http://itotd.com/articles/530/sleep-debt/

Interesting. I think i’m probably accumulating my fair share of hours a week.

http://xkcd.com/313/

Moments after posting about The Magician’s Book, I checked what was new on my favorite webcomic, xkcd, and found this.  The title is “Prudence.”

Today’s xkcd… kind of makes my childhood memories itch. Also, a useful reminder of what I was reading at age 8. (When I’m book reviewing, I tend to overestimate how “young” tween readers are.)

Not much you can say about this, except nod sadly and acknowledge that techy things aren’t as much fun as they once were …

Kevin

When a guy goes into the bathroom, which urinal does he pick?  Most guys are familiar with the International Choice of Urinal Protocol.  It’s discussed at length elsewhere, but the basic premise is that the first guy picks an end urinal, and every subsequent guy chooses the urinal which puts him furthest from anyone else peeing.  At least one buffer urinal is required between any two guys or Awkwardness ensues.

Let’s take a look at the efficiency of this protocol at slotting everyone into acceptable urinals.  For some numbers of urinals, this protocol leads to efficient placement.  If there are five urinals, they fill up like this:

The first two guys take the end and the third guy takes the middle one.  At this point, the urinals are jammed — no further guys can pee without Awkwardness.  But it’s pretty efficient; over 50% of the urinals are used.

On the other hand, if there are seven urinals, they don’t fill up so efficiently:

There should be room for four guys to pee without Awkwardness, but because the third guy followed the protocol and chose the middle urinal, there are no options left for the fourth guy (he presumably pees in a stall or the sink).

For eight urinals, the protocol works better:

So a row of eight urinals has a better packing efficiency than a row of seven, and a row of five is better than either.

This leads us to a question: what is the general formula for the number of guys who will fill in N urinals if they all come in one at a time and follow the urinal protocol? One could write a simple recursive program to solve it, placing one guy at a time, but there’s also a closed-form expression.  If f(n) is the number of guys who can use n urinals, f(n) for n>2 is given by:

The protocol is vulnerable to producing inefficient results for some urinal counts.  Some numbers of urinals encourage efficient packing, and others encourage sparse packing.  If you graph the packing efficiency (f(n)/n), you get this:

This means that some large numbers of urinals will pack efficiently (50%) and some inefficiently (33%).  The ‘best’ number of urinals, corresponding to the peaks of the graph, are of the form:

The worst, on the other hand, are given by:

So, if you want people to pack efficiently into your urinals, there should be 3, 5, 9, 17, or 33 of them, and if you want to take advantage of the protocol to maximize awkwardness, there should be 4, 7, 13, or 25 of them.

These calculations suggest a few other hacks.  Guys: if you enter a bathroom with an awkward number of vacant urinals in a row, rather than taking one of the end ones, you can take one a third of the way down the line.  This will break the awkward row into two optimal rows, turning a worst-case scenario into a best-case one. On the other hand, say you want to create awkwardness.  If the bathroom has an unawkward number of urinals, you can pick one a third of the way in, transforming an optimal row into two awkward rows.

And, of course, if you want to make things really awkward, I suggest printing out this article and trying to explain it to the guy peeing next to you.

Discussion question: This is obviously a male-specific issue.  Can you think of any female-specific experiences that could benefit from some mathematical analysis, experiences which — being a dude — I might be unfamiliar with?  Alignments of periods with sequences of holidays? The patterns to those playground clapping rhymes? Whatever it is that goes on at slumber parties? Post your suggestions in the comments!

Edit: The protocol may not be international, but I’m calling it that anyway for acronym reasons.

ACK: This was originally published in XKCD http://blag.xkcd.com/2009/09/02/urinal-protocol-vulnerability/

click to enlarge!

please allow me to unleash the nerd in me

More later

Well, with 2009 approaching the ol’ finish line, you’ll start seeing lots of year-end wrap-up lists and things. And since it’s the end of the Double-0 Decade, you’ll be seeing lots of decade recap lists as well. (Some early spoilers: Pitchfork has crowned Radiohead’s Kid A the best album of the Double-0s, while the NME favors Is This It by the Strokes.)

But you won’t find that here, and not now. No, here you will find a year-end recap that dares to be somewhat different. This is the first-ever Listen Up! Year-End Awards ceremony – or you can just name them the Harleys after the adorable little trophy I’m giving out to the winners.

Let's see the Academy beat THIS one.

The fun begins after the jump!

All right, let’s get this show on the road! Bring on the first award!

