House of Cosbys

House of Cosbys was an animated cartoon about a Bill Cosby fan who creates a cloning machine to clone a series of Cosbys, each with a different personality.

There were four episodes made by Justin Roiland, each about five minutes. An unofficial fifth episode was also made.

It was first aired on the internet television channel Channel 101, and was the first of Channel 101's programs to spend three consecutive months at number 1.

The cartoon, which is based loosely on a true story, features main character Mitchell Reynolds (voiced by Jeff Davis) who invents a cloning machine in order to create his own personal Bill Cosby to entertain him. He then begins cloning several more Cosbys to help him around the house, much like in the plot of the 1996 film Multiplicity. However, the quality of the clones seems to deteriorate as the process is repeated, and he decides to stop using the machine, but when one of the clones subversively activates it, he discovers that every tenth Cosby he clones has super powers. At the suggestion of Data Analysis Cosby (the first super-powered Cosby) they decide to continue cloning Cosbys so that their super powers can be used to help the world.

House of Cosbys was cancelled when series creator Justin Roiland and Channel 101's site administrator Dan Harmon received a cease and desist letter from Bill Cosby's attorney in June 2005. One of the issues under contention is whether House of Cosbys is covered under the fair use, as parody. Supporters point out that many TV shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons have used Cosby's likeness, and have not been sued. However, there also is the factor that House of Cosbys used risque subject matter not in accordance with Cosby's character and comedy.

As a result of the cease and desist letter, the fifth episode was created by a different contributor and functioned primarily as an attack on Bill Cosby and his attorney.

Dramatic Chipmunk

Dramatic Chipmunk, also known by the more accurate title Dramatic Prairie Dog, is a popular Internet comedy viral video. The video is a five-second clip of the "chipmunk" (actually a prairie dog) turning its head while the camera zooms in and dramatic music is played.

The video became widely known through uploads on YouTube and CollegeHumor on June 19, 2007. An earlier and identical version, titled as Dramatic Look, had been uploaded to YouTube on June 6, 2007.

The clip of the prairie dog is from the Japanese television show Hello! Morning featuring Mini Moni. The clip has a prairie dog inside a transparent box being shown to the hosts in the studio. CollegeHumor also released a longer clip under the title Undramatic Chipmunk, showing how the video looked in the original Japanese version.

The music used in Dramatic Chipmunk is taken from the score of the 1974 film Young Frankenstein, and was composed by John Morris. It uses three dramatic chords, and has a rumble of thunder in the background. The "chipmunk" turns its head and stares at the camera while the music is played.

Since its release, the video has received tens of millions of views. People Magazine named the Dramatic Chipmunk as one of The 10 Wildest YouTube Stars of 2007.

Daemon

In Unix and other computer multitasking operating systems, a daemon is a computer program that runs in the background, rather than under the direct control of a user; they are usually initiated as background processes. Typically daemons have names that end with the letter "d": for example, syslogd, the daemon that handles the system log, or sshd, which handles incoming SSH connections.

In a Unix environment, the parent process of a daemon is often (but not always) the init process (PID=1). Processes usually become daemons by forking a child process and then having their parent process immediately exit, thus causing init to adopt the child process. This is a somewhat simplified view of the process as other operations are generally performed, such as dissociating the daemon process from any controlling tty. Convenience routines such as daemon(3) exist in some UNIX systems for that purpose.

Systems often start (or "launch") daemons at boot time: they often serve the function of responding to network requests, hardware activity, or other programs by performing some task. Daemons can also configure hardware (like udevd on some GNU/Linux systems), run scheduled tasks (like cron), and perform a variety of other tasks.

Winnebago Man

Winnebago Man is a 2009 American documentary feature film directed by Ben Steinbauer that follows the Internet phenomenon created by a series of twenty-year-old outtakes from a Winnebago sales video featuring profane outbursts from the salesperson, Jack Rebney. Originally intended as an inside joke, the video spread across the globe first on VHS tape then via YouTube and other online video sites, earning the salesman the title of "The Angriest Man in the World". The documentary explores the story of the clip’s origin and how, two decades later, it affects the man who never even knew it existed.

