One Sentence
Sometimes serious, often humourous and always impressive. This site takes user-submitted stories consisting of just one sentence and one sentence only. I’m frequently surprised at how much story some people can cram into just a few words.

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
SMBC is a web comic updated daily, and if you find that the internet can easily offend your delicate sensibilities, then this probably isn’t the site for you.  Most of the content is rated R or higher, so keep the kids away.  You can read it at work so long as no one is looking over your shoulder and they aren’t close enough to hear you erupting in laughter.

The Defective Yeti
I don’t even know how to begin describing this site.  I guess it’s a blog, and it’s written by a very talented and witty guy.  Just read it and you’ll be hooked.

The Sneeze
I’d put this site in the same category as Defective Yeti.  No summary needed.  Just read a few posts, and enjoy the audio clips as this guy tortures his kids with humour.

Now we move on to some sites that are less about the voyeurism that comes from looking into other people’s lives and minds.  These sites are about creativity, problem-solving and DIY-ness.  Even if you aren’t into soldering or building your own linux box, it’s inspiring to see what other people do with their free time, and can get ideas of your own off the ground.

Lifehacker
This site (updated frequently each day) does what it says; it hacks your life.  Focusing on self-improvement through efficiency, each post varies from software-use tips to social advice.  This site is best used with RSS to bypass posts that don’t interest you.

MakeZine’s MakeBlog
Although it’s targeted at the home-based d0-it-yourself enthusiast, even those of us with 10 thumbs and no drill press can enjoy seeing the fruits of other people’s labours.  At the very least, watching other people work can get your own creative juices flowing.

MakeUseOf
This is sort of like MakeZine, but instead of hardware and PVC, it’s internet, software and web.  I’ve installed at least a dozen apps after reading about them here and Iv’e never been disappointed.  The best part is that I never even knew I needed them until reading about them here, in a well-written review.  Like LifeHacker, this site is best used with RSS.

Surely you have some suggestions for sites that didn’t make this list.  Submit them in the comments.

It was in a time before the proliferation of the internet, and a time of unrest among friends and family, when disputes could only be settled with a combination of collective memories and fisticuffs.  Many people died and many more were maimed, all in the name of righteousness.  Marriages were torn asunder and lifelong friendships destroyed.  It was a simpler time, a more noble time (some might say).

In our modern age of conveniences and machines, of gender and racial equality, of peace and understanding, I have been relieved of the burden of memory by the wonderful people at Internet Inc. (a subsiduary of SkyNet) and can now focus all mental energies elsewhere, namely arguing about the things I read on the internet.

And now, two simple examples of how the internet saved me from my own memory, from my own mind and having to actually learn.

Case Study, The First: The Internet Movie Database (IMDB)

Some of my favourite discussions and arguments from my childhood and adolescence came about from remembering (or trying to ) movie names, years of release, actors and characters.  Those of you who share my seasoned vintage of 30 years may recall “Six Degrees of Bacon”, a ‘game’ (used in the loosest definition of the word) where one would try to connect two actors professionally through the works of Golden Globe-nominated actor Kevin Bacon.

A small piece of me died one day in 2000 when I found The Oracle of Bacon online and realized that the ‘fun’ (also used in the loosest definition of the word) of the game had been completely automated, thanks to a huge database of movie information.

Since that day, the answers to any of my questions related to film or TV are just 9 keystrokes away at IMDB.com (the extra stroke is for the ‘Enter’ key).  Not only are my questions answered, but I read all sorts of seemingly useful information that entertains me for fleeting moments, and that I believe will enlighten me for years to come.  Alas, it is an illusion, a house of cards, and the moment I steer off the page, it is all lost to me.

Case Study, The Second: Wikipedia

I don’t remember when it was that I first encountered Wikipedia, but I know it came up first in a long list of Google search results.  It sounded foreign and dangerous, but I clicked on it anyways (so I was probably on someone else’s computer at the time).

