feeling toxic? scientology has a cure

(front)

(back)

This isn't the sort of thing I expected to be handed on a walk through Midtown. Then I realized there's a church of Scientology right down the street from my office. Maybe one of these days I'll go in...

What I like most about this quiz is that even "If you've answered "Yes" to 3 or less [sic] of the above questions," you could still "have a level of accumulated toxins" that presumably require cleansing.

Not a day goes by that I don't feel "spaced out" or experience a drug "flasback."

cat + bunnies = ???

It starts out looking innocent enough...

mascots are cool again

I was lucky that Steve was in a good mood when I insisted that our -- at this point yet to be created -- startup ought to have a mascot. I showed him the alien doodle I'd made (while bored in marketing class, of all things) and rendered with a cracked shareware copy of PSP 5.

Our mascot has come a long way, but even then it still wasn't a very popular thing to do on a website. Perhaps folks were still smarting from the Pets.com sock puppet. I couldn't blame them, really.

But just today I learned of a new mascot and its startup, eSwarm.

I'd rather not waste your time explaining what the site does and instead point out its logo.


I suspect it's a locust. I hear they can be quite potent in swarms: +20 points.

the internet is for porn

(It must be Saturday.)

In case you needed further proof, or thought that reddit was above that sort of thing, Chris "Statman" Slowe recently pulled the numbers of the most common Google queries that brought users to reddit. It's not a list of search queries you'd likely find scrolling on the LCDs at the Googleplex. To quote Chris, "I'm not going to comment on it. Draw your own conclusions..."

5615 reddit
2466 sexycollegegirl
653 nude bollywood
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388 bollywood nude
358 nude actress
252 nude indian actress
247 sexy
205 reddit.com
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184 buy viagra
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95 nude hollywood actress
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84 hedwig dies
82 simple nudes
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20 wtc7
20 track-your-partner.com
20 totally nsfw
20 site: science.reddit.com/info/

alexis doodles

OK, so I can't actually draw. My medium is pixel.


The moral of this story? Always use Photoshop/Illustrator for your logo.

Maybe I'll keep this role-reversal going and try writing reddit code next week...

sold!

The auction of our two laptops ended yesterday. I am happy to announce that it raised $1,124 for the American Brain Tumor Association.

steve doodles

Most people only know of Steve as the hacker who built reddit, but he also has a natural gift for art. Alas, the tiny region of the logo doesn't do this kind of talent justice, so here it is. It'd make a great desktop wallpaper:


(The alien did not consent to having that written on its chest)

t-minus 3 hours until brain tumors are obliterated

How's that for a headline? OK, not really, but the eBay auction of our "these built reddit" powerbooks is going to be ending soon. Hurry and get your bids in now, or just wait to snipe it at the end.

If you're the one who keeps sniping me out of my Aliens collectible action figures, know that I'll find you. One day.

Incidentally, it might be fun to watch in the closing minutes (like that kiko auction!) so tune in at 2:01:17pm Eastern.

Thanks again for your support, be it through your casual interest, or through link-spamming the auction URL.

web 2.0 flashback

I was quite pleased to find a bit of Internet fluff I'd put together a while back resurface on the front page of reddit yesterday.

It was my proposal for a more web 2.0 reddit. Pity we never followed through with it. (Steve's always been adamant about making a blah blah useful blah blah site and not a trendy one) It's that kind of narrow mindedness that will keep him from ever getting an MBA.


Anyway, this eventually spiralled out of control -- not unlike a TAG MAELSTROM (usage note: it's important write this in all caps). The end result was this video (honest, I did work on reddit somtimes, too!). The style was obviously stolen from Colbert's The Wørd, but the inspiration was from a demo we saw one day in the Valley. I asked Aaron to write the slides and I had all the material I needed for the blowhard :)

To continue with the tradition of unearthing and recycling old content, meet Pierre Francois, Web 2.0 design consultant & guru (apologies if you already saw this -- a year ago):

chris doodles

Chris left behind the world of experimental atomic physics to hack on reddit. Sucker...

He's also the guy behind our nifty homebrew stat tools, which has earned him the nickname of "Statman" (like Batman, but not the lame 60s TV show version, more like the Christian Bale version). We're also collaborating on building the world's first functioning lightsaber -- it's not as clumsy or as random as a blaster, but an elegant weapon for a more civilized age.

And by "collaborating," I mean I'm just telling him about how cool it would be, then he tells me about the limits of blah blah physics blah blah lasers blah blah. Hmpf.


Dr. Slowe did not get his PhD in graphic design.

jeremy doodles

Jeremy joined us shortly after we moved reddit out west with Wired. I asked him, along with Chris and Steve, to quickly doodle the alien with a sharpie on some printer paper.

Little did they know I'd be using it as an excuse to not do work.

So while they're busy finishing the rewrite, I'm displaying their artwork in a 120x40px logo. Here it is in high-rez scan for your viewing pleasure:


Drawing the alien freehand is harder than it looks.

