Planarity is a VERY addictive game!

Find the landmark is less so, but equally as fun. Can anyone play this without  using hinting?

- Mike D

I posted this to http://www.thingsguyslike.com/?q=node/20

So, in order to add some more content to ThingsGuysLike.com, I have added a news aggregator. It can be reached by the navigation menu to the left or by This Link. You can also view by Category or Source if you would like.

If anyone has any other feeds they would like to see, just send me a message!
- Mike D

Who coined the phrase “the mother load” and what did it reference?

Well, call me a geek, but I think it is interesting!

- Mike D

Caution!! Heavy thinking ahead!!

So, I was thinking about the limit to human visualization, and I remember that I read somewhere that the human mind, on average, can only visualize around 100 real world objects at a time.  We can think of what 100 basketballs may look like, and how much space they take up, without really calculating it by counting and measuring.  However, although we might believe we can visualize anything above that, it cannot truly be simply visualized.

Well, I wanted to know the number, whether it was 100, or 50 or whatever, and I stumbled across the Google Answers Page where the question was asked:

Someone -- a philosopher or mathematician, probably, but I don't know if modern or ancient -- asserted that the human brain is incapable of really grasping the concept of any quantity greater than one hundred. That is, humans can't grasp numbers bigger than 100. I have forgotten who it was who said this. Who was it?

There apparently was no answer, but the following post was entertaining and informative:

This is not precisely what you are asking for, since the number one hundred is not mentioned, but I found a lecture by James Willis which contains an interesting discussion of the human mind's difficulty in comprehending large numbers.

The entire lecture may be found here:

http://www.sparks.co.uk/progress/fulton.html

An excerpt:

"In his novel Watership Down, Richard Adams created a picture of what the world might seem like to a colony of rabbits.

Apart from the necessary artistic licence of allowing the rabbits to speak, he adhered faithfully to what is known, and what can be guessed, about the way rabbits think. In doing so he created a book which can be read in a number of different ways. It is an exciting adventure. It is an excellent Natural History text and it is a celebration of the beauty of the North Hampshire countryside. But most of all, for me, it was a powerful insight into our own thinking. The point that I want to pick out from Watership Down is the idea, apparently supported by some experimental evidence, that rabbits are unable to count beyond the number four.

Rabbits can count up to four. Any number above four is Hrair - 'a lot' or 'a thousand'. There were probably more than five rabbits in the litter when Fiver was born, but his name, Hrairoo, means 'Little thousand', i.e. the little one of a lot or, as they say of pigs, 'the runt'.

-Richard Adams Watership Down

This is the thing which is so fascinating to imagine. When Hazel (the hero of the story) and his friends thought of a number between one and four, they had a clear idea what it represented, but any number larger than that merged into a vague concept called Hrair which meant something like "a lot". Now while we can only make educated guesses at the thought processes of rabbits, we can be certain from our own experience that there are limits to the size of numbers that we ourselves can understand. Thus, for every one of us there is a limit above which numbers mean little more than "a lot"; perhaps the number is "a thousand million"; perhaps it is much less.

Let's think about the way we understand numbers for a moment. Often, we compare a figure with something we can picture; sometimes we count on our fingers; sometimes we imagine patterns of dots. Perhaps we recall the memory of a school which we know contained 1,500 people, or of a football crowd of 30,000.

However good we are at doing this (and some are better than others) nature contains numbers large enough to defeat us all. To take a grand example, we are unable to begin to comprehend the numbers of stars in the universe. There is no problem about working out the figure; by a convenient chance (I suppose) there are about the same number of stars in an average sized galaxy as there are of galaxies in the universe. It also happens to be about the number of neurones in the human brain. It's rather an easy number to remember - one hundred thousand million (1011) of each. All you have to do to obtain the answer to the number of stars in the universe is to multiply the two together 1011 X 1011 = 1022 - Easy!

One with twenty two noughts - not exact of course - but roughly right. Now what kind of words shall we use to describe such a number - to enable us to understand it and to communicate that understanding? Is it a BIG number? Is it an ENORMOUSLY big number? ("Enormous" sounds as if it means "a bigger number than normal" and it is certainly that!).

Perhaps it would help if we used a calculator to work out an illustration. For example - as blood contains five million red cells per cubic millimetre I calculate that it would take a cube of blood 1.5 kilometres on a side - 2.25 cubic kilometres of blood - to contain as many red cells as there are stars in the universe. NOW do we understand?.

