Day 2 of the Great Backlog, let's get going people. Time is money! Back when Yahoo! was the...

Day 2 of the Great Backlog, let's get going people. Time is money!
  1. Back when Yahoo! was the king of search engines, everybody looked like Yahoo!, was a portal like Yahoo!, did everything like Yahoo!. Now Google is king, and everybody looks like Google, including Yahoo! Does this prove that simplicity is the key in web design? That Google designers are true geniuses? Or, maybe, that web designers still haven't got a clue what they're doing and just copy the people who seem to be winning?
  2. While we're on the topic, have you heard of the Google dance? No, it's not a variation on the hampster dance, it refers to the way Google progressively updates its data centers with the new search index every month. So, once a month, while the update is in progress, you get different results depending which of the Google datacenters handles your query. The next one is coming up, and you can use the Google dance tool to see it in action.
  3. Hint: when revising for your final-year exams, don't take time out to try some IQ tests, because if the results are disappointing, your self-esteem may be damaged at an inopportune moment.
  4. The Daily Mail is racist. Wow, there's a surprise. Next thing you know they'll be telling us there are racists in the Republican party!
  5. The Guardian had great fun turning a bunch of Tories loose with a bunch of new-media advertising people and trying to rebrand the Conservatives (hey guys, here's a tip: fire the boring bald guy whose name sounds like a fatal disease). If the Conservatives ever had the guts to do everything here, they'd actually have a chance. Luckily, the Conservatives can't even agree on the day of the week.
  6. Art Lebedev proves that bar codes can be art, and amazing art while we're at it. Thoroughly amazing site.
  7. I can see my house from here! It's an aerial picture of Warwick University; see the map of Warwick campus for comparison (rotate the map by about 45 degrees anticlockwise).
  8. You may think Flange is just a blank page, or a word over-used by Steve and Rik, but they're also a band. And not bad, either.
  9. Real-life wacky races! A nice complement to the real-world version of the Cannonball run, including hundreds of speeding tickets but without the dodgy 'tache.
  10. Did I mention how much I liked X2? Saw it three times in the end, and then downloaded it and watched it again. It was better than the Matrix Reloaded, which was more (not better) effects and longer, more tedious fight scenes and longer, more tedious philosophy, not put together as well as the first movie. I was disappointed; the best thing about the first movie was the way the whole movie just danced from scene to scene. This one was loaded with stupidly interleaved scenes, and there was none of the music-video feeling of the first (the soundtrack was unimpressive too, another difference from the first). Of course I'll see the next one, but in my ever-so-humble opinion, the Wachowskis missed the mark with this one.

Right, beginning to make a dent in the pile... still a long way to go, see you tomorrow!