Month: April 2009

A bunch of links – April 22, 2009

April 22, 2009

Taking over the world geek style

Perhaps my series on taking over the World wasn’t comprehensive enough. Perhaps you’re looking to solve a more pressing and specific problem. Perhaps this book will help.

It deals with a number of tricky issues like:

  • Brew your own beer
  • Build a laser beam
  • Clone your pet
  • Exorcise demons
  • Grasp the theory of relativity
  • Kick ass with sweet martial-arts moves
  • Master the Ocarina of Time
  • Pimp your cubicle
  • Quote He-Man and Che Guevara
  • Unmask Linus Torvalds
  • Write your name in Elvish

April 22, 2009

Gorilla marketing

Guerrilla marketing is all the rage. Sneaky. Subvertive. In your face and yet subtle at the same time. Gorilla marketing is another area all together – Cadbury tried it with their virally popular drumming gorilla – and who can forget Yogo (the chocolate yoghurt and its mascot Yogorilla).

Now, a health insurance company is in on the act. Gorillas don’t like eye contact. Apparently an escaped gorilla attacked a zoogoer for making too much eye contact recently. FBTO, this Dutch health insurance company responded by handing out these innovative zoogoing goggles. Found here.

April 22, 2009

Definitely, maybe

So, you can’t spell “definitely” – here’s a bookmark for you.

You can even buy a mug. Or a wide range of defiantly “definitely” merchandise.

April 22, 2009

Primal scream

243112609-1 is the world’s largest known prime number. Written down in full it’s 12,978,189 digits long. That would take a long time to read out, let alone scream. It would be much simpler to type it out. Maybe.

Reproduced in real life this number would stretch for up to 32km. Depending on the typeface. Different fonts apparently produce markedly different results.

Prime numbers are also, apparently, useful for things other than cryptography.

In case you’re wondering, prime numbers aren’t just the stuff of academic longhairs: like typefaces, they have interesting properties that make them strangely useful. The classical example comes from mechanical engineering, where two meshed gears will wear most evenly if each has a coprime number of teeth, since this evenly distributes the possible ways in which they interact (thereby minimizing the effects of any irregularities.) Some have suggested that 13- and 17-year cicadas each follow prime numbered life cycles in order to ensure that their populations compete as little as possible, coexisting only once every 221 years.

I know this, and now so do you, because of here, and here.

April 22, 2009

Bottomless glass… almost

Refilling your wine glass is tiresome – this is probably the reason so many lazy homeless people prefer their wine in a cask. This designer clearly got sick of the problem – and designed this wine glass with a built in storage tank.

April 22, 2009

Keep on truckin’

This is a cool hat.

April 22, 2009

Card carrying card carrier

This is one of those “I can’t believe I missed this” posts. Last week I posted a collection of business cards – and then this week on Rove I saw this clip. A guy who is serious about business cards – and his personal card costs $4 a pop.

And then, this gem, from actor/comedian Steve Martin. Nothing like a personal touch…

April 22, 2009

Self Help Books for Dummies – The Topic

Picking a topic is fairly easy. There are four recognised sub-categories in the self-help market. These are: mind, body, soul and status. The relationship between these categories, when it comes to self-help writing, can best be explained by this diagram:
Figure 1.1 A diagrammatical representation of the 4 categories of self-improvementFigure 1.1 A diagrammatical representation of the 4 categories of self-improvement.
As you can see, each circle represents one of the categories for self-improvement. There is a natural overlap between categories. In fact, the more overlaps you can manage the more successful your book is likely to be. The ideal area of this diagram, or the self-help bull’s-eye is shown in this diagram:
Figure 1.2Figure 1.2 The coloured in area is the “self-help bull’s-eye.

Like in darts, the further you move from the bull’s-eye the lower your score will be. Another secret for picking a successful topic is being aware of current trends. The recent real-estate bubble is a prime example of a good bandwagon to jump onto. Another current issue, which appears to be under represented in the self-help market, is the boom in the fresh fruit juice industry. Franchises like Juice BoostTM are being set up all over the country.

April 22, 2009

YouTube Twosday: A tale told palindromically

This is clever. Very clever.

April 21, 2009

Legway

Segways are our future. Gyroscopes will take over the world – South Park said so. The problem with Segways is that production is expensive – largely due to the inbuilt technology.

But now – the dream is attainable. A pedal powered segway, the legway, has been designed – and the instructions are here for the whole world to see.

April 21, 2009

A bunch of links – April 21, 2009

April 21, 2009

The road home

This post is gratuitous. We drove home – as is the case at the end of all driving holidays. We listened to some Mark Driscoll. I played with my iPhone. Twittering the trip home. And we stopped in Cardwell to take some sunset pictures…





April 21, 2009

Coffee Works


Mareeba is the undisputed home of coffee in Australia – and it’s as much to do with the amazing collection of coffee paraphernalia on display at Coffee Works as it is to do with the presence of the vast majority of Australia’s coffee plantations.

Coffee Works is impressive. The founder has a collection of literally hundreds (perhaps thousands) of coffee brewers, espresso machines, roasters and grinders.

He traveled the world to find them. He sought them high, he sought them low, he sought those French presses everywhere… And that my friends is how you drop in a reference to the Scarlett Pimpernel.



Not only is this perhaps the world’s biggest collection of coffee (and tea) bric-a-brac – it’s also home to a boutique chocolate maker, specialty coffee roaster and they make a pretty mean coffee liquor.

There’s unlimited tastings of their coffees, teas and chocolates on offer for anyone who takes the tour – and it’s well worthwhile.

It’s fair to say that the extent of this guy’s collection gave Robyn a sense of perspective when it comes to my very small collection of coffee equipment.

April 21, 2009

Kuranda

Halfway between Cairns and Mareeba you’ll find the little village of Kuranda – it’s perhaps easiest to find if you catch the skyrail. Which we didn’t. We did however find an informative indigenous local while standing at the Barron Falls lookout. 

I’m pretty comfortable with my masculinity – so I’m happy to say that I really enjoyed our trip to the butterfly sanctuary. Mostly because I used the opportunity to play with our camera.







Having frolicked with butterflies for quite long enough we went shopping. At the markets. Again, I’m pretty comfortable with my masculinity.

April 21, 2009