Awesome Thingy of the Day: Jun 22, 2007

Prices of gasoline around the world. Actual numbers have been blocked out until
you complete the quiz below (if you so choose) as to not give away the answers!

According to this news story, the price of gas in Caracas is just 12 cents a gallon! The price of gas in Caracas. Sounds like a bad attempt at Venezuelan gangsta-activist-rap. So anyway, whilst reading my trusty Wired Magazine a few days ago I discovered an article that reported the purported (oooh! more rap!) price of gas all around the globe. Some of it shocked me, some of it not-so-shocked me. I thought the info itself was blog worthy, but I spent the last few hours attempting to make your interaction with the data a bit more interactive than I experienced myself. Were my efforts just a waste of time? I don't know. Please leave a comment below to let me know. (Dang! More rhymes!)

I made a quiz using SurveyGizmo.com to test your knowledge and a bar graph using DabbleDB.com to reveal the answers. I was actually considering writing a post about SurveyGizmo as well but I don't think it has much of a "wow factor", even though it is flexible, useful, and free. I was also considering writing about DabbleDB but then concluded that although it is one of the most useful Web 2.0 apps around, blogging about it would be akin to blogging about that one cool company called Google. So instead of reinventing the wheel with DabbleDB, I'll just point you to an excellent demonstration video explaining what it is and why you need it.

I was trying to think of something that I could give away to those who answer all ten questions in the quiz correctly, but with a promotion budget of, ummmmmm......, zero, I had to get creative. (I was actually going to give away a real lass, only because of it's obvious value to the rap community: "Guess the Gas, Win the Lass!") but was subsequently reminded that it is now illegal to sell or give away such things.) So rather than objectify something legally unobjectifiable (an objectionable practice, to be sure), I decided to give each winner a chance to pick from a few web links to some certain awesomer thingy's. They are things that have real value (the first one costs $20 usually) but the links to most of the deals/items/services are not commonly known about. If you win and you find one of the items to be useful, then you had fun and you got something of value! But if you lose, or if you win and don't need what's being offered, I sincerely apologize and hereby offer up my head on a stake or a platter, winner picks. Now there's a prize!

Contest rules:

1. Contest rules are guaranteed to not be as ridiculous as our previous contest's rules.
2. You may not use information obtained after learning of this contest to answer any questions.
3. You may not play the quiz more than enough times as is necessary to win. huh??
4. You may may not redeem more prizes than are actually linked to on the winner's page. huh???
5. Oh, I don't know. Some other rule.

This is all based on the honor system, which, if you know nothing about, then, well, I suggest you just, umm, go, and like, learn about being an honorable person or something...

When you finish you may come back and read the original story in the June 2007 issue of Wired Magazine. Remember, that link has all the answers, so don't do the clicky-clicky until you try to beat the quiz.