![[goldfish]](/public/2006/10/goldfish.jpg)
Goldfish © Daiju Azuma / CC
So what happened was, I was talking with Joe about the fact that Dive Into Python appeared on the front page of digg.com this morning, despite having been submitted at least three times already, including once just 43 days ago. (Dive Into Greasemonkey has experienced a similar pattern.) Which led to a brief discussion of collective memory, or the lack thereof. Which reminded me of the urban legend about goldfish, that they have 3-second memories or 30-second memories or whatever. From which I found a tantalizingly brief article on goldfish training. Which inspired me to do further research in the area of goldfish training. Which, as with all research on the internet, inevitably led to a fascinating Japanese Chinese Japanese video of trained goldfish which someone — no doubt illegally — posted on YouTube.
So not only can they be trained (goldfish, not Digg users), but according to a recent study, “goldfish memories can last as long as three months.” Which puts them approximately 47 days ahead of the collective memory of Digg.
Dutifully submitted to Digg. (Good luck with WP-Cache)
And whilst submitting it, its dupe-checker informed me that Dolphins are dumber than goldfish, a story from _41_ days ago. Which means that it might still be in the memories of the Diggees.
Comment by Rod Begbie — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 3:46 pm
Digg This
Comment by Sam Ruby — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 3:48 pm
Hah! Sam, that gives me an error message that the article has already been submitted. Schizophrenic dupe-detector?
The sad thing about Digg is the community’s overall attitude towards duplicate submissions: that they’re no problem at all. Anyone who mentions them in a thread is bombarded with negative comments. The front page of Digg is so busy at this point as to be unusable; anything to pare it down would be a good thing.
Comment by James Cunningham — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 4:32 pm
Right, so the rule for posting any news, is to first go through the hundreads of stories to make sure that your news isn’t already dugg months ago.
The only dumbass here is you, for not realizing that most people, don’t spend hours going through the site just to post some news they’ve just recently read and wanted to share with the public.
Also you obviously have no idea what being smart is all about. It’s not having an excellent memory, but it’s about being to interpret information. Last time I checked elephants had amazing memories but couldn’t solve any algebra questions.
Comment by Anonymous — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 5:40 pm
Oh snap!
Computers can interpret information. Only humans can be clever. Whoops.
Comment by Phil — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 5:44 pm
> The only dumbass here is you
That is extremely doubtful.
Comment by Mark — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 6:38 pm
Diveintomark readers are more blind than bats? What is up with the gi-normous font size?
Comment by FrankM — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 7:25 pm
noo .. as far as I remember, a goldfish’s memory lasts only 3 seconds instead of 3 months ..
Comment by Nabeel — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 7:26 pm
I suggest the author of this article take a critical thinking class and review logical fallacies before writing any more. How idiotic, to compare the memory of a goldfish to the “collective memory of Digg”. I’m sure the “collective memory of goldfish”, if you could rate such a thing, would amount to no more than a few seconds. If you are going to make an argument, at least provide some credible sources and logical reasoning.
Comment by Pigface — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 8:06 pm
That “japanese” video is chinese… I take offense to such generalisation.
Comment by shinpoe — Monday, October 2, 2006 @ 9:17 pm