Can You Teach Me How To Dougie?

"Teach Me How To Dougie" is a hip-hop song by a group called Cali Swag District. And apparently the Dougie is some sort of dance people want to learn that the entire song is about. According to Wikipedia, "The "Dougie" involves "casual shoulder leans and elbow twists," compared to snap dancing."
Now, onto solving the real problem. If everyone one wants to learn how to Dougie, exactly how long might that take? Exactly 48 days. The math is quite simple really. The formula is similar to the Reproducing Rabbits Problem.

Let's assume that only one person in the world knows how to Dougie.  If that person teaches another person, then two people know. Since you'll need some time to practice dancing before you go teaching someone new, only the first person goes out the next day and teaches another person. Now 3 people in the world know how. The next day the 3rd person stays home and the first and second go out and teach a person. 5 people know. Are you keeping track of the math here? 1, 2, 3, 5.... Starting to look familiar? It's the Fibonacci Sequence. Which is where you add two numbers in the sequence to get the next number.
According to the US Census Bureau, the world population is currently 6,886,994,856. So using trial and error with this Fibonacci Sequence calculator, we can determine that the 49th number in the sequence is 7,778,742,049 which is the first number larger than the world's population. We take off the first number of the sequence for obvious reasons and now we get the answer of 48 day. Congratulations, everyone knows the dance and we can stop asking everyone to teach it to us.

This formula, of course, assumes that everyone in the world is physically and mentally capable of dancing. Also that they actually want to learn how to do the dance. And that they are capable of teaching. And that no one dies while dancing. And I'm pretty sure you stopped reading this post by now.

This post was partially inspired by the Google Nexus S puzzle from the other day.

How to stop those stupid Twittascope posts on your Twitter account

It's ok, we still follow you, but we're annoyed as fuck by your stupid horoscope shit every day. But you need to fix it like right now. And I'm going to show you how.

Log in to you Twitter account on Twitter.com and go to Settings in the upper right hand corner. Then click on the Connections tab and find Twitterscope. Click Revoke Access. Congratulations, you just became a little smarter. I mean really, did you think your life was controlled by where the stars were in the sky when you were born? I mean fuck.

Share this post with all your friends that you want to stop flooding your stream with crap.

A brief history of cell phones @benmarvin has owned

My first cell phone ever was a Nokia 5110. Like the cheapest cell phone you could get. Had the removable faceplates and Snake. Got it when I was 18, and I was like the last person I knew to get a phone.

My next phone was a Motorola V120c. Monochromatic screen. Antenna broke off. Real piece of junk.

After the V120c died I didn't have my own phone for a while and used my girlfriend's Nokia 6100. It was so tiny and girly and had some sort of glittery faceplate on it that got glitter on your face anytime you made a phone call.

Finally I got another phone, and it wasn't much better than the previous models. Some generic Samsung flip phone from Sprint. I'm not even going to bother researching a model name. At least this time it had a color screen. I had it for exactly one year.

At this point in my life it seemed that everyone I knew was getting a Nextel. And pretty much everyone I worked with had a Nextel. So when the Sprint contract was up, I bought a Nextel. The Motorola i355. Biggest most giant brick of a Nextel phone. You didn't have to call 911 with it, cause you could just beat a would-be mugger over the head with it. One of the other cool features of the phone was a built in two way radio. Not like the Nextel PTT part, but you could two-way with someone else with the same phone without cell service. Good thing my sister bought the same phone.

There was this running joke going around at my work that we should all get Blackberrys to be cool like the district manager. His name was Sean Carter. No, not that Sean Carter. I was the first at my store to get one. Instead of the pancake phone, I opted for the newer Blackberry 7100i. It was interesting in the 7100 series in that it was the only one that could not play MP3s. It also didn't have a camera or SD card storage. None the less I was hooked on smartphones. This is what triggered the addiction. A peer pressure dare.

