A dramatic leap into 2006
For the many of you who’ve been asking, yes, at long last I am now on both Facebook and Twitter. Friend me. Follow me. Of if you dare, frollow me.
Time’s-a-wasting factoid of the day
In the U.S., “70% of all wine is drunk on the day it’s purchased.”(Source: Fast Company, June 2008)
The (holographic) singularity is near
Here’s a short snippet of video I shot of Ray Kurzweil “appearing” at the Thinking Digital conference in Newcastle, UK yesterday. Instead of flying to northern England, Kurzweil beamed in via Teleportec, a souped-up video feed that delivers a quasi-hologram of the speaker to the audience and allows the speaker to see the audience.
Disgraceful factoid of the day
“The United Nations estimate(s) that retailers and consumers in America throw away food worth $48 billion each year.” (Source: The Economist, 5.17.08)
Factoid of the day: Live from Australia edition
Koalas spend five hours a day feeding and ten hours a day sleeping. (Not sure what they do the other nine hours, but I think it involves meetings.) Photo taken at Cleland Conservation Park in Adelaide, South Australia, with Australian conference impresario Andrew Greatrex and Bindi, a four-year-old koala. (I’m the one on the left.)
Stars and Stripes (and Stanford)
More evidence that comic books, er, graphic novels are going mainstream. Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper, reports that in preparation for the arrival of the aircraft carrier USS George Washington in Yokosuka, Japan, the U.S. Navy is distributing 30,000 copies of its own manga. Titled CVN-73, the book tells the story of third-class petty officer Jack
Phrase of the day: Chemical amnesty
Now you can cleanse your soul and not just your floors. Do-gooder soap-maker Method has a established a “chemical amnesty” program at its newly opened New York pop-up store. As the always informative PSFK Trends Digest reports, “New Yorkers can bring in their old chemical-based products and exchange them for Method goodness–and M-fans can buy 5 products
Robert Rauschenberg
When I arrived in Heathrow tonight, one of the first emails I noticed on my phone was a news alert from the New York Times: “Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82.” A sad day. I’m a huge Rauschenberg fan — as much for the way he lived his life as for the
Six word stories can say lots.
Sometimes when I go out and talk about the ideas in AWNM, I have time do some exercises with the audience. And one of my new favorites is the six-word memoir,which helps demonstrate and hone the power of story. The idea comes from the endlessly entertaining book, Not Quite What I Was Planning, in which people famous