This turned up and intrigued me. How is this possible. Are we so easily tricked?

Take a good look at this image then stand up and move a couple of metres back from your screen (or you can just squint or use a reducing glass / lens if you have one).

Does Albert Einstein magically turn into Marilyn Munroe for you too?

Weird.............

The possibilities are endless if I could just find the time to figure out how this is done...........

Keep this philosophy in mind the next time you hear or are about to repeat a rumor.

In ancient  Greece  (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for hiswisdom.
One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance, who ran up to himexcitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one ofyour students...?"

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Test of Three."

"Test of Three?"

"That's correct," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student let's take a moment to test whatyou're going to say.

Things aren't always what they seem. Check out these great images. Stare into the centre of the image for a few seconds. They appear to move but are infact just flat jpg images. Apparently they move at different speeds for different people and is representative of your ability to focus and remain calm whilst under stress.
Cool huh! Think about what you could do with this kind of approach to logo design........

This is a cool viral marketing campaign that is a very clever use of Google and has some great implications for a guerilla marketing campaign.

It really shows how you can use the web to your advantage and get some great exposure, for free.

All you have to do is go to Google (dont worry about my screenshot - it is St Patricks Day themed as it is St Patricks day here - yippee!). So once you are in Google type "find Chuck Norris" into the search bar and hit "I'm Feeling Lucky". Ha - funny. This carries on the Chuck Norris is so tough gag that did the rounds a few years ago.

It is really important to think things through when designing for public release.

It is great that we can now print onto all sorts of surfaces, but this form of instant packaging design does bring into play all sorts of issues. How will the graphics go around corners? Will the graphics still convey the right message when on a box and seen from odd angles? These folks obviously did not have the right filters in place when designing this disk. Oops.

Saw this great you tube clip and had to share. Pretty funny word play between long time rivals Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi at a Celebrity Charity Tennis Match for the Haiti Earthquake victims. Ego can be a pretty funny thing at times.

This is one of the best high quality,. documentary sites I have found. I am going to break one of my golden rules about not publishing links by giving you instant access here.

I have had a look and already previewed and booked marked several very interesting films to watch when I get a moment. This is the future of broadcasting people!!!!
Instant, on demand, free to access programming about the things that interest you - with no ads! Love it. Why waste time on the network TV channels? I really think this kind of media spells the start of the end for traditional "in built" media advertising. Time to start thinking outside the box.....

So clever! Some people have way too much time on their hands....................

I discovered this new social media network last week via a random article on a news website. The article was about some random kid having a video link conversation with Ashton Kutcher via this very new site ChatRoulette! The young man was understandably very impressed with his ability to hold and maintain a conversation with a very famous person, so took some screenshots of the occassion, which he then posted on other social media networks (Facebook, MySpace).

This interests me in a couple of ways. Firstly kudos to Mr Kutcher for being a human and giving back to the community. The more I read about this guy the more I think the world needs more folks like him floating around in it. Not only does he act in some very large budget Hollywood movies but he also seems to be very down to earth and grounded. Additionally he is also the biggest GURU on Twitter (that is he has more Twitter followers than anyone else) but I read that he is also currently coaching his stepkids highschool baseball team if memory serves me right, and you believe what you read on the internet.

The second part of this story that fascinates me is the whole ability to still create exciting new ways to use the internet. This is very motivating as there are still opportunities out there to real impact on the global stage with innovative thinking. As of a couple of minutes ago, the site is ranked 2247 for most visited on the Alexa Ranking Site and gets around 1,000,000 visits a day. This is pretty impressive reach for a site that has only been around since November 2009, and alot of people to look at and chat to if that is your thing.

So what is ChatRoulette.com! It is a very simple concept and website when you look at it based on some relatively old technology that has been embraced by the new Adobe Flash Player 10. It uses basic peer to peer network protocol to connect two computers together via their flash players, using the website as an interface. It is relatively safe (on your computer, sometimes not on your morals or your eyes.....) and is a really interesting way to vicariously get a look into the lives of total strangers. Essentially you get randomly connected to someone else's webcam and have the option to stay or go based on what you see......this brings up a whole lot of funny and not so funny situations.

Today it has been reported that New Zealand Commerce Minister is looking at fast tracking legislation to "ensure the integrity of the investments of the 1.3 million people who have $4.88 billion of their money invested in the kiwisaver scheme".

WHAT!!!!!!!! That sounds a little concerning for those of you that have bought into this scheme designed primarily to boost the governments / economies perfromance by giving "them" some more working capital to "invest" - or rather shuffle around etheric cash on the global commodities market. A simplistic view perhaps?
Is this whole "give me a dollar so I can lend out 20 and make loads of interest off it" the  reason why the western worlds collective economies have fallen over?
Have the western world's house of cards economies really recovered or just been propped back up with the same old cards that have been bent back into shape?

I have to say I have some real issues with the modern cellphones! The more complicated they get, the more delicate they become. Is it me or where those old school styles (remember the bricks) alot more durable.  Like almost everything else we buy now, the quality seems to have gone out of the window in favour of what? I don't know, it is not like things have really gotten cheaper. I seem to go through a phone every 6 months. This is not good. I sometimes don't even understand why they stop working. More often than not it is an electronic issue and the phone will stop sending or receiving, or even staying switched on. It truely is baffling. A frequency incompatibility issue between me and them perhaps?

This time around I promised myself I would be really careful and take extra good care. So why not treat myself to a whizz bang touchscreen with all of the bells and whistles........

What a great week we have had! On Tuesday 23rd Feb at 4.54am Haylee delivered our second daughter Maia Caitlin into the world at a healthy 7lbs14ozs. Another natural, drug free, intervention free birth. They both did extremely well and I had the joy of being right there to hold her as she opened her eyes.
She is such a sweet, calm and grounded child. Then came the big decisions, what would we call her?

If you are anything like us, naming your child is a big deal. The name has to have presence and most importantly mean something. Sorry if this offends but it seems most of us have lost the reason behind a name.
It used to be a descriptor, a function to attach something memorable to someone so that, for instance, a conversation could be had about them and the other party would know who was being discussed. Names meant more than just satisfying a social function and establishing a sense of compliance within the accepted norm. Some cultures even used to give their children different names for different stages of their development, often accompanied by a gathering and celebration. This same process can be applied to the devloping of a new brand, for in essence it is akin to the birth of a new child.

Sad that the Winter Olympics has just finished. Loved watching the biathalon. Someone sent me this funny clip.....

Here is a very interesting little clip about the reach of the internet at the moment. It does make you think about how you can best get your message out there amongst all of the clutter!
What is most interesting is that in making this simple, short clip this entrepenurial fellow has just bumped up the traffic to his own website with a creative use of networking sites and other social media. This is a-class guerilla marketing in full flight, sneaky sneaky - offer folks something great that appears to be free when in fact it is just a subtle advertisement for your services that not only exposes you to millions of new users through postings such as these, but it also sends potential customers to you, and also works wonders for your profile in the search engines. Win win.