Wednesday, 24 March 2010
Chat Roulette
The awesome Merton. And then Ben folds' homage live.
On the whole chatroulette is a mine field but some good humour and time and it can be pretty cool.
Tuesday, 23 March 2010
Paper Gameboy
French Design duo
Their website is under construction but their Behance age has some more paper craft goodness.
Moving Brands Showreel
Case Study Showreel 2010 from Moving Brands on Vimeo.
And some AR just for good measure. This is a great little showcase. Doesn't go too deep or too techy, just makes the work look beautiful and simple.
Augmented Reality. from Moving Brands on Vimeo.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Monday, 15 March 2010
Saturday, 13 March 2010
Thursday, 11 March 2010
"Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus"
Creative Writing professor told his class one day: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting next to his or her desk.
As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth.
Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of his English students:
THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The
chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the
question.
(second paragraph by Bill )
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. " Polar orbit established. No sign
of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law
Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from
her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
( Bill )
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the Congress had left Earth
a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the
atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized even poor, stupid Laurie.
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
( Bill )
Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. " Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air headed bimbo. I guess I've read too many Danielle
Steele novels!"
(Rebecca)
Asshole.
( Bill )
Bitch!
(Rebecca)
FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!
( Bill )
In your dreams, Ho. Go drink some tea.
(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one.
Via
As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also sending another copy to me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth.
Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of his English students:
THE STORY:
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The
chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the
question.
(second paragraph by Bill )
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his transgalactic communicator. " Polar orbit established. No sign
of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law
Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from
her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
( Bill )
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the Congress had left Earth
a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the
atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized even poor, stupid Laurie.
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
( Bill )
Yeah? Well, my writing partner is a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. " Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of FUCKING TEA??? Oh no, what am I to do? I'm such an air headed bimbo. I guess I've read too many Danielle
Steele novels!"
(Rebecca)
Asshole.
( Bill )
Bitch!
(Rebecca)
FUCK YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!
( Bill )
In your dreams, Ho. Go drink some tea.
(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one.
Via
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
Travel-bug
I am not a big traveller. I enjoy it but its had never really gripped me. But I am obsessed with tracking where I go. It is a very Feltron-esque obsession of documenting my life and so this gets me feeling all gooey inside. Call me weird. But this is right at the top of my wish list.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Saturday, 6 March 2010
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Social Media Update
I really do love these little infographic videos explaining the state of the internet. They are also really useful to keep you up-to-date on what is leading the social-media pack. I was interested in the "location-game" community application stakes and so did a bit of research. It seems to be between Foursquare and Gowalla. Foursquare is leading on members but gowalla on design and so I ended up on going with foursquare. Let's see how it goes.
Mashable Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Location-Based Throwdown
Monday, 1 March 2010
Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Enough hours in the day
This is very inspiring to me when I am feeling the pressure to know all the cool things happening on the web, mobile and whatever is in between.
A great post from Ben Kay from his blog If this is a blog then what's Christmas
------------
Occasionally I get asked how I have time to write a blog, a book and whatever ads need doing on a particular day.
The short answer is that I just get up and, at some point, do them all. I also read two or three newspapers, change nappies, have three meals, watch a movie, chat, email, play some Scrabble on Facebook, stare out of the window, Tweet, read other blogs, waste time on The Superficial and Hot Chicks With Douchebags, watch a TED lecture, play half an hour of Bejewelled 2 on the iPhone, get dressed, have a shower, enjoy five or six trips to the lav, buy some food, watch The Daily Show, read Rolling Stone/Private Eye/Q, listen to some Led Zeppelin, play with my son, put him to bed, pretend to talk to my daughter just to stop her crying in my face, read some of a book, comment on a few blogs and, well...a whole bunch of other things.
Maybe I am a little more constructive with my time then some people, but I still manage to fit plenty of wastage into an average day. Plenty.
But then I do a few things that produce a visible result. This blog is a daily (weekdaily, that is) demonstration of how I use my time. It probably doesn't take as long as you think, but then I've written about 1500 posts in the last four years so the practice has made the process quicker and easier. Same with writing ads: they don't take as long as they used to and the results are (I hope) better. The book writing takes as long as it takes, but if I didn't have one that was about to be published it might appear that I was wasting my time noodling around with that.
I have a theory that if everyone applied themselves, and circumstances allowed, we could probably all do our day's work in about three hours. However, things always seem to get in the way. Those things may be helpful little spongey things, like finding YouTube videos to be inspired by (nick) that make the three hours easier, but usually they'll just be time wasting bollocks.