Oh, and don't worry, I'm not going to try and sell the originals on eBay for charity.

a fresh start

I've never kept it a secret that I was the one who created our mascot (it's vital to my job security). But the guys are actually quite the doodlers themselves, so I thought we'd try the logo again with some new artists.

The added bonus of this is that I am off the hook for another week's worth of doodles (work).

Oh, and I can celebrate reuniting with my lost luggage, a mere 23 days later than desired. There I was trying to enjoy my first proper (read: Internet-less) vacation in a couple years and Alitalia decided I ought to buy an ill-fitting collection of Italian clothes. Really, those pants are a whole new kind of tight. Shudder.

Fortunately, I flew with my Jamglue shirt on, so I was already turning a few heads -- especially after wearing it for a solid thirty-six hours straight.



edit: I've just learned that Alitalia is actually Italian for "Lost luggage? Deal with it yourself -- you're in Italy now and we're all on vacation." Fancy that.

thanks for your help

This isn't just for those of you I pestered to vote up my reddit link (it wasn't just for the karma, honest). It was even submitted to digg.

I greatly appreciate all the attention this auction has already gotten thanks to the support of many anonymous users and a few not-so-anonymous ones (we're already just shy of $1000 at the time of this writing).

Valleywag did me a solid with a post mentioning the auction. The esteemed Scottkidder.com even blogged about it. Oh, Gizmodo gave a shoutout, too.

TechCrunch's Nick Gonzalez also showed us some love as well and even added my warning -- "Luck not included".

There wasn't much chatter on Valleywag or Scottkidder.com, but Techcrunch had a healthy bit of discussion. Sadly, I can't manage to comment on the article due to my own technical incompetence. If it had been working, I would have said the following:

to Francisco
I'm sorry to hear that. Thanks for for writing; I know this modest bit of fundraising will do little to end this terrible affliction, but I tell myself that every little bit helps.

to gettit
While I appreciate your cynicism, this decision was not motivated by a desire for personal exposure.

to Sam
You're right, we're not legends. You've undoubtedly read my disclaimer in the eBay listing: "Please hurry and bid before we fall even further into Internet obscurity!!!"

to Andrew
Yeah, I was in a bit of a rush and listed an AGP card as a PCI card. Whoops. He got his money back, but the blemish is still on my permanent record. Needless to say, I won't be shipping the wrong laptops ;-)

reddit: "particularly inane and dangerous"

Scott Butki of Blogcritics.org did a recent interview with Andrew Keen, author of The Cult Of The Amateur. He was asked the following:

I'm sure the readers of these sites, who are of all political, racial, ideological stripes, who often find the most popular debates are over controversial and contentious issues, would like to know what makes you sure your description of them is better than mine. Did you actually visit some of these sites and participate in them before dismissing them?

To which he responded:

I did look at Reddit, which is particularly inane and dangerous.

As you can tell, Mr. Keen is a big fan of what's going on at reddit ;-) I'm so proud.

Not only that, he's pretty scared of the "nightmare" that is Web 2.0. I can think of a lot of words I'd call it, but nightmare isn't one of them. Oh well, I'll let him speak for himself -- here's the email debate he had with David Weinberger.

In the meantime, I think I'm going to try to send him a shirt...


*pic ganked from WSJ.com

own the 2 laptops that started reddit.com

I just placed the two Powerbooks Steve and I used to start reddit on eBay. 100% of the proceeds are going to the American Brain Tumor Association, so I'd appreciate it if you passed along the link to this auction to any friends/family who like spending money.

If you happen to be in a VC-funded startup, I'd strongly recommend bidding on this pair of laptops. I guarantee it will at least double your already obscene valuation.

Even if you hate reddit, they would make a great addition to any burning effigy of our alien mascot -- think of the splendid YouTube video it'd make!

Thanks.

coming full circle (and cheerleading!)

(Picture taken by the remarkable photographer, Justin Hankins. Go get engaged and then have him photograph the wedding: www.justinhankins.com)

I was invited to click through some ppt slides at this year's U21 Conference, which was conveniently hosted at UVA this year. I'd attended the same conference three years earlier when it was in Singapore. Furthermore, it was on my first night there that I finally got the unbiased encouragement from a professor (Mark White) to try starting a startup with Steve. Until then, I'd only pitched my parents, who were incredibly supportive but ultimately unreliable. I could have told them I wanted to play professional rugby and they'd high-five me. You should see me run.

Anyway, this year's conference was about leadership and I feel like my hungover dog, beer-guzzling child, and cute kitten slides went over really well. I'm basing this on the number of Facebook friendship requests I made afterward that were not declined.

There is one thing I wish I'd mentioned though. Since I already hardly have much of a right to be sounding authorative about anything, I want to stress the one overarching thing that probably anyone could have told you, dot.com startup founder or not.