Most Ridiculous Album Art of the Year

First, let’s have a look at the runner-ups…

Brooke Hogan, The Redemption

Um, wow. This looks like the kind of thing that some Dungeons & Dragons nerd might have airbrushed on the hood of his car back in 1987. I don’t even think people do that anymore. Also, that album title… don’t you have to screw up a successful singing career before you can make a comeback album called The Redemption? Quick, name the last time you heard a Brooke Hogan song. And VH1 doesn’t count.

Adam Lambert, For Your Entertainment

If Aladdin Sane went to the neighborhood mall, got some Glamour Shots photos taken, and then scanned the most ridiculous pose into his computer so he could Photoshop it poorly and add ugly ‘80s hair-metal logo fonts… well, the result still wouldn’t look as stupid as this album cover.

I must give this guy props for letting FYE sponsor his album title, though. If I ever get a record deal, I’m changing my name to Sam Goody and recording an album of techno-pop called Circuit City. The critics will call it a “best buy” even though it will basically sound like a cheesy ripoff of MGMT. Or Weezer’s “Can’t Stop Partying.” You decide.

Chris Brown, Graffiti

What’s the worst crime he commits with this thing? Carrying a guitar even though I’m pretty sure he doesn’t play? Borrowing Adam Lambert’s cheesy-looking font? The pseudo-outer-space scene in the background? The robot hand holding a spray can? No… it’s those ridiculous cartoon characters in the corner that earn this one its WTF status.

And the Harley goes to…

Shwayze, Let It Beat

What the hell is going on here? It looks like they tried to spoof the famous shot of the Statue of Liberty at the end of Planet Of The Apes. Only here, the statue’s been decapitated and dismembered. And she’s wearing a bikini. And she has speakers where her boobs are supposed to be. And her iPod is plugged into her belly button. And she’s apparently visiting the set of Miami Vice.

Most Awesomely Ridiculous Album Art of the Year

And the Harley goes to…

Weezer, Raditude

Just look at it. I mean, what else could you expect for an album that got its title from the guy who plays Dwight on The Office and called Ellen Page “homeskillet” in Juno?

Funniest Song of the Year

And the Harley goes to…

Theory Of A Deadman, “Hate My Life”

I still can’t figure out what to make of this song. On one hand, these lyrics are hilarious: “I hate that I can’t tell/When a girl’s underage/You know, I tell her she’s a nice piece of ass,/Then her daddy punches me in the face.” On the other hand, the singer sounds so sincere that it’s like he really wanted people to relate to this.

If it’s meant to be funny, then it’s a clever parody of angst-ridden post-grunge radio rock – you know, like Theory Of A Deadman’s other songs. If it’s not meant to be funny… well, that just makes it funnier, doesn’t it? And the acoustic version of this song, believe it or not, is even funnier. Unintentionally funny things are always funnier than things that are supposed to be funny. That’s why The Number 23 is the funniest movie Jim Carrey’s made this entire decade. Even with some strong competition from Weird Al, there was no way this wasn’t going to Theory Of A Deadman.

Plus, is it just me, or does the lead singer kind of sound like the guy who sings the songs in Team America?

Biggest Pop Star of the Year That I’ve Still Never Heard Of

And the Harley goes to…

Justin Bieber

I don’t have a clue who this guy is. I don’t know where he came from, and I have no idea whether or not he’s connected to the Disney Channel (the most likely cause for such a meteoric rise to fame). All I know is that he’s suddenly everywhere, I am clueless as to why, and I don’t really care either.

Most Inexplicable Attempt At A Singing Career

And the Harley goes to…

Heidi Montag

Apparently this girl from The Hills has been trying to get a music career off the ground for a while now. So far it has been greeted with the same enthusiasm people reserve for trees falling in the forest that they aren’t around to hear. But bless her heart, she keeps on trucking.

And hey, if this singing thing doesn’t work out, she could always pose for Play… oh, wait. She did that already. Never mind.

Runner-Up: That woman from Real Housewives who sang “Tardy For The Party”

Most Shocking Musical Controversy of the Year

And the Harley goes to…

Britney Spears vs. Australia

What do you mean Britney Spears doesn’t sing live? I for one am absolutely appalled that she lip-syncs! We made Ashlee Simpson a freaking pariah for pulling the same stunt on Saturday Night Live; now people wouldn’t buy her albums if you gave them away for free! You mean to tell me people will actually pay their hard-earned money to watch a singer who pretends to sing?

“If you’re shocked that Britney was lip-syncing at her concert and want your money back, life may continue to be hard for you.”

