ODO | There Is No Rewind

Sitting is bad for you

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 20:39:00 +0930

Men who spent more than 23 hours a week watching TV and sitting in their cars (as passengers or as drivers) had a 64 percent greater chance of dying from heart disease than those who sat for 11 hours a week or less. What was unexpected was that many of the men who sat long hours and developed heart problems also exercised.

Entertaining Lego felt tip printer. Love the little workers!

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:03:30 +0930

Entertaining Lego felt tip printer. Love the little workers!

PCs are going to be like trucks

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:58:00 +0930

PCs are going to be like trucks:

Steve Jobs at D8, on the difference between PCs and the iPad:

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks. But as people moved more towards urban centers, people started to get into cars. I think PCs are going to be like trucks. Less people will need them. And this is going to make some people uneasy.

New York MTA redesigns subway map

Sun, 30 May 2010 23:32:29 +0930

New York MTA redesigns subway map:

Less cluttered with fresher colors and shadowed lines to aid clarity.

In a world of mobile GPS and Google Maps, it seems increasingly logical to place stops in context vs. abstracted, angular subway maps used around the world.

"The ice caps are melting…in the future swimming isn’t going to be optional."

Wed, 26 May 2010 22:57:32 +0930

“The ice caps are melting…in the future swimming isn’t going to be optional.”

- Sheldon Cooper, The Big Bang Theory

Dancers Among Us is an ongoing collection of photos of NYC...

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 23:37:59 +0930

Dancers Among Us is an ongoing collection of photos of NYC dancers in everyday surroundings. (via Kottke)

"Software cries out for personality, for ornamentation, for delight. To reflect higher aspirations,..."

Thu, 29 Apr 2010 22:00:00 +0930

“Software cries out for personality, for ornamentation, for delight. To reflect higher aspirations, and evoke emotion.”

- Amy Hoy

Avoid aliens

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 22:27:00 +0930

In a series for Discovery, Hawking believes aliens would exist, but reckons we should lie low and avoid contacting them:

We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet.

I couldn’t agree more. (via BBC)

99-year-old woman gets the iPad. ”Although she has never...

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 20:10:29 +0930

99-year-old woman gets the iPad. ”Although she has never owned a computer, she is now writing poetry on the tablet.” (via Cnet)

"Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution."

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 23:20:34 +0930

“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.”

- Clay Shirky

Steve McQueen

Sun, 18 Apr 2010 23:19:00 +0930

Steve McQueen:

“I live for myself and I answer to nobody.”

The Yike Bike from the Kiwis — the bike for the rest of...

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 22:27:00 +0930

The Yike Bike from the Kiwis — the bike for the rest of us!

Electrically charged in 40 mins, the foldable bike cruises at a brisk 25 km/h, handy enough for short commutes (under 10km). See the test video to see it put through its paces.

"Perfection is attained, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to..."

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 21:25:27 +1030

“Perfection is attained, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

- Antoine de St. Exupery

"The bulk of humanity doesn’t want a computing experience it can tinker with; it wants a computing..."

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 07:59:51 +1030

“The bulk of humanity doesn’t want a computing experience it can tinker with; it wants a computing experience that works.”

- Jeffrey Zeldman

Pirate Business Model

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:50:27 +1030

Pirate Business Model:

UN report on criminal activities in Somalia details the pirate business model, including their criteria for share distribution:

To be eligible for employment as a pirate, a volunteer should already possess a firearm for use in the operation. For this ‘contribution’, he receives a ‘class A’ share of any profit. Pirates who provide a skiff or a heavier firearm, like an RPG or a general purpose machine gun, may be entitled to an additional A-share. The first pirate to board a vessel may also be entitled to an extra A-share.

Slow motion dogs captured by the 1000 FPS Phantom...

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 07:43:00 +1030

Slow motion dogs captured by the 1000 FPS Phantom camera.

I’ve loved such photography/videos since reading an article in National Geographic on Doc Edgerton.

iPad Shock

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:04:00 +1030

iPad Shock:

The Real Work is not formatting the margins, installing the printer driver, uploading the document, finishing the PowerPoint slides, running the software update or reinstalling the OS.

The Real Work is teaching the child, healing the patient, selling the house, logging the road defects, fixing the car at the roadside, capturing the table’s order, designing the house and organising the party.

If you’ve seen Apple’s launch video, it’s obvious that this is how simple computing should be!

"I don’t understand why I have to go to school at all, the internet knows more than all the..."

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 19:36:22 +1030

“I don’t understand why I have to go to school at all, the internet knows more than all the teachers there put together.”

- Seb Bin David Thorne, 27b/6

20-Dollar Millionaire

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:15:21 +0930

20-Dollar Millionaire:

I could have stood in line at the airport cabstand for fifteen minutes like every other mook in the world, freezing my balls off, but such is not the way of the twenty-dollar millionaire. I walked straight to the front of the line and offered a woman twenty bucks for her spot. She took it with a shrug.

The first of a series, on the art of spreading $20 bills:

Then I realized something else: Most people aren’t willing to lose their job for twenty bucks, but if they have something they already take for granted—a place in line, a seat, a ticket to a show they’ve already seen—they’ll jump on a twenty like a possum on a wet bag of groceries.

Nocebo Effect

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:20:35 +0930

Nocebo Effect:

An additional list of 13 things adds on to the original 13 things that don’t make sense compiled by New Scientist, one of which covers the power of negative suggestion.

The Nocebo effect is the opposite of the Placebo effect (see the original list) and refers to cases where “putting someone in a negative frame of mind has an adverse effect on their health or well-being.”

Tell people a medical procedure will be extremely painful, for example, and they will experience more pain than if you had kept the bad news to yourself. Similarly, experiences of side effects within the placebo groups of drug trials have shown that a doctor’s warning about the possible side effects of a medicine makes it much more likely that the patient will report experiencing those effects.