Simple But Non-Trivial Pursuit
[ Comments Off ]Posted on May 11, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, May 11th, 2009Trivial Pursuit is for sissies. This week’s Monday morning time-killers explore whether or not you can handle a NON trivial pursuit. If you can, maybe you can also tell us what the heck it actually means.
Out of over a trillion pages in Google’s index, you had to end up here. Our apologies. Odds are that with that many web pages in existence, a huge number of them will be a banal waste of your time. And that, in fact, is the objective of our Monday Demotivators. This week we’re going to explore simplicity and triviality, which is what you’re probably engaged in if you’re at work right now anyway. The difference is, we don’t pay you! But we’re wasting time. Let’s get rolling. On wasting more of it. The “Eight Queens Puzzle” is a classic example of a “simple but non-trivial” problem. Try arranging 8 queens on a chessboard in such a way that no two queens would be able to attack each other. There are 4,426,165,368 possible arrangements of eight queens on the board, but only 92 solutions. The image at left gets you 3/8 of the way there. Good luck. 3D Logic, a cube-based color pattern puzzle also appears rather simple at first. Things get a little hairy at level 6. Let us know if you get to the level where it tranforms into a 4-dimensional hypercube. We don’t know that it actually does that, but it sounds cool, doesn’t it? If you like your non-trivial simplicity in the form of word puzzles, try this: “A young woman goes to the funeral of her mother. There she meets a man whom she has never met before. She identifies him as the man of her dreams and immediately falls in love. Two days later she kills her sister. Why?” (We’ll post the answer in the comments if anyone asks.) And lastly, if you prefer trivial simplicity, we have some stick people for you. Sure, they’re simple. But when given the choice of killing them or saving their lives, do they still seem trivial? You decide. Hope you have a simple, non-trivial Monday!
Purrfectly Good Reasons To Miss Your Monday Meatings
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on May 4, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, May 4th, 2009Our usual Monday morning Flash game distractions, with an especially daunting challenge for our American readers: GEOGRAPHY.
Our Monday Demotivators have previously explored the mystery of why there are so many Flash games in which you do mean things to helpless animals, but you seem to enjoy this stuff so much we’re back with more. First up: Meowcenaries. Like so many of these games, it takes so long to load you’ll be ready to kill by the time it’s ready to play. This game is a little different, by the way, in that the violence is all cat-on-cat. If you’re looking for completely pointless human-inflicted cruelty, you’ll have to go shoot a puppy or something. Don’t get the wrong impression here though, I personally love animals. That’s why this week we’ll give equal time to PETA’s Cooking Mama Kills Animals game, designed to protest Nintendo’s Cooking Mama
Monday Demotivators – The Reality Check Edition
[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 27, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, April 27th, 2009Amusing Flash games to pass the time in the unemployment line.
We thought we’d start with a little reality check for this week’s Monday Demotivators. Our usual Flash-based fun turns to horror when you view this animated map from Slate.com. Hit the play button, and watch the jobs in America disappear. It’s either like watching the 2000 election unfold, or a nuclear strike map. Scary. Equally scary for some will be the Virtual Age Analyzer. Honestly answer the questions, and discover your life expectancy. My “virtual age” was two years lower than the real thing, and I’m gonna live to the age of 78. Phew. Now that we’ve instilled you with a little anxiety, let’s get back to the fun you probably came here for. First up, the annoyingly cute JellyJumper, brought to you by Logitech. I don’t know if anyone will buy a keyboard because of it, but maybe they’re banking on the idea that you’ll smash your existing keyboard in frustration. They also have a multiplayer version called JellyBattle. For those of you who fancy a game of golf this time of year, try Golfman. Although I enjoy neither golf nor Flash games, I was amused for a couple of minutes, just long enough to figure out I suck at on line golf as much as the real-life version. If you’re feeling a bit more narcissistic or need to jazz up your Facebook profile pic, someone has rounded up 28 web sites that let you upload and edit your photo. The site’s in Turkish, but a picture, as they say, speaks a thousand words. This time they’re just not in your native tongue. And as a peg that never seems to fit a hole, I’m convinced Flash Pegs will ruin your day. Its utter simplicity fools you into thinking you’ll ever advance to the next level. That should keep you busy through Tuesday. Happy Monday!
I Know You Don’t Know Jack, But Have You Met Seth?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on April 20, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, April 20th, 2009An attempt to bring a little intelligence back to our Monday time-wasters…
I had never noticed until yesterday the remarkable resemblance between the animated host of the web version of You Don’t Know Jack and the byline photo on marketing guru Seth Godin’s blog. Which is our odd segue into this week’s slightly brainier edition of our Monday Demotivators. We received a complaint last week that our little Monday tradition had “devolved from a thought-provoking Monday diversion into a desperate Flash game linkfest“. While that’s a fair observation, I feel obligated to point out that I’m pretty sure that that’s the whole idea here! All the same, I’m willing to consider the possibility that maybe we’re reaching the point that marketing guru Seth Godin calls The Dip
McMonday McMotivators – Would You Like Fries With That?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on April 13, 2009 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Monday, April 13th, 2009Set your fast food ass back down for the Fast Food Edition of our Monday Demotivators.
Going to work on Monday morning is WAY over-rated.
I’ve always said that they call it fast food because you eat it fast, not because you get it fast. Which is applicable for this week’s Monday Demotivators, because most of these links load so slowly that the designers really should visit the PrettyLoaded preloader museum for pointers. First up: Given the general take on fast food employment, it’s kind of odd that someone would build a detailed simulation for entertainment purposes. Which is why Fast Food Frenzy is a little odd. Probably more popular is Fast Food Follies, wherein you play a black-clad “Michigan Militia” type who shoots up a fast food joint. Fast food games for educational purposes make a little more sense to me, which is why I find McVideogame amusing. The game requires you to manage every aspect of a fast food corporation, from cow to counter. Along the way you learn a little. For example, in the agricultural sector of the game, they point out that “If we had to rear all the cattle we need in our part of the world, our cities would drown in an ocean of cow shit. Pastures and soy culture need a lot of land and South America is one of the best places for it. Obviously you have to conquer your land as our forefathers did. Remember the old saying: “under every forest there is a lawn“. Lastly, for a mind-numbingly pointless fast food flash game (all you Stack The Cats addicts take note; you know who you are!), we have Fast Food Fiasco. Just re-arrange the fast food items to clear the grid. And if we’ve succeeded in our weekly attempt to make you late for work on Monday, hopefully you won’t stop at McDonald’s on the way. Between this fast food calorie counter and these nutrition fact comparison charts, it’s kind of a no-brainer. But if you need more demotivation, check out 15 signs you need to go on a diet. Would you like fries with that? Read the rest of this entry »