The day the Blackberry 8700g came out, I switched to T-Mobile, paid the Nextel ETF and I was big ballin' with a true QWERTY phone. A beast of a device, still no camera, but I used and abused the hell outta that phone and it's still tickin. My dad uses it as his main phone today.

Then came the Blackberry Curve 8300. It was slim, sexy, and my very first phone with a camera. ZOMGZ, Micro SD card storage, video recording, I had to have all the cool features. The trackball was a horrible design that loved dust and I had to replace it several times. Within a short time period, the Curve 8320 came out which added WiFi to the phone and I upgraded to that. During this time period I also rocked a Nokia E71 for a month and I almost bought one because it was so much more advanced than the Blackberry and about half the thickness.

Then came the Android phones.

The day I quit my job at Peerless Motherfucking Cabinets was the day the T-Mobile G1 was announced. I ordered it 2 weeks later while unemployed. But dammit, I had my Android phone. And I paid full price for it.

I had the phone nearly a year when the next Android phone with a QWERTY came out for T-Mobile. The Motorola CLIQ. Moving from the spacious keyboard on the G1 to the cramped keyboard on the CLIQ has produced a lot of typos and still does. Last night I finally met someone else that owns a CLIQ. I will have mine for only 4 more days.

June 2nd I'm buying a MyTouch Slide. Android 2.1, full QWERTY, 5MP, HSDPA+, I'll be back to rocking an HTC. And yes, I'll be paying full price to have the latest and greatest phone. The only question is...White, Black or Red?

I will never own an iPhone and I will never buy a phone without a full keyboard.

How To Be A Social Media Douche Bag

• Sign up for every single social networking site ever. Start with the usual MySpace and Facebook and just branch out from there. Twitter and Plurk. Brightkite and Orkut. The more rare they are the better, cause you're the social-media expert, remember, so you have to be the all over the place.
• Don't forget to add thousands of friends on all these sites. FORCE PEOPLE TO KNOW YOU.
  
• Tell everyone you're an expert and create blog posts about all the great ideas that you came up with and how people look up to you. Remember, you're marketing yourself here.
• Tell everyone how much money you make. But you really don't make a lot of money so make up facts and figures.
• Make sure everyone knows you use TweetDeck.
  
• Crossposting. Make sure your blog forwards to your Twitter and you have your Twitter updates on your blog, and your Facebook shows all your Twitter updates and your Brightkite forwards to your identi.ca and your MySpace bullitens forward to your Orkut page.
• Find other douche bags to promote you. Even if they're not big names like Kawasaki and Scoble it's ok. The point is that you're the little guy that's doing big things.
• Pretend that you know all the big players. Talk to them, comment on their blogs. Don't forget to share links, retweet, crosspost, reblog, rereblog, rewrite, converse, share, create, collaborate, etc, etc, etc.
• Make some podcasts. Speak in abstract a lot.
• Write things about SEO even if you don't know what you're talking about. Quote Matt Cutts and pretend you hang out with him.
  
• Plan stupid meetups where you discuss the same stuff you talked about online 30 minutes before you met. Public coffee shops are the best because you can be seen being important and smart. Don't forget to bring your MacBook Pro, because all experts use Apple products.
• Hire someone to build a website. Make it all flashy and stuff. You can't be bothered learning how to make websites, you're the social media expert, not some shmuck that does coding all day and night.
• Get some fancy business cards with a fancy logo that makes it look like a big corporation hired you to do PR and SEO work. In fact, use lots of acronyms to confuse people to what you actually do.
• Try to be exactly like Wayne Sutton. Actually, you'll have to make friends with him. See, he's black and you don't want to look like a racist. You are the enlightened expert.
• Post videos to YouTube of you typing really fast or ranting on how some startup is going to fail or Scoble isn't doing it right even though you love him.
  
