Author: ashley-sisti

Bored.com, the procrastinator’s heaven, offers yet another way for slackers to pass the workday more quickly (aside from setting up an online lemonade stand or creating a virtual pizza for your friends, which are my personal favorites). Now you can find out how long you’ll live–for free!
    Just fill out a quick questionnaire, and within seconds the fateful number appears in big, bold print: exactly how old you’ll be when you finally kick the can. Not satisfied with the answer? Try changing your answers to see how they affect your results—you just might learn something. (Hey there, late-night party hound—you might want to get some more sleep and quit smoking). Some of the lifespan calculating techniques are based on studies by Dr. David J. Demko, whose site, demko. com, explains the rationale behind the oh-so-intricate death forecasting science. Although Dr. Demko has several certifications, and has been “calculating death dates since 1974” (now there’s an upbeat job), he does urge you to seek a health professional for all of your well-being concerns. Well, it’s good to know that he isn’t trying to overstep his boundaries.
    Although it may (depending on your stats) be the bearer of bad news, deathforecast.com isn’t completely depressing. After all, it allows you to enter your name so that your death forecast comes out all nice and personalized. And look! Those cute cartoons of elderly people are sure to brighten anyone’s day. On the other hand, there’s also a disclaimer to warn you that, even after all of this super-educated scientific calculation, you could always get hit by a bus tomorrow. Great—thanks for reminding me. —Ashley Sisti

Graphic artists (and photo nerds) have always enjoyed browsing the vast image archive at Getty Images. Well, the browsing just got a whole lot trippier. Linked off of Getty’s “Creative” search page (by way of some hypnotizing little neon graphics) is “10 Ways,” an experimental online funhouse that allows visitors to “explore” different dimensions of visual language (using Getty images, of course) through interactive Shockwave videos.
       For all you deep thinkers out there, Getty offers a conceptual idea behind each interactive experience—but really, what’s the fun in that? I say ignore the tiny text and go right to the pretty pictures (you might want to pop some popcorn while you wait for the player to load, though—some of these things are molasses slow). My personal favorite “way” of choice, “Informa-tion,” actually begins rather unpleasantly, with a close-up of a man’s splotchy red face, but it rapidly becomes fascinating. As you click the picture to zoom in, you find that it is made up of hundreds of smaller images, each one linked to-gether in what feels like a never-ending chain of photos.
    Believe me, once you start, it’s hard to stop—it’s a surprisingly addictive time sink, providing hours (or at least minutes) of visual fun. And there’s more where that came from: You can do anything from take a “visual mood test” to travel through surreal space on the 10 Ways site. While some of the videos could use a little more direction, and may leave you wondering why you just spent 15 minutes watch-ing colored dots bounce around in the woods, that’s the fun of it. In fact, the site is so stimulating and visually imaginative, it creates an entirely new category: on-line advertising you can actually enjoy!—Ashley Sisti

Active link – www.interact10ways.com