Demand Media (not to be confused with Media-On-Demand) is a success story in the "on-line content" business creating 4000 text or video pieces a day with an assembly-line formula that includes an automated editorial algorithm and an army of lowly-paid freelancers (but, hey, they're starting to offer health benefits!). Their own sites include the mind-numbingly practical eHow (and eHowUK for the non-US-centric), the .com affiliate of Lance Armstrong's Livestrong and the infamous (at MeFi) Cracked.com (link goes to parody of parody). They're syndicating content through their own domain registrar eNom (better than 'parked pages', right?), and one other thing: Demand is the #1 content provider to YouTube (and YouTube is their #1 revenue provider). All this from a CEO/mastermind best known as 'the guy who sold MySpace to NewsCorp'.
posted by oneswellfoop on Nov 12, 2009 - 80 comments

The 8 Most Awesome Examples of Internet Vigilantism. Contains a heady mix of justice and harrassment.
posted by mippy on Jul 2, 2009 - 62 comments

It's a simple story about a responsible owl, trying to raise a curious (human) son and a geeky (human) daughter in their giant treehouse while dealing with his longtime bear buddy (and honey researcher), Steve. Though it debuted, humbly enough, in the Cracked.com forums, Benjamin Driscoll's drolly sweet comic Daisy Owl soon gained a loyal following, earning a regular feature there (courtesy of David Wong) and routinely making the front pages of sites like Digg and Reddit. In March 2009, Driscoll went pro, quitting his job to work on the comic full-time and making Daisy Owl one of the few self-sufficient webcomics on the net. Its quirky, character-driven humor, focused mainly on children, friendship, and families, has earned more than a few comparisons to Calvin and Hobbes, as well as plenty of fan art. Highlights: Basement - Honey - Parenting - Shampoo - Skittle on the Moon - Nightmare - Movie Night - Thrift Store - Classic Dad - Wallpapers
posted by Rhaomi on Apr 21, 2009 - 24 comments

Eventually ... (SIL), by Winston Rowntree. [more inside]
posted by WCityMike on Apr 19, 2009 - 12 comments

The X most blankiest somethings in the history of whatever. It's "...one stupid article that, (due to its total lack of focus and consistency) not one person will fully enjoy".
posted by An Infinity Of Monkeys on Dec 5, 2008 - 23 comments

Internet Party 2: An Intervention For Myspace The sad aftermath of the previous Internet Party Possible NSFW due to smooching.
posted by The Whelk on Oct 5, 2008 - 15 comments

The 5 Most Badass U.S. Presidents of All-Time. Just in time for Presidents' Day weekend. In ascending order of badassitude: Andrew Jackson, John F. Kennedy, John Quincy Adams, George Washington and your number 1, Theodore Roosevelt. [more inside]
posted by psmealey on Feb 15, 2008 - 65 comments

The 8 Most Needlessly-Detailed Wikipedia Entries
posted by brain_drain on Sep 28, 2007 - 68 comments

Cracked Pepper by ccc and ill chemist is a mash-up of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and an amazing array of songs you know. While not quite on par with the focus and sheer audacity of DangerMouse's Grey Album, Cracked Pepper is a smart, rich, and rewarding listen. Available track by track or as a torrent. See inside for tracks sampled.
posted by saguaro on Jul 30, 2007 - 35 comments

Mad, Cracked, & Weirdo magazine cover archives.
posted by crunchland on Sep 2, 2003 - 13 comments

Cracked Magazine is back. I used to read this back in the day, but I hadn't seen it in ages. I always thought it was inferior to Mad, but I liked it anyway. Supposedly it's on shelves now. Has anyone seen a new copy?
posted by SisterHavana on Jun 5, 2002 - 11 comments

Good news for Mac-owning, Celine Dione fans

"The process is pretty easy: I took a bit of electrical tape and applied it to the edge of the CD, the 'shiny side', - just a half inch of the stuff - and aligned it with the very edge 'data track session ring' visible on these copy protected CDs. Took the tape out to the outside of the CD and put it in my CD Rom."
posted by schlaager on May 14, 2002 - 17 comments

http://www.newyork.com hacked serbs revenge? check this out
posted by heimkonsole on Oct 29, 2001 - 12 comments

Anti-rip CD system bypassed. heh. nice try, boyos. i've never understood how people can believe something digitized can possibly be protected in such a manner as to be foolproof. what one process can scramble, another can undo. [via /.]
posted by fuzzygeek on Aug 1, 2001 - 5 comments

A while back, you'll remember, a professor from Princeton cracked the SDMI watermark, but couldn't publish [MeFi search], and weren't awarded the prize because they wouldn't NDA. Well, a French team has also cracked it, and not being bound by the US DMCA, they've published. Good thing? Or bad?
posted by baylink on Jan 23, 2001 - 3 comments

Microsoft’s network is hacked It's gotta be tough for MSNBC to report this...
posted by chiXy on Oct 27, 2000 - 16 comments

A new era in movie piracy . These guys managed to hack Microsoft's MPEG 4 codec, and have provided a means of ripping DVD movies to this new format (check the readme file). The little program they have on their site will "update" your Windows Media Player to be able to play the new divx format. The compression is comparable to current .avi and .mpg formats, but the image quality is near-DVD. Wow. I just watched "Disturbing Behaviour" in this new format and I must say I'm very impressed. No ugly chunky blocks like with MPEG. I dunno if I'd ever pay to see movies in the theatre again. Heh, sure sounds familiar eh? (*cough* MP3 *cough*) Looks like there might be some big new players joining the RIAA real soon. :)
posted by PWA_BadBoy on May 8, 2000 - 4 comments

Streambox says that it has broken the encryption used on the RealNetworks streaming media format and they have released a tool that converts RealAudio to MP3. This would probably be more useful if the actual quality of RealAudio files made it worth ripping them to my Rio.
posted by grant on Nov 14, 1999 - 0 comments