February 14, 2008
Silly Web Quiz Thursday - Superpower Edition
In honor of my book club reading Perry Moore's novel Hero (it's about a kid who discovers that he's gay and has superpowers, and his father -- a disgraced former superhero -- doesn't like either), here's today's Silly Web Quiz: What Should Your Superpower Be?
| Your Superpower Should Be Mind Reading |
 You are brilliant, insightful, and intuitive. |
So, what should your superpower be?
Posted by reparent at 7:52 AM | Comments (1)
November 21, 2007
Thankfulness Week - Day 3
For this hump-day edition of Thankfulness Week posts, I thought I'd send some love to a group of people who don't, traditionally, get a lot of humpy goodness. (At least, not with other people.) I speak, my friends, of nerds.
First, there was the Nerd Test, a silly web quiz that tested one's nerdiness. I took the test, and scored pretty darn nerdy.
But then Nerd Test 2.0 came along, promising even more nerdy goodness. And even more categories in which to scientifically (ha!) plot one's nerdiness. And so I took the test:
I'm thankful, today, for nerds. And for silly web quizzes. And for silly web quizzes about nerdiness, because they feed my Cool Nerd God ego. And there's nothing wrong with that.
So, my friends, how nerdy are you?
Posted by reparent at 11:09 AM | Comments (3)
October 11, 2007
Silly Web Quiz: Superhero Edition
It's been a while since I really did a fun web quiz (since I'm guessing no one went to the His Dark Materials site and found their daemon, because not enough of you have read the trilogy by Philip Pullman, so you don't know what a daemon is, and why they're so cool.
But you all know what a superhero is. So here's a silly web quiz to determine Which Superhero Are You?
Boringly, pathetically, I appear to be:
Superman
|
You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.  |
Which is especially poignant because our local cable provider has recently decided to drop The CW from our programming guide. That means that we can watch Smallville, but we can't tell our POS DVR to record this season's episodes. And we're never home to watch the episodes. Grr!
(Yes, I said it. We watch Smallville. Well, we watched Smallville. Stupid Comcast.)
On the slightly more interesting side, my Supervillain alter-ego is:
Dr. Doom
|
Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity. |
I kinda like that. "Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity..." And let's face it -- Dr. Doom knows how to rock a tunic and plate mail armor. See, most villains would wear the tunic under the armor. But not Dr. Doom! No one can see how well the emerald green tunic brings out his eyes if he does that.
I guess from now on, you should all call me Professor Doctor Doom. For your own safety, of course.
(via Windshadow's awesome WoW blog: Big Bear Butt Blogger)
Posted by reparent at 8:38 AM | Comments (1)
August 20, 2007
More (and Less) Human Than Human
What do these three photographs have in common?
Can you guess? Click the link below to find out.
They're all three completely artificial. Each of them was computer-generated by a very talented digital artist. (Here are links to Max Wahyudi's portrait of actress Song Hye Kyo; the Flickr posting of the minimalist bathroom; and Piotr Fox Wysocki's online portfolio.)
I've mentioned before on this blog that you just can't trust images anymore. The idea of "indexicality" (that photographs have a 1-to-1 relation to some real moment, space, and event, even if that moment is long past, the space has been demolished or repurposed, and the event was memorable only to the photographer) is under attack from all sides.
The Spouse was recently advised to purchase a disposable camera to be kept in the glove compartment of our car so we can document the event in case of an accident. Why a cheap, low-quality disposable camera? We both have camera phones and also have a pretty nice digital camera. Because the police are hesitant to allow digital photographs as evidence in their investigations as they're so easily manipulated.
In short, the police don't believe your digital photographs are indexical. They're just not real enough anymore.
I had the same thought when Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns and Money persuaded me to take the MyElectionChoices Presidential Candidate Compatibility Test. The test begins by asking you which issues will be most important in your final selection of a candidate for president. It then provides you with a selection of actual quotes from all of the candidates on the issues you had identified and asks you to indicate which ones you agree with. At the end, it tabulates which candidate has the most comments on record that you agree with.
It's a clever way to engineer a silly web quiz with "real-world" implications. But I don't believe it one bit.
In short, I've become so cynical that I don't believe that anything a presidential candidate says is indexical.
Sigh.
