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If you've been on Facebook the last few months or so you more than likely have been tagged in a "25 Random Things" note. This, the successor to the chain letter and surveys of yore, has become so popular that it even made news and prompted scientists to study its development as a biological organism (Slashdot). They called it an "epidemic."

This is all pretty silly, and unfortunately is probably only the beginning. And yet, I see why it is alluring: it isn't a survey, or something that otherwise limits the answers you can give. It doesn't even ask you a question, but instead asks you to come up with 25 "random" things about yourself, and to state that those 25 things are unique to you and you alone.

I might have mentioned before my "logparse" project. It's a collection of all of my chat logs logged by my various IM clients over the last few years into a single database.

I decided rather than to give in to the Facebook machine and come up with 25 random things about myself for them to data mine, I would instead find 25 random messages I've sent across my entire collection. This is the fifth random set I came up with, not because I was unhappy with what I saw on the first four, but that the first four all included messages pertaining to work, which are probably best not published. My only modification for this set is that I fixed the URL for the Penny Arcade comic, as it was originally linked using their old website design.

dt handle msg
2007-08-27 16:39:29 Joshus precisely, mech, chem, civ, all great, but god forbid you want to look through a microscope at some critters
2003-06-27 20:17:00 man o' few words this "software" they're talking about for printers comes with windows, and if they plan to give you anything for them, its network access in order to download the printer drivers from the print server, as easy as clicking "connect" in most cases
2005-09-21 20:56:18 Joshus i now know why the Apple's G5 processor runs at about 80% the speed of Intel x86 processors of the same generation but are able to generate the same throughput
2006-05-30 10:16:33 kaiden11 here i was paranoid for the last month because i thought karma was going to kick me in the ass for doing so well
2007-04-30 15:34:59 kaiden11 ah, so just a keyword that'd flag it as something you'd want to want to see updated as you go along?
2008-01-25 14:58:04 kaiden11 we live in a fascinating world, work in a fascinating profession, with a constant barrage of new, interesting, and potentially mind-numbing problems, yet all that occupies our vacant minds is precipitation
2007-03-19 21:38:13 kaiden11 i've got a transcript of the movie, but it doesn't have any character names with the dialogue (weird)
2005-12-22 00:06:23 Joshus means that it can appropriately use the 64-bit integer and floating point calculation and memory management hardware
2003-10-14 17:51:00 man o' few words well, just know that its something small and if she can't get over whatever's bugging her herself, than she needs to learn how to before long
2007-03-19 17:04:37 Joshus just talk right now, i gotta think about buying shit for when i get back home...fridge before computer, and all that
2005-09-18 18:09:17 Joshus well, other than getting laid off from his job just today, doing pretty well, he's been dating a girl here at ASU from Michigan for about 6 months now
2007-10-17 13:19:25 kaiden11 looks like us today, somebody on 7/30 searching for "engaged" under your user name, and some combination of "hate" and "physics" may of 2006
2006-02-08 10:35:19 Joshus hey, you're right, i shouldn't be looking at this like a management blunder or a ridiculous client request, i should see this as an opportunity to hone my skills
2003-11-06 17:11:00 mo'fw // assaying essay so i'm going to have to see it again just in case i missed anything while i was squirming in my seat
2006-11-26 01:29:32 Joshus mkay, but be sure to mention it if you go with your turing test topic, it'd be a shame to leave it out
2007-01-25 00:19:27 Joshus google now owns blogspot, i think, and you can search explicitly for blogs under one of their "more" options
2003-10-09 23:21:00 man o' few words well, for whenever you get back, i've a test bright and early in calc tomorrow, so i must be off for bed
2005-10-16 00:55:21 Joshus you offer quite the intriguing counterpoint, and a sophistication to your writing that i haven't seen in a while
2003-06-29 22:52:00 man o' few words to create that, i have to group every single message (there are about 20,000 now i'll have you know) into group names, organize them, sort them, and then spit them back out into my php script so that they can be turned into html
2007-08-16 15:09:10 Joshus heh, no, i'm sort of awesome, but just saying, that kinda sounds like me when i'm condescending towards the testing team
2004-03-28 22:26:00 man o' few words (Link: http://underpower.non-essential.com/index.php?comic=20021004)http://underpower.non-essential.com/index.php?comic=20021004
2003-11-03 20:56:00 mo'fw//tinkering but i'd be sitting there thinking to myself "this little shit is going to play with it for 10 minutes, and then go back to her legos"
2003-10-12 08:57:00 man o' few words not too bad, just doing some various work for them, spotlights, bit o' soundboard, sweeping the stage
2007-03-05 17:43:10 kaiden11 well, i hate to worsen the situation anymore, but i got a "sort of ok" from dan to update the :80 site
2003-07-19 10:17:00 man o' few words http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2003/6/13/

So yes, pretty boring, but that's what a computer's random will get you: objective and arbitrary. I still think this is better though, as reading these, and the five sets previous, I'm shown things that I've said, things I've thought about and communicated at some point. I think that's a better measure of "uniqueness" than a list of things you'd like people to know about you.

And that said, I don't mean to trod on folks that've written these, I'm sure whatever random things that appeared on their lists were important to them.  It's just a worrying trend, is all.