Look around and you'll likely find something that's wrong (or something you want to do right). It can be in technology, politics, society, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is -- just do it*

Rah, rah, rah.

I happened to be at a U21 Conference (and by that I mean at a bar the night before it began) when my switch flipped.

At this point, Steve and I already had a few casual conversations over grub or television about ideas he'd had. After a Waffle House epiphany with another friend, Jack, I'd ruled out law school and wanted to try starting a startup. I just didn't know what. I'd thought about putting salsa into a squeeze bottle (it'd be called Squeezalsa). Lucky for me, I was friends with Steve. He had much better ideas.

One of the better ones was what we ended up applying to YC with (and got rejected on, but that's another story). This is had in my head on the way to Singapore the Summer before my 4th year. I'd had an NYC internship lined up with Ogilvy PR when Professor White invited me to attend a "technopreneurship" symposium in Singapore as a member of the UVA team. And it'd be all expenses paid. The decision wasn't too hard to make, but it couldn't have been more fortunate.

Please forgive all the ellipses, typos, and the lack of punctuation; my well-ingrained US touch typing wasn't playing well with the keyboard layouts in Singapore so I get lazy.

This is the email I sent Steve on July 11, 2004:

hey bro, i'm in singapore at this technepreneurial seminar, and am basically spending a week learning how to create a tech start-up.

i spoke to Mark White (a professor in the comm school, the guy who took me to South Africa, and who recruited me to come here, as well as a generally good guy and technophile) over some drinks last nite, and pitched him on our idea...

from his feedback -- and let me remind you that he gets pitches every couple of months from students, and was very candid and honest with his thoughts, but basically said it was one of the best he's heard, period. Not only that, but he wants to be on the board of directors, and already knows some people to hit up for starting capital... I've got plenty of more details, but I am seriously considering putting off law school for this, but i need you, and we'll both need to be doing this full time for about a year to get it off the ground....

but the potential he saw was in the millions my friend...

we need to talk

seriously.

i am coming back the 20th so if we could have lunch around 1pm i could meet you whereever you'd like... let me know.

honestly, this is the kind of thing that could change our lives - and his motivation has really spurred me.

but i need you and the same kind of commitment.

Needless to say, I did talk him into it, and he did indeed wholly commit to a company essentially started in our college apartment living room.

Good thing it turned out OK ;-)


*alas, Nike does not pay me for that.

my next startup

I think the next startup Steve and I start should involve widget production. That way, we'd have a case study for every possible scenario.

Fun fact (a "Wikipedia fact"):
The etymology of the "widget" apparently goes back to Beggar on Horseback (1924), a play written by George S. Kaufman and Marc Connelly. Apparently life in the widget factory is the "soul-deadening living" that is the alternative to a life with any artistic or spiritual value. Fun times.

taking down freakonomics like a bad case of the flu

I've been on vacation for a little while -- and included a sustained Internet abstinence -- so I've got some catching up to do.

In returning to my bloated inbox (mostly spam), I found a link Jeremy had sent from the Freakonomics blog. Apparently a frozen website is like a sick person, which is sick because reddit made it sick. (Idea for a new slogan: reddit, it's like Internet pestilence!) Anyway, it was neat to see the shoutout, so I'm returning the favor with a logo. You'll notice I just ripped off the apple/orange from their cover art (I must say, I've always really liked that cover -- in part because of how much I independently like apples and oranges and wonder how good a hybrid fruit of them would taste). I'm still a bit jet-lagged.

The offending blog entry posed an interesting question about whether or not public libraries could be started today (assuming they'd never existed). I always thought they had a terrible business model: "Sure, let's just let people read the books for free."

Incidentally, the discussion on reddit got quite good:

brennen
Regardless of what (some) publishers might think given the hypothetical situation, I doubt you'd find many authors who would want fewer people to have exposure and access to their work.

bsiviglia9
Are you suggesting the desires of the authors are often contrary to the desires of the publishers?

Oh, authors and publishers, why can't you two just get along...

a great day for user-generated content

The new shirts have been selling pretty well. We've even gotten some photos from satisfied customers.

Wearing reddit shirts will indeed cause random, profound salutations.

We even have fancy photos that are as blurry as they are exciting!

not safe for scandinavia

Thought I'd share an interesting email convo I just had with a friend:

her:

trying to decide btw. the concert in finland 5/8, sweden 7/8, or norway 8/8....hmmm. what's closest to madrid? yeah, i suck at geography...

me:

here's a geeky mnemonic I use: you know about NSFW (Not Safe For Work) material online, right? Those 3 are in the same order from west to east (Norway, Sweden, Finland)

Whenever you think about Scandinavia, just think about porn. Problem solved.

Although this still leaves the meaning of the "W" unanswered. Now there's room for Scandinavia to finally accept Wallis and Futuna (yeah, I looked this up on Wikipedia -- this territory is the only "W" country in the world).