And if you're curious, I selected 3 issues and here are my matches:
- Mike Gravel (D) - 8 matches
- Hillary Clinton (D) - 7
- Barack Obama (D) - 7
- Bill Richardson (D) - 6
- Joe Biden (D) - 5
- Christopher Dodd (D) - 5
- Ron Paul (R) - 5
- John Edwards (D) - 4
- Dennis Kucinich (D) - 4
- Sam Brownback (R) - 2
- Mike Huckabee (R) - 1
- Tom Tancredo (R) - 1
(This post's title, by the way, comes from the movie Blade Runner, in which the Tyrell Corporation builds robot "replicants" that are, according to the company motto, "More human than human.")
Posted by reparent at 12:02 PM
July 17, 2007
I Do It All Over. And You?
Over at WoWInsider, Mike Schramm asks what kind of Bartle gamer you are.
The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology tests the play-style and interests of players of role-playing (primarily) games. It was developed (appropriately enough) by games researcher and designer Dr. Richard Bartle, whose blog, QBlog, is a hoot to read. Looking back at that sentence, it doesn't really come across as a very serious endorsement of Bartle, does it? Hmm... sounds like a topic for a future post.
I am an ESAK. That means that my gameplay interests and skills most closely match the Explorer scale (73.33%), followed by the Socializer scale (66.67%), the Achiever scale (46.67%), and finally the Killer scale (13.33%).
According to the test:
People with high Explorer scores tend to enjoy finding all of the unique areas of the world, often enjoying the immersion of the experience. Finding a place with unique monsters and seeing what those monsters do is usually more fun for an Explorer than defeating the monsters themselves.
And that's actually true for me. In World of Warcraft, I enjoy seeing new zones, taking my low-level alts (alternate avatars) to new places for which they're grossly under-leveled, and picking up new flightpoints. This doesn't help me to level very quickly, but it does keep the game feeling like a fresh series of challenges for me.
For instance, when I started playing my first avatar, a druid, I used the druidic power of invisibility to sneak all over the planet. I had a great time, but I was constantly asking myself how classes without invisibility (which is most of the other classes in WoW) could stand having to be seen all the time. Now I know, as I (slowly) advance my two non-invisible alts -- a mage and a warrior. And the challenge of getting my level 33 warrior into and out of the level 51-58 Western Plaguelands to pick up the flightpoint at Chillwind Point (which I did last night) was great fun. Did I kill anything? No way. Anything I would have seen there would have stomped me and used my torso for a planter. Was it a great achievement? Only in my mind. But in my mind, it was pretty darn cool.
Take the test yourself here. I'm curious to know what the rest of the universe finds interesting in role-playing gaming. I'm also curious what those of you who don't game (or who don't game much) would find interesting, in the Bartle schema.
Posted by reparent at 9:34 AM | Comments (2)
July 15, 2007
¡Ay Carumba!
As you've probably heard by now, Homer and the gang now officially live in Springfield, Vermont. In case you're wondering, Springfield, Vermont is located here:
Yes, out of the 100+ Springfields in the U.S., and thanks to the magic of movie marketing, Vermont's little town that could is now even less... real.
The roughly 10,000 residents of the town "...where the rivers flow"© managed to convince about 6,000 non-Springfielders to vote for them, based at least in part on the Simpsons tribute video the town created. You can watch all of the videos submitted by hopeful Springfields here.
I guess I'm ambivalent about this because I really don't think that the stars of TV's longest running sitcom and animated series are woodchucks.* Of course, not being a Vermonter™ myself, I can only offer an outsider's perspective, which as all Real True Vermonters will tell you, is less than worthless.
Anyway you look at it, though, Springfield, Vermont is now the home of animated characters whose relevance to current popular culture is clearly in decline. If The Simpsons were still a trenchant force for insightful cultural commentary, then I have no doubt the wave of unreality would spread. Which Vermont town is Shelbyville? Is the cleaner, nicer, more cultured, more educated, and snobbier neighboring rival city Burlington? Or might it be Manchester or Concord, across the state line in New Hampshire? I see the lack of interest in extending the metaphorization of Springfield as a clear sign that the Simpsons Movie will not be a galvanizing moment in cultural transformation.
But that doesn't mean that we can't still have fun with the movie's web site! Much like the silly web quizzes we all love, the site lets you "create your Simpsons avatar!" The customization options are surprisingly robust, which makes the whole experience, of course, a giant personality test. Here's my avatar:
So, how do you see yourself in Simpsons-ese?
