Un Tooned

Verry talented bloke over at Pixeloo took it upon himself to see what a couple of different cartoon characters would look in real life. This isn't to say, "What would they look like if they were a real person", all he did was take the proportions of the character and apply photo-realistic texture and shading. Based on the comments on his site, Mario is a molester and Homer is a murderer. What do you say?

Written Just For You

It's scary how much companies can learn about you from the data your browser sends to their sites. For the past 5 or 6 years, I've been working as a web developer and have been working on a little project in conjunction with my course work in psychology at the U. At long last I've got something to show. I've written a little program that will take the data that your browser sends and from that, will produce a personality profile. Please read below and tell me how accurate it is so I can tweak the algorithm to be more accurate.

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker, and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

Thanks. Please rank on a scale of 1-5, 5 being most accurate. Leave feedback in the comments.





Actually, I've written nothing of the sort. This paragraph was written in 1948 by a psychologist called Bertram Forer as an experiment on one of his psychology classes. If you thought this was pretty accurate, don't feel too badly. We all have a tendency to believe vague-yet-positive statements about our personality that have supposedly been written specifically for us. This is known as the Forer Effect (or Personal Validation Falacy) and has been used to great effect by astrologers, psychics and salesmen that I meet at Home Depot (another story for another time).

So, having said that, how accurate did you honestly think it was? Me? When I encountered this earlier this morning, I would have rated it a 4 out of 5.

I'm Riding A Banana and You Love It

Found this illustration on Al Murphy's site. If you visit dear Al's site, be ware that he's quite fond of the cursing.

Impulse Buy

After visiting a great design blog, I found a website called TypeTrust, which sells fonts and specializes in Typography. Upon visiting, I saw Ventura, a great one-weight script font for under $30. I've never actually paid for a font before, but I think this will be the first in a long line of great fonts for which I'm willing to shell out some hard-earned bucks.

Truth in Advertising

What does it take to become the 34th safest city in America? I was driving to work the other day and I saw a billboard that said something like Welcome to Sandy, the 34th Safest City in America. Let me first say, this struck me as an odd thing to put on a billboard. Second, based on an experience I had the night before, I believe that Sandy is among the 34th safest city in America.
My wife and I were driving to my parent's to pick up a ladder with which to hang a picture high above our stairs. We were waiting at a red light when the very next thing I notice is an explosion (or what seemed like one) right in front of my eyes. After a couple milliseconds, my brain figured out that it was a car accident. Helping this realization was somebody's white company van spinning wildly out of control and heading right for our car. Sitting in the car: my wife, my son and my self. Frightened: my wife and my self. Happy that we were on the way to see grandma and grandpa: my son. The spinning van stopped about 6 feet short of smashing into the passenger side of our car.
As soon as I realized we were out of harm's way, I busted out the trusty cell phone and dialed 911. The funny thing was, by the time the operator picked up, there was one cop on the scene, lights flashing, another waiting in a left-hand turn lane and a third had showed up by the time I hung up the phone with the operator, approximately 10 — 15 seconds after the white van came to rest. As far as I could tell, nobody was hurt. I saw the guy get out of the white van, I never saw the guy in the red mini van that hit the white van but the officer said everyone was all right.
So scary accident notwithstanding, I totally buy that Sandy is a safe city because there were three cops all within 5 minutes of the intersection where this accident took place. Go Sandy City Police Department

Christmas in January

As I was looking through my list of TiVo'd tv shows after watching a disappointing episode of Smash Lab (episode 3), I came across last December's First Presidency Christmas Devotional. From this, two comments stuck with me: one from President Thomas S. Monson and the other from President Gordon B. Hinckley.

President Monson told a story of a Christmas when he was little. His Mom had given him a rather expensive electric train set and he was very excited; it was just what he wanted. His Mom had also bought a wind-up train set for an underprivileged boy; it was a lot cheaper, but it had an oil tanker car that little Tommy Monson's train set didn't have. He begged his Mom to let him have the car. Reluctantly his Mom gave in and let Tommy have the car. They took train set, one car down, over to the boy who loved the train set too. He was unaware of the missing oil car. However, Tommy's conscience soon overcame him and he told his Mom to wait as he ran back to get the boy's oil car; he also grabbed a car from his more expensive train and gave them both to the boy. "The feelings I experienced as I watched his added joy are difficult to describe, yet absolutely impossible to forget." He said he learned that true happiness only comes from making other people happy

It's a simple story, but it stuck with me, probably because it was so simple. It is a concrete example of what the Savior meant when he said that we must become as little children.

President Hinckley's was really only two sentences, I quote them entirely: "How grateful I am for the kindness of people toward me. I frequently think what a different world this would be if all people were treated as well as I am." This shows true humility: he knows his place in this world and that it garners kinder treatment from others. But he also remembers that Christ once said that if ye have done it unto one of the the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

One Week Later

A full week has past since the half marathon (and my last post) but I haven't been able to run at all. I've had a miserable cold/cough. I'm feeling a lot better now, but I'm still coughing enough to nearly shake Katie out of bed.

Hopefully next week I'll be able to pick back up the training. The only question is, what will I be training for ... I can't decide whether I want to train for a faster 1/2 marathon or for a full marathon. Although I recently talked with my boss who's training for the Las Vegas marathon and his training is essentially the same as training for a half marathon, so i may not need to decide quite yet.