The Humor Experiment Continues

You remember that I started a crusade to make judging humor something that we all do together, right?  Well, for now, I guess I still want to play in some of the contests judged by the few, so I went and threw my standup routine out there.  The truth is what I appreciate most is the laughter.  I hope it brings you some...

Remember,  I love feedback.

HumorQ.com Host Uncle Bob at Cap City Open Mic Again

HumorQ Goes International

This week HumorQ meets with Avis Rawlinson, a frequent HumorQ champ from North of the border.

So, you’re a HumorQ champion.  To what do you credit such an impressive sense of humor?

Hmmm....well, I think firstly it's due to the fact I'm originally from the North of England (if you watch Coronation St. you'll know we're a funny bunch!) Plus I was bullied as a kid, the only Protestant on a street filled with Irish Catholics in the 60s...and learned that I could cut my enemy down to size by making them look silly and having their own group laugh with me! Saved my skin I can tell you! My mother was also a bit like Lucille Ball, red hair and all! Genetics?

 

Do you have some sort of ritual that you do that helps you submit champion caliber captions?

No...I do some of them when I've just got off night shift...I think being sleep deprived helps! Other times I grab a coffee, stare at the cartoon and wait for inspiration to strike! LOL!

Are there certain people you’d like to approach and say “Remember that day you said I wasn’t funny?  Well my humorq is ..." ?

Oh yes! A few of my teachers that used to give me a detention for cracking up the class.

Let’s say you realized a tiny goat family has been living in the glove compartment of your car, what would you say to them?

"Good God...I wondered where that smell was coming from!  And which one of you ate my Map of Ontario?"

Fair is fair.  Do you have a question for me?

Yes. Are you ever going to offer Tim Hortons gift cards for us Canadians? Nah just kidding...let's see...um...are you ever going to publish a book with all these cartoons and our captions so we can all get rich someday?

Well I'll answer both questions since it's my blog and all.  I'll investigate the complexity of international prize giving.  I make it to Vermont every summer, so I'm practically in Montreal there.  I'll get back to you on that one.  I have published a book.  It's titled "Don't Hide When Your Pants are Full" available at Lulu.com.  No pictures or captions in it though.  Eventually we will figure out how to create products from the goings on here, but right now it's not about the money making.  

Is there another website (besides HumorQ.com where we put a number oh how funny people are), that you would like the world to know about?

Yes, thanks for asking! I have a store on Zazzle where I sell my designs, ideas, artwork etc. on a variety of products....(and yes, AvisNoelle is my real name!)

http://www.zazzle.com/avisnoelledesigns

I also have a store where I sell my photography and designs/artwork on greetings cards...

http://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/AvisNoelleDesigns

Finally, is there anything else you would like to share with the people learning about HumorQ? 

I think it's a great site in which you can be creative, say all those funny things you've always wanted to say but never had the vehicle to do so, and possibly ward off Alzheimer's Disease by staying mentally agile! Plus it's just plain fun! :0)

A Visit With Last Month's Starbucks Winner Rita Welagala

So, you’re a HumorQ champion.  To what do you credit such an impressive sense of humor?

Maybe going to Catholic school?

Do you have some sort of ritual that you do that helps you submit champion caliber captions?

Wearing some big clown shoes helps.

Are there certain people you’d like to approach and say “Remember that day you said I wasn’t funny?

Sister Mary Alberta

Let’s say you realized a tiny goat family has been living in the glove compartment of your car, what would you say to them?

That's where I keep my kid skin gloves!!

Fair is fair.  Do you have a question for me?

What do you get out of this?

It's sort of like hosting a party.  There's time, effort, and a wee bit of money involved, but at the end of the day, I feel like I gave the people a good place to hang out for a little while.  I'll hate if it's ever over.  There will be all that picking up to do. 

Is there another website (besides HumorQ.com where we put a number oh how funny people are), that you would like the world to know about?

I'm setting  up an AboutMe.com  It's not open yet. It's to promote my book, which is also not ready yet.

Well, let us know when the book is out, I'll want to get that one.  You probably didn't know this but I wrote a book myself.  It's called "Don't Hide When Your Pants Are Full". and it's available at Lulu.com.

Finally, is there anything else you would like to share with the people learning about HumorQ?  

It's a good brain exercise.

HumorQ Champion Tanya Amberson Shares about HumorQ

Here's an interview with our latest HumorQ Champion, Tanya Amberson...

So, you’re a HumorQ champion. To what do you credit such an impressive sense of humor?

I guess I'd have to say my husband because he always makes me laugh. I was a pretty serious person before we got together, but I guess his wit has rubbed off on me over the years.

Do you have some sort of ritual that you do that helps you submit champion caliber captions?

Well, I usually look at the new cartoon in the morning or the night before. Sometimes a caption pops into my head right away. If it doesn't I let it roll around in my brain while I paint (I'm an animal artist) and I seem to always be able to come up with something. Now, whether that something's funny is a whole 'nother ball of wax.

Are there certain people you’d like to approach and say “Remember that day you said I wasn’t funny? Well my humorq is 200” ?

Maybe my Dad when he use to say "That's not funny missy", usually before I really caught heck. But if I said that to him now I don't think he would be amused. I definitely didn't get my sense of humor from him.

Let’s say you realized a tiny goat family has been living in the glove compartment of your car, what would you say to them?

No idea, although I would feel like the butt of a bad joke.

Fair is fair. Do you have a question for me?

What's YOUR humorq?

Oh boy, that's a loaded question. Right now I don't play because I have the keys to the database, and if I we're a champion, my brothers would say I cheated. I'm very anxious to pay someone else to hold the keys, so I can play too.

Is there another website (besides HumorQ.com where we put a number oh how funny people are), that you would like the world to know about?