I was immediately assaulted with data, and my senses were quickly overloaded.  What’s more, it seemed every word in the article linked to its own article with yet more links to other articles, and so on.  It felt as though I had access to every mind alive on the planet all at once.

Wikipedia quickly became my default stop for information on any topic, and if I couldn’t find it there, I knew it would be hard as hell to find anywhere.  I also found myself spending hours clicking from topic to topic until I forgot why I event went there in the first place.

And yet, what I read there isn’t absorbed or learned after I use it to answer a specific question, satisfy a curiosity or merely to waste time.  It is there for a moment, then it’s gone, like all fleeting things.

Conclusion

So is this knowledge at all?  Why do I treat all this information as waste?  I think the answer is two-fold:

1. there is so much information contained therein, that to even attempt to absorb it would be foolishness, especially considering that
2. all of these data are available for free, any time of day or night (where the internet is available, which is nearly everywhere) thus negating my need to absorb it for later retrieval.

It is as though my mind is now a smaller piece of a larger hive-mind and mine isn’t needed for data storage any longer but for processing; a machine to link these bits of stored data into meaningful connections.

That, my friends, is what is happening.  While the internet is certainly making me remember FAR less, it’s certainly not making me any dumber.  On the contrary, it is forcing me to find meaning and purpose for all this new-found raw information.

Sometimes that means settling a long-standing dispute, and others it means connecting two works by the same author, director or actor.  Of course, sometimes it just lets me watch a video of a monkey drinking his own pee, so maybe we shouldn’t overthink it, eh?

Smashing Magazine : A design blog with tonnes of great lists and topics.  It’s generally pretty insiteful and the comments aren’t all crazy.

The Weather : Yup. Bears.

My To-Do list : This has been great to have, but it never seems to be emptied.  Blargh.

Bookmarks : I have a few sites which I visit almost obsessively.  I’ve given myself even easier access to bitmetv.org , hattrick.org , Dinosaur Comics , Indietorrents and my spam filter.

Boing Boing : A list of cool things that gets sent to me about every 10 minutes.  They didn’t post my RTFM Jesus T-shirt, but I’m not bitter.

Torontoist : Thankfully there’s a blog about Toronto… whew. I was worried.  Truthfully, it’s really well done and informative.  I love you Toronto.

A List Apart : The designers best friend for all websafety and proper design goodness.  Drop this in a conversation with designers and they’ll tell you what their t-shirts mean. Here’s a hint: It’s either ironic, a pun or a play on words.

Design FCKR : This site pushes some cool content and some awesome design.  I’ve found a tonne of great artists through it’s feed.

Pixel Acres : Another really helpful little design blog.

xkcd.com : An awesome web comic full of nerdliness and love.  If you don’t understand a certain comic, read the comments to feel horrible about yourself and to be bashed by jerks. The comics are great though.

AchtungDavey : My friend and fellow ST writer Dave’s blog.  It’s updated daily and for that reason alone it made my netvibes page.  Oh and ’cause it’s usually interesting in a what my friends are doing kind of way.

CBC and BBC : News.  You gotta keep up with what’s up.

BBC Football : Following the English Premier League  has never been easier.  These guys play way to often… it’s awesome.

Digg : All the tech news you could need.  Here’s a few themes to get you going : Isn’t Apple wonderful? Can you believe what Micro$ucks did today? Isn’t the Wii going to fail? Plus the comments are usually great too…

Well, that’s what distracts me on a daily basis.  I used to have pitchforkmedia.com on there, but their feed was messed up and it was annoying.  Anything else I should add?

They have the internet on computers now.

For the (nearly) random discovery that radio used to offer there are two services that stand out to me for finding new tunes. The first is something that I’ve only played around with a little bit but is really pretty awesome: Pandora. Pandora is a project by the Music Genome Project who’s goal is to catalog all music using a very granular set of categorization and analysis that links similar types of music together. The way Pandora works is you put in an artist or song you already know and love and Pandora creates a streaming “radio station” made up of music that is in a similar vein. As new songs play you can skip, give a thumbs up or a thumbs down and the stream updates according to your feedback. Really works amazingly well.

