Article:
Focused crawls are collections of frequently-updated webcrawl data from narrow (as opposed to broad or wide) web crawls, often focused on a single domain or subdomain. ||||| INNOVATION / MICHAEL SCHRAGE On-Line Pizza Idea Is Clever but Only Half-Baked

 PizzaNet customers need to do more than just log on. To participate in the pilot, hungry Santa Cruzers need computers with Internet access and a version of an Internet interface program called Mosaic. Using the Internet's World Wide Web to access the centralized PizzaNet server at Pizza Hut headquarters in Wichita, Kan., customers see a customized menu for ordering their pizzas. Customers then enter in their vital statistics, along with the orders for pizza and beverages.

 "The hardest part was to get the Internet connection in," confides Jon Payne, Pizza Hut's director of point-of-sales development, who is overseeing the technical aspects of the PizzaNet pilot in Santa Cruz. "Otherwise, this was very easy to execute . . . almost routine. The cost of doing this was minimal; we had done a lot of the necessary software already."

 Hold the cheesiness! Apparently, the folks at Pizza Hut take these sorts of scenarios seriously. The nation's largest pizza home delivery service has just launched its PizzaNet on line. Why phone or fax your order for a 14-inch extra-cheese, half-mushroom, half-pepperoni with onion-- hold the oregano! --pizza when you can order it virtually via the Internet? It's the Geek Chic way to nosh.

 In Neal Stephenson's amusingly cynical novel "Snow Crash," he describes a future where Americans excel at only two things: writing software and delivering pizza in less than 30 minutes. . . .

 This data is then transmitted via the Internet back to Wichita, then relayed via modem and conventional phone lines to the computer system at the customer's nearest Pizza Hut. To minimize the risks of digital pizza pranksters, the local restaurant then telephones users to verify orders. Money changes hands only at the point of delivery.

 Now isn't that simple? OK, not as simple as picking up the phone, but it's early in the cyberpizza game. And Payne reports a few Net-based orders have already begun to trickle in.

 Still, as computationally clever as on-line ordering may be, it misses the point of what this medium can do. Fundamentally, there's not much difference between ordering a pizza over the phone and ordering one on-line. The transaction is basically a commodity. The trick is to figure out new ways to create value for the customer.

 Instead of simply letting people order a pizza, why not let them design it as well? Instead of showing an ordinary menu with a list of toppings, show a picture of a pizza with the toppings clustered on the side. Let teen-agers and college students build their own pizzas on-screen. Present a palette of toppings and let people place their mushrooms and green peppers and pepperoni anywhere on the pizza they want. The real pizza is customized accordingly. In other words, computer-aided pizza engineering.

 This is precisely the sort of interactivity that computers and networks are good at. There can be as much value in the design--maybe more--as in the transaction. So sell it! The pizza home delivery market is more than $6.4 billion a year. Surely, a lot of those people would be prepared to pay a little premium to custom-design their own pizza.

 Indeed, a Pizza Hut or Domino's might even be able to sell its "pizza design" software to customers. Turn making the family pizza into a video game. Needless to say, this software makes transaction management easier for the pizza company. So everybody can win.

 It's important to remember that this doesn't require any new technology. This can all be done over the Internet today, if some enterprise is willing to make a small investment. There are countless opportunities for entrepreneurs to offer customers a blend of designability and delivery.

 Here's another example of what MIT Media Lab associate professor Michael Hawley likes to call the "Media Fab" potential of the Internet. Why not customized T-shirts? Log on to the Internet and browse through assorted logos and designs. Mix, match and modify them to suit your interest. Then superimpose them onto the virtual T-shirt on the screen. Hit the right key and within 48 hours your new shirt is Fed-Exed to the desired address. ||||| The World Wide Web is officially old enough for us judge what it’s produced. That’s right, it’s time for the world to start building a canon of the most significant websites of all time, and the Gizmodo staff has opinions.

 What does a spot on this list mean? It certainly doesn’t mean “best.” A number of sites on this list are cesspools now and always have been. We’re not even sure the internet was a good idea—we’ll need another few decades before we come to any conclusions. In this case, we set out to rank the websites—not apps (like Instagram), not services (like PayPal)—that influenced the very nature of the internet, changed the world, stole ideas better than anyone, pioneered a genre, or were just really important to us. Some of these sites seemed perfectly arbitrary a decade ago and turned into monstrous destinations or world-destroying monopolies. Other sites have been net positives for humanity and gave us a glimpse of what can happen when the world works together. In many ways this list is an evaluation of power and who has seized it. In other ways, it’s an appreciation of the places that still make the web worth surfing.

 Next year will be the 30th anniversary of Tim Berners-Lee’s first proposal to CERN outlining what he originally called the “WorldWideWeb” (one word). Since then, Berners-Lee has had a few regrets about what’s become a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster, and who knows what the future holds. Below you’ll find our somewhat arbitrary idea of the virtual destinations that mattered most, ranked and curated by the Gizmodo staff and illustrated with screenshots that exemplify their history, as we’ve played, shared, fought, and meme’d our way into the current millennium.

 Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF

 100. Blingee (2006)

 Blingee is a form of art. Who would we be, if not for the sparkles, shimmering text, and rotating pot leaves it allowed us to barf all over our MySpace profile pictures? It’s not a gif, it’s not a photo: it’s the Harry Potter photograph version of a scrapbook page made by your wine aunt and goth tween cousin. Inexplicably—but thank GOD—people are still making Blingees and uploading stickers to the site. We are all better for it.

 Advertisement

 99. I Can Has Cheezburger (2007)

 The site that launched a million mom memes.

 98. MeetUp (2002)

 As far as startups go, MeetUp has to be at the top of the list of a good idea that turned out pretty lame. The concept of getting people with common interests offline and together in real life was a solid one, but it came at a time when people were getting far more comfortable with saying “fuck real life.” These days, it holds some niche interest for hobbyists and people who like to network in their profession. Though it’s one of the few sites that can make LinkedIn look cool, the promise it represented earns it a place in history.

 97. Goatse (1999)

 Dare you to look at it, for old time’s sake.

 Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF

 Advertisement

 96. RuneScape (2001)

 One of the best games to play in the early 2000s if your parents refused to pay for video games or an expensive computer, the once browser-based MMORPG’s blocky, low-powered graphics and grinding gameplay gave it an endearing charm that distinguished it from the big boys on the block. Though better-looking versions, unshackled from the browser, have since debuted, more people still actually play Old-School Runescape, a version meant to resemble Runescape as it was in 2007.

 95. WhoSampled (2008)

 WhoSampled’s mission couldn’t be simpler: identifying when and from where musicians sampled the work of others. When researching a single song or musical phrase, it’s a boon. Dive into the endless network of samples, remixes, and other connections that follow, and you’ll find yourself in the kind of internet k-hole that can only be escaped from by logging off entirely.

 94. The Sartorialist (2005)

 This trail-blazing fashion blog was among the first to use the internet to charge past the gate-keeping glossies. The Sartoralist showcased the street style of (mostly) non-models and pioneered the notion that regular, non-famous folks with great fashion sense were just as inspirational as polished celebrities on the red carpet. For better or for worse, this blog arguably paved the way for the social media-influencer fashion culture of today.

 Advertisement

 93. Club Penguin (2005)

 They finally flipped that goddamn iceberg.

 92. The Toast (2013)

 This gem of a feminist satire site only lived for three years, but it launched careers, garnered an obsessively devoted fanbase, and saved a life (for real, someone matched with a live kidney donor in the comments section of The Toast). Founders Nicole Cliffe and Daniel Mallory Ortberg created a space that took the female experience seriously enough to then satirize it. The blog took on topics immediately recognizable to readers—imposter’s syndrome, male “feminists” who secretly believe they’re smarter than women, women having a terrible time at parties—and mixed them with truly bonkers blogs imagining the pitch meeting for PBS’s “Wishbone.” It was one of the smartest, kindest, purest places online, and we’re so sad it’s gone.

 91. PizzaNet (1994)

 In 1994, Pizza Hut’s PizzaNet became what is widely credited as the very first place a consumer could purchase a physical product over the World Wide Web. Though that’s not exactly true, it was the first major push for an online market place and it foreshadowed the era of Seamless. Millions of drunk people looking at their bank statements the next morning have PizzaNet to thank for their regrets.

