Saturday, June 20, 2009

SUVs and the Feeling of Safety

I was watching a Ford TV commercial the other day and the people in it kept going on and on about how their Ford "made them feel safe". I couldn't help wondering why they would care how safe they felt, surely they would rather actually be safe than feel safe?

Then I came across this article by Malcolm Gladwell (author of the Tipping Point and Outliers) from 2004 about SUVs and the feeling of safety. He discusses how the quest for the feeling of safety has lead us away from actual safety (and caused many other problems as well).

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Video: Whitehouse photo op

The New York Times has a blog post with a video that shows how astoundingly short a White House photo op is.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Business card turns into catapult

The cardapult is a business card that turns into a small catapult. Imagine how popular that would be in meetings. There is a video that shows the device in operation.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Photo: Stealth Bomber breaking sound barrier

The Telegraph has a photo of a Stealth Bomber breaking the sound barrier.

Follow up: They also have a very nice photo of an F-18 doing the same thing at an air show. The angular cloud is much more noticeable in this one.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Flash Game: Perfect Balance

If you like balancing things on top of other things then you'll love this flash game. Perfect Balance has 40+ levels, each of which requires you to balance various objects on various things.

Saturday, June 06, 2009

Aubrey de Grey on life extension

An interesting TED talk by Aubrey de Grey about life extension and why he feels it is necessary. He goes through the 7 ways in which people age - all of which he feels can be prevented.

Wednesday, June 03, 2009

June Smashing Wallpaper

Smashing Magazine has their monthly set of desktop wallpaper. I went with the one of the Spitfire flying off into the sun.

Monday, June 01, 2009

Hubble Mission Pics

The Big Picture has a series of photos of the recent Space Shuttle mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.