Got any other geography mnemonics you'd like to share? The U.S.A. doesn't often test well for this sort of thing, so we could use the help.

this blog has jumped the shark cat

I never thought it would come to this, but it was late last night and I wasn't quite ready to go to sleep (yes this is what I do on a typical Friday night).

Few folks know that I own a cat that looks like Kaiser Wilhelm II. This is a very disconcerting thing, even for non-German-history majors.

So naturally, this led to my LOLCAT attempt (if only I could find a Pickelhaube he could wear like a bukkit):

I've also evidently hit a new Internet low now that I've posted a picture of my cat online. Forgive me.

almost spoke too soon, phone now unlocked

Guess no one at AT&T/Cingular had read the earlier post about this (shocker) or they're just that considerate. Here's the confirmation email, imagine it in what must have been 18pt font:

*** SIM Unlock request REVIEWED and APPROVED by Subsidy Unlock Group IMEI: (###############) / SIM unlock is: (################) Emailed code and instructions back to: (#####@reddit.com)****

To make sure you have the correct code for your phone, power on phone and type *#06# this will display the IMEI, or you can pull the battery out of the phone and the IMEI will be on the sticker.

* The customer only has five (5) tries to unlock the phone.
* If this process is unsuccessful five times in a row, the phone will be permanently locked to the Cingular network.

BlackBerry 8800

For the device to display the software version, select "Options" then "About"

1. Insert Cingular SIM into device

2. Power phone on and Turn off the radio (Turn Wireless Off option) VERY IMPORTANT.

3. Select "Options"

4. Scroll down and select "SIM Card"

5. Type "MEPD"

6. Type "MEP2"

7. Enter the Unlock Code

8. Press enter

9. Reboot device. Device is now unlocked.

zenter bought by google, not bad for a winter

I think this has already sufficiently been blagged about, but now that we're free to talk about it, I wanted to congratulate the Zenter team. I couldn't help but smile when I saw this on my visit to zenter.com:


I'd missed their presentation at demo day by only a few minutes, but I heard great things. Then I saw Paul use it to give his talk at StartupSchool (the first time, I believe, that Paul Graham has used slides in a presentation). Next thing I know, there's a glowing Newsweek article about the then newest batch of startups.

(great pic)

And sure enough, here they are after a super industrious winter and change, joining the Goog.

Very impressive, guys.

OK, I think I've done my YC promotion for the week. Back to today's logo...

**Forgot these guys were in the 2007 Winter Founders Program. Silly me.

fresh reddit gear

Just before we sold out of our last batch of shirts, I'd doodled up some new ideas for designs. The new release is finally available at our store. As you can tell from some of the pictures, we desperately need someone with a better camera and no shame to model a couple of the new shirts.

The folks over at Vogue have better things to do than help us with our shirts, so we did what we could. Two of the designs were also inspired by user suggestions. I'll let you guess what one of them was:

BTW, shipping is included in the $16 price -- none of that $.99 pricing BS. How 'bout that?

PS. If you were one of the many redditors who submitted a pic, since we've decommissioned a few versions, I'll figure out some kind of display for all your pics so you can hang on to that piece of Internet fame. From now on, you can also refer to your shirt as "limited edition".

idaho's portugal no more!

... or is it California's Canada? Washington's Mexico? I can't remember.

But it doesn't matter, Oregon now has it's own reddit.

It's something we built with the folks at Oregonlive.com. And by "we", I really mean Jeremy. We turned it on earlier this week and it's been fun watching their readers use reddit to vote on the news that's important to them.

Case in point, behold the hottest story at the time of this writing:


Great things happen when you let readers decide the news.

Idaho is gonna be so jealous when it finds out.

getting at&t/cingular to unlock your cellphone (a howto)

First rule: Don't tell them you're doing it to switch carriers.

I made this mistake on my first call. Heh.

The reply I got was a curt, "In that case, we cannot unlock your phone for you."

Barring the conundrum that I evidently don't really own the phone I've already purchased from them, this gave me hope. There must be some cases where they "can" unlock it.

A quick Google search revealed that they're happy to oblige if it means you're traveling abroad and want your hardware to mingle with some foreign SIM cards. Called back, mentioned a pending trip abroad, and now I'm getting emailed that unlock code. Phew. Fortunately I didn't have to list my reasons for travel, destinations, and window/aisle-seat preference.

And if you're looking for some strategies to get refunded on those overage charges, I even photoshopped the Cingular logo for that entry.

Incidentally, here's today's header! (click for the explanation)

my spam domain

Somewhere during the meltdown of Registerfly.com, an absolutely terrible registrar, I got to see my beloved kn0thing.com reduced to a landing page with a smiling blonde and text-ads for horror flicks, halloween, and a Wayans brothers movie.

Even considering the last one, it could have been worse. A man's vanity domain is all he's got going for him, imagine if it were reported on Valleywag that I liked the Wayans brothers.

