one tree survive alone in the middle of the desert?
Are truth serums effective?
What are the stories of the only Nazi Aircraft carrier, the Hiroshima bomb survivors, the most powerful Nuclear bomb ever made, the death of Rasputin and massive airplanes that fly only 20 feet above ground?
Wild, but true stories that you probably haven't seen anywhere else that are just... darn interesting!
Betcha can't read just one!
KCRW's Today's Top Tune
This NPR station, broadcasting from Santa Monica College in Southern California, has a podcast with a fresh, new song everyday. The artists featured are talented, young indie artists that are
representing an ecclectic selection of musical styles.
Some of their more prominent recently featured artists include: Badly Drawn Boy, The Shins, Moby, Koop, and Cat Power.
For easiest use, subscribe to the podcast.
The station site also has many more of their local and NPR podcasts available.
Top 10 Detox Foods
A list of 10 hip, healthy foods for the new year, complete with a recipe for a healthy and tasty meal (a hot spinach salad).
Bible.com
Looking for a specific Bible verse? Wondering about the differences between different translations? Want to read the Bible online for free? Looking for a translation of the Bible in another language?
What if you don't have any interest in the Bible? As Kevin Kelly writes about the Bible in one of his Cool Tools reviews, "You should read the Bible, at least once, maybe all the way through, because it does not say what you expect it to say, no matter what you expect it to say."
Bringing the Bible gracefully into the networked, searchable, Google age is Bible.com. It's the best online resource for searching, browsing, learning about and studying the Bible that I've come across online.
Going to the Mattesses: Cutting through the marketing gimmicks of the mattress companies
We bought a new mattress a few months ago, and it was a little frustrating.
Mattresses are so expensive. There are a lot of confusing features and specs. What's important? What does it all mean?
Buying a mattress can be a really big investment, and if you spend a third of your life sleeping, shouldn't your mattress be comfortable as possible to ensure you the most restful sleep? You don't want to be tossing and turning in your sleep for YEARS, do you?
Seth Stevenson does some solid investigative reporting on shopping for a mattress. He looks at brand names, coil counts, pillow tops, thickness, box springs, quilting, warranties, and different mattress materials. Guess what? At the risk of oversimplifying, it's all a scam to encourage you to part with more of your money. Don't be distracted by the hype; buy the mattress that's most comfortable for you in the store.
Kevin Kelly Cool Tools
Practical user-submitted gadgets, products and services that have actually been USED and recommended by real people. The website and email list are maintained by Kevin Kelly; co-founder of Wired magazine. The mailing list is sent out weekly.
There is a huge range of items listed.
Some of the Tools are obvious, but most are pretty obscure. Some are even free!
I really appreciate that the listings are not sponsored; they are suggested by real-world fanatics that have hands-on experience with Tools they nominate. In a world of millions of similar products, these recommendations and reviews mean a LOT to me when I'm considering what to buy.
Springwise: Idea Database
Similar to yesterday's entry about Trendwatching, the Springwise folks offer their coolhunting discoveries to the web on a daily basis, and publish a weekly email newsletter. In fact, Springwise and Trendwatching use the same coolhunters.
The focus at Springwise is on individual ideas that companies have released in cities around the world. What's new in Shanghai, New York or Paris? What amazing idea just came out in Austria, South Africa or Australia? It can be so hard to keep up (impossible?) with emerging ideas around the world when we can only be in one single geographic place at any given time.
The site design is elegant and easy to navigate. Oh, and the ideas are pretty cool too: a company selling camera-phone pics, a cookie company to employ women in a poor South African township, giving away free, sponsored bikes. I never would have thought of these ideas on my own.
Trendwatching's monthly Trend Briefing
http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing
The Trendwatching website creates a monthly Trend Briefing which takes a
stab at staying on the bleeding edge of cool. Their cool-hunters
identify emerging consumer trends, and then give them cute labels, such
as Generation Cash , Transumers, Starbucking, and Minipreneurs. These
futurists bring together data about innovations in several fields, and
develop these ideas to describe new trends in consumer product design
and marketing.
They also have an annual report, however at several hundred dollars,
it's a little too expensive for my tastes. The Trendwatching briefing
brings coolhunting trends to the masses.
elbo.ws Music Blog Aggregator
Many people have eclectic music tastes, including me. I like checking out emerging bands that might never make it to the mainstream. I like hearing new, different music. Sometimes I hear about bands in newspapers or blogs, and want to check them out, without the commitment of buying the album. These bands can also be difficult to locate via filesharing networks or at your local record store.
I´m not alone in trying to demo these bands´ songs.
