Remember 'surfing the internet'? These days, no adult does that in the sense of randomly hitting links and hopping from page to page without a destination in mind. Not unless they are really bored, in which case surfing is only likely to deepen the boredom.
There are better things to do, like play with Stumbleupon: a Web discovery service that has revamped the idea of surfing and is making waves in cyberspace. No longer do you just click and hope something scintillating comes up. Stumbleupon catapults you towards pages sup-posedly in tune with your tastes, enabling you to rate, review and bookmark what you see.
After downloading the program, which is compatible with Firefox and Internet Explorer, you state where your interests lie. I thought I had none, since I've always associated interests and hobbies with mental illness. Stumbleupon proves otherwise: driven by its dictates I find myself selecting alternative news, ambient music, 'bizarre', football, self-improvement and more.
The toolbar that then appears on my browser is annoying, because I like to keep as many millimetres of digital real estate free as possible. After banishing the toolbar to every corner, I revert to the default setting then jump in with a click on the 'Stumble!' button. I expect to be whisked to a slew of sites that hold no interest for me. (That's often my experience with Pandora, a personalised music streaming site.)
pl/redrim/Reading_Test.jpg), which plays on the idea that it doesn't matter what order the letters in a word take, so long as the first and last are in the right place. 'Amzanig, huh?'