 Advertisement

 90. Stack Overflow (2008)

 The website where you can find anything you need to know about building a website. If you have a question about coding, odds are the answer is already on Stack Overflow. And if it isn’t, some generous soul will get you a solution almost as soon as you ask for it.

 89. SomethingAwful (1999)

 While Something Awful had its moments as a host for various bits of comedy, rants, and reviews, SA’s community is its real legacy. From its forums, Something Awful members gave birth to the legend of Slenderman, an entire new genre of videos in Let’s Plays, and thanks to offshoots like the Goonswarm, SA was indirectly responsible for some of the most massive (and costly) space battles ever witnessed in video game history. It was also, uh, actually awful.

 88. Electronic Frontier Foundation (1990)

 The Electronic Frontier Foundation is probably best known for defending digital rights around the world since 1990, but the non-profit’s website, and its DeepLinks blog in particular, has also become a tremendous resource. EFF now does everything from publishing investigative journalism to distribute downloadable tools like the Privacy Badger. And the internet is better for it.

 Advertisement

 87. Bandcamp (2008)

 The internet’s Big Promise has always centered on its ability to give power back to the little guy. Bandcamp is one place that actually made good. By giving artists the ability to not only publish their music but to sell it straight to fans, Bandcamp has allowed independent musicians to earn more than $300 million. In the 10 years it’s been active, the site has also served as a beginning point for weird internet subcultures and microgenres, including vaporwave, computergaze, and future funk. Bandcamp is meant for artists, but it’s just as vital for music fans.

 86. Crunchyroll (2006)

 From its early days as a streaming site for East Asian dramas to becoming the western home of anime hits like My Hero Academia and Dragon Ball Super, Crunchyroll is pretty much the de facto source of Anime for many western fans. With the anime industry still struggling to deal with how to handle a global reach for shows, its role in offering official sources fans beyond Japan can use to support their favorite shows is vital. Shame their video player still sucks though.

 85. DuckDuckGo (2008)

 Nobody with the capacity for self-awareness says they just “duckduckgo’d” something as shorthand for searching online. But the privacy-centric search engine, powered by a relatively small but growing dedicated user base, keeps alive a gleaming reminder that privacy is possible on the internet, that not every company is a data-sucking vampire, and that there is still a way to find what you’re looking for online without piling more money into Google’s gold-plated coffers.

 Advertisement

 84. Friendster (2002)

 You might not remember this, but before there was Facebook, there was a site that did many of the same things Facebook did, except it was more fun. That was Friendster. Even though it was basically just a copycat, Facebook killed Friendster, and now Friendster is dead. RIP Friendster.

 83. HaveIBeenPwned (2013)

 After a series of major data breaches, security expert Troy Hunt decided to make a website where potential victims could check and see if their data had been compromised. Now, you just type in your email address, click “have i been pwned?” and see the hackers got you. (Fun fact: Gizmodo’s original parent company, Gawker, was one of the original five hacks indexed!)

 82. New York Times (1996)

 It’s really difficult to name the best, most important, or most influential news website in history. It’s hard to even determine what the first news website was. News is simply one of the fundamental backbones of web content and it’s everywhere. The Times website has been a reliable place for news since 1996, and it has attempted new ways to deliver it along the way. It takes our honorary mention for the category until its op-ed board eventually pushes us too far.

 Advertisement

 81. wikiHow (2005)

 If you’re wondering how to, say, cut a mango, wikiHow is a consistently useful resource, providing surprisingly detailed step-by-step guides. The genius of the site, however, comes from its innumerable, seemingly SEO-driven oddities. Want to know how to hold a dachshund properly or act like a mermaid at school? WikiHow has you covered.

 80. Ask Jeeves (1996)

 Too good for its time, Ask Jeeves was an OG: the Original Google. Ask kids these days about Jeeves, though, and they’re bound to look at you all crazy. RIP.

 79. Genius (2009)

 Genius started as Rap Genius, a platform to annotate hip-hop lyrics. But in a spark of brilliance, it expanded in 2015 to allow people to annotate a wider scope of content, from personal blogs to the Washington Post. Unfortunately, it also created a new way to be a dick and kind of broke the internet. But it sure is nifty!

 Advertisement

 78. Drudge Report (1995)

 A year before Fox News injected conservative media with steroids, Drudge Report was outlining the propaganda playbook. It broke the news that Newsweek was sitting on the Bill Clinton-Monika Lewinsky scandal and kicked off a new age when gossip blogs nudged or sucker-punched stories into the public eye. Since then, Drudge Report has provided a glimpse into the raw, paranoid id of the American right-wing brain. We are in no way better off.

 77. Fan Fiction (1998)

 Fandom was once reserved for real-life meetups and zines printed in garages. The internet allowed fans to create stories and put them all over Usenet and in carefully cultivated repositories on sites like Geocities and Angelfire. Ff.net changed everything by creating a single repository for fic from every fandom. It’s never been perfect—fans revolted when it got rid of explicit fic (porn) to appease advertisers, but it proved that fandoms no longer needed to sit in walled gardens and could finally coexist.

 76. Rotten (1997)

 In the days of the early internet, Rotten.com was where people went to see revolting images—both fake and real—of stuff like maggot-ridden cadavers, dead celebrities, and Tubgirl. Shit that would make your stomach churn, and because at the time people didn’t really have any expectations for what decency on the world wide web was supposed to be, there wasn’t really anyone around to tell them stop. (Though a handful tried.) Rotten was not a site you visited—just knowing that this repository of shocking and evil content existed was enough.

 Advertisement

 75. Project Gutenberg (1994)

 With 57,000 public domain titles and counting, Project Gutenberg was the first digital library, offering free e-books online decades before the Kindle Store was even a thought. And while Google Books has far eclipsed the volunteer-run archive in terms of volume, Project Gutenberg’s meticulously assembled texts are often much higher quality. Did we mention it’s absolute treasure trove of golden age sci-fi?

 74. Pandora (2000)

 Pandora’s personalized internet radio service, launched in the early 2000s, marked the beginning of the streaming era. And in those first few years, its Music Genome Project, which customized users’ stations around the qualities of the music, felt revolutionary. Ultimately, however, Pandora may be remembered more for its failure to become Spotify than for innovating how we jam out. But it can always find solace in the fact that Apple Music will crush everything anyway.

 73. TV Tropes (2004)

 There’s probably a TV trope page describing the seemingly endless pit you can find yourself in after clicking on one of the site’s many, many reference pages for genre tropes across popular culture. TV Tropes’ user-generated archives of examples of everything from categories like the Loveable Rogue to Color Coded Wizardry are so ridiculously maintained, you can’t help but find yourself reading one, only to click on another, and another, another, and another. Hours will pass like minutes, but hey, at least you learned about the historical prevalence of diving kicks in pop culture.

 Advertisement

 72. Photobucket (2003)

 Before Flickr ate its lunch, Photobucket made saving, sharing, and hosting photos on the web dead easy—and free. It was the pit stop before your pics hit MySpace, and later, the official host of the images you tweeted on Twitter. Who knows if all your old photos are still there, gathering dust or rotting away—imagine what a treasure trove you’d find if you could only remember your login.

 71. XKCD (2005)

 Created by American author Randall Munroe in 2005, xkcd is, as its tagline proclaims, a “webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” Munroe’s subject matter belies the comic’s minimalist presentation, addressing nerdy and heady topics with humor, irreverence, and insight. And sometimes, xkcd is just plain silly. No doubt, this webcomic has become an indelible touchpoint for geek culture.

 Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF

 70. Hampsterdance (1998)

 The animated, musical Hampsterdance website of 1998 was one of the internet’s first memes. It was a time when a certain purer kind of internet humor could survive: impossibly wholesome, addictively repetitive, and completely inscrutable. Di-da-dee da dee da doh-doh…

 Advertisement

 69. Wookieepedia (2005)

 Wikis have become a vital part of internet fandom over the past 20 years, and in terms of depth or fame, perhaps none can rival the unofficial encyclopedia for all things Star Wars. Known for its fearsomely dedicated community of archivists that can update relevant pages with new material mere hours after its official release, no matter how obscure, it’s one of the most enthrallingly nerdy resources you can find. Where else are you going to learn about the history of iconic, memorable Star Wars characters like Carlist Rieekan and… that guy with an ice cream maker from Empire Strikes Back?

