Big Pickles

Yesterday we were talking about how we needed to upgrade our stereo system, and Melissa mentioned the Bose store we saw at the mall.

I told her that Bose sucks.

She was incredulous, so I offered to post a few links. It's a lot to read, but by the time you're done you will be amazed at the sheer power of marketing.

What about Bose? (short)

Why Bose Sucks Review Resources (long)

Stuff like this always makes me wonder what else I'm assuming is good or true, not because I've examined it, but because some rich, powerful company or organization has spent a lot of money honing my perceptions.

Labels: audio, debunkification

It's a sport where you throw a ball at someone's face.

It strikes me as an office-friendly version of Crotchball.

I've seen the flickr group before, but I didn't know they had such a slick website. Be sure to watch the instructional video.

Labels: fun, sports

I've heard of people who stop by Ikea every morning for breakfast, and others who choose to simply hang out there on the weekends, but now you can elect to stay overnight if you just can't bring yourself to leave.

Labels: shopping

Some guy went to Dell's website and priced a PC with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed.

Notice the price.

(Don't get the joke? Explanation.)

Labels: incredibly geeky humor

There's an article about Junie B. Jones books in the New York Times. Apparently, some parents object to Junie's grammar, afraid their kids are going to start talking like her if they read too many of these books.

I don't buy it. The arguments I thought of as I read the first few paragraphs show up on the second page: Mark Twain and Shakespeare. I think exposure to non-standard English, in either direction, can only be educational.

Labels: books, language

The boys at Car Talk recommend adjusting your mirrors to eliminate your blind spots while driving.

They say it takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, it's awesome.

Labels: driving

These lists pop up all over the place from time to time.

I thought the first three were pretty good.

Labels: lists

In 1947 Life Magazine asked some cartoon artists to draw their characters while blindfolded. The results are pretty cool.

Labels: art, fun

So the Asian kids are using their piano skills to play the guitar. They just crank up the volume and play one-handed hammer-ons (to use a term I recently learned from Guitar Hero).

And hey, since you only need one hand, that frees up your other hand to play ANOTHER GUITAR!

Labels: crazy guitar skills, music, simpsons

You enter your address at this site, and it tells you how walkable your house is.

Except, there's been so much traffic at the site I haven't been able to try it yet. The way it's supposed to work, as far as I can gather, is it counts up the number of businesses, schools, and other services within walking distance (1 mile) of your house.

I have to imagine that my address has a pretty good walking score. I think we have every kind of business imaginable within a mile of our house, plus two schools and two nice parks. Maybe we should start walking more.

UPDATE:

So I finally get in and find out that my house has a walk score of 35: Unwalkable. That's bogus, man. Actually, it didn't see a lot of the businesses in my area, so I might have had a better score had I been able to update the information.

Labels: maps, walking

This is what happens when you drop a gummy bear into molten potassium chlorate.

Labels: chemistry

This pic should remind you of a scene from Wayne's World. "Denied!"

It's funny because it's true. When everyone who walks into the store plays the same song, it can really get on your nerves.

My friend Lars and I somehow got roped in to working a Freshman Orientation booth at BYU in Fall 1995. It was some kind of travel theme, all of the incoming freshman had passports that they were supposed to get stamped at each station. Ours was karaoke, and after listening to kids sing the same blasted song for about the tenth time, we posted our own sign:

"No stamps will be awarded for "Love Shack."

Labels: music

According to this research, female tennis players' performance tends to deteriorate in critical situations, while men do not tend to play any differently as the stakes rise.

Then they go on to question whether this has anything to do with the gender-wage gap in the labor force, which is an interesting question.

Labels: gender roles, tennis

In this game, you try to break as many plates as possible with an invisible cursor.

Sounds weird, but it's pretty wild. 40 is my best so far.

Labels: fun, games

This guy, Eric Young, teaches a film class at Dixie State. Every year he has his students write a secret on a 3x5 card, resulting in something like PostSecret, but from a single demographic: college-age Mormons.

He has about 800 cards, and posted this sample on his blog.

Labels: secrets

Charles Darwin said it first: "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." But Dunning and Kruger designed some experiments around the idea and quantified the Dunning-Kruger effect, which states that incompetent people tend to overestimate their level of skill, and that you actually have to have some degree of skill before you can begin to perceive your lack of it.

It might well be called the Dilbert effect, as much as Scott Adams talks about it. (Not to be confused with the Dilbert Principle, which states that companies intentionally promote incompetent people into management to limit the amount of damage they're capable of.) The one problem with the world, he claims, is that most of us are dumb about most things. Because of that, not only do we fail to recognize our own ignorance--and therefore inflate the importance of our own opinions--but we also fail to recognize the genuine skill and knowledge of those who aren't dumb about those particular things, and therefore we wind up discounting their opinions because they are usually different from our own.

Labels: dilbert, wikipedia

Perhaps you've heard that the Vatican has released its "Drivers' Ten Commandments," part of a 32-page document that addresses everything from road rage to "tramps" and "street children." It's all in the Document of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People: "Guidelines for the Pastoral Care of the Road."

Not to be outdone, the guys at Car Talk put out their own list of commandments (I count 17). Besides the obligatory "Thou shalt not drive like my brother," my favorite is "Thou shall keepeth thy 17-year-old son bound to the slowest and ugliest 1979 Volvo which hath presenteth itself on the list of craig."

Labels: driving

This may be the first picture of Harrison Ford on the set of the new Indiana Jones movie.

I don't know, guys, he looks kind of old. But I'm sure the movie will be awesome.

Labels: indiana jones

Another simple flash puzzle game, mostly I like this one for the music.

Labels: fun, games

What not do to if you get a strike.

Labels: bowling