The film premiered at The South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas on March 14, 2009, and opened theatrically on July 9, 2010 at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema in New York, before expanding nationally.

A sixty minute version of Winnebago Man was aired in the UK on BBC Four on August 30, 2010 as part of the Storyville series of documentaries.

The documentary starts with Steinbauer's obsession with a widely circulated viral video featuring outtakes from an RV commercial shoot, centered around a cantankerous pitchman who regularly becomes outraged and flustered, cursing in colorful mannerisms. Steinbauer researches the video, and discovers that it had been circulating on VHS long before it appeared on the Internet.

Steinbauer ultimately tracks down the infamous "Winnebago Man": Jack Rebney. Steinbauer visits Rebney at his home in a remote mountain area in California. Steinbauer is surprised to find Rebney to be calm, congenial, and very articulate -- in contrast to his reputed ornery manner. Rebney at first claims ignorance about his own popularity on the Internet. Steinbauer returns home somewhat disappointed.

Later, Rebney begins contacting Steinbauer. He admits that he has always been aware of the video and its notoriety, and is petulant over it. Rebney expresses deep bitterness about the current (2005-2007) state of affairs in America. Steinbauer discovers that Rebney was once an accomplished news broadcaster, and that Rebney still wishes for his political opinions to be heard. Rebney invites Steinbauer for a second visit.

Shortly afterward, local papers report that Rebney has gone missing for some time. After he is safely returned home, Rebney reports the ordeal to Steinbauer. When Steinbauer makes his second visit to Rebney's home, Rebney explains that he is now blind.

Despite Rebney's cantankerous (albeit articulate) protests, Steinbauer takes him to the Found Footage Festival in San Francisco. There, fans have lined up for a sold-out screening of the original videos featuring Rebney. The fans describe Rebney's positive impact on them. During the screening, the Festival organizers invite Rebney on stage as a special guest, where he wittily engages the audience. After the screening, Rebney meets several fans who request autographs and express to him how viewing the old footage cheers them up after a hard day.

Later that night, Rebney muses to an old friend that, counter to his expectations, his fans are "clever, quick, observant people."

The next day, the filmmakers and Rebney's friend drive him back home. There, Rebney's friend tells him, "You made a lot of people happy this weekend." Rebney replies by acknowledging that he takes some small degree of pride in how, for many people, he represents the human condition in the face of adversity.

Rulers.org

Rulers.org is a website which contains information about political leaders of all countries from about 1700 to the present. The website was founded in 1995 and was located at a Geocities address before it moved to the rulers.org location in 2001. The website is always being expanded and updated. At this time all countries have heads of state, heads of government and foreign ministers, and many countries have information about other ministries and regional divisions; also included are leaders of international organizations.

Perhaps the website owner's most ambitious project began in late 2001, when an index to the website, with biographies of political leaders, began being added. By the end of 2007 it included some 3,000 biographies and another 10,000 short entries. Another important feature of the website is the chronicle of relevant political events, beginning January 1996, which is still updated almost daily. This chronicle, sorted by month, indicates election results, as well as resignations, cabinet changes, and deaths of current or former top leaders.

The website is used by many other websites on the Internet for information about political leaders. Benjamin Schemmel of Heidelberg, Germany, is the owner and editor of the site.

Elder Wisdom Circle

The Elder Wisdom Circle (EWC) is a nonprofit organization that provides free and confidential advice on a broad range of topics. The EWC also publishes an advice column, in both a Web version and a syndicated print version that is carried in 25 publications.

