Oh Internet, You Are a Vast and Wonderful Place
The awesome site FlowingData brought this to my attention. It’s a map of the internet! Created by Ruslan Enikeev, it’s a searchable graphic displaying data for over 350,000 websites. Says Enikeev:
“The Internet map is a bi-dimensional presentation of links between websites on the Internet. Every site is a circle on the map, and its size is determined by website traffic, the larger the amount of traffic, the bigger the circle. Users’ switching between websites forms links, and the stronger the link, the closer the websites tend to arrange themselves to each other.”
The colors represent websites from different countries (the light blue is the US, yellow is China, red is Russia, things like that).
My thoughts and observations:
Pretty, isn’t it?
Google.ca just BARELY eclipses StumbleUpon. That’s hilarious.
Flickr’s bigger than Tumblr? Blasphemy!
God, look at all of Google’s little satellite circles. Watch out, little websites. Google’ll eat you.
I can’t even zoom in close enough to see the name of that little Russian website. That blue part of the screen? That’s Google.
Explore! Al Gore would be proud. Donate to the creator, too. This must have taken a lot of work.
Edit: Okay, I calculated it all out. If we took the biggest circle on there, Google, and set its diameter equal to the diameter of Jupiter, the following sites would have diameters (roughly) proportional to the other planets:
Mercury: Newgrounds
Venus: IBM
Earth: Walmart
Mars: 4chan
Saturn: YouTube
Uranus: Amazon
Neptune: LinkedIn
And for old times’ sake, Pluto: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Exciting times!
The top 5 reasons Nick and I should not be allowed to use Hero Machine:
$5 to the person who correctly guesses which two are mine and which three are Nick’s.
Dr. Leg
Captain Crotchley
Shoak (Shark Oak), the Overzealous Jesus Freak
Levy Jones McBones Jr.: Astronaut (yes, that’s a fish in his helmet)
HIPPOTRON
Despite this silliness, Hero Machine is a pretty fantastic website. Give it a try! Make a super hero. Or a disembodied anthropomorphic leg.
Whichever.
GUYS
Guys guys guys.
Curiosity got the better of me today and I typed in “Brave Little Toaster” in Tumblr’s search box.
It effectively restored my faith in the claim that the internet is goddamn weird.
I don’t know what’s better (worse?), the screencaps or the cosplay.
Favorite:
Shameless self-promotion? DON’T MIND IF I DO
Uh-oh, guys.
Check it out at your own risk. Some of it is/will be reposts from here, but most of it will be stuff too frivolous for its own blog post.
Lots of YouTube videos, memes, Metalocalypse, and gifs forthcoming on it.
You’ve been warned.
Damn you, YouTube
For the love of god, someone tell me why I find this so uncannily funny:
YouTube Poop: a post-postmodernism phenomenon or just…well…poop?
2:27-2:31 needs to be a looping .gif.
Also: [insert extreme Metalocalypse love here]
This freaking show asldfjefadjvaoerfnaf.
Weekly Wiki: We Didn’t Start the Fire
Today as my mom and I were driving around, Billy Joel’s We Didn’t Start the Fire came on over Shuffle. I commented, “I wonder what this song’s Wikipedia page looks like?”
Therefore, this week’s WeeklyWiki = We Didn’t Start the Fire!
I think this is a really interesting song, both because of all the events it contains but also because Billy Joel was able to rhyme everything. Haha, I think that’s awesome. Says Wiki” “Unlike most of Joel’s songs, the lyrics were written before the melody, owing to the somewhat unusual style of the song.”
And: “I had turned forty. It was 1989 and I said “Okay, what’s happened in my life?” I wrote down the year 1949. Okay, Harry Truman was president. Popular singer of the day, Doris Day. China went Communist. Another popular singer, Johnnie Ray. Big Broadway show, South Pacific. Journalist, Walter Winchell. Athlete, Joe DiMaggio. Then I went on to 1950 […]. It’s one of the worst melodies I’ve ever written. I kind of like the lyric though.”
