Tuesday 27 October 2009

A small good thing.

Does anyone else know you can stop a cough by scrunching your feet up?

I've been getting over a cold now for about two weeks and every time I start coughing, it threatens to spiral into an asthma attack. So I've found when a cough starts to get out of control, if I scrunch my feet up, it really stops it.

Some kind of yoga thing perhaps?

Monday 26 October 2009

Nature slowed riiiight down

Ever seen what a raindrop does when it lands in a puddle? Wicked cool.

Monday 19 October 2009

What must you always do to a BP pie at 3am in NZ?



From my art director:

Hot Pies. Hot pies. Whatcha gonna do?
Whatcha gonna do when they might burn you.
Hot pies. Hot pies?

Tuesday 6 October 2009

Drawing is soooo Web 1.0

PhotoSketch: Internet Image Montage from tao chen on Vimeo

Step 1. Draw the outlines of the figures you want in your picture – anything from seagulls to a Mercedes, whatever tickles your fancy,

Step 2. Add labels for each of the items, as well as for the background.

Step 3. PhotoSketch will then find real-life images to match your doodles and put them together in a Photoshopped image that will make your jaw drop.

Monday 14 September 2009

What the?



Is his funny? Or does it simply comform to some smeantic code of humor, without actually inducing mirth?

Thursday 23 July 2009

Epic Stick Man Anime Pwnage



Turn the volume off and enjoy this incredible animation.
Full of sticky-goodness. (The animated intro is a bit naff, so fast forward to the good bits).

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Verizon Prank - Man gets Verizon CEO's unlisted address, then visits his house to complain about Verizon's lack of security with a bullhorn

Skittle Skuffle



The New Skittles Website looks like it's going to be epic. The holding page changes copy if you refresh.
E.g

... it will be so awesome, your eyes will wish they had a tongue so they could lick the screen.
... it will be so awesome, just knowing it exists may cause you to be able to speak with Dolphins
... it will be so awesome, it'll make the hairs on the back of your neck want to stand up and start playing hard rock air guitar.

From what I can tell, I think it's going to be awesome.

Check it out here

Thursday 2 July 2009

Roof Porn



Check out some more goodness here.

The Most Shark Jumping Moment of All Time



Two words. SPOCK ROCK. Star Trek reaches awesome level of uncool.

Pepsi & Coke call a ceasefire to the Cola War on Twitter



Coke and Pepsi chat over twitter. Now if only we could get @israel to tweet @palestine. Check it out here, as always, from the amazing five-brained megaman, Indy of Saha.

Wednesday 1 July 2009

Set phasers to: WRONG!



Move over Tubgirl. Take a hike "Two girls and a cup". The world's most offensive video is up and online.
Meet Whee Zi, the 2 year old chinese kid smoking cigarettes.

Tuesday 23 June 2009

We are all Neda



"...we did not throw rocks.
We cried, 'we want freedom'.
They shot us"

Check it out here

Friday 19 June 2009

The Guardian enlists help to research MP expenses.



Dodgy MP's beware, The Guardian is enlisting the help of EVERYONE to go through the 700,000 documents outlining MP expenses.

Check it out here.

Thursday 18 June 2009

Dancer dude gets the concert rocking



Rock on you crazy, white, rhythmless diamond.

Fanta's Stealth Sound System. Dammit.





Every time I see a really great idea that's been done incredibly well by someone else,
I die a little inside. Come join me here for what is sure to be this year's wicked cool awesomeness. Ouch.

Wednesday 3 June 2009

Trends in Gaming.

The rise of social gaming, the fall of in-game advertising, the war between Nintendo and Apple and the changing demographics of the industry. Check it out here

And enjoy this presentation.

Friday 29 May 2009

Three Wolf Moon T-shirt



Find out how this became the number one selling fashion item on Amazon.com, here

Friday 22 May 2009

The Story of Anvil



Forget the comparisons with Spinal Tap, this is a hilarious, achingly touching documentary about two guys who haven't given up on their dream. Michael Moore calls it the Best Documentary he's seen in years and I defy you not to love this movie.