The Elder Wisdom Circle is targeted towards young people looking for advice from a “cyber-grandparent”. Online advice seekers from all over the world are paired with a network of volunteer seniors (aged 60 to 105) who share their knowledge, insight, and wisdom. Most seeking advice are 15–40 years old, but people of any age can request advice on virtually any topic and will receive a free and personalized e-mail response.

After submitting a request for advice through the EWC web site, a personal reply arrives via e-mail, usually within a few days. Advice is provided on a wide range of issues, such as love and relationships, family and child-rearing, career and self-improvement, and cooking and home care. The service is confidential and advice-seekers are assured anonymity and privacy. If a letter is selected for publication, any references to identifying information are removed; advice seekers may also request that their letter not be published.

All Your Base are Belong to Us

"All your base are belong to us" is a broken English phrase that was central to an Internet phenomenon, or meme, in 2000-2002, with the spread of a Flash animation that depicted the slogan. The text is taken from the opening cut scene of the 1991 European Sega Mega Drive version of the Japanese video game Zero Wing,by Toaplan which was poorly translated by Sega of Europe.

On February 23, 2001, Wired provided an early report on the phenomenon, covering it from the Flash animation to its spread through e-mail and Internet forums to T-shirts bearing the phrase.

On April 1, 2003, in Sturgis, Michigan, seven people aged 17 to 20 placed signs all over town that read, "All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive make your time." They claimed to be playing an April Fool's joke, but most people who saw the signs were unfamiliar with the phrase. Many residents were upset that the signs appeared while the U.S. was at war with Iraq, and police chief Eugene Alli said the signs could be "a borderline terrorist threat depending on what someone interprets it to mean."

In February 2004, North Carolina State University students and members of The Wolf Web in Raleigh, North Carolina exploited a web-based service provided for local schools and businesses to report a weather-related closing to display the phrase within a news ticker on a live news broadcast on News 14 Carolina.

The phrase or some variation of lines from the game has appeared in numerous articles, books, comics, clothing, movies, radio shows, songs, television shows, video games, webcomics, and websites. Notable mentions include:

• On June 1, 2006, the video hosting website YouTube was taken down temporarily for maintenance. The phrase "ALL YOUR VIDEO ARE BELONG TO US" appeared below the YouTube logo as a placeholder while the site was down. Some users believed the site had been hacked, leading the host to add the message "No, we haven't been hacked. Get a sense of humor."
• On September 4, 2009, Google's main search page image was changed to that of a UFO beaming up the second 'o' in 'Google'. On the same day, Google's twitter page posted the message, "1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19." ("ALL YOUR O ARE BELONG TO US."). Despite much speculation about alien conspiracies, Google turned out to be simply honoring Zero Wing's 20th anniversary

Godwin's Law

Godwin's Law is a humorous observation coined by Mike Godwin in 1990, and which has become an Internet adage. It states: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Godwin's Law is often cited in online discussions as a deterrent against the use of arguments in the widespread reductio ad Hitlerum form. The rule does not make any statement about whether any particular reference or comparison to Adolf Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that the likelihood of such a reference or comparison arising increases as the discussion progresses. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

Although in one of its early forms Godwin's Law referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions, the law is now applied to any threaded online discussion: electronic mailing lists, message boards, chat rooms, and more recently blog comment threads and wiki talk pages.

Million Dollar Homepage

The Million Dollar Homepage is a website conceived in 2005 by Alex Tew, a student from Wiltshire, England, to raise money for his university education. The home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 pixel grid; the image-based links on it were sold for $1 per pixel in 10 × 10 blocks. The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for the creator. The Wall Street Journal has commented that the site inspired other websites that sell pixels.

Launched on 26 August 2005, the website became an Internet phenomenon. The Alexa ranking of web traffic peaked at around 127; as of 9 May 2009 (2009 -05-09)^[update], it is 40,044.^[3] On 1 January 2006, the final 1,000 pixels were put up for auction on eBay. The auction closed on 11 January with a winning bid of $38,100 that brought the final tally to $1,037,100 in gross income.