Calculate Your NYTYIIH Score!
Posted by Jacob Harris Mon, 19 Dec 2005 18:08:00 GMT
For the past 5 years, the New York Times has graced with an annual roundup article titled The Year In Ideas. The issue actually came out last week, but it’s a sign of my recent workload – and the excessive number of holiday parties I had to attend – that I only read it on the commute into work today.
It actually was rather boring. Not because of the ideas themselves, but because I had actually read many of them before on various blogs and other geeky websites (Sometimes, I long for a service like “del.icio.us” for feed subscriptions just so I can share how hip the feeds I read are). I am not an information omnivore by any means, but it was apparent that I was cued into some of the same idea sources as the editors of the New York Times. Which led to an idea of my own. Since the New York Times has declared its Year In Ideas issue to be an annual tradition, I’m going to start my own personal tradition of tabulating my personal New York Times Year In Ideas Hipness score (or NYTYIIH for short). The methodology is simple. Look at every idea listed and if you had heard of it before reading in the Times, give yourself a point. Okay, let’s get started then.
The following table lists the titles of the ideas in the 2005 Year in Ideas issue with bold ones being ideas I had encountered before. I know some of the titles are cryptic, but you can take that up with the New York Times editors and not me.
| Accredited Bliss | Playoff Paradigm, The |
| The Anti-Paparazzi Flash | Pleistocene Rewilding |
| The Anti-Rape Condom | The Porn Suffix |
| Branding Nations | Preventing Suicide Bombing |
| Cartoon Empathy | The Readable Medicine Bottle |
| Celebrity Teeth | Republican Elitism |
| Cobblestones are Good for You | Robot Jockeys |
| Collapsing the Distribution Window | The Runaway Alarm Clock |
| Consensual Interruptions | Scientific Free-Throw Distraction |
| Conservative Blogs are More Effective | Seeing With Your Ears |
| Dialing Under the Influence | The Self-Fulfilling Trade Rumor |
| Do-It-Yourself Cartography | The Serialized Pop Song |
| Dolphin Culture | The Sitcom Loyalty Oath |
| Econophysics | Solar Sailing |
| Embryo Adoption | The Sonic Gunman Locator |
| Ergomorphic Footwear | Splogs |
| The Fair Employment Mark | The Stash Rocket |
| The False-Memory Diet | Stoic Redheads |
| The Fleeting Relationship | The Stream-of-Consciousness Newspaper |
| Folksonomy | Subadolescent Queen Bees |
| Forehead Billboards | The Suburban Loft |
| Gastronomic Reversals | The Synesthetic Cookbook |
| Genetic Theory of Harry Potter | Taxonomy Auctions |
| The Global Savings Glut | ”The Crawl” Makes You Stupid |
| The His-and-Her TV | The Toothbrush That Sings |
| The Hollywood-Style Documentary | The Totally Religious, Absolutely Democratic Constitution |
| The Hypomanic American | Touch Screens That Touch Back |
| The Infrared Pet Dry Room | Trial-Transcript Dramaturgy |
| In Vitro Meat | Trust Spray |
| Juvenile Cynics | Two-Dimensional Food |
| The Laptop That Will Save the World | The Uneavesdroppable Phone Conversation |
| Localized Food Aid | The Urine-Powered Battery |
| Making Global Warming Work for You | Video Podcasts |
| Medical Maggots | Why Popcorn Doesn’t Pop |
| Microblindness | Worldwide Flat Taxes |
| Monkey Pay-Per-View | Yawn Contagion |
| National Smiles | The Yoo Presidency |
| Open-Source Reporting | The Zero-Emissions S.U.V. |
| Parking Meters That Don’t Give You a Break | Zombie Dogs |
So, what is my final score? 51 out of 78, which gives me NYTYIIH score of 65.38%! I’m quite pleased with myself this year; since I have just started, I can unabashedly call this year’s score my personal best. Can you beat me?