Cool, huh?
It’d be interesting to see such a song written today.
“Doctor, doctor! I’ve stopped menstruating!” “Mr. Johnson, get out of my office.”
I reiterate from past blogs where I’ve talked about these guys: if you’re ever feeling down, just watch a few 5secondfilms.
Unfortunately their site keeps crashing on me today, but I’ve managed a few videos that had me laughing hysterically.
That last one is oh so much immature humor. Awesome.
Weekly Wiki: Wilhelm Scream
HA, I remember the article that I was going to feature here a couple weeks ago!
If you’ve ever watched a movie or TV, you’ve probably been privy to the Wilhelm scream, a stock sound effect first used in 1951 and has since been audible in over 225 movies and TV shows (often as an in-joke).
The scream was first heard in the 1950s movie Distant Drums and gained popularity after George Lucas and Quentin Tarantino began to slide it into almost every movie they made (yes, including Star Wars). The fact that the scream is publically available has caused it to propagate throughout online media created by amateur film/media makers.
Compilation!
Weekly Wiki: Generations
It’s Weekly Wiki time! See guys? It’s been like three weeks and I haven’t missed one yet. I give myself a banana sticker.
This week I’m featuring Wikipedia’s information about the different generations!
Here is the list:
Lost Generation (born 1883 – 1900)
The Lost Generation refers to those mainly brought up in the era of WWI; specifically, the young men and women who were pulled out of their normal lives to go and fight. It is said that the label originated with Gertrude Stein who remarked that young men of that generation were too old to train to be skilled workman and therefore were “lost.”
Greatest Generation (born 1914 – 1924)
What a title, huh? The term was coined by Tom Brokaw to describe those individuals who muscled through the Great Depression, fought in WWII, and aided in the material contribution to the war effort. Says Wiki: “He [Brokaw] argued that these men and women fought not for fame and recognition, but because it was the right thing to do. When they came back they rebuilt America into a superpower.”
Silent Generation (born 1925 – 1945)
Describing those individuals born during the Great Depression and WWII, this generation was substantially smaller than either the Greatest or the Baby Boom generations. This allowed people born in this timeframe more job opportunities (less competition) and thus resulted in great scientific and technological innovations used in the late 20th century.
Baby Boom Generation (born 1946 – 1964)
Everyone knows the Boomers! Post WWII, the US population jumped up as soldiers returned home and decided that it was the time to have a family. The article also features what is perhaps the greatest analogy ever: The baby boom has been described variously as…”the pig in the python.” By the sheer force of its numbers, the boomers were a demographic bulge which remodeled society as it passed through it.
Generation X (born early 1960s – early 1980s)
Perhaps the most recognizable generation in terms of name, Generation Xers were named such in order to signify their relative lack of identity and uncertainty regarding the future when compared to their parents and grandparents. According to Wiki: “The US Census Bureau cites Generation X as highly educated, statistically holding the highest education levels when looking at current age groups.”
Generation Y (born early 1970s – 1990 or so)
This generation (which includes me and probably most of my readers/stalkers/random passers-by) is unique in the sense that they didn’t grow up with technology surrounding them like Gen Z did, but also were young enough once technology began to permeate everyday life that they were able to acclimate to using it rather quickly/swiftly. Though my mom did this, too, and she’s a Boomer.
Generation Z (born early 1990s – present)
These dudes are typically children of Gen X-ers and are obviously a very wired generation—internet, cellphones, obnoxious social media Facebook and the like. According to Wiki: “a marked difference between Generation Y and Generation Z is that members of the former remember life before the takeoff of mass technology, while the latter have been born completely within it.”
More info on Wiki. Go check it out!
Internettin’
I’m not going to deny it: I’m in love with the internet. All of it. Every informative page of Wikipedia, every dark, seedy corner of 4chan, every increasingly strange playlist on YouTube, and yes—even the frighteningly powerful overlord of Google.
It totally rules my life, haha.
I also just discovered Tumblr. Trouble now.
Stuff.
