Calculate Your NYTYIIH Score!

harrisj@nimblecode.com (Jacob Harris) — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 10:08:00 -0800

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?

Nimble Code: Calculate Your NYTYIIH Score!

Calculate Your NYTYIIH Score!