* It was explained to me last summer by an n-th generation Vermonter that "woodchuck" is roughly analogous to the n-word. As my native informant explained,
woodchuck:Vermonter :: the n-word:black people.
That is, it can be used by Vermonters to describe themselves and each other, but is absolutely verboten for flatlanders.** Like me. Which probably makes my use of it above a big no-no. D'oh!
**Flatlander. n. 1) A term of disdain employed by natives of Vermont for: a) Anyone not from Vermont, i.e., from Massachussetts or Colorado; b) Anyone whose ancestry cannot be traced back at least 5 generations to Vermont, with each generation residing solely in Vermont.
Posted by reparent at 12:45 PM | Comments (1)
March 31, 2007
It's the Return of Silly Web Quiz Saturday!!!
This one comes to us via Jason at Let's Say You're Right, and is notable for a few reasons:
- It's mulitmodal (how cool is that?)
- It's super-glossy (high production values ftw)
- It allows you to personalize it pretty thoroughly
- I really liked the variety of choices (though, as always, I would have liked even more)
Check it out and let me know what you think about your own results.
Posted by reparent at 10:04 AM | Comments (1)
December 2, 2006
I'll Take Potpourri for $800, Alex
Yikes there's a lot going on as we race into the last week of classes. Here are a few things I've been thinking about:
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Phantom Professor launches this devastating attack of cuteness:
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
I've updated my blogroll. (It's that thing on the right called "Links" that tries to get you to check out the other blogs I read.) Huzzah!
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Crooked Timber sends us to Dan Drezner's blog for this little bit of silly web quiz-induced ambivalence: "You have a good voice for media-whoring."
When I took the quiz, this is what I was told:
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The West Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta. | |
| The Midland | |
| Boston | |
| North Central | |
| The Inland North | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The South | |
| The Northeast | |
| What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes | |
Go and read Dan's results and compare them to mine. I'll wait. I'm seriously wondering why Dan's "midland" results are better than my "midland" results (which somehow get called "West"?) for media-whoredom. I call shenanigans!
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
UVM's resident Canadian Lit guru, Paul Martin (no, not that Paul Martin), writes a very nice mini-review of the "Why Read Blogs" talk, and is prominently featured in the latest issue of UVM's The View! Check it out for a capsule summary of some of the bloggy hipness busting out all over at UVM.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
With the release of the last two next-generation game consoles (the XBox 360 has been out for a year now, but the PlayStation3 and Nintendo Wii were only released last month), everyone on the game blogs keeps talking about HiDef this, 1080p that. For those of us still struggling with SD (that's "standard definition," quickly becoming the new scarlet letters of geek shame) and completely bewildered by the multitude of options available in the promised land of HiDef, Joel at Dethroner combines a handy guide to HDTV with the fun and mystery of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure novel:
Oh, Joel, you had me at "turn to page 17."
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
CNN.com is running a Reuters article that claims that 90% of all e-mail sent in the world now is spam. And not only that, but "The United States, China and Poland are the top sources of spam, data from security firm Marshal suggests." Hooray. We're number 1! We're number 1! Sigh.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Not to be outdone in the Battle for Cute Supremacy, Cute Overload switches to armor-piercing cute-ammo:
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
And with that, I'm out of here. Have a great weekend!
Posted by reparent at 12:51 PM
September 14, 2006
I'm Late (and a special Silly Webquiz Thursday!)
Hoo boy, am I ever late with this post!
These past few weeks have been insanely busy. Which is no excuse, but there it is.
Anyway, this week in the senior seminar we're discussing Art Spiegelman's MAUS.
Given that, it may be appropriate to mention the following web quiz mentioned by Robert Farley at Lawyers, Guns & Money: "In What WWII Army Should You Have Fought?>"
You scored as Poland. Your army is Poland's army. Your tenacity will form a concept in the history of your nation and you're also ready to continue fighting even if your country is occupied by the enemy. Other nations that are included in this category are Greece, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Poland | 88% | ||
Italy | 69% | ||
British and the Commonwealth | 69% | ||
Finland | 56% | ||
France, Free French and the Resistance | 50% | ||
Soviet Union | 44% | ||
Japan | 44% | ||
United States | 38% | ||
Germany | 31% |
Should I be offended that in MAUS, Spiegelman depicts the Poles as pigs?
