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Amaze your friends! Impress your co-workers! Flabbergast your enemies!

All you have to do when you run out of intelligent things to say is repeat one or more of these quotes, and you’ll put them all in their place!

• “I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.” – Mae West
• “Always grab the reader by the throat in the first paragraph, send your thumbs into his windpipe in the second, and hold him against the wall until the tagline.” – Paul O’Neil
• “No one really listens to anyone else. If you try it a while, you’ll see why.” – Mignon McLaughlin
• “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is.” – Chuck Reid
• “I’m kinda jealous of the life I’m supposedly leading.” – Zach Braff
• “No.” – Amy Carter
• “I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” – J. R. R. Tolkien
• “Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.” – Alexandre Dumas
• “If you believe everything you read, better not read.” – Japanese Proverb
• “There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.” – Sir Francis Bacon
• “The scientific name for an animal that doesn’t either run from its enemies or fight is lunch.” – Michael Friedman
• “When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong – or absolutely right.” – Albert Guinon
• “The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.” – George Bernard Shaw
• “If at first you don’t succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.” – Bill Lyon
• “There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goeth
• “It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.” – Rod Serling
• “In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson
• “This was a woman who, between courses, could be graceful with her elbows on the table.” – Henry James
• “Sometimes it’s harder to deprive oneself of a pain than a pleasure.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald
• “We think in generalities, but we live in detail.” – Alfred North Whitehead
• “Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.” – Samuel Johnson
• “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘That’s funny …’” – Isaac Asimov
• “Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, ‘Where have I gone wrong?’ Then a voice says to me, ‘This is going to take more than one night.’” – Charles M. Schulz
• “Take everything except yourselves seriously.” – Rudyard Kipling
• “Success usually comes to those who are too busy to look for it.” – Henry David Thoreau
• “All is in the hands of man. Therefore wash them often.” – Stanislaw J. Lec
• “A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.” – Anatole France
• “Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.” – George Bernard Shaw
• “I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.” – Theodore Roosevelt
• “By the time a man realizes his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong.” – Charles Wadsworth
• “Ultimately, what separates a winner from a loser is the willingness to do the unthinkable. Intelligence without audaciousness is not enough.” – Garry Kasparov
• “My husband gave me a necklace. It’s fake. I requested fake. Maybe I’m paranoid, but in this day and age, I don’t want something around my neck that is worth more than my head.” – Rita Rudner
• “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.” – Jane Wagner
• “When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld
• “How much easier to be critical than be correct.” – Benjamin Disraeli
• “The point of quotations is that one can use another’s words to be insulting.” – Amanda Cross
• “It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.” – Margaret Bonnano
• “It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value.” – Arthur C. Clarke
• “There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.” – Mary Wilson Little
• “Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?” – Edgar Bergen
• “Architecture is the art of how to waste space.” – Philip Johnson
• “Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.” – Hector Berlioz
• “The men the American public admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” – H. L. Mencken

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Serendipity.

I’d be willing to bet that no more than half of you out there can define the word adequately. If you are among the knowledgable, please raise your left hand. Now lift up your right foot and stick out your tongue. OK, now repeat after me: “I wook widicuwous.”

Perhaps the best summation I could find is this one: “finding something fortuitous when looking for something else”. When something is serendipitous we think of it as a “happy accident”.

The Guardian Unlimited, a UK technology reporting website, has a story by Michael Pollitt of how a serendipitous moment may have led to a genuine long-term solution to the problem of counterfeiting, well, just about anything (physical, that is). The solution has to do with laser surface imaging; in other words, making nano-scale images of the surface of practically anything, and using that as an authentication technique. As a security test, it turns out it’s virtually impossible to beat.

But the discovery came about quite by accident, since Professor Russell Cowburn was actually trying to laser image computer chips. It was only when the chip fell off the paper they discovered that the paper holder, and subsequently other surfaces, all had images that were unique at the nano-scale level. What that means is that every passport, every credit card, every document has a unique surface shape – you only had to be able to look close enough to see it!

The ramifications in security technology are immense, to say the least. What’s really awesome about this is that it’s actually unbeatable. So until we perfect Star Trek transporter technology, manufacturing two items exactly alike at that scale will remain virtually impossible.