The second service works in a similar way bit is a little less convoluted in its recommendation process. Last.fm works more as a community  submitted way in that you sign up for an account, download a plug-in for your music player of choice and listen to music already in your library. Over time it tracks your listening habits and aggregates it in a number of ways (which is a really fun thing to know in and of itself). You can then create a personal streaming station based on your tastes and it pulls in  music from people’s play lists that like the same kind of stuff you do. Again as it plays you can give instant feedback to hone in on what you really are digging and what falls a little flat. Last.fm also has the whole social networking thing going on in that you can see other users who have similar tastes as you and can hook them up as friends, join in discussion groups and send specific recommendations to your friends.

So you’ve just discovered your new musical obsession, where do you go to find out a little bit more about them? The first place I usually end up going is AllMusic. Think of it as an IMDB for music. They’ve got, what I think are pretty spot-on, album reviews, band bios and other essential information. It’s all a little clunky but the content is strong enough I can ignore some usability quirks.

The other service that just came out that REALLY has blown me away is the FoxyTunes Planet. FoxyTunes is a Firefox plug-in that I’ve used for a while now. Essentially it adds a little iTunes control panel in the status bar at the bottom of your browser. What they’ve just added is a search for their new FoxyTunes Planet search (you can also do a search directly on the website). What this does is if you click on the search button you will be taken to the site with an aggregated search of many of the music resources available on the webincludng some mentioned above specific to the song and artist you are currently listing to. Think of it as a Google Home Page for that particular song. You get a blurb from the band’sWikipeda entry, a list of relevant videos on YouTube, a list of related artists from Last.fm, lyrics and much more. It’s an amazingly helpful one stop shop, even for bands you are already familiar with.

So get out there find some new hot beats and if you find anything especially rockin’ drop us a line and let us know. There really isn’t ever too much new music…

Here’s the thing MySpace does a lot of stuff right. Its relatively easy for anyone to get a page up and with very little, or no knowledge of HTML. The ability to control nearly every aspect of the way your page looks is very satisfying and really makes it feel like you’ve made it yours. Users can create blog entries, keep in contact with friends, post pictures etc. all great things. The giant influx of bands, both large and small is a great way for people to find new music and for artists to interact with fans on a very personal level is extraordinary.

The problem is that the whole experience completely sucks from start to finish. The user interface is a nightmare. The customizability has led to what might be some of the worst eyesores the web has seen since the GeoCities days. God help you if you have your speakers on and land on a page with auto-play music. I’ll not even mention the over saturation of obtrusive, and often times offensive, advertising that blankets everything.

There have been many sites that have come along in the last few years that all have their own followings but haven’t managed to catch on quite like MySpace. Last week I discovered one that I truly hope will knock all of them off the top of the heap. It’s called Virb and it’s awesome!

As far as I’ve discovered Virb does everything MySpace does only bigger and better. You’ve got your friends lists, your blog postings, your profile settings, your photo gallery (with Flickr integration I should note). You’ve got your complete design control too which could be potentially be a hindrance as mentioned above but with one key difference (and this is what sold me on the site): at the top of every single page is a link that says “Remove Customization” and returns that page to it’s original “factory settings.” GENIOUS! They’ve even got the music thing going with an increasingly growing list of some pretty impressive artists. In addition to adding your favorite bands to your friend list you can create a personal playlist from songs they’ve posted, kinda like a mini personal sound track. They’ve also got a section that will keep you abreast of upcoming shows in your area. They’ve even upped the ante a bit with the addition of emphasis on photographers and fashion as well. All of this wrapped in a quite pleasing Web 2.0 shell that’s fantastically easy to use and does exactly what you expect it to.

just because it was It’s one downfall at the moment is the problem with all these social networking sites, EVERYONE is still on MySpace. None of the sites can really work until they hit a certain critical mass. I’ve been able to get in contact with many people that I haven’t seen in ages (for both good and ill) through MySpace. I have no idea what that crucial number is but hopefully Virb gets there soon.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I must pick out the perfect color scheme, write a fittingly Emo blog post and add the Bloc Party to my friends list.

