December 2007
46 posts
A replacement for coffee?
Darpa-funded scientists might have found a drug that will eliminate sleepiness. A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. The treatment is “a totally new route for increasing arousal, and the new study shows it to be relatively...
Blogging as a marketing tool →
“As a consultant, blogging clearly helps you get hired,” she said. “If you are selling a product, you have to be much more creative because people don’t want to read a commercial.” (via the NYT)
WatchA Polaroid Christmas
Google "Promo Codes"
“I’m currently purchasing the Bantam Armchair from Design Within Reach. I tried something new at checkout: I Googled dwr promotional code and found a $50 off code in about one minute. It was GOOG50 and it worked. I think that was the easiest $50 I’ve ever earned.”— jakoblodwick I’ll have to keep this in mind when I am purchasing things online.
UrbanHonking - MyMiniCity →
If you visit our MiniCity, it will grow. — dalasverdugo The UrbanHonking MiniCity! Check it out!
Fake photographers
A friend of mine just told me that everyone (!) who works at their photo studio is being hired by a large cosmetics company to act as a photographer of some important media at their Christmas party. They are instructed to use their photoflash as much as possible to make the guests feel as if this were a very glamorous event that they are attending. None of the photos will be saved. — mareen
iFraud: The Very Best iPhone Imitators →
“These handsets all try to emulate the quintessential Jesus phone with touchscreens and copycat graphics. But when we roll up our sleeves and drill down, cracks begin to show.” (Via WIRED)
Play 'Guitar Hero' Online for Free →
“A surprisingly evolved online flash game that lets you play a Guitar Hero-like game using keyboard commands. Like the real game, this site awards points for hitting notes on time, deducts them if you miss, requires that some notes be held for a certain amount of time, and increases the multiplier when you’re on a roll. It also saves your progress automatically, so you can unlock new...
I like to limit the number of tumblr blogs that I follow to 35, so that I can still keep up if I miss a few days. This is hard to do, since I am discovering all of these great blogs with the new reblog tumblr feature.
BRAILLE GRAFFITI (a short documentary in Portland) →
“A project for the blind. All braille found in public is of the practical nature, directing them this way and that. Further, obviously, without vision, blind people miss out on the beauty that graffiti can present in our culture, both aesthetically but also conceptually. This is an attempt to create a unique experience for the blind people who happen to come across these bits of graffiti...
Downtown Portland Skate Routes →
One of Portland’s features that I like to brag about. — dalasverdugo
Flash Player Update Adds HD Video Support
“Adobe has released the final version of Flash Player 9 Update 3, which adds the HD video support announced earlier this year. Update 3 is the first public version of Flash Player 9 to include support for H.264 HD video playback, which means HD video on YouTube is now within the realm of possibilities.” (via WIRED)
Chiptune Composers
Jeremiah Johnson, 27, is a chiptune composer: His instrument is not the guitar or the piano or even the latest music software, but old-school video hardware like the Nintendo GameBoy. Working with screwdrivers and soldering irons, he painstakingly reprograms the rudimentary sound chips in the game machines to create songs that play right from the console. The sound is less Super Mario Brothers and...