dennis yang dot com

Ever wonder how “people find the time” to create things like Wikipedia? Clay Shirky gave a fantastic talk a few weeks ago about the so-called “cognitive surplus” that is finally being tapped into with the many changes in interactive media that we’re seeing in recent years…

Definitely worth 10 minutes of your time to watch.. and then, go blog or twitter about it or something. Here’s the Techdirt angle on the subject…

I’d add “cut watermelon” to the magic quadrant though.. cuz that’s my fav.

I like twitter. That said, I don’t have it sending updates to my phone, just to IM, so when I’m away from my computer (which, admittedly, isn’t THAT often), I don’t get twitter updates (which is fine for the most part). I used to dodgeball, but now that I twitter, I find that dodgeballing doesn’t really make that much sense anymore.. (although according to Willo, she and her friends still are hardcore dodgeballers)

Even Mike, who was originally a skeptic, is now a convert.

I thought that this video kind of explains the twitter allure.

My fav derivative twitter application? Tweetscan. With it, you can get kind of a neat view of the tweetworld — right now, I’d say that sxsw is a good term to be watching… (I’m looking forward to a whole week of empty bars and parking spaces in the mission, ftw!)

So yah. You can Twitter if you want. I like it.

Also of note from this year’s TED.. Philip Zimbardo (famous for the Stanford Prison Experiment) gave a really interesting talk about the “Lucifer Effect,” or, how good people turn evil.. Zimbardo, studied what happened at Abu Ghraib, and explained what factors could lead seemingly good people down a path of evil…

From the boingboing post:

What can be done about this? Zimbardo offers heroism as the “antidote to evil.” Teach kids to be ready to act heroically when the see evil. We need to give them real role models. Comic book superheroes are bad models, because they have super powers. A hero is the soldier who reported the Abu Ghraib abuses. People wanted to kill him. They threatened to kill his wife and mother, too. He had to go in hiding. Teach kids hero courses, teach them hero skills, make them heroes-in-waiting.

TED was a few weeks ago, and I think the coolest thing to come out of it this time is the wwtelescope.. It’s a Microsoft project, and looks like Google Earth for the nighttime sky.. Nerdy, sure.. Launches in the Spring..

So yah, I was a huge astronomy nerd when I was growing up.. Many a night was spent sitting in the freezing Ohio nights, splitting binaries, which really wasn’t nearly as exciting as I thought it was going to be. So, yah, being able to explore the universe from the comfort of your computer seems pretty awesome in comparison.

I love personality tests… My MBTI type is ENFP or ENTP depending on how feely I’m doing that day (I’m right on the cusp of F and T).. So, when Shooey pointed me to a new personality test, I leapt at the chance and took it..

It’s the Enneagram Personality Type Indicator, and it sorts your personality based on 9 types..

Here’s my sorting:
10: Enthusiast
4: Peacemaker
2: Helper
1: Motivator
-1: Thinker
-2: Skeptic, Leader
-3: Artist
-9: Reformer

I’m not really sure what insight this gives into myself.. I mean, as an “Enthusiast” I’m apparently ruled by happiness, so I should spend time looking for things that make me happy. I suppose this is why, in college, my friends all called me “F&GD” which stood for “Fun & Games Dennis.”

Yah, that sounds good to me. More happy please.

More song charts..

[found at kottke]

LQTM, hank.

Wow… it really is like the week of super nerd-dom or something… Google announced the launch of their Google Charts API today, which is really kind of cool. You can make simple charts by simply passing a bunch of variables in the query string.

This reminds me of my favorite Venn diagram ever:

Hehe..

Anyway.. although the API is very straightforward, its not *that* easy to whip up a Venn diagram of your own… So, because I heart Venn diagrams, I’ve created a handy Venn diagram creator for your convenience.

C’mon.. make me some witty Venn diagrams please.

Back like almost 10 years ago now, my appendix decided to burst, and the nice doctors took it out. I don’t really know where it ended up, it’s probably in some landfill in bencia or something. Not that I’ve missed it, since it’s supposedly vestigial — but it looks like doctors in the UK now theorize that the appendix is used to “reboot” the gut during times of extreme GI distress… Apparently, it serves as a safe harbor for good bacteria until the bad juju passes. Hmm.. oh well, I don’t got one anymore, I guess I should really avoid amoebic dysentery then…

keke. i love this guy.. he’s back.

[Thanks Marcy!]

burger + hot dog + cheese + bacon = SUPER BURGER CHEESY DOG.

Wow.

I am so making these at my next bbq.

[Thanks Joon!]

So, Barry hit 756 tonight..

When I heard about it, I checked it out at Yahoo! Sports, and saw…

I thought to myself… Whoa.. really? Yahoo! is gonna start the whole * thing with this one? Firing shots over the bow immediately.

Well, about 10 minutes later, I reload the page, and see:

Hmmmm.. I guess they thought again about stirring the controversy or something..

Just yesterday, there was an interesting article about how Barry has an unfair mechanical advantage due to the armor that he wears (granted, a little strange that it was published in Editor & Publisher)..

So yah.. I dunno how I feel about the whole steroid controversy and all.. But yah.. 756 is 756 more home runs than I’ve hit in the majors, so like.. congrats and stuff.

Update: Baseball Prospectus published an article rebutting the mechanical advantages that his armor gives him, but it’s behind a paywall. Lame.

This is rad. And by “rad” I mean omg what a super nerd I am.

The Konami Code works on Digg.

And by “works” I don’t mean it gives you 20 lives, but it expands all of the comments, which isn’t the cool thing — but the fact that it doesn’t anything at all is really rad.

Hmmm.. I wonder if the Konami Code works on like ATMs, now that would be super duper rad, for reals.

Douggates: you need patience for the first 50 seconds.
Douggates: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2cYWfq–Nw

[thanks Doug (obviously)]

wiffleball + hurling = wiffle hurling (bonus… with sombreros).

Woohoo!! I’m now the #6 dennis on google. Is it really, really nerdy to be excited about this?

Don’t answer that.

I submitted my bike to fixedgeargallery — where I was bike #4,999 — soooo close to the 5,000th bike, who won a t-shirt.. (dangit!!). Anyway, this weekend the New York Times published an article all about the fixie phenomenon that is apparently all over Brooklyn right now…

Beep! Beep! It’s the hipster highway!

For real though… I *love* riding the fixie around the city. It’s been my regular ride around town for a few years now, and honestly, nothing beats the feeling of zipping around traffic with your feet solidly connected to the wheels. Some say, it’s transcendental.

And c’mon.. fixies are so so pretty.

[Thanks fellow fixie-rider Phil]

This comic just about sums it all up. Hooray for dating. It sure is fun. yah.

Anyway.. more good stuff from this dude can be found at ingredient x and his YouTube page. Enjoy.

[Found at sfist]