Writing Project

I took on another writing project for a Georgia games company this winter, which was kinda dumb. I didn’t really have the time to devote to it, and I’ve been paying for it. On the other hand, I’ve managed to complete a good 80% of the project now, and another strong afternoon of writing should do it. If today had been a real snow day, of course, I’d be done, and I could move on to other more important projects, like sending out a bunch of envelopes with very polite letters on good stationery.

The Power of the Internet

The Internet is an amazing thing. When an influential webcomic by the name of XKCD mentions the number of hits Google returns for “died in a(n) ______________ accident” and lists…

• skydiving (710)
• elevator (575)
• surfing (496)
• skateboarding (473)
• camping (166)
• gardening (100)
• ice skating (97)
• knitting (7)
• blogging (2)

within a week, the new results are…

• skydiving (1,630)
• elevator (702)
• surfing (519)
• skateboarding (497)
• camping (192)
• gardening (202)
• ice skating (84; “died in a ice skating accident” returns 5 results, one of which references the comic itself)
• knitting (1,900)
• blogging (18,900)

Here’s the complicated bit. Those two “blogging accidents” are now so deep in Google’s search list, that no one can know if the author of XKCD made them up, or are really there, without serious research. At the same time, blogging has just gone to being one of the more grisly and dangerous activities of the twenty-first century.

Just think… you are at serious risk to your life and person, right now, just by reading this list. You are are experiencing danger at more than ten times the level you would encounter by jumping out of a perfectly good airplane or by wielding a pair of knitting needles (great gods, you’re engaging in activities a hundred times more risky than using a crochet hook in an airport, where the TSA will be on your case for permitting an Afghan to pass through security).

All because of a comic, people. Isn’t that awesome, and scary?