The Fearless Blogger

Even running out of gas can be fun!

Volkswagen believes there’s a simple way to change people’s behavior: fun.

Thefuntheory.com, an initiative of the company, is a site that’s

dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.

Based on the outcome of the experiment captured in this video, they just might be right. (Oops! Hope that wasn’t too much of a spoiler!) I especially like the parts with the dogs and when Macaulay Culkin* takes a picture.

Piano Stairs

”Take the stairs instead of the escalator or elevator and feel better” is something we often hear or read in the Sunday papers. Few people actually follow that advice. Can we get more people to take the stairs over the escalator by making it fun to do? See the results here.

*or someone who resembles Macaulay

Have you noticed Google’s new look today?

Techcrunch has the scoop on why the site updated today’s homepage “doodle” to display a barcode:

Google’s new logo is a barcode which, as far as we can tell, says “Google.” Today is the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the bar code. Inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver filed the patent on October 1949, and it was granted, No. 2,612,994 (pdf), on October 7, 1952. The original patent was for a system that would encode data in circles (a bulls eye pattern), so that it could be scanned in any direction.

The barcode on the Google homepage is Code 128 encoded, which is a standard way of encoding ASCII character strings (ie. A-Z, a-z, 0-9, etc.) into a barcode. It would be safe to assume that Google used their own open source barcode project, ZXing, to generate the barcode. The same library is used in Android for barcode recognition.

Read the full post here: New Google Logo Celebrates The Barcode

Better Latte Than Never!

In case I haven’t mentioned it, I’ve been known to be a bit of a caffeine junky.

And having fond memories of my near decade in the Emerald City, Starbucks holds a very special place in my heart – a place reserved for those who concoct elixirs comprised of my three favorite food groups: caffeine, sugar and dairy (and occasionally the fourth: chocolate).

That said, Starbucks had left me feeling a bit let down at their lack of collaboration with one of my other true loves – Apple.  In particular my iPhone.

Until today.

From the Starbucks blog:

Today we launched two iPhone / iPod touch applications, myStarbucks and Starbucks Card Mobile.   These are great (and free!) and will let you have a fun and useful Starbucks Experience wherever you are.   You can design your own beverage, view your balance and load your Starbucks Card, look up nutritional information on our beverages and food, and learn about our different whole bean coffees.  No, you can’t place an order using the app (not yet anyway), but we’re just starting out.

It’s not exactly the ability to tweet a latte to a buddy, but give the relationship time to mature – I have hope it will blossom.

For more details, check out the video below or visit the Starbucks Ideas in Action Blog. You can find the app here.

Times are tough and the folks at Mars want to help. How, you ask? Every Friday through October, Mars will give away free real chocolate to 250,000 people. That means you can enjoy your favorite Mars’ candy brands—M&M’S®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, 3 MUSKETEERS®, MILKY WAY® and DOVE®— for free!

I wrote about this when the program first started – and have enjoyed my free M&M’s thoroughly!  Figured it warrants another mention for those who may have forgotten, or those who haven’t had a chance to check it out.  Free chocolate is not something I take lightly!

(For some reason you’ll need to provide your birthdate before getting to the page requesting the contact information.  The first 250,000 responses will get an email confirmation acknowledging that your free chocolate is on its way – expect to find a coupon in your mail a few weeks later.)

Get Yours!
Visit Mars Real Chocolate Relief Act .

Single ladies, do you sit home wondering where all the great guys are?  Well, pay attention, because here’s a limited time opportunity too good to ignore!

Single men, take note!  Unless you have an infomercial touting your assets, you’ve got competition.

Tim Goggin, 32, is looking for a special someone:

A super-smart, funny, beautiful, passionate, intelligent, curious, amazing, generous, kind, wise, insightful, brilliant, successful, ambitious, self-aware woman who knows who she is and doesn’t hide any part of herself.

TimWow!

Goggin knows this is a tall order – and he’s not shy about sharing what he has to offer in return.  As a refreshing change from the typical online dating ad, Tim set up TimWow.com – a site dedicated to letting the ladies of the world know why they need to Act Now to claim their FREE date with TimWow before he’s off the market.

But wait!  There’s more!
Not only do you get a site, complete with information about Tim and the super-special-patented form that’s as simple as 1-2-3 to claim your free date,  the next 100 visitors get an exclusive viewing of the ShamWow infomercial!  (OK – so there’s no limit to the number of viewers and it’s exclusive to people with online access, but you get the idea! The form doesn’t have a patent either.) read more