Short Term Memory Test
[ 4 Comments ]Posted on October 29, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008It’s a test of your short-term memory
Okay, you remembered the headline long enough to get this far. Now try this. And don’t hate me if you waste an hour failing. The short term memory test, that is. And come back and share your score. If you remember.
Morning Time Waster
[ Comments Off ]Posted on October 21, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008The dot at left will be your enemy this morning, convincing you that you can be faster, better than you are. Give up. You’re getting older, and your reaction time isn’t what it used to be. I hate that something so simple made me waste 5 or 10 minutes of my life, but for the [...]
The dot at left will be your enemy this morning, convincing you that you can be faster, better than you are. Give up. You’re getting older, and your reaction time isn’t what it used to be. I hate that something so simple made me waste 5 or 10 minutes of my life, but for the record, I got a .203 average the first time, and only did worse as I kept trying. I defy anyone who drinks less than 2 pots of coffee a day to beat me.
No Wonder I Can’t Get A Date
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 13, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture
Saturday, September 13th, 2008But why are there so many single women in Appalachia?
And I thought it was my thinning Papa Smurf hair and “income impairment”. After viewing this interactive map though, it all becomes clear. Adjusting the slider to the age range I find acceptable (30-59; I think I’m being pretty darn open-minded on this!), the town I live in (Ann Arbor) has one of the largest blue bubbles in the US, with 40 extra men per 1000. My only solace is that there’s such a huge gay community here. Meaning either that number is actually skewed slightly, or I can still take a friend of mine’s advice and become bisexual, which, as she puts it, “doubles your chance for a date on a Friday night“. Fortunately, I already have plans to relocate to Albuquerque, which has a nice big pink bubble. By the way, note that there’s a little “link to this map” link in the lower right of the page. It lets you link to the customized map you created with your slider adjustments so you can more easily torture your friends. For more amusing maps like this you might want to check out the Who’s Your City maps on Richard Florida’s site. He’s the author of the bestsellers The Rise of the Creative Class
More Fun Than A Clown on Fire
[ Comments Off ]Posted on September 10, 2008 by admin in Popular Media
Wednesday, September 10th, 2008Or a KKK rally. Or a political convention. Or Killing Kittens…
It seems video games offer a little something to offend everyone these days. I ran across a link to Muslim Massacre yesterday, and my immediate reaction was “Oh my God, how pointlessly offensive, I wonder when the fatwa will be issued?”. Which more or less remains my response. But in the interest of equal time, let’s make sure everyone has something to get offended about. First of all, I should point out that Muslim Massacre is Windows Only, so since the site goads you with “Don’t be a liberal p*ssy! Download this game now!”, I guess we’ve covered Mac users too. For those who are most offended by that first link, we have Bush Shootout (hell, who couldn’t enjoy that one) or WTC Defender. Just laugh maniacally while you let the planes crash instead of shooting them. Isn’t that what the White House did? For “Best Marketing Plan Award”, there’s Virginia Tech Rampage, whose creator said he’d pull the game if enough donations were made (much more clever than Super Columbine Massacre, where apparently you just shoot kids). And still sporting a fairly high offensiveness quotient, but a little less bloody, we have Operation Pedopriest in which you’re asked by the Vatican to cover up pedophilia among priests, and So You Think You Can Drive, Mel? , in which you help the man who brought us the phrase “sugar tits” avoid state troopers and rabbis while gathering bottles of tequila.
Fleshmaps, Heatmaps, And Tag Clouds
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on August 23, 2008 by admin in Editorial & Opinion
Saturday, August 23rd, 2008Tagging the body electric with hip hop heatmaps and titillating tag clouds
Ever notice how many times in a rap song someone uses the word “booty”, or in a country song how often they use the phrase “in your arms”? Well at Fleshmap.com (maybe NSFW; occasional nudity and body parts) they have a cool tool that renders a visual representation of the number of times certain body parts are mentioned in a piece of text. You can view by musical genre or see a few examples of specific songs here. You can even create your own Fleshmap by pasting in a body of text. Fun, but a little limited. As a person kind of obsessed with how people communicate, I find “word clouds” and “tag clouds” more interesting. TagCrowd.com lets you paste a body of text and create a static version of a word cloud similar to the one here on Dissociated Press. Tools like this are not only amusing, they can be very informative. See this presidential speeches tag cloud tool. It’s a great way to view the themes not only of recent speeches, but going all the way back to 1776. You can even download the tool and set up your own analyses.