Now note that had you been watching this in real time, starting at 6PM (EST) on Sunday, you would have waited 15 whole minutes before you saw an update which told you that a goal had been scored. Another 7 minutes of waiting in real time before another goal would be scored. I should probably note that the thousands of other Canadians who watch these matches do not sit there in front of their screens and watch the text pop up after great pauses in between. Hopefully they are doing other things and just drop in from time to time during the game to see what happens, or long after the match is finished. There is, once the game has started, very little for the GM to do but sit back and wait. The outcome becomes dependent on a combination of your player’s skill, random Luck and ‘the Game Engine’ – the computer that runs the matches and spits the results. Often this ‘Game Engine’ is spoke of with a reverent awe… but mostly it is just cursed in the Hattrick conferences where users vent, cajole and tease.

Eventually your team becomes strong and you overtake the team in your series. You promote up to the next series and work your way up to the top of that series. Eventually with great patience and skill, you become the biggest, baddest team this side of the planet. Winning the Canadian Cup, the Masters, Private Cups between your friends – they’re all an endless series of achievable goals to announce to the world your skill in GM’ing. I don’t expect you to try. I certainly don’t expect you to succeed. My only dream, is here and now, you see a small glimpse of the wonderful word that could be open to you, if you only let it.

In Hattrick, your ability to become the best soccer GM is hindered by a number of constraints. First off, your players on your new team suck. They’re weak and you’re expected to lose most of your games. You’ll probably be insultingly regulated down to a lower series until you find a league that really, really sucks, allowing your pitiable team to win a match or two. In this series, you are finally able to compete, win a few games, build up a fan base and get enough money to buy some half decent players all the while developing and executing a profitable training regimen.

Soccer players have skills that help them in the position they play. A goal keeper has what is called a Keeper skill. Forwards have Passing and Scoring. Defenders have Defending. Wingers have Winger. Midfielders have Playmaking and Stamina. For example, see below for member of my team:

Now this fictional member of my team has disastrous Keeper skill. So naturally I’d avoid playing him in that position. As he has both solid stamina and outstanding Playmaking, he would benefit my team the most by being played as a Midfielder. Each player has a certain list of qualities that assist the team in winning matches. It is up to the GM to choose the best position for each player to play. Each GM has access to a screen like the one below:

In it, a GM chooses each player’s position. Above is one of the standard 4-5-1 formations (read: defenders-midfielders-forwards). You can set substitutes that ONLY play if one of your players are injured. Now I could go on and on about training regimens and the importance of this or that secondary skill (passing, stamina, set pieces) but all of that can be happily read at http://wiki.hattrick.org. Minor things like that are of little interest to those just starting out (or those not starting but wondering what is the big fuss). Like all sports, the exciting part is in the match:

Let’s start with an example.

Jonas just had a party at his house and his friend Ed left a CD on top of the stereo.  Jonas listens to the CD and absolutely loves it.  His music player of choice tells him it is The New Pornographers.  Jonas goes over to pandora.com and types it in.  Now he gets exposed to The Oohlas.

Discovering The Oohlas was just that simple for Jonas.

With helpful sites like pandora.com (based on The Music Genome Project) and liveplasma.com you can easily discover new bands, songs, movies, directors and actors that build off your current tastes.

Now I request: “Mighty Internet.  Give me more!”.  I want these types of sites for visual art.  I want to go somewhere and type in an artists name and be shown a list of similar artists.  I want to be able to upload a picture (or 5) that I really like and I want some algorithm to analyze this picture and give me one hundred or one thousand more pictures that might catch my eye.  I want a site to give me (the uneducated art appreciator) an impression of what styles of art I am drawn too.

