An Experiment in Scotch

Thursday, July 08, 2004

My high score on the typing game below is 350. The whole time I'm playing it, I'm thinking to myself that it doesn't really test your typing speed because I type about 70 words per minute and I'm obviously not very good at that game. What does it test? Clearly, it helps to be a good typer but since the letters come in groups that we are not used to seeing, people who are good at that game are probably like people who can remember large chunks of apparently random information. Psychological studies show that people who are good at these types of things have a talent for "chunking", the ability to see patterns in or make meaning out of seemingly randome and meaningless information. The average human can remember a 7 digit phone number for about 7-10 seconds. People who have great memories tend to give meaning to things so that the information more rapidly moves from short-term memory to long-term memory. While that game doesn't test long-term memory, it probably does test your ability to chunk information into meaningful parts.

Of course, rum in general makes chunking harder. Well, the kinds of chunking I'm talking about here.
11:54:45 PM What do you think? [] trackback []

This game, while not as frustrating as Psycho Pong is still strangely addicting. (Via A Capital Idea).
11:44:25 PM

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Now this sounds like fun. And if you write Bush's acceptance speech, you get an extra month to do it. Is that because it's harder to be a speechwriter for Bush? [Did you just jab Bush's speech skills-ed. Shaddup, I've been drinking.] Regardless, that sounds like good fun.
11:36:49 PM

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This editorial in the Dallas Morning News wants to get rid of the Hitler images and reference in American politics, to which I say "Here, here!". However, when he says "Both sides should apologize – if not to each other, to survivors of the Holocaust and World War II.", I have to call bullshit. I'm confused as to why the Republicans should apologize for noting that a large portion of the far left seems to be confused between a hatemongering dictator and the President of the United States. Republicans didn't refer to conservative bloggers as Digital Brownshirts. Republicans didn't call Bush Hitler.

It's the people on the extreme left doing these things and I see no reason why the Republicans should be ashamed for calling attention to that fact. If the editorialist is calling for some sort of "turn the other cheek" concept, maybe they should come out and say it. But to say the Republicans should apologize for the extreme Left's bad behavior is asinine.
11:32:55 PM What do you think? [] trackback []