I wouldn't have noticed if it weren't for a friend IMing me about it -- she thought the Scary Movie 4 reference seemed unlike me.

Plus, Steve's the only blond friend I have.

Anyway, thanks to some friendly folks at Enom (I'm looking at you, Álvaro) I got my domains back today. And I even added some more random content that you can almost guarantee will never get updated.

conversation with a spammer

Yeah, it's the weekend.

4:01:03 PM spammer: hi
4:01:09 PM me: hello
4:01:18 PM me: i'm sorry, i'm not sure i know who this is
4:01:19 PM spammer: nice to meet you!
4:01:34 PM spammer: I am Harry from China
4:01:38 PM spammer: you ?
4:01:52 PM me: George from China
4:02:07 PM me: fancy that!
4:02:41 PM spammer: You are chinese ?
4:02:52 PM spammer: good
4:02:58 PM me: Oddly enough, no, but I live in China. I'm Armenian.
4:03:09 PM spammer: which city are you in ?
4:03:19 PM me: So my Chinese isn't very good yet ^^
4:03:24 PM me: Shanghai
4:03:27 PM spammer: ok
4:03:37 PM me: It's nice to meet friends online.
4:03:47 PM spammer: Do you like Shanghai?
4:04:45 PM me: Yes, it's very nice. People have been very friendly to me.
4:04:53 PM me: I'm trying to make it to the USA.
4:05:01 PM me: But I only made it half way
4:05:22 PM spammer: hope you can success in future
4:05:51 PM me: Many thanks! keke
4:06:09 PM spammer: you are welcome
4:06:31 PM spammer: you work in shanghai or do business ?
4:07:04 PM me: I don't work much right now. I need a job
4:07:18 PM spammer: oh
4:07:28 PM me: *_*
4:07:48 PM spammer: You can find good job in shanghai
4:08:15 PM me: I have lots of skillz.
4:08:24 PM me: My friends all say that I am much l33t
4:08:35 PM me: And I totally pwn at Starcraft - LOL!
4:08:43 PM spammer: haha
4:09:02 PM spammer: good
4:09:31 PM spammer: so it's just a piece of cake for you to fine a job
4:10:20 PM me: I wish. I can't eat cake. Allergic
4:10:37 PM spammer: ;)
4:10:37 PM me: My skin gets massive bumps and I die if eat too much cake
4:10:54 PM spammer: ok
4:10:54 PM me: I do have a kitten. I like cats. I take pictures of mine.
4:11:13 PM spammer: very good
4:11:23 PM spammer: i like cats too, they are very cute
4:11:54 PM me: much cuteness
4:12:10 PM me: i have a friend in USA who collects cat photos
4:12:23 PM me: he has told me he also has a fortune of his grandfather
4:12:30 PM me: but he needs help getting it to Mexico
4:12:42 PM me: i want to help, but what can i do from China?
4:12:56 PM spammer: yes i understand
4:13:11 PM spammer: Do you have plan back USA?
4:13:12 PM me: He needs $10,000 USD
4:13:22 PM me: but I only have 5,000
4:13:30 PM me: And that's if I sell my cats
4:13:46 PM me: (I'd rather just eat them myself)
4:14:09 PM spammer: hehe
4:14:24 PM spammer: yes
4:14:36 PM me: You seem like a honest person , yes?
4:14:51 PM spammer: i am
4:15:15 PM me: i thought so
4:15:27 PM spammer: :D
4:15:35 PM me: we can get this fortune
4:15:43 PM spammer: ok
4:15:59 PM spammer: You seem like a honest person too
4:16:43 PM me: ! i have much luck today
4:16:55 PM spammer: wow
4:17:03 PM spammer: what luck
4:17:25 PM me: yes!!
4:17:48 PM spammer: mind tell me ?
4:17:50 PM me: how can we do this? can you wire me the 5,000? we split the fortune in half
4:18:08 PM spammer: ok
4:18:30 PM spammer: :P
4:18:49 PM spammer: when i have 5000, i give you
4:19:29 PM me: there is no time
4:19:35 PM me: this is a serious matter my friend
4:20:02 PM spammer: yes i know
4:20:25 PM spammer: but i only have RMB200 now
4:20:40 PM me: i don't think you understand.
4:20:43 PM me: this man will die.
4:20:52 PM me: now is not the time to be concerned with petty things like money.
4:21:02 PM spammer: how?
4:22:30 PM me: he has a greedy uncle who wants to take it.
4:22:41 PM me: the uncle has already killed his father -- he's sure of it
4:22:44 PM me: and married his mother
4:22:49 PM me: much is bad.
4:23:13 PM spammer: yes
4:23:18 PM spammer: very bad
4:24:26 PM me: there must be a way to help
4:34:11 PM me: hello?

we value your feedback

See, someone really does read those forms you send into the blackhole of "feedback". Here's a gem from the logo change on Friday:

The olympic logo is hideous and hurts my eyes and brain. Please take it down!

