Butterfly Effects - Variations on a Meme
Submitted by Steve Nelson on Tue, 2008-06-03 10:38.
butterfly effect | meme | science
I found a file of search results I had compiled a long time ago as I was writing scripts to automatically scrape sites based on patterns. This experiment had to do with the Butterfly Effect, testing some regular expressions around "a butterfly flaps its wings in..." The Butterfly Effect meme itself is invariant, but the variation in locations and effects is entertaining. My file of results notes that I did these searches using AltaVista - so that dates it a bit! Here are a few of the results:
By the way, I never concocted the ultimate regular expression for this, so if you have any good ones, feel free to comment them!
| A butterfly flaps its wings in: | Causing: | At this location: |
|---|---|---|
| a certain part of the world | a storm | the other side of the world |
| Africa | tsunami | Japan |
| Amazonian rainforest | earthquake | the other side of the world |
| Asian rain forest | hurricane | Gulf of Mexico |
| Australia | the weather | Alaska |
| Beijing | stock market flounders | Wall Street |
| Beijing | the weather | New York City, but more likely, Queens |
| Beijing | win $400,000 | Montreal Casino |
| Beijing | the weather | Latin America |
| Beijing | the weather | New York City |
| Brazil | thunderstorms | New York |
| Brazil | devastating storms and floods | England |
| Brazil | hurricane | North America |
| Brazil | storm | Norway |
| Brazil | man falls off a skyscraper | New York |
| Brazil | thunderstorms | New York |
| California | rain | New York City |
| Canada | some impact on the weather | south of the border |
| Canada | hurricane | south Atlantic |
| Central American rain forest | the amount of rainfall | Chicago |
| Central Park | typhoon | Pacific Ocean |
| Central Park | rain | China |
| Central Park | rain | Peking |
| Central Park | rain | China |
| China | hurricane | Florida |
| China | Startup error goes away | Descent 3 |
| China | the weather | New York |
| China | hurricane | the Atlantic |
| China | enough boomers move their funds to the bond market to cause the third derivative of some program's equation for the market to move from positive to negative | ? |
| China | rain | New York |
| England | typhoon | China |
| far-away continent | a development of a major unstable weather pattern | half way around the world |
| Hong Kong | hurricane | London |
| Hong Kong | snow | Miami |
| Hong Kong | Internet stocks go back up | ? |
| Hong Kong | effects | Chicago |
| Hong Kong | hurricane | Gulf of Mexico |
| Japan | the weather | Philadelphia |
| Madagascar | the weather | Cape Town |
| Malaysia | hurricane | Trinidad |
| Mexico | hurricane | Florida |
| New Mexico | rain storm | the Amazon |
| New York | hurricane | Japan |
| one side of the world | hurricane | the other |
| one side of the world | earthquake | the other hemisphere |
| the forest | typhoon | Indonesia |
| this side of the world | hurricane | the other side of the world |
| ? | trembles | universe |
| ? | moves | the planet |
| ? | weather | China |
| ? | rain | somewhere |
| ? | the weather | hundreds of miles away |
| ? | an ill wind blows you a $100 bill | ? |
| ? | something else | the other side of the world |
| ? | stampede of Zebras | ? |
| ? | hurricane | the other side of the earth |
| ? | the climate changes | the other side of the world |
By the way, I never concocted the ultimate regular expression for this, so if you have any good ones, feel free to comment them!
This is very cool!
Submitted by Fishman (not verified) on Thu, 2009-07-09 10:33.
This is very cool! Children's behavior problems have an effect on everyone around them too similar to how the butterfly does when it flaps its wings.
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Butterfly effect