Yearly Archives: 2015

Present Wrapping of the Future

I was doing some shopping a few weeks ago at a local artists store and found an interesting item called a Japanese Furoshiki. It’s a colored cloth used to wrap presents in Japan (with no paper waste). There are a number of ways you an use it to wrap different shaped objects. The diagram to… Read more »

2015 Holiday Geek Gift Guide

Black Friday 2015 has just come and gone, so it’s time for another Holiday Geek Gift Guide. I’ve been updating these gift guides for quite a few years to help with my own gift shopping for friends and family. I like  technology and gadgets (and general geekery) so I also like to give technology and… Read more »

Mentos Mentors

Well done, Mentos… well done. Kids giving adults live advice on making friends and meeting people. Mentos, the real-life equivalent of a friend request.

Business Card Video Game

Business cards = boring Business cards that play video games = AWESOME! A kickstarter project called Arduboy has taken an Arduino board and stripped it down to its core components, making it small enough to fit into a credit-card sized package. The entire thing is just 1.6mm thick! So while it’s probably not priced cheap… Read more »

Makerbase

Anil Dash and Gina Trapani (the awesome people who created Thinkup – check it out if you haven’t heard of it) recently launched a new site called Makerbase. The new site is a big database of digital projects and the people who made them. It’s kind of an IMDb for makers and their projects. Just… Read more »

The 1980’s JC Penney Christmas Catalogs

A real hero named Wishbook on Flickr has taken the time to lovingly scan a large number of holiday catalogs from going back to the late 60’s through the early 90’s (including the big Sears and JC Penny Wish Books). I can remember scouring these catalogs as a child picking out what I wanted for… Read more »

Map the Zombie Attack

Ever wondered what would happen if you were patient zero in a zombie attack? Zombie-town USA uses: Gillespie dynamics on block-level census data from 2010 using 308 million people interacting across the continental US. Drop the first zombie in your town and see how it moves across the nation.

A Few New Mentos Videos

A couple new Mentos videos have made their way to my feeds lately. The first one has been making the rounds on the (odd) news sites lately. A kid scotch tapes Mentos to himself and jumps into a tub filled with Coke. Hilarity ensues… The second video is an official commercial from Mentos for their… Read more »

Google Maps Driving Simulator

Ever wanted to drive a car through your neighborhood? Oh wait, you probably do that every day. Ever wanted to drive a car through my neighborhood? Well now you can with the Google Maps Driving Simulator. It’s a bit like Grand Theft Auto but without the grand theft (no guns either). It’s actually a pretty… Read more »

Was Your Super Bowl Ad Worth it?

We’re a little over a week removed from “the big game” for 2015, and I recently ran across and interesting article from Embedly comparing the minutes watched in an ad and the amount that ad cost per minute. This comparison looks at the views and fall-off rate of the ads on YouTube and compares it… Read more »