• Don't ever talk about what you actually think. Speak in abstracts and made up technical terms.
• Don't ever talk about what you actually do. Tell people about big conferences, but don't actually let them find out you were never there.
• Read TechCrunch like everyday. Leave comments about how all those startups will never succeed without your help.
• And most important of all, don't let anyone tell you that you don't know what you're doing. There's lots of old media and haters out there that just want to see you fail. But the proof is in the AdSense earnings. Make sure you read lots of e-books and get all the latest tools to maximize your earnings. Even you can market to marketers, you're the social media expert.

Learn more by following me on Twitter: @benmarvin

7 Fake Things About Me

1. I'm a virgin. Yeah, I know it's hard to believe when I talk about all the skanks I've banged, but I've never been that lucky. Just seen a lot of porn. There was one time when I almost banged this hot MILF, but her husband came home right before penetration time. Don't ask how I got out of that sticky situation.
2. I murdered a man once. Ok, so you asked about what I told you not to ask about. Yeah, I had to kill they husband. He was gonna kill me for trying to pork his wife, what was I supposed to do?
3. I don't steal music or movies. Yeah, sure it's easy to download some movies and stuff from The Pirate Bay. But I like to pay for everything. That's why I'm $50,000 in debt cause I just had to own the entire U2 catalog.
4. I have my pilot's license. Yup, I've been flying planes since before I could drive a car. I've logged many thousands of hours in flight and can even fly jet fighters. I once thought about becoming a commercial pilot because they make loads of money, but I couldn't stand the thought of not being able to smoke cigarettes for hours at a time.
5. I eat tacos for lunch every day. It's like a dream come true. I got sponsored by Taco Bell and now they send a hot Mexican girl over to my house every day around noon and she brings me tacos. Then she massages me till I fall asleep for my afternoon nap.
6. I can't count. I ate lead paint when I was 3 years old and now I have brain damage and can't count simple numbers. But I can perform complex equations in my head at lightning speed.
   

Best Things To Do When You're Depressed

• Kill people: Yeah sure, it's illegal or something. But what the hell, you're the one that is depressed, you should be able to do what you want. Use a chainsaw, then claim insanity if you get caught. Tell them it's because of the new Britney Spears CD.
• Pee on things: You're probably depressed because you're a wimp and you feel powerless over your life. Things not going your way? Just pee on things. The cat, a cop car, that homeless guy that asks you for change. Whatever, use your imagination. Gain that power back!
• Harass people on the internet: Sure, this is a kind of lame suggestion and it could backfire. Some guy could get mad and come burn your house down. But whatever, it'll be fun while it lasts. I recommend the forums at Dr. Phil's website or just be like everybody else and troll Digg.
• Drink lots of alcohol: Think this is a stupid idea? It probably is, but what the hell, maybe you'll become the next Hemingway while you're in a drunken stupor. All important people of modern era were alcoholics. Look it up, it's fact.
  

  
  

Rhyming Guide For Future Twitter Raps

Rhymes with "Twitter": (from onelook.com)

1. acquitter 2. admitter 3. aglitter 4. atwitter 5. babysitter 6. bedsitter 7. bitter 8. blitter 9. bullshitter 10. chitter 11. clitter 12. committer 13. critter 14. disembitter 15. disimbitter 16. embitter 17. emitter 18. fencesitter 19. fitter 20. flitter 21. fritter 22. glitter 23. hairsplitter 24. hitter 25. imbitter

26. intromitter 27. jitter 28. knitter 29. litter 30. manumitter 31. neurotransmitter 32. nitter 33. omitter 34. outfitter 35. permitter 36. pitter 37. quitter 38. remitter 39. ritter 40. salzgitter 41. shipfitter 42. shitter 43. sidesplitter 44. sitter 45. skitter 46. slitter 47. spitter 48. splitter 49. steamfitter 50. submitter

51. titter 52. transmitter 53. twitter (duh) 54. unbitter 55. witter

Unrealistic Things I Would Like To See Before I Die

• A zombie uprising
  
• Humans living on the sun
  
• A sober clown
  
• A midget president
• A job where I get paid to use Twitter
• Miley Cyrus' vagina
• Nuclear war