Some people cannot appreciate the aesthetic mastery of a highly paid design firm. Admit it, the rest of us haven't got any taste.

Nevertheless, I still took it down this morning and restored the default logo. Maybe next week I'll solicit ideas from random people just like the BBC did -- what could go wrong?

rethinking our mascot

The reddit alien didn't have to be an alien. It's a well-known fact that I appreciate the subtle eminence of the penguin, as it occasionally appears in the logo as a foil our futuristic mascot. But there is no shortage of other worthy animals -- why not consider replacement?

Yep, that's how I spent my workweek.

MONDAY: I wasn't quite sure what I wanted this to be. It's got a certain squirreliness, but might be channeling a bit of fox. This will not do.

TUESDAY: Maybe a very excited bunny? We had one of these for a pet back in college. Six guys living in a dilapidated house their senior year with a single dwarf rabbit. Let's just say that we got bored one night and our rabbit turned out to be very interested in my NERF football. That cliche about "like bunnies" -- it's true. Every word of it.

WEDNESDAY: This depiction hardly illustrates the godless and killing nature of the bear. Instead, I thought we could try something a bit more hug-inducing. If this mascot were real, it'd have hugs flowing through its veins.

THURSDAY: I've heard there are more of these than people in Newfoundland. Moose are majestic beasts. Fancying Renaissance oil painting and prone to writing literary criticism, they are also far more cultured than Bullwinkle made them out to be.

FRIDAY: At last, our search for a new logo has ended!

huffit... really?

I thought they were kidding. Maybe it was some kind of new NYC fad -- you know, a new coke thing that'll get you even more blasted, but still get your a lighter jail sentence than the crackhead. Fancy that.

But no, it's a new social news site from the folks over at the HuffingtonPost. Admittedly, reddit has been assaulting the English language for almost two years now. But there's something about reading the "most huffed news" that makes me giggle.

Anyway, it's great to see more sites trying this format of finding and sharing new and interesting links. I just wish they hadn't called it "huffit".

From the About section:

Register or sign in below to start huffing!

Think of the children. Please.


And for those of you who think I'm just jealous because they named it after my fellow cofounder, Steve Huffman -- you're wrong.

Incidentally, if you're looking to create your own social news site, Ohanit and Ohannit.com are both available. Just a thought.

redditall.com

I finally got around to finding a shorter domain for this blog. The header is now emphasizing the "reddit all" part, as well as featuring a brilliant starburst to remind you that you've arrived at dot-com. And that I am indeed a sellout.

Some of you have also expressed concerns regarding this week's logos. If you're worried about what's been happening to our mascot, just be thankful we haven't recruited the London 2012 Olympics logo designers...

more [potential] wired propaganda

I'm afraid this one might be a bit too esoteric, since only a select few of our luckiest users have seen our 500 error. (And those who have will be quick to point out that the one pictured below isn't quite the one we've got running right now. +8 points for you, now stop hurting reddit.)

dear rita

As much as I want to believe you're just a simple Russian girl from Cheboksary, deep down I know there's something more to you. Don't doubt for a second that you're not long brave to have written me -- even if an exact duplicate was sent 24 hours later. Like any man, I have serious attitudes in the future for creations of family. It's my duty as an American.

I'm happy to hear about your best girlfriend, she sounds like a lucky gal. It troubles me to hear that her happiness has pushed you to find itself of the satellite. Space is no place to look for love.

I suspect that you will have more luck on the Internet, but perhaps you shouldn't cast such a wide net -- so to speak. I don't mean to offend you, I just think you could afford to be a bit more... picky. You hardly know anything about me and already you address me as your new friend.

This isn't the first time you've done this, is it?

I'm worried about you, Rita. Do take care.

-Alexis

(my reply to the following email, posted in it's entirety)

I hope I'm not screwing with the mob and will end up with a hearty dose of radioactive poison in my gut.

Hi the new friend!!!
I saw your announcement on a site in the Internet. There there were many good people. I do not know why I have written to you, probably something inside has prompted me to do it.
I already during long time wanted to find to me directly people, but not from Russia. As in Russia very many bad people and are very difficult to find such person, which will serve me as a fine half.

My best girlfriend has found to itself through Internet good people.
Which has invited her in the country, and now they live together 2 months.

It also has pushed to find me to itself of the satellite .
Though I also do not believe life in it, that it is possible to find love through.
The Internet I should hope for it up to the last.