 68. W3Catalog (1993)

 Some might quibble over whether W3Catalog counts as the first search engine, but it’s as good of a pick as any. In 1993, web enthusiasts maintained hand-curated lists of websites and W3Catalog mirrored and reformatted them while adding a search function. Pointing to content, making it look like your own, and ensuring that it’s searchable all became defining characteristics of our online mess, and we have this little project to thank.

 67. GameFAQs (1995)

 Famous for its message boards almost as much as for its countless user-made game guides, GameFAQs was one of the first petri dishes of internet culture. Many a meme and young troll were spawned from the crevices of its Life, Universe and Everything (LUE) social board, which first prompted heavy moderating and eventually a complete ban for newer members. Though GameFaqs still exists today, most people have seemingly moved on, even the trolls.

 Advertisement

 66. The Awl (2009)

 Most days on The Awl began with a New York weather report unlike any other. Poetic musings on the color of the sky mixed with observations of workers scurrying through sleet or basking in glorious rays of sunshine. And that’s how the now-defunct bloggers’ blog approached everything. It zeroed in on small parts of life that aren’t given the importance they deserve, then it just let good writers do what they do best.

 65. Hotmail (1996)

 One of the first free email services to grace the internet, Microsoft’s Hotmail was training wheels for email. It eventually wilted in popularity as competitors like Yahoo and Google released their own versions. But that didn’t stop your parents from using their accounts for as long as humanly possible. The rest of us just foisted our spam mail onto it, at least until 2013, when the service was formally folded into Outlook.

 64. AltaVista (1995)

 If you grew up alongside the internet, chances are the words “Alta-Vista” are still rattling around in some dusty corner of your brain alongside Netscape Navigator and that sound a dial-up modem makes. Google may be the indomitable search engine of the 21st century, but it owes no small debt to Alta-Vista, which kind of invented the whole indexing-websites-for-targeted-searches thing. Alta-Vista lived on in the Yahoo! search engine until 2013, but it’ll endure forever in our 90s-nostalgic hearts.

 Advertisement

 63. LinkedIn (2002)

 Try as it may to convince us it’s a social media platform, LinkedIn will probably never be anything more than an online resume service, to most users. Sure, you may get alerts and messages from spammers or people who take the platform way more seriously than you. And you may only check it when you’re looking for a job or snooping on someone—but it’s almost always at least a little bit useful, which is more than we can say about most things.

 62. Open Secrets (1996)

 We live in an era of wild corruption as capitalist vampires sink their teeth ever deeper into our political system. With its huge database of donors, politicians, PACs, and how they’re all connected, Open Secrets is the sunlight working to keep the ghouls away.

 61. Pinterest (2010)

 You’ve likely heard of Pinterest and its users mocked. This is in part because the vast majority of its users are women and reflexive skepticism of things that appeal to women is baked into our culture. Pinterest is a nice, pretty social media platform that can be helpful in planning events or finding visual inspiration. The site popularized image-focused social sharing, paving the way for Instagram’s dominance. It’s also a social media platform that doesn’t have a Nazi problem.

 Advertisement

 60. Seamless (2005)

 Seamless is that one essential service for those lazy, rainy days when all you want to do is to tuck into an entire box of pizza and never leave your apartment again. This website survived the Dot Com implosion (back when it was called “Seamless Web”) to usher in a new era of app-based delivery services like Uber Eats—but at what cost? There are downsides to having a greasy bag of fries so easily whisked to your door at any possible moment.

 59. Newgrounds (1995)

 As a democratized launchpad for creative careers, few sites can rival the track record of Newgrounds. A staggering number of animators, video game creators, voice actors, and YouTubers are counted as site alumni. Unfortunately, as the web’s reliance on Flash dwindled, so did the vitality of the community.

 58. Pitchfork (1995)

 Launched in 1995 by Ryan Schreiber and owned by Condé Nast, Pitchfork gave rise to a new kind of music reviewing, one that elevated fringey and up-and-coming artists to a larger audience. Its reviewers have settled down in recent years, but the site was once known for its brutally scathing reviews. Love it or hate it, Pitchfork is hard to ignore.

 Advertisement

 57. WikiLeaks (2006)

 Today, WikiLeaks is a shadow of its former self. Its founder’s legal troubles—including an unresolved investigation into allegations of rape—and an exodus of volunteers coupled with a series of questionable releases has left its name tarnished. But there was never a time that this publication didn’t piss people off. It pioneered a form of activism dedicated to radical transparency, and the ways in which we’ve seen political figures embrace it when it benefits them or condemn it when it doesn’t is a testament to the fact that it was onto something. Maybe it didn’t change journalism but, for better and worse, it changed the world.

 56. Digg (2004)

 Digg’s greatness is most evident not in how it succeeded but how it failed. “Digg version 4” remains one of the internet’s greatest blunders. Prior to this redesign, Digg was a go-to social news site, a place that had the power to make or break websites that had links appear on the wildly popular homepage. But Digg’s ranking system was broken, allowing a cadre of powerusers to game the site. Digg v4 was the final straw. Today, Digg is a mix of curated links, videos, and original articles—and honestly, it’s better that way.

 55. Expedia (2001)

 There are about 10 million ways to book flights, hotels, and rental cars on the internet—some of them with fancy spokespeople (SHATNER!!), others with truly innovative ways of finding you a fare that’s four bucks cheaper than anywhere else. But Expedia has been at it for more than 20 years, and at the risk of sounding like a goddamn shill, it represents much of what we expect from an online business in terms of reliability and usability. It works, and you don’t feel ripped off or dirty after you book your flight. The downside is that booking sites have created a “race to the bottom” in terms of pricing, causing airlines to find new ways to cram as many people in as they can. So blame Expedia for your five inches of leg room.

 Advertisement

 54. OkCupid (2004)

 OKCupid’s inclusive, free, match-by-questionnaire service made online dating finally feel like something you could use without seeming desperate. And unlike Tinder or Grindr, OKCupid lets you vet potential suitors (and threesome requests) using more than just an image and a potentially creepy message. The company has had its share of blunders—remember when it gave attractive people special perks, or when it forced people to use their real names?—but this is one example of an online service that has managed to evolve with the times.

 53. Neopets (1999)

 Fake pets weren’t exactly new when Neopets launched in 1999, but a combination of community, world-building, and a full-fledged economy set the virtual world apart. Sure, you could log-in to play games, go on quests for faeries, or see how long it takes for your Cybunny to starve, or you could learn how to code and navigate the stock market. The site was a welcoming home to a majority of women, some of whom went on to careers in tech and unlike most startups from the ‘90s, Neopets is still alive and well today.

 52. Space Jam (1996)

 Come on and slam, and welcome to the jam. The promotional website for Michael Jordan’s 1996 flick Space Jam is dripping with datedness—terrible backgrounds, mismatched font, and Shockwave games galore. Amazingly, it’s still up today, a time capsule of everything beautiful and terrible about ‘90s websites.

 Advertisement

 51. BuzzFeed (2006)

 Hate BuzzFeed all you want—it’s an internet powerhouse for a reason. With its mix of devilishly specific listicles, addictive quizzes, and churn of engineered viral content, BuzzFeed set the tone for mainlining a stream of pure internet straight to your brain. The upside is, it used that successful strategy to build out an investigative news desk that has reporters in the White House and made “pee tape” a household phrase.

 50. Dropbox (2007)

 As user-friendly as our computers and devices have become, some things, like setting up a home network, simply aren’t tasks your parents are ever going to figure out. That was the beauty of Dropbox when it first arrived: It made sharing files between computers incredibly easy, without the need for clogging up email inboxes, or having to sneakernet a flash drive between machines. It now has countless competitors, but we haven’t found a reason to switch yet.

 49. Weather (1996)

 You used to have to wait until the “8s” if you wanted your local forecast from the Weather Channel. Weather.com changed that, marking the beginning of having your forecast right at your fingertips. Though you can get your weather with a side of puppies or profanity on your phone nowadays, Weather.com is the brawn behind many of those weather forecasts, the one thing that unites us in our increasingly fractured hellscape.

 Advertisement

 48. Vimeo (2004)

 Vimeo started as a streamlined way for creators to share their films and videos. The site is still affordable and user-friendly but now bills itself as a one-stop hub for “all your video needs”: uploading and sharing works in ultra high quality; livestreaming; a stock-footage marketplace; and other tools and features. And if you just like to watch, there’s a huge, free, community-built library of films to choose from.

 Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF

 47. Giphy (2013)

 In those moments when words fail you, a GIF can be the perfect way to get a point across. And Giphy’s done incredible work to make it infinitely faster and easier to find exactly the right GIF you want for any situation. More than that, though, Giphy’s focus on creating GIFs from content featuring women, people of color, and queer folks who oftentimes don’t get the chance to become immortalized by the internet is the kind of good-faith effort that benefits us all. Now it’s on you to stop using the same fucking GIFs as everyone else.

 46. Blogger (1999)

 Blogger, launched in 1999, helped pull society out of the primordial ooze of building custom HTML tables every time someone had a random thought they wanted to share with the world. Everyone thought they needed a website, but what they really needed was a blog. After a few years, this little experiment taught us most people don’t need either.

 Advertisement

 45. 4Chan (2003)

 4Chan once defined countless meme formats and served as a hub during the golden age of well-intentioned hactivism. Simply put, it changed the language of the internet. And its commitment to anonymity, not data collection, has served as a chaotic counterbalance to the most powerful forces on the web. It’s also rightfully earned a bad rap for being a home to trolls, vicious racists, and all sorts of other degenerates. It’s led to Nazi uprisings, hoaxes, and harassment. It may have even given us President Donald Trump. Given all the things that have risen out of 4chan, it’s carved out its place as one of the most vile but consequential places on the internet.

 44. Twitch (2011)

 Twitch’s explosion has allowed gaming livestreams to evolve from a niche hobby to full-time careers. The communal aspect of Twitch forms a huge part of its appeal, whether it’s for watching zeitgeist games like Fortnite or Overwatch, or watching livestreamed marathons of Bob Ross with thousands of other people, to just watching people live their lives in the IRL channel. But anywhere on the web where minor celebrities collide with mobs of anonymous users, there’s bound to be some degree of harassment. It’s gotten to the point where swatting—calling a SWAT team on a streamer mid-livestream—has become more commonplace. It’s the 21st century version of TV, and it’s not yet done turning weird.

 43. WebMD (1996)

 Is this rash on my elbow going to kill me? Before the launch of WebMD in 1996, you’d have to visit a doctor to get a question like that answered. But thanks to WebMD, you can not only look up that rash, you can look up the dozens of other things that are all, somehow, definitely going to kill you.

 Your browser does not support HTML5 video tag.Click here to view original GIF

 Advertisement

 42. GeoCities (1994)

 For many ‘90s internet users, free website host GeoCities was their first experience with both coding and publishing online. The result was a chaotic mix of these GeoCitizens’ thoughts, obsessions, and favorite rotating skull gifs. The user-generated internet of today might be easier to use (and look at), but it feels positively sterile compared to the web’s original lost continent.

 41. Chatroulette (2009)

 Go to Chatroulette.com, and you’ll almost immediately be confronted with stranger’s dick, which is more or less where the website was when it launched nearly a decade ago to a flash of viral popularity. Its functionality is unbelievably simple. Log on, and it plunks you into a video chat with a random stranger. Don’t like what you see? Click next. And so on until you’ve had enough. The concept is harmless enough, but knowing what we do now about terrible people on the internet: Of course it blossomed into cesspool of surprise dicks instead of into a font of thoughtful conversation.

 40. Homestar Runner (2000)

 Homestar Runner is the quintessential Flash animation series. Launched in 2000, the cartoon website grew into an internet phenomenon, largely through word of mouth, with series like “Strong Bad Email” and the annual Halloween specials. Now that Flash (mostly) doesn’t work anymore, the website has switched to a YouTube channel, where Mike and Matt Chapman—better known as the Brothers Chaps—post the occasional new April Fools Day episode or other one-off specials.

 Advertisement

 39. Etsy (2005)

 From glitter and yarn to metalwork and 3D printing, Etsy is an enormous hub for individuals to find homes for their creative wares. Whereas artists once had to rely on local craft fairs or small boutiques to make a living, the e-commerce site allowed them to reach the masses. And if you are dying to live large in the vintage lifestyle but your local flea markets just weren’t cutting it, Etsy always has what you’re looking for.

 38. Hulu (2007)

 It’s easy to forget just how revolutionary Hulu was when it launched in 2007. If you wanted to be a cordcutter and drop your cable company back in those days, you have extremely limited (and expensive) options for getting your TV shows next day. Hulu gave you a way to watch TV shows, all through the thing we used to call the magic of the internet.

 37. Imgur (2009)

 Imgur founder and CEO Alan Schaaf didn’t invent image hosting—but he did make it suck a whole lot less. Created specifically for sharing images on Reddit, Imgur made uploading and sharing photos and (later) GIFs clean and simple. And the Reddit community rewarded Schaaf by almost exclusively using Imgur for their posts on the site, allowing him to turn Imgur into a well-funded business and a social network in its own right. Of course, Reddit last year launched native image hosting, screwing Imgur over—but hey, this is the internet. Everything disappoints you eventually.

 Advertisement

 36. Megaupload (2005)

 In the beginning, before Kim Dotcom was internationally known as a festering sentient potato that sometimes rolls off the couch to squeal stupid things on the internet, he was the proprietor of Megaupload, an online file-transfer and storage platform so effective at distributing pirated intellectual property that it was dramatically raided and shut down by the Department of Justice in 2012. The ensuing legal battle and subsequent collapse of Dotcom’s image are all distractions from one fact: Megaupload was a good-ass way to steal music.

 35. DeviantArt (2000)

 For 18 years, users have been allowed to submit virtually any artwork they want, and they’ve certainly taken advantage of the freedom. Yet somehow, pregnant Sonic the Hedgehogs, Kirk and Spock making out, airbrushed warlocks, and anime have all merged into an aesthetic that is instantly recognizable and can only be called by one name: DeviantArt.

 34. Flickr (2004)

 Before Facebook and Instagram, Flickr was the place to put your photos. You can still find snapshots from family gatherings, the White House, and NASA next to landscapes HDR’d to the max. And it remains a solid platform for amateur photographers. Flickr is a bit quieter nowadays, but it’s one of the few early sites that gives you little reason to hate yourself for using it.

 Advertisement

 33. SoundCloud (2008)

 There was a brilliant period of time when SoundCloud gave aspiring young musicians and DJs an easy way to upload and share their music. Then, along came the copyright hawks, and Spotify, and the record companies, and other jerks who chipped away at SoundCloud’s glory. Now, SoundCloud is a great place to host your own podcast, not the remix mecca it used to be.

 32. Urban Dictionary (1999)

 As much as we all love it when traditional, “respectable” dictionaries decide to participate in cultural conversations via subtweet, there’s still a degree to which the institutions are playing catch-up in terms of cataloging contemporary words and idioms. By being crowdsourced, Urban Dictionary circumvents other dictionaries’ general slowness to change and keep pace with the times in a way that makes it an invaluable digital resource.

 31. LiveJournal (1999)

 A year after Open Diary and Xanga, LiveJournal became a go-to destination for confessional writing, paving the way for a decade of oversharing. Russian-owned since 2007, it remains popular mostly with Russian-speakers and is subject to some draconian-ass censorship laws.

 Advertisement

 30. MapQuest (1996)

 Launched in 1996, MapQuest was the first mainstream mapping website that gave users directions. For the first time ever, people didn’t need to give you turn by turn directions on how to get from point A to point B—the computer did it. It still helped if you had a basic knowledge of maps, but MapQuest opened new doors (and gave drivers new confidence) in exploring the physical world.

 29. Kickstarter (2009)

 It’s hard to remember a time when Kickstarter wasn’t a nightmare filled with imaginary products that will most likely never see the light of day. But the crowdfunding site has also been responsible for a handful of success stories, including the Oculus Rift. At best, it connects inventors directly to consumers, letting them front the cost of developing a new knick-knack or gadget while also making them shoulder most of the risk. The site has had its share of spectacular failures and scams as a result, but we keep going back for the potential it has to help realize a truly innovative product.

 28. eBaums World (2001)

 In the early 2000s, eBaums was the meme site before the word “memes” creeped its way into everyday life. A mainstay of early web culture, it gave us all the weird, creepy content to troll your younger siblings with as you stayed up until 3am browsing through to find the best of the worst. Now that the internet has grown up a little, it’s clear that it’s mostly just the worst.

