Posts from — April 2008

The NHTSA has a table with an overview of stats on vehicle crashes in the last dozen years. The trend seems to be that driving is becoming safer (if you look at the last several rows). Note that it’s in reverse-chronological order.

Interestingly, motorcycle fatalities more than doubled in a decade. Maybe there are more motorcycles on the road now, but I doubt it’s increased that much. It could have to do with the aging demographics of motorcyclists.

There’s also a whole query interface if you want to take some time to extract more interesting data.
(via BoingBoing)

From a while ago… The True Cost of SMS (Text) Messages. Based upon the analysis, it’s about 61 million times more expensive than a typical cable modem connection. They then compared it to “writing bits out on paper and mailing them” and found that “…getting a SMS delivered is bit for bit 200x more expensive than getting a message hand delivered to your doorstep anywhere in the United States.”

Apparently there’s a movement in SF to name a sewage treatment plant after our illustrious President.

How many elements from the periodic table can you name in 15 minutes? I got 33 of 118 (numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 47, 48, 54, 76, 79, 82, 86, 92, 98, 99, and 100). The most embarrassing one I missed was #11. Give it a try.. no cheating! (looking at the scores, I’d guess a high percentage of them are cheating, which seems to defeat the purpose)
(via kottke)

Previously… See how many countries you can name in 10 minutes

BoingBoing TV segment about KPMG’s corporate anthem. “KPMG, we’re strong as can be — a dream of power and energy!”

(link)

I don’t know many other corporate songs, but IBM has its own fight song and march.

The second Sketch Comedy Contest on YouTube is in the voting phase right now. There’s a playlist with the 10 finalists here. The required theme was “living the dream” and each submission also had to use the word “indubitably”. I watch the finalists, here are my favorites:

CHOPS: The Trailer
Some good fight scenes and action movie trailer clichés.

link

She’s Mine
This one gets points for hilarious non-sequitors as well as a song at the beginning consisting of the lyrics “Girls girls girls girls women and ladies!”. I think “map slap” is my favorite line.

link

Voice Talkers
Lots of plays on TV cliches, including the stereotypical “announcer guy”. The father has the best lines, I think.

link

Sherlockbot & The Case of the Purloined Piggybank -Sketchies is also pretty good, too, if you like robots and mysteries and lasers.

I can’t decide which one I like best… any thoughts?

A bunch of photos of NASA preparing stuff for a shuttle launch. Hard to capture the scale in a picture, but still awesome. In the picture above, I have two questions:

• Should she really be on the phone while on that thing?
• Is she on a seat or just perched there?

(via BoingBoing)

(via jwz)

I started laughing during a meeting when I read John Tierny’s Worst Bad Names Contest on the NYTimes. He collected people who had names based upon puns or just unfortunate coincidences. My favorites are “Unnamed Jones” (pronounced you-NAH-med), “Justin Credible”, and:

…a girl whose father was an auto mechanic but somehow didn’t realize he was effectively giving her the name of a tire: Michele Lynn

On an unrelated note, the Daily Show had a segment last week that I found quite entertaining. You’ll only like it if you’re amused by potty humor and/or Monty Python, but here it is:

(link)

The first couple of minutes are slow, but when John Oliver starts naming “Britain’s fallen”, it’s really good. It was later revealed in the show that the names had been changed since the last rehearsal, hence Jon Stewart’s inability to control himself. John Oliver’s delivery is excellent, though.

Watch the first 20 seconds of this video from Fox News:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=313mI_BrTRA

“From the beginning, George W Bush has been ridiculed for his speaking style [...] so it’s a bit of a paradox that he’s now also credited with some of the most eloquent and visionary speeches ever delivered by an American president.“

I couldn’t stop laughing when they played that clip on the daily show. I’m amazed it’s real.