Also, I just found this on YouTube. We had this on VHS way back in the age of the Cassettosaurus.
I remember this like I just watched it yesterday, man.
Weekly Wiki: Linguistic Examples
Way back at the dawn of time I linked to Wiki’s Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo article, but I figured I’d go all out and link to a bunch of Wiki’s “English is so screwy” pages.
List:
List of Linguistic Example Sentences, sentences that “illustrate various linguistic phenomena.”
I had a really, really good article the other day that I was going to use for this post, but now I can’t remember what it was.
Schwing!
Weekly Wiki: Heavy Water
So this Weekly Wiki might not be a new concept to a lot of you guys ‘cause you all seem smart and all seem to know random facts and such, but it’s still a cool topic so it’s happening. I randomly stumbled upon the article for heavy water.
11% denser than “regular” water, heavy water is physically and chemically similar to water except for the fact that it is enriched in the hydrogen isotope deuterium. The deuterium isotope is twice as heavy as the lightest stable isotope, increasing the strength of the water’s hydrogen-oxygen bond. This increased bond is enough to cause enough of a change in how organisms can process water…to the point where higher organisms whose regular water content is replaced with enough heavy water (more than 50%), cell death and ultimately organism death results.
In one of the chemistry books I was e-texting (totally a verb) the other day actually had a picture of a glass of water with regular H2O ice floating on top and “heavy water” ice at the bottom of the glass, too heavy to float. It was pretty sweet.
Edit: found it!
(courtesy PopSci)
Hahahaha
Internet, I love you.
http://gawker.com/5888658/angelina-jolies-right-leg-poised-to-supplant-all-creative-arts-forever
http://angelinajolieing.tumblr.com/
In other news, this has pretty much been my life for the past few months. It blows.
Weekly Wiki: Cosmic Latte
Caffeine from the moon? Starbucks from the stars?
Nope! It’s the color of the universe, according to astronomers from Johns Hopkins University.
Described by Wiki as “a slightly beigeish white,” cosmic latte is the average color of the universe across the spectral range of light sampled from a large section of the universe. The average color was actually originally purported to be a light teal, but that was due to an error with the software the scientists were using. Hahaha.
The article also has a list of a bunch of different names that were proposed for the color…I personally like Big Bang Beige and Skyvory.
Weekly Wiki: Waffle House Index
Y’all ever heard of Waffle House? It’s a chain of restaurants located in many of the US’s southernmost states. There’s one about half a mile from our house here, actually. The waffle-centric restaurants sell (apart from waffles) soup, chili, coffee, and pretty much every breakfast item you can think of.
What’s surprising about Waffle House, though, is the fact that it is one of the top four corporations in the US for disaster response.* Says almighty Wiki: “Waffle House has an extensive disaster management plan with on-site and portable generators and pre-positioned food…This helps mitigate the effects of a storm on the power grid and the supply chains.”
In fact, this provider of syrup-pocket goodness is so disaster-ready that an unofficial gauge of disaster severity is based on the status of any Waffle House restaurants located within the disaster area. This gauge is known as the Waffle House Index and is used by FEMA. They employ a rough three-level guide based on Waffle House’s restaurant status to assess storm/disaster impact:
- Green: Waffle House is open and serving its full menu. Nothing too serious. Carry on. Buy some pancakes.
- Yellow: Waffle House is open but is serving a limited menu. Moderate damage; there may be no power and/or food supply may be low.
- Red: Waffle House is closed! Severe damage. No waffles. Apocalypse now.
Also, a quote from FEMA admin Craig Fugate: “If you get [to the disaster site] and the Waffle House is closed? That’s really bad. That’s where you go to work.”
Guess there were no Waffle Houses in New Orleans for them to gauge the severity of Hurricane Katrina’s impact…?
*The other four companies are WalMart, The Home Depot, and Lowe’s.
Claudia Presents: “Let’s get ready to Stuuuuuumble!”
Ready for another romp around the internet?
Of course you are!
ONWARDZ!
