Although artist Allison Schulnik did not create the stop-motion animated film Mound (set to It’s Raining Today by Noel Scott Engel) explicitly for Halloween, there is something haunting about the magic she created from clay that makes celebrating her work today so apropos. I definitely recommend spending the four-and-a-half minutes it takes to watch this otherworldly masterpiece. Continue reading
Monthly Archives: October 2011
World population milestone
7 billion (7,000,000,000)
The number of people on Earth topped the 7 billion mark today according to the United Nations Population Fund. The 6 billion mark was crossed in 1999 and it took the entirety of history until approximately 1804 to reach the 1 billion population figure. Different projections have the figure reaching between 8 billion and 10.5 billion by 2050, although if the population growth over the past decade were to be used as the basis for future growth – the global population would be between 12 and 13 billion by 2050 and between 18 and 20 billion by 2100. Continue reading
Geek-out Sunday part VIII: Minecraft
It seems as if every time I feel like I’m on top of what’s going on with computer technology and the Internet, someone sends me a link to something that millions of other people have been doing for years and of which I have been blissfully unaware. Such is the case with Minecraft. Continue reading
The Little Black Book of Innovation: How It Works, How to Do It
Innovation may be the hottest discipline around today – in business circles and beyond. And for good reason. Innovation transforms companies and markets. It’s the key to solving vexing social problems. And it makes or breaks professional careers. For all the enthusiasm the topic inspires, however, the practice of innovation remains stubbornly impenetrable. Continue reading
United States of Strange
It has been a long week and I think everyone is more than ready for a relaxing weekend, so I’ll do my part and get the ball rolling with a few clever – and perhaps too accurate for comfort – maps of the U.S. Like all good maps these ones not only provide the requisite geographic information but also give the viewer a sense for the people who call this land their home. The first map (above) comes to us from the wit of Pleated Jeans concisely outlines those things that *ahem* might be areas for improvement. Continue reading
Evolution of branding
A recent email survey by Fast Company of 623 qualified subscribers (41% from the agency side and 59% from the client side) about the changing landscape of branding yielded some pretty interesting observations in the complete infographic below. For example, look at the responses for the two questions on traditional channels and broad-based media. Continue reading
The Japanese flying sphere
From a technological point of view the flying sphere from Japan’s Ministry of Defense is a revolutionary advancement. Not only is it the first flying sphere that can hover, take-off, and land like a helicopter but it can also fly horizontally at high speeds (up to 37 mph) thanks to its wings – a feat not possible with a standard helicopter. Continue reading
Making HVAC sexy
The folks over at Nest Labs are doing something truly innovative and even sexy in the field of HVAC. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (or HVAC as it is called by insiders) is responsible for keeping most of the U.S. civilized in the dead of winter or during the sweltering heat of summer. It is also responsible for roughly half of the average household’s energy expenditure in a given year – roughly $1,100. If you’re like most people, the thermostat is your interface point for more than 99% of your interactions with your HVAC system. Those interactions range from putting the system on permanent “hold” (a recent Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study found that as many as 50% of households are set this way) or trying to program it using a kludgy interface that conjures painful memories of trying to set the clock on the VCR in 1983. Continue reading
Geek-out Sunday part VII: quantum levitation
When one hears the terms “quantum” and “levitation” used in a sentence they conjure thoughts of theoretical physics and fantastical machines whose reality is not far from science fiction. The video below was created by the Superconductivity Group at Tel Aviv University and demonstrates a levitation phenomenon similar to the Meissner effect (i.e., the complete expulsion of a magnetic field from a superconductor during its transition to the superconducting state). Continue reading
History and future of marketing
Once upon a time (i.e., prior to the Industrial Revolution) there was a world free of marketing. People brought their goods and services to market in their local villages in what were hyper-local and largely closed economic ecosystems. The rise of economics as a science in the late 19th century as well as the Second Industrial Revolution (circa 1850) gave birth to not only marketing as a discipline but retailing and advertising as well. Continue reading
