Porres.com - Eric’s Humble Place in Cyberspace

Interesting article from the NYTimes on the redesign of the gallon milk jug which has some pretty interesting implications regarding the balance between industrial design, functionality, and profitability:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/business/30milk.html

Courtesy of LifeHack

Classic, classic, classic comedy skit by Jim Breuer:

Image by chucks via Flickr

I discovered the Zemanta WordPress plug-in courtesy of Fred Wilson’s blog a few days ago.  I’m giving it a test run right now and it appears that I need to write a decent amount of copy before it starts making suggestions.  So, here’s one application of Zemanta that could be interesting for corporations.  Let’s say that you have a 10,000 or more person enterprise who are each blogging or at least writing about their experiences, challenges, day-to-day activities, etc..  If Zemanta is able to pull from this virtual ‘tag cloud‘ of constantly updated information, then potentially that organization has the opportunity to cross-collaborate with disparate colleagues and peers based on what Zemanta ‘discovers’ for him or her.  Think of it as Wisdom of Crowds meets bug-tracking software.  Microsoft, IBM, and any other bloated enterprise software company could pay big bucks to buy Zemanta and have it deployed as a service with its enterprise software deployments to empower knowledge workers who work at different companies to help each other solve their problems.

RZA, one of the founding members of the Wu-Tang Clan, is also a big chess enthusiast, and just launched wuchess.com, where fans can play…chess.  Here’s an article from The New York Times on June 7th, along with a video.

It’s called the “Bloom.”  From the inventor:

The Bloom device is meant to be a subversive and inspirational tool for our concrete jungles. Similar to the tuft of a dandelion as the wind carries the seedling, we propose a way of dispersing seedlings with bubbles and bicycling. Seeds are co-mingled with a bubble mixture and upon pedaling to your destination , you release the floating seeds which land in cracks and crevices throughout the city streets. Over time, the seeds grow into flowers and plants to create a green “fringe” to our sidewalks and streets.

You can see the Bloom here.

Auditory wonders await with your headphones…awesome!  Thanks to Malcolm Twist for sharing.

Honda pushed the envelope this past week with a live commercial of a group of skydivers spelling the word “HONDA” before deploying their parachutes.

• Here’s the original live commercial
• Here’s an extended commercial (”Jump”) that wasn’t shown live but also features a team of skydivers creating objects in the sky (e.g. a wheel).
• And here’s an article about the making of the live commercial from the IHT.

This is all part of Honda’s Difficult is Worth Doing campaign that is associated with the Accord…cool documentary of the making of the ads too.

A favorite book/character of my older daughter and catching some good press in the NYTimes too:

• I, Chihuahua

Some outstandingly outlandish requests:

TSG Backstage: Iggy Pop

• Bob Hope Impersonator
• Pauillac from ‘86, ‘89 or ‘90
• BMW K1200 RS SE motorbike