Via trp.

While my Bacon number is 3 (I appeared in Snakes on a Blog with Kenan Thompson who appeared in Snakes on a Plane with Rachel Blanchard who appeared in Where the Truth Lies with Kevin Bacon), it seems unlikely that I will ever achieve an Erdős number. This will leave my combined Erdős–Bacon number somewhere in the infinity-plus-three range.

For comparison, Danica McKellar (Winny Cooper) has an Erdős-Bacon number of 6, which I find very impressive.

Instructions – Part One: When viewing the video, try to count the total number of times that the people wearing white pass the basketball. Do not count the passes made by the people wearing black.

The remainder of the instructions are after the jump. If you’re viewing this on one page, don’t read the text below until after you’ve watched the video once.

Instructions – Part Two: How many did you count? Did anything seem out of the ordinary? Now go back and watch it again without counting anything. Notice anything odd this time?

The official host of this experiment online is here, it was created and described in a paper by Daniel Simons at the University of Illinois Visual Cognition Lab and Christopher Chabris in the Harvard University Psychology Department. It had the extreme honor of winning an Ig Nobel award in 2004. The Visual Cognition Lab has a number of additional videos taken from similar experiments.

Count the number of passes visual cognition experiment black white gorillas gorilla suit monkey costume

“We wanted this redesigned bill to scream, ‘I am a five. I am a five,”‘ Larry Felix, director of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Mission accomplished:

Via Kottke.

Instead of doing laundry, you’d select the style of socks you’d like to wear next week from a well designed and easily navigable website (NetSox.com). The website would provide pictures and user-generated reviews of every known brand, style and color of sock known to man for the user to choose from. The most popular sock designs might require some diligent queuing!

And in just a few days, your selected socks would show up in the mail in a handy red mailer, clean and ready to wear.

After a day’s use, you’d put the now dirty socks back into the return mailer and send them off to NetSox, at no charge, to clean them and then put them back into circulation. You can keep the socks for as long or as short as you’d like all for a single low monthly rate!

You’ll never need to buy another pair of socks again!

Who has venture capital?

Bell built an ear phonautograph in 1874 following a suggestion from Clarence Blake. It consisted of the bones of an actual human ear, mounted on a wooden frame. When one spoke into it, the bones vibrated; a bristle brush descending from the bones traced the shape of the sound waves on a piece of smoked glass, which could be rolled back and forth underneath.

Yeah, he tore the ear from a dead body and stapled up to his ghoulish contraption. Why, I ask, don’t all phones use this technology today? Can you imagine talking into a headset consisting of a disembodied ear and a pair of flapping lips?

Here’s a picture of Bell’s device:

The past is gross.

BoingBoing points to my new favorite blog A Soviet Poster A Day which, unsurprisingly, posts a new Soviet poster each day with commentary. I’m excited.

Two days ago on September 12, 2007, at around 5:30pm, I visited GameStop store number 4101 in the Fashion Center Mall in Pentagon City located at 1100 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202. I was there to buy a new Wii console along with some games and accessories. It was an unpleasant and disturbing experience marked by poor customer service and a surprisingly high level of homophobia.

When I first arrived, I was pleased to find six or seven employees inside the store. “Great,” I thought, “they’ll help me quickly.” That wasn’t in the cards. The employees were deeply enmeshed in conversation and had arranged themselves on either side of the counter so that I was unable to get anyone’s attention. I waited for a lengthy period of time. Here’s a quick visual representation of the situation:

As I waited for the employees to realize that they had blocked customers from actually buying any products, I was privy to their conversation. In reality, even if I had been standing on the walkway outside of the store I would have been privy to their conversation–it wasn’t quiet.

While I waited to be noticed, I was surprised by their loud and frequent use of the words “fuck” and “shit” in casual conversation. Eventually one of the employees indicated that the male employee behind the counter was having dreams about another male employee and that he was, hence, a “homo” and a “fag.” They went back and forth for a few minutes, debating whether the counter employee was in fact a “homo.” The guy behind the counter argued that he was merely dreaming of “running over” the other male employee with a large motor vehicle and was, therefore, not a “homo.” Again, this was not a quiet conversation.

At this point, the non-”homo” behind the counter noticed that I was waiting and took my order.

Now, while I wasn’t all that happy about the “fuck”s and the “shit”s, it was GameStop so I was willing to accept a somewhat lower standard of decorum than I would from other retail establishments. I understand who your target demographic is. If that was all there was to it, I would have just written off the unpleasant attitude as simply a sign of a store with poor (or absent) local management. The slide from annoying swearing into casual and open homophobia and bigotry, however, was really surprising and disheartening. Is this how GameStop wants to portray itself to the game buying public? Is casual sexism the next thing I can expect from my local GameStop? Or racism? How far down this path is GameStop willing to travel?

Your customers are not, at present, all 13 year-old boys. If this attitude continues to be flaunted at your storefronts, however, it’s hard to imagine that anybody else is going to want to shop there.

Because of the store’s atmosphere I choose not to buy several games and accessories.

I would appreciate a response, both to the situation and to my letter. I have posted this letter online here and would be happy to post whatever response you feel is appropriate alongside the letter.

Thank you.

UPDATE: The responses:

I recently received some communication from my corporate office that you had an unacceptable shopping experience in one of my stores. I want to assure you that I take these kinds of situation extremely seriously. I was hoping you would be willing to give me a call at your convenience to discuss this matter. The easiest time to get a hold of me will be on Monday, but you can call me any time that is convenient to you. If you miss me just leave a message and I will call you back.

Thank you for your concern and I assure we will be looking into this situation with great energy.

—– ——-
District Manager
DC Southeast, D59
Cell: — — —-

and

I am writing in response to your email below regarding your recent visit and unfortunate experience at our Fashion Center Mall GameStop store.This must have been very disturbing and frustrating.

On behalf of GameStop let me start by offering my sincere apologies for the manner in which you were treated and for the poor quality of customer service we provided. Rest assured this is not the quality of interaction we strive for at GameStop. We work and train diligently to ensure every visit to one of our stores is a fun, informative and enjoyable experience. Our employees are expected to treat every customer with personalized service, in a professional and courteous manner.

We at GameStop wish to assure you we take customer service matters very seriously. We value your business and want you to feel comfortable shopping with us in the future. Rest assured we will take appropriate measures to ensure this will not happen again.

You will receive a follow-up email once our investigation is complete. If you prefer to be contacted directly by phone please provide your contact information and we will be happy to call you.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us and we would like to again offer our sincere apologies for this unfortunate incident.

Sincerely,
Steve Morgan
President