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kottke.org posts about single serving sites

How many people are in space right now?

How many people are in space right now? is a single serving site that will give you the answer, along with the astronauts’ names, ranks, nationalities, and how long they’ve been in space.

As of August 26, 2013, these six people have emigrated from Earth’s atmosphere and not yet returned:

  • Pavel Vinogradov, Commander (Russia): 151 DAYS IN SPACE
  • Alexander Misurkin, Flight Engineer (Russia): 151 DAYS IN SPACE
  • Chris Cassidy, Flight Engineer (USA): 151 DAYS IN SPACE
  • Fyodor Yurchikhin, Flight Engineer (Russia): 90 DAYS IN SPACE
  • Karen Nyberg, Flight Engineer (USA): 90 DAYS IN SPACE
  • Luca Parmitano, Flight Engineer (Italy): 90 DAYS IN SPACE

When I was a kid, I always thought that by the time I was an adult, we would have town-sized colonies in space stations around Earth, even if nowhere else. But getting and keeping human beings in space is hard, and robots have gotten very smart. Still, when I think about the rise of commercial human spaceflight, part of me is like “I don’t just want to shoot into space like a soda can and do one lousy orbit!” โ€” as if that wouldn’t be the most magical experience of my life. It doesn’t matter. What I really want is to do a semester abroad.

Hats tipped to Zach Seward, Melody Kramer, and Sharon Jacobs.


Gurus, ninjas, and experts

whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com is certainly a veritable and powerful social media strategy generator for any business. If you need a social media strategy, you should start here before interviewing folks. You know, to make yourself conversant in the lingo. That said:

Yo, whatthefuckismysocialmediastrategy.com, I’m really happy for you, I’mma let you finish but howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com had one of the best snarky social media single serving site takedowns of all time. One of the best snarky social media single serving site takedowns of all time!


Schott covers Single Serving Sites

Schott’s Vocab blog covers Single Serving Sites today.


Clear all tabs

There’s just too much good stuff on the internet today. So rather than flood the site with a bunch of posts, I’m going to clear out my tabs and round them up here.

Dear Prudence: “I cheated on my wife while sleepwalking. What do I do now?” I’ve heard quite a few weird/bad things about Ambien in the past few months. Also, paging Emily Gould from The Awl, please A this Q.

Rocketboom covers Single Serving Sites in their spin-off series, Know Your Meme.

The Big Picture peers into North Korea with a collection of photos of the dictatorship taken from neighboring China.

Maira Kalman visits Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court, illustrating the story beautifully as usual.

I return to the court to hear Justice Ginsburg speak to law students. And in answer to the question “How does it feel to be the only woman on the court?” she answers simply, “Lonely.”

The Society of Publication Designers has been busy posting nominees for their upcoming annual awards on their blog. Last year’s winners are here. (thx, david)

Jamie Zawinski has used his keyboard so much over the past eight years that he’s carved grooves into the M and N keys (with his fingernails?) and completely worn through part of his Alt key.


A: 42 cents

A genuinely useful new Single Serving Site: the current price of a first-class US stamp.

Update: There’s also this one, this one, and a UK version. (thx, all)


Is This Your Paper On Single Serving Sites?

Is This Your Paper On Single Serving Sites? is a single serving site that houses a paper on single serving sites written by Ryan Greenberg.

Visually, sites’ presentation is often as sparse as the domain names are long. Many display only a few words. Although some sites use Flash to play an audio or video clip, very few offer the rich interactivity associated with Flash deployment in other contexts. Some sites incorporate design tropes from past online eras: gaudy 3D headlines, jarring repeated background images, looping audio clips, and centered text.


Ok, now we’re getting meta up in

Ok, now we’re getting meta up in this piece. Scott took all the Single Serving Sites in my list and made a Single Serving Site that cycles through them. Here’s a SSS that lists other SSS. Additionally, there’s a Wikipedia entry.

Update: Ho, ho, not so fast. The Wikipedia page for Single Serving Sites has been flagged for speedy deletion for several reasons:

This article or other page provides no meaningful content or history, and the text is unsalvageably incoherent. It is patent nonsense.

It is blatant advertising for a company, product, group, service or person that would require a substantial rewrite in order to become an encyclopedia article.

Not notable: definition of days-old neologism; not covered anywhere except a popular blog and a few less-popular ones.

Heh.


Thanks to an avalanche of email, I’ve

Thanks to an avalanche of email, I’ve added a bunch of new items to the Single Serving Sites listing. Now please stop emailing me suggestions!! ;)


Single Serving Sites

Lately I’ve noticed a pattern of people building Single Serving Sites, web sites comprised of a single page with a dedicated domain name and do only one thing. Here are a few examples:

Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle showcases all the lovely things that the presidential candidate has done for you.

Sometimes Red, Sometimes Blue. Sometimes the page is read, sometimes it is blue.

Check out Is Lost a Repeat? if you need to know if the upcoming episode of Lost is a rerun.

D-E-F-I-N-I-T-E-L-Y helps you spell definitely correctly.

Now you can find out quickly from anywhere in the city or world: What Color Is the Empire State Building?

Khaaan! The classic William Shatner and his rage!

Is It Christmas? (thx, michael & andy)

Misanthropebook, a Facebook parody.

Status page for the overburdened microsocial site: Is Twitter Down? (thx, kevin)

Find out, Are We At War With Iran? (thx, kevin)

The Abe Vigoda status page. Currently alive. (thx, peter)

Gods Damn It, a Battlestar Galactica in-joke.

You can do anything at ZOMBO.com. (thx, edward)

The classic You’re The Man Now Dog! (thx, jordan)

Purple has a FAQ page but it’s a SSS in spirit. (thx, mike)

Oh, it’s Yet Another Useless Web Site. (thx, mike)

You Sneezed! blesses you.

Use Is Paris In Jail Right Now? to see if Ms. Hilton is a free woman or not. (thx, lex)

Are you tired? Tell them why. (thx, kathi)

Am I Awesome? Very. (thx, jared)

Hypnotoad! (thx, chris)

Fuck the Sound, which is, I’m told, “IRC quotes (some NSFW) by an Autechre fanboy from Romania”. (thx, huphtur)

Gentle advice to those who ask dumb questions: Just Fucking Google It. (thx, michael)

Do websites need to look exactly the same in every browser?

It’s not Lupus, it’s never Lupus. Some House-related thing? (thx, sharelle)

Beth Cherry keeps a single page blog with no archives. (thx, malcolm)

We Need More Lemon Pledge. Not sure what this is. (thx, zach)

From the same person: Illegal Tender Terms of Service and These are the rules.

No Time For Love, Dr. Jones. Indy, you scoundrel. (thx, wade)

And several more: Is It Tuesday?, The Internet Fire Log, Let’s Turn This Fucking Website Yellow, iiiiiiii, Instant Rimshot, It Will Never Be the Same, Thank You Andy Warhol, Free Bill Stickers, raquo, The Last Page of the Internet, Thanks Ants, Is The Apple Store Down?, What Is My IP?, Hillary Clinton Is Your New Bicycle, John McCain Is Your New Bicycle, Michelle Obama Is Your New Bicycle, The Daily Nice, Defiant Dog, Hillary Clinton Is Your New HD DVD Player, and Spinning Beach Ball of Death.

Update: Ha! Alright, this got outta hand in a hurry. There are like 400 emails in my inbox, each with several Single Serving Site suggestions. I quickly went through them all, pulled out the notable ones, and called it good. Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions.