Web Singletons?

tcmb writes "There are an uncounted number of web mail and picture sharing services, there are more than enough web sites for online bookmark management and friend-finding, but as far as I know there is only one Internet Archive. Which are the true web singletons, services that exist only once in this form?" And does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?

Comments

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously what?

Re:What?

[Firehed]

Well a singleton is a software design pattern designed to allow exactly zero or one instances of a class to exist (typically a database connection). But whoever thought the term applies to the services provided by web apps is just an idiot. Especially since as soon as anyone creates something new and vaguely useful, a dozen clones pop up within a week and do it better (though tend to fail anyways, since they never get the initial market share or publicity of the original - see: twitter). The only organizations that could create a "singleton" web app, if you really feel the need to misuse the term that thoroughly, are major patent trolls.

Re:What?

[aegl]

"The only organizations that could create a "singleton" web app, if you really feel the need to misuse the term that thoroughly, are major patent trolls"

Patent trolls don't create anything (except pain, suffering and economic hardship for their victims).

Re:What?

[Firehed]

Well that's the beauty of the singleton design pattern - you can create exactly zero instances if you want. Which in the context of patent trolls is definitely a bad thing, but it still technically fits the misused term.

Re:What?

[mollymoo]

Well a singleton is a software design pattern designed to allow exactly zero or one instances of a class to exist (typically a database connection). But whoever thought the term applies to the services provided by web apps is just an idiot.

The word "singleton" wasn't invented to describe the design pattern, douchebag. It means there is only one of something and is used correctly in TFS.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/singleton

Re:What?

[Toonol]

Then why, as the summary itself asks, is there only one internet archive? Granted there's nothing stopping another archive from opening up, but yet... it hasn't happened. For one reason or another, it's not spawning clones.

I think it's simply because nobody's figured out how to make a buck off it. Once that happens, there'll be hundreds of them.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

He isn't a douchebag, just a simpleton.

Re:What?

[Minwee]

But whoever thought the term applies to the services provided by web apps is just an idiot.

Some day, I'm going to have to introduce you to a new game called 'Bridge', something called 'set theory' or perhaps just to the concept of 'twins'. Then you might learn a few whole new meanings for that word and wonder why you were such an idiot about it before.

Re:What?

[AmberBlackCat]

The good part for the Internet Archive is they can't rip off the idea and do it better because they'd have to go back in time to get the data.

Re:What?

[dubbreak]

The word "singleton" wasn't invented to describe the design pattern, douchebag. It means there is only one of something and is used correctly in TFS.

Lemme guess. Your a singleton (an offspring born alone).

While the term may be used correctly it doesn't address the target audience correctly. For the slashdot community the title is quite misleading. A title of "Web Singletons?" and it's not about the design pattern? Not cool or geeky. Wouldn't "unique web apps?" or something else better describe what the article is about?

I know I was disappointed when I found out the article wasn't (directly) related to coding and by the responses I've seen so far it looks as though I'm not projecting.

Re:What?

[therufus]

Singleton is a township in the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales, Australia. Famous for its wineries and mining. It's a nice place. Friendly people. And it has one of the worlds largest sundials.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singleton,_New_South_Wales

Re:What?

[roguetrick]

On the subject of patent trolls, Blackboard fits this, despite being such a horrible piece of crap.

Re:What?

[steelfood]

Obviously, a good grasp of the English language doesn't fall into "news for nerds, stuff that matters."

I'll bet as far as some people here are concerned, they'd be perfectly fine conversing in byte code, though perhaps they might have trouble agreeing upon the architecture.

Re:What?

[daeg]

(Archive the archive (the archive (the archive (the archive))))

Re:What?

[Cochonou]

The singleton term is also widely used in math. I do think this is an interesting play on word for those who can use the word in their respective fields (mathematics, physics, or software design).

Re:What?

[Jekler]

It's still odd wording. Most people would ask about unique web sites, like asking about unique restaurants or unique tourist attractions.

"Come to Epcot Center, it's a singleton!"

Re:What?

[vegiVamp]

so you mean he has zero or one brain cells ?

Re:What?

[edsousa]

The good part of Internet Archive is that is singleton...
If there was other, it would be funny to watch one Archive archiving the other... and then the 2nd archiving the 1st who has already archived... kaboooooooooom.

Re:What?

[Hognoxious]

Pandora has been archiving the australian web sites

Both of them?

Re:What?

[Hal_Porter]

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/singleton

singleton
One entry found.

Main Entry:
sin*gle*ton
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French, from English single
Date:
1876
1: a card that is the only one of its suit originally dealt to a player
2 a: an individual member or thing distinct from others grouped with it b: an offspring born singly <singletons are more common than twins>

I like the way MW has a joke for Singleton. If you look up other words with a single definition it doesn't say "one entry found".

It reminds of the definition of recursive in the hacker's dictionary.

http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon_33.html#TAG1486
recursion /n./

See recursion.

Clearly both are an attempt at meta humour.

Re:What?

[Hal_Porter]

No, it's impossible. Only one archive can archive all sites except for itself.

Re:What?

[theaveng]

How about the former DejaNews now renamed GoogleGroups? It allows posting to the Usenet without charge, and I'm not aware of any other service that allows free (key word) Usenet browsing/posting.

Re:What?

[smoker2]

It's funny, but we used to have a word for such items - Unique
Unfortunately, idiots have misused this term so much that we have to use other terms instead.
So in revenge, I guess something can be very singleton, almost singleton, etc.

Re:What?

[Jellybob]

There's more then one - while they don't provide the same interface, I'm fairly sure Google's cache of the internet could be used to produce the same thing.

Re:What?

[kill-1]

When I click on the "gullible" link, it also says "one entry found".

Re:What?

[fxkr]

archive = lambda: archive()

<type 'exceptions.RuntimeError'>: maximum recursion depth exceeded

Re:What?

[hesaigo999ca]

You think the ones posting actually read what we have to say, they are busy enjoying their glow of
"I just posted a story on slashdot and feel above all else,
why would I read what our community thinks, I am above the law now!"

Seriously, how many times have we seen cmdr taco post a useless piece of crap story and totally ruffle our feathers, then do it again the next day, they don't read these posts, only WE read them.
I agree though being a developer, I tend to think of a singleton as a nice piece of uniqueness
, guess it shows the level of journalism on this website.

Re:What?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

On the subject of patent trolls, Blackboard fits this, despite being such a horrible piece of crap.

A-fucking-men to that chief. Blackboard is, bar none, the single nastiest most unintuitive piece of shit I have every had to deal with. It makes Lotus Notes circa 1995 look like genius. It makes Microsoft Clippy look like a good idea. I hate it. I want it gone. I would rather spend hours photocopying stuff and calculating grades by hand without a calculator than deal with that nasty piece of crap.

RS

Re:What?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

He isn't a douchebag, just a simpleton.

Correct. If he was a douchebag, he'd look like THIS or This.

RS

Re:What?

[t-maxx cowboy]

I find the internet archive useful, and yet there is only one site offering that service that I know of. Google cached versions don't really count.

Re:What?

[Chris Pimlott]

There's more then one - while they don't provide the same interface, I'm fairly sure Google's cache of the internet could be used to produce the same thing.

Google's cache is not nearly the same thing. It only provides a single previous copy, goes back a few weeks at most and is quick to disappear once the original site has died. While it's definitely useful, it's no replacement for IA's Wayback Machine.

Re:What?

[clone53421]

I like the way MW has a joke for Singleton. If you look up other words [merriam-webster.com] with a single definition it doesn't say "one entry found".

Actually, it does.

Re:What?

[clone53421]

function archive(archive_ptr*) {
        return (archive_ptr*)(archive_ptr);
}

int main() {
        archive(&archive);
#include "sig"
}
 
// I apologise for my probably incorrect code... it's been a while since I seriously messed with pointers.

Re:What?

[ivucica]

Feeling lispic today?

I prefer Logo:

[Archive the archive [the archive [the archive [the archive]]]]

Or just:

TO ARCHIVE :x
OP ARCHIVE SE [Archive the] :x
END

Re:What?

[drpentode]

Absolutely. Is Moodle still around?

Re:What?

[dubbreak]

Egad. That is embarrassing. Nearly as bad as a then/than error.

Re:What?

[Uzuri]

It is indeed. The college I work at uses it.

For timewasting

[Finallyjoined!!!]

Try http://www.sickipedia.org/

Or not.

Re:For timewasting

[Bryansix]

Yep. That was a waste of time. Although it may contain the most euphemisms I've seen for vagina in a long time.

Re:For timewasting

[xaxa]

I've seen someone driven to tears because someone else was reading out the jokes from that site.

(There's taking the joke the wrong way, and then there's "fuck you all, I hate you, you don't know what you're making fun of, I was abused by my uncle when I was eight".)

Re:For timewasting

[Requiem18th]

You are doing it wrong, think TV Tropes.

Re:For timewasting

[sketerpot]

That is one of the biggest time sinks on the whole web. It's amazing. Go there.

Re:For timewasting

[Half-pint HAL]

I think he's saying that he once heard someone tell a joke about child abuse (from that site) to someone who had been abused as a child. Are you terminally thick?

Re:For timewasting

[Ebirah]

OMG. It's got me. It's sucking me in. Aaargh.

Zombo

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone knows about Zombo of course. You could waste hours there without even thinking about it.

Re:Zombo

[AM088]

Not singleton.

Here's a clone: http://crotchzombie.com/

There can be only one...

[statemachine]

Timecube.

Unique and a waste of time.

Re:There can be only one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong; not a singleton: http://www.thymecube.com/

Re:There can be only one...

[CSMatt]

Not to mention this.

What site is this again?

[John Whitley]

And does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?

looks up at teh awesome bar (cough).

looks at uid.

sighs.

Re:What site is this again?

[dr_strang]

looks up at teh awesome bar (cough).

looks at uid.

sighs.

I know what you mean.

Re:What site is this again?

[Bookem Danno]

Damn kids! GIT OFF MAH LAWN!

Re:What site is this again?

[nbvb]

Hey whipper-snapper, get off MY lawn!

Re:What site is this again?

[Saint Stephen]

Yo.

Re:What site is this again?

[Binder]

I don't get it. :P

Re:What site is this again?

[Brad]

It is one of those new-fangled words the youth use. See: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yo

Now, keep it down over there or I'll call the cops.

Re:What site is this again?

[zippthorne]

Wait.. still?

Kids these days...

Re:What site is this again?

[maelstrom]

Bite me, Grandpa!

Re:What site is this again?

[ConceptJunkie]

I would, for one, welcome our 3-digit UID overlords, but they've been here for a while and things haven't gotten any better.

Re:What site is this again?

[llamalad]

Now you get off my lawn. Damned noobs.

Re:What site is this again?

[empaler]

Quote zippthorne (748122)

Wait.. still?

Kids these days...

Who you calling a kid, shortstop?

Slashdot

[zobier]

I'd say /. is relatively unique.

Re:Slashdot

[symes]

And does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?

Erm... /. ? Oh, and b3ta

Re:Slashdot

[xmas2003]

Depends on how tightly you define unique since there are numerous other web sites where (technical) stories are posted by editorial choice from user-submissions and then commented on ... but yea, Slashdot certainly is the granddaddy.

I imagine that the Internet abhors a singularity like nature abhors a vacuum ... stuff will rush in/pop up to fill it.

Re:Slashdot

[moosesocks]

Not true. Look at yesterday's slashdot.

Odds are a number of today's stories are repeated on there.

Therefore, slashdot is not a singleton.

QED.

Re:Slashdot

[ari_j]

I define unique in a way that is, tragically, probably unique: correctly. There is no such thing as "relatively unique." I catch myself saying such things at times, but usually feel guilty later.

At any rate, I think that the following sites are unique, at least insofar as no other site has done the same thing with even a comparable amount of success and therefore they stand alone: Slashdot, Woot, Wikipedia, Google, Babelfish, Cornell Law's LII, archive.org, packing.org (now dead but lacking appropriate replacement and thus still unique), and eBay.

I hope it's unique!

[techno-vampire]

There's one site that I certainly hope is unique: goatse.cx.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[Firehed]

Tubgirl, lemonparty, meatspin, 2G1C, etc. The implementation may vary a bit, but goatse certainly isn't the only shock site out there.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[tsalmark]

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I am not Googling meatspin.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[onecheapgeek]

Don't forget bottleguy.com

I will not link that.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[moosesocks]

For what it's worth, it's almost exactly what it sounds like.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[Card Zero]

How about Leekspin?

Re:I hope it's unique!

[mabhatter654]

that's a good example because there's just one image that represents the idea. People are not making images to imitate this, they just point to the original or copy of it. It's not like there are copycats like lambsex or sheepbutt.. one Goatse.cx is enough to get the point across.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[dmsuperman]

Don't lie. We know you only said that, then immediately googled it and looked at it.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[JimBoBereLLa]

Haha I'm glad I'm at work and we have filters!

Re:I hope it's unique!

[tsalmark]

Hey I lasted almost an hour. Still have the heebeegeebees.

Re:I hope it's unique!

[BlackPignouf]

You definitely should, it's by far the funniest one of all! :)

Re:I hope it's unique!

[empaler]

Meatspin is used at my work place to punish unlocked computers.

You spin me right round baby right round...

Re:I hope it's unique!

[empaler]

Just use CoralCDN to get around them... :-D

Re: "For large values of once"

[TaoPhoenix]

Sorry AC.

You missed http://www.obmoz.com/

------

(Can you talk to Mods?
"Hi Mod. I know I am Informative, but since neither of the sites are, save your juicy Mod point for something better.")

Yeah, for time wasting

[toby]

You can't beat /.

Re:Yeah, for time wasting

[Bryansix]

It's true.

Re:Yeah, for time wasting

[Dr.Altaica]

For wasting time I beat my /.

soI have to dissagree with you.

Try Wikia

[Haoie]

A lot of stuff that doesn't quite make it onto the regular Wiki is found here.

It also hosts some very concise, fictional world Wikis, like Wookiepedia [Star Wars]. and Memory Alpha [Star Trek].

Re:Try Wikia

[wideBlueSkies]

Just wanted to mention that the Battlestar Wiki is quite good as well.

Re:Try Wikia

[Requiem18th]

When I first found TV Tropes I felt like I was trapped in a time loop.

Re:I'm Sorry, but . . .

[TinFoilMan]

Wives tend to do that.
Win, I mean.

Qik

[CaptainTux]

www.qik.com allows you to stream live video and audio from your cell phone. As far as I know, it's the only service on the internet like this.

You mean like Google?

[Shadow Wrought]

I'm surprised no one else has tried to create a search engine for the internets...

Singletons

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear that eharmony is a good place to find singletons.

Re:Singletons

[nonewmsgs]

eharmony gave me my free personality profile and told me "thanks, but no thanks...they don't have anyone to fit my unique characteristics." i was all well guess what match.com likes my money just fine. after a year and a half with no further progress i cancelled match, and respected eharmony more.

Uh...

[meeotch]

And does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?

You must be new here.

TinEye.com

[kinabrew]

TinEye.com is an image search engine that works like this:

It analyzes images it finds online, by looking at their pixels and dimensions.

To search, a user uploads an image, and TinEye returns a list of links to similar images, said images' dimensions, and links to the pages on which said images are posted.

It's useful for finding originals from photoshopped images and for finding images in a series if you have only one image and know it's part of a series.

And no, I don't work for them(but I do use the site almost daily).

Re:TinEye.com

[svnt]

It's useful for .. finding images in a series if you have only one image and know it's part of a series.

Now when in the hell would I ever use th-

Oh. Nice.

but I do use the site almost daily

That's a lot of image series. You do realize it is available in video form, too?

Re:TinEye.com

[AmberBlackCat]

It's only a "singleton" because it's new. But it is pretty nice. If somebody would make a desktop search that could do that, they'd blow Google and everybody else out of the water.

Re:TinEye.com

[Chris Pimlott]

It's primarily useful for getting your hopes up and then being seriously disappointed.

Nope, not google...

[recharged95]

But the Open Directory Project.

Archive.org isn't unique

[pasamio]

Check out Australia's web archive run by the National Library of Australia: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/

It may not be the same size yet, but many of the web app clones have the same issue as well. Its scope is also different as well - aiming at Australian content, but again many clones limit their scope as well.

Re:tvtropes

[Kelson]

Seconded. I've on several occasions jumped over to TV Tropes just to look up a single term, then middle-clicked my way through a page, middle-clicked my way through another page, and 3 hours later found myself with 20 tabs open just on that site. And of course I can't bring myself to close them without reading them...

Zombo.com

[DoorFrame]

Zombo.com

OurCampaigns

[Elder Entropist]

Well, to toot my own horn:

There are lots of political sites, but my site OurCampaigns is a bit different than anything out there.

It is custom programmed and is a structured international view of politics at allows user contribution. Lot of current and historical race result data, going back hundreds of years. High level to local level. Right now a half million political races. News items, endorsements, candidate information, party information.

Re:OurCampaigns

[DerekLyons]

There are lots of political sites, but my site OurCampaigns is a bit different than anything out there.

Nah, yours isn't so different. There's a lot of confused, poorly laid out, and poorly designed sites on the web.

Re:I'm Sorry, but . . .

[treeves]

Well yeah, because even if you win, you lose.

Usually, I'd rather be right than happy.

Re:gnaa

[Austerity Empowers]

There is no shortage of idiots on the web.

wheresgeorge.com

[treeves]

was/is probably a "singleton".

I lost interest when it seemed like very few of the bills I entered were later tracked.

Re:wheresgeorge.com

[KingAlanI]

I'm hooked on that site, have been since October 2002. Response (hit) rate of only a few percent is kind of to be expected. New people often don't mark their bills as efficiently. Clearly the first and one of the best, but not really a singleton anymore. There were a few bad knockoffs for USD that never really reached a critical-mass userbase. Also, there are a bunch of sites now for tracking foreign currency in a similar manner: www.whereswilly.com (CAD; established by the Wheresgeorge founder), www.eurobilltracker.com, etc.

Re:wheresgeorge.com

[gblues]

There's also the problem that defacing us currency is quite illegal.

Re:wheresgeorge.com

[Vampo]

There's also the problem that defacing us currency is quite illegal.

Not only that but it actually hurts the whole idea as a marked bill will be taken off circulation as soon as a bank gets its hands on it.

Re:wheresgeorge.com

[Chris Pimlott]

There's also the problem that defacing us currency is quite illegal.

Not true. Only if you do it with intent to defraud or make the currency unusable. Writing an URL on it is fine.

It's why we can have those souvenir penny-smasher machines everwhere.

Re:wheresgeorge.com

[treeves]

I understood it to be OK to write or stamp "wheresgeorge.com" on a bill. I even made a stamp for that purpose 5 years ago when I got into wheresgeorge.com.

But how is smashing a penny into a thinner oval with a completely different image not making it unusable as currency (and therefore directly contradicting what you said one sentence earlier)?

The first year I entered bills into wheresgeorge.com I got about a 10% hit rate. Subsequent years it went to zero, and I assumed interest in it had died off. I entered one bill in 2006 and none since. I see that the site still exists (and my account and data is still available).

My homepage

[martin-boundary]

My homepage is unique, because it's a one stop shop for all things me (*).

(*) All those other websites just don't talk about myself as well as I do (**).

(**) I could tell you where it is, but I'd have to kill you (***).

(***) Yes, it's that special. Accept no substitutes.

The grand-daddy of them all...

[Nick Driver]

...is still alive!

Re:The grand-daddy of them all...

[bertok]

http://www.leekspin.com/

It makes my brain juices fizz.

Snopes

[Darth Cider]

Snopes.com is singular and good for wasting time.

Re:Snopes

[Opyros]

These sites are similar to Snopes: http://www.truthorfiction.com/ http://www.hoax-slayer.com/

TV Tropes

[roystgnr]

And does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?

Google for "TV Tropes". No, I'm not giving you a URL. If I had to go find the URL, I might accidentally look at the URL. And then I'd end up clicking some of the links there. But there's no way to read through a Trope page without being curious enough to click on at least two of the links there, and then two of the links on each of those, and then... well, I just put dinner in the oven and I do not want to suddenly snap out of a fascinated reverie an hour from now when the smoke from my kitchen burning down reminds me that I'm starving.

Re:TV Tropes

[AndresCP]

Damn you! Now I need to go back to TVtropes and see if anything has changed! Aaargh!

Re:TV Tropes

[Sirch]

Damn you, you're going to hell for this!

You made checking it out even more enticing, and now I can't stop!

* checks the entry for The Wizard

Re:TV Tropes

[I'm not really here]

why... Why? WHY?!?!?

I've lost 2 hours of my life, thanks to you. Now I'll never be bored on the internet again, so I'll never want to get off. And I thought Slashdot was sucking up enough of my time!

Now to go close that tab... wait, what was that? That looks interesting... hmm....

Re:TV Tropes

[Lijemo]

Yeah.

First time I saw a link to that site, it came with a warning that it was a huge time-waster and it would waste hours of my life.

Yeah, right, I said, and figured that I'd have a quick look-see to see what it was all about.

Seven hours later, I realized it was well past my bedtime and I hadn't accomplished anything I had planned to that evening.

Which twitter?

[tepples]

Especially since as soon as anyone creates something new and vaguely useful, a dozen clones pop up within a week and do it better (though tend to fail anyways, since they never get the initial market share or publicity of the original - see: twitter).

Are you talking about the microblogging service with a dozen clones or the Slashdot poster with a dozen clones?

But does it contain itself?

[Domini]

... sorry, it had to be asked.

And if not is it a set of all sets that do not contain themselves?

Re:But does it contain itself?

[hoggoth]

Make a list of all singleton web sites.
Make a second list of all web sites that are not singletons.
The first and last entries on this list are unique by the fact that they are the first and last non-singleton web sites. Move them to the first list. Repeat.

All web sites are singletons.
All things are notable.
Q.E.D.: All your base are belong to us.

Re:SourceForge

[Constantine XVI]

Not really. There's berliOS, Google Code, Launchpad, and probably others I can't name off the top of my head.

Re:SourceForge

[xaxa]

SourceForge stands pretty much singular in its function.

Um... Freshmeat.net?

One, One, One

[icepick72]

Singleton:
- a single object (as distinguished from a pair)
- a set containing a single member
- In mathematics, a singleton is a set with exactly one element. For example, the set {0} is a singleton.

One good reason for finding "singletons" on the web (unique web properties) might be to find an entry point for competition where the market is not yet saturated. At the same time it's often hard to compete against something that's firmly established (e.g. David and Goliath). Maybe submitter has a obsessive compulsive disorder and feels a strong need to find one of everything on the web. Speculation. Maybe I'm a jackass.

Re:One, One, One

[Myopic]

For future reference, David and Goliath is a bad example of how it's difficult for the little guy to unseat a big guy.

Re:One, One, One

[icepick72]

Good point, but at least submitter knows it's worth trying.

Time-wasting singleton?

[actionbastard]

"And does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?"
This does -idle.slashdot.org.

space-time continuum monitoring

[sugarmotor]

There is only one space-time continuum monitoring service, http://space-time.net/

Stephan

Re:space-time continuum monitoring

[bored_engineer]

Your link reminded me of another that I saw a few weeks ago here. For extra laughs, view the page source.

Re:space-time continuum monitoring

[apathy maybe]

http://qntm.org/?board

Re:gnaa

[Eli Gottlieb]

There is no shortage of idiots.

Fixed that for you.

Re:4chan

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

No I don't think so.

Re:Here's a semi-unique time waster for 'ya ...

[ShieldW0lf]

Singletons are the loneliest objects that I've ever seen...
Factories can be as bad as a Singletons
They're the loneliest objects since the Singleton

False is the saddest value that you'll ever know,
True, it's the saddest value that you'll ever know...

LHC destruction monitor

[ninjapiratemonkey]

AFAIK, this is the only site which will tell you if the LHC has destroyed the world yet. You can waste hours of time by checking it frequently, making sure that you're not dead yet! http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/ and the source is fairly humourous as well.

Re:LHC destruction monitor

[apathy maybe]

I wish to point you to the International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board. According to these fine persons, the earth has all ready been destroyed. Certainly not by the LHC (and so that site you linked to is still correct), but as a pre-emptive measure.

Evidence is still being collated, but preliminary results suggest that the Earth was destroyed pre-emptively by scientists at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Geneva, Switzerland, before the commencement of their experiments to locate the Higgs Boson, as a precautionary measure to ensure that the experiment itself could not result in the destruction of the Earth.

Re:LHC destruction monitor

[Petrushka]

http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

Believe it or not, it's not a singleton -- though this one's source is less interesting, in that it doesn't check a variable.

At least both of them provide RSS feeds. (I had a bit of a start one day about three weeks ago when I noticed there was a new entry on one of the feeds.)

Re:LHC destruction monitor

[notjim]

http://www.hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com/ does pretty much the same thing but it is updated more often.

Re:LHC destruction monitor

[post.scriptum]

In the source of the page:

if the lhc actually destroys the earth & this page isn't yet updated
please email mike@frantic.org to receive a full refund

Re:I'm Sorry, but . . .

[PopeRatzo]

Wives tend to do that.
Win, I mean.

They do if you have any sense.

MovieLandmarks

[coderpunk]

Its a work in progress to collect all the filming locations/landmarks for TV and Movies into a google maps mashup. http://movielandmarks.com/

No, no, you got it wrong

[omuls are tasty]

It's "fool me once, shame on... shame on you; fool me you can't get fooled again".

iana.net

[thebiss]

Certainly the root of all names and numbers would qualify. All others are just delegates.

i messed up my mod

[bryxal]

ignore this

Re:i messed up my mod

[TaoPhoenix]

Can we reward anyone who takes the time to reverse a bad mod with their own Mod point? (Underrated?)

Fippypopulosa

[curmudgeon99]

Fippypopulosa

How about...

[cfl]

http://www.palinaspresident.com/

I've been back to visit it every day for entertainment and don't know of anything like it :)

isitchristmas?

[z0idberg]

not exactly a timewaster...but possibly a singleton?

http://isitchristmas.com/

Re:isitchristmas?

[TaoPhoenix]

But does it change on Christmas?

Re:SourceForge

[mcrbids]

Um... Source hosting? Online docs? Revisioning?

Back to SourceForge!

Only one site for Housecoat Adventuring

[hosecoat]

www.housecoatadventurers.com

yes, its my website, and my cult

Singletons?

[macraig]

I can honestly say that I know quite a few web simpletons, but no singletons.

Everything?

[Leto-II]

Time wasters?

How about slashdot's sister site, everything2?

Re:whitehouse

[GodKingAmit]

Pretty sure it used to be. There was a big fuss about whitehouse.com being a porn site. I think it was when Clinton was president but I don't fully remember.

Once upon a time...

[ahow628]

There was this hamster and he would dance. That was back at the beginning of the internet though, so I don't know if any remembers that...

Internet Archive #2

[teacherportal]

It might not be there yet...but Google might make archive.org not a singleton anymore.
Here is the index as it existed in 2001. http://www.google.com/search2001.html

They have their index and all the pages they crawled, it would just be a point of making it public.


******* Quit your job, become a teacher.

Re:Zombo Round 3!

[TaoPhoenix]

Beautiful. That's what makes the Net a grand place. I couldn't have ever found this variant.

InternetMoodReport.com

[slashmojo]

Think this is a singleton at the moment..

internetmoodreport.com

Also quite a waste of time so a match on both counts! ;)

Re: Dept. Of glorious Zombo Trivia

[TaoPhoenix]

Text of Zombo.com
Welcome to ZomboCom. This is ZomboCom. Welcome. This is ZomboCom. Welcome to ZomboCom. You can do anything at ZomboCom. Anything at all. The only limit is yourself. Welcome to ZomboCom. Welcome to ZomboCom. This is ZomboCom. Welcome to ZomboCom. This is ZomboCom. Welcome. Yes. This is ZomboCom. This is ZomboCom. And Welcome to you who have come to ZomboCom. Anything is possible at ZomboCom. You can do anything at ZomboCom. The infinite is possible at ZomboCom. The unattainable is unknown at ZomboCom. Welcome to ZomboCom. This is Zombocom. Welcome to ZomboCom. Welcome. This is Zombocom. Welcome to ZomboCom. Welcome to ZomboCom.

Text of Obmoz.com
Welcome to ObmozCom. Welcome. Everyone is welcome at ObmozCom. Everyone except my brain damaged paternal twin brother Zombo. Everyone else is most welcome at ObmozCom. Welcome to ObmozCom. I welcome you will all of my heart and soul and open arms to ObmozCom. You will not get a heartfelt welcome like that from ZomboCom. Zombo has lied to you. You can't do anything at ZomboCom. You can't do anything at all. I have been there when he was asleep. The only limit at ZomboCom is the time you have to waste at ZomboCom to listen to his drivel. My brother Zombo needs a CAT scan because our mother dropped him on his head many many times as a baby. But, he was still her favorite. It was always "Zombo this", and "Zombo that". She would say "Obmoz, why can't you be more like your brother Zombo?" Zombo Zombo Zombo, I hate Zombo. (Weeps) Zombo is bucking it. The unattainable is everywhere at Zombocom. ObmozCom is infinite. Your wildest dreams will come true instantly and fully and completely at ObmozCom. Simply close your eyes and imagine the most wonderful thing that will instantly appear in your mind. You can't get that from ZomboCom! So I welcome you to ObmozCom, where the vast universe is available to you. Exclusively. Look around you at ObmozCom. ObmozCom is super massive and getting larger every day. Obmozcom is so much more complete and well rounded compared to ZomboCom. It is unfathomable, it is uncomprehensible, it is unbelieveable. ObmozCom has 40% more blinking colorful dots than ZomboCom. It is such a massive and indisputable difference. To you my friend it will leave you breathless with anticipation every time you are about to see the colorful blinking thingie at ObmozCom. You can actually see the colors of ObmozCom's Blinkything. Unlike the dull and lifeless Blinkything at Zombomcom. Obmozcom is omnipotent compared to ZomboCom. Again, welcome ObmozCom. Welcome, to all who visit ObmozCom, for today and all eternity. You will always be welcome to ObmozCom. Thank you for visiting ObmozCom. Please bookmark ObmozCom and come back often to fill your wildest dreams and fantasies.
ROBOT CODA: Sample is Freezing!

but as far as I know there is only one Internet...

[Kvasio]

.... but as far as I know there is only one Internet Archive.

that's crazy talk!
Tell me you've never tried to backup all movies, music and pr0n.

Upsidedown dogs

[mlush]

Upsidedowndogs.com provides a pretty unique service.

Re:Upsidedown dogs

[uncle slacky]

Reminds me of http://www.infinitecat.com/

Re:Here's a semi-unique time waster for 'ya ...

[jlp2097]

For those not getting it: this is a tribute to the song "One" by Filter:

One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do
Two can be as bad as one, its the loneliest number since the number one
No is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Yes is the saddest experience you'll ever know
Linky.

Roland Piquepaille

[Hognoxious]

Roland Piquepaille's technology trends is unique. The content isn't, though.

Re:Roland Piquepaille

[empaler]

There's a greasemonkey script to avoid him on userscripts.org

Re:Here's a semi-unique time waster for 'ya ...

[stiller]

Actually, it was first recorded by Three Dog Night in 1969 and written by Harry Nilsson. allmusic

Things that should be a single authoritative site

[Confuse Ed]

There are quite a few situations where life would be simpler if there were just one definitive instance of something - mostly indexes / official repositories of some kind, but sadly at the moment we have a multitude of these things with no single instance providing 100% coverage :

  - Airline flight schedules : presumably every airline has planned its timetable months in advance, but there is no obvious place to search across all of them (cf. www.nationalrail.co.uk which I think does have the authoritative timetable across all mainline railways)

  - List of all properties for sale in the country; in the UK the seller has to choose which estate agents to list with, and the buyer then has to go around a load of different agents to find out what's available. It'd seem obvious for this to instead be a nationalized thing - what added value do estate agents / letting introduction agencies provide anyway? (as distinct from letting agencies that also do some property management)

  - Web Search : there is scope for different search-engines to provide fundamentally different types of search (ie. text, image, audio etc) : but why do we need more than one of each type?

  - Scientific Journals : pre-print servers (arXiv.org) are starting to solve this problem, but lots of papers still get published in obscure / less-popular journals and if your university library doesn't subscribe to that one then you can't easily read it - and once you leave university they become pretty much unavailable to the average member of the public.

Pretty much all the things I can think of that would be better as a single instance have the problem that they are run commercially - so there are problems with monopolies if we ever get just one of them, and the tin-foil-hat brigade might have something to say if they were nationalized (and in many cases could just be right too : imagine if our primary news outlet were government controlled)

Free stuff seems to find its own level of singleton-like-ness, some keeping just one instance :
  - IMDB, CPAN, w3c.org, ....
others forking to meet differing preferences like linux distributions, tech news website etc.

And "Game Cube"

[tepples]

Before there was Wii, there was NINTENDO'S PORTABLE SIMULTANEOUS 4-PLAYER GAME CUBE.

Re:And "Game Cube"

[CSMatt]

Best line in that site: "i do not know what I am saying either."

imdb and wikipedia are not singletons

[mapkinase]

There are plenty of movie databases and user-supported encyclopedias around. The mentioned ones are the biggest ones.

Christmas detector

[Mr. Jax]

I only know of one christmas detector.

Craigslist

[AlpineR]

Craigslist

Online classified ads aren't unique. But an easy to use, ad-free, heavily trafficked online classified site where you can find an apartment, furnish it, get a mover, find a job, and meet a special friend? I know only one.

This could be a very useful site...

[Overzeetop]

I recently got bent over by Getty Images over two thumbnails which were placed on my site (by my designer) about 4 years ago. Actually, she'd used several images on several websites from a compilation CD she though was fully licensed for the use (the language was intentionally misleading). Getty contacted her two years ago and asked for damages for the images they license. She gave them the information she had, and agreed to remove all of the Getty images mentioned immediately. Since she works from several sources for images, she also asked if they would check the rest of the images on her sites. It may sound odd, but to try and match up images to the massive catalog Getty has without automated software is a monumental task. They either didn't reply to her request or didn't find any. Well, I got the $2000 thank you letter in the mail from Getty for two images that weren't scrubbed. They were genuine assholes about it this time, despite the previous discussion and immediate action. FWIW, the actual licensing fee for the images would have been less than $200 total.

Needless to say, I will never use Getty Images, and generally recommend against them due to their tactics. This, however, might have been useful to do a web site scrub for images.

Ironic summary.

[knutkracker]

Web singletons?

Aren't we all?

Internet Archive's Wayback Machine has a mirror

[Chris Pimlott]

It's apparently a little-known fact that the Internet Archive maintains a periodically updated copy of the Wayback Machine, fittingly at the Biblioteca Alexandrina in Egypt. It's not as up-to-date as the main site (its most recent archive is from 2006), but it's a useful as a backup, and sometimes it's able to retrieve pages that give an error on the original site.

Singular?

[Wolfger]

"does anything approach the singular time-wasting abilities of IMDB or Wikipedia?"

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

By listing two sites with this "time-wasting ability", you have proven two things:
1) That it's not singular
2) That you have a poor grasp of English

Plus I think way more people waste their time on Slashdot.

Re:Singular?

[hcgpragt]

Wow, imagine a beowulf cluster of those!

Purple Pandora Second Life

[RJFerret]

Purple.com which is one of the rare ones that is what you'd expect, I believe I've even achieved the high score in the purple game, but it's hard to tell and that squirrel is quick.

Pandora has to be mentioned, I'm surprised nobody else has yet, but a service that plays music based upon what you enjoy, rather than popularity, artificial genres, names, etc.? If Pandora were a woman, I'd be a happily married man.

Second Life is truly unique. An online virtual world that is so unique, it's nearly impossible to define. It's not a game although games can be played there. It's not a social site, although you may socialize there. It's not a place to go make money although some earn livings there. You can waste tons of time there and feel you haven't spent enough.

everything2

[MilesAttacca]

everything2 is the only site I've found so far that combines the link-filled nature of Wikipedia articles with an amateur (and sometimes very good) literary and artistic community. I can get lost in both sites for hours at a time, but e2 indulgences usually produce a little more meaning.

And hey, Slashdot links to it, too. :)

The real singleton web sites

[ciaran.mchale]

Which are the true web singletons[...]?"

I thought the obvious answer would involve use of "singleton" as part of a domain name. However, it seems that idea is not unique:

• www.singleton.com
• www.singleton.org
• www.singleton.net
• www.singleton.<other-top-level-domains>

The ".com" website is for a company of lawyers who specialize in dispute resolution. Some of the other websites enable you to buy email addresses of the form "yourname@singleton.<tld>".

Also, there's a mirror in Alexandria

[Xtifr]

The Internet Archive has a mirror in Alexandria (Egypt), and there used to be an EU mirror as well.

The Archive may not be unique (English for "a singleton"), but the number of non-profit organizations with multiple Petabytes of storage and insane amounts of bandwidth is fairly low, for some odd reason. :)

Re:Things that should be a single authoritative si

[diqmay]

- Airline flight schedules : presumably every airline has planned its timetable months in advance, but there is no obvious place to search across all of them

I work as a automation supervisor in the schedule change department of a large travel agency (5000+ reservations per day), and I can tell you that more than 80% of all our domestic (US48) travel has some sort of schedule change pushed through by the airline. And of those changes, about 40% happen within 21 days of travel. So, no, airlines really don't know what their schedule is until they actually get a crew, a plane, and passengers in the same place at the same time.

For the Technologist/Writer

[Udigs]

http://www.wordhustler.com/ is definitely a singleton... if not because it's a totally useful/unique site for writers, but I think one of the founders is named "Singleton." :p

Re:Surprise

[empaler]

Youporn.com â" but after having seen Spankwire, I might switch :-D

Wrong.

[OneMadMuppet]

A singleton can have more than one instance - for example, a pool of connections to a database (the example given in the GoF book).

Re:Here's a semi-unique time waster for 'ya ...

[IMightB]

Thank you for correcting parent and saving me the trouble. ?Filter? seriously?

Everyone knows

[hcgpragt]

Time does not exist within a singleton

You spin me right round, like a record baby..

[RichiH]

'nuf said