World Metro Map by Mark Ovenden

Thanks to big think.

I have a new favourite phrase: ‘It’s not rocket surgery.’

I also enjoyed this comedy sketch by British comedians, Mitchell and Webb, even though I could see the punchline a mile away.

I think this video by Everynone is thought provoking and uplifting. Really good work.

WORDS from Everynone on Vimeo.

I am thoroughly impressed by this. It reminds me how great Michael Jackson was, as well as introducing two great talents (vocals , song arrangement and video). Fabulous.

I enjoyed this. Someone wasted someone’s money by putting fruits and vegetables though an MRI machine.

My favourite is watermelon. Enjoy!

http://insideinsides.blogspot.com/

I saw this interesting Starbucks behaviour change initiative via the Futerra blog: Karma Cup.

As I understand it, every Starbucks customer that arrives with a reusable cup marks off a cross on a black chalkboard. The 10th person to arrive with a reusable cup gets his or her coffee for free.

This initiative is the result of a competition started in April. Apparently, ‘Starbucks was sponsoring the contest as part of its aim to serve 100 percent of its hand-crafted beverages in reusable or recyclable cups by 2015.’

Here is a link to a summary poster of the scheme.

Starbucks Karma Cup - how it works

Sounds fun. The winning initiative was only announced yesterday so I hope someone reports seeing this in action soon!

I have blogger’s block.

I am unsurprised that other people have coined the phrase ‘blogger’s block‘ well before me. It’s an obvious one, isn’t it.

I remember when I was first on the internet. I was trying to create a character for a text-based role playing game and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, someone’s already chosen the name ‘Gandalf’.’

My brother and I tried dozens of internet handles. We ended with ‘VampireSmurf’. If we waited another week, VampireSmurf probably would have been taken.

No longer am I surprised that every idea I have is already on the internet.

This is cool. Use namechk.com check the availability of your username of choice on a whole bunch of sites.

Wow. There’s a joanium on a site called PictureTrail. Otherwise, all those joaniums are me. joanium is probably the nearest thing I’ll ever have to an original internet thought.

My mum forwards me interesting emails from around the interwebs. This clip is thoroughly impressive. This is the kind of amazing stuff China come up with for the Olympics opening ceremony.

And after I had watched it and was amazed, I found out that all those performers ARE DEAF! Bloody hell! That’s insane. Gee….

Everyone in the UK knows about the extreme perverseness of the difference between the cost of train tickets and plane tickets. I have flown to Paris for £20. A train ticket to Cardiff has costed me (well, my company) £200.

It makes it so hard for people to make the environmentally sane choice.

This cute video shows the problem well. I like it — Train v plane: fair fight?

A milestone! For the first time, I removed a friend from Facebook.

I have 373 friends on Facebook. I’m reasonably discerning about who I accept as friends. At minimum, I need to have had a face-to-face conversation with a person for at least five minutes. I need to have enjoyed the conversation. I don’t generally request friends, I only accept them.

I have the general irritations from Facebook friends: people who fill in quizzes and want me to compare how much more of princess I am than they are; requests to join some online game; requests to join an irrelevant group.

However, one person has been a serial offender. Every week, he would send me (and probably everyone in his friend list) invitations to events that I can’t physically get to and in which I have never expressed interest. He sends political statements and links.

He’s one of those people that I’ve spoken five minutes with and who requested my friendship. I have now withdrawn my friendship because of his spamming behaviour.

I’m sure he won’t even notice my absence. He has 500+ ‘friends’.