Subscribe…
... to get the lastest news from this web site
Subscribe by email
-
Most Popular Posts
Topics
Blogroll
Category Archives: Creativity
Cool – Open Source Hardware
I really want to build this tractor – then I can go around in winter here and clear driveways…
Posted in Creativity, Ideas, Inspiration, Technology, Video
Tagged driveways, open source hardware
Leave a comment
Inner Versus Outer Motivation
Many, many – - many – years ago I had a little friend, three actually. When I met the three nephews/nieces if my best buddy they were three/four/five years old. Harald, the middle one came out to the garden where my buddy and I were drinking beer to check out that new dude. One of the first test he conducted was “how does he react to pinching?” My reaction – “pinching back” – must have been the correct one because we became really good friends and grew up together until I finally had to leave the country (but that is a whole different story.)
One of the stories with Harald I remember was that he came up with the idea of washing my car. It was another beer-drinking session in the garden, a few grown-ups doing all the work and several kids playing in the garden as well – not drinking beer!
This is when Harald had the idea “Can I wash your car?” Generous as I was – and knowing that the car could really use that treatment – I said “Sure!” There was quite some commotion about finding a hose, sponges and other things that I did not know you needed to wash a car and an hour later my car was clean(er), and Harald was very proud about his job well done.
Several of the beer-drinking, session-attending adults now suggested that I should pay Harald something for his work. But even at that young age I was too smart for my own good and realized that this would not be a good thing. So, I politely declined to follow those recommendations and instead demonstrated Harald how much I appreciated his deed by becoming an even better friend.
Sometimes it takes the universe a long time to acknowledge the correctness of ones actions, and for this event I finally found the acknowledgment after so many years in form of a TED talk that I just have to share here.
Here we go – enjoy!
Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Science, Video
Tagged acknowledgment, correctness, drinking beer, drinking session, motivation
Leave a comment
A Flash Mob Performing Thriller
Flash mobs have been made less unusual by all the events staged by Improve Everywhere. Now I discovered another flash mob event that I enjoyed – a dance of Michael Jackson ‘s Thriller out on the boardwalk – Thriller on the Beach…
It might have been an attempt for a viral video for the dance studio they shamelessly pitch, especially in the behind the scenes video about the event, but I would not mind – it actually does work – not that I would move to the other side of the continent though.
But the Thriller Beach web site definitely deserves some of the internet currency – attention, so check it out.
Posted in Creativity, Fun Stuff, Marketing, Video
Tagged attention, dance studio, flash mobs, Improve, internet currency, michael jackson, thriller, viral video
Leave a comment
Paying for being followed on Twitter
Ok, here’s a little mystery and you will have to follow one of these links to find out what it really is – but – yes – there is somebody paying to be followed on twitter and the followee can actually win some pretty amazing prises.
So, here is the short link: bit.ly/tldW
and here the long one.
Strange Black Holes to Fall Through
Ran into this fascinating video by the film makers Phil Sansom and Olly Williams about suddenly appearing black holes you can fall or climb through…
If this happens to our clueless office worker right there at work, could it not also happen to a boy of 11 and his little sister?
And, indeed, it has. These events are cronicled in the “Underlander Chronicles” by Suzanne Collins, a series of book that I can only warmly recommend if you are a parent who likes to read to the off-spring. The first book, Gregor the Overlander, got into our hands at a second hand book store for a mere quarter – you just have to recognize a treasure when it finds you. We read this chapter by chapter as good night literature and had to continue with the second book immediately. Today we finished this one and now we have a problem how to quickly get the third one.
Just in case you are looking for this as well, here are all the five books in the series (wondering if there is a number 6 in the works)…
Posted in Creativity, Fun Stuff, Thoughts
Tagged book review, strange worlds, stroy telling, twilight zone
2 Comments
Discrepancies on the Web
Not all things on the internet are as they appear. You might have guessed that already, but today I will bring you proof – hard evidence.
Stumbling along I ran into one champion stumbler who caught my eye – wonder if there is any male on this planet who’s eye this person would not have caught. Take a look…
If your eye gets caught what will you do? The rest of the body, including arms and finger, that are usually operating keyboard and mouse, have to follow. You can’t just detach them, can you?
So, following the eyes, the keyboard and mouse fingers operated the browser controls in a way that the eyes finally ended up the web site belonging to this stumble-upon member with the name of FNA.
And what a great website that is! I really must recommend to every designer to take a look. It certainly appeals to me based upon its clear and minimalistic design.
A site like this invites you to explore and so I did. The eyes still commanding the rest of my body to look for more pictures…
and then I found something interesting – an email address…
It starts with Frank!
Frank??
Seinfeld/Gates v. Hodgman/Long
I have to admit that I liked and enjoyed the – unfortunately only – two Microsoft ads featuring Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates. In case you have not seen them, here they are…
and
For me, Microsoft has redeemed itself for all the bad things it has done in the past. That might sound a bit strong, but these ads are so good that I admire Microsoft that it had the guts to run them. OK, it must have been so far beyond anything the usually confused participants in this game could understand that it was mostly rejected – and the ads have been pulled.
I think that the ads have nearly a Monty-Pythonishness and only a person well trained in Douglas-Adamishness can really appreciate them. This group is rather small, so it was drowned by the masses.
Compared to the Apple ads with John Hodgman as PC and Justin Long as Mac the Microsoft ads are so totally senseless that they have broken reality – and I can’t help it, but I like surreal. Forces you to look beyond the daily seriousness. OK, the Apple ads don’t appear serious, but they are, they are adversarial in nature by trying to put down the PC. (Funny side note that the PC character became the more lovable and better known, publishing books and being interviewed by Xeni Jardin of Boing-Boing fame.)
Now lets look at the MS ads – off-the-wall, surreal and imaginative – and, I forgot, weird. What MS shows me here is that they could be just as unusual as Apple as a company, but that they have decided not to go this route because there were too few people to understand what they would have been doing. Instead they went with that what is real to most people – confusion!
So, by catering to the reality of this majority of the population, they managed to dominate the world with their software and now they can come out of the closet – and they did.
Congratulations!
Posted in Art, Creativity, Thoughts, Video
Tagged Apple Ads, Bill Gates, Confusion, Fame, Funny Side, Game, Gates, Guts, Hodgman, Http Www Youtube, Jerry Seinfeld, John Hodgman, Justin Long, Long, Microsoft, Microsoft Ads, Participants, Pc Mac, Population, Publishing Books, Seinfeld, Seriousness, Xeni Jardin
1 Comment
DIY – How to Build Your Own Glasses
Lego just had it’s 50th birthday, and we really should congratulate this company for these great toys. Yes, they are often seen as toys, but more and more people discover that they are much, much more.
We have not yet seen real skyscrapers or bridges built out of Legos (or better Lego Bricks, how the company want us to call them) but I can not imagine that this will be too far in the future.
Ho do I get such a crazy idea, you might wonder.
Look at this, if this guy can build glasses that are so much more useful than regular ones with just a bit of ingenuity, boring subjects like houses, and bridges can not be far behind.
During engaging computer work…
and while taking a little rest…
Lego inventors unite! Let me know what else you created.