Someone started messaging me on facebook the other day pretending to be some hot girl from South Carolina (who types in really bad and broken english) and she messaged me these pictures. They're obviously not her, and she obviously isn't who she says she is... but I want to know if anyone recognizes the model she's posing to be.
Cool Hunting began as a blog for designers' personal reference, but quickly became a beacon for those in the design and tech communities. Behind the site's success is Josh Rubin and Evan Orensten - two influencers in digital culture who have their fingers on the pulse of style, architecture, gadgets and more.
You will have the rare opportunity to chat live with Josh May 21 at 3 pm EDT, and the conversation will be housed on The Atlantic's Where Design Meets Technology blog presented by Porsche.
The blog also examines how a powerful aesthetic point-of-view can transform mere novelty into major innovation, like*the soon-to-be-released Zik Wireless Headphones. The sneak peak of this sleek-looking gadget highlights its... [Read More]
The much-anticipated Facebook IPO has come and gone. In terms of optics, it was a flop. The stock closed barely above the offering price and so failed to exhibit the "pop" that it was supposed to deliver. Google, in contrast, saw its stock price rise 18 percent on the first day of trading in 2004.
Still, that 18 percent rise left Google valued at $28 billion. Today's trading left Facebook valued at around $100 billion. In this sense, the wisdom of the crowd has deemed Facebook a much better bet than it deemed Google eight years ago.
Before the IPO, I argued that Facebook is indeed a better bet than Google was, because it has such powerful positive network externalities. That is, it's a product whose... [Read More]
This story is all over the China-hand blogosphere, and is so strange that at first I was sure it was a joke. But apparently it isn't. It involves the man below, shown in a WSJ screen shot, and here is the background to understand the fuss:
- CCTV-9 is the English language channel of China's state-run TV network, and as such is a fascinating real-time window onto the face the government wants to present to the outside world. It is different from CCTV America, the relatively new network that, especially when covering happenings in any country other than China, has been doing a (surprisingly?) ... [Read More]
Windows: AniExplorer enables hidden animations in the Windows Explorer interface, letting you customize your file manager and give it a little pizazz. There aren't a lot of ways to get cool desktop animations on Windows, but AniExplorer adds some pretty cool ones to Windows Explorer's icon view—just start it up, select your animation, set the speed, and click Apply. I usually choose the fastest speed, since otherwise it'll slow down how quickly you can navigate through Windows Explorer. Check out the video above to see what it looks like on slower speeds, or download it yourself and give it a shot. If you decide you don't like the new animations, just click "Restore Defaults" and it'll get rid of all your changes.
AniExplorer is a free download for Windows 7 and 8. AniExplorer | via NirmalTV
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As we inch closer to summer, you're more likely to run into poison ivy, bug bites, and the other itchy ailments that come with being outside. Redditor xume points out that banana peels are a great homemade remedy for itchy skin.
If you get bitten by a mosquito or stumble into a bit of poison ivy/oak/sumac/whatever, rubbing a banana peel on the affected area can moisturize and neutralize some of the itching. Note that it will just alleviate some of the itching—it won't solve the root problem, like the oils that poison plants leave on your skin. It'll do great as a first step, but if you really want to knock out that rash, you should head to the store and grab some poison ivy soap (and save your banana peels for shoe shining... [Read More]
The human body and its brain are pretty incredible. They're also fragile and dumb. Realizing this can make your life miserable, or you can look at it as an opportunity and take control. This weekend, learn a few built-in superpowers you may not have known you had. All they take is a little practice.
Let's go piece by piece, from head to toes. Your Head
There are a lot of fun things you can do with your head, inside and out. Let's start with the brain. We post multiple mind hacks a week, so there is no shortage of ways to trick yourself into being smarter, more creative, happier, and whatever else. Nonetheless, mind hacks can be applied a bit broadly and simply refer to finding better ways of thinking or... [Read More]
For tenders of the backyard barbecue, there are few things finer than pulling a perfect rack of spareribs off the smoker. As you lift the rib rack from the grates, the sauce-covered meat is so tender it splits, causing wisps of steam carrying an aroma of wood smoke to uncurl from the interior. It’s meat so beautiful it leaves you breathless.
But there are also few things more elusive, more frustrating, or more temperamental than barbecuing spareribs. I’ve spent numerous hours at various occasions slow-smoking ribs that turned out too tough, too mediocre, or too charred. It’s like having to suffer through a 9th inning come-from-behind victory from your rival baseball team or your first watching of The Godfather: Part III—the journey was fun, but the destination... [Read More]
On Monday, we released our Mobile Threat Report for Q1, and in that report we mention there's a growing number of mobile trojans that "deliver on their promises". What do we mean by that?
Well, in the past, mobile malware often offered something such as "free" mobile web services as bait, but then, during installation, the trojan would display some kind of decoy error message.
At that point the folks installing the trojan would typically search for answers, either because they were suspicious or because they were troubleshooting. That would then lead to actual answers on forums that what they had in fact installed was a trojan. These days, when even non-nerds have smartphones, the bait is quite a bit different.
No decoy messages. The "bait" actually works.
Here's a video of trojan installing a working copy of Rovio's... [Read More]
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There are a lot of fun things you can do with your head, inside and out. Let's start with the brain. We post multiple 
