Just wanted to share this gem of a story with you all by the genius that was Douglas Adams (author of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy):
This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person was me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I’d gotten the time of the train wrong.
I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. …

Ethan Zuckerman studies how the world (the whole world) uses new media to share information and moods across cultures, languages and platforms. His TED talk earlier this summer focuses on how our growing reliance on the localised web as a news source means that we are becoming more and more isolated from the plight of our fellow net-zens in other global regions:
Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the …

document.getElementById(“post-2554-blankimage”).onload();

I was forced kicking and screaming to go and watch The Expendables last night by the missus (instead of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World – which is what I wanted to see) and the best thing about the whole sorry experience was the following ad from Estrella Damm Beer which was much better than anything Stallone could pen and direct:

[click here if you cannot view the embedded clip above]
Yes, it’s long, but isn’t it fab? Kinda got an Y Tu Mamá También vibe about it (except with two women and one …

Sometimes, ignorance wins out over tmi (too much information)…

[Via MUO]

document.getElementById(“post-2542-blankimage”).onload();

Search and ye shall find… well that’s what Google thinks, but sometimes when you want to tap into the collective search listings of the world, even Google Trends and Google Insights for Search don’t give you that quick snapshot that you’re looking for. That’s where the new Google Beat episodes look to help out.
The short YouTube vids briefly discuss the week’s hot web search trends and aim to give us a flavour of what is trending on Google. In this first epsisode, Google’s Anne Espiritu (who has probably prompted many image searches in …

Going off topic here to plug a new film that’s coming out at some point in 2011.
‘PETER’ – A Study for a Portrait of a Serial Killer, is a feature length drama containing genuine archive that takes the audience on a unique journey into the mind of Peter Sutcliffe ‘The Yorkshire Ripper’.
My wife Stéphanie is the Production Manager on this feature so I’ve got an invested interest in the success of the project but even so, PETER looks like a corker of a film. I’ve had to endure a year of …

Google’s long history of acquisition, innovation, experimentation, successes and failures is dotted with household names (YouTube) and forgotten brands (Jaiku anyone?).
The following Infographic from Mashable puts Google’s Social Media history into the contect of a timeline. I for one, refuse to get excited by the prospect of Google launching it’s Facebook competitor Google Me particularly as I’ve often thrown the full weight of my enthusiasm behind the likes of Orkut, GoogleWave, SideWiki and Aardvark only to be bitterly disappointed.
Anyhooooo….

document.getElementById(“post-2373-blankimage”).onload();

The Real Life  Social Networks is a presentation that I discovered via Twitter (thanks @nero) and I’ve decide it to share it all with you as it is one of the best slide shows that I have come across which attempts to debate the usefulness of the ‘friend’ culture currently being fuelled by platforms like Facebook.
The deck is the work of Paul Adams (@padday), Senior User Experience Researcher at Google. As the research lead for sociability, Paul works with teams building products and features for the social web.  His studies into how …

Anyone who has seen my handiwork knows that I’m no designer… but I sure can empathise with this dude…
Thanks to my mate Nicola Rowan for sending this through to me!
That’s what I call a real life LOLCAT!
From: Shannon Walkley
Date: Monday 21 June 2010 9.15am
To: David Thorne
Subject: Poster
Hi
I opened the screen door yesterday and my cat got out and has been missing since then so I was wondering if you are not to busy you could make a poster for me. It has to be A4 …