 Advertisement

 27. Google Earth (2001)

 For the 99.999 percent of adults who never realized their childhood dream of becoming an astronaut, Google’s in-browser virtual globe app may be the next best thing. A one-stop shop for the best satellite snaps of our dizzyingly beautiful planet from mountain glaciers to rainforests, Google Earth has only gotten better over the years as the technology used to image our planet improves. It’s also hands-down the most accurate tool for measuring your distance to the nearest Waffle House, if you’re into that sort of thing.

 26. Yahoo (1994)

 The era of Yahoo’s dominance was a more innocent time. What was once a massively popular and seemingly innocuous email hosting service, search engine, and news site would soon be known for its litany of screwups, including one of the largest (and most poorly handled) data breaches of all time—a breathtakingly spectacular failure to witness. But hey, at least it’s not, uh, fueling genocide?

 25. GitHub (2008)

 Thanks to Github, professional and amateur developers work together to make projects that wouldn’t be possible on their own. More than anything, it’s a driver of work on open-source software and a great place to gank code that others were kind enough to slave over for free.

 Advertisement

 24. Rotten Tomatoes (1998)

 Whether you want it to or not, Rotten Tomatoes has become a huge part of not just film criticism but film fandom. It’s grown hugely from its humble beginnings 20 years ago, and now its aggregate of film and review scores, the tomatometer, has become not only a make-or-break marketing metric for studios, but even the absurd battleground for internet fandom wars, from Batman v Superman to Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

 23. Know Your Meme (2008)

 Running on Wiki software, KnowYourMeme’s editors and research community document viral internet lore—memes’ beginnings, movements, transformations, and public reactions. Launched in 2008, the site quickly outgrew its video series predecessor and has since survived a messy acquisition. Now, as weaponized memes have permanently bled into our daily lives, KYM isn’t just a resource for people who want to know what the fuck everyone’s talking about, but a living historical document of a stranger-than-fiction time.

 22. NASA (1993)

 NASA has long been a core liaison between humans and space. Scientists use its observing tools to make fantastic discoveries and create mind-blowing images that awe the public. NASA’s website serves as its mouthpiece—nearly every piece of space-related news you’ve read started with a picture, some text, and a few quotes from a NASA webpage.

 Advertisement

 21. Gawker (2002)

 Gawker was a good website.*

 20. The WWW Project (1991)

 Tim Berners-Lee defined the way we interact with one another over the internet when he created the first web browser and website of the World Wide Web in the late-‘80s and early ‘90s. The internet had long been under development as a communication tool, but the WorldWideWeb defined how we’d use it. The internet’s complexity may have grown to bewildering levels, but ultimately, we use it the same way that Berners-Lee envisioned it: a web of HTML documents defined by their URLs connected through links.

 19. Facebook (2004)

 Few people could have predicted that the college directory Mark Zuckerberg started in his dorm room would grow into an international behemoth of a corporation with the power to upend the basic functioning of democracy around the world. Many would have guessed that Facebook would become a magnificent ad engine that would slurp up as much data about its users as possible and use that information in mysterious ways. Yet, here we are.

 Advertisement

 18. AOL (1993)

 After the screeching sound of a dialup connection, the first thing many of us heard on the internet was “welcome, you’ve got mail.” If the dial-up hiss was the sound of getting online, “you’ve got mail” was the sound of what it meant to be online: a human connection through the static and noise.

 17. Amazon (1994)

 Any semi-competent person could’ve launched a successful e-commerce business in the mid-90's, but only Jeff Bezos had the foresight, acumen, greed, and ruthlessness to make something like Amazon. It began as a simple online bookstore, but two innovations made it into the retail juggernaut it is today: 1-click ordering, which it patented in 1999, and free two-day shipping, which it introduced in 2005. Perhaps more than any other website, Amazon is responsible for the era of unmitigated convenience—an era defined by shitty labor practices and strong-arm tactics.

 16. The Pirate Bay (2003)

 The same way Napster helped fuel the popularity of peer-to-peer file sharing by making it easy to find MP3s and enrage the Recording Industry Association of America, The Pirate Bay made downloading everything else, including movies, more accessible with a giant directory of available torrents (most of which were, let’s be honest, probably illegal). But while the RIAA was able to nuke Napster and similar apps, in almost 15 years the Motion Picture Association of America has yet to been able to wipe The Pirate Bay completely off the internet. Its resilience has been its best feature, and while it’s no longer the site of choice for torrenters, it helped popularize those tools as being the best way to download the latest, uh, Linux builds. Yeah, Linux builds.

 Advertisement

 15. Tumblr (2007)

 This microblogging/social network hybrid was born in 2007 and has since grown into a phenomenon 400+ million-Tumblrs strong. It still maintains thriving communities and serves as the foundation for many marginalized creators’ careers, especially those who get their start in fanart and move to comics or animation. While many teens have moved to Instagram, Tumblr has carved out a place on the internet for fandoms of all kinds. And for those who don’t fit in on Snapchat and Instagram, Tumblr is still the go-to place for community, especially for queer teens.

 14. IMDB (1993)

 What started as a series of lists in an old Usenet group quickly evolved into what became the go-to stop for anyone looking to find out who “that guy from that thing” was. While entertainment production information may not be high on many people’s lists of important information, the Internet Movie Database is a vital instrument in keeping track of television, movie, and video game history.

 13. PornHub (2007)

 People born after the early aughts will never really know what it’s like to have to really work to get their hands on pornography—to search for discarded Playboys in the woods behind their houses or steal issues of Men’s Fitness for, you know, workout tips. While PornHub has had an undeniably devastating impact on the porn industry, it also can’t be overstated how much of an impact it’s had on our culture and the ways we talk about and consume porn.

 Advertisement

 12. Craigslist (1995)

 Aesthetically, it’s never been much to look at, but Craigslist is a living fossil of the internet that should have been—a shockingly profitable anomaly among the ad-supported megaplatforms and data-mining operations disguised as services. Unfortunately, the rise of this classifieds site came alongside the decline of newspapers and alt-weeklies, and we’re still debating how much Craigslist is responsible for the downfall of journalism. Regardless, Craigslist has retained its usefulness to countless people for over two decades, and of the many people to become fantastically wealthy in the technology sector, founder Craig Newmark is among the most famously charitable.

 11. Snopes (1994)

 The internet has made it possible for urban legends, bullshit rumors, and obvious hoaxes to go viral almost instantly. Enter Snopes, which has been around since 1994 and has long since become an invaluable, trustworthy source for fact-checking, debunking, and shutting down hysterical comment threads on Facebook.

 10. MySpace (2003)

 This is perhaps one of the few wildly popular social networks that didn’t derail into total chaos and destruction. It taught many how to code thanks to its customization options, and it taught even more how to be petty. But if MySpace really taught us anything, it’s that not all great things should last forever.

 Advertisement

 9. eBay (1995)

 Plagued by scams over the years, the site was once famously propped up by the reselling of Beanie Babies, and it helped support PayPal, an money service that would try to be the internet’s bank without all the regulation. But eBay has endured scandals, bad press, and unsavory affiliations because it continues to be really, really good at one thing: helping you buy obscure shit on the internet.

 8. Reddit (2005)

 It’s safe to assume a site that calls itself “the front page of the internet” is full of shit. But Reddit is, like it or not, the closest thing you can get. Founded in 2005, Reddit has grown from a link-sharing and commenting site primarily for the programmer crowd into a baffling hive of every possible online community you can imagine—with all the LOLs, Awwws, and scumbaggery that come with it. Despite the cesspool of bad opinions, stale memes, misogynists, and PM’d dick pics, there’s a good reason over 230 million people voluntarily visit Reddit every month. (Porn, the reason is probably porn.)

 7. Netflix (1997)

 First its flimsy red mailers freed us from schlepping on Friday nights to the neighborhood Blockbuster. Then the streaming service practically killed the cable box, so thoroughly transforming TV viewers into binge-watchers that “Netflix and chill” became a half-hearted euphemism for sex. Its streaming catalog may seem dingy now—but hell, at least we got a few good “Netflix Originals” out of it.

 Advertisement

 6. Twitter (2006)

 If you utter the phrase “hell site,” odds are someone will know you’re talking about Twitter. For many, especially non-white-dudes, it’s a haven only if you’re looking for harassment and despair. But where else can you get news the second it happens, personally yell at Elon Musk, and watch our republic die in real time? Where else would something as sublime as Horse_Ebooks take root? Anyone who says they remember when Twitter was good is lying. But the content scrolls on, and we can’t look away.

