Reading in the traditional open-ended sense is not what most of us, whatever our age and level of computer literacy, do on the Internet. Books cease to be individual works but are scanned and digitized into one great, big continuous text. The dynamics of the digital are encouraging authors, journalists, musicians and artists to treat the fruits of intellects and imaginations as fragments to be given without pay to the hive mind. But what becomes of originality and imagination in a world that prizes metaness and regards the mash-up as more important than the sources who were mashed? The very value of artistic imagination and originality, along with the primacy of the individual, is increasingly being questioned in our copy-mad, postmodern digital world. Remix is the very nature of the digital. But do we now face a situation in which culture is effectively eating its own seed stock?
posted by Toekneesan on Mar 20, 2010 - 47 comments

If you can type, you can make movies. A website that allows users to create animated movies using text-to-speech scripts and a surprisingly versatile selection of characters, voices, actions, camera shots, etc.
posted by Balonious Assault on Jan 4, 2009 - 42 comments

An' all the hot cats on the block have been doing it too - c'mon now, honey, I wanna do it with you. Anyone hoping to build their own Death Probe without dismantling the vaccum cleaner or floor waxer can rejoice. The creators of Roomba and Scooba have released a barebones version. Add-on software from Microsoft is available, should more ambitious types decide to pair iRobot's tech with LEGO MindStorms pieces.
posted by Smart Dalek on Jan 10, 2007 - 17 comments

Take one part virtual minidisk, one part crazy dream, stir it all together with a dash of creativity and maybe you too can find a Break in the Road. It's actually kind of fun to play with. I couldn't produce anything that sounded to my ear like music, but I'm sure you lot can do better.
posted by willnot on May 3, 2004 - 7 comments

sodaconstructor allows you to construct basic shapes using lines, joints, and "muscles" and adjust the settings (gravity, and I'm guessing that f and k stand for force and kinetics but I could be wrong) to create "living" creatures.
posted by sillygwailo on Jan 4, 2002 - 10 comments

With Face Generator, you too can spend the rest of the day trying to generate real-like faces of the ideal girlfriend (or boyfriend) with really big noses and strange goofy eyes. A must-visit for all budding procrastinators out there.
posted by aki on Nov 7, 2000 - 6 comments