Thoughts on business, startups, and technology.
Now for some Friday fun.
OMG, ninjas! Unboxing a… Nexus One?
Google (GOOG) must have loved this. I know, it’s an oldie, but still a goodie. Published back on January 18, 2010, this definitely made for a great unsolicited ad for the Nexus One.
Also: someone’s gotta hire Patrick Boivin for Robot Chicken.
Now for some Friday fun.
Jerry Seinfeld will love this. Since the 1970s, energy conservation strides led to sealed office windows, which has led to recycled air, which has resulted in polluted & germ-infested, yet energy-conservative office air. This is known as the Sick Building Syndrome. Delicious.
But wait, there’s more. Freelance writer Kathy Benjamin offers these six ways your office is killing you softly:
Now that I’m done with this post, please excuse me while I open my windows, turn off my electronics, shut off the lights, and go for a run outside.
Photo by: Adam Witwer
Now for some Friday fun.
Have you heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment? The one where good kids became bad? It was conducted by Professor Philip G. Zimbardo, a psychologist, professor emeritus at Stanford University, and author of The Lucifer Effect
Back on March 25 of this year, the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, or RSA for short, invited him to give a talk, “The Secret Powers of Time,” about his theories from The Time Paradox.
Then RSA dediced to have Cognitive Media scribe this talk. Cognitive Media is a UK-based studio that draws illustrations of talks, which they call “scribing.” They remind me of Common Craft, the US-based studio behind the Explanations in Plain English videos, though I find the beautiful illustrations of Cognitive Media to be absolutely mesmorizing.
What an awesome idea, this scribing thing. It’s a delightfully visual way of enhancing an already wonderful lecture.
Check out what they’ve done to The Secret Powers of Time. Great talk, great scribing.
Props to: Christopher Lim
Now for some Friday fun.
This just in: Entire Facebook Staff Laughs As Man Tightens Privacy Settings, reports The Onion.
“Look, he’s clicking ‘Friends Only’ for his e-mail address. Like that’s going to make a difference!” howled infrastructure manager Evan Hollingsworth, tears streaming down his face, to several of his doubled-over coworkers.
Oh, the humanity.
Now for some Friday fun.
I gotta give props to Toyota (TM). This is one hilarious commercial. Almost makes me want to buy a Sienna minivan myself. Almost.
Created by the international production agency Caviar Content (in conjunction with Saatchi & Saatchi) and with music by the studio Black Iris, Toyota seems to be going after a new demographic. It hits the mark with some, but not so much with others.
Me, I think director Jody Hill and actors Rachel Drummond & Brian Huskey (as Mom & Dad) did a hilarious job. After a friend shared this with me on Facebook, I spent the better part of my morning watching the other Sienna ads on YouTube. They’re not as clever as the Swagger Wagon, and feel a lot more like typical – tho funny – commercials. But the Swagger Wagon seems to be the first aimed at this new audience.
P.S. If you like this song enough, you can download it as an MP3.
Props to: George Diaz
Now for some Friday fun.
Facebook makes an appearance on South Park. As does Tron, Mad Money, and Chatroulette, amongst others. Hilarity ensues. Full episode is currently available as of this post, but may be taken down in a few days, so here are some clips just in case.
Surprise!
I Made A Friend Today!!
So I’m Not One Of Them?
Relationship Status
Mad Friends
No Friends
Thumbs Up
Poke Your Grandma
Looking For Quality Friends
Let The Game Commence
Powerful Profiles
Profile Stan Marsh
Ending a Friendship
User vs. Profile
I’ve Got Nobody!
Wow, after all these clips, who needs the full episode, huh?
Now for some Friday fun.
Google’s (GOOG) been bad. So they issued a heartfelt and very personal apology:
Responding to recent public outcries over its handling of private data, search giant Google offered a wide-ranging and eerily well-informed apology to its millions of users Monday…
“Whether you’re Michael Paulson who lives at 3425 Longview Terrace and makes $86,400 a year, or Jessica Goldblatt from Lynnwood, WA, who already has well-established trust issues, we at Google would just like to say how very, truly sorry we are.” …
Acknowledging that Google hasn’t always been open about how it mines the roughly 800 terabytes of personal data it has gathered since 1998, Schmidt apologized to users—particularly the 1,237,948 who take daily medication to combat anxiety—for causing any unnecessary distress, and he expressed regret—especially to Patricia Fort, a single mother taking care of Jordan, Sam, and Rebecca, ages 3, 7, and 9—for not doing more to ensure that private information remains private.
There, don’t you feel better now?
Photo via: Robert Scoble
Now for some Friday fun.
Here’s a neat visual of most (maybe all?) the apps that, in some way, aid your usage & experience of Twitter. The Twitterverse, as authors Jesse Thomas & Brian Solis call it.
This is just version 0.9. They’re still working on the final version.
It’s a tough job for sure. I tried to visit a bunch of the apps listed in this chart and a few did not seem to exist anymore. And new ones seem to be cropping up every day. Makes me kind of wonder how this chart could look as a living, breathing animation that is constantly updated – and perhaps done in AJAX or Flash.
Now there’s a fun project if you have some time on your hands. You could even extrapolate it into charts for other ecosystems, so to speak. Like Twitter celebrities, or popular blogs, or start-ups within a certain industry, etc.
Great work by Jesse and Brian though! I’m eager to see the final version.