Now it - is slightly about me:
My name - Rita.
I the simple Russian girl who search for a basis
the person from abroad for serious attitudes in the future for
creations of family.
I live the Russian city Cheboksary. It - very beautiful city
In which I live.
I am long brave to write to you and have written in hope which you will write also to me
I hope for it, and I shall look forward to hearing from you.
P.S. If I though have slightly interested you, please write to me the answer
On mine E-mail: ritkasweet@yahoo.com
I shall hope, and I shall wait, that you nevertheless will answer it soon. Please try to send your message on email. As I was very bad to use the Internet.
I shall send the image in the following letter. With hope your new familiar Rita.

o'reilly and lolcode

Hopefully this new release will clear up some of the nagging issues I've had with previous editions.

my first piece of wired propaganda

The good folks at Wired mag approved this new ad I put together to run on reddit. Now go buy a subscription :-)

Hopefully this will spawn an entire "PRINT: It's the future" campaign...

going where no dutchman has gone before

To paraphrase the immortal words of the Onion, fuck everything, we're turning our "e" on its side. That's right, a full ninety degrees of fun.

A number of our users, including one of our own (Jeremy), reported a significant increase in their enjoyment of reddit. And with no obvious side effects.

He suggested we up the ante on those Heineken brand managers (hell, they have three "e"s to tilt) and tip ours over -- make it look like it's spent a bit too much time in Amsterdam (great brewery tour, btw).

it's all about the slant of your "e"

I was getting throttled by Steve's sister in Wii Tennis last night, which shouldn't have surprised me. At some point the sweat on my brow began to bleed into the tears in my eyes -- I needed to pause the game.

As I dried myself off, something in the pause menu caught my attention.

It was the tilt of the "e".

(I know, this is a random screencapture of the Wii main menu, but I didn't want to go through the hassle of photographing Steve's TV. Take a look at "Disc Channel" . If you still don't believe me, go fire up your Wii -- this post will still be here, just don't play Amanda in Wii Tennis. She's brimming with bloodlust.)

That's right, Nintendo astutely designed a crooked "e" for their Wii font. This is a system they've clearly put a lot of thought into (and borrowed a few tricks from Apple along the way) but why the tilted "e"?

The only reason this even got my attention in the first place was because of a branding project I'd done in college on Heineken. Since most of us are still drinking PBR, here's the logo to jog your memory:

Somewhere in the Heineken corporate literature was a reference to these leaning "e"s. It stated (I'm paraphrasing here) that they were specially tilted to convey the brand's easy-going nature and to emphasize the fun of drinking a Heineken.

I didn't believe it when Heineken did it (I still haven't found a beer that didn't make me feel more easy-going and fun). But when Nintendo does it, I have no choice but to respect and trumpet it is an act of design genius.

Therefore, I thought it wouldn't hurt to tilt reddit's "e" for a day. Please let me know if your reddit experience has been heightened in any way.

**the Wii screencapture is not mine, I've ganked it from technabob. It's nothing personal, it just happened to be the first thing that came up on the Google image search. Hopefully they won't goatse me...

yaroslavl oblast, we salute you

Please don't send your halberd-wielding bears after us.

a new low: ganking content from reddit

I couldn't help myself. This is quite possibly the greatest flag ever: a godless killing machine armed with a massive axe halberd (a savvy redditor pointed out that it's actually not a massive axe -- clearly someone with some D&D experience).

This flag is apparently from the Russian province of Yaroslavl Oblast, which is known for its well-organized and well-armed bear population. It's for this very reason that I remain firmly opposed to the right to arm bears.

In case you hadn't already seen the link on reddit, I felt the need to share this. The folks over at Yard Flags certainly agree, it's #1 on their world's ten best flags.

Maybe you can find a cooler flag? Please share it in the comments. Otherwise, quake in awe before the mighty banner of Yaroslavl Oblast.

happy mother's day

For all the mommas out there. I know this is one of those Hallmark holidays, but even the alien wouldn't be here if it weren't for a mom.

Let her know how much she rocks for carrying you around roughly nine months.

mindjob and corn flakes

While eating my cereal this morning, something dawned on me:

If I have zero tolerance for intolerance, what does that make me?

It's questions like these that philosophers like Socrates undoubtedly also pondered over Special K® Red Berries. Any philsophy majors wanna rationalize this one for me?

You're all probably too stoned to bother anyway...

revolution? sold!

There you have it, folks. It's everything you need to know about political science:

It doesn't matter how great and equitable the ideology may seem on paper -- aliens are greedy.

mayday may day!

It depends on who you ask, but the first of May is a day that involves either dancing around a pole or celebrating the proles.

I didn't even know -- until I checked the above Wikipedia entry -- that this day is purportedly observed as Loyalty Day here in the USA. Granted, you can't trust anything on Wikipedia (the article also said that the number of "endangered" African elephants has actually been doubling every year) but the explanation sounded reasonable enough:

The holiday was first observed in 1921[1] as "Americanization Day,"[2] and was intended to counterbalance the celebration of the Labour Day on May Day — May 1, which was perceived as communist.

