Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Game Boy

We enjoyed visiting relatives this weekend to celebrate a child's tenth birthday. These relatives live far enough away that our visits are a big event for all of us.

This ten-year-old is computer aware, Internet enabled and shows the unmistakable signs of buyer sophistication that comes with access to the world of digitized information. He knows the prices and specifications of every new LEGO offering, along with every coupon, rebate, and money-saving package deal applying to the few LEGO models he doesn't have.

When he receives a present, he knows exactly how much effort went into finding and purchasing it. As a result, he was duly appreciative of his gift from us because we had done our research well and found him the LEGO Viking ship which was not available anywhere in his local area.

It is only a matter of time before he starts dealing on EBay, trading some of his vast collection of older game cartridges and LEGO systems in order to purchase new games and LEGO models as they become available.

Like many youthful game players, he plays games of bewildering complexity that require incredibly fast reaction times. I watch him sit for hours, eyes intent on the screen, with fingers blurring as he controls the destiny of characters acting out violent dramas in one alternate reality after another.

He has memorized the combination of weaponry, charms and playing tips which will let him make his way through many levels of difficult video games. He will go on-line to seek out "cheats" and secret keys to make his way through those game levels which are not solvable by logic alone.

He may take weeks to solve certain difficult games and will be working on several of them during the same time period along with a continuous construction of complex LEGO figures.

I watch him fit this in with school and life in the real world and realize that he is actually in training for a career as a project manager, if not a game designer!

His creative activity is being enhanced by access to a vast world of related information. There is no telling what will happen when he discovers blogging. He will probably discover a universe of game bloggers or LEGO experts like himself.

The possibilities are endless. He is already interested in game design and mentioned reading about a college that offers courses in game design.

As I write this, he is playing Star Wars Battlefront II and is explaining the appeal and problems of this particular release to me as he plays. For example, your weapons can overheat, you can play on any team, and they have tons of new vehicles...

What in the world??

This quiz purports to analyze your blogging style and produces an illustrated summary of what it finds. According to this, I am a Pundit Blogger!

What a pleasant surprise! I have a birthday, fire my boss and get a favorable review from an internet quiz.

What's next? My favored candidate wins the election? I hope so.

You Are a Pundit Blogger!

Your blog is smart, insightful, and always a quality read. Truly appreciated by many, surpassed by only a few.

What kind of blogger are you?

I found this treasure at LeeAnn's The Cheese Stands Alone.

I would be interested to hear what my readers discover about their blogging styles.

WordCount™ - artistic presentation of information

Here is is a challenge for you literate bloggers. How long will it take you to come up with a word that is not one of the 86,800 most frequently used words in the English language?

You can test your vocabulary using the elegantly designed interface to Wordcount™.

It took me about 7 tries before I found a word that the system did not have on file. Aferwards, I thought I might exceed the limits more quickly by entering slang terms or some of George Carlin's "Seven Dirty Words." Such is not the case, as they are among the most commonly used words in our language.

Using Wordcount could be addictive. The longer I played with it, the more insights I gained about our language and my vocabulary.

WordCount is an artistic experiment that presents the 86,800 most frequently used (British) English words, ranked in order of commonality. You can enter your choice of word or you can enter a ranking. Either choice will reveal new information about the language you use to communicate.

WordCount was designed and developed by Jonathan Harris of Number27, in conjunction with the FABRICA studio of Italy. It recently won AIGA's (American Institute of Graphic Arts) 2003 Award for Information Design. More about this creation.

I would be most interested in what you discover from using this application.

Just as I feared

Doctor Unheimlich has diagnosed me with Davidosis
Cause:	pollen
Symptoms:	indigestion, grunting, occasional facial hair
Cure:	bleach beach
Enter your name, for your own diagnosis:

Thanks to Rae for pointing me to this uncannily accurate, online, self-diagnosis system. Now that my illness is named, there is no more to complain about.

DISCLAIMER: Results may vary. Talk to your Mother if unsatisfied with your diagnosis, or change your name.

More blogfodder - Gender Genie

Those of you with inquiring minds and some spare time on your hands might want to submit a little of your work to the Gender Genie. This a program that analyzes text and attempts to identify the gender of the writer based on a scan of key words and syntax. The algorhythm seems to support the premise that men talk more about objects, and women more about relationships. Please note, I am recommending this as amusement only, see disclaimer below.

TouchGraph GoogleBrowser - rainy day amusement

I discovered the perfect blogging timekiller today, while following a circuitous path through a maze of weblogs. It will provide hours of entertainment and will acquaint you with sites you would never plan on visiting.

It has been described as, "A stunning online service that shows exactly where a Web site lives in Cyber Space relative to other Web sites!"

Unfortunately, it is only another gee-whiz technical feat that is more amusing than useful at this state of development.

The TouchGraph GoogleBrowser, is a Java powered graphical tool that "relates" your weblog site to other sites. It is a cute piece of coding, but the output was of little real value. Your results might be different.

Totally frivolous entertainment

Thanks to Tiger, I found a pop psych quiz that is harmless and entertaining. On the other hand, if you are the kind of person who reads a great deal of significance into test results, you should not even attempt to find out "What Classic Movie Are You?"

This entertaining test is offered for your amusement and may be unreliable. For example, I took the test and answered all questions honestly. This was my result.

What Classic Movie Are You?

As you can see, something just doesn't add up...Mmmm perhaps I'm hiding something from myself... How could that be...? As I said, this well-done test is for entertainment only...results are not guaranteed.

Take the test for yourself. Who knows, you might get lucky...

Testing Anyone?

The Commissar has designed a test of your Sociability Quotient as a blogger. You can add this to your collection of online processes for rating yourself as a blogger.

Introspection seems to be part and parcel of the blogging experience and tests, some humorous and some helpful, are a natural part of the continually expanding blogging experience. But, I think the self-rating process can go so far as to become counter productive.

For example, creating a web site with your Myers-Briggs test results displayed seems to be like attending a cocktail party with your name and vital statistics on a badge. It seems to me that your words and pictures tell people more about you than any self-evaluation results.

On the other hand, those sites that are part of the world's largest unmoderated internet group therapy session may be right on target in showing Myers-Briggs results in a prominent place. I can see the slogans now..."INTJs Unite! We have nothing to lose but our...."

I have promised the Commissar that I will work on a test that provides uniformly flattering results to all comers. This will be a challenge.

Stay tuned...