Archive for February, 2008
Happy bisextile day! (whatever …)
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I’d like to congratulate our american neighbours: “For the first time in U.S. history, more than one in every 100 adults are in jail or prison“. I think we just reached an important milestone.
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Suburbs are the next slums (in the U.S. at least)! “For 60 years, Americans have pushed steadily into the suburbs, transforming the landscape and (until recently) leaving cities behind. But today the pendulum is swinging back toward urban living, and there are many reasons to believe this swing will continue. As it does, many low-density suburbs and McMansion subdivisions, including some that are lovely and affluent today, may become what inner cities became in the 1960s and ’70s—slums characterized by poverty, crime, and decay.”
via kottke.org
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Freakonomics blog asked its readers last week to find a new 6 words motto for the U.S. (I liked the Copyranter one: Red, white and blue. Fuck you.). Freakonomics winner is: Our Worst Critics Prefer to Stay
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To continue on the business of free, Trendwatching’s trend to watch this month is: Free love. “FREE LOVE: the ongoing rise of free, valuable stuff that’s available to consumers online and offline. From AirAsia tickets to Wikipedia, and from diapers to music. FREE LOVE thrives on an all-out war for consumers’ ever-scarcer attention and the resulting new business models and marketing techniques, but also benefits from the ever-decreasing costs of producing physical goods, the post-scarcity dynamics of the online world (and the related avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C), the many C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, and an emerging recycling culture. “
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“The 2007 Digital Economy Fact Book (pdf) is a tightwad researcher’s dream: In-depth, statistic-heavy, well-cited, and freely-available online.”
via Hill Library Blog
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A piece on Lou Doillon who was both featured in A Nous Paris and Buzzfeed this week. I mean, there must be something going. She designed some stuff for Lee. Lee Cooper. COOPER. Thanks.
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“Web giant Yahoo has said it is facing seven shareholder lawsuits over its handling of Microsoft’s unsolicited takeover bid, which it has rejected.”
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“The European antitrust regulator imposed a record $1.35 billion fine against Microsoft on Wednesday in a ruling intended to send a clear message to the world’s largest software maker — and to any other company — of the dangers of flouting Europe’s competition rulings. […] The dispute with the commission has cost Microsoft more than $2.3 billion in fines.”
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” …the fund, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, is turning heads on Wall Street and in Washington by making high-profile investments in the United States and elsewhere. […] the fund peg it at $650 billion to $700 billion […] It now has about 65 percent of assets, or about $450 billion, invested in stocks, according to bankers. Currently, the fund averages a yearly return of 10 to 20 percent, say people who have been briefed on the fund’s investment strategy. With oil about $100 a barrel, bankers and analysts estimate Abu Dhabi produces a surplus of at least $50 billion a year. […] even the most expansive investment and welfare policies make it hard to put a dent in such a sum.”
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Charmburka: The Burka sends an image, chosen by the wearer, via Bluetooth technology. Every person next to her can receive her picture via mobile phone and see the women’s self-determined identity.
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I’m showing this one here coz it’s been all the rage with people I know in Mumbai. I can understand why! :: The Blue Frog
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Sand-bag houses by MMA Architects: “The house, which has a total budget of just 65,000 Rand (£4,300/$8,600), is one of ten houses being built to house former shack dwellers.”
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Scott Adams (Dilbert) on Sarkozy: “Sarkozy officiated at the former fashion model’s wedding and, I’m guessing, slipped the bride his phone number. Apparently that worked. […] My point is that you shouldn’t let a French guy officiate your wedding.”
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A nice piece on 37signals & founders which, without saying “revolutionize the Web”, at least gave it a small boost …
“Hansson and 37signals cofounder Jason Fried are “revered,” says business author Seth Godin. “They are as close as we get to demigods online.”
37signals response on some comments on the article
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Artist of the day: Art Tatum
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After the Sarah Silverman “I’m fucking Matt Daemon”, Jimmy replied with “I’m fucking […]”. What a couple. I mean, Jimmy and Sarah.
*update*: Matt Damon. Sorry Matt…
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80 years of Oscars, the posters of the movies that won.
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Marion Cotillard speech of acceptance for the Oscar, which made her the first in France “to win an academy award for a French-language film. […] Only one French actor had previously won a leading role Oscar: Simone Signoret in the 1960 Room at the Top.”
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Cool bookshelves.
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Design and the elastic mind: “. Design and the Elastic Mind explores the reciprocal relationship between science and design in the contemporary world by bringing together design objects and concepts that marry the most advanced scientific research with attentive consideration of human limitations, habits, and aspirations.”
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Why free is the future of business.
“We are entering an era when free will be seen as the norm, not an anomaly. […] A generation raised on the free Web is coming of age, and they will find entirely new ways to embrace waste, transforming the world in the process. Because free is what you want — and free, increasingly, is what you’re going to get.”
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Rent-a-dildo.com. From the whois, it seems legit. That’s scary..
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Gay’s depiction in advertising. With a lot of examples.
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Agent Provocateur is up to its old tricks, getting a model to strip down in the window of a fancy London department store today to promote its new fragrance, “Strip.”
Agent Provocateur + Model + Stripping + Public place … Greaaaat.
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I like the product and I love the ad. Which shows that a good product makes a good ad. I mean. U know, not much of a creative here … 3M privacy filters.
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If you speak french, here’s a good interview with Chuck Brymer, CEO of DDB.