 5. Internet Archive (1996)

 The website of websites. The Internet Archive not only saves politicians’ most embarrassing moments for our future reference through its Wayback Machine, it also curates thousands of forgotten gems for us to rediscover. A trip to the archive’s homepage is the perfect way to get out of an internet rut and remind yourself why this whole thing is special.

 4. The Onion (1996)

 Comedy, especially the kind of throwaway gags the internet traffics in, doesn’t always age well. But two decades after launching its satirical news site, The Onion remains the web’s chief authority on the absurdity of our world and the media that covers it. As a Univision property, it’s true that The Onion now shares a parent company with Gizmodo, but only a supreme asshole could deny the caustic brilliance of headlines like: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

 Advertisement

 3. YouTube (2005)

 If you ever tried to find a video of your favorite band or bloopers from your favorite show on the web before YouTube, then you understand just how important the site has been to make video content available to anyone with internet. The YouTube of 2018 isn’t just about making video more accessible; it’s created cottage industries around influencers, given voices to those who’d lacked it—sometimes with disastrous results—and concocted a whole new way to push us over the edge.

 2. Google (1998)

 View the 1998 version of virtually any website, and you’ll likely be horrified by a logic-defying layout and equally hideous graphics. But Google.com has remained relatively unchanged since its first iteration, and its simple search bar is still the easiest way to navigate the internet. Google’s PageRank algorithm took much of the chaos out of online search, and its ever-improving AI means you can search for “moive shotims near me” and still find exactly what you’re looking for. Unfortunately, mastering search was the first step in Google’s path toward internet domination that, over the past two decades, has seeped into virtually every nook and cranny of our lives.

 1. Wikipedia (2001)

 There’s no other major website that has fulfilled its promise and stuck to its original ideals the way that Wikipedia has. The Gizmodo staff is based in North America, and our choices on this list reflect our own little bubble, but there’s no denying that Wikipedia has had a global effect. Collecting millions of articles in hundreds of languages about all manner of topics is a baffling accomplishment. The fact that this gargantuan encyclopedia has been pulled together through mass cooperation, compromise, and collective generosity is nothing short of a miracle.

 Wikipedia has refined its system of volunteer editors and citation requirements since it first came online in 2001, and it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. It’s a self-correcting organism that’s sometimes prone to bullshit and vandalism, but it mostly seems to find a way to steer itself back toward something close to right and true. And all of this time, it’s managed to do this without advertising or becoming evil.

 Advertisement

 We live in a moment when few people seem to agree on a shared reality. Wikipedia has been diligently working away at creating some kind of record that can stand as an acceptable version of the truth. And when it gets it wrong, there’s always a chance to make an edit.

 *Disclosure: Gizmodo was previously owned by Gawker Media, former parent company of Gawker (RIP). |||||Summary:

– It’s time, Gizmodo declares, "to start building a canon of the most significant websites of all time." In putting together a list of the "100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It," the Gizmodo staff considered sites (not apps or services) "that influenced the very nature of the Internet, changed the world, stole ideas better than anyone, pioneered a genre, or were just really important to us." And Gizmodo is quick to point out that a spot on the list doesn't mean the website is good ("a number of sites on this list are cesspools"). Among the sites that made the list are Blingee (2006), PizzaNet (1994; the LA Times was dubious), and Hampsterdance (1998). Keep reading to see Gizmodo's top 10 Internet-shaping websites.


Summarize this article:

Congress has moved to block President Obama’s plan to shift control of the U.S. drone campaign from the CIA to the Defense Department, inserting a secret provision in the massive government spending bill introduced this week that would preserve the spy agency’s role in lethal counterterrorism operations, U.S. officials said.

 The measure, included in a classified annex to the $1.1 trillion federal budget plan, would restrict the use of any funding to transfer unmanned aircraft or the authority to carry out drone strikes from the CIA to the Pentagon, officials said.

 The provision represents an unusually direct intervention by lawmakers into the way covert operations are run, impeding an administration plan aimed at returning the CIA’s focus to traditional intelligence gathering and possibly bringing more transparency to drone strikes.

 The move also reflects some lawmakers’ lingering doubts about the U.S. military’s ability to conduct strikes against al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates without hitting the wrong targets and killing civilians.

 Those apprehensions were amplified after a U.S. military strike in Yemen last month killed a dozen people, including as many as six civilians, in an 11-vehicle convoy that tribal leaders said was part of a wedding procession. U.S. officials said that the strike was aimed at a senior al-Qaeda operative but that reviews of the operation have raised concern that it failed to comply with White House guidelines requiring “near certainty” that no civilians would be harmed.

 Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) read from a Washington Post story on the Senate floor Thursday, slamming the Senate and House Appropriations committee for amending a spending bill so that it would affect policy with regard to drones. (The Associated Press)

 On Wednesday, there were reports that another U.S. strike had killed a farmer in Yemen.

 The extent of the restrictions contained in the drone provision remained unclear. The measure was included by members of the House and Senate appropriations committees, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on the legislation. Other senior lawmakers and congressional officials declined to comment on the contents of the classified annex, which details funding for U.S. spy agencies.

 Still, senior lawmakers have been vocal in expressing concern about the prospect of the CIA ceding responsibility for drone strikes to the military. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the Appropriations Committee, said last year that she had seen the CIA “exercise patience and discretion specifically to prevent collateral damage” and that she “would really have to be convinced that the military would carry it out that well.”

 Feinstein declined to comment on the budget measure this week. But a senior aide said that the senator “stands by her earlier statements” and that the Intelligence Committee has “recently reviewed this issue, and Senator Feinstein believes her views are widely shared on the committee.”

 Asked about the scope of that review, the aide said the panel “took stock of” the program and “came to a conclusion” but would not elaborate.

 Among Feinstein’s colleagues on the Intelligence Committee is Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), who is chairman of the appropriations panel responsible for the budget bill. A spokesman for that committee declined to comment.

 There is no mention of the drone provision in the hundreds of pages of the budget blueprint released to the public. A section outlining $572 billion in Pentagon spending notes that “adjustments to classified programs are addressed in the accompanying classified annex.”

 The Houes voted to adopt the $1.1-trillion measure that funds the government through the fiscal year. (The Associated Press)

 A person familiar with the omnibus bill confirmed that the annex includes language on the drone program but would say only that the provision is more complicated than merely withholding money to prevent drone operations from being transferred to the Pentagon.

 Former U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence appropriations process said that aside from placing restrictions on funding, Congress could create other obstacles — for example, requiring the Pentagon to certify that it has matched the CIA’s capabilities and targeting methodology before it is allowed to proceed.

 Spokespeople for the White House, the CIA and the Pentagon declined to comment.

 The spending bill sets budgets for agencies across the federal government for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The measure cleared the House late Wednesday. It is expected to be approved by the Senate this week and delivered to President Obama for his signature as soon as Saturday.

 The move by Congress carries implications for the course of the U.S. efforts against al-Qaeda at a time when its affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria have become more worrisome to American counterterrorism officials than the terrorist organization’s traditional core.

 Also at issue is the fundamental mission of the CIA, which during the past decade has morphed into a paramilitary force. Senior officials, including CIA Director John O. Brennan, have warned that the agency’s emphasis on lethal operations deviates from its traditional mission and could impair its ability to focus on gathering intelligence.

 The administration first signaled its intent to shift control of drone operations to the Pentagon last year, when Obama announced new guidelines for counterterrorism missions — including a pledge of greater transparency — during a speech at the National Defense University. At the time, administration officials briefing reporters said there would be “a preference for the Department of Defense to engage in the use of force outside war zones.”

 The remark was a reference to Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia — countries beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan, where the United States has carried out drone strikes against al-Qaeda targets.

 Obama’s policy shift was expected to mainly affect Yemen, where the CIA and the elite U.S. Joint Special Operations Command conduct overlapping drone campaigns.

 The overall pace of strikes has diminished significantly in Pakistan and Yemen, and Brennan has held secret meetings with Pentagon officials in recent months to work out logistical challenges and other impediments to shifting control of drone operations.

 But the CIA still carries out the majority of strikes, and the collateral damage that has accompanied some JSOC strikes has generated growing opposition to removing the agency from such operations anytime soon.

