“Some people describe a hit song as a brain itch,” reads the corporate literature for the Music X-Ray, a new service that mathematically analyzes songs for musicians and record labels (for a fee, of course), to determine how statistically likely it is that they’ll be a hit — and scratch that itch for the masses. The way the X-Ray works is this: most hit songs supposedly conform to a limited number of mathematical patterns — patterns so subtle that only a computer (and X-Ray’s fancy proprietary software) can detect and analyze them. The way it works is this: you submit your song to the X-Ray, and you get back a report that rates your song on a scale from Platinum (”Smash hit sound!”) to Copper (”No hit”), and for a cool $100 you can even get a (theoretically less robotic) A&R executive’s opinion. A disclaimer on their website counsels that a low grade doesn’t mean your song doesn’t “sound” like a hit — just that it would be “seriously challenged to perform well in the market.” For those of you who thinking that this all sounds a little absurd and very un-rock, beware: before long you can bet that our already programmed-to-be-popular hits will be X-Rayed, as well.

Mozilla Firefox is the preferred browser for roughly a quarter of web users, me included. I’m a big fan of tabbed browsing, the quick search bar, the built-in spell check, and the “restore session” option.

But I’m no power user. Besides Googlepedia, which splits Google and Wikipedia in one search results page (above), I don’t take advantage of many Firefox Add-ons. Here are a few I’m about to install:

• StumbleUpon lets you “channelsurf” the best-reviewed sites on the web. It is a collaborative surfing tool for finding and sharing great sites. This helps you find interesting webpages you wouldn’t think to search for.

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Corey Arnold is an Alaskan fisherman who started out working on boats as a summer job to pay for college. Arnold has appeared on Deadliest Catch, and apparently he gets a lot of fan mail from kids who want to be just like him. He responds with an article (half-blog, half-how-to) describing his adventures in fishing.

Arnold spends a lot of time describing what it’s really like trying to find work, which is something we can all relate to. He also shares his excellent photographs (after all, he was working to pay for art school) of the fishing life. Arnold’s photographs are the major attraction here — it’s truly another world out on the boats.

Worth a read for fans of hard work, photography, and Deadliest Catch. (Note for readers: some coarse language is used.) Also worth a look: Corey Arnold’s photography site.

The rumors are true: Last week ABC News sent a comedian to attend our fool-proof, easy on the wallet Law School in a Box. The results? Exactly as we predicted. mental_floss’ Law School in a Box is still the #1 boxed law school in the country!
I’ve posted a few stills from the video below, but if you want to check out the ABC digital video be sure to click here. Oh, and Law School in a Box is still available at our online store. Click here to get enrolled today.

We’ve taken 15 of the biggest-selling, most iconic album covers in history and created one heck of a quiz! Can you spot the originals from the ones we’ve craftily altered? Click here to prove your music mettle.

There was a gruesomely fascinating article in the LA Times on Sunday about Japan. We know Japan, we love Japan; its citizens boast one of the lowest homicide rates and one of the longest average life expectancies in the world. They also, the article points out, have been dismembering one another quite a bit lately. I’ll skip the goriest highlights, but a few telling examples are the young man who offed his mother, spray-painted her arm white and then planted it upright in a houseplant pot and the woman who buried the head of her cheating husband in a public park. Strange and horrifying? Certainly. A new phenomenon? Certainly not.

Dismemberment took place in the Edo period (1603-1868), in both state sanctioned form — check out this brief wiki on crime and punishment at that time — and in private life. Also, according to historian Mark Schreiber, “slashing of innocent passersby occurred regularly during the Showa era (1926-89) and the Taisho period (1912-26) had its record of sadistic crimes,” as well. Needless to say, there’s plenty of speculation out there as to the reasons why dismemberment is back in the Japanese news again. Far be it from us to guess; from what we can tell, sadism is something of a sport the world round.

Photo by Kalle Sissonen.

Summer is here, so the insects can’t be far behind. You might think of houseflies, ants, ticks, and the dreaded mosquito, but let’s leave those subjects for another time. There are some really fascinating and (dare I say it?) nice bugs we can enjoy in the summer.

