Ms. Dewey: search goddess or time-wasting temptress?

I’ve just discovered the Ms. Dewey search engine (thanks to Gideon Strauss, who calls the site the anti-Google), and I can’t decide whether I like her or not. Ms. Dewey is certainly more entertaining than those other plain vanilla search engine interfaces.

Ms. Dewey, Search Goddess

In the words of Adrants:

She’s saucy, she’s sexy, she even poses provocatively from time to time with a cute little notepad – but beware, like most hot chicks she is chatty as hell and gets a little needy when neglected (along the lines of “Hel-loooo? Type something here!”). Also, sometimes she sings. We don’t get embarrassed often, but we got embarrassed then.

In the end, Ms. Dewey is yet another Internet black hole to suck away your time. Not as highly addictive as the ultrainteractive kung fu remixer (thank goodness), but a nice diversion when you’re needing a break from ignoring all those media queries.

Update: fellow blogger brownpau suggests we see what happens when we ask Ms. Dewey about Janina Gavankar.

Friday Five: ‘I like to watch’ (YouTube) edition

OK, so it’s only Thursday. I’m early for a change.

This Friday Five is brought to you by the spirit of Chauncey Gardiner. Some of you youngsters have probably never heard of him. He was a character played by Peter Sellers in the movie Being There, and he liked to watch television. A lot.

Chauncey would have loved YouTube. Apparently, we all love YouTube. In the past year along, according to a Wall Street Journal article, we’ve spent 9.305 years watching YouTube videos. Wired‘s Monkey Bites blog calculates how many years have been wasted watching the following five YouTube posts:

14.26 years watching geriatric1927.

14.75 years watching lonelygirl15.

17.71 years watching “Real Life Simpsons Intro.”

93.31 years watching funtwo shred on the guitar.

378.99 years watching Evolution of Dance, YouTube’s most-viewed video.

Lest you think YouTube holds no educational value whatsoever, some educators are finding ways to use YouTube in the classroom. Hat tip to connect.educause.edu.

And if you’re of a certain age, a bit on the nerdy side, do not work in a cubicle and the boss is out of the office today, you have my permission to crank up the speakers and enjoy one of my guilty YouTube pleasures.