Fun stuff from around the internets

It's Christmas week, web traffic's in the toilet and rather than taking the week off, I'm going to phone one in instead. That's dedication.

I find things in my interweb meanderings and most of them get saved to a favorites file, never to bee seen again. Until I have some space to fill that is.

So here are some finds from the last couple of months. They weren't topical or meaty enough to warrant a full post of their own but they are perfect fodder for a random collection of fun stuff.

First up, this ad kills me.

It absolutely kills me. Can this be seven year scotch I wonder?

Even though I'm a recent tea convert, I still have a place very near to my heart of espresso. I think these espresso cups are about perfect.

The satisfy my love of espresso while feeding my appreciation for the Italian Renaissance and its revival of the Roman putti. These Putto espresso cups have silicone wings that stay flexible for an more secure grip on that first espresso in the morning.

I love stop-motion video as much as a dread the idea of moving. This video has plenty of both.



The Move, Paper Animation from Mandy Smith on Vimeo.

If that video's any indication of what moving's like in The Netherlands, maybe I ought to relocate there.

I love a good illusion, and photographer Håkan Dahlström has a good one here.

That's a street in the Russian Hill section of San Francisco and believe it or not, those cars are on the level. Seriously, hold up a ruler to your screen.

Here's the actual street. In order to take that first shot, Dahlström turned his camera to make the street appear to be flat. I like the effect.

One visit to San Francisco is all it takes to understand why no one there has a weight problem. Just getting to your car is a work out.

Speaking of my thing for all things Italy, I found a website called ItalyGuides recently. ItalyGuides features a large collection of hi-def, interactive photos of sites all over Rome.

I just zoomed up to the oculus in the ceiling of the Pantheon.

Here's what it looks like when you look toward the bronze entry doors from inside.

Here's a shot of the Trevi Fountain.

Here's the inside of the Coliseum.

There are a large number of these interactive photos. While they're no where near as cool as being there, there's enough detail that you can use them to plan what to expect when you do make it to these sites.

ItalyGuides has similar interactive photos for the sites in Florence, Venice, Milan, Bologna, Naples and Palermo.

And while I'm waxing nostalgic for Italy, here's the definitive Italian Christmas carol as sung by the definitive Italian singer of the 20th Century, Luciano Pavarotti. Ladies and gentlemen, I bring you Tu Scendi Dalle Stelle.




Ahhhh. That's bliss.

Have a terrific week everybody.

I'll never look at pocket doors the same way

I was never a big Star Trek fan. I know, I know, that's some kind of blasphemy. Anyhow, I may not have thought much of the show, but I loved the doors that the original Starship Enterprise had.

They were so cool and now somebody's gone and converted them for use in the home.




The only thing missing is the oh so satisfying whoosh sound from the original TV show.

Add another stop to my intinerary

Recognize this skyline?

Maybe this national anthem will provide a clue.





The great people at Blanco asked me to travel to Toronto with another group of bloggers. We'll tour another Blanco factory and attend Toronto's legendary Interior Design Show, also called IDS. I leave for Toronto on the Morning of January 27th and come home the afternoon of the 29th.

This is fantastic for a whole host of reasons. First and foremost is another opportunity to get to know the folks at Blanco and to see another one of their production facilities and meet another one of their industrial design departments. It's going to be great to see IDS and to meet a bunch of Canadian bloggers and designers I've befriended over the last couple of years. And finally, it will be good to be back in Toronto again. I've been away for too long.

IDS is another massive design show, this time it's Canada on display for the world to see. I'm thrilled to have this addition to my winter travels, I can't wait to see it. Thanks Blanco!

So Zuckerberg's Time Magazine's Person of the Year. Big Whoop.

In case you've been living under a rock, Time Magazine just named Mark Zuckerberg as 2010's person of the Year. So now the founder of Facebook joins such luminaries as 1935's Haile Selassie, 1938's Adolf Hitler, 1939's Josef Stalin, 1942's Josef Stalin, 1957's Nikita Khrushchev, 1965's Gen. William Westmoreland, 1971's Richard Nixon, 1979's Ayatollah Komeini, 1995's Newt Gingrich, 2000's George W. Bush, 2004's George W. Bush and 2007's Vladmir Putin. Time's Person of the Year roster goes back to 1927 and it reads as much like a rogue's gallery as it does a hall of superheroes.

Predictably, the chattering class of the blogosphere hailed Zuckerberg and Facebook as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Well, I don't think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Don't get me wrong, Facebook changed and is changing the way people use the internet. In a lot of ways, Facebook brought the social web to the masses. That's a huge achievement.

But Zuckerberg and Facebook are standing on some very broad shoulders and before too long, somebody else will come along to alter the fabric of the internet once again.

In 1979, my dad invented a modem. We had a computer at home and every once in a while, we'd call a telephone number in New Jersey. Once connected, we'd set the telephone receiver in the cradle of the modem and we'd log onto with something called The Source. The Source had weather updates and bulletin boards and was an early, early form of the civilian internet. We thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

A little while later, modems improved and got faster. By the early '80s, you didn't need to dial a telephone anymore and my first e-mail address came to me through a little something called CompuServe.

Everybody thought CompuServe was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

In 1993, I was trailblazing user of something called America Online. Back then, AOL didn't have a graphic interface, it was all text. In about 1994, AOL came out with a graphic interface and it was like nothing I'd ever seen.

By 1999, AOL owned the internet it seemed. You couldn't be cool in 1999 if you didn't have an e-mail address that ended in aol.com. Everybody thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

And now we're in the era of Facebook. Just like AOL though, Facebook is a walled garden, a dead end. It pulls people in and keeps them there, sequestered from the rest of the internet. It's Facebook's Achilles heel. And like AOL before it, something else will come along to take its place.

When that something arrives, everyone will think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Countdown to Germany: 30 days to go

In one month I'll be in Germany. It's hard to believe but something arrived in the mail on Monday that made it seem a bit more real.

This is my German Press Pass. I've been studying basic (very basic) German for the last three months and I think I say that as Dies ist meine deutschen Presseakkreditierung.

I'm heading to Cologne to attend internationale möbelmess, also called IMM. I'll be at IMM as the guest of Blanco. Blanco makes innovative and exceptionally well-designed sinks and faucets. I sit on Blanco USA's Design Council and this trip is part of my involvement on the council.

IMM had over 100,000 attendees last year and that puts it at a level of attendance beyond any trade show I've ever attended, and that's coming from someone who's no stranger to trade shows.

IMM started as a showcase for Germany's furniture industry but it's grown to become a world showcase for textile, furniture and kitchen manufacturers from just about everywhere.

The more I read about IMM the more excited I get to see it. IMM is hosted by a German trade show hosting company called Koelnmesse. Koelnmesse just released this IMM preview video to YouTube last week.






I'll be checking in regularly while I'm over there and I have no doubt that this trip to IMM and Cologne will provide blog fodder for the better part of 2011.

IMM has an expansive website and a social media presence that's truly impressive. Their website is full to overflowing with preview images such as these.

It's funny, my usual excitement for Christmas has been completely overshadowed by my excitement over starting what's looking more an more like a world tour. 2011's going to be a wild ride and the first stop is Cologne.