Well... actually... no we don't!

Another Adams, Douglas Adams, appreciated the fundamental problem here in his classic radio play , The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy:

"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen..." and so on.

The point that I am making is that, above a certain size of number, we are as vague in our understanding as are the rabbits in Watership Down. The difference is not in the nature of the mental processes involved but in the order of magnitude of numbers at which the transition occurs.

External appearances

With my pocket computer, of course, there is no such problem. It can store 500,000 characters in its internal memory (about ten lectures like this) and one million characters in each of its two memory cards (fifty of these lectures). I know that because I paid for that much and it says its capacity on the outside. I could have paid more, incidentally, and had two million characters internal memory and four million in each memory card - making nearly five hundred of these lectures.

These are big numbers and you could be forgiven for not guessing them from external appearances, or indeed by entering facts into the machine and then recalling them one at a time.

With human minds, of course, it is even more difficult. They don't have their capacity written on the outside, and there is no equivalent of pressing a few keys and getting the answer that this lecture contains 55,575 characters. So, even it they actually contained amounts of information which we could only call astronomical if we could count it up, we simply wouldn't have any way of knowing it. All we would get would be occasional glimpses. We might find ourselves, for example, saying in astonishment from time to time, "Good gracious, what a small world it is" even when we knew, in a very definite, physical sense that the opposite was true and it is actually an inconceivably big world."

Of course someone else mentions the following:

I wonder if this isn't a distorted recollection of a different statement, relating to the number 7 and human beings' ability to grasp that number, but not much more.  For more details, search for "magical number 7" in Google to find a paper by George Miller, a psycologist, published in 1956.

That paper is located here. It is very heavy but very interesting. And this brings me to the true point of this post.

I hate the number 7!

- Mike D

Anyone want a google styled logo? Try Logogle! I Thought for a second about creating a logo from this, but decided against it, don?t want google to get irritated and take back all of their services that I use :)

- Mike D

Try Avoider, an infuriating and quite addictive little flash game.  I’m still not sure how score is kept, and I apologize for the foreign language.

- Mike D

Are you kidding me?  From the auction:

DISPLAY THIS CASE OPEN IN YOUR OFFICE AND WATCH HOW MANY HOURS OF CONVERSATION IT WILL GENERATE.

Yeah, right before I get fired?  Freaking ridiculous!  Either way though, it is pretty funny.

- Mike D

Konfabulator is now free!  Post what your favorite widgets are!

- Mike D

Using The Baby Name Wizard, I just found out that in 2003 there were 120 parents arrogant enough to name their daughters ?Princess? edit: Java Required, sorry folks

- Mike D

Who doesn’t love The Matrix in ASCII?

- Mike D

Old time public service announcements.  I haven’t watched any yet, but they look pretty entertaining!

- Mike D

I am thinking I will pass on the Chia-couch.  Something just doesn't seem right about it.

- Mike D

Holey crap, I so want one of these Chainsaw motorcycles.  So manly, so macho!

- Mike D

Whew, this would be SWEET!

- Mike D

From the Bumwine Rankings page:

The great street wines are pretty much evenly priced, and range between $1.10 and $2.80, depending on the tax and transportation costs in your area. Of course, with all five, the first sip is always the foulest. You will feel a trail of flames all the way down your esophagus and into your stomach. ... Or, if you like to smell your hand after pumping gas, look no further than Thunderbird.

- Mike D

Thanks to the power of the internet, you can now buy Worthless Video Tape Necklaces.  From the ebay auction: Da CraZieSt BLinG BLinG You'LL EVa See!!!!!

- Mike D

So painful it is funny!

Worst Album Covers Ever

Worster Album Covers Ever II

Worstest Album Covers Ever III

- Mike D

Hmm, what would WWII as a RTS Game be like? … I like it!

- Mike D

Actually, I think the Mus Mouse would be pretty sweet if it had more than one button

- Mike D

It all starts at this fake Google page, which is in itself pretty funny, and then continues to The Complete Military History of France.

- Mike D

P.S. Any French out there? If so, that bicycle race rocks! Go Lance!

This week has been hard, I have been sick all week, work has been crazy (see the press release) and I have had a bunch of meetings related to projects I am doing.  So, I will see if I can put out a bunch of things today for all the peeps!