– John Mayer

For me, the controversy is not about Britney lip-syncing. Much like Mr. Mayer, I’m shocked that people are still shocked about this. Have the Aussies not been paying attention for the last ten years? Come on, Australia. Britney’s been lip-syncing since day one. I don’t even think that’s her real speaking voice. There’s probably someone sitting outside in an RV talking into a headset microphone or something.

Best Supergroup of the Year

And the Harley goes to…

Them Crooked Vultures

And in a stunning upset, Them Crooked Vultures takes home the Harley over… well, how many supergroups actually came out this year? There was Chickenfoot, Monsters Of Folk, and… uh…

I’m only half-kidding about this. Maybe I’m kind of biased since this band features Josh Homme (Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age) on guitar and vocals, Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters, lots of other bands) on drums, and John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin) on bass. It’s kind of hard to go wrong with a lineup like that. If you like classic rock like Zeppelin or Cream, or if QOTSA’s Songs For The Deaf ranks among your favorite albums, or if you play an instrument, or if you like rock music in general, you’ll probably like this band.

Runner-Up: Monsters Of Folk

Most Baffling Music Video Trend of the Year

And the Harley goes to…

NSFW VIDEOS

I’ve never been a fan of censorship, really. That’s why if I ever come up with an idea for a TV show, I’d want it to be on HBO – because they let you do pretty much anything you want. Yet for some reason, this recent trend of NSFW music videos has taken me by surprise. Truly, Rule 34 of the Internet (“If it exists, there is porn of it – no exceptions”) continues to reign supreme.

Would you like to watch Rammstein porn (“Pussy”)? Do you think it would be funny to pretend another person’s penis is a microphone (Girls, “Lust For Life”)? Have you ever wanted to see Wayne Coyne naked (the Flaming Lips, “Watching The Planets”)? Well, guess what? All of these videos have been made just for you. But be warned – what has been seen… cannot be unseen.

Runner-Up: Everything Lady Gaga has ever worn. EVER.

Best Non-Existent Album of the Year

And the Harley goes to…

Radiohead, Wall Of Ice

It must have been interesting to be a member of Radiohead in the days leading up to August 17, 2009. Someone had recently leaked a new song called “These Are My Twisted Words” and the Internet was suddenly all abuzz about a mysterious new EP called Wall Of Ice. This despite the fact that nobody in the band had ever said anything about the leak, the new song, or anything they were planning for August 17. No blog posts on Dead Air Space, no news updates on At Ease Web, no interviews, no press releases, no nothing.

Yet all of a sudden everyone was convinced that Wall Of Ice was coming. After all, this was the band who released In Rainbows pretty much out of nowhere nearly two years earlier. Were they about to pull the same trick again?

Well, no. As it turns out, the Wall Of Ice EP existed only in Internet rumors. And the mysterious event set for August 17? The official release of “These Are My Twisted Words.” Somehow, without even doing anything at all, Radiohead had managed to pull off perhaps the biggest hoax since Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds broadcast. But if “These Are My Twisted Words” is any indication, Wall Of Ice would have been pretty kickass. And Pitchfork would have given it at least an 8.5 out of 10.

One last Harley award to give out, and then we can all go home! Now, this one may be the last, but it’s certainly not the least. And anyone who’s paid attention to any award shows over the past few years will agree that this is a pretty big award.

The Kanye West Award, for excellence in the field of being Kanye West

And the Harley goes to…

Kanye West

Well, duh. At least now he won’t be throwing any fits backstage (or onstage) about how he should have won something.

Cleverbot is a chatbot program, that simulates a conversation between a user and the computer. Remember the unsophisticated ELIZA, who roboticly parroted back your own thoughts? Well, Cleverbot has been designed using an algorithm based on the thoughts of thousands of users, to respond in a more “human” way.

This article begins a fascinating philosophical discussion about the artificially intelligent being, by explaining the thought experiment known as the “Chinese Room“and the difference between understanding and simulated understanding.

I played with the program for a little while earlier today, and was somewhat impressed at its ability to respond, however it could only handle one thought at a time. There was no cohesion from one thought to the next. For example, I had the following conversation:
Me: have we talked yet?
Bot: We have, have we?
Me: I think we have
Bot: You think we have what?

Check it out – it’s kind of fun. But watch out, don’t let this happen to you:

(source: xkcd.com)

(via Nerdabout)

Webcomics are a wonderful thing.

I’m sure many many people agree with me, but I have my own personal story to share first.

