Lockerbie Squashed Derrida

Two sites that are amusing me right now.

The first (found via lyc fyi) is 10X10.

This site takes the most popular images from three RSS news feeds (NYT, BBC, Reuters) and puts them together into a postcard format. The most popular is in the upper left hand corner, least popular in the lower right hand corner. Words are also ranked to go with the images. It's a very interesting snapshot into our hourly news. Lots o' pictures of Arafat right now and war. Lots o' war. I wonder if there would ever be a day where only flowers were pictured, or puppies, or babies smiling. There I go again, being fuzzy again (sorry JKC, it's like a disease or something :) ).

The second site, I found via the 10x10 site. This is even more fun. Word count: Tracking the way we use Language.

WordCount™ is an artistic experiment in the way we use language. It presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonality. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is.

The first word I scrolled to - Number 28,897 - FART. Hmmm, only 28,897? They obviously haven't been monitoring my language. The most common word? THE. Not surprised there. My name is listed! Number 8,453, my name is more popular than Arafat's.

Other amusing combinations of words:

Lockerbie squashed Derrida Tubular

(numbers 17,070- 17,071- 17,072- 17,073). What is the state of our society if Derrida is more popular than fart? Uneducated masses my arse. You also have to admit that it is somewhat ironic that his name appears on a web site that deals with language? Tubular dude.

Narrowest Withers Sobered

(numbers 33,138- 33,139- 33,140) This just makes me laugh, I can't even crack a joke about it. It's just plain funny.

Texas Erected Colitis

(numbers 7,031- 7,032- 7,033) Now, is it okay to equate colitis with our president? I think this combination endorses it.

Did you know W is a word?

Yup, number 2,571.

It follows Liability. Speaks volumes I say, speaks volumes. I'll just leave it at that.