MetaFilter posts tagged with trends

"That would not kill Dracula!"

Artw — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:23:59 -0800

Vampires are over, argues Neil Gaiman. (Via the Guardian, who rather oddly suggest the similarly over-exposed zombies as a replacement)

Does your son's name end with the letter "n"?

srs — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:01:35 -0800

Andrew Gelman recently posted this strange trend in baby naming originally posted on Laura Wattenberg's blog in 2007. Why do so many boys' names now end with the letter "n"?

Why you're probably not named Tricia

escabeche — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:54:23 -0800

What leads cultural tastes and practices to be abandoned? (.pdf) A new PNAS paper by marketing professor Jonah Berger and organizational psychologist Gael Le Mens argues that the faster a trend rises, the faster it's likely to fall, at least as regards longitudinal data of first names given to American children. (Via the Baby Names Blog.) Berger has written before on the drive to non-conform; a 2007 joint paper with Emily Pronin and Sarah Molouki (.pdf) shows that "people see others as more conforming than themselves.... placing more weight on introspective evidence of conformity (relative to behavioral evidence) when judging their own susceptibility to social influence as opposed to someone else's."

Wikirank

peacay — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 06:39:26 -0800

Wikirank is an analytical tool that measures the popularity of trending topics on wikipedia. You can compare up to four topics and generate nifty embeddable graphs.

Don't be micro-bored

divabat — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:13:40 -0800

Ever spend a few moments during the day idly mucking about with your cellphone? You're part of a new trend known as micro-boredom - which now presents "a significant opportunity for a publisher to exploit readership and advertising consumption". Get away from the bombardment of advertising and find some sacred space, or just turn off the phone.

Name it and it will be yours

mippy — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:55:23 -0800

What's in a name? The Puritans and Victorians thought names could convey virtue onto whom they were bestowed; in Zimbabwe this is still a popular practise. Some names are thought to be 'high-end', some 'low-end' (even neighbourhoods) and our perceptions of what makes a good name changes in time. Meanwhile there are some human names that seem to suit dogs well.

reality jockey

nickyskye — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:45:20 -0800

RjDj "is a music application for the iPhone. It uses sensory input to generate and control the music you are listening to. RjDj is mainly listened to with headphones. Think of it as the next generation of walkman or mp3 player." l Michael Breidenbruecker initiated the project, now joined by a team of musical and technological thinkers and coders l "What it’s really about is a new approach to how to listen to music, how to develop musical tools, and how communities own and share that work." The application is difficult to describe and on paper it sounds sort of silly (see the video below for a convincing demonstration). Using the iPhone’s built in microphone, the application listens for ambient noise which it then modifies and infuses into an automatically generated dynamic soundtrack. You can download the full version for $2.99 here, or you can try out the free version (which only has one ’scene’). How to Create Scenes (And incidentally, you can work on scenes with a laptop even if you don’t own an iPhone.) Mentioned previously here and in AskMe.

new designs

nickyskye — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:06:07 -0800

DesignFilter: Walking house designed to beat the floods [pics and vid] l Wearable Gadgets [pics and vids] l Backpacks l Commuting by JetPack l Blog Designs l Twitter Clapper l and for Halloween, some awesome [whoa] carved pumpkin designs.

Gotta get up, gotta get up, gotta get up

deusdiabolus — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:50:57 -0800

All hail the energy drink! Potentially dating back as far as early 1900s Scotland, the energy drink has evolved from a nasty-tasting "health tonic" into a brightly-colored and supercharged fuel for body and/or mind. The phenomena gained speed with the advent of "classics" such as Jolt Cola and later Red Bull - and many current formulas do not stray from the high caffeine and B-vitamin formula. (And, of course, there is the other appeal of the energy drink...) However, newer energy drinks are taking a more health-conscious and organic approach, such as the all natural Guru Energy and Brain Toniq (neither of which contain sugar, fructose or artificial sweeteners). I am personally hoping for a Piracetam-based drink...

Buzz is forever?

l33tpolicywonk — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 23:18:24 -0800

Lord of the Memes : Now that MeFi has taught me how to beat the hipsters, how do I beat the poseurs? David Brooks says "prestige has shifted from the producer of art to the aggregator and the appraiser;" the cultural elite are early adopters and, more importantly, early discarders, of culture. The article is worthwhile if only because Brooks provides an interesting narration on what being cool by being anti-cool has meant in the last 75 years or so. Has the exponential growth of culture blurred the lines between high and low culture? If we no longer define cultural literacy by a set of notable reference points, can we even speak of a one culture?

Design Ideas, Web Trends, and Tutorials

netbros — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:29:38 -0800

Web Designer Wall is the personal weblog of Nick La who is N.Design Studio. He talks about design ideas he has, design tutorials from Photoshop to CSS, etc., and trends in modern web design. (see previous)

Irritated and Indifferent

tkolar — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 11:27:08 -0800

Irritated and indifferent -- consumers in the Expectation Economy. [warning -- article is way too enthusiastic and engages in capslock abuse] The proliferation of online product review sites is making Consumer Reports look positively antiquated. This is particularly true for high-end products, where discovering "best of class" items is now just a few mouse-clicks (or one AskMe) away. How do you stay ahead of the curve when consumers regularly know more about your market than you do?