Check out the band here

Friday 15 May 2009

Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus



Don't you just get the sense that this movie was written in one sitting, by three guys screaming ideas at one another in a 72 hour cocaine binge? I mean how else can you even conceive of a scene where a shark the size of fiji bites THROUGH the Golden Gate Bridge and then attacks a fucking airplane, flying IN THE SKY.

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Awkward Family Photos



There are tears in my eyes from laughing at this site. Check it out here, and make sure you read the comments.
Genius.

Friday 8 May 2009

Wolfram Alpha. The tricky future of search engines.



Wolfram Alpha is an intuitive internet search engine created by Dr Stephen Wolfram. When you ask it a query, it offers you a variety of information, such as graphs, charts, technical data etc. A knowledge engine if you will. Will it work? Will it kill google? Or will it be the Seqway of search engines?

You can sign up for release news here

Make your own Ball 'O' Snot!!



Instructions, here

Deliver us from temptation. And psychology. Amen



Mind hacks found this fascinating aside in a 1969 article on 'Psychiatric Illness in the Clergy' about a group of monks who underwent psychoanalysis, causing two thirds of them to realise they were "called to married life".

Check it out here

Thursday 7 May 2009

Dark Bubbles - Webcam directed music video



Music video that you control using your head movements and webcam. Super cool, though it could be little more responsive.

Check it out here

Malcolm Gladwell - How David beats Goliath






More goodness from the Curly Haired Oracle of New York, Malcolm Gladwell. Another solid essay on uncommon thinking, this time, how underdogs change the rules. And win.

Check it out here

Tuesday 5 May 2009

McDonald's Billboard



Niceness.

Fun Spider Facts: After drowning for 36 hours, some spiders come back to life.



It's scary and it's true. 36 hours after drowning, wolf spiders were able to revive themselves and suffered no ill effects, scientists discovered recently.

In a study at the University of Rennes in France found that wolf spiders died after 24 to 36 hours of being immersed in water. But when the scientists came back to weigh the dead spiders, they found them alive again. Apparently wolf spiders can put themselves into comas and shut down the metabolic processes that do not require air.

Friday 24 April 2009

The Origins of Man.





What I love about this is you can see that someone saw the Heston clip, stored it up and then used it to set the tone for a great, great ad. Nothing has been ripped off, it's simply been used on the way to making something great. Standing on the shoulders of midgets, so to speak.

Wednesday 25 March 2009

Man looks as though he is being swallowed by his own beard.

Celebrities on invisible bikes.



And why not? Check out this oddly compelling site here

Audiences move from "Massive Passive" to "We-Media"



A presentation on the rise of social entertainment and the ongoing migration away from traditional media.

Last.fm to start charging international users



It seems Last.fm has hit the same wall of international licensing fees as Pandora.com. The online radio service has announced that users outside of the US, UK and Germany will need to start paying €3.00 a month to continue streaming music.

It's still free if you only want to use it to find out about gigs, venues and new music, but it would be naieve to suggest this is what gets most people to the site in the first place.

It will be interesting to see what affect this will have, as there are are a number of websites that offer similar services such as seeqpod. com

Thursday 19 March 2009

After Run London, Nike does Run Human


Nike Running TV Commercial: "Men VS Women" from Adjunkie on Vimeo.

This is the latest spot from the agency with the second best name in advertising (after Think Meets Do), creative champions "72 and Sunny". I know that this isn't a Wieden's spot, but all the same, I wanted to congratulate Kim Papworth and Tony Davidson of W+K, London on being invited to become partners. It's the first time since 1996 that a W+K employee has been invited to become a partner. It's really a big deal. Not even the famed Jim Riswold was invited to become a member, nor was Stacy Wahl or Jamie Barratt, so it really is a big, big deal. I shall toast the both of them with my heartiest wine.

Sheep LED Goodness.

Friday 13 March 2009

More tilt shift - Mardi Gras Goodness


Mardi Gras from Keith Loutit on Vimeo

What a great film. What a great city. Sydney I miss you like an amputated arm.
The Gay Mardi Gras. At a size that even the Reverend Fred Nile can enjoy.

Tuesday 10 March 2009

The Micro-Sociology of Networks from Logic+Emotion by David Armano

YouTune.



If the internet has taught us anything, it's that paying for music is against the fundamental laws of nature. And that there are people use their free time better than you or I do. Here is just such a fellow. He has edited together clips of people playing music on youtube into a funky song.

