Monday Demotivators: The Super Bowl Fever Edition
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 2, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
It’s not super, and it’s not a bowl
Since 1.5 million of you will be calling in sick today, I thought I’d share some excuses to avoid, courtesy of CareerBuilder.com. On the Monday after Super Bowl Sunday, the only one of those that might fly would be “Employee’s wife burned all his clothes and he had nothing to wear to work“. Once you’ve come up with your lame excuse for not working today, come back for this week’s Monday Demotivators. First up: while it loads, Perfect Balance asks “are you ready to master both harmony and inferno?” A little dramatic for a moderately amusing game where you balance objects on the screen. A more reasonable question might be “are you ready to master your disdain for new-agey game soundtracks?” The game also pops up with a mildly annoying FaceBook suggestion in the lower right. After you’re suitably annoyed, you might want to try the simplistic and slightly creepy HitStick, a first person shooter that takes place in a subway. You shoot little round-headed guys in suits for no reason I could immediately ascertain. If your bloodlust isn’t sated by that one, perhaps you need a new twist on your sick interest in shooting things: BUNNIES! Shooting bunnies (even bunnies that have escaped from a research facility and are terrorizing the countryside) sounds pretty cruel until you find out what the bunnies are actually up to. Happy Super Bowl Monday!
Super Bowl Traditions: The Seven Layer Dip
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on February 1, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Super Bowl: It’s Not Super, And It’s Not Bowling
 Another Disturbing Super Bowl Tradition |
This Super Bowl Sunday, I’m engaging in one of my favorite Super Bowl Sunday activities: not watching the Super Bowl. I like football about as much as I like eating Ortolan, so Super Bowl Sunday has always mystified me a bit. The buzz surrounding Super Bowl commercials can be a little amusing, but c’mon. They’re commercials, for cryin’ out loud; media blips that in any other context are the bane of our existence. One Super Bowl tradition that fascinates me though is the seven-layer dip. I personally hadn’t heard of it until a couple of years ago, but apparently it’s one of the more sacred Super Bowl traditions. More intriguingly, it’s an excellent way to separate people into three distinct categories: those who come from an affluent, sophisticated background who honestly have never heard of it; those who are a little less well-monied (and whose favorite recipes always begin with “take one can of”); and those who for some reason know about it and either make it every year as an ironic statement, or just love joking about it. That last category would be me. So I’d love to know. Have YOU heard of seven-layer dip? Got a good recipe?
The Hasselhoff Recursion
[ Comments Off ]Posted on February 1, 2009 by admin in Missing Links
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Beware, as always, the Hasselhoffian Recursion:
Norwegian Bus Fuel Going To Waste
[ Comments Off ]Posted on January 31, 2009 by admin in Clean & Green, Technology
Finally Citizens Are Giving A Doo-doo
We’ve touched on the environmental impact of cow farts and human waist as fuel before, but this time we’re going to talk about a new (ahem) movement in clean & green energy: biomethane as vehicle fuel. This is apparently a booming industry, but in Norway, where there’s such a firm commitment to clean and green policy that carmakers aren’t allowed to call their cars either, they’re taking this to a new level of efficiency by powering buses with biomethane produced from human waste. Presumably major energy producers will get in on the action; perhaps with BP making a big shift from investing in Europe to investing in the US, Exxon could step in and expand on last year’s record profits. The new division would also require only a subtle logo alteration (see image).
Recommendation Systems & The Napoleon Dynamite Problem
[ 2 Comments ]Posted on January 29, 2009 by admin in Popular Media
When I Wanna Know What You Think I’ll Tell You
 Just kick back and let the software decide |
When you’re looking for some new music to listen to or a movie to rent, nothing beats the recommendation of a good friend. Except maybe a recommendation system. Yesterday a friend mentioned the music site Pandora while I was spending some time pretending I’m not addicted to Facebook (which uses recommender tools itself). Ironically, because of the consulting work I do, I often find myself telling clients to use things I don’t have time to use myself, and Pandora’s a good example of one of the things that you don’t know you’ll be using next year, but that you’ll be more familiar with than I am by the time it becomes pervasive. Recommender engines and software have been in use for some time; the most familiar version being the Amazon “if you like that, maybe you’ll like this” feature. What’s new in this field is that they’re getting REALLY GOOD at it. Something that used to be almost annoying will become something you actually demand. Why? As this CNNMoney piece puts it we’re “…leaving the era of search and entering one of discovery. What’s the difference? Search is what you do when you’re looking for something. Discovery is when something wonderful that you didn’t know existed, or didn’t know how to ask for, finds you.” With Google getting more and more spammed out every day, our mental processes getting more and more externalized, and our lives getting almost over-connected, I for one welcome our new media-recommending overlords. They just have to iron out that little Napoleon Dynamite Problem, and we’ll be all set (here’s a more in-depth look at problems faced by recommendation tools if you’re interested). So hey human, can you recommend a good book?