Americans Cared More About Baby Jessica Than About Chernobyl

amyms — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 20:40:55 -0800

NewsFilterFilter: What Kind Of News Do People Really Want? A recent study by the Pew Research Center For The People & The Press analyzes 165 separate surveys of Americans' news preferences (conducted over a period of 20 years). One of the findings would have been obvious to most Mefites: "Polarizing social issues involving family, sexuality, patriotism and God engender the highest levels of attention." Crime, health and politics have consistently received mid-level attention. Tabloid and entertainment news (Paris and Britney, this means you), science and technology, and "foreign" news? Meh, not so much.

A tangled web

WPW — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 05:16:22 -0800

A (rather beautiful) subway map of web trends. Similar, previously. Via Strangemaps.

I [Heart] Charts and Graphs

Monochrome — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 22:43:16 -0800

Data analysis, brought to you by Big Blue, is following a trend. Data has never been more social. Geeks and statistics groupies used to be isolated, but the internet is changing that. Ever pine for a pile of Excel spreadsheets? Have you tried running an ANOVA on a year's worth of traffic data? You're not alone. New sites add sociability to cold hard facts; take a look at the "YouTube for data" or IBM's Many Eyes. Both sites induce squeals of delight from anyone who's ever felt Tuftian. What's next? One word: infornography. Please, keep your Standard Deviation jokes to yourself.

Conical Pizza

sportbucket — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 13:30:47 -0800

Pizza in Three Dimensions "Every few years, a product comes along that completely changes its category. As the iPod has revolutionized the way people interact with music; as cell phones and wireless internet access has altered the way they communicate, so, too, will the way they approach eating change with the introduction of Pizzacono, the first dramatically new way to consume pizza in recent memory."

Life Drawing class as Burlesque show

juliarothbort — Sun, 29 Oct 2006 09:14:48 -0800

"Two years of twisting my back for 15 bucks an hour as an artist's model convinced me that modern sketch classes weren't nearly as sexy as they were cracked up to be."

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, hosted in Brooklyn and with branches around the World , gives artists the chance to draw burlesque performers like The World Famous *BOB* , Dirty martini , and Amber Ray , and make real pretty pictures . A return to glory days? Or just another tired trend?

Oh, and there is a book.

(Possibly NSFW if your job doesn't like pasties. )

Norah Jones over Miles Davis? Really?

beaucoupkevin — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 08:10:54 -0800

Google Trends now includes chart information about what people are listening to while using Google Talk. Some genres have questionable entries, but it's still fascinating for chart followers. Mind you, I don't remember signing off on sharing that information when I got the new version of Google Talk...

Meal Assembly

crunchland — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 09:01:18 -0800

Meal Assembly ... a new trend in figuring out what's for dinner. You go to a professional kitchen and assemble any number of meals, then bring them home and freeze them. Like a salad bar, but more diverse. They provide all the ingredients and the basic recipes, and cut out the shopping, the leftover ingredients ... (and maybe the creativity?). The upside is low cost (as low as $3 a portion), and better portion control. Coming soon to a suburb near you.

We know what we are, but know not what we may be.

sourwookie — Sat, 27 May 2006 13:44:46 -0800

Timeline of Trends and Events (1750 to 2100). Large image, lots of info. Via digg

redefining the zeitgeist or something!

blacklite — Wed, 10 May 2006 18:03:29 -0800

Google Trends is really cool. Yes, it's yet another google project, but you can compare so much pointless stuff with it!

A Solid Foundation for Fascism?

pt68 — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 19:34:10 -0800

Emory University study describes the Millenial Generation An interesting comparison of Gen Xers and the so-called Millenial Generation, born since 1982, from Emory University. The M.Gen kids apparently want to do good, as long as there is a clear structure and leadership that tells them how and what to do . . . oh, and don't question the leaders. Really. Why would you?

War on Drugs, by the numbers

daksya — Mon, 27 Feb 2006 11:24:29 -0800

In the "debate" over the War on Drugs, there's a lack of nice quantitative data presentation in one place. Brian C Bennett aims to rectify that. From trends in alcohol initiation relative to legal age limits, to investigation of the deaths classified by CDC as marijuana-induced. There are lots of charts, as for cocaine purity over the years, or treatment admissions, or arrest trends. The site map is your quick guide to the 2000 charts & articles.

Frat-based zeitgeist

mrgrimm — Tue, 20 Dec 2005 11:55:55 -0800

"More cowbell!" is the new "Freebird."

Brighten your day

R. Mutt — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 16:08:16 -0800

An*l Bleaching Cream ... courtesy of the Village Voice. (no photos, but one would have to say, NSFW)