Posted by reparent at 1:30 PM | Comments (1)
June 28, 2006
A Silly Web Quiz with Real World Implications!
The Spouse directed my attention to this post from Kevin Drum, which sent my attention to a (yes, yet another) silly web quiz. However, this silly web quiz actually purports to diagnose your personal and political orientation (because the personal is the political).
And it's Canadian.
So, what are you waiting for? Go take the quiz.
Here are my results:
Now, I find it fascinating that the quiz lumped me in with the Gen-Xers. By the quiz's own admission, Gen-Xers are 34 or younger. Since your humble blogger is 35, according to the quiz, he should be a Baby Boomer. But clearly I am not a boomer. I'm in the middle (or toward the end) of the illustrious Generation X. Which the quiz, somehow, magically, knew. Except that its metric doesn't know. And not that anyone else really knows, either. (For more on the problems of defining the birth years that qualify one for membership in Gen X, check out Ted Rall's insightful and amusing article.)
Also, I'm fascinated that the quiz, despite plonking my big red circle smack dab in the middle of "The New Aquarians," classified me as a "Social Hedonist." I'm trying not to take it personally.
If you look at the grid, you'll notice that the categories are devided by generation. The Boomers get four major descriptors (solidly, dependably, depressingly square), the Pre-Boomers get three (back in my day we only had one category... and we were grateful to have that!), and Gen X gets a whopping six (I'd insert something snarky here, but I'm paralyzed by my plethora of options).
As for the descriptions of the various "tribes" themselves, I suppose I see myself more as a Social Hedonist than as a New Aquarian (following their terminology and given their descriptions -- I don't think I would ever use any of these terms to self-identify on my own), although some of the bits about New Aquarianism do ring true. But we're left, really, with the problem of differentiating these snapshots of political/personal identity from horoscopes. Write a horoscope broadly enough and include enough flattery, and it could appeal to anyone. Or everyone.
So what we really need here are more data points. Take the quiz. (There are some genuinely interesting sub-questions that I did not expect, but found immensely entertaining.) Report back. What do you think: is this a valid diagnostic, or just more silly web quizzery?
Posted by reparent at 7:02 PM | Comments (3)
March 15, 2006
Silly Web Quiz Wednesday!!!
Hey boys and girls -- it's SILLY WEB QUIZ WEDNESDAY!!!
Now with multimodal input!
Today's silly web quiz is Personal DNA, "Your True Self Revealed." What could be cooler?
I am a "Reserved Artist." (Mouse over the color blocks to see what they mean):
What makes this quiz interesting isn't its set of questions. It's not even its set of results. It's the way the quiz gets to its results.
You are asked to respond to these standard Myers-Briggs questions with things like sliders:
... grids:
... and "buckets":
I really liked that. I liked not having to choose a bubble to click. I liked being able to form what was, in effect, my own response category. I liked the various constraints that each system put on my answers. I liked, for instance, the grid's way of quickly letting me say that I'm an impulsive decision-maker without having to use the word "impulsive," which really does sound pejorative, doesn't it? I liked that the bucket questions were a zero-sum game -- every drop I put into one bar (and some questions had 3 or 4 bars) meant that less was available for the other(s).
Very creative. I highly approve. If we have to have silly web quizzes, we should have more like this that take full advantage of computers' abilities to make sense of all kinds of data.
UPDATE: And did I mention that I found this quiz via the excellent Kim Rom? My bad.
Posted by reparent at 2:50 PM | Comments (5)
November 1, 2005
Theory Makes Me Feel All Naughty...
So there I was, minding my own business reading a few academic blogs, and what do I see but Scrivener with yet another of those silly web quizzes.
Only this one was different. This one was about theory. Postmodern theory. Ooh. I got chills all over.
Prepare yourself for What Kind of Postmodernist Are You?
You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the postmodernists, you collect avant-garde Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal articles for breakfast. You positively live for theory. It really doesn't matter what kind, as long as the words are big and the paragraph breaks few and far between.
Now, the best thing about "What Kind of Postmodernist Are You?" isn't the random-unto-the-point-of-meaninglessness pseudo-diagnostic quiz heuristic.* Nah. The best thing about this quiz is the questions. While engaging with the Mighty PoMo Oracle, you are treated to such dilemmas as:
Let's just pretend for a minute there's a single force ordering everything in the universe. What would it be?
