Freyburg

Can’t say I agree with everything on this list of highlights of 90’s style idiocy, but there’s some pretty amusing stuff here for your erudition.

It seems some online game players are outsourcing the boring gold gathering and chicken slaying which is a required part of starting practically any multi-player game to anonymous Chinese workers in game factories. Then once they’ve leveled up to the point where they can do the fun stuff, like killing giant monsters and such, they take over. Weird.

Top of my list would be “wasting time playing video games when I could be doing something constructive,” but Cnet has other reasons for eschewing the 360.

After a decade of failed reforms and post-bubble malaise, Japan’s economy is apparently doing well again. Personally, it looked plenty prosperous in Tokyo back when I was there in 2001 and 2003, but then I’m just some ignorant Westerner. 🙂

Nobody dishes out the Hollywood Hate like Film Threat (though Defamer comes close.) The crankiest magazine in Los Angeles has just released the Film Threat ‘Frigid 50’ list, detailing just who amongst Tinseltown’s finest ain’t so cool.

The New Yorker has a piece on Osama’s formative years. Interesting if only to see how an obviously intelligent guy went from a supposedly nice kid to a cave-skulking maniac.

From the “huh” files: why camels have shaped the war in Darfur.

New York Metro has an interesting article about who will be the next golden boy or girl of network news. Doesn’t matter who it is, I’ll still be getting most of my dail news intake from the NYT, Guardian, Globe and Mail and the BBC World Service.

Back in the glory days of Pets.com and other foolish ventures, Wired was the size of a small phone book. It was crammed top to bottom with ads, though of course those days eventually petered out and were replaced by…well, another nascent tech bubble. Some enterprising fellas have taken it upon themselves to track the Wired page count through the years, as an indicator of economic strength.

The annual ICANN conference, which centres around the organization that decides things like what new domain names will be created (.biz, and .museum for example), is currently unfolding at the Westin Bayshore Hotel in Vancouver.

Joi Ito is a member of the ICANN board, and he’s also a blogger and venture capitalist. Myself and Cam were able to sit down with him for a beer or two last night, and discussion ranged from blogging to Japan to the media and many topics in between. It was a fine bit of discussion, and Joi is a real cool, laid back guy.