I used these headphones once. I also tried them beause they were the only choice for a "quick replacement" from Radio Shack. What a mistake. What a nightmare. The mute button was indeed terribly flaky. And the purported noise-isolation was non-existent. I think they may have actually made outside sounds louder. I modded them by covering the ring of noise holes on the outside with some hole-punch reinforcement stickers and that made them tolerable, but I replaced them with some real earphones as soon as I was able.

So, if I'm on this list, then merchants who are slimy enough to use a shady chargeback database service won't do business with me?

Where do I sign up?

OMG I will be able to fit soo much ASCII art on that hard drive. I mean I have been making ASCII robots for years (although i've been in a bit dormant lately) but I never thought I would win anything from it!

But everyone really did a great job here. I was very impressed by most of the entries and it is a shame there couldn't be more winners. In particular, the amount of thought and geeky detail that went into Advaranaut's 3d message for aliens with tiny hard drives impressed me a lot (even though some of the explanation went over my head), and Michael W. Hyde's short story really made me chuckle at the end. Also Technogeek's Mandala app is really quite hypnotic.

@jitrobug, You should check out Shure's warranty program. All their headphones have a two-year warranty on defects. I'm not sure about the pair that was dropped, but the one with the wire defect should definitely be covered. I sent in a pair I was having problems with and they were replaced pretty quickly.

I hope this doesn't somehow post twice, but here is my entry:

A 1,000 byte javascript Mini-Robot-Factory that produces 1,000 tiny ASCII robots. (Inspired by Tomy Pocket Games Robot Factory.)

There are two versions, both each 1,000 bytes.

Version 1: Randomly produces a single robot out of 1,000 possibilities. Keep refreshing the page for nigh endless fun.

Version 2: Generates all 1,000 robots on a single page. Not as fun, but it makes up for it in volume.

A slightly more detailed (and whimsical) write-up can be found here.

Masai Barefoot Technology (MBT) also makes shoes based on some similar sort of barefootednees principles, although they use some sort of special sole. I couldn't tell you much about them other than that they seem terribly expensive, though.