 The Pentagon has refused to release any details on the Dec. 12 strike carried out by JSOC in Radaa, a district that has become a stronghold for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. Yemen initially insisted that only militants had been killed, but it later acknowledged civilian casualties.

 The government then delivered rifles and other compensation to victims’ families — payments that a Yemeni official described as a “deposit” to encourage clan leaders to take part in tribal mediation and accept further compensation rather than seek retaliation against the Sanaa government.

 “There was a [legitimate] target, and then something happened, a misfire,” the Yemeni official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the secrecy surrounding U.S. strikes. “I’ve never been aware of any incident before where a strike targeted such a large convoy of vehicles.”

 AQAP is responsible for near-miss attacks on the United States, including the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day in 2009. The terrorist group has been driven out of territory it had gained over the past two years but is still considered by U.S. officials to pose a serious threat to the United States.

 In a meeting with U.S., European and Middle Eastern diplomats last week, Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi described the security situation as unstable and warned specifically of indications that potential al-Qaeda recruits from European and other Western nations were seeking to enter the country, according to U.S. and Yemeni officials.

 Lori Montgomery and Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report. ||||| Hooria Mashhour is Yemen’s minister for human rights.

 December 12 was supposed to be a day of celebration for the al-Ameri family. A young bride traveled to her wedding with her relatives in Bayda province, Yemen. But in a few dark seconds their celebrations were eviscerated. A U.S. drone fired at the wedding procession, destroying five vehicles and most of their occupants. Not even the bride’s car, ornately decorated in flowers for the occasion, was spared from the carnage. Senior Yemeni officials later admitted that the strike was a “mistake”.

 Some mistake: Though the bride survived, the strike is said to have killed at least 14 civilians and injured 22 others, over a third of them seriously. This marks the largest death toll by a drone strike in Yemen since the drone war’s inception. It is also the largest death toll by U.S. strike since December 2009, when a U.S. cruise missile killed 41 civilians in al-Majala, including 14 women and 21 children.

 In the wake of the killing, a wave of outrage has swept the country. The Yemeni government rushed to meet community elders, seeking to negotiate a quiet settlement for the killing of the bride’s loved ones. But the bereaved villagers rejected the overtures and instead demanded that Yemen’s president, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, stop U.S. drones before they would sit at any negotiating table.

 On its side, rather than forthrightly address its role in these grim events, the U.S. government has issued no admission of responsibility, nor any apology. It has left the Yemeni government to clean up another bloody mess.

 1 of 86 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Tom Toles goes global View Photos A collection of cartoons about international news. Caption A collection of Tom Toles cartoons about international news. Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.

 Only recently,we had cause to hope for better. In November, Yemeni civil engineer Faisal bin Ali Jaber traveled over 7,000 miles to the U.S. in search of answers. He met congressmen, senators, and even some White House officials to tell them how U.S. missiles incinerated his nephew and brother-in-law at his son’s wedding last year. In that strike,the U.S. killed two potential allies – one an imam who regularly preached against al-Qaeda; the other one of the town’s few policemen. Jaber received heartfelt condolences from many lawmakers. Yet no official was prepared to explain why his relatives were killed, or why the U.S. administration would not acknowledge its mistake.

 This is not the first time a U.S. drone has killed civilians in Bayda. On Sept. 2, 2012, a U.S. plane hit a village shuttle near Radda. The vehicle was full of villagers carrying their day’s shopping. As usual, the initial press coverage labelled the dead as “al-Qaeda militants,” but when the relatives threatened to deliver the bodies to the president’s gates, the Yemeni government was forced to concede that all 12 of those people killed were civilians. Among the victims, a pregnant woman and three children were laid to rest.

 The use of drones in Yemen might appear a simple, quick-fix option for President Obama. But as Nabeel Khoury, former U.S. deputy chief of mission to Yemen, recently wrote, “Drone strikes take out a few bad guys to be sure, but they also kill a large number of innocent civilians. Given Yemen’s tribal structure, the U.S. generates roughly forty to sixty new enemies for every AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula] operative killed by drones.”

 Let me be clear: I, like the vast majority of my countrymen, reject terrorism. All of us were repulsed by recent footage of a gruesome attack on a Yemeni defense ministry hospital. We agree that our fight against extremist groups cannot be won without a variety of efforts, including robust law enforcement. But more often than not, U.S. drone strikes leave families bereaved and villages terrified. Drones tear at the fabric of Yemeni society. Wronged and angry men are just the sort extreme groups like AQAP find easiest to recruit.

 Our president may reassure the United States of his support for drone strikes but the reality is that no leader can legitimately approve the extrajudicial killing of his own citizens. Moreover, he does so in the face of Yemeni consensus. This August, Yemen’s National Dialogue Conference — which President Obama has praised — decided by a 90 percent majority that the use of drones in Yemen should be criminalised.

 Yemeni legislators are aware that the drone war is deeply unpopular. Since the Dec,. 12 strike, our parliament has unanimously voted to ban drone flights in Yemeni airspace, declaring them a “grave breach” of the country’s sovereignty. For a country so often divided, this unanimity from Yemen’s most representative bodies testifies to the strength of opinion against drones. But their calls have thus far met only with more bombings from the skies. How can the people of Yemen build trust in their fledgling democracy when our collective will is ignored by democracy’s greatest exponent? ||||| ADEN (Reuters) - A Yemeni farmer was killed in a U.S. drone strike on Wednesday in what witnesses said was an attack apparently intended for suspected Islamist militants in southeastern Yemen.

 Witnesses said the farmer was killed by shrapnel from two rockets fired by the drone early in the morning as he walked home in the village of al-Houta, near the city of Shibam.

 A local government official confirmed the report but declined to give further details.

 The United States has stepped up drone strikes as part of a campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), regarded by Washington as the most active wing of the network.

 Yemen, AQAP’s main stronghold, is among a handful of countries where the United States acknowledges using drones, although it does not comment on the practice.

 Last month, at least 15 people were killed and five others injured when a drone mistook a wedding party travelling in the central Yemeni province of al-Bayda for an al Qaeda convoy.

 Stabilizing Yemen, which is also struggling with southern separatists and northern rebels, is an international priority amid fears of upheaval in a state that flanks top oil producer Saudi Arabia and major shipping lanes. |||||

– Congress' $1.1 trillion spending bill contains a secret provision torpedoing President Obama's plans to pass the drone program from the CIA to the Pentagon. In a classified annex, the bill specifically prohibits any funds being used to facilitate such a transfer, the Washington Post reports. Obama wants to shift the CIA from its paramilitary footing back to an intelligence one, and perhaps bring greater transparency to the drone program. But lawmakers don't trust the military with the keys. One source said the provision was more complicated than simply withholding money for the switch, and former officials said it could contain language forcing the military to demonstrate its targeting procedures were up to CIA standards. Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein last year said she'd "really have to be convinced" that the military could exercise as much "patience and discretion" as the CIA in avoiding civilian casualties, statements she says she stands behind. The military didn't help its case last month either by hitting a wedding party in Yemen; in an op-ed yesterday, Yemen's minister for human rights said that strike had sent a "wave of outrage" across the country. Yesterday also saw a drone strike kill a Yemeni farmer.


NASA senior scientist David Morrison debunked an apocalyptic claim that a planet called Nibiru is on a collision course with Earth. (NASA)

 A few years ago, NASA senior space scientist David Morrison debunked an apocalyptic claim as a hoax.

 No, there’s no such thing as a planet called Nibiru, he said. No, it’s not a brown dwarf surrounded by planets, as iterations of the claim suggest. No, it’s not on a collision course toward Earth. And yes, people should “get over it.”

 But the claim has been getting renewed attention recently. Added to it is the precise date of the astronomical event leading to Earth’s destruction. And that, according to David Meade, is in six days — Sept. 23, 2017. Unsealed, an evangelical Christian publication, foretells the Rapture in a viral, four-minute YouTube video, complete with special effects and ominous doomsday soundtrack. It’s called “September 23, 2017: You Need to See This.”

 Why Sept. 23, 2017?

 [The ‘Christian numerologist’ whose biblical doomsday claim has some nervously eyeing Sept. 23]

 Meade’s prediction is based largely on verses and numerical codes in the Bible. He has homed in one number: 33.

 “Jesus lived for 33 years. The name Elohim, which is the name of God to the Jews, was mentioned 33 times [in the Bible],” Meade told The Washington Post. “It’s a very biblically significant, numerologically significant number. I’m talking astronomy. I’m talking the Bible … and merging the two.”

