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I'm attracted to images of bland and
boring places, like bleak car parks
surrounded by rusting fences clogged
with
tattered plastic bags.. oops that sounds
too interesting to be located in Dullsville.
Dullsville allows three ideas to be rolled
into one.
The building of the new
town.
The
establishing of its
features.
The creation of an
international new standard of dullness
calibration system, with the issuing of a
handy reference card pack.
Dullsville would feature the singularly
most barren and bland buildings, along
with numerous other detailed internal
features, and populated by only the most
extremely bland of citizens playing out
their monotonous lives.
Detailed photographs of every feature
would then be used to create a set of
calibrating cards that enable
comparisons
to made against other potentially dull
locations.
For example, the expression: "dull as
dishwater" would have a proper scale to
facilitate a realistic reading. i.e. are we
talking about the dishwater that contains
some curry stained flecks of rice found in
the oval stainless steel sink at no 3 Mope
Street, Bland Ave, Dullsville?
Folk could choose to live in Dullsville, but
only after they had passed an entrance
test, to verify their blandness credentials.
They would then find that cards based on
their personal characteristics soon
entered
the reference pack.
Boring Postcards, by Martin Parr
http://www.amazon.c...d=1208419811&sr=8-1
No, really, this is actually a very interesting book. I have this, and "Boring Postcards: America". [hippo, Apr 17 2008]
Lots of boring ideas
http://www.halfbake...m/user/nineteenthly
Charity vending machine, computer cable frame, dropper/plug bottle - all stunningly dull, and it's not a problem. [nineteenthly, Apr 17 2008]
Trainspotting Sim
Train_20Spotting_20Simulator
The apotheosis of dull... [wagster, Apr 17 2008]
Beigeometer
http://www.scooperg...ges/beigeometer.jpg
Interestingly dull [nineteenthly, Apr 21 2008]
[link]
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Gold standard reference build: Milton Keynes |
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Nah - too many interesting roundabouts
and of course there are the famous
concrete cows. |
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I know a perfect candidate for mayor [+] |
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I see a flaw. The first such town to be built would be interesting because of its dullness, so it wouldn't count, then the next, and so on. In order to avoid this paradox, they should all be built simultaneously. |
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I suspect there will be a concrete fountain that doesn't work in the middle of it. |
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I often get my students to make maps of
boring journeys... and they end up being
really interesting. Concrete fountain that
doesn't work? - sounds quite interesting -
and therefore only scores 12 out of 100 on
the Dullsville Scale (public fountain
section) |
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Newton Aycliffe and Stevenage were built specifically to fulfil this requirement. |
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//I often get my students to make maps of boring journeys// |
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What exactly do you teach? |
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Is the scale open-ended, like the Richter?
Or with some massive pinball table-like multiplier, like the Scoville? |
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Is it exponential? Is it a question of something of dullness level three being ten times as boring as dullness level two? |
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What about people who are dull in unusual ways? What if you're really interested in streetlamps? Does that make you more boring or more interesting than, say, a birdwatcher? |
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Would trainspotters be standing room only on the station platforms? |
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I was going to link to a baker's profile
page but that's just mean. |
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It's basically a matrix formed from comparing the topic and detail levels of two things to arrive at a measure of the dullness of one thing relative to another. Thus the interests (and intensity of detail within those interests) of two trainspotters will be highly correlated and so they may not be dull to each other. However, by a similar analysis, a "Heat" magazine reader may be considered dull by the trainspotters and may also consider the trainspotters dull. |
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[theleopard], i don't think that is mean, even if it's me. Not all interesting ideas are useful and vice versa. I have a stunningly boring idea about plugging the bottom of a bottle to enable it to be emptied, and my charity vending machine idea was also pretty boring. [UnaBubba] has an idea called "a serious idea with a dull name", which is just that but still a good idea. This place is occasionally quoted as prior art, which is in itself a good reason for posting an idea here even if it is boring. |
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//What exactly do you teach?// [wagster]
strategies for invention, amongst other art
related nonsense |
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[19thly], oops, I didn't mean to imply a
specific person, just that it would be funny
to link to someone. As for boring ideas, I
used to have a edit > copy > paste-
special-default idea that was a little less
than invigorating. Plus another in my head
head for edit > swap (for design layout)
but I shan't bore you with the drabness of
it. |
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[theleopard], no offence taken, it's just "interesting" to contemplate dullness. I also think it's OK to be dull but worthy, and you have piqued my interest in your "boring" ideas, so where does that leave us? |
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How about trying to think up really dull ideas and posting them to see if anyone notices? |
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I'll see if I can come up with something... |
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You'd never find curry used in Dullsville. Potatoes, perhaps. Fish and chips. Maybe some pickles. |
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