Saturday, July 26, 2008
If the embedded video doesn't load, here's a link.
This Girl Had Too Much to Drink
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
I went to a co-worker's birthday get-together at the Brew House and saw this girl blacked out passed out on the table. She barely even touched that drink!
On Humor: Dissection and Destruction
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
"Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process and the innards are discouraging to any but the pure scientific mind." -- E.B. White
I think one of the funniest things I ever saw was a book on my former employer Harley Hahn's shelf titled "On Humor". It was brown, coverless, withered, and stale.In a way, it's fitting: trying to figure out humor is such a depressing topic; I usually just keep it to myself, but, it's on my mind, so it's on my blog :)
What are your opinions or theories on what makes something funny? Why do we sense funniness? What's the purpose? Do only humans understand jokes? If so, could humor just be some useless biological quirk like hiccups? -- a reaction developed by drinking carbonated consciousness too quickly?It just seems strange that of all things to which we would evolve an uncontrollable physical response, the recognition of situational irony would be among them.
Here's a list of observations that were useful to me in coming up with a theory:
- Explaining a joke ruins it
- Some things are only funny because they weren't intended to be
- Irony or juxtaposition can be tragic and humorless. What is the secret ingredient?
- "It's funny cuz it's true"
- A funny situation that happened to your roommate's boss's nephew is not as funny as the situation that happened to you
- Delivery is as much, or more, important than content
- Hearing a joke from someone you don't think has a good sense of humor makes you less likely to think it's funny.
- We don't laugh much by ourselves.
- "You had to be there"
- We laugh at misfortune sometimes, sympathetic to it at others
And just for old tyme yucks, here's the oldest joke in the world (literally).
How to write for the web: an eye-tracking study
Monday, July 21, 2008
An eye-tracking study of web users has suggested some principles of good web writing:
- Put the conclusion of your article in the first paragraph
- Use bulleted lists
- Make the first words of each paragraph direct and descriptive
- Cut down on words.
These conclusions were made by tracking the eye movement of readers as they look at Web sites. As seen below, users read sites in an "F" pattern:
In general, we read the first and seconds sections somewhat fully, and skim the first words of everything else along the "stem" of the F. Therefore:
- Put the most important information in the first 2 paragraphs
- Put each new idea in its own paragraph
- Be direct with the first words of each paragraph
- Reduce word count
Coming soon: the art of writing e-mails.
"Our long nightmare of peace and prosperity is over"
Thursday, July 17, 2008
The Onion has a pretty good history of predicting the future.
Their prediction of Bush's legacy is of course spot-on.
Little Red Knife, Episode 1
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
I re-discovered this old web comic I started making with MSPaint long ago. The premise: MacGuyver has been incarcerated for an unknown, heinous crime and escapes maximum security prison. The warden takes the law into his own hands and follows MacGuyver on an epic trail of psychological warfare, and tool-improvisation. See the darkness that truly lies behind that mullet of his.
Click below to see episode 1.
(By the way, frame 3 is a shattered mug of coffee. So sue me.).jpg)