Time to get your pixelated gowns and tuxedoes back from the dry cleaners, swat the millennium bugs away with a Scientology magazine, polish your mouse, and for one day we can all remember our modems ain’t no shopping trolleys. Let’s celebrate the sites that bloated your browser in 2001.
Best Boat People Website:
www.boat-people.org
See what some guerilla projectionists did to the sails of the Opera House after conspiring at the recent TILT media fest. And read what’s missing from mainstream media: intelligent and humane exploration of refugee issues.
Best Religious Use of Technology:
www.xtywebworks.ns.ca/lavalamp.html
The Miracle Mother Theresa Lava Lamp – Omigod dat’s sum fun key sheet. The perfect accessory to go beside your imac tinted, 3-D, glow in the dark, revolving crucifix. Close runners up included the Hare Krishna karaoke chanter’s walkman, and the Taliban’s modified version of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Best Government Website:
www.toiletmap.gov.au
Who’d have thought a map of all Australia’s toilets would cum in handy? Proudly, we’ve built the world’s first national public toilet map, listing more than 13,000 facilities. Something kinky’s going down within the Dept. of Statistics, I can feel it.
Beast Government Website:
www.systemcorrupt.com
Aye, when ye beasties wanna get nekkid and party, howlin’ like a Michael J.Fox werewolf under a full mirrorball, and dippin’ yer head in the acid-punchbowl, this seems to be the first stop for the free-party circuit listings.
Most Hyped Technology
The SEGWAY: www.segway.com/consumer/segway
Formerly known as ‘IT’, what’s essentially a new form of scooter was being put forward by people like the head of apple, as ‘more revolutionary than the net’. Capable of reaching around 13 km/h, speed is not it’s attraction, but the gyroscope which provides it’s unique fuel efficiency and balancing qualities. With only a tiny battery charge, the Segway harnesses your momentum – lean forward and you move forward, lean back and you stop, and it won’t fall over no matter how hard you try. The website lets you try out these controls in a way, but while they still cost a few thousand dollars it’s hard to see how they’re gonna set the world on fire.
Best Overall Search Engine:
www.google.com
Plain simplicity and effectiveness earns google the top spot in most netters books, now able to search 3 billion documents, find images and search through all newsgroup postings ever made, which is proving embarrassing for some.
Best Video Search Engine:
www.altavista.com
Not a bad search engine in itself, u can find .mov and .avi files here for most imaginable topics, and occasionally end up with unimaginables as well.
Most Horrible Search Engine:
www.horrorfind.com
Fer all yer ghoulish and ghastly needs.
Best Crackz, Warez & Virii Search Engine:
http://astalavista.box.sk
Met someone in a pub once who explained that they were doing a good thing by spreading virii on the net. Helping build the nets immune system they said.
Best Science Website
www.mchawking.com
Ain’t bean no scientist like Stephen Hawking b4, and ain’t bean no MC quite like him either. If u crave the nu-science of ‘ip-‘op, be chekkin’ the grand ol’ mp3 collection here, including everybody’s favourites like ‘e=mc squared’, or ‘fuck the creationists’.
Best Disappearance Act
www.???????.com
One of the most heavily competitive awards, I fielded a lot of personal calls for this one, with former CEO’s of formerly high-flying, high-spending youth-culture websites, begging for some recognition. Some days can b.a real (k)grind, make u feel like there’s no e-scape, kinda tribe-less. Don’t believe the hype I would tell these CEOs, most people will forget these awards as easily as they’ve forgotten … um where did you say you were calling from again?
Best news / current affairs
Tie: www.mediachannel.org & www.indymedia.org
Media Channel provides a great overview of independent news sources the world over, its own high quality articles and mailout, as well as a great collection of resources to help wade through the media-sphere more effectively. Indymedia is fast becoming *the brand* for anti-branders questioning the ways globalisation is being administered. Possibly the world’s most successful self-publishing X-periment, with anybody able to upload alternative text, audio or video stories, Indymedia has a wealth of amazing stories, but sometimes suffers from a lack of diversity and the editorial issues that emerge with group publishing.
Best Napster Replacement:
www.slyck.com
So you like file sharing, or what computer journalists call the ‘peer to peer revolution’? Butt donut know which app to pick now napster’s nailed to the cross by the record companies? Contenders include gnutella, limewire, audiogalaxy, mesh or hotline, but to b.honest, I’ll have to let you decide. Above link is your passport to mp3 nirvana and details them all.
Best Music Community Website:
www.micromusic.net
Bleep Bleep. Uploaders of trax gets stars beside their name in the chat community here, which glitters with the sounds of computer game yesteryear. Everyone’s got their fave, this b.mine.
Best Soft Toy Site:
www.lindqvist.com/bert.php
Bert and Bin Laden’s special relationship is worth a special mention.
Best Live Video Site
www.audiovisualizers.com
Gets the video glitch trophy hands down, for the best overview of live vidi-yo software available, complete with X-tensiv lists of links that cover so many aspects and angles of live video that if you’re interested at all, you’ll find it very hard 2 leave inner hurry.
Best Gangsta Rap Site:
http://download.theforce.net/theater/gangsta/starwarz.html
The force like u ain’t nevah heard it b4. Hilarious Star Wars flash animation with an emceed narration.
Best Urban Renewal Site:
www.cleansurface.org
Graffiti, billboard modifications, stencil aesthetics, xerox art, political scribbles and other clikkable city debris. Lots to graze on, textz to chew, and then some.
Best Car Technology Website:
www.bloodyfist.com.au
Closer inspection of the Bloody Fist homepage reveals the secrets behind their sound – a love of cars, and in particular, a love of car demolition. Check the pics for a lovingly painted Bloody Fist logo on a car in a smash ’em up derby just outta Newcastle. Also x-plains why 9 out of ten panelbeaters prefer Nasenbluten to Ultrasonic.