Schwippy

The Prioritizer

So I came across this awesome online calculator that lets you ‘get your priorities straight’, as my ex girlfriend would often tell me to do.

Its marketed off as a financial calculator, but whats great is that you can use it for anything that you need to plot.

Lets take the example I used to check it out. When people ask me something like ‘What’s your favorite soda?’, I just usually say I dont have a favorite. Lets say i actually want to see what soda i really do prefer over all the others. Thats where this calculator comes into play.

All I have to do it give it a list of all the items I want prioritized. In this case, Root beer, Doctor Peeper, Splite, Sierra Myst, Cherry Cook, and Pipse.

After i enter all my choices, up to 15, it then proceeds to ask me which I prefer over another. In other words, a complete boolean approach to the entire situation.

Depending on how many items are put in, The Prioritizer will keep asking questions until every item has been compared to every other item. In my case above, it had 2 of the above screens i had to fill out (on 2 pages).

Once you have completed the comparisons, you get a result page with a ranking of all your comparisons on it, showing you what is most important to you.

For my example above, It shows me that Root beer is the number one position on my favorites, while Doctor Peeper is the least favorite.

Like I said above, this was intentionally intended as a financial calculator, so you could of course use it to prioritize financial situations like home mortgage payments, car payments, and the what not….. but wheres the fun in not being able to decide what color to dye your cat?

The Prioritizer [ Via Lifehacker]

Dig to China!

If you dug a hole straight down through the earth, you would come out in china!

Well, thats what our parents have told us anyways. Looks like the internet gets to prove Ma’ wrong again.

My gf and I were talking about this a while back and i told her I found a site that mashed up some Google maps stuff and showed you the exact spot that you would come out on the other side of the world on. So according to this, the only way your gonna be able to dig to China, is if you already live in Argentina.

Dighole [Via Make Magazine]

Sill Japanese

If you’re lazy, like me, I seriously doubt you’ll wanna be visiting Okayama anytime soon.
Well, that is unless you’re looking for a good workout.

It looks like they got a roller coaster that is entirely human powered.

Yea, those are pretty much converted bicycles up there. Ha. As cool as it is, just seems like a lot of work to have fun. But it also makes me think about what it would be like to make something similar. How hard would it be to convert a bicycle to a track mounted device? Or ya know what would be even better? One of those 2-man railroad carts. Ya know… the kind with the see-saw lever in the middle!

Ok, I guess I would go on it after all. I mean, jeez, look at the views. The closest thing we have around here even remotely similar to that is at Magic Mountain.

Sky Cycle [Via Hacked Gadgets]

Learn to Speed Read

Ive always been interested in speed reading…. i just never knew exactly how. I knew there were a few tricks to use, like you just simply cant say the words in your head if you wanna go fast. It just wont work.

Ive never really tried to look up techniques for speed reading, but i did just happen to come across this guy’s site. He seems to know his stuff and has some tips about it. Its worth a nice slow read anyways

Double Your Reading Rate [Via Lifehacker]