I did a fast check on other widely-known and used, yet serendipitous discoveries, and here are a few others:

Silly Putty was created while the inventor (actually, it was independently discovered by TWO people – no one knows who was first) was searching for a new artificial rubber compound for use in the war effort (WWII, that is). No one had a use for the stuff, but everyone loved playing with it. (As marketers would say, “It sells itself!”) 4500 tons of the playful glop has been produced since 1949. Now that’s a whole lotta silly.

Teflon (PTFE), the slipperiest solid substance known, was discovered by Roy Plunkett at DuPont in 1938, while he was looking for a new type of gas to be used as a refrigerant (strange to find a solid when looking for a gas, but there it is). Now you find PTFE in practically everyplace you look, from inks to industrial applications. Maybe we should start coating automobiles in it to make the evening commute quicker - instead of getting stuck in traffic jams, cars would pop out of close quarters like watermelon seeds squeezed between your fingers.

Rayon, the first synthetic silk, was invented by Hilaire de Chardonnet, an assistant of Louis Pasteur. When he accidentally spilled a bottle of collodion that was later discovered to have properties that allowed the production of stable fibers, he immediately quit his day job (“I quit. I shall become ze millionaire!”). Or something like that.

Penicillin, Viagra, quinine, Aspirin, vaccination, pap smears, high-temperature superconductivity, radioactivity, Pluto’s moon Charon, metallic hydrogen, to name just a few, along with a host of other items, were all discovered, uncovered, or recovered as a result of a happy accident.

So what’s the moral of this story? Well, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, surely you’ve heard (yeah, yeah, I know – don’t call you Shirley) the latest mantra in business innovation is the idea that in many failures there will be some successes.

Remember, though, we’re not talking about just failures, but purposeful failures. It wasn’t just luck. These folks weren’t just sitting around waiting for the Flying Fickle Finger of Fate to strike. It was their ability to recognize the potential in what they saw that was the key to making them into success stories.

So the next time you experience that sudden wild hair up the fundamental aperture, maybe it’s time to break out the drawing board and see what develops.

But in the meantime - prepare, my friend, prepare.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

A fascinating article from Information Week titled “Kurzweil: Computers will enable people to live forever” sums up some of Ray Kurzweil’s more interesting predictions for the very near future. Being a dedicated fan of “hard” sci-fi (that is, the kind that develops plausible science that integrates seamlessly with the story itself) I’m always interested to see how some of our best futurists’ visions match up with various sci-fi authors’ visions. For instance, some of the sci-fi I read when I was a kid presented the future that we’re living in now. Just how close are we to those early visions of the near future? Well actually, not very. The problem was most of the predictions were made with inferior knowledge of the future, because they were made in the context of their time. Just take a look at an episode of the original Star Trek– you’ll understand what I mean. At the time it was cutting edge, but now we realize the big giant flaws (remember the analog countdown timer wheel on Sulu’s console?)

Thus you get stuff like the photo shown here (click to see larger image): The “home computer of the future”. I wonder - just what could that wheel possibly be for?

When I was younger, my initial reaction to articles predicting the future was usually something on the order of “Wow, what exciting times those will be! I can’t wait!” Ah, the innocence, the naiveté of youth. (How times have changed. The main difference, now that I’m no longer – cough, cough – young, is my thoughts are more like, “What can I invest in to take advantage of this?” But then again, if I could ever answer that question with any confidence, I would have “more money than Calvin Coolidge – put together!” **)Anyhoo –

Here’s just a few of the amazing things Ray Kurzweil is predicting for the near future (within 50 years):

• If you can make it another 15 to 30 years, you’ll probably be able to live forever
• Computational power will have multiplied by about a billion times within 25 years
• Computer intelligence will be about a billion times more powerful than human intelligence by 2045
• You can backup your memories by the late 2030s
• The common cold will be solved in the next 10 years.