To stop, collaborate and listen, check it out here

Friday 6 March 2009

Woman wakes up after a loooong time.



Kate suffered from what was probably brain stem encephalitis at the age of 23. She was the first patient to be scanned by Adrian Owen as part of his research into the mental lives of those in persistent vegetative states. Findings from this research support what Kate herself is able to say in the video: we need to be very careful before making life and death decisions on behalf of people who appear unresponsive.

Read the rest of the article here for free.

Soldiers disappointed at losing the chance to kill more people.



Dang, he done took our war ‘way. Gobama.

Just the Apple App Facts, Jack



If you tried to buy every app in the App Store at once, it would cost you $71,442.69

The most popular price? You might assume it would be free, it’s actually $0.99 — by a long shot.

The most popular category by far is “games” with 5,263 apps,
followed by “entertainment” with 3,497 apps.

The third most popular category is Books

The least popular app category? Weather.

Check out the rest of the article for free, here

Amazon Gets Into the Used-Game Business



After enjoying a virtual monopoly in the used videogames market, videogame specialty retailer GameStop Corp. faces a threat from a potentially formidable rival, Amazon.com Inc.

The Seattle Internet retailer launched a service Thursday in which it will allow customers to trade in used videogames for store credit, taking aim at a key portion of GameStop's business.

Check it out here.

Visual Cues Help People Understand Spoken Words



New research from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the City College of New York shows that the visual information you absorb when you see can improve your understanding of the spoken words by as much as sixfold.

Check it out here.

Thursday 5 March 2009

Comedic Genius: Zach Galifinakis

The World's Worst TV Interviewer. He makes me cry with laughter.





Brain Differences Found Between Believers In God And Non-believers



Believing in God can help block anxiety and minimize stress, according to new University of Toronto research that shows distinct brain differences between believers and non-believers.

Check out the full article here

The precision of remote context memories does not require the hippocampus



Although the clarity of many memories fades with time, some memories may maintain their original precision. Here we used a context discrimination procedure to evaluate whether the hippocampus is important in maintaining precision as memories mature. Spared discrimination in hippocampal-lesioned mice indicated that precise, remote context memories may be supported by extra-hippocampal brain regions.

Check out the paper here

Listen to your DNA



The folks behind the DNA-Rainbow project (discussed on Slashdot before) apparently have some time to play around with genome data. After creating amazing pictures from the human DNA code they are now transforming all chromosomes to audio and streaming them to the Internet

Check it out here

Via slashdot

Global Warming gets it's own top level domain name



Al Gore is partnering with this company to help secure ICANN approval for a new .ECO top level domain name for Environmentally friendly companies and websites.

Can't touch this.



Makes me wanna say, Oh my Lord.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Star Trek Fragrances



Boldly smell like no man has smelt before. Check it out here

Mind Hacks Archive - Psychology & Advertising -



A roundup of Psychology & Advertising articles from Mind Hacks: Enjoi

Is there a science of advertising?

Decoding adverisements

Cognitive psychology & advertising

Music, wine and will

Advertising influences familiarity induces
preference


Neuroscience and advertising

Where do implicit associations come from?

Does advertising erode free will

The price is right regardless of the cost

When choice is demotivating

Experimental psychology of advertising resources

Why can't we choose what makes us happy?

The endowment effect & marketing


A quick and miscellaneous list of advertising links

Take pill. Remember bad memory. Bad memory gone.



Animal studies have shown that fear memories can change when recalled, a process referred to as reconsolidation. We found that oral administration of the -adrenergic receptor antagonist propranolol before memory reactivation in humans erased the behavioral expression of the fear memory 24 h later and prevented the return of fear. Disrupting the reconsolidation of fear memory opens up new avenues for providing a long-term cure for patients with emotional disorders.


Check it out here

Drawing with your voice




Want to try something hard? Performance artist and all-round smart guy Ze Frank has created this experimental flash application that will allow you to draw with your voice. Needs a microphone.

Check it out here

Twistori: How do you feel?




Twistori is a social experiment using Twitter that searches for any tweets with emotion words in them and then streams them to your computer. If you're home alone, it's nice to have it playing in the background. It's also pretty funny to read what people hate and how MUCH they hate it.