That shouldn’t be too much to ask. The Music Genome Project seems like it is a whole lot of work, but someone is doing it for the benefit of both the musicians and the listeners.  My proposed project can start out by classifying the complete works of many famous painters and go from there.  Once they get the process nailed down, aspiring artists can begin to upload their own pictures and add them to the genome.

So I am proposing that we find a minimum of 10 art history majors and 10 computer science majors to do our bidding.  We can promise them riches (for the art history majors) and popularity (for the computer science majors) and we put them to work on this project.

I will, of course, leave it up to the more snooty people to debate the merits of creating an algorithm for labelling art or simply the merit of labelling art period.  That’s not for me to do (and neither is setting up this project).

Fast forward to 2007 where the text based game Empire still remains essentially text based. But instead of armies you command vast legions (<50) of soccer players (though they call it football players for some reason). And instead of investing in Marketplaces and Shipyards you invest in coaches and train players to become divine. Not really, they’re just really, really good at playing soccer.

Hattrick bills itself as an online, browser-based, football management game (MMOG) developed and based in Sweden. You have players who vary in regards to skill, age, agreeability, and stamina. And just like their army counterparts in Empire, your armies are sent onto the field to score the most goals. New users begin with about 20 wretched players and a coach and it is up to the GM to manage the team to professional quality greatness. Money comes from ticket sales but also from training these players in a specific skill to be sold to your fellow General Managers who train alternative skills. You in turn purchase their players on a free-market Transfer Listing where you and other GMs can place bids.

[Editor: This article will hopefully commence soon... Joel is probably playing Hattrick.]

‘friends’ in this brand new virtual world.  I paid little attention, but then the invites came more frequently-from closer friends.  So I did some reading about Facebook (after already having joined the miserable ‘Hi-5′, back in the day) to see if it would be more hassle than fun.

It seemed innocuous enough, and so I signed up and started adding my friends.  At first, my good and close friends were in there and everything was right with the world.  All the people who were close to me in real life were clustered around me in my virtual world-leaving notes on my wall and tagging me in photos.  I was in.  I was hooked.

Next, I started looking through my friends’ friends for people I knew, and I would add them to my friends list.  Not acquaintances, but not close friends either.  These people piled up until my friends list was full and long.  My world was big and there was much choice in friends, and I was very happy with what I had done.

Then, it began.  People from the deep dark recesses of my past began contacting me.  People I hadn’t spoken to in five, ten, fifteen years.  “How’s it going, man?”  they would ask.  Where do I begin?  Suddenly, Facebook had become the equivalent of going to the grocery store in the town where you were raised, but haven’t lived in 20 years.  You will invariably bump into your babysitter from when you were 6 who will recognize you and want to hear what’s happened in your life since.  Sheer torture.

Darwin wrote a very famous book which very few people have actually read, but everyone thinks they know about.  I have never read that book, but I’m about to use it to prove a point.  Thank God this is the internet and not a scholarly paper.  I’ve digressed.  Darwin posed the idea of the survival of the fittest, where only creatures that can adapt to their environment will survive and all others will be cast to the fringes and left to die.  Yup.  That sounds about right.

Friendships are much the same way.  There’s a natural progression to a friendship where people who have a lot in common become quite close.  Over time, their tastes, interests or life circumstances will change and they will naturally drift apart.  Through adaptation, we gravitate towards new friends with whom we have more in common, and the world continues to turn.  This is the way mankind has been working since the beginning, and then Facebook comes along…

Now, we’re forced back into contact with people whom we lost contact with for sensible and viable reasons. [Of course I'm not referring to any of my Facebook friends here, I'm just running with an hypothesis]  In defiance of the natural order of human interaction, I will have to interact with and respond to people whose lives run far from parallel with mine.

Some may argue that I should just be more selective about whom I add as a friend in Facebook, but as a narcissist, my priorities are clear.  This is just something I will have to live with, and to which I will have to learn to adapt.  In the meantime, feel free to add me a as friend in Facebook.