6 Degrees of Seperation Confirmed?

I came across this study where Microsoft Research used technology to look at Stanley Milgram's 6 degrees of separation experiment. It used "anonymized data capturing a month of high-level communication activities within the whole of the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging system."

The major take away of the study is that the average degree of separation is 6.6. I've always liked the idea that I would know everybody in the world through the connections of just 6 people. That means that I know you(1), you know him (2), he knows her (3), who knows her (4), who knows him (5), who knows Armando Guebuza, president of Mozambique.

I know this doesn't mean everybody in the world because it is only a sample of MSN users (240M people), but it's still pretty cool.

The results of the study also confirm what many of us already could guess about habits of IM-ers, including:

• people tend to communicate more with each other when they have similar age, language, and location,
• cross-gender conversations are both more frequent and of longer duration than conversations with the same gender.

Tagged

Well, looks like I get to update my blog today because I came across a comment that Dave left for me a couple weeks ago telling me I had been tagged. Sorry didn't see it till today.


Here's how the tagging works.
1. You link back to the person who tagged you
2. Post these rules on your blog
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry
5. Let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs
6. Enjoy the results!


Unimportant thing 1: I make that airbag warning sticker on your car visor that is impossible to get off. (well, almost impossible...just use a blow dryer or heat gun).
Unimportant thing 2: The new road bike I ride to work on is green.
Unimportant thing 3: I don't shower as much as I used to after backpacking Europe for 2 months showing a total of maybe 15 times. I really only need to shower if I smell bad...or worse than normal at least.

Unimportant thing 4: While spending time the bathroom for time out as a kid, I:

• Stuck my sisters metal hair barett in the outlet causing the lights to flicker. Dumb enough to stick metal in an outlet...but smart enough hold it with rubber balloons.
• Pulled the wall paper off and denied that it was me.
  
• Learned what those pink boxes on the top shelf were.
• Did push ups so that one day I could beat up my older brother who I felt deserved to be in there instead of me...like a prisoner prep-ing to repay his narc.
  

And finally,
Unimportant thing 5: I like eggs from my head down to my legs...but I keep forgetting to buy them at the store.


Now for the tagging of my own: Andrew, Jake, (well...almost 6 :D, all my blogging friends have been tagged)