There are a lot of blogs that write about bands, and post 1 or 2 of their mp3s (legally, I assume) so that you can get to know each of the artists a little bit better. Great, except that there are a LOT of these blogs, and it can be difficult to track down which blog these artists tracks are posted on.
Enter elbo.ws
elbo.ws is a website where you can search all of these music blogs to find free mp3s. Most of the artists are the so-called Indie Bands (probably no Rolling Stones or U2), but there´s a pretty huge collection.
1. Go to elbo.ws.
2. Type in the name of the hot new indie artist you´ve heard about.
3. Find articles and mp3s from this band.
It´s like Google for mp3 music hipsters.
Why is it that one ninja can defeat an army of adversaries, but struggles against a single, weaker opponent? Because of the Inverse Ninja Law, that's why!
Wikipedia has a full scientific explanation of the Inverse Ninja Law. It also has an explanation of why minor characters are unrealistically ineffective in combat against more important characters; the Stormtrooper Effect.
Slate´s Blogging the Bible
It´s the book that everyone talks about. Many people write about its contents. Cultures fight over its meanings. Few actually bother to read it.
As an unobservant Jew, David Plotz writes an ongoing blog about each chapter of the (Old Testament) Bible. He´s not a trained scholar, and he writes his irreverant, but honest thoughts as he reads through the Holy Book.
Kudos to David Plotz for engaging, and writing about, his first encounters with the books of the Bible. Additional kudos for making his blog a good read.
Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke
There are a lot of the old, traditional comics that are still printed in the paper, even though they stopped being funny decades ago (if they were ever funny in the first place), such as Peanuts, Family Circus, Nancy... well, almost all the comics, actually. How often do you actually LOL at the funnies page?
Marmaduke, a comic about a big Great Dane, is one of the worst of those terribly unfunny, outdated cartoons that continues to run every day in the paper, because no one has put it out of its misery.
But maybe we've got it all terribly wrong.
Maybe Marmaduke is really, really funny; we just needed Joe Mathlete to explain the comic for us in his blog with his very dry wit and his (not suitable for children) colourful language. The explanations often get me LOL at Marmaduke.
Kotke's Best Links of 2006
Since my job is to provide you with the best links on the net, this one link hooks you up with a record of the year that was, 2006.
Kotke seems to be on top of these things, as he has been doing this consistently for several years in a row. Some of the items were newsworthy ( James Frey, An Inconvenient Truth ), and a lot more are obscure things that have only found audiences because of the web (photos of starling flocks, a documentary about Tetris). All in all, a very good way to waste valuable time surfing the net.
Salud from Mazatlan!
Game Oldies
Through the miracle of Java, Game Oldies brings you all your favourite video games to play in your browser window for free. No emulators are needed. They have tons of games from the Nintendo NES, Sega Genesis, Game Gear, Game Boy, Colecovision and more.
It did run a little slow on my machine, but this is such a neat idea. Now how long will it be until XBox 360 games will be playable in your browser window for free?
2006 LifeHack Review: Best 50 hacks for your Life
Lifehack is a blog that gives tips on how to improve or enhance your effectiveness in life. What better way to save your time, than to point you to the Lifehack hack. Here are their 50 best hacks for your life from 2006. The list includes ways to motivate yourself, be more creative, communicate better, be more entrepreneurial and stop procrastinating. Well, what are you waiting for? Click the link already!
New for 2007, the 365 Days Project dishes up a slice of very obscure, unusual music every day of the year in the convenient mp3 form. Dug up from thrift store records, old broadcasts, and tapes forgotten in the archives, you’ll discover some old gems, some rotten stinkers, and very, very strange recordings.
Curated by Otis Fodder, the original 365 Days Project was done in 2003 with 1 track every day, and was a resounding success. With more server space available now, the only change in 2007 is that everyday can feature more then just one mp3, so look for single songs to full albums shared by a host of contributors.
This entry is the first of Linkjockey’s weekly Tuesday music theme.
popurls.com
This is my favourite site of 2006.
Popurls.com is a news website that doesn't have any reporters; it's a news aggregator. It grabs the current top 10 news headlines from Google news, Digg, Wired magazine, Yahoo news, Netscape, Fark, NowPublic as well as the top entries on del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube and more. This means you get hundreds (thousands?) of links to bleeding edge news stories from everywhere on the web. Harness the power of web users finding the best news stories for you.
It's my home page in my browser, and I skim through it every time I open a new window. I have often seen news stories broken here first, literally DAYS before I read them in the local newspaper. The site is well designed, customizable, and allows for fast skimming.
Congratulations! You are now up to date, and have your finger on the pulse of the internet.
Happy New Year!