Honeybees

A honeybee will sting you if you step on one barefoot, but we couldn’t get along without them. Honeybees traipse from flower to flower, ensuring that our food crops are pollinated. Pollination is a fortunate side effect; what the bees are after is sweet nectar, which they concentrate and covert to honey. And there are few things better on a hot fresh biscuit!

Fireflies

According to The Firefly Files, fireflies produce light “via a chemical reaction consisting of Luciferin (a substrate) combined with Luciferase (an enzyme), ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and oxygen.” Personally, I just love to watch them blink on and off in the distance as I enjoy a late night campfire with friends.

More delightful bugs, after the jump.
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It’s time for another whimsical Tuesday Turnip search wherein I type a random phrase and we see what kind of interesting factoids “turn-up.”

Inspired by the unbelievable array of iPod accessories out there these days, today I decided to see what the search engine would spit out if I typed in “unusual iPod accessories.” The results were both interesting and hilarious. If any of you own these newfangled devices, PLEASE let us know how well they work – especially the iPod acsexsory at the end of the list, which you really need to see to believe!

• iGlove Multi, an iPod friendly winter glove. iPod Click Wheel compatible fleece glove that’s warm enough to wear on it’s own yet slim enough to use as a liner in your regular glove.
• iCat, iDog, iFish and iPenguin – Keep the music playing with these portable musical companions that play back through their built-in speakers or your headphones!
• iDJ Mixing Console – The iDJ allows you to input two iPods and two additional turntables or MP3/CD players.
• iKaraoke – Sends the music from your iPod to your stereo minus the lead vocals, so you can step up to the mic and sing the lead in your favorite tunes.
• Store an iPod nano in stylish aluminum alloy belt buckles.
• PodoLock anti theft – frames your iPod in a beautiful, acrylic case. Insert a cable at the top, lock to a table or fixture, and your iPod is protected from theft.
• i-Ride Active Tunes Bicycle Stereo System – Listen to your iPOD, MP3 Player Satellite Radio while Riding Your Bike!
• OhMiBod Music Powered Vibrator

Our dog turns 22-months-old this week. That’s human months. I could do the old 1-dog-year-equals-7-human-years calculation, but I’m anti-math on Mondays. So instead I decided to hit up DogAge.com and take a fifteen-minute survey. We covered every aspect of Bailey’s life: eating habits, exercise routine, regular visitors (I named names), toys she’d want on a deserted island, Blake vs. Jordin and so on.

Halfway through, I realized I was supplying DogAge sponsor Purina with a treasure trove of consumer data. They’ll be aiming highly targeted ads at me for the rest of Bailey’s life, the length of which they can easily estimate. I feel like Michael Douglas in The Game* when he realizes all that paperwork he filled out helped decode his PINs and passwords.

I now receive regular email from DogAge; it goes to my “email I don’t want” Hotmail address, so I don’t mind. Today’s DogAge Tip is about how to prevent separation anxiety, a problem I know they know plagues us. Big Brother is watching, but at least he’s providing helpful advice.

*I saw this movie in 1998. There’s a chance this comparison is ill-conceived—a chance I’m willing to take.

If your coworkers came to work this morning clutching towels, sure, they could just be really excited about the long weekend. But since it’s May 25th, it’s more likely they’re banding with other Douglas Adams fans to commemorate Towel Day. I came to Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy via its MS-DOS Apple IIe game version–’90 was a long, dry summer, and I needed to engage in fantasies in which the phenomenal world no longer existed. So: towels. For those of us who are sans towel today, here’s some history on the tradition, taken from towel headquarters:

Partly it has great practical value–you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth…you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

If merely toting isn’t enough, it’s possible there’s a towel party in your area–check the forums. Has anyone ever been to one? This one last year in Finland looks festive. Towels don’t exactly beget light sabers, but today is also Universal Day of the Jedi, which marks the 30th anniversary of the original film’s release.