Back in 2004, Firefox reached version 1.0 and quickly became the alternative browser of choice for people sick of Internet Explorer and Safari. It’s hard to imagine my internet experience without it now, but it’s good to remind myself that before 2004, all I ever used was Internet Explorer (scary, I know).
Anyway, I really like how this video looks as it recounts the story of how Firefox came to be and came to be one of the most popular browsers on the market. These days it’s getting some competition from Google Chrome, but for at least a while longer, it’ll be the king of browsers in my mind.
Back in 2007, GOOD magazine thought up this clever way to show statistics about internet porn without losing the viewer’s attention. Did it work? Yes (I watched the whole thing and learned a few things here and there). [via]
I’m not sure that I’ll explain this correctly, but I’ll try. Basically, LAIKA is a web-based font project that aims to make type a changing and fluid part of the digital realm. The font interacts with several inputs given by the mouse based on the pointer’s location on a digital plane. And from those coordinates, the font changes dynamically in width, slant, and serif/san-serif (excuse me if I’m using the wrong words to describe a typeface’s attributes — I’m not a type specialist). [via]
Ionz currently has this neat online poll where you tell the site what your online habits are and it constructs a little infographic out of it and then compares it to other people who have taken the same poll. Looks nice. Add yourself into the mix now. [via]
It’s a combination of several 2channel / Nicovideo memes. The ones I recognize:
Overall, the thing is a parody of (a parody of, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8FfUqZSWJw) the racing scenes from the racing anime Initial D, which all look kind of like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv020dZXOrY. There is also a “Gutter run” in there, which is kind of the main characters signature move, where he hooks his wheels into the gutter to be able to go around the curve faster.
The dudes on the bike are from a gay wrestling porn movie. It’s popular on nicovideo and has sparked things like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9PFoBNuNMw (NSFW, duh.)
The person driving the Steamroller is Kagamine Rin, a Vocaloid personification. She and Len are somehow associated with steamrollers now, presumably because both are yellow.
The background music is also a pretty distorted Vocaloid song, see that first youtube link up there.
And with that, I hope this doesn’t ruin the rest of your weekend… [via]
Personas is a fun project created by Aaron Zinman (along with the Social Media Group at MIT) that allows you to see how the internet views your particular name/alias (in this case, I entered “Doobybrain” and “Herman Yung” separately). Personas scours the internet for information about your name — regardless of whether or not it’s you or somebody else with the same name — and attempts to use computer algorithms to figure out the difference. The results for me were mixed each time I did it, but I think it’s still a worthy project to make note of. If anything, watching the computer figure you out is fascinating because the page turns into a plethora of rainbows.
