The SoapBoxers

Wonderful wastes of time

March 7, 2009

kosmo - See all 763 of my articles

There are so many ways to waste time on the internet, but I’ll focus on just a few.

Snopes
OK, this can actually be pretty useful. Snopes is a leader in the industry of myth debunking. Snopes currently lists 43 different myth topics, ranging from Disney to politics. There’s even a category devoted to debunking dozens of myths about the 911 attacks, including:

– Osama Bin Laden owns Snapple – false

– Bert (from Sesame Street) appears on posters carried by Bin Laden Supporters – true!

It can be interesting simply to browse the Snopes archives. Many of the myths are mind boggling, and they make for very entertaining reads. Snopes can also come in handy when your friend forwards you the latest email about an outrage that is occurring in congress. You can search on key words and get the information you need to tell your friend that someone is yanking his chain.

The articles on Snopes are well researched, and the sources of their information are clearly noted at the end of the articles.

Says-it
Says-it allows you to create add your own text to signs – church signs, bank signs, danger signs, and more. Here is an image I created.

On a forum that I subscribe to, one member uses a custom church sign as his signature – with custom messages that poke (good natured) fun at other members.

Says-it was also used to design the logo for this blog.

GraphJam
GraphJam allows you to quickly create custom charts. Pie charts are my favorite, mostly because I like pie.

You can easily waste a lot of time looking at all the cool graphs that other people have designed. Here’s a quick graph that I came up with.

Note that GraphJam is a part of the ICanHasCheezburger family of sites (probably best known for LolCats) – so if you haven’t wasted enough time on GraphJam, you can always jump over to some of its sister sites.

Assorted
Fun stuff, Fun web sites