Jonny plays Draw Something

Just in case you've been living under a rock these last couple of months, there's a cool mobile game called "Draw Something" which has come out and simply blown up.
A very simply asynchronous game which is perfect for the mobile platforms (Apple, Android) where you have to draw something (geddit?!) from a small list of words, submit the drawing and then have your mate try and guess it. Swap over and repeat. Lots of times.
So, I'm pretty addicted to this and with the latest update, it makes it easy to export your drawings. So that's what I've been doing and then sticking up on the tumblr I set up linked below.
The cool thing with tumblr is you can queue up posts so check back often - I currently have enough sketches to last up until Thursday!

Jonny plays Draw Something.

Read full post >>

I *heart* my Kindle

Reading is something I used to do a lot. I would always read before going to bed, but I guess when I got a TV for my own room and then after moving out whether that be at University, or post-Uni and all the media that the Internet can offer, meant I was more likely watching some right before bed, and often in bed.
Now Amazon's Kindle had been out for a while and I had been tempted by it for a while. The year previously I had made an effort to read more books and had bought some paperbacks but having space-saving digital e-books that can often be cheaper than their paper based siblings was very attractive. I went for it late Jan/early Feb last year and have not looked back!
There are those which say it's not the same as holding a real book. Well yes, they are right, there aren't physical pages to turn but the counter to that is that instead it's super thin, lightweight and with the e-ink, there's no glare on your eyes and it's effectively like reading off paper.
I do all my reading in bed pretty much and sometimes I will read whilst lying on my side. With a book I have to crane my neck to read both pages, a little awkward especially if the book is large. With the Kindle, this is not a problem.
Reading the Game of Thrones books in particular has meant I've made good use of the dictionary function. I simply hover over an archaic word and get an immediate definition - it's fun to learn!
Battery life is also very good, page turning is very fast and it can even display web pages and play mp3s if you so desire.
It's awesome and as in the title, I <3 my Kindle, plus they've recently released a new version which drops the keyboard for an even smaller form factor which is dirt cheap. If you like reading, just go and buy one. I didn't go for the 3G one as I'm happy to do any purchases or transfers off my Mac over the Wi-Fi. If you travel a lot then the 3G connection sounds good for purchasing books whilst out and about.
Click for a list of books that I've read since getting my Kindle.

Read full post >>

Interesting reading

A quick post here after some interesting reading. So to carry on the Dating themed posts, I was reading the blog of one of the sites I have a profile up - OkCupid - which is actually the site I met Jo through.
Anyways, they have a cool blog where they analyse trends in people's profiles and their behaviour and actions on the site. That analysis of social behaviour is fascinating to me plus things like what to put in a first message is certainly useful.
One of their posts was a generation of a flowchart that someone can follow to see if they would date me or not. I have included mine after the read more link. Give it a click and see what you think...

Read full post >>

Where would you sit?...

I went to a house party that was being hosted by an old friend, Marsh, or as I had to teach myself to say Chris as noone in Worcester (where he's currently studying) know him by the old name we used back in school. Anyways, the house party was a lot of fun, although too much drinking led me to forget exactly how it all ended but good none the less. It had all the makings of a good party; drinking, drugs and a large number of strangers to meet.

One rather cool thing that happened which I felt needed to be blogged about was a little conversation I had with this guy Kwan (don't know how it's spelt sorry) about some behavioural psychology which I do find very interesting. Anyways, not sure how we got talking about it but I posed a scenario to him, which I will repeat here:

You get on a bus and there's an attractive girl (or guy, whatever works for you) sitting in one seat. Knowing this, where would you sit?

I posed this to Kwan and I made a decision myself. Make yours and hit "read more" to see if there's some mutual thinking going on. I'd be curious to know what people chose.

It is was rather spooky, Kwan gave his answer: opposite and one row back. It was a proper woah moment, as I thought the exact same thing. I thought that was awesome and we tried to reason why - you wouldn't sit in front of the girl as you wouldn't be able to see her without obviously turning round. But why not directly behind her, or even opposite but on the same row?
It's no secret that I'm a big podcast nut and I would love to find a podcast that discusses this kind of stuff - unfortunately the couple I've tried haven't been that great.

That being said I did ask Chris later that evening, and he replied again opposite, but two rows back. The bubble had been burst but still he half agreed, so I'm clinging on to the victory.

Read full post >>

Cool Twitter Visualisation (self-explanatory!)

Whilst wasting time on the Intenets browsing for third-party twitter apps and the like, I spotted this site www.wefeelfine.org. What can I say it is pretty cool, sometimes a little haunting, but just proves what can be done with a bit of imagination and of course the twitters that are happening right now.
It's basically a set of interesting ways to view some of the twitters going on - I find the Murmurs option is those twitters that start with "I feel" and some of them are shockingly honest. I almost feel a little guilty reading them.

These visualisations are all based off twitter, which for the uninitiated is a micro-blogging platform. You send one line messages and people following you will receive the message. I think it's pretty awesome but then again I'm quite into all this blogging malarky so no surprise there. So far it's pretty big in the US and Japan, but there is some penetration (hurhur!) in the UK. I like to think of myself as a trend setter - there are in fact only two people in Kidderminster who use it, myself and this guy called Tim.

I like the idea as I can throw out little snippets and thoughts which aren't worthy of a full blog post but still worthy enough to throw out there. You can check out my tweets (I believe that's the technical term) at twitter.com/jimiminar. If you like it then join up and follow me, I make a promise to follow anyone that follows me automatically (unless they're some kind of spambot) so help spread the word.

Read full post >>