mental_floss Blog » Killer Home Decor Have you ever had visions of living like The Addams Family? Or maybe you just want to make your family and friends wonder about you. No matter how normal your home decor is, it's fun to have something around to make people gasp, and then (maybe) laugh. But if you put all the products I found together, you'd have a truly scary home. Let's start with the front door. The Los Angeles Coroner's Office sells welcome mats with their body outline logo through the Skeletons in the Closet gift shop. No reason to have an ordinary pull on your lights or ceiling fan, when you could reach for the Hanging Harry light pull. More household horrors, after the jump. Heading upstairs, the adventure continues when you see the Body Fluid Stairway Carpet. Artist Keetra Dean Dixon designed the Blood Puddle Pillow, handy when you want to take a catnap on the floor, or your desk. For the bed, the perfect accessory for a certain kind of movie buff would be this Godfather Horsehead Pillow.
TED2008: Who are we? Answers from Louise Leakey, (Running notes from the TED2008 conference in Monterey, California. First session.) TED2008 goes under the theme "The Big Questions", and it opens with THE big Shakespearian question: "To be, or not to be". Actor Michael Stuhlbarg offers a stunning interpretation of the entire soliloquy from "Hamlet": To be or not to be, that is the question;Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to sufferThe slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,And by opposing, end them. Etcetera. And then Chris Anderson, TED's Curator, introduces Louise Leakey. "Who are we? Jay Walker is next. Anthropologist Wade Davis is probably one of the most influential western advocates for the world's indigenous cultures (and has already given a speech at TED in 2003, watch it here). "Culture is the product of imagination. Photographer Chris Jordan focuses his lenses on the consequences of human behaviour, and particularly on how we consume. Zoom in:
Kiss the Grid Goodbye: Power Your Home with a Bloom Box! | Green Fuel cells have been a tantilizing technolgy for decades - powering space vehicles, but always a little out of reach for domestic or commercial use. I worked with Greenopolis Partner Plug Power for years - working to provide clean on site energy from hydrogen powered fuel cells. Now there’s the Bloom Box. That’s not a typo for a new carry-on-your shoulder stereo system. Bloom Energy is a venture capital funded firm that builds the “Bloom Box”- an appliance sized unit that houses fuel cells running on natural gas, landfill gas, bio-gas or solar power. Google has been powering a datacenter with 4 Bloom Boxes running on natural gas for the past year and a half. eBay has 5 of them in San Jose, which they claim have saved them $100,000 in energy costs over the past 9 months. The Bloom Box debuted on CBS’ 60 Minutes last night. Watch CBS News Videos Online Is the fuel cell promise finally coming true? digg
Google Sites Launches and The New Google AdSense Terms: Robin Go 10 Home Improvements Worthy of Tax Credits | BuildDirect Blog 1. Upgraded Windows and Doors One of the most problematic sources of energy inefficiency in homes is outdated windows and doors that allow heat to escape. By upgrading to energy smart windows, skylights and doors you can increase your overall efficiency and watch your bills decline.TAX CREDIT: 30% of cost up to $1,500.DISCLAIMER: Credit does not include installation costs. 2. Upgraded Water Heaters Accounting for nearly a quarter of your home’s energy consumption, inefficient water heaters can and will inflate your bills. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10 . BuildDirect has launched our new Learning Center!
WWTelescope 4 YouTube Tools you Probably Don‽t Know About | The Best Article Written by makeuseof Web 2.0 is a phenomenon and YouTube is the perfect symbol of Web 2.0 applications. It has become wildly popular – one of the most popular, most-visited sites on the internet. No matter how often you visit it, you always come back. Below, we present to you the best applications for dealing with Youtube. iDesktop.tv – iDesktop.tv is basically a Youtube but with a way more interactive interface plus an option to download and save any video to your PC. OrbitDownloader (Windows) – Powerful all-in-one media downloader for your desktop. Highlights include: Download from social music and video websites.Download acceleration. Videoembed (Greasemonkey script) – This one is really cool. Before: After: VideoFocus – Want to watch online videos without any distractions like ads, chats, comments, etc? (By) Contributed by Sumesh and edited by Aibek.
The Long Tail Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:46:19 “Priced and Unpriced Online Markets" by Harvard Business School professor Benjamin Edelman. Discusses tradeoffs in market such as email, IP addresses, search and dial-up Internet. Mon, 31 Aug 2009 01:53:50 From Mashable: “Freezly is a lot like Tweetmeme in that it finds link and tweets and shows you their popularity based on retweets. Fri, 28 Aug 2009 02:08:25 From Cellular News. Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:54:23 From the LA Times: “Industry insiders estimate that since 2007, revenue for most adult production and distribution companies has declined 30% to 50% and the number of new films made has fallen sharply. Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:07:00 From the AP: “In recent days, the top three Kindle sellers have been free books: Patterson’s, Joseph Finder’s “Paranoia” and Keyes’ “The Briar King.” Shannon said Del Rey has had especially good luck with Naomi Novik’s “Temeraire” fantasy series after offering the first book for free. Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:09:38 Mon, 27 Jul 2009 20:37:31
Social Networks Nab More Than Contacts — They Save Careers Written on Feb 27, 2008 Author Dave Winget | “Brand yourself as a professional, become an authority in your field” this was the greatest advice I ever received. I went about this by stepping up my social networking and starting a blog to become known by other online marketing professionals. Suddenly people knew who I was, they knew my name, and they were looking for me. People started to contact me and ask if I was available to help them with their web projects. Last Monday I was downsized from the agency I was working with. Two hours later I had a better agency job and started the next day. Had I not branded myself, had people not known anything about me – I would likely still be out hitting the pavement and trying to find work. I cannot speak for other industries but for online marketing branding yourself can be the most valuable thing you will ever do for your career. Reader Comments. Bookmarked and filed under motivation/inspiration. why not work freelance for ever? Great points. No Tags
The Real Story: Why ComScore’s Google Clicks are Flat GOOG has fallen from a high of $747 a share to less than $450 intra day yesterday. The latest 10% or so drop comes as comScore reports that clicks on Google ads in the United States were flat in January when compared with a year earlier. But why? WHY are Clicks flat from a year ago? Is it the oncoming recession? To find out what really happened, let’s take a short stroll down memory lane: all the way back to the middle of October 2007. To set the scene, picture ten men clad in dark blue business suits in a smoke filled executive boardroom deciding how to squeeze the last nickel out of customers for shareholder value. To reset the scene, imagine something like the 10-year reunion of your University’s Computer Science Fraternity set in an office best described as Geek Paradise. Googleoid says to GoogleDork, “You know, [snort-laugh], most Adsense clicks are an accident because of the clickable area of the Adsense Ads.” “Clickable area size matters not. “Yo Homey, don’t be fronten.