More thoughts later but for now, a laugh or two…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyXyxLiDtHo
What started as an unusual April Fool’s joke – a single button appeared a special sub-Reddit – has turned into a genuine social media phenomenon which may have implications for online collaboration in the development of public policy, software and numerous other areas.
The button had a 60-second countdown counter which users could only push once and which resets after being pushed. As of today, over a month after April 1, nearly a million people have participated and the button’s counter has not yet reached zero.
What Redditors quickly realised is that where you pushed the button gave you a certain “flair” by your user name on The Button sub-Reddit. If you’ve never pushed, you’re grey. Then, in ten second increments, you receive an ascending colour of the rainbow – starting at purple (59-50 second) to red (10-1 second.)
As with many online sites that use gaming tropes, there is a certain amount of prestige being given to those with lower “scores” for pushing the button.
Needless to say, I pushed as soon as I went to the site and got purple! 😉
Is there a better coming-of-age movie than “Stand By Me”? And the title song of that movie is part of the reason it had such an impact on me.
I remember seeing “Stand By Me” in the theatre in Indian Head when I was about 13 years old then walking out into the street and not being able to get the song, which I don’t think I’d ever heard before, out of my head.
Here’s a tribute version performed by Tracy Chapman on the David Letterman show after the recent passing of Ben E. King.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlZxx3elxBE
“Stand By Me” – Tracy Chapman
Yeah, that’s what happened…
Microsoft recently launched a new site called How-Old.net that went viral due to its use of fancy math algorithms to guess the ages of people in pictures you upload.
(Full warning – Shea read some article on Facebook saying the site has fine print that Microsoft obtains rights to re-use your photos or something so beware this might be a site mining photos for nefarious Microsoft purposes.)
Anyhow, I still gave it a try and found the following:
Shea who is currently 36 is pretty happy with her result while I, being currently 41 years old, am somewhat less enthused…
It nailed Pace’s age but I’m not going to tell him the site thought he was a girl. 😉
And the site’s guess for Sasha was way off as she’s closer to six months than six years!
The Calgary Flames have been using a Calgary Fire Department helmet for players to pick the “unsung hero of the game” after each victory for the past couple seasons.
I don’t have a picture of Pace wearing a CFD helmet but I do have a pic of him checking out a fire truck courtesy of my cousin who works for the Calgary Fire Department when we were in Calgary three years ago and got a tour of his station…
I considered doing a post with some random thoughts about the Baltimore riots but then I realised there’s nothing I can say that others haven’t said better already – about the riots and about the first ever Major League Baseball “empty game”.
On the recommendation of a co-worker, Shea and I are working through “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”, a Netflix original series. (That link will go to Wikiwand.com – a site I recently discovered that presents Wikipedia pages in a more visually appealing, readable format.)
Watching that series led me to this article which discusses how a company that’s using the Nielsen model to track Netflix subscriber viewing habits has released info about viewing habits of Netflix original programming.
Still, any way you look at it, “House of Cards” is clearly a big attraction for Netflix. When all three seasons of the show are taken into account, the program has been the most popular series on all of Netflix in March (6.4%). Its third season was also binge-viewed more than any of the other aforementioned originals, with nearly half of subs having watched at least three episodes in a single day in the first 30 days after release.
Important Blog announcement: Hockey themed posts shall continue as long as the Flames are in the playoffs.
One of the greatest hockey songs of all-time… (Hmm, maybe that could be my theme for Music Mondays until the Flames win the Cup in June?) 😉
“Big League” – Tom Cochrane