If you’re really interested in see what the future may hold, you probably ought to check out this series of articles in New Scientist (scroll down past the top screen). About 80 people take a shot at predicting the future, and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed. Besides Ray Kurzweil, there are others, like:

• Sydney Brenner – Nobel prize-winner for medicine
• John D. Barrow – Cosmologist
• Benoit Mandelbrot – Creator of the Mandelbrot Set
• Robert Ballard – Oceanographer
• Christof Koch – Cognitive and behavioral biologist
• Irene Pepperberg – Harvard University psychologist
• Simon Baron-Cohen – Cognitive neuroscientist
• Peter Noorvig – Google’s Director of Research
• …and many more (they asked me to contribute - I’m sure they did; but alas, I just moved, and my letter must have gotten lost in the mail.)

The article with Kurzweil ends with a sobering thought, though. One of the things we’ll have to make sure we do (“we” meaning “we as a society” that is) is to make sure we can “stay ahead of the game”. I mean, it may be all well and good to live forever, but what about the ramifications? Where would you put all the people? What would it do to our culture? How would it change religion? And etc., etc., etc.It’s kinda like some poor goober winning $10 million in a lottery, but without having the knowledge or skills needed to handle that kind of money (and believe me, it takes some!), he ends up wasting it all. It’s sadly true that sudden vast riches can literally cause more harm than good for those unprepared for it. (Still, most of us, like Tevya from Fiddler on the Roof, can’t help but wonder: “Would it spoil some vast eternal plan/if I were a wealthy man?”)

Anyway, check out the articles if you want. But don’t be surprised if reality turns out to be more – or less – than predicted.

** Lena Lamont’s hilarious line from the 1954 classic movie, “Singin’ in the Rain”, starring Gene Kelly, Doris Day and Donald O’Connor. For those of you who’ve never seen it, I highly recommend you stop what you’re doing, go rent a copy, make some popcorn, and see it with your friends. It’s well worth it.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

A friend of mine sent me these pictures and they were so hilarious I just HAD to share them with you. Enjoy.

Redneck Bass Boat

Redneck Pet

Redneck Pet Carrier

Redneck Gingerbread House

Redneck Guest Rooms

Redneck Wedding Reception

Redneck Horseshoes

Redneck Yacht

Redneck Weather Station

Redneck Lawn Mower

Redneck Palm Pilot

Redneck Bar-B-Que Grill

Redneck Motorcycle

Redneck Powerball Winner

And last but not least, the above winner on vacation

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Today in America we celebrate Thanksgiving Day. Like many others, I’ll be taking a few days off, but I’ll be back on Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving!

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Here’s another blog idea that’s been “cooking” in the file cabinet for a few weeks. (By the way, it’s merely a coincidence that the first part is also based on a post by Shawn at Anecdote. I have been referencing his posts quite a bit lately. I swear, no money changed hands. Yet.)

Turn it Upside DownFrom the let’s-hang-the-situation-by-the-pant-legs-and-see-how-much-change-falls-out department, Shawn at Anecdote comes up with a truly great idea regarding the frustration of dealing with security consciousness and project files. Although I’ve read about, but not seen, Roger van Oech’s Creative Whack Pack, I imagine one of the cards must say something along these lines.Not being content to just point out an issue,

Shawn presents a very simple solution to the challenge of handling a project’s security concerns and the resulting tendency to stifle collaboration within an organization.

This is a necessary step on the road to collaboration in the project world. I like the RSS idea, too.

Wouldn’t it be fantastic if everyone on the project team, including the client, knew what everyone was talking about regarding the state of their project? That way, whenever any documents are published, they need only to broadcast the link, not the document itself, potentially saving considerable bandwidth. (If you can sell it, be warned - the IT department may hold a parade in your honor.)Intellectual Property Fear vs. Collaboration

Ironically enough, I just read this morning on the Business Innovation Insider blog a brief interview with Joyce Wycoff, co-founder of the InnovationNetwork and author of two innovation blogs. When asked what she’d like to see regarding innovation in 2007, one of three trends she mentioned addressed this very subject:

“(2) More collaborative innovation between business units and separate companies and less intellectual property fear. Innovation means taking risks; however, it’s the job of the legal folks to reduce risk and therein lies the rub. As they say, you can’t steal second base with your foot firmly planted on first base.”

