I used to look upon YouTube as the Great Time-Waster.
You know how it goes: click on a seemingly innocuous link, spot something that catches your eye in the sidebar, click on that, notice something else ... before you know it, what had started out as a quick peek at a perfectly sensible video of Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale playing together has led to the point where you've realised two hours have passed. And for some reason you're now watching a clip of chimpanzees doing Irish dancing.
Now I've come across a new way to pass countless hours, whether I have countless hours free to pass or not.
You see, I subscribe to xkcd.com, a cartoon site. Today's ... well, you need to see it, but it's too large to display here so why don't you pop over to the site and have a look? It's okay, I'll wait for you ...
Right, so you see it's a warning against getting sucked into addictive sites.
Unfortunately, humans aren't very good at being told what not to do. It's like Bluebeard's wife and the forbidden room, or the irresistable challenge to a child of the cupboard that's Out of Bounds. Or perhaps you saw the episode where Derren Brown got a woman to kill a kitten - or so she believed - by reminding her repeatedly of what an awful thing it would be to do.
It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that I couldn't resist taking a peek.
The site mentioned overtly is TVTropes which I've bookmarked for possible future periods of boredom. However, the mouseover message - did you see that? - mentions cracked.com too.
Clicking over to that was a mistake. The very first thing I came across was 7 Man-Made Substances That Laugh In The Face Of Physics. How could anyone watch the video of ferrofluids and not be awed? That was it: hooked. And ... and ... and there are just so many other fascinating links. And links from links.
Can I suggest, for example, the article about real-life mad-scientists? Or the piece on dangerous genetic experiments? Damn! I. Must. Stop. Clicking. On. Links.
It's just a terrible shame that I spotted this as I was meant to be starting a very busy day at work.
Still, it's educational, isn't it? A little bit ...
You know how it goes: click on a seemingly innocuous link, spot something that catches your eye in the sidebar, click on that, notice something else ... before you know it, what had started out as a quick peek at a perfectly sensible video of Eric Clapton and J.J. Cale playing together has led to the point where you've realised two hours have passed. And for some reason you're now watching a clip of chimpanzees doing Irish dancing.
Now I've come across a new way to pass countless hours, whether I have countless hours free to pass or not.
Right, so you see it's a warning against getting sucked into addictive sites.
Unfortunately, humans aren't very good at being told what not to do. It's like Bluebeard's wife and the forbidden room, or the irresistable challenge to a child of the cupboard that's Out of Bounds. Or perhaps you saw the episode where Derren Brown got a woman to kill a kitten - or so she believed - by reminding her repeatedly of what an awful thing it would be to do.
It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that I couldn't resist taking a peek.
The site mentioned overtly is TVTropes which I've bookmarked for possible future periods of boredom. However, the mouseover message - did you see that? - mentions cracked.com too.
Clicking over to that was a mistake. The very first thing I came across was 7 Man-Made Substances That Laugh In The Face Of Physics. How could anyone watch the video of ferrofluids and not be awed? That was it: hooked. And ... and ... and there are just so many other fascinating links. And links from links.
Can I suggest, for example, the article about real-life mad-scientists? Or the piece on dangerous genetic experiments? Damn! I. Must. Stop. Clicking. On. Links.
It's just a terrible shame that I spotted this as I was meant to be starting a very busy day at work.
Still, it's educational, isn't it? A little bit ...
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6 comments:
Yeah,thanks for that Ro; Thanks for taking me to cracked.com where I immediately went for how a real-life zombie apocalypse will take us all out- just before I go to bed.
Such a plethora of useless yet fascinating information! Thanks, Ro.
I find these kind of sites really useful for passing that mind numbing time called work.xx thanks
blue!!
I daren't look .. am far too easily seduced by links.
I'm confused.com - it says you posted this 7 hours ago, but there are comments here from two days ago!! :S
I loved the chimps... those insane grins are fabulous, and I was amazed at the ferrofluids... WOW! Thanks for sharing them with us!! :)
Urban Cynic ... My pleasure! I'm glad to see it can suitably fill all those little niches :-)
Nitebyrd ... I'm glad, once again, to be able to perform such a useful public service!
Kerrie ... My thought exactly. Unfortunately, as I said, I found it passing time that I really did need to use for work, however mind-numbing!
Carnalis ... Blue? Is that a comment on the colour of the new template, or the nature of my sense of humour? As for resisting the temptation ... go on, you know you want to! ;-)
Ms Hansen ... A glitch in the Matrix that is Blogger, it appears. I had to change the embedded image due to a minor error and it updated the publication date as well; I'm sure that, previously, editing an already-published post didn't update the publication date. One to watch out for, perhaps. Anyway, I'm glad you liked the links. They certainly grabbed me :-)
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