Stumbling toward greatness

It has come to my attention that some people don't like my column because it seems like I think I know everything. Come on now, that can't possibly be true. For instance, had I known insulting Kiefer Sutherland was the hotbed of "24" fan antipathy it was, I would have written last week's column about something less controversial, like abortion (kidding).

Au contraire, mon amis. If there's one thing I don't know, it's everything. If there's anything else, it's French. And nothing has demonstrated my considerable lack of knowledge more completely than the newest Web-browsing phenomenon. It's like Minesweeper on speed, Google for the ADHD-beset, Collegehumor.com and Encyclopedia Britannica combined. It is simultaneously threatening to teach me everything on Earth and end my productive existence.

I found StumbleUpon.com the same way people always find these things. A friend told a friend told a friend until I was seated before a perfectly ordinary looking Web browser with a small button on the toolbar that suggested I "stumble." Clicking it whisked me away to a Web site crawling with fluffy kittens. Just what the Internet needs, I thought, another link to pictures of kittens. But then I stumbled again, and again and, before long, I was utterly awestruck at the breadth and variable educational value of the nonsense to be found on the web.

But it gets even better. Before the stumbling commences, the site asks for preferences on popular topics, from humor to art history to politics to various sorts of world maps. And like the music marvel Pandora before it, StumbleUpon.com learns. After viewing Internet gems, just click "like it" to be carted off to similar oddities. And if it's just too weird? Clicking "don't like it" will ensure you'll never again be exposed to videos of creepy sepia-toned children dancing to repetitive German poetry. (Trust me, it was really, really weird.)

So, the other night, I was supposed to be working on a review paper I'm trying to get out this week. Instead, in 20 minutes I learned how many tons of carbon dioxide the United States releases per minute, how a black hole works and how to consider the 10th dimension without a Ph.D. in physics. In another 20, I learned how to play a game where a bunny jumps on frosted bells to Christmas music and posted "we found two yellow beans again" on a virtual refrigerator. After another 20 minutes, I learned that it is almost impossible to stop stumbling short of a deadline complete with a potentially disappointed adviser and three students breathing down your neck. One particularly ironic late night stumble brought me face to face with a picture of a road sign warning that stumbling causes insomnia.

After hiding my computer under a pile of really important Journal of Neuroscience papers I have no intention of reading this month, I began to wonder how this is going to affect productivity-both mine and that of the country as a whole. Studying up on random facts is great if you plan on making your life's wages on Jeopardy or as a sparkling conversationalist, but it has certainly plunged my productivity levels below their normal level.

Fortunately for most employers, many companies already restrict what workers can download to their workstations, and, after the Facebook boom, even which Web sites can be accessed during work hours. However, academics, students and the self-employed can download whatever we darn well please, which means we alone will be the architects of our own StumbleUpon.com-mediated destruction (and witty repartee).

So, in a few weeks when I'm living in a pile of cardboard with a sign that reads, "StumbleUpon.com ruined my life," be a dear and stop by to chat. Maybe then I'll know as much as my detractors think I think I do. I just won't have a job.