A Final Solution?If you’ve got the patience, perhaps there is another solution, as posted by randfish on the SEOmoz blog:

- Are a personal expression of subject matter
- Allow for a two-way conversation
- Build a connection between the readers and the blogger/company/brand
- When you have layers of communication control, you’re essentially shutting out all the things that make blogging valuable or worthwhile.

So what’s the solution?According to my new friend Beth – ‘we’ll just have to wait for them (the people who control corporate communication) to die.’”

OK, I didn’t say it was a great solution, just a solution. I’m sure there are at least a few other things worth trying first…

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!

Howdy, Everyone! Yep, it’s time to lift your weary heads from the ol’ work slab, loosen the ankle chains, and take a moment to partake deeply of the sublime, the ironic, and the outright strange. One would think that sooner or later the wheels of progress would eventually grind down the quirkiness we talk about here, but luckily that’s not the case. In fact, I can’t imagine a world without it!That’s right, ladies and gentlemen – the time has come for another exciting edition of… OOB!

Amazing Google Earth Discoveries Dept.

There is no end, it seems, to the amazing things you can find on Google Earth. Especially if your life is so boring you have nothing else to do except scan every square mile of the planet’s land masses (all 57,268,942.658 square miles of them). This time, someone named LSDsmurf (what’s in a name?) posted this photo from Google Earth that very clearly shows a huge Native American in profile. Actually, to me he looks more like a South American, perhaps Mayan, but then what do I know?

Oddly enough, it looks like he’s wearing an earplug – perhaps he’s groovin’ to the latest smooth tracks from Kenny G? Or – could he just be taking a precaution and protecting himself from that giant earwig discovered in Germany?

The King is Still Dead Dept.

Gasp! Zounds! Cowabunga! Shazam! (Insert your favorite exclamation here – but please, keep it clean – this is a G-rated blog)

In news sure to shock all Elvis fans down to their very cores, Reuters is reporting that Curt Cobain has knocked Elvis off the top earners spot in the ever-popular Sure-They-Make-Millions-But (And-That’s-A-Really-Big-But) They’re-Still-Dead category of Celebrity wage earners. It seems he’s “earned” $50 million in the last year. (I’m not jealous – really. I’m working on my second million now. Sadly, I had to give up on my first one.)

What really irks fans of the King is that Cobain has never been on the list before, while Elvis has been No. 1 since the inception of the list. Talk about being an upstart! Sheesh! The two of them are probably fighting it out right now, whacking each other with guitars. Or, or they could be havin’ a drink instead (although without being too judgmental here, considering their respective lifestyles, let’s hope it’s not a really hot drink.)

Political Correctness Run Amok Dept.

Is Feminism really making great strides forward? Or maybe just sideways?

In a great example of political correctness running amok, the Spanish town of Fuenlabrada has decided to do their part for equality by banishing “only masculine figures” from their street signs. Presumably they mean signs like the “pedestrian crossing” sign seen here. But does anyone else besides yours truly think their solution of having half the signs portray feminine figures with “skirts and ponytails” is, let’s see… what’s the word I’m searching for… stupid?

C’mon now, admit it, people. Is a figure of a woman in skirt and ponytail truly representative of all women? I would say at least half, if not more, women wear pants most or all of the time, and ponytails are definitely not representative of the majority of women’s hairstyles. Besides, even what could be considered to be the most obvious difference between the sexes, breast size, is not really that universal. I know lots of men with man-breasts, and women come in all sizes too.

So why couldn’t the human figure portrayed on the sign just remain the same? I say it already represents the majority of people everywhere.

Innie or Outie Dept.

The Museum of London will offer for auction on Ebay one square meter of display space for the lucky winning bidder to display “anything they want”. Luckily for the rest of us, there’s at least ONE restriction: the exhibit “must display the winner’s life in the capital.” Whew! Dodged a bullet there!

Too bad, though. I guess that means I wouldn’t be able to display my collection of used bubble gum, or the bottles of air from around the world, or even that extensive collection of celebrity belly-button lint (unless I restrict it to just British Celebrities). Naah – one square meter isn’t enough space for that one.

Oh, well.

You know, it would just be absolutely finer than a frogs hair if you would subscribe to my RSS feed!