Check it out here.

Monday 2 March 2009

Top Scientists say which technologies will change everything.




The world's greatest thinkers have revealed the ideas and technologies they think will change the world forever.

"Through science we create technology and in using our new tools we recreate ourselves." So says the intro to edge.org's annual New Year challenge to the world's greatest thinkers.

This year it is asking "What will change everything – What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?" and as ever, the great and the good have responded to the call.

Geneticist Craig Venter, psychologist Steven Pinker, novelist Ian McEwan, philosopher Dan Dennett, physicist Paul Davies and cloning pioneer Ian Wilmut are just some of the overwhelmingly male-dominated list of more than 110 respondents.

Check it out here.

Sunday 1 March 2009

Reasons to get into advertising.

"...and I think it's the end that makes it worth starting, because the best reasons for starting in advertising are the countless opportunities you've made for yourself when you leave. British adland may have lost much of its glamour and its preeminence in the pantheon of global creativity but it's still the best training you'll ever get for most of the things you might dream of doing. It's like a gateway drug for interesting jobs; a never-ending, always-changing training scheme. You're constantly moving from one client, one problem, one opportunity, to another. No project ever lasts that long, you rarely do exactly the same thing twice and you bump into all sorts of other experts, industries and professions. Which means ad people have the best collections of odd and arcane jargon you'll ever come across, picked up from various clients. I was over the moon when I found out about yellow fats, stationality and anthem jackets. But all this flitting from one thing to another isn't just pointless dilettantism, you're building up a tremendous body of experience; expertise in some broader creative endevour. You learn how to work with talented artists and monstrous egos. You're obliged to consider what everyone in the country might want and what a few CEOs and cabinet ministers might want. You get good at explaining the complicated and the intangible to the unwilling and ill-informed. You come to understand the peculiar and different demands of images and words, briefs and ideas, traffic and production. You find out when to brainstorm, whether to workshop and how to take things to the next level. And, eventually, at some point, most advertising people take these ineffable, unteachable skills and go and do something else. They pursue some private passion or quieter life".

from Russell Davies.

Loewe TV Sound system ad



"The more we move in one direction, the greater the pull from the other".

Sleep walking dog

Wednesday 25 February 2009

This just in, the sky is falling.

Have you ever noticed how unusually dire the predictions from right wing intellectuals are?

Liberals won't just address immigration and the problem of patrolling a border with Mexico, they'll DESTROY the border and allow immigrants to BREAK IN and STEAL our CHILDREN'S TEETH.

Liberals won't just make abortions safe for any woman who wishes to exercise her legal rights, they will MURDER LIVE BABIES and call down the WRATH OF GOD and the FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCOLYPSE.

And now we have to listen to them predict that Barack Obama will bring about the end of America in the first 90 days of office.

Give me a break.

The current economic crisis, which is affecting every man and his dog in a very real way, is largely a conservative creation, built on the free-market ideas of conservative republican Milton Friedman, adopted as policy by conservative Republican former President Ronald Reagan and continued in all its ineptitude by former president George W Bush. Conservative Republican.

And now here is another angry, right wing intellectual who doesn't care for Barack Obama and can't bring himself to just say it. I don't doubt that this man is well informed, but he sounds like every other doomsayer since Chicken Little. And if things do go south as he expects,we will have people like this guy to thank for it.

Sunday 22 February 2009

Little BIG Planet named Game of The Year



Last night at the D.I.C.E awards in Las Vegas Little Big Planet took home eight awards, including;

- Family Game of the Year,
- Outstanding Achievement in Art Direction,
- Outstanding Achievement in Visual Engineering,
- Outstanding Character Performance,
- Outstanding Innovation in Gaming,
- Outstanding Achievement in Game Direction,
- Console Game of the Year, and the big kahuna,

- Overall Game of the Year.

Not only that, but they have some pretty neat TVC's as well.Congratulations Sackboy you little ball of sacky goodness.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

A little bit of Japanese Remember Road



I saw this in Tokyo. It was so fricking cool. Afterwards we went to a Kabuki theatre, and it was there that I realized I was a heterosexual man living in a gay man's idea of a straight guy. (I love Kabuki theatre. It's sick, I know)



Oh the shame. It's true, I love it!