- the desire of the self to become the other
- the desire of the object for itself
- the desire of Madonna for a new image
- I don't know, these kinds of questions are silly
- God
- either chaos or enlightenment, but my bet is on both
- the opposite of whatever you say it is... for the purposes of this conversation
- the fact that you asked this question proves you operate entirely within a bubble of race and class privilege
I am only disappointed that "I am deconstructing this quiz while I am taking it" wasn't an answer to any of the questions. Fun stuff.
* Of the five times I have taken the quiz so far (yes, we already know that I am obsessive-compulsive, get over it), providing different answers each time, I have been labelled a Theory Slut once, a Gender Nazi three freaking times, and a Deconstructionist Weirdo once.** For your edification and enjoyment, here are those typologies:
You are a Gender Nazi. Your boundary-crossing lifestyle inspires awe in your friends and colleagues. Or maybe they're just scared you will kick their asses for using gender-specific language. Either way, the wife-beater helps.
You are a Deconstructionist Weirdo. Although ostensibly originating with Derrida, the theories of your particular school have long since passed beyond intellegibillity; half the time you don't even understand what you're saying anymore. That's okay, though. You're a lot more fun to party with than a bunch of stodgy new historicists.
** Obviously, the arbitrariness of the test results is a post-ironic satire on the bourgeois expectation for meaning and stability. Genius. Obviously.
Posted by reparent at 1:30 PM | Comments (8)
September 27, 2005
It's Silly Web Quiz Time!
I was going to feature the "What Color Should Your Blog Be" quiz that I saw at Sster's Place. But then I did the quiz and came up with the same color she did, and that's just crap. Everyone knows my blog colors are always a cool, mysterious blue. Sster's new blog look is also, you may note, blue.
And the last sentence, "you tend to get easily annoyed by any thoughtless comments in your blog" is just completely wrong. (I know, I'm shocked, too.)
So, that was out. In its place, I offer the equally illuminating and eerily-perceptive "What's Your Power Color?" quiz.
| Your Power Color Is Indigo |
 You are on a fast track to success - and others believe in you. At Your Lowest: You require a lot of attention and praise. In Love: You see people as how you want them to be, not as how they are. How You're Attractive: Your dramatic flair makes others see you as mysterious and romantic. Your Eternal Question: "Does This Work Into My Future Plans?" |
Well, it seems to be more accurate than the last one. Of course, it's practically horoscopian in its reliance on generality.
So, what's your power color?
Posted by reparent at 2:36 PM | Comments (3)
September 7, 2005
Dying for Diet Drinks?
Academic Coach links to a fascinating Internet Quiz -- Energy Fiend's Death by Caffeine.
According to this font of Internet Jolt-Juice Wisdom, it would take:
341 Diet Pepsis, or
299.63 Diet Doctor Peppers, or
273 Diet Cokes, or
223.36 Diet Mountain Dews, or
153.56 Red Bulls
to kill me.
Who knew?!
If you're so inclined, you can also find out how many Hershey's Kisses (12,285.00 for me) it would take to put you down.
Check it out. Before you accidentally check yourself out by ingesting a fatal dose of Reese's Peanut-Butter Cups (3,071.25, which could easily happen -- I love those things!).
Posted by reparent at 10:13 AM | Comments (5)
August 30, 2005
It's the Return of Silly Quiz Tuesday!!!
Hey there. Welcome to Digital Digressions v2.0.
As you may recall from the old blog (and yes, I know that the old posts haven't been imported from Blogger yet -- I'm working on it), Tuesdays is Silly Quiz Day.
Well, it was once. Two weeks ago.
But that's good enough for me! (And you, poor soul, being forced -- forced, I tell you! -- to read this and try it yourself.)
Today's silly quiz comes from Scrivener. (I tell you, the man's a veritable fount of web quizzes!) It's the Geek/Nerd/Dork Quiz, and it's a doozy. 60 questions! That's got to be a sign of trustworthiness and scientific accuracy, right? It even comes with a picture of Napoleon Dynamite -- how cool is that?
I am a Modern, Cool Nerd
73 % Nerd, 65% Geek, 43% Dork
For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.
Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!
Congratulations!
I did a Google image search for "cool nerd" and this is what came up: James Marsden (Cyclops from the X-Men movies). Congratulations, indeed!
Posted by reparent at 12:42 PM | Comments (4)