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1360 days ago
Henceforth, this blog will be located at a new address. Please change your links and readers accordingly. I've moved lifeasdaddy due to the new intrusive and annoying banner advertisements which now appear at the top of the page courtesy of the blog host. This new advertising regime is also making the blog take a long time to load. Come along with me, you know you want to....
1360 days ago
Occasionally my wife treats me to copy of the the New Yorker magazine . Malcolm Gladwell's written an interesting article about the power law as applied to some human situations. Read the article called Million-Dollar Murray here. "Power law" is become a bit of a buzz-phrase. Regardless, Gladwell has used it as a jumping off point for examining how best to solve some previously intractable problems. Violence in policing is one. Homelessness is another. The Murray Barr referred to in the title was a homeless man. A human above all. Gladwell examines his case to illustrate that instead of managing the problem of homelessness it may be more effective, and even more economical and cheaper to solve the problem. Gladwell says it better than I can. He spells better than I can too. If you're intested,Gladwell's blog is here, and he was added to the blogroll last week.
1362 days ago
Apparently, TV viewers of the Oscars in the US saw a new American Express advertisement in the My Life, My Card series. This one's directed by and stars M. Night Shyamalan. Here in Oz, it hasn't aired yet. Meanwhile, it can be viewed here. It's incredibly carefully crafted, and quite dark. Grant McCracken deconstructs it here. Whilst McCracken notes all of the dark aspects of Mr. Shyamalan's take, he just misses out on the slightly tongue in cheek and self deprecating tinge in the closing moments. Check out the ad here, see what you think.
1362 days ago
A couple of weeks ago I read that there had been a pillow fight in Union Square, NY, Fred Wilson pointed to this great set of photos here. That event was organized as a public art event by newmindspace, and there's links to lots more photos here. Interested in the origin of flash mobbing? Well, Bill Wasik has just written an article for Harper's magazine about how flash mobbing,got started back in '03. Here's part 1 of the article. Wasik's account of mobbing the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, Grand Central Station, NY was particularly amusing to me as an ol' hotel man. The price of the ticket to NYC would have been worth it to see that. (pointer from Design Observer) Apparently some folks up in Brisbane have been done a few.
1364 days ago
If Abraham Lincoln had used Microsoft's PowerPoint to craft his dedication, would it have turned out like this? Nope, I don't think so. I'm sure it would still have been this. (Thanks to Hillary Johnson for pointing to Peter Norvig's site. ) (And the story behind the story, by Mr. Norvig.)