I'm going to engage in some shameless self promotion and tell people to visit my site at:

http://www.AmbersonArt.blogspot.com

My husband and I are animal artists and are always available to do custom paintings of pets, wildlife, etc.

Finally, is there anything else you would like to share with the people learning about HumorQ?

Just that it's a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to more people signing up and participating. If I can create a winning caption then anyone can create a winning caption.

Time Travel, Crowdsifting, HumorQ, and a Goat

A time traveler from another world journeys to earth in the year 1011. He rounds up the then world rulers and asks them to give the best twenty-five word answer to the question "What is wisdom?". They are told if their answer is correct, they will be taught the ways to live a most joyous life. The time traveler explains they have 24 hours for all of them to come up with a single best answer to the question, and then offers to give each a ride home. King Sancho III suggests they all just stay there and talk about it, but they end up agreeing to all take their rides home, spend the night speaking to their advisors, and return 23 hours later to select their best answer in the final hour.

It's the year 1011, and the conversation doesn't go very well. Lots of literal back stabbing. Finally, the time traveler speaks up and says "Yo!, Maybe it's just me, but I don't think your planet is quite ready yet. I'm gonna head back to my time travel machine, crank the surprisingly analog knob up 1000 years, and see how you guys are doing." One of the smarter kings says "We'll be dead, right?".

Anyway, the time traveler returns in 2011 and once again rounds up the world leaders to offer the secrets of a joyous life in exchange for the best twenty-five word answer to the question "What is wisdom?". Diplomatically they form a plan to acquire the answer, we will each separate and speak to our advisors, and return in 20 hours when we will each submit our best answer, debate for three hours and then vote. They all went off and did their thing. With the world's eyes paying attention this time, the leaders each pitched their answers. It soon became apparent that each wanted more time, and after an hour went by, the time traveler and the whole world could plainly see that a vote would never happen. An answer would never be given.

The time traveler spoke "You know you guys really have come along way. You have lots of emerging technology, and you're all getting along most of the time, but you really could use a better way to communicate good ideas. Last night while you were thinking of your answers, I met a man in a place called Round Rock. I wasn't expecting much, you know "Round Rock" really doesn't say "We're brilliant" , at least not to me, but I want you to listen to him for a minute."

The man from Round Rock spoke, "Hi, I'll make this quick since we only have a couple of more hours to get this answer. I have an idea I call crowdsifting. That's right I use the prefix 'crowd', please don't take much time to get over it. Anyway, if everyone in the world that has a good answer to the time traveler's question would sign on to crowdsifting.com, I can tell you how this works. You see we can leverage the power of the internet to find the best answer to this question in an hour or two. The way it works is you are first asked to vote on the submissions of others. You will see around five or six sets of five answers each, and you will be asked to choose the one you like best in each set. You should notice that as you move through the sets the answers get better. After you have voted, and seen what some of the best answers look like, you will get to submit your answer. Your answer will then be presented to five other submitters in a list of five choices. If it is selected let's say three of those five times, it will be presented again in about fifteen different submitter's second list of five choices and so on. With this process we will have millions of people bringing our best answer to this question to the top.

With that, the time traveler turned to the man from Round Rock, and said "How did you come up with that anyway?". The man replied "Caption Contests. I got tired of seeing what a handful of judges thought were the best answers to caption contests, and thought that what opinion needs is a high population of judgments. So I created this method and a web site called HumorQ.com, and I think I can actually use it to put a number on how funny people are by having multiple judges score their caption submissions over time. Umm, but, we have like an an hour and forty five minutes to get you that answer, and I want a crack at it, so really we all probably better get going, right?".

The time traveler turned to the man from Round Rock and said "You have answered the question satisfactorily already, here." And with that, the time traveler handed the man from Round Rock what looked incredibly like a Popeye Pez dispenser. He explained "The secret to a most joyous life is in there somewhere". The man from Round Rock said "We should probably use crowdsifting to figure out what to do next."

A goat walks into a bar.

HumorQ.com

Hi. Chances are you don't know me, and you've probably never heard of me. You would think at fifty years old if I were going to do something big I would have started by now. Well I have started, it's just the rest of the world takes a bit of time to catch up I guess. I'm a high school graduate that has worked for IBM since I was eighteen years old. I blame a combination of restlessness and laziness on my lack of a college degree but I have been blessed with a good heart, above average intelligence, and a very creative mind.

I often can't remember if I took my blood pressure medicine or not today, because my brain is often wandering off thinking about what our world will be like twenty, fifty, and one hundred years from now. The world my grandchildren might grow up in. I see computers replacing a great deal of our logical thinking, and society raising the value of our most creative people. I believe it will become just as important (perhaps more) to place a value on an individuals creativity than their intelligence.

So let's cut to the chase. I think of myself as very creative, (and redundant too). Probably above all, I love creating humor. I've been a sucker for caption contests since they started showing up on line. I win once in a while, but the judging seems crude. It occurred to me that a better way to run a caption contest would be to have the public vote. So what I did was put together a site where in order to submit a caption, you have to do some voting. The website is http://www.humorq.com .

Here's where it gets good though. While doing this I realized we can give every entry a value based on it's popuarity. We can track a member's popularity over time and place a value on their ability to create humor. Thus the name HumorQ. Humor is one of the great characteristics and advantages that I'm hoping we will hold forever over computers. I see a world only ten years from now where a marketing firm wants to see your HumorQ on their job application. And twenty years from now, I see it on everyone's job application. Discovering the world's top HumorQ scores means finding some of our most creative without them stumbling into success. It means an opportunity to recognize creativity very early, and discover some great human problem solvers and place them where we can leverage their creativity into a better world.

Share your thoughts please.