12.18.08
Duck for cover: virtual shoes being thrown
Regardless of how you feel about the situation, it’s still fun to do. Play a game as George Bush and try to avoid being hit by a shoe. It was to be expected that these Flash games would start popping up sooner or later (even though I would’ve expected it ’sooner’ rather than ‘later’).
Click on the image & have fun…
Screendump from Chez Kek blog
12.17.08
Profile-site fatigue
Cartoon from Luis Escobar Blog
I recently wrote a post about two social networking sites; Worldcommute and Greenlightride. Both aiming towards environmentally aware, active, healthy and basically fun people. Sort, people like me, but fun and healthy. After getting my profile page and looking around I got the feeling that such a site is a pretty good idea and everything looks great, BUT. Was I ever going to use either? Would I bother logging in and updating regularly? Would I ever find any of my friends there so be able to share the experience. I doubted it. And already I can say that I was probably right. after one week, I stopped logging in. Not because the sites are no good, but because I suffer from severe ‘Profile site fatigue’.
I work on several different computers and laptops and I don’t have all the same bookmarks on all of them, but on the one I’m writing on now I see the following list of sites on which I have invested -some- time: WordPress (obviously), Flickr, Youtube, Last.fm, Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Twitter, Gawker, Tumblr, Linkedin, Hyves, Plazes, Bebo, Netlog, Ipernity, Nowpublic and Flavorpill… I am sure I forgot a couple and even a lot of these I never use, nor visit.
And even more of those things are on the way. And with the new open standard, you can start plugging all of those sites with all of the others, which will constantly remind you of all those other sites that you haven’t updated in while. And not all of those sites are updated by merely listening to your music like Last. You gotta do stuff. Send text mnessages where you are and what you’re doing. Write posts about what you’re thinking and waht you’ve read. Send photos and movies about what and who you’ve seen….
Are there social networking sites for overworked and stressed out compulsive profile site collectors yet? I think I may need some counselling…
12.11.08
Whopper or Big Mac?
… Well, both are actually mocking what a real hamburger should taste like, but most people do have a preference. To make a public confession: I prefer Coke over Pepsi, Whopper over Big Mac, Adidas over Nike.
I guess just about everyone in the world has read Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point’ and many of us will remember the bit where researchers discover why people tend to prefer Pepsi in those ‘blind’ tasting tests. If you haven’t read it, or don’t remember; you tend to prefer Pepsi in tiny amounts because of the sweetness levels, but when it comes to an actual serving, it might just be other way around. Not that anyone would ever notice, except when you drink one right after the other.
Burger King performed some sort of tasting test with their Whopper. They travelled to remote places to have people that had never seen a McDonalds or Burger King or even knew what a hamburger is (yes, fortunately those people still exist). They served them both versions of something-not-completely-unlike-something-which-resembles-a-proper-hamburger to be able to scientifically determine which burger is best.
Methodically you can shoot holes in this investigation the size of Switzerland, but it’s fun to watch, trust me.
12.04.08
Why do we wave?
I like listening to BBC Radio 1 online (not too much, since that would seriously mess up my carefully built up Last.fm profile), and one of my favourites has always been the item ‘Carpark Catchphrase’ from the Chris Moyles show, which also features the character ‘Mr. Fish’. At the end of the item, the presenter shouts out: “Say goodbye mister Fish…. He’s wàààving!”. Slightly bizarre indeed, but that’s the charm of it.
Jumping like maniacs
This morning, I saw someone dressed up as a clown waving at tourists in a bus. Which was also slightly bizarre, but -for me- missed the charm. It did however, get me to thinking: Why do we wave? What do we get out of this activity where we raise our opened hand to strangers and swing it sideways? It’s a form of greeting someone else. You acknowledge someone’s existence with it… but why ‘wave’? Why not just ‘nod’? Or why not ’start jumping up and down as a maniac’?
Flashers
My guess would be, and please anthropologists/sociologists out there: correct me if I’m wrong here, that we wave to strangers, to show them our empty hands. ‘Look, no weapon! I mean no harm!’ That sort of thing. Wikipedia tells us the following: The orientation of the hand varies by culture and situation. In many cultures, the palm is oriented toward the recipient of the wave. This would back my (is it mine?) theory of ’showing that you do not hold a weapon’ up. I’ve also noticed that some of my colleagues wave as they walk by my window. They don’t even go through the trouble of moving their entire arm anymore. They merely raise their forearm and show me their palm. A bit like an office worker who’s been walking past security for years and years and very casually and briefly only flashes his (or her) ID card. The idea is: ‘I know of my colleagues they have no weapon in their hand’.
I say goodbye, you say hello
But then; why do we use the same signal when we say goodbye to people? Your loved one sits on a train while it slowly pulls out of the station while you stand there and wave. Perhaps you even run along as the train accelerates. Separating the two of you as you gaze at each other with tearful eyes, shouting “I love you” and “I won’t forget you”… and you wave. There does not really seem to be a point to want to show the other person in this situation you are not holding a weapon. Unless you’d like to show that you have not intention of slicing your wrist as you are overcome with grief. Or that you do not hold a bazooka to blow up the train or something…
The eye of the beholder
I guess this waving may have something to do with the way our eyes work. At a greater distance we can no longer distinguish the other from their surroundings if they’re standing still. However, if the other person is moving (like: ‘waving’) we can see them from a much greater distance. Which means that we have bit more time to come to mentally part form each other. Again, I might be totally wrong (not about the eyes part though) but it would seem that we show the same behaviour in two really connected circumstances (saying ‘hello’ and saying ‘goodbye’) for two very different reasons.
Say goodbye mr. Fish…. He’s wàààving!
For those of you who are extremely interested in waving…. watch this clip of The Onion in which they predict that the British Queen will leave beahing the long legacy of waving…
12.01.08
Great animation about… some sort of ‘chickens’?
One of the great things about WordPress is that by using it, I have seen some wondrous things which -I am sure-I would never have seen otherwise. One thing I keep on wondering about is, where on earth (quite literally) do people come from? One of those clicks led me to an Japanese site, of which I don’t understand a single thing… I guess it is a social networking site of some sort. Anyway; it start with a more than brilliant bit of animation, starring some characters that most remind me of ‘chickens’… And even though it’s a bit of corporate creativity, promoting the Intel Centrino 2, I strongly recommend you go watch it and if, for some reason, you get what this is about…. please let me know.
What was first, the chicken of the add?