- Love your 90’s music? Click here.
- Want to see if your favorite nickname/tag/username is available on a given site? Click here.
- Want to test your vocab? Click here.
- Interested in Google’s (playful) deceptions? Click here.
- Fan of obscure words? Click here.
- Are you getting high from all the clicking and wish you could do more of it? Click here.
AND:
The best OK Cupid match question ever.
The end.
The Logic of Lightening
As you may or may not have noticed, I’ve been a major slacker with respect to my This Week’s Science Blog posts. Sad day, huh?
This is mostly due to either:
a) just completely forgetting to do one, or
b) having difficulty finding a *recent* article that’s interesting enough to blog about.
So I decided I’m going to change things up a bit. Rather than have a weekly post dedicated to science, I’m broadening my horizons and starting a Weekly Wiki blog in which I find an interesting (or unusual or hilarious or all of the above) Wikipedia article and elaborate on it here for you. And see how many pages it takes me to get from that article to the “Pornography” article.
Cool? Cool.
Let’s go!
This week’s Weekly Wiki: Vexillology. I’ll give you three guesses what a vexillologist studies.
Any guesses?
Anyone?
Bueller? Bueller?
Vexillology is the study of flags! HOW COOL?! According to Wiki, it is encompasses “the creation and development of a body of knowledge about flags of all types, their forms and functions, and of scientific theories and principles based on that knowledge.”
I’ve always held a bit of an interest in flags and flag designs. Back in high school in our mandatory speech class I did my informative speech on the major flag color families. Color families, as you may have guessed, are groups of flags that are similar both in colors and (generally) geographic location. Color amilies include the Pan-African colors, the Pan-Arab colors, and the flags including the Nordic Cross.
Does flag design sound interesting to you? Check out this link. It’s like if Emily Post were vexillologist.
DONE!
ALL BIRDS ALL THE TIME
I just discovered the meme in which people (poorly) Photoshop human arms onto birds. The more you know.
Examples:
(This is the greatest picture ever, in my opinion)
Sites/pages dedicated to this:
http://www.iywib.com/birds_with_arms.php
http://4chanarchive.org/brchive/dspl_thread.php5?thread_id=305700903&x=Birds+With+Arms
http://birdswitharms.tumblr.com/
Oh, internet. Where would we be without you?
Dear NaNoWriMo 2011:
HAHA, despite all the crap 2011 is throwing me, I shall still conquer you!
I’m at about 17,000 words now after being stuck with about 700 or so most of the month. Synopsis + excerpt to come soon, possibly.
Possibly.
And now, fun links from across Teh Intarwebs:
- List of all the quizzes on Blogthings.
- Awesome list of lectures.
- My favorite place to browse for recipes.
- Nerdy Day Trips.
- Playing with powder.
Vroom!
In This Blog: Stuff from Facebook ‘Cause I’ve Got Nothing Else Today
I am passionate, calculating, witty, and nine.
30-Day Meme – Day 24: Reveal your most guilty pleasure.
Friday nights. Isolation, Red Bull, random movie, lots of internet, M&Ms, and sometimes fries. I very much look forward to my Friday nights.
Oh internet…
Where would we be without you?
Frivolity, thy name is YouTube.
Sorry these have been kinda crappy lately; not much going on until classes start.
Also, happy birthday, Matt!
Tonight, I bring you…THE INTERNET!
One of the worst songs to have stuck in your head when you’re trying to figure out the reasons behind the graph I showed you yesterday.
The Sun Run! I was totally there…somewhere, haha.
Did anyone else ever watch this cartoon when they were kids? My dad recorded the episodes onto blank tapes so I could watch them over and
over again.
This is pretty much everything that’s wrong with Facebook. Well, not everything, but a big portion of it.
Woosh!
CH-CH-CH-CHANGES
Today was fiiiiine.
Kinda stressed, but more excited. Details at 11.
Such states of optimum balance between bliss and the desire to actually work on my research are rare; I will leave you with some internet debris to chew on instead.
Eigenblogger 