“Mon message consiste à dire: ne pensez plus de façon traditionnelle. Il faut réfléchir 360°, passer du monologue au dialogue et à la conversation, et si on est créatif, c’est encore mieux. Nous allons quitter le stade où nous créions de la communication pour rejoindre celui où nous créons des communautés. Car pour moi les individus sont devenus de vrais médias.”
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Another french link for a street marketing initiative in Australia: Interactive fan. Go on and watch the video it’s in english anyway..
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People wearing only one color. Like gray. Or blue. Or green…
“I always wonder if there was a name for my condition”
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Persai: A self-learning newsfeed: “The basic concept behind Persai.com is that you can “accept” or “reject” the content that is pushed to you. Accepting a recommendation means you’d like to see more of that kind of content. Rejecting a recommendation means you don’t want to see more of that kind of content.”
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Interview with Michel Gondry for Be Kind, Rewind (which I can’t wait to see)
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Copyranter has the best collection of AA ads. NSFW. Just kidding. But seriously …
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I like it. The history (somewhat) of Adidas and Adi Dassler
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The cluetrain website saw the day in 1999 and predicted stuff like “Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.”
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On Driving: A look at our century of motoring, and some of the landmarks along the way. In 1933, the Dynamaxion car was introduced, with a fuel efficiency of 30 mpg. In 2005, the average fuel efficiency of a new car is 17.2 mpg.
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Godwin’s law: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you’ve got ROFLCon. It’s a group dissection of internet culture.
Spamology is a part of ongoing research examining the nature of Spam as a digital-cultural phenomenon, which aims at visualizing the links and interrelationships between the contents of spam, the user/individual and the society, by revealing patterns in spam which may reflect cultural and social trends, behaviors and variations.
P.S. You better enter it’s freaking crazy. It’s a chance there’s no audio actually…
More nice information design
And Visual Complexity is one of my fav website on the subject
A cordless, self-powered 200 years lasting kick-ass designed lamp.
Some nice clean-tagging/reverse graffiti (that is, graffiti art done by cleaning walls..)
“The clients, a young couple with two children who after living in a conventional home wanted to change to one integrated to nature.” Well…, they quite did it. And its cool coz I exactly pictured a Smurf home like that.
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““Our irrational behaviors are neither random nor senseless—they are systematic,” he writes. “We all make the same types of mistakes over and over.” So attached are we to certain kinds of errors, he contends, that we are incapable even of recognizing them as errors.” A great take on irrational decision and how are rational thoughts are heavily influenced by external stimulus.
iPaper is a document format built for the Internet. Like a YouTube video, iPaper documents are Flash widgets which you embed in your existing web pages. PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and many other document formats can all be displayed on the web using iPaper.
This is the new movie I really wanna see.
I just discovered the work of Theo Jansen (through this BMW ad), a kinetic sculpteur. It’s mind-blowing.
The world’s most innovative companies by FastCompany. Quite surprisingly, Google takes the first place ;P Facebook is third, which was actually a real surprise to me.
Jay-Z is launching an advertising agency: “According to The New York Times, Jay-Z and Stoute will serve as co-chairmen of the venture, with a 49 percent stake in the company being owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies, the third-largest agency company in the U.S.” That’s… strange. Discover via this good post on luxury+hiphop on agenda inc.
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In Quebec, if you committed a white collar crime, it’s no big deal. The 400th aniversary committee just hired Bernard Thiboutot, who was kinda involved in the 2006 sponsorships scandal (his company did false invoices to give illegally 50 000$ to the liberal party). Daniel Gélinas, director of the 400th committe said that they chose him for his abilities and that his past didn’t matter…
It had up to l’ENAP who hired Alain Juppé in 2005 after he was accused of creating false jobs to pay salaries to friends and such. (In Quebec, the National University for Public Admnistration (ENAP) is a University geared toward educating our future high-ranked government members). I’m so proud of my city.
A funny take on banner ads
Let’s have TXT. Valentine day seen by Virgin.
Millward Brown Brandz report.
And the article by HB
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Damien Hirst, who holds the record for the highest auction art sale at 9,7 million pound, is to open his first shop, selling everything from a £250,000 charm bracelet to a painted plastic skull for £25,000.
(btw he allegedly also sold a diamond skull for 100 million…)
Rinspeed created the sQuba, the world’s first real submersible car.
They had released in 2004 a boat-car as well, the Splash.
BBH for Axe. Hillary’s an Obama supporter
Things I have learned in my life so far. “Currently on show at Deitch Projects‘ Grand Street gallery in New York is a new exhibition of work by Stefan Sagmeister. Entitled Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, the show is a continuation of Sagmeister’s book of the same name, published by Abrams Books this spring.”
some maxims I like:
15. Worrying solves nothing.
17. Everybody thinks they are right.
19. Low expectations are a good strategy. (made the list coz it kinda reminded me of Dodgeball: “I found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell ya… it feels phenomenal.”)
Interview with Thomas Enraght-Moony of Match.com. “There are about 92 million single people in the U.S […] and about 3 million of them pay a fee to an Internet-based dating service.” That’s like. Woah.
In Industry Standard, “a “market” is simulated whereby members place a bet on the probability that a future event will or will not occur. They do so using “virtual currency” called “Standard Dollars”. The probability of that event coming true is estimated based on “community consensus” calculated as the weighted average value of the bets placed for or against the prediction coming true.”
I remember an example in The Wisdom of Crowds about groups/companies (i forgot..) predicting political results that way that gave better results than Gallup pools.
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