Looks like the Commie pinkos wanted to have their day for the working class (the whole thing apparently started as a pre-Christian European pagan holiday anyway). I suppose this kind of fervent nationalism was still en vogue back then, especially shortly after the first World War. Although, for a modern reader, there is something a bit unsettling about a Loyalty Day "for the reaffirmation of loyalty to the United States and for the recognition of the heritage of American freedom".

You have to wonder how many folks were still celebrating Loyalty Day on May 1st, 1930 -- after feeling the wrath of a free market.

Incidentally, this logo will have a second part tomorrow that should encompass all the lessons of an introductory poli-sci class. I suspect this series will find its way into classroom texts for generations to come.

(And yes, I know the Cyrillic is fake. I never professed to know Russian, it just looks prettier this way.)

like youtube for text

It's become cliche, but this catchphrase probably isn't a bad one for Scribd to have -- especially considering YouTube's success. Plus, their mission sounds noble enough "create the world's largest open library of documents": +4 points for saving me the trip to Alexandria, but I think that library closed anyway.

Granted, it's got some familiar copyright-infringing issues that make it so sinfully popular (and useful!) but it's worked before. It certainly hasn't appeared to worry investors, who have reportedly made frenzied attempts to invest. And who could blame them? (Guys, I hope you at least got a lunch out of one of those VCs first). Considering all the traffic they've been getting, me thinks the VCs were dropping 'bows on one another for this investment (this has neither been confirmed nor denied).

I even got ganked on a writeup I sent out to the YC mailing list published on it -- it's quite flattering, really. Apparently a bunch of publishers don't feel the same way (or so says my editor girlfriend). You've likely heard about what it's like to date a book editor, it's all true, every Saturday night is a new adventure.

The only downside is that they're still a bit hesitant about watching their industry die away as fewer and fewer people read books. But who needs books when you can read text within text websites? (+6 points to Scribd for finally making .pdfs suck a little bit less)

wufoo? it builds forms -- duhh

Building forms -- even unattractive and hard-to-use ones -- is an epic pain the ass. Even I know that (my first and only attempt at writing a Lisp web app was a very broken form). Just writing the HTML for one is mind-numbing. Enter Wufoo.

Making a slick form is absurdly easy. Plus, it's got stat tracking and an activity log baked right in. They've also just turned on some mobile-friendly tools so you can keep track of activity wherever you are (+3 points for showing the OCDs some love).

And did I mention they have a mascot? And it's from the past!

Yes, it's a website with a T-rex for a mascot: +10 points for mascot and an extra +7 for the anachronism-factor.

Wufoo also apparently picked up some awards at the recent Under the Radar Conference -- undoubtedly because of their mascot choice.

*an epic tip of the hat to Matt Knox

octopart - if you're not omniscient, it's the only way to search for electronic parts

Seriously, this is a fantastic site. And not just because it eliminates the need for all those titanic part catalogs. Anything that's still being done with phonebook-sized tomes -- especially in the tech world -- is long overdue for an technical solution. Granted, I've never actually used Octopart, since I don't ever need to buy electronic parts (due to ogrish hands and a morbid fear of soldering irons) but Chris (KeyserSosa) Slowe has -- and says Octopart is quite useful.

But maybe the praise of an experimental atomic physicist isn't good enough for you. Sure, he's a "scientist", but what would a bona fide electrical engineer think about the site? Well, Chris happened to pass the URL along to one (I think they must all have a secret network, for breeding purposes). The EE was quite impressed with the price comparisons and the extensive results on keying in an obscure mfg number -- all this only two days after the site had launched. +10 points for impressing an engineer and a scientist in the same day.

If you've been putting off building your own LED Mooninite, the wait is over.

And when you're giving your first press conference to discuss hair (after the court hearing), consider giving a shoutout to the gradstudents who started Octopart.

PS. +6 bonus points if you can tell what kind of schematic that is in the background of the logo.

buxfer reddit? the english language is doomed

Time for another week of blatant Y Combinator startup promotion in the logo doodles. The Winter Founders wrapped up a month or so ago and I extended them the same offer I made to the Summer Founders. Not that it's likely to bring them much traffic, but along with the logo, I'd promised to write an objective, thoughtful, and hard-hitting review of their site. Here goes.

The first thing one notices about Buxfer is their fantastic choice of name (i.e., "I've got no buxfer you, Steve, please spare my kneecaps"): +10 points.

The second thing one will notice is that it's actually a pretty handy way to track one's money (+5 points). All this despite not having a mascot (sorry, -5 points).

The third thing to note is how annoying it is -- despite how grammatically correct it may be -- to keep saying "one" when you really want to just say "you".

The visualizations are very sexy: the pie charts are tasty and the line graphs come with sliders and mini-histogram. But it's not style over substance, there is quite a bit of depth behind all of it -- data visualizations that even a history major can understand and use.

+15 Bonus points (because you need them) if you've got OCD and need to keep track of everything you spend. Or if you're an accountant. Either way, Buxfer is just the thing if you're jonesin' for an amateur CPA.