- Mike D

Maybe not the creepiest website ever™, but close! (Requires Flash)

- Mike D

The world?s first desktop cloaking device. Cool, but seriously, people?s jobs are to work, not to goof off (unless you have a SWEET job). If you are using this at the office, be prepared to be fired.

- Mike D

I saw something similar years ago that was like 10 times longer and funnier.  Anyways, if anyone has that link, send it to me.  Otherwise, just read How to fail an exam.

- Mike D

From the Transformers Communication Page:

The live-action “Transformers” movie has been set to open nationwide on 07-04-07, it was jointly announced today by DreamWorks Pictures, Hasbro, and Paramount.

So who is going with me?!?!?  There is also info at Yahoo News

- Mike D

Jon wrote me:

Hey hey, Jon here. I found something that you may want to put up on your site. Laughed my ass off the first time I saw it. Not sure if it's for real yet, haven't had time to read through the whole thing. Anyways, here ya go.

www.neuticles.com

He is right, it is pretty funny :)

- Mike D

If you have never read Toothpaste for Dinner Before, then this slideshow is a great intro to it that should get you chuckling.

- Mike D

Well, the Germans have done it! They have finally infused nicotine into their beer. I am skeptical, however, of the conclusion that having the equivalent of a few filtered cigarettes in your beer will safely help you quit smoking. Wouldn?t it just make you more likely to drink?

- Mike D

Update: I was just informed of what Budwiser is doing, thats just what we need, high-energy drunks!

I so want a Mech!  We can definitely say it: Best Ebay EVER™

- Mike D

P.S. I have a Mirror of this, so email me if it goes down.

My favorite change? Dazzlegloves!

- Mike D

Can you resist clicking? I did, it is only a little hard though.

- Mike D

From this article:

Gerald McBoing Boing won the Academy Award as best animated short subject for 1950.   The competition was an MGM Tom & Jerry cartoon Jerry's Cousin, and another UPA entry Trouble Idemnity with Mr. Magoo.   It was a major triumph for UPA--formal recognition of their groundbreaking efforts.

This film--one of the finest ever made--had an impact that was both immeadiate and long-lasting.   The concept came from Dr. Suess, who as Theodore Geisel, had worked with some of the UPA staff on army films during WWII.

Anyways, kinda cool!

- Mike D

This stuff is a little weird (think Strong Bad’s face), but personally, I like the Iron-on Patch that says “Diablo”

- Mike D

Sorta cool, these unicycles are self-balancing.  I won’t be building the First Unicycle ($1,500 to build), and the Second Unicycle is in german.  Still, kinda cool to see what they made.

- Mike D

AKA: Review of the Cat.

Note: While I found this only mildly funny, the fact that the kitten was compared in a chart to a puppy, a baby, and a video card warranted posting on the site

- Mike D

There is a saying that sarcastically goes “If it is in *Blank*, It must be true!”, which of course I generally agree with when pertaining to websites. (see: Missing child found! ... Wait a sec ...)  You see, most websites are truly trash and/or opinion, and you just can’t believe most of what they say without a bit of research.  However, I have found a website that speaks the truth, and what they say is this:  Tom Cruise is Nuts.

And no one can deny that fact!

- Mike D

This has to be the coolest funeral viewing Ever?. Unfortunately, he is having a normal burial.

- Mike D

P.S. On a related note, I have decided to show a ?Trademark? (not a real trademark though) symbol next to every time I uses the words Ever?. It seems I use that superlative denoting phrase so often, and it only makes sense that I should make fun of myself every time I use it.

... with Napoleon Dynamite! (flash animation)

- Mike D

How did you score on the Stick Man Movie Quiz?

- Mike D

As far as I can tell, this saves the state it is in, so other people will see what you put on the fridge.

- Mike D

Invisible Breed Products: Turn your Doberman into a Poodle

- Mike D

The ULTIMATE David Hasselhoff Calendar!  It is a bestseller in Germany!

- Mike D

This has to be the coolest iPod Ever! It is a shame I am too chicken to mod my iPod. :(

- Mike D

Just kinda strange comics. Not as impressive as the catfish :(

- Mike D

World’s largest Catfish. Very Impressive.

- Mike D

I still can’t believe this mom sold her forehead for tattoo advertisement.  Just ridiculous.

- Mike D

What a great parking job!  This must have totally ruined some people’s weekend.

- Mike D