As Discussed at Lunch

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As discussed at lunch…

From This American Life episode “Numbers”:

Alex Melamid and Vitaly Komar hired a polling firm to investigate what people want to see in paintings. Then, using the data, they painted what people want. It turned out to be a landscape, with a mountain and a lake, and deer, and a family, and George Washington.

 

Then they applied these techniques to music, with composer David Soldier. This “most wanted” version combines the elements the 500 people surveyed said they wanted most — love, soprano sax, humble ambition, tenor sax, a marriage proposal, cheesy electronic drum fills, working the night shift, string swells, power chords, and saccharine male/female harmonies — into an easy listening-style adult contemporary sound that could peel the paint off of the Space Shuttle

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/listening_post/files/KomarMelamid_The-Most-Wanted-Song.mp3

(For the worst song) Komar & Melamid and David Soldier’s list of undesirable elements included holiday music, bagpipes, pipe organ, a children’s chorus and the concept of children in general (really?), Wal-Mart, cowboys, political jingoism, George Stephanopoulos, Coca Cola, bossanova synths, banjo ferocity, harp glissandos, oompah-ing tubas and much, much more.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/listening_post/files/KomarMelamid_The-Most-UnwantedSong.mp3

The most unwanted song is 25 minutes long but is hilarious!

The whole article can be heard here and is part of act 2 http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=88

The USDA released a “Food Atlas” tool earlier this week. For those of us who love maps and data it’s some pretty good stuff:

USDA Food Atlas

This will make your head hurt a bit, but it’s a pretty cool idea.

http://firstpersontetris.com/

Please tell me there is absolutely no possibility Michael Cera could actually be cast as Peter Parker? He is the same character in every movie. He’s basically just a less masculine version of Michelle Rodriguez.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977992391

Bad Time to Fart

This is another example of a funny clip ruined by the YouTube title. That and the fact that the first minute is too slow, but I assume it played better on TV.

5 Famous Last Status Updates on CollegeHumor

The title says it all.

Bikini Leia (from SciFiWire)

http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664?src=embed