The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures

The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures is an article on the dating site OKCupid that takes their user data and analyzes which kind of pictures get the most responses.

Interesting photos get the most conversations, intimate flirty-face shots and showing off your bodies get the most responses. A lot of results fly in the face of what we want to believe about internet dating photos.

Maybe people hate these because they're so common... and they are common because they work? This article is pure fascinating social science.

(From Peggy's Buzzfeed)

Star Wars Baby Costumes Gallery

Star Wars Baby Costumes Gallery is a picture/list/article on Gizmodo about nerd parents and their dressed-up nerd babies. Six outfitted toddlers, it's the cutest thing ever. What's not to love?

(From Buzzfeed)

Fucking Delicious

Fucking Delicious is a cute website that shows pictures of adorable animals eating laced with profanity. For example, this picture is captioned "What? I’m not the one who’s been stealing your fucking peanuts."

A+.

(From T. J.)

Funny Street View Google Maps

Funny Street View Google Maps is a self-explanatory blog that chronicles interesting scenes captured on Google Maps Street View (akin to this previosly featured TOTI).

Pictures include anything from leopard print pimp cars in San Diego to an alleyway tummy show down in Barcelona. Sometimes the pictures have trouble loading and you have to click on the title of the entry. 
(From Sarah W.)

Fallen Princesses

Fallen Princesses is a project by Diana Goldstein on JPG magazine that places, "Fairy Tale characters in modern day scenarios. In all of the images the Princess is placed in an environment that articulates her conflict." Basically it's what would have really happened instead of happily-ever-after, or how the conflict really went down. It's whimsical and cynical  and fun. Click through for additional pictures. Diana states that there are 2 more to be shot for this series which is going on exhibit on Oct. 15/09


(From Kottke)

The Cougar Reference Manual

The Cougar Reference Manual is an infochart by MadAtoms explaining the different levels of Cougar-dom. Feel free to classify all your girlfriends according to this chart. Click through for the highest level of cougar-dom: the snapping turtle!

Also, apparently I'm a chick with puma tastes. Sweet.

(From Buzzfeed)

Chile Volcano

Chile Volcano is a series of pictures on the UPI.com website showcasing large photos of the the eruption of the Chaiten volcano. Captions explain:

"The Chaiten volcano erupts during storms in the middle of the night on May 3, 2008 in Chaiten, Chile. The Chaiten volcano, located some 800 miles south of the capital Santiago, was considered dormant since it had not erupted for hundreds of years. Thoursands of people have been evacuated from the area. (UPI Photo/Carlos Gutierrez)"

(From Guy)

Malört Face

Malört Face is a Flickr group showing people who have just tried Malört. 

According to Buzzfeed's Peggy, this is "a wormwood-flavored Swedish schnapps. It seems like Malört face could describe the worst possible face you can make." 

According to Wikipedia, "Malört, a distilled beverage, is the name of a Swedish style of schnapps called "Beska Droppar", flavored with wormwood. The word malört is the Swedish word for the wormwood plant. The smell and taste is musty and extremely bitter. Malört is popularly alleged to be a cure for indigestion." 

According to me, that's crazy.

(From Peggy's Buzz. Photo Credit: Phil Dokas, Phil Dokas, and Phil Dokas. )

Wikipedia Names Your Band

Wikipedia Names Your Band is a made-up meme by Buzzfeed. The instructions are simple:

"Go to 'Wikipedia.' Hit 'random' and the first article you get is the name of your band. Then go to 'Random Quotations' and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. Then, go to Flickr and click on 'Explore the Last Seven Days' and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. Anyway, you're now looking at my new side project, which will probably sound like Evanescence if they were on 4AD."

Fun. Here's a few samples. The users have been posting them with obscure made-up categories and fake Pitchfork ratings. I lurve it.















































































(From the Buzz, obv. And Peggy.)

Picture is Unrelated

Picture is unrelated is a website about pictures that don't make sense. It's exactly what you think: a string of pictures stripped of context, ran by a guy named "Pizzaburger". The catalog isn't very deep yet, but it's strangely addicting. Charming, really. GREAT FIND, ANDREA.

(From reader Andrea L.)

Tin Eye

Tin Eye is, "a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions."

I like a source-search engine. Which would be cool if they did this for text... but in addition, the engine spit out the results already integrated into your term paper. With a bibliography in MLA format. Or Chicago style. I'm not picky.

I digress.  TinEye (which I totally mis-read as Tiny Eye for the first 20 times) was created by Idée Inc. 

When I tried it using my very un-scientific random method, Tiny Eye correctly sourced one picture to PerezHilton.com, but failed to source the Disaster Girl picture to the now-defunct JPG magazine. Instead it pointed to Ebaum's World and Zoomr.

They also require registration to do this, which is über annoying, so I'm going to go ahead and help you out. For reals. Silly start-up, search engines don't have log-ins!

So B+ for effort, bumped down to B- for requiring a log-in.

(From Kottke )