IRAQ FELIX

September 3, 2007 6:31 AM

Top Two News Words (By Hour). "Top news sources are parsed by a computer every hour and the two most frequently used words are determined and printed out on a continuous sheet of paper." An art project by Rick Valentin, better known to late-80's & mid-90's indie-rock fans as the lead singer of the Poster Children. An updated-hourly RSS feed is also available.
posted by melorama (14 comments total)

Hey, that's pretty cool. I wish it had the date associated with it though, as well as the relative weight of the two words. I assume the first one is more frequent, but it would be nice to have some way to weigh the two against eachother.

Nevertheless, an interesting way to look at the news, and a neat art project. Thanks!
posted by gemmy at 6:44 AM on September 3, 2007

It wouldn't be art if if was useful.
posted by schwa at 7:01 AM on September 3, 2007

You can roughly figure out the dates. The "Gonzales Vick" period is distinct, as is the "Diana Iraq" one.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:03 AM on September 3, 2007

If anything it's great for coming up with some flashy superhero names.

NUCLEAR FELIX
HURRICANE DEAN
CHEMICAL STAR
BAGHDAD BUSH
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 7:20 AM on September 3, 2007

Cool stuff. Rick and the Poster Children also programmed a bunch of enhanced CD material on several of their mid-90s albums.
posted by krakedhalo at 7:28 AM on September 3, 2007

The mere fact that there is a "Gonzales Vick" period is interesting.
posted by Mr Stickfigure at 8:37 AM on September 3, 2007

DEPRESSING EXTREMELY
posted by william_boot at 8:51 AM on September 3, 2007

We need this for Metafilter.

BEANS IRAQ
BUSH BEANS
BEANS YOUTUBE
BEANS FLASH
APPLE BEANS
FISH PLATE
BEANS PANTS
CORY DOCTOROW
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:02 AM on September 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

If someone could use Yahoo Pipes to make a news RSS feed where any news items with the last dozen words from this feed were blocked I'd kiss them.
posted by furtive at 10:22 AM on September 3, 2007

If you see Kay, tell her that I'm all right.
posted by Kwantsar at 10:27 AM on September 3, 2007

Top ten words to date, out of 8977 instances of 324 words:
IRAQ (2980)
BUSH (1100)
IRAN (453)
IMMIGRATION (210)
GONZALES (151)
BRIDGE (142)
TECH (138)
DEAN (99)
LIBBY (95)
MOSQUE (95)

72 words appear only once, including "WALDHEIM", "TEXAS", "ROMNEY", and "PROTEST".
posted by ardgedee at 10:53 AM on September 3, 2007

Anyone place bets on the day instances of the word IRAN outnumber instances of the word IRAQ?
posted by furtive at 11:00 AM on September 3, 2007

Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing

I knew Iraq Felix. Iraq Felix was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Iraq Felix.
posted by lukemeister at 1:57 PM on September 3, 2007

COWER FEAR
posted by bunnytricks at 1:34 AM on September 4, 2007