What size matters?
Posted: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 10:49 AM by Will Femia
How big is the club? It's a short paragraph entry about a Web guy who recently learned that not as many people knew what he was talking about as he expected, leading him to wonder just how small the Web community echo chamber is. I wrestle with this question all the time as I try to describe Web trends to my colleagues here at MSNBC.com. At what point is something like Twitter something everyone should know about? Is it merely a niche interest until Google eventually buys it? Inherent in the problem, as some of the commenters point out is the challenge of contextualizing numbers online. If you get a thousand people to send really great photos and video of a major storm in their area, that's a great yield. But if you get a thousand people to look at the multi-media presentation you put together from all that submitted content, that's a terrible number and almost a waste of time.
There's something really unusual about seeing an old person sing, "I hope I die before I get old."
Speaking of age dissonance, I'm generally not a fan of people getting kids to curse, but this clip of Will Ferrell fighting with his diminutive landlady got a lot of attention last week. NOTE: In case you missed that warning, contains curses. UPDATE: Here's the real link. Turns out the clip is part of a promotion for a new video site backed by Ferrell. I guess he didn't appreciate his new site's promotional piece being on YouTube.
Pen with crayon body
Here's that Sheryl Crow blog everyone was talking about yesterday. Specifically this entry about the one-square-of-toilet-paper-per-person idea. The Washington Post has highlights.
Here's that guy who's asking people to call him on the phone and getting thousands of calls. They just interviewed him on TV and he had some interesting stories. It's a shame he's not tracking the calls on a map or in a podcast or something.
"The world's oldest continuously operating family business ended its impressive run last year. Japanese temple builder Kongo Gumi, in operation under the founders' descendants since 578, succumbed to excess debt and an unfavorable business climate in 2006."
172,150 tracks in this guy's iPod collection. Didn't someone once figure out what it would take to download the entire Napster catalog for the least amount of subscription time? Seems like that might have been a good option to consider.
MySpace news launched. Not exactly the Digg killer they forecast.
Speaking of big web companies launching new things, Yahoo's Upcoming looks pretty handy. It probably helps to live in a place where there's actual stuff going on.
Site specific StumbleUpon is coming.
Stephen Colbert is now the number 1 Google search result for Giant Brass Balls and Greatest Living American.
Iraq the Model has an interesting story of what stray bullets mean to the average Baghdad non-combatant.
BuyYourFriendADrink.com - Not really as revolutionary as I expected. It's like buying a digital gift card. Your friend gets a mail with a number and gives that number to the
bartender.
"In what can only be described at the most horrific experience of my life. I, Jacob Seilheimer, completed the Boston Marathon... DEAD LAST. And I'm damn proud of it."
Are the rules for lowering the flag to half staff completely arbitrary? I understand that there's a difference between soldiers who put themselves in harm's way and innocent students mowed down by a maniac but I'd expect the flag to be for more official purposes.
Related: Iraq's universities know violence's toll
When I was learning to drive I accidentally started the car while it was in reverse without my foot on the clutch. The rear door was open and the car was parked next to a telephone poll so when the car jerked backward the door was turned inside out. That was in an old Dodge Aspen station wagon that was already well worn. It was not a brand spanking new, stickers still on the window, $50,000 Mustang. NOTE: At least one out-loud curse.
My favorite part of this photoshop gotcha story is this line: "But then I noticed the file name (top-kyoto2.jpg) ends in the numeral "2". Now, I know what it means when I add a "2" to a file name, so I removed it to see if anything came up."
The Art of Showing Pure Incompetence At an Unwanted Task - The corollary to this is make sure you never come up with any good ideas because you'll get stuck being in charge of their implementation. It reminds me a little of the non-violent protest tactic of going limp. UPDATE: Here's a free version.
Ping pong ninja
Combination mirror, TV and PC. How is this not the future?
Is lascivious online content, traditionally on top, losing its lustre? The suggestion here is that porn is becoming less popular because it comprises a smaller share of what people are surfing online. If you think on it a bit (without further information) there are a lot of possible explanations.
Part of me loves the idea of interactive advertising (in this case a billboard with motion sensors that detect you walking by) and part of me fears it.
Time lapse video of the Virginia Tech story on Wikipedia.
Fast food in advertisements versus what you actually get. (I don't care, that Arby's still looks good.)
Speaking of junk food. Since I got such a strong response last time I mentioned Doritos flavors, I know some of you will be interested to learn that I've tried the new Smokin' Cheddar BBQ. It's better than the Blazin' Buffalo, more like traditional BBQ flavor chips. My supermarket has Wild White Nacho too, but I can only do these things when I'm in the mood so we'll see when it strikes me.
And yesterday I tried the new Diet Coke Plus. I had the plastic bottle version (Diet Coke drinkers know that the product is best in a can) but it was still pretty close to regular D.C. I had to laugh at the logo given MSNBC.com's recent rainbow rebranding. A Fuller Spectrum of Diet Coke? (One colleague described it as "more metallic" and another said she just didn't like it but also conceded the point that she has a psychological bias against adulteration of her D.C.)
These glass floor pictures are better than anything I've seen from the new Grand Canyon display.
Supercooled water is super cool.
I don't know how to show support for Mike Daisy from here but what those people did to him is really just so crappy I can't even stand it. I have a review copy of his book somewhere around here. I recall it being a funny read. Here's a funny story: I was sure we'd had him in the chat room to talk about the book but I couldn't find the transcript. I tried Google and found Mike Daisey's blog entry about the chat. He takes some creative license in turning me into a Microsoft demon and calling me names, but whatever, that's his job. I don't remember him being a jerk (though now I'm wondering if there's a reason I can't find the transcript) but even if he was I wouldn't have poured water on him. Damn.
That's not a bad price for an indoor desktop batting practice machine.
This was inappropriate to post last week, but hopefully this week we can laugh again. Pool of blood pillows.
Adding wood to technical gadgets is a winner every time. This phone isn't for sale, but surely it should be.
"The word contronym (also the synonym antagonym) is used to refer to words that, by some freak of language evolution, are their own antonyms."