There are six billion people and rising in an increasingly automated world. They can't possibly all have enough proper constructive work to fill a day (or eight hours). So we have lots of jobs that aren't strictly necessary and therefore involve time-wasting. For example, if you have a planner at your agency who takes a month to go back and forth with a client and come up with a strategy that a monkey could have thought up in ten seconds, then that's time wasted right there: both client and planner are doing something unnecessary for their money. Ditto creatives who have to do all the cannon fodder that gets shot down by a client who has to see 3/4/5/6/7/8/9 routes before he can dither about for a few days picking the one least likely to get him fired. Ditto CDs who now have to go to dozens of client meetings because the account handlers are shit at their jobs. The same with editors who have to produce another cut because of some shitbrained and unnecessary changes that the client's wife just thought of. Then there's account handlers who have to go back to the client for the eighth time because of some CHRISTING FUCKING INSANITY THAT COULD BE AVOIDED IF ONLY THE PEOPLE CONCERNED HAD EVEN A THIRD OF A FUCKING BRAIN CELL AND A LITTLE MORE COURAGE THAN A MOUSE THAT'S ABOUT TO BE SPLAYED OPEN AND ELECTROCUTED IN A COSMETICS LAB.
Anyway, the bottom line is that too much time is wasted in stupidity, inconsistency, fear, arse-covering and just plain old 'being a cunt'. If you can avoid as much of that as possible you could find the time to write a blog, play with your kids or watch a box set of Deadwood. Or, if you run an agency and decided to remove all the wastage, you could probably manage with half the staff.
But then there's be more unemployed.
So maybe agencies are just benevolent work homes that keep the jobless figures down and potential alcoholics off the streets.
------------
A great post from Ben Kay from his blog If this is a blog then what's Christmas
------------
Occasionally I get asked how I have time to write a blog, a book and whatever ads need doing on a particular day.
The short answer is that I just get up and, at some point, do them all. I also read two or three newspapers, change nappies, have three meals, watch a movie, chat, email, play some Scrabble on Facebook, stare out of the window, Tweet, read other blogs, waste time on The Superficial and Hot Chicks With Douchebags, watch a TED lecture, play half an hour of Bejewelled 2 on the iPhone, get dressed, have a shower, enjoy five or six trips to the lav, buy some food, watch The Daily Show, read Rolling Stone/Private Eye/Q, listen to some Led Zeppelin, play with my son, put him to bed, pretend to talk to my daughter just to stop her crying in my face, read some of a book, comment on a few blogs and, well...a whole bunch of other things.
Maybe I am a little more constructive with my time then some people, but I still manage to fit plenty of wastage into an average day. Plenty.
But then I do a few things that produce a visible result. This blog is a daily (weekdaily, that is) demonstration of how I use my time. It probably doesn't take as long as you think, but then I've written about 1500 posts in the last four years so the practice has made the process quicker and easier. Same with writing ads: they don't take as long as they used to and the results are (I hope) better. The book writing takes as long as it takes, but if I didn't have one that was about to be published it might appear that I was wasting my time noodling around with that.
I have a theory that if everyone applied themselves, and circumstances allowed, we could probably all do our day's work in about three hours. However, things always seem to get in the way. Those things may be helpful little spongey things, like finding YouTube videos to be inspired by (nick) that make the three hours easier, but usually they'll just be time wasting bollocks.
There are six billion people and rising in an increasingly automated world. They can't possibly all have enough proper constructive work to fill a day (or eight hours). So we have lots of jobs that aren't strictly necessary and therefore involve time-wasting. For example, if you have a planner at your agency who takes a month to go back and forth with a client and come up with a strategy that a monkey could have thought up in ten seconds, then that's time wasted right there: both client and planner are doing something unnecessary for their money. Ditto creatives who have to do all the cannon fodder that gets shot down by a client who has to see 3/4/5/6/7/8/9 routes before he can dither about for a few days picking the one least likely to get him fired. Ditto CDs who now have to go to dozens of client meetings because the account handlers are shit at their jobs. The same with editors who have to produce another cut because of some shitbrained and unnecessary changes that the client's wife just thought of. Then there's account handlers who have to go back to the client for the eighth time because of some CHRISTING FUCKING INSANITY THAT COULD BE AVOIDED IF ONLY THE PEOPLE CONCERNED HAD EVEN A THIRD OF A FUCKING BRAIN CELL AND A LITTLE MORE COURAGE THAN A MOUSE THAT'S ABOUT TO BE SPLAYED OPEN AND ELECTROCUTED IN A COSMETICS LAB.
Anyway, the bottom line is that too much time is wasted in stupidity, inconsistency, fear, arse-covering and just plain old 'being a cunt'. If you can avoid as much of that as possible you could find the time to write a blog, play with your kids or watch a box set of Deadwood. Or, if you run an agency and decided to remove all the wastage, you could probably manage with half the staff.
But then there's be more unemployed.
So maybe agencies are just benevolent work homes that keep the jobless figures down and potential alcoholics off the streets.
------------
Monday, 22 February 2010
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Blighty!
I get crazy patriotic whenever I live in a different country and being in France has certainly been no exception. I am at the point now where I am even craving Union Jack pillows!
Or what about Queeny?
"Pip pip!"
From Karen Hilton Designs on Etsy
Friday, 19 February 2010
Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Sunday, 14 February 2010
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