I started reading webcomics around 2001 or 2002. One of the first webcomics I read was Blue Zombie and I started talking to its creators, especially the artist. He and I remained friends throughout the years, even collaborating on a short-lived webcomic named Silent Journey, and helping me publish my own pathetic attempts at webcomics before I realized I much preferred writing them. In 2008, he moved to Los Angeles and started a new webcomic called Lumia’s Kingdom. We started hanging out and, eventually, dating. Now we’ve been together 10 months and I never tire of telling people about how we met through webcomics. (I would swear that I’m not just trying to plug his work here, but I AM his biggest fan.)

Comics in general have been bringing people together for a very long time, when you think about it. Political cartoons have given the people a wide-spread way to voice their opinions on political and social issues. Back in the early days of yellow journalism, Little Nemo and The Katzenjammer Kids were such reader favorites that people still only read the paper for the funnies section. During the Golden Age of Comics (late 1930s to late 1940s,) comic books became a mainstream medium that started the culture of comic books that had kids and geeks obsessed over superheroes of all sorts.

Now, comic books have become cool again and entered the digital age. Webcomics are becoming an industry, one which even my boyfriend is beginning to look into in order to make money. Now, not only do my friends and I talk about our favorite comics, but our favorite webcomics and how much time we “waste” reading them. Webcomics are accesible, entertaining and able to bring people together.

The creators of webcomics use a wide variety of tools to bring in readers and help keep their current readers close to them. A large number of webcomic artists, at least the ones I read, use Twitter or have a blog I can follow. Only a few of them are at the level where they can support themselves with the webcomic’s income alone, but clearly they are able to do it.

Multiplex, a webcomic I’m currently following, recently started a donation drive to cover the printing costs of a book edition. Gordon McAlpin, the creator, navigated the process gracefully by offering some very nice incentives in order to get people to donate. When the project started, he was a little wary that it wouldn’t make his goal in time, but now he’s almost $3,000 over the original goal with 23 days to go. And get this: so far less than 250 people have donated over $10,000.

There are a number of other webcomics that do similar things, although most just have stores hawking t-shirts or advertisements on the site. Girls With Slingshots creator Danielle Corsetto used Twitter to get help from her readers and friends on design decisions for her new book releases. (She’s already onto publishing books 3 and 4 of her webcomic, so she already knows her readers will buy her books, unlike McAlpin.)

More importantly, it’s just fun to see what the artists are doing via Twitter and being there when they post the next day’s webcomic up. It makes them accessible in a way I would have never thought possible when I was 14 and just starting my obsession with comic books in general. Now, it’s like second nature to find and follow my favorite webcomic creators on Twitter. It gets me, the reader, much closer to the comic without the creators making much more content.

Webcomic Overlook’s Top Ten Webcomics of the Decade -A great place to get started reading some great webcomics that I haven’t mentioned here.

xkcd – A witty comics for intelligent nerds, which has a nice L.A. Times blog story written about its first book’s success.

XkCd, forse non tutti lo conoscono e lo seguono, questa vignetta non l’ho capita subito ma poi mi ha colpito.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while (I hope there’s at least one of you, for pete’s sake) you probably appreciate tech humour, or general geekiness.

You’ll also know that my claim to fame statement is that it’s hard to find a source of comedy that is reliably funny.

xkcd , pronounced letter by letter, the way it’s spelt, is proving me wrong, one step at a time.

Written by Randall Munroe, former NASA employee and CNU graduate, xkcd is a “webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.” Former employee in the sense that he was so successful he was able to quit (I believe).

xkcd updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, without fail, and has been going for a long time now. Randall has created many internationally successful comics, and more which will just make you laugh out loud. If there’s one man who’s clever, it’s him.

There’s also a store where you can buy nifty merchandise, including (but certainly not limited to) an awesome tie.

In any case, it’s worth hours of fun.l I heavily recommend reading through them all, from the beginning.

xkcd

As we rethink the spelling of our mantras, we might tip our tiaras to Queen Elizabeth I– aka The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, and Good Queen Bess– the fifth and final ruler in the Tudor dynasty, who on this date in 1558 succeeded her half-sister Mary to the English throne, and began the long reign we know as the Elizabethan Era.

Elizabeth I

An old coworker was kind enough to pass along this excellent organ donation comic. Sometimes there is a simple way to explain the important aspects of life.

-Scott

Comic courtesy of XKCD

Golden! This here, son, is one of the best xkcd comics that we have ever seen! Rejoice in its splendor and spread the wealth with all of your friends. As always, all credit goes to the Anti-Raptor genius over at xkcd.com .