 And Sept. 23 is 33 days since the Aug. 21 total solar eclipse, which Meade believes is an omen.

 Capital Weather Gang's Angela Fritz takes us back in time to show how mankind has reacted to eclipses over thousands of years. (Claritza Jimenez,Daron Taylor,Angela Fritz/The Washington Post)

 He points to the Book of Revelation, which he said describes the image that will appear in the sky on that day, when Nibiru is supposed to rear its ugly head, eventually bringing fire, storms and other types of destruction.

 [Will the mysterious shadow planet Nibiru obliterate Earth in October? No.]

 The book describes a woman “clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head” who gives birth to a boy who will “rule all the nations with an iron scepter” while she is threatened by a red seven-headed dragon. The woman then grows the wings of an eagle and is swallowed up by the earth.

 The belief, as previously described by Gary Ray, a writer for Unsealed, is that the constellation Virgo — representing the woman — will be clothed in sunlight, in a position that is over the moon and under nine stars and three planets. The planet Jupiter, which will have been inside Virgo — in her womb, in Ray’s interpretation — will move out of Virgo, as though she is giving birth.

 To make clear, Meade said he’s not saying the world will end Saturday. Instead, he claims, the prophesies in the Book of Revelation will manifest that day, leading to a series of catastrophic events that will happen over the course of weeks.

 “The world is not ending, but the world as we know it is ending,” he said, adding later: “A major part of the world will not be the same the beginning of October.”

 Meade’s prediction has been dismissed as a hoax not only by NASA scientists, but also by people of faith.

 Ed Stetzer, a professor and executive director of Wheaton College’s Billy Graham Center for Evangelism, first took issue with how Meade is described in some media articles.

 “There’s no such thing as a Christian numerologist,” he told The Post. “You basically got a made-up expert in a made-up field talking about a made-up event.… It sort of justifies that there’s a special secret number codes in the Bible that nobody believes.”

 Meade said he never referred to himself as a Christian numerologist. He’s a researcher, he said, and he studied astronomy at a university in Kentucky, though he declined to say which one, citing safety reasons. His website says he worked in forensic investigations and spent 10 years working for Fortune 1000 companies. He’s also written books. The most recent one is called “Planet X — The 2017 Arrival.”

 Stetzer said that while numbers do have significance in the Bible, they shouldn’t be used to make sweeping predictions about planetary motions and the end of Earth.

 [For some, eclipse day showcases God’s majesty. For others, it means the Rapture is coming.]

 “Whenever someone tells you they have found a secret number code in the Bible, end the conversation,” he wrote in an article published Friday in Christianity Today. “Everything else he or she says can be discounted.”

 That is not to say that Christians don’t believe in the Bible’s prophesies, Stetzer said, but baseless theories that are repeated and trivialized embarrass people of faith.

 “We do believe some odd things,” he said. “That Jesus is coming back, that he will set things right in the world, and no one knows the day or the hour.”

 The doomsday date was initially predicted to be in May 2003, according to NASA. Then it was moved to Dec. 21, 2012, the date that the Mayan calendar, as some believed, marked the apocalypse.

 Morrison, the NASA scientist, has given simple explanations debunking the claim that a massive planet is on course to destroy Earth. If Nibiru is, indeed, as close as conspiracy theorists believe to striking Earth, astronomers, and anyone really, would’ve already seen it.

 “It would be bright. It would be easily visible to the naked eye. If it were up there, you could see it. All of us could see it. … If Nibiru were real and it were a planet with a substantial mass, then it would already be perturbing the orbits of Mars and Earth. We would see changes in those orbits due to this rogue object coming in to the inner solar system,” Morrison said in a video.

 Doomsday believers also say that Nibiru is on a 3,600-year orbit. That means it had already come through the solar system in the past, which means we should be looking at an entirely different solar system today, Morrison said.

 “Its gravity would’ve messed up the orbits of the inner planets, the Earth, Venus, Mars, probably would’ve stripped the moon away completely,” he said. “Instead, in the inner solar system, we see planets with stable orbits. We see the moon going around the Earth.”

 And if Nibiru is not a planet and is, in fact, a brown dwarf, as some claims suggest — again, we would’ve already seen it.

 “Everything I’ve said would be worse with a massive object like a brown dwarf,” Morrison said. “That would’ve been tracked by astronomers for a decade or more, and it would already have really affected planetary objects.”

 Some call Nibiru “Planet X,” as Meade did in the title of his book. Morrison said that’s a name astronomers give to planets or possible objects that have not been found. For example, when space scientists were searching for a planet beyond Neptune, it was called Planet X. And once it was found, it became Pluto.

 Stetzer encouraged Christians to be critical, especially in an information era marred with fake news stories.

 “It’s simply fake news that a lot of Christians believe the world will end on September 23,” Stetzer wrote. “Yet, it is still a reminder that we need to think critically about all the news.”

 He took issue with a Fox News story with a headline that appears to give credence to the doomsday claim — and was published in the Science section under the label “Planets.”

 “Every time end-of-the-world predictions resurface in the media, it is important that we ask ourselves, ‘Is this helpful?’ ” Stetzer wrote. “Is peddling these falsehoods a good way to contribute to meaningful, helpful discussions about the end of times?”

 Julie Zauzmer contributed to this story.

 Read more:

 ‘Black moon’ rising: No, it’s not the apocalypse

 More people searched the Bible for “end times” because of same-sex marriage than because of Trump

 Don’t panic, humanity’s ‘doomsday’ seed vault is probably still safe ||||| Mark it in your calendar, folks: The world is going to end on Saturday. At least, that's according to David Meade, a numerologist who has predicted that the end times will begin on September 23. Needless to say, we're not holding our breath.

 Meade takes his inspiration from the Bible's Book of Revelations, specifically Revelation 12:1–2, which reads:

 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

 Meade interprets this passage as referring to the constellation of Virgo, which is often depicted as a woman. Currently, Virgo advances through the sky ahead of the moon, and with the sun. Ahead of the constellation are the nine stars of Leo, along with the planets Mercury, Mars, and Venus. Meade believes these stars and planets are the "crown of twelve stars" in the prophecy.

 There's quite a bit more to Meade's story, but the agent of his apocalypse appears to be the planet "Nibiru," a mystical planet that often shows up in doomsday predictions. While a ninth planet may actually exist in the far reaches of our solar system, that still doesn't make Meade's prediction seem particularly sound.

 Meade says he's not actually predicting that the world will end immediately on Saturday. In an interview with the Washington Post, Mead says, "The world is not ending, but the world as we know it is ending" on September 23. "A major part of the world will not be the same the beginning of October."

 Of course, what that means is anyone's guess, which means Meade will be free to interpret even the smallest of possible signs as proof that he was right all along. But for those not taken in by superstitious nonsense, some small comfort: The only way the world will end is if we end it ourselves.

 Source: Washington Post |||||

Write a summary.

– If you had big plans this weekend, David Meade regrets to inform you that the world will be ending Saturday. Meade, a Christian numerologist and self-described "researcher," says Sept. 23 is foretold in the Bible's Book of Revelation as the day a series of catastrophic events will begin, and as a result, "a major part of the world will not be the same," the Washington Post reports. The Bible prophecies a woman "clothed with the sun" and a "crown of 12 stars" giving birth to a boy who will "rule all the nations" while she fights off a seven-headed dragon. The woman, Meade says, is the constellation Virgo, which on Saturday will be positioned under nine stars and three planets, per Popular Mechanics. The baby boy will be the planet Jupiter, which will be moving out of Virgo on that night. According to Meade, who says he studied astronomy at an unspecified university in Kentucky, the great change in our world will be the result of the arrival of Nibiru, a planet famous in conspiracy circles but which astronomers say doesn't exist. David Morrison, a senior space scientist at NASA, says that if Nibiru were really on a collision course with Earth, we would have seen it by now. "It would be bright," he says, per the Post. "It would be easily visible to the naked eye." But that's not dissuading Meade, who points to the fact that Sept. 23 falls 33 days after last month's total solar eclipse as proof of his prophecy. "Jesus lived for 33 years. The name Elohim, which is the name of God to the Jews, was mentioned 33 times [in the Bible]," Meade says. "It's a very biblically significant, numerologically significant number."