It’s inspired by Mystery Science Theatre 3000 (MST3K) and Space Mutiny, apparently. I haven’t watched either of them so I’m clueless if the names resemble the characters from these shows. If you are an avid follower of MST3K, do try Ryder out and let us know the verdict in the comments.

This app is simple. There’s only one button which you click in order to generate a new name. But don’t let the lack of features dismay you — it’s bloody hilarious. It’s written all over the title, Ryder generates macho names. Not fancy Superhero names or Celebrity names. Macho, carnivorous, bullet-grinding names. These names (or nicknames) will deliver spine-shivering terror to your opponents, yet it’s questionably light-hearted that will make them laugh initially then cower in fear after the meaning truly sets in.

Download the app from the developer’s website. Ryder requires OS X 10.5 and higher to run. Unzip it and enjoy. I’m currently on Snow Leopard and the app works just fine.

Like I mentioned before, the app only has one button. Click on ‘Who?’ and it will generate a new name. It also provides you with a ‘Speech’ checkbox. Enable that, click on the ‘Who?’ button again and it uses Mac’s speech utility to read the name out loud. I’ve just had it read “Bolt Hardpeck” to me and it undoubtably felt like I was introduced to a macho firefighter. Alright, this is starting to emasculate me so I’ll move on.

I don’t really know how many names are stored in the generator but while using it, I did see some duplicates although they’re not really obvious. I’ll list down some of the names it generated:

• Flint Thornbody
• Zap McBlowfist
• Reef Sideiron
• Rif Slamchest
• Slab McBulkhead

Hilarious yet macho, don’t you think? The first names are really masculine and undeniably butch. The last names have a tinge of humor, mellowing the whole “I’m gonna rip your head off” effect.

Speaking of name generators, Simon wrote about something similar in his article, The 4 Funniest Online Name Generators which includes Superhero names, Pirate names, Vampire and Music Star names. Be sure to check those out as well. We’ve also covered NameMasher, an online name generator that takes two different words and mashes them to create a name like Bennifer (Ben + Jennifer).

Ryder is an open-source application. If you are a developer, you can actually download the source code, take it apart and tell us exactly how many names are in there. For the rest of us, this is all that matters: Ryder is free. Remember, it requires Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and higher to run. Download it here.

Do you think Ryder really generates macho names or do you have a better alternative? Tell us in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Some people quickly get a nickname in college, others have to make do. If you’re looking for a cool funny nickname, the internet is a great place to be.

Plenty of name generators out there will give you all you ever dreamt of. But why stop there? Why don’t you get yourself a pirate, dwarf, or Jedi name?

Listed below are four of the funniest online name generators. Want more? – do a Google search for inspiration. If you can think of a naming concept, someone will have made a generator!

The Pirate Name Generator

Earlier this month we celebrated Talk like a Pirate day. If you forgot, just like me, here’s a way to make it up! You might not have a parrot yet, or a wooden leg (don’t worry, not all of ‘em real pirates did) – but here’s a way to earn yourself a real pirate’s name!

Enter your name and sex, and press go to generate one. If you’re unhappy with the name you got, try different combinations of your name, surname and/or nicknames.

From now on, I will be called Cap’n Bernard Bloodbucket. Arr.

Superhero Name Generator

Never had the stomach to conquer the seven seas? How about something a tad more modern?

Most of us grew up with the comic books of DC, Dark Horse and Marvel. All of us dreamed of being superheroes one time or another. Your powers have gone missing, but at least you’ve still got your Superhero Name! After all, the status is enough to scare away most baddies.

Instead of using your own name, you can tweak your feature name using a few of the available options. Choose gender, publisher’s naming scheme, title, adjective, noun and suffix. Not happy with your name? Don’t worry, just hit the button again!

Vampire Name Generator

Vampires merge past and future. As a superior race, they’ll long outlive humanity – but until then, they’ll keep leaching a few more centuries. Although big fangs and long draping capes stand a little out these days, there’s still some more place for bloodsuckers at the corporate top of most ISP’s!

The generator picks names from a number of huge directories of first and last names. You can generate a modern name (and optionally specify gender), or remain retro. Generate 1 up to 25 names, and have your pick!

Music Star Name Generator

Ok, I’ll be honest – the former three name generators might’ve been a bit unrealistic. Vampires and superheroes probably don’t exist, and pirates only do in Somalia.

This one name generator might be a little more within your reach. Have you ever dreamt of a career in music?

Getting a star name isn’t easy, but this site likes to help out. Enter your name and generate a Pop-, Rock-, Rap- or Country Star name. If you aren’t happy with it, you’ll have to try different combinations with your first, last and nicknames, because the site won’t give you another one.

Happy with your new names? Why don’t you post them in the comments section below? Other online name generator suggestions are always welcome as well – I know there are plenty more out there!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Like anywhere else, you will find all sorts of characters among scientists. Think about this: everything humans have created is so complex and diverse because it reflects the minds behind it. Just think of relationships or laws. And basically, that’s the same in science.

So let’s inspect the surprising, puzzling and fun side of science, the one you may not have expected or the one you never really took seriously. You may find that at a few of these fun science websites, there are some odd things going on. Seriously.

PhD Comics

In this case PhD stands for Piled Higher and Deeper and it’s “a comic strip about life (or the lack thereof) in academia.” The mind behind the comic is Jorge Cham, who holds a real PhD in Mechanical Engineering.

Most comic strips are actual cartoons, giving you a glimpse into the crazy life of a PhD student or PostDoc. Some comics, however, reveal the frustrating reality of life in academia.

Science Tattoo Emporium

The science tattoo emporium is a fun science website project hosted by Discover Magazine. As you may have guessed it features scientists with their scientific tattoos. Today, tattoos are quite average, aren’t they? It’s not all about analysis in science and this projects reveals the creative and playful side of scientists. Of course it’s also crazy to have the main subject of your job tattooed onto your body. But it’s not surprising because it takes a lot of passion to do science.

The image below shows “The Tree of Life – carbon, glucose, light, DNA, and the golden rectangle. A tattoo by Kevin Riley. On the chest of a PhD student in molecular biology.”

Neatorama

Neatorama is a blog that features interesting stories from the world of science in its broadest sense. It’s a very good read.

However, Neatorama is not your average blog, the creator had some ingenious ideas. The blog works a little like Digg. The difference is that you are required to submit your own work, rather than that by others. Literally anyone can write for Neatorama and add themselves to the site’s “upcoming Queue”. Readers vote on the posts in the queue and the best ones make it to the front page.

This awesome concept guarantees that you’ll only read about genuinely interesting stuff. Thankfully, the voters seem to have a healthy sense of humor and so most posts are hilarious. Isn’t the finding that drinking beer improves bone density one of the best news ever?

NCBI ROFL

NCBI is the National Center for Biotechnology Information and NCBI’s PubMed is a standard database where scientists across the globe search for research articles. ROFL is an internet acronym for Rolling On Floor Laughing.

NCBI ROFL presents funny articles found on NCBI’s PubMed. The blog is run by two Molecular and Cell Biology graduate students who procrastinate a lot. At least they remain productive and we can enjoy the result.

May I remind you that all this published research is or was officially funded? Someone decided we needed to find out about things such as the nature of injuries caused by falling coconuts, what type of people enjoy playing bingo in later life, whether accidental anal intercourse really happens, and whether garlic protects against vampires.

Before you start worrying about your tax money, calm down. The studies may not be as ridiculous as they sound. After all scientists know how to catch your attention, too.

Null Hypothesis

It’s The Journal of Unlikely Science and it’s all about the tough questions in science. The kind that drive scientists and parents crazy. You’ll find the most interesting, weird and ridiculous stories on this website.

One article deals with the question “What would happen, if we all dropped down dead?“, how would a world without men look like? Another addresses taste buds and how to trick them. In a recent story, the author recapitulates how people in the past predicted what would never be possible and how the future proved them wrong. And didn’t you ever want to know whether the early bird really catches worms?

Improbable Research

Improbable Research covers “research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.” The organization publishes the magazine “Annals of Improbable Research” and they administer the infamous Ig Nobel Prizes. Each year the most incredible and imaginative research projects in the categories nutrition, peace, archaeology, biology, medicine, cognitive science, economics, physics, chemistry, and literature are awarded with this prize.

Year-round the blog features scientific studies that entertain, spark public interest, make people curious, and get them interested in science. Are you prepared for some mind boggling questions from the world of science?

If you would like to discover the scientist in yourself, how about trying some fun experiments at home? Sara has covered 6 fun science websites that will help to unleash the mad scientist within yourself.

Who would have thought that science can be fun? Did we change your mind? I hope I could give you a new perspective and make you laugh.

Image Credit: clix

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Yup, there are plenty of positive events going on, but where would you go if you needed a break from what the mainstream media covers and just have a good laugh?

Enter the world of fake news and satire. It’s a place where fact checking isn’t needed and things like journalistic ethics and standards, objectivity, and values are simply discouraged.

The Onion

Of course, there’s The Onion. The popular Peabody Award-winning fake news organization does it best, with well-written articles and even its own astonishingly genuine-looking video broadcasts as the Onion News Network (have you seen Apple’s new MacBook Wheel?).

The Onion’s printed edition newspaper is sold in bookstores worldwide and is distributed to select U.S. cities.

Private Eye

Private Eye is kind of the British version of The Onion.

The satirical magazine’s website provides numerous columns, covers news from the U.K. and around the world, as well as fun stuff like crosswords and cartoons.

Indecision Forever

It’s all the fun of a regular political website, but with only half the insight.

Indecision Forever actually covers real political news, but with Comedy Central’s own twist to things. The “reduced-fact” website also offers clips from the network’s satirical programs The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report.

NewsBiscuit

Offering the “news before it happens,” NewsBiscuit puts out Onion-quality articles on a regular basis, covering a broad range of topics.

The Spoof

Touted as “one of the leading satire newspapers on the Internet,” The Spoof provides daily news headlines on current world affairs, sports, science, and entertainment.

What separates the website’s content from others is that The Spoof relies solely on its readers to submit stories.

Sports Pickle

Sports Pickle is a humor, satire, and parody website covering the world of sports.

Sure, The Onion has its own very well done sports section, but Sports Pickle is updated more often and stays on top of all the latest news in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and more. Because of that, this website does it better when it comes to sports.

Unconfirmed Sources

Unconfirmed Sources publishes political satire and news story parodies regularly. The website’s disclaimer reads, “In case you didn’t get it, none of the stories are real. It’s all fake. We made it all up. It’s satire.”

“The people might be real, but the quotes are not. If it gets you mad, get a life.”

CAP News

Complete with a modified ABC News logo, CAP News covers, well, what you’d probably expect ABC to cover.

With U.S. and international news, the website also reports on politics, entertainment, business, health, and more.

The Enduring Vision

Bringing the world satire and love, The Enduring Vision is updated five nights a week with well-written content. The website is packed full of news, editorials, and great features, including “The Best of Spam” and “What Can YOU Do?”

DERF Magazine

DERF Magazine is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, but that doesn’t stop the publication from reporting on whatever is happening in the U.S. and worldwide.

From local content to stories on just about anything, DERF also includes pet orbituaries and lame horoscopes.

NewsMutiny

With satire for the wise and news for the dumb, NewsMutiny offers national and world news, as well as articles on opinion, local, entertainment, home and garden, advice, and a “Farts and Giggles” page with all kinds of crazy stuff.

Looking for more websites? HumorFeed is a news aggregator specifically for satire and humor. Even Google News is in on the act, displaying satirical publications with a “(satire)” tag among its news sources. Check out the latest stories here.

If you’ve got a favorite satire website, be sure to let us know in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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I wanted to share with you what I waste my time with online. I will show you my favorite video site, my favorite way to find new, fun websites and most importantly where I go to play some online games as well as  a few others for good measure.

So let’s start with College Humor. They offer so much stuff that will make you laugh it is almost unreal! I usually head over here when I want to see a funny video or something to snap me out of a funk but they also have awesome pictures, articles and links to popular other sites on the net. If you have never been here before it is definitely worth a visit.

Along the same lines but geared toward mens magazine’s content is Maxim Online. They often have links to CollegeHumor’s videos but this is where I come for some funny jokes and ridiculously smoking women. The site can be construed by some people as not funny or going too far so be forewarned that the content is probably NSFW and could be offensive to some. But that just means better content to my dirty ears

This site is chock full of fun but if you are looking for the jokes here is where you will find them:

Next up is my favorite web comic, XKCD, which has lots of old archives to waste time on.

XKCD is a scientific comic strip posted 3 times a week. I love this. It tickles my geeky funny bone like you can’t even imagine! You can sit for hours going through the archives! Just like the selection above is really only for men this one is really only for geeks!

Enjoy and let us know what your favorite one is!

I can lose myself for hours in StumbleUpon. StumbleUpon is a website that randomly chooses sites to show you depending on your interests and preferences. There are hundreds of categories as well as adult and non-adult content and I can change my preferences depending on what I am looking for.  You can join StumbleUpon and grab a toolbar or just take it for a trial run in your browser via Stumbleupon.

After you make your selections you can click on various buttons on the toolbar to narrow down what you are looking for.

I love me some scrabble so I play games and dominate in Literati. The only place I can find it is at Yahoo Games.

They have loads of other games as well even though I am partial to word games.

I have also been known to lose a few hours to Google Image Labeler – but hey that’s just me right? The Google Image Labeler is a tool used by The Google to help label images better and help search engine users to find what they are looking for. But in the interim it is insanely addicting.

You are shown a  image and assigned a partner. You are told what words you cannot say and they you try to match a word with the person on the other end – it is much more fun than it sounds! I swear. And when you get a horrible partner you can make fun of them via tags like wacko, what did you say or plain old WHAT?

How do you waste time online? Why don’t you share your favorite time wasters and maybe I can find a few hours to kill?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Although the following fake viruses may seem malicious to the unsuspecting, they are non-destructive to your computer system. So you don’t have to worry about anything else and just enjoy the fun of making someone else panic!

Mix it up a little, don’t forget to check out other “prank” posts on MakeUseOf like 4 Really Popular Prank Call Websites & How They Work and Two Great ‘n Simple Nerdy Office Pranks to Play On Friends!

Let’s get pranking, shall we?

(1) Fake Virus Batch File

I got this prank from WikiHow. I love it because it looks the most like an actual attack. Copy and paste the following into an open Notepad window, then save the file with any name you choose and an extension of “.bat”

Here’s the code:

cls
:A
color 0a
cls
@echo off
echo Wscript.Sleep
echo Wscript.Sleep 5000>C:sleep5000.vbs
echo Wscript.Sleep 3000>C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Wscript.Sleep 4000>C:sleep4000.vbs
echo Wscript.Sleep 2000>C:sleep2000.vbs
cd %systemroot%System32
dir
cls
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Deleting Critical System Files…
echo del *.*
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Deletion Successful!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo:
echo:
echo Deleting Root Partition…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo del %SYSTEMROOT%
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep4000.vbs
echo Deletion Successful!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo:
echo:
echo Creating Directory h4x…
cd C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuPrograms
mkdir h4x
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Directory Creation Successful!
echo:
echo:
echo:
echo Execution Attempt 1…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo cd C:Documents and SettingsAll UsersStart MenuProgramsStartuph4x
echo start hax.exe
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep3000.vbs
echo Virus Executed!
echo:
echo:
echo:
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo Disabling Windows Firewall…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo Killing all processes…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo Allowing virus to boot from startup…
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo:
echo Virus has been executed successfully!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
echo:
echo Have fun!
start /w wscript.exe C:sleep2000.vbs
pause
shutdown -s -t 10 -c “Your computer has committed suicide. Have a nice day.”

Here’s how it will look like once it is launched:

Your victim’s PC will display messages as in the above image, and then initiate a shutdown sequence which can be stopped by entering “shutdown –a” in the Run command box. It looks bad, but is otherwise completely harmless.

(2) EICAR Test File

This test file, while harmless, will set off any good virus scanner. It’s a test file to make sure that your anti-virus is vigilant, and is great for sending in an email.

(3) Fake Format

I remember getting my brother once with a similar program. This cool fake virus perfectly simulates the Windows disk-format dialog, and cannot be closed or halted until it’s ran its course. Once it’s done, a message will be displayed informing the user that it was just a joke.

(4) Fake Delete

This is my favorite because, like its formatting counterpart, Fake Delete mimics the Windows file-delete dialogs. It even goes as far as using your actual file list instead of generic filenames! This also has the “it-was-all-a-joke” screen after it’s done running.

When executing these pranks, please be considerate to whether your intended victim is mildly-panicky or really panicky, and whether your mark has some kind of panic disorder or heart problem. It’s all fun and games until someone goes to the hospital. Otherwise, have fun!

Are you familiar with any cool fake viruses? What are your favorite computer pranks? Give us some of your most evil, yet good-natured, ideas in the comments.

Image credit: rmkoske

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Even the most dull and serious people can’t escape a laugh when they see a lemur getting tickled, silly pet pics, or browse lol pets pictures.

We’ve gathered the all-time cutest websites on the internet. Hakuna Matata - read on, forget about your worries and relax.

Cute Overload

Cute-hunters out there most probably know all about Cute Overload, and for those who don’t – the name says it all.

Cute Overload brings daily new cutie pictures, ranging from ninja hamsters to fat immobile cats. All pictures are based on reader suggestions, so they’ve got cuteporters all over the world, ready to make your day.

If you want to have a dose of funny cute, Cute Overload is the place to go.

FurryTalk.com

Tell me, what’s cuter than furry animals? Furry Talk is a blog, focused on the cutest and furriest animals in the world. Multiple pictures are posted weekly, accompanied by a witty comment, Q&A, jokes, or inspirational motto.

Walk your way through the site, and take some time to relax and smile. You can browse the site chronologically, or view pictures of the most popular animals by category.

Today’s Big Thing – Cute Animals

You might already know Today’s Big Thing from another perspective - presenting the awesomest video on the internet, every day. They’ve now opened a new subsection, entirely dedicated to cute animals.

Watch video of ninja cats, puppies learning to howl, or monkeys being tickled. On Today’s Big Thing, you can be sure to find the ever cutest animal videos, every day.

Lolcats & Loldogs

This list would not be complete without including I Can Has Cheezburger, especially being hosted on a geeky site.

This site, for those of you who don’t know it, is filled with thousands and thousands of cat and dog pictures, with hilarious captions printed over them. Where other sites might bring a tender smile on your lips, lolcats and loldogs will give you a good laugh and a tear in each eye.

If you’re into the LOL pets craze, browse the lolcats or loldogs section, or manufacture your own silly pet pics using the Lol Builder. I Can Has Cheezburger has a fanbase in the millions, both for the cuteness as for the lolness.

Daily Puppy

The old newspaper layout of The Daily Puppy should be enough to make your day. If not, maybe the daily added puppy pictures will hit it out of the park for you.

Each day, the site produces another Daily Puppy, a cute little dog with its own background and story. In the other sections of the site, The Daily Puppy gives the same treatment to grown-up puppies, and hosts a comprehensive database of dog-related articles.

For any dog lovers out there who like to have a little more than a cute picture, this one is a must-try.

ZooBorns

Contrary to the other cute-sites, you won’t see any cats or dogs on ZooBorns. This site only shows the very cutest exotic animal babies, be it seals, lions, or zebras. It’s Cute Overload all over again, jungle edition.

Each picture comes with a story; a story about the animals, about what happened in the pictures, about the exotic little lives of the ZooBorns.

If you like ‘cute’, but prefer lions over cats, and zebras over ponies, ZooBorns is the place to go.

Where do you get your fix of cuteness? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

How about playing some of the cutest games? Check out Leon’s post on Orisinal – Cute Flash Games For All.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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However, I do find fortune telling fascinating. Call it scientific curiosity. The atmosphere, the intensity, the drama of it all is quite entertaining. While researching this avenue, I came across a website with some very interesting software for fortune telling. MysticBoard.com has a lot of software related to the esoteric. It’s a bit hard to find, but I’ll give you the link. Why? Because I like you, my friend. Today, I’m just going to look at three of them.

The software featured is mostly postware. This is a new concept to me, but maybe you’ve heard of it. You download the software for free, you register it by registering for the sites forum and once you’ve made the requisite number of meaningful posts on the forum, your software is unlocked so you can use it forever. That’s a pretty neat way to build a community or to engage in beta testing, if you ask me! It’s a bit naggy, but it is useable.

MB Tarot Pro for Free Fortune and Tarot Readings

Let’s look at the method most people have heard of – good old tarot cards. MB Tarot Pro has a variety of options to choose from. You can use it to learn how to read tarot cards, just get a free reading, or go through a tarot dictionary. I just went for a reading.

This screen is pretty straight forward. By the way, that’s not my real birthday, I’m not so foolish as to put that out there in Internetland.

On this page there are plenty of options, most of which I don’t have a clue about. Different decks, different layouts, inverted, manual readings… I didn’t really know what to do so I just clicked AutoCast.

This screenshot doesn’t give you the whole flavour of what is presented, but I hope it gives you an idea of how indepth of a reading the software can give. It’s actually pretty well done!

I read through the reading as best I could. Did it answer the question? Not really. I’m not sure what they mean by facing legal obstacles. All I want to do is get an article on the front page of Digg. Should lawyers be involved in that? Think not, I do so.

Verdict: 4 out of 5 cards up for cool looking decks and depth of reading.

MB Free Chinese Zodiac

Have you ever been to a Chinese buffet where they have the Chinese zodiac on the placemats? It’s always a bit of fun, especially if one of your table mates is a boar. Out come the pig jokes, which are too easy at a buffet. The MysticBoard Chinese Zodiac software goes a step further into the Chinese zodiac, since elements as well as animals are involved.

Let’s look at how it works. Enter your Name, Birth Day and Sex (Yes please!) then click on Proceed.

Then, a whole breakdown of your zodiac a la Chinois comes up.

Everything that the software said totally applied to me! Amazing! Especially considering that’s not my birthday. The statements are very generalized and appeal to the ego of the person being read. So, of course, a lot of it will seem to really represent me! Or anyone else!

Verdict: 2 out of 5 Metal Pigs and a Spring Roll.

MB Free Kundali

I really don’t know what Kundali is, but that’s what Wikipedia is for. Okay, Wikipedia says that it’s a soap opera in India. I suppose naming a soap opera after a form of fortune telling is only appropriate.

The Kundali software is amazingly detailed, perhaps more so than the Tarot software. Again, I don’t have a bloody clue what half of it means! Let’s take a look at my fake reading.

All false information in there, of course. But let’s see what the results are.

Wow. Big screen with a lot of information. Some of it appears to be of the self-fulfilling prophecy kind and some of it of the fortune cookie nature. Yet there are some very specific details in there such as what organs will cause me health problems and details on my physique and looks. So far those have been inaccurate, but it is based on false information I gave the software. Interesting, nonetheless.

Verdict: 3 out of 5 Nakshatra’s, hold the Rashti.

There are a lot more programs for free fortune and tarot readings over at MysticBoards.com like the three I’ve shared today. Finding where to download them can be a bit of a bother, yet if you are a believer, or even just find this stuff entertaining, it’s worth the trip. I just wish they would put out software that would really tell me if I’ll make it to the front page of Digg or not.

Are you a believer? Do you have an interesting fortune telling experience to share? What do you think of software taking on the role of fortune teller? Send us your vibes in the comments to receive your share of MUO karma.

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As I was contemplating Easter approaching and the fact that just a couple thousand years ago, Christianity was considered a cult, I got to thinking. I thought, “Hey, Christianity was a cult. Maybe some cults aren’t so bad. Maybe I should join one.”

But there’s one big problem with me joining a cult. I’m lazy. I don’t want to be bothered with waiting for someone to knock on my door and offer me a bunch of stuff and tell me they love me even though they don’t know me.

So I did what all intellectually-lazy people do when trying to figure out the divine. I hit the web.

Join a Cult Online

There were a few prospective cults I could join from the comfort of my own home, for no real cost.

The Cult of Dave had a good concept – worship Dave. You can simply join by being ‘Daved’. That means you change your name to Dave for the purposes of the cult. Or, if your name already is Dave, well, you’re in!

And for attractive women, you just have to become a Dave-Babe, which means, “…serving and servicing Dave…”. In return you can claim ownership of all the land. Could be a good deal. Dave is a cop and some women are into that.

But if all the Dave-Babes are with Dave, then what’s in it for the other Daves?

It also turns out that Devo is unacceptable to Dave, so I guess I’m out of that cult. Devo rocks. Period.

There there is Siglerism -  the cult of horror writer Scott Sigler. He appealed to me with his divine logic that if Scientology was started by a sci-fi writer then all is fair game. Seemed like a good enough reason to join, but then I read something about “…getting Scott’s face tattooed on your boobies.”

First, he must be divine if he knows I have man-boobies, but he must be evil if he thinks I’ll mar them with a tattoo of him.  Look at him, he looks quasi-evil doesn’t he?

Ultimately, I settled on the Church of Reality, because nothing is more messed up than reality. And they pretty much believe the same as I do, only except I believe there is a God.

But they also say I have to think for myself, which is really the opposite of the reason I would join a cult. So, even though I joined them, I don’t think I would stay with it.

Start a Cult

That left me with one other option – to start my own cult! Hitting the web again, I found StartYourOwnCult. Dr. Emiril Lazarus means business when he talks about starting your own cult.

There are several articles here ranging from the spiritual side of the cult, such as “Finding the New Jerusalem” to good old economics such as “Using Recruits for Fundraising”. He’s even got the exit plan covered with, “How to Use a Scapegoat”. Dr. L. you are a genius! And keen fashion sense too!

Nothing says God-incarnate like a 5 o’clock shadow and a big cross on your lapel.

Deprogramming

But all this cult joining and starting is a LOT of work! I’m starting to think that maybe cults aren’t that great an idea. Maybe I should get some help and be deprogrammed.

Ugh, I really don’t want to go to therapy though – there’s a good episode of Supernatural on tonight. Maybe I’ll just sign up for the
Online Cult-Recovery Support Group over at Knapp Family Counselling.

Oddly enough, this was the most expensive part of my cult experiences today.

Whew! That was a busy Monday. All that religion stuff takes a lot out of me. Time for some pizza and a nap. So mote it be.

Got any great cults you’d like to share? Praying I’ll burn in Hell/Abbadon/Detroit? Want to make me your God? Let me know in the comments.

Picture Credit : THERKD

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There are tons of webcomics to be found, ranging from the hilarious brutely stick figures, to short graphic novels, written by Neil Gaiman.

Gaming webcomics, however, a thing that seems pretty obvious for the everyday nerd, are much scarcer.

Of course, we have a few top comics that most people know of, but they’re not sheer in number. Far from it.

In a quest, we ventured the world wide web, looking for the best gaming webcomics available. We’ve compiled a list that should be worth your while.

The 10 comics below are ordered in semi-randomness, it’s not a ranged listing. Most of them are worth a look anyway.

Dueling Analogs

A well known, well drawn, and already long-running webcomic by the hand of Steve Napierski. It does a great job of ridiculing most video gaming topics, be it games or consoles.

The comic airs semi-weekly, a sure bookmark if you want a quick laugh.

Penny Arcade

Most comics center gamers Tycho Brahe and John Gabriel. Two guys who seem the couch-friends stereotypes. Occasionally though, Penny Arcade takes a hit at other gaming topics, such as the Army of Two satire we see below.

Penny Arcade launches several new comics a week, about two or three, on a not-always-so-regular basis.

Digital Unrest

This comic often takes independent hits on video game topics, sometimes with a political aftertaste, but also features a few returning characters – Charles, Carter and Dr. Scopes – with which it strikes on other fronts.

There’s a new comic at least every Monday, more if possible.

2P START!

A comic you might’ve seen featured on Joystick several times.

The comic is mostly focused around the in-comic depictions of creators Tim and Ray, who tackle gaming matters with a critical, otherwise absurd kind of humour.

Tim and Ray provide a new comic each Wednesday, and a new podcast each Monday.

Nerf NOW!!

A webcomic that has – lately – busied itself solely with comics concerning Valve’s Team Fortress 2. Most comics are either three-paneled comparisons, or ‘evolutions’.

An interesting comic, though probably only to those familiar with the game in question.

Nerf NOW!! tries to throw a new comic in the bin each Tuesday and Friday.

Another Videogame Webcomic

This webcomic satires videogames by using the Animated Actor trope, where actions ‘in between scenes’ are shown, and ridiculed.

A new comic is launched every week.

Gamebrit

An awesome gaming comic, with a very interesting arsenal. The comics range from blunt pun – like the one below – to some pretty witty subjects.

The comics originally aired weekly on Monday, but the comic appears to be discontinued, as the last comic dates back to November last year.

Ctrl+Alt+Del

Even people living under rocks should know Ctrl+Alt+Del, one of the overall most popular webcomics, recently even with an animated series adaptation.

The story revolves around ICT, and video games specifically. It mainly shows us the gaming-drenched lives and experiences of Ethan, Lucas, Lilah and Zeke.

A new comic should be released three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

VG Cats

VG Cats, a satiric animal reflection on video games, is also one of the more popular webcomics. The Aeris and Leo characters, which you can see in the comic below, reappear frequently, starring in most comics.

He usually updates his comics on Mondays, or bi-monthly, although there he’s taken a break right now.

PVPonline

The comic centers around the employees of a fictional video game magazine. Though featuring frequent ‘regular puns’, the comic also engages some more serious matters from time to time.

The comic publishes weekly, not always on a regular schedule.

Do you think we’ve missed any? Want to share your opinion on those stated above? Which are your favourites? Tell us all about it in the comments!

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Well, since I can’t take a vacation, what I need is a change. How about you live ones helping me out and maybe working one or two of these ideas into your funeral plans before I come to call? Come on, help an old friend out. Let’s put the fun back into funeral (ah, come on! You knew I was going to say it!)

CasketFurniture

If anybody is going to dance on your grave, it might as well be you! Before you die! Not only will this fine piece of death-inspired dance floor carry you to your final resting spot, it could help you pre-pay the bill – with a lot of ones and fives mind you. This and many other two-purpose toe-pinchers are available from CasketFurniture.

CrazyCoffins

Maybe you want to rock the world one last time? Take a look at this fine, fretted final rester. You can get this from the folks over at CrazyCoffins. They have a bunch of unique ways to celebrate your life with your casket, and can custom build one to your exacting wishes.

Angels-Flight

Not so big on the burial idea? Is fire in your immediate afterlife plans? There is no end of ways to do something spectacular with your remains. For example you could go out with a bang! Really! Get your cremated remains, or cremains as we say in the biz, put into over 200 fireworks shells and give the left-behinds a good show. Finally a way to have the children view the funeral without getting creeped out, courtesy of Angels-Flight. Maybe bring some hot dogs and soda too.

Ashes2Gems

I’ve been a fan of this one since the Big Guy began doing it with dinosaurs a bazillion years ago. Finally, Man figured out how to do it too. You can have some of your ashes made into something valuable. Not that YOU weren’t valuable, I’m just saying it’s something more enduring. Oh my, this is getting awkward. Ahem…finally become the diamond you always knew you could be over at LifeGem. It doesn’t do much for my bottom line, but you can also do this while you are alive with carbon from fingernails or hair clippings with Ashes2Gems.

Eternal Image

How about sending your cremains to boldly go where no man has gone? You could get them sent into space like luminaries such as Gene Roddenberry with Celestis, or how about the more affordable option of a Star Trek licensed urn from Eternal Image? Look at this glossy black beauty styled after the wicked cool photon torpedo. What? I can’t be a Trekker?

FuneralCast

Stress is by far my best salesman. It’s amazing how many people are too busy working to live and end up with a 3 o’clock with me. If that’s your crowd, you may want to consider setting up a webcast of your funeral so all your sycophant friends can still pay their respects while trying to take the job vacancy you left.

My people at FuneralCast can set that up. Okay, enough social commentary. Really, this service is intended for people with loved ones around the world or who might be unable to make it because they are in a seniors home or similar situation.

VidStone

You could also be like Gilligan or Lucy and live forever in reruns, thanks to the forward funeral thinking people at VidStone. Seriously, if I could actually die, this is what I would have on my marker. It can be set up to play back 5 to 8 minutes of video containing your most precious moments. Since kids are addicted to television, maybe they’ll drop by more often.

Well there it is warm ones, and there are even more ways than I can shake a sickle at to make your sending off something to celebrate the way you got there. Might as well live life to the fullest, even in the very last part of it.

Why don’t you write and let me know about you have planned? Maybe it’s entertainment worth waiting for, and I could swing you a few extra earth days with The Dude.

This has been a guest post by the Grim Reaper, in between episodes of “Family Guy”.

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Here’s the seven manliest websites to aid you in perfecting your manliness, my good man. Enter, MakeUseOf edition of websites for men.

7. men.webmd.com

Curious about something….private? Not sure if the gear should be doing that? The highly respected WebMD site has an entire sub-domain dedicated to man issues.

There’s nothing more manly than taking care of what makes you a man to begin with. It’s okay to talk about it – just not at dinner or with your mom.

6. Rouxbe.com

They say the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach (wrong! It’s straight through the ribcage with a poleaxe). Quality cooking is however, the manliest way to a woman’s heart. Show her how you move in the kitchen and she’ll want to know how you move in other rooms. This goes for married men too!

With Rouxbe’s (pronounced roo-bee) easy to follow, step-by-step gourmet cooking videos, you’ll be able to talk to her like you’re Gordon F’n Ramsay all night long, yes?

5. Akamai University – Mens’ Studies

If you’re the academic type and really want to get a good understanding of the creature known as man, you can actually get a degree in it at Akamai University.

I’m not sure what sort of career that would land you, or how manly this really is, but at least you’ll be prepared to go toe-to-toe with a feminist at your debate club.

4. Chickipedia.com

What’s the point of being a man, even a gentleman, if you can’t appreciate the alluring aesthetic appeal of the fairer sex?

Chickipedia makes finding ‘artistic’ images of the feminine form very simple, with arguably the largest collection in the world, this side of Hugh Hefner’s library. I especially like how I can search based on the three prime measurements.

3. BadAssOfTheWeek.com

Feeling like one man can’t make a difference? Is the metrosexual world we’re living in getting you down? Then it’s worth the trip to BadAssofTheWeek to read up on men like The Viking at Stamford Bridge, and a few women such as Harriet Tubman, who took charge, for better or worse, and made a mark on this world.

Makes me want to put on my cowboy boots and set a few mustachioed-villains straight. Take that Snidely Whiplash!

2. GreatDad.com

In all seriousness, the manliest pursuit a man can make is to become a father. Not just sire a kid or six, but to become the kind of father that your son wants to be, or your daughter wants to marry. It’s not the easiest thing to do and is just as challenging as being a great mom is for women.

There are roughly 2 quintillion websites for being a great mom and maybe 14 for being a great dad. Here’s one that I would recommend. GreatDad has honest and compassionate articles on being a great dad. It’s one website you should add to your daily reading if you are, or hope to become, a dad.

1. ArtOfManliness.com

If there was only one manly website in the world, this would be it. The articles here are very useful and usually served with a touch of humour like you’d expect from an old timer telling you how it was in his day.  From topics such as “How to Sharpen a Pocketknife” to “Bartitsu: The Martial art of Gentlemen”, ArtOfManliness.com is putting the man back into gentleman.

Bonus Manly Site

What if there were a club for men? An international fraternity of real men like John Wayne, Admiral Byrd and cool world leaders like Frederick the Great and George Washington? Oh yeah, there is!

Freemasonry is the oldest and largest men’s club in the world. With crazy get-ups like the buddy in the picture to cool handshakes and secret words, it’s the next best thing to having a tree-fort club again, only a bit more serious at times. Besides, the true best way to learn to be a man is from other men.

There are many official Freemason sites out there, but the grand-daddy is the United Grand Lodge of England.

Got something manly to add to this? Well step up and be heard, my good fellow. Care to dispute the manliness of something in here? Maybe we should take it outside then. Okay, I’ve been reading too much manly stuff today, time to calm down. Gilmour Girls anyone?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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With it being so easy to create and upload digital photos to the web, there are a lot of creative and innovative individuals out there who just know how to make you enjoy a lot of your worthless and not so worthless pictures. Something I just recently discovered, and surely will begin making the rounds via yours and my e-mail account, is WriteOnIt.

WriteOnIt is a fun way to have fun with your photos and create hilarious captions to pass around your e-mail and blog. Amongst the three sections on the site, you have caption creation, fake pictures and famous magazine covers for you to plaster your friends faces all over.

Create Funny Photo Captions

Caption creation lets you select amongst several WriteOnIt images with a blank slate for you to enter any words that you like. There are currently three dozen of funny photo captions to choose from. They include Einstein, Santa Claus and even a gravestone, all with the ability to create your creative caption for whomever or whatever you like.

Create Fake Photos

With creating your own fake photos, you can take any image you’ve taken yourself and upload it to a billboard, a mirror or a pencil drawing. After the image is uploaded, they’ll be instantly transformed into whatever you like, the aforementioned options, along with a couple of dozen more.

Make Fake Magazine Covers

Ability to make fake magazine covers may be the most fun part of WriteOnIt. Take images of just about anything applicable, and add them to Playboy, Playgirl, Time, Rolling Stone or Wired. Along with an image, you can even come up with your creative caption to add. You could definitely have some fun with this one. I’ve done my best to represent MakeUseOf on their future Wired cover.

Although WriteOnIt doesn’t have a lot of hidden treasures, its simplicity and ease of use make it a great place when you’d like to create something for a quick laugh. Whether you’re trying to poke some fun at a friend or make someone famous (or infamous) for a short period of time, this website should be one at the top of your list.

Go check out some of the latest entries, or maybe some of the more popular items. You’ll get a better idea of what fun there’s to be had.

What do you think? What other photo and art websites can you create a great laugh at?

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Every once in a while though you’ll stop and stare at the sky, or be struck by the beauty of an everyday thing. This can happen even with the web, if you take a moment.

Well, I’m here today to give you that moment. Geeks and Geekettes, Nerds and Nerdesses, I present to you my Seven Wonders of the World Wide Web.

7. Symbolics.com

Here we have a website that has a geek factor of 12 out of ten. This company had been a leader in developing systems and a development environment for LISP programming. How tech is that?

But that’s no wonder is it? Well, no, but consider this. They registered their domain name in March 1985. Yes, Symbolics is the oldest living domain name on the Web!

6. DavidBowie.com

The Thin White Duke is arguably the first superstar to have his own domain name and website. It was registered on August 6th, 1995.

It’s hard to determine who the first celebrity on the web was since some of those pioneers weren’t celebrities at the time. How about Tim Berners-Lee? Inventing the Web is a good way to eventually become a celebrity.

(Note: Douglas Adams, author of the classic Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, did post on a Usenet group way back on October 4^th, 1993. But that isn’t the World Wide Web, strictly speaking.)

5. World’s Largest Website

There are a few contenders here, since defining what makes a website the largest is hard to agree on. First up is 28 Fields – apparently this is the world’s largest website, taking 120 days to download over a DSL connection. But since I don’t have that kind of time, I don’t know if this site is useful anyway.

For physical dimensions, it could be World’s Highest Website.  Coming in at a moon-scraping 18,939 kilometers or 11,77 miles high.

For sheer number of pages hosted, you could argue that Google or Archive.org’s Wayback Machine holds that honour. Google has a cache of almost every page it indexes, which is a significant portion of the Web and Archive.org has historical caches of tons of pages.

4. doubleclick.com

This is the most popular website you probably never visited. Coming in at number 19 on Alexa’s Top 500 Sites is DoubleClick. If you are savvy in a computer way, you may have seen entries for DoubleClick in your history or cookies folders. What DoubleClick does is partner with web giants and others for advertising tracking and serving purposes. You may remember them also as an advertising exchange provider.

3. Geocities

Remember when Geocities was the Facebook or MySpace of the day? Then remember people starting to diss it as we learned to code HTML for ourselves? Then remember when MySpace and Facebook came along and we were all like, “Hey, this is kind of like Geocities. I miss those days.” and then we signed up for MySpace and Facebook and forgot about Geocities again?

Dude, it’s still there. Good old GC gave many of us our first website, our first look at a WYSIWYG web design, our first abuse of the <blink> tag and animated GIF’s. We still love you Geocities. Sorry, have to go change my Facebook status.

2. WebbyAwards

The Webby’s have been going on for 13 years now. That’s right, there are kids in high school have never known a world without the Webby’s. Yet a lot of them have never even heard of them!

If you want to see the best and brightest on the Web, check out the Webby Award Winners.

And don’t forget to nominate and vote for MakeUseOf in 2009!

1. Google

I know what you’re thinking, “Hey Guy, change your name to Google FanBoy!” Well, can you tell me of any other website that has done as much to change the face of the Web, Internet or computing in general? I didn’t think so. Na na, na na, boo boo!

Seriously, Google has made the entire web easier to use, given us tools we never dreamed were possible and apparently made a bunch of people rich with Google Ads. What have you done lately? Me neither, I haven’t done much. Maybe we should go bowling.

There it is, web surfers and surferettes! The official 7 wonders of the web in my Unofficial Annual 7 Wonders of the Web list. Who’s ready for an after-party?

Bonus: Eighth Wonder of the World Wide Web

Wonderbread

Type in ‘wonder’ in Google and you’ll get the Wonderbread site as the first result. Foodstuff, popular culture icon, brunt of attacks on prepared foods and best damn foundation for a PBJ ever.

Do you have a different Seven Wonders Of The World (Wide Web)?   Let’s hear them in the comments!

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In other words, when you feel down, fake a big fat smile and you will lighten up automatically. But be careful, it also works the other way around, so remember to keep smiling.

Of course genuine smiling works a lot better, so try one of the daily joke sites below for some serious fun.

Smilezilla

“The funniest place on the web”, so they say.

The best joke of the day is featured on the front page and several more are waiting for your vote on the “all submissions” site. The site also features funny stories.

To contribute you can share your own jokes or stories. Be warned though, the site contains explicit language, like most of the sites mentioned further down in this post.

Pun Gents

“Fresh & Original Pun of the Day.”

Puns intended. Can be subscribed to by RSS and eMail. That is to say yu can receive daily jokes by email. Puns can be demanded (submitted).

Funny Jokes Daily

A joke diary in blog style launched in May 2006 that features all the jokes the author has collected for his own entertainment over the years.

4. The Laughspot

Just a simple site that features a single joke of the day. No archives, no looking back. Can be subscribed to by eMail.

Daily Jokes

“One New Clean Joke Available Each Day.”

The site was launched in November 2008. It offers a feed available through RSS and eMail. Jokes are categorized and can be browsed by category.

1 Joke a Day

“Jokes, jokes, jokes…… This blog uploads a new joke on a daily basis. It’s all about making you laugh, brighten your day and cheer you up! After all, laughter is the best medicine!”

Some are long, some are short, some aren’t clean.

50Plus’s Daily Joke

In the Entertainment section of 50Plus you’ll find Daily Jokes that will make you smile mildly. Just the right thing when you can’t afford to laugh out loud.

WholeLook

“Laughter is the best medicine.”

In addition to a daily joke, WholeLook has daily quotes, riddles and puns. Good place to waste some time, enjoy yourself and get a mood boost.

How about funny jokes? Jester 4.0

“Jokes for Your Sense of Humor.”

Don’t care for daily jokes but rather want funny jokes? You should check out Jester where your sense of humor will be evaluated based on 8 different jokes. You will be asked to rate these jokes and all following, so that Jester can continuously refine the suggestions it makes.

Where do you get your dose of daily laughter? Can we have some too, please?

Picture credits: bizior

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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• The Seven Wonders of The World (Wide Web) (45)
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So I dug deep into my YouTube favourites and picked my ten favourite funniest YouTube videos ever. Here they are.

Beaker’s Ode To Joy

Beaker from the Muppets tries to play Beethoven’s Ode To Joy but predictably everything blows up around his ears.

The Death Star Canteen

Eddie Izzard’s famous sketch, using Lego, on what it is like in the Star Wars Death Star canteen.

“I am Lord Vader! I can kill you with a single thought!”
“You’ll still need a tray!”

Korean Drummer Steals The Show

Watch the drummer in the background. He’s either high on something or he thinks he’s Larry Mullen in U2. His crowning moment is at 3.01. Make sure you’re not drinking anything at that point or you’ll choke on it.

Chad Vader – Day Shift Manager

There’s been lots of Star Wars rip-offs over the years but this one is definately one of the best ones. This one is Darth Vader’s brother, Chad, who works as a grocery store manager. Needless to say, Chad is a bit of a loser, overshadowed by his brother, but always seem to come out on top in the end.

If you want to see the other episodes, the complete playlist is here.

Chad Vader – Grocery Store Training Videos

Not as good as the Day Shift Manager videos but still very funny. Here’s episode one – A Spy In Produce – and the complete playlist is here.

The Blue Danube Waltz

Back to the Muppets again. “The Blue Danube Waltz” as conducted by The Great Gonzo and featuring the lovely Camilla.

Phil Collins Gorilla Cadburys Chocolate Advert

This advert was apparently extremely popular in the UK and it advertises Cadburys chocolate. Watch the eyes of the gorilla as he goes for it at the drums. Classic.

Ask Palpatine

Another Star Wars rip-off but one that is really funny. This one is Emperor Palpatine and he takes questions such as Death Star design flaws, sings songs and so on. The show is obviously very low budget and it’s looks like papier mache with a hood over it but that doesn’t stop it from being one of my must-watch shows.

Here is the playlist to watch all the episodes.

Homer Simpson Tries To Vote For Obama

Homer tries to vote for Obama but the voting machine registers his vote for McCain instead. When Homer loudly complains, the machine tries to eat him.

Ken Lee

Hillarious Youtube video. And I’ve saved the best till last. This is a woman who entered a Bulgarian version of American Idol and wanted to sing Mariah Carey’s “Without You”. But she made up all her own words (thinking they were the real words and thinking she could speak English). The song’s title is “Without You” but she thinks it’s called “Ken Lee”. Watch and I challenge you to keep a straight face. Watch the judges struggle to keep their composure.

Oh and by the way, this woman is now apparently famous and is constantly asked back to the show to repeat her performance!

So that’s my ten favourite funniest YouTube videos so far. What do you think?

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For more great web comics, check out Part 1 of this series.

Questionable Content

This web comic has been around for a LONG time. Jeph Jacques’ fantastic strip about the lives of some coffee shop dwellers is one of the top web comics on the net today. There is quite a bit of backstory, but the gist of it can be picked up with some limited browsing. It’s amazing how funny and original Jacques manages to be every day of the workweek. He’s also very social on Twitter, updating his account frequently. On top of that he’s made special accounts for each of his characters. Their conversations are like bonus material! Find them in the list of people he follows.

Sinfest

I only discovered Sinfest a little while ago, but I’ve been pretty impressed with it. It’s a spunky comic about a bunch of walking stereotypes (and their pets) as they navigate the landscape of the modern American psyche. A lot of the episodes have a political slant (not favoring anyone too particularly), but it’s much more a commentary about modern day capitalism than an overt political admonition.  Plus, it’s pretty funny and very wacky!

Note: For some reason Sinfest isn’t equipped with a native RSS feed…so I made one! You can thank me later.

PhD – Piled High and Deeper

This one is a bit more selective.  PhD is aimed specifically at students going through graduate school.  That being said, just about anyone who’s gone through college or stayed through academia will probably love it.  The world of scholarly research is full of hypocrisy, wonderful moments, and crushing defeats.  As a prospective grad student myself, I’ve actually learned a lot about what life is really like for those in limbo between academic worlds.  I’d read up on some of the background info though, it will make the comic a little more coherent.

UserFriendly

Ah UserFriendly. This sardonic little comic sometimes gets a little too angsty for my taste, but that’s to be expected.  It’s about the plight of IT support employees.  Their jobs are often frustrating and thankless and this comes across pretty well in the comic.  That being said, the stories are full of demons, corporate hotshots, and every variety of geek, so there’s something in it for everybody!

FreakAngels

FreakAngels is a bit of a weird one. I threw it on here because I know there is a nice chunk of you who get excited when the words “steampunk” and “post-apocalyptic” get used in the same breath. FreakAngels tells the story of a group of misfits who have taken up the task of caring for their town after the end of the world. They have unique and fantastic powers that grow stronger when they are together. It comes out about once a week in serial format, so each week reveals something new about the FreakAngels’ mysterious past.

What’s your favorite comic strip on the web?

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“No we won’t”
“Yes we will”
“No we won’t”
“Yes we will”
“Wait a minute, this isn’t an argument, it’s just contradiction”
“No, it’s not”

Tune in to the podcast and check out the video and then go to town watching all your favourite Python videos.

“Right, then!  And now for something completely different”

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Play podcast below:

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Sing along with these words.

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While nothing can beat dead tree printed comicbooks during ‘morning rituals’, reading your friendly neighborhood heroes on-screen could also be nice. Doing it on the Mac makes everything even more nicer.

Searching the Sagas

Before reading, you must first obviously have the comic books. Here are a few ways to find the electronic version of your favorites.

1. Use torrents

There are many torrent portals out there, but if you are a Demonoid member you are lucky because they have a special section dedicated to comic books.

2. Use a search engine

Any of them – cough! Google! Cough! – will do, just use the search string

-inurl:htm -inurl:html intitle:”index of” “Last modified” “Title” comics cbr.

Make sure that you change the “Title” into whatever title you are searching for. Additional note: ‘CBR’ is the common compression extension for electronic versions of comic books.

Other popular extensions are CBZ, ZIP, and RAR. Try changing the extensions during the search if you don’t find what you’re looking for.

3. Try online storage sites

The popularity of online storage services makes them ideal places to keep digital collections. Try searching inside some of them. If you want suggestions on lists of online storage sites, Make Use Of has covered many of them. Or better, use Rapidshare search engines.

4. IRC

This old chatting world has been and still is one of the best resources of any kind of files – comic books included. One caveat is that you have to know exactly where to look. I’m not an IRC expert so I can’t help too much on this. If you can share some knowledge, please use the comments below.

Viewing and Reading the Virtual Pages

Now comes the fun part – reading comic books online! As a Mac user, I can recommend a few reading programs which run under the Mac.

1. FFView

One of the favorite comic readers among Mac users.

2. Jomic

A Java based comic viewer. So it can run under other platforms as well. Just be sure to have Java 1.4 or later. But as with other Java apps, this one too can be a bit ‘heavy’ on older machines.

3. Sequential 2

This one is an image viewer originally designed for opening a folder of images and displaying them in order.

4. Simple Comic

This one is my personal favourite. I like the ability to view two pages of a comic. It makes you feel like you are reading the hardware version. Also the ability to get the sneak peek of pages using the thumbnail on the progress bar.

For Windows users, aside from Jomic, try Comic Rack. This app display your comic collection iTunes-style. I can’t seem to find any other better options – the same goes for Linux. But then again, maybe I didn’t search hard enough. So, does anybody have any better suggestions?

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If you look underneath the links from the show on this page, you will see a little media player where you can listen to the podcast right here on the site. Or if you prefer, you can right-click on the “audio MP3″ logo and save the MP3 file to your computer for listening on your MP3 player or iPod.

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With the rise of the internet came the ability for everyone and anyone to self-publish. ‘Webcomics’ is a term that came to refer to any cartoon published on websites and archives.

While many conventional cartoons are also published on websites like Comics.com, Webcomics developed a unique and definable style which differentiates them from print media comics.

To give you a sample of some popular Webcomics I’ve chosen just 5 which are my favourites. Don’t get too worked up over me omitting your favourite comic, it was hard narrowing it down and there were quite a few more I would have liked to put in.

Dinosaur Comics

Dinosaur comics is a WebComic that has also made itself into print media and a selection of strips have even been published in book form.

The format consists of just one set of 6 panels which contain exactly the same art each day but are accompanied by a different series of dialogue.

The characters consequently remain consistent throughout the series; T-Rex, Utahraptor and Dromiceiomimus. Occasionally other characters will interact with T-Rex but only through dialogue and stay off panel.

A Softer World

It’s hard to ever truly explain a Softer World. It’s humorous, sometimes, even when you’re not sure why. It’s thought provoking, which isn’t always a good thing and often it’s just plain disturbing.

Every strip contains three panels displaying one photograph by Emily Horne and several captions by Joey Comeau. It’s released three times a week and one book of selected comics have been published.

On the Softer World website hover your cursor over each cartoon for an additional sentence which often provides the text what could be a 4th panel.

Garfield minus Garfield

Barely 6 months old Garfield minus Garfield is already gaining rapid popularity and success and has been featured in numerous publications such as Time and Rolling Stone.

“Garfield Minus Garfield is a site dedicated to removing Garfield from the Garfield comic strips in order to reveal the existential angst of a certain young Mr. Jon Arbuckle. It is a journey deep into the mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness and depression in a quiet American suburb.”

In fact Garfield creator Jim Davis likes the idea so much he’s even publishing a book juxtapositioning the originals against the modified ones.

Garfield creator Jim Davis was intrigued by—and pleased with—the concept. “I think it’s an inspired thing to do,” Davis said. “I want to thank Dan for enabling me to see another side of Garfield. Some of the strips he chose were slappers: ‘Oh, I could have left that out.’ It would have been funnier.”

Possibly the first original idea to come out of Garfield for 20 years.

Gaping Void: Cartoons on the Back of Business Cards

I don’t really know if this is a ‘web-comic’ as such, it’s published on a website so that is good enough.

Hugh Macleod draws cartoons on the back of business cards and yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like.

In recent times he seems to have branched out a lot more and does giant squiggly patterns to sell to New Yorkers to hang in their apartments. He also wrote an incredible article on “how to be creative” which is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read.

He posts his business card cartoons on his blog as well as his work in progress and his thoughts on technology and marketing in general.

ToothPaste for Dinner

A minimalist hand-drawn WebComic consisting of single self-contained panels which cover strange, ironic and surreal topics.

Do you know of any good webcomics that I have missed out that you would like to recommend? If so, post the URL in the comments and let us know why you like it! Or maybe you have your own webcomic you would like to show us?

(By) Laurence John was born naked, screaming and utterly helpless at some point in the last century. He currently blogs about heroic failures and the development of Windows 7.

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