Anybody want a shoe with a big sperm on it? Gravity Defyer thinks you do. Their logo is also sperm-tastic. Someone please tell me those sperms were sold by the design team as “tadpoles.” Though what tadpoles, and/or sperm, have to do with springy shoes is anyone’s guess.

Second shoe post today! A new FoB record!

“Because the internet needs prophylactics for memetically transmitted diseases.”

The concept behind the StupidFilter Project originated during a conversation between Gabriel Ortiz and Paul Starr. StupidFilter was conceived out of necessity. Too long have we suffered in silence under the tyranny of idiocy. In the beginning, the internet was a place where one could communicate intelligently with similarly erudite people. Then, Eternal September hit and we were lost in the noise. The advent of user-driven web content has compounded the matter yet further, straining our tolerance to the breaking point.

It’s time to fight back.

The solution we’re creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian or similar analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we’re collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.

http://stupidfilter.org/main/

Also see: http://stupidfilter.org/random.php

I know. It’s a map of what’s being sold real-time on Zappos in the US. You can rate all the horrible shoes people are buying. It’s amusing, if only for a minute or two. I’m adding this because our “map porn” posts have been sucking it for awhile.

Zappos Sales Map

…when this wasn’t creepy?

Friends, I am about to introduce you some of the stupidest people on the Internet, simply by sharing a link with you. This link is the same as the one that will come up in the #3 position on a Google Search for “facebook login.”

Visit the page. Scan the article to catch the gist of it, and then scroll down and scan the comments….

Phenomenal stupidity. Stupidity so profound that if it had a smell, it would cause you to throw up a little bit in your mouth, spontaneously.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_wants_to_be_your_one_true_login.php

Anybody out there got a mom who isn’t?

“My childhood photos cock-block me.” Heh.

I like my big tabby cat well enough, but like all cats, she has annoying habits. Most notably in that regard, she YOWLS for her food. I feed her at the same times* twice a day, every day, like clockwork, but still she yowls. It’s because she’s too stupid to realize that the feeding process is initiated by me; she thinks that her nerve-jangling yowling is what causes me to get her food.

Most mornings I just tune it out, but this morning after rising and starting the coffee, I opened the curtain to the patio door and there she was, her face pressed against the window–

“RAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRR!!!!!” she said demandingly.

On this  rainy Sunday morning, her persistent howling sounded like what I imagine a catfight, combined with a baby being burnt with cigarettes, would sound like. You’d think she hadn’t eaten in months. And today, I was unusually bleary.  It was getting on my nerves….

Suddenly, a song came to mind unbidden, and I began to sing, thus defusing my angst–

I chop with an axe on the kitty kat’s head,
The kitty kat’s head, the kitty kat’s head,
I chop with an axe on the kitty kat’s head,
All the live long day.

In successive verses, the action is merely changed, e.g.

I make the kitty kat into soup,
Into soup, into soup

Kitty kat meat tastes like chicken,
Tastes like chicken, tastes like chicken

I continued singing my song as I walked her breakfast to the door and set it out, and she sang along with me.
——
For those of you who are going to say, “Just leave food out for her constantly,” I feed her this way because she fights with the indoor cat, and because leaving her a bowl of food on the doorstep draws all the neighborhood cats by day, and local raccoons by night.