Neil Hopcroft

Around the world in 80 trades is an interesting account of a trader making his way around the world. Conor leaves his high flying city job to travel the world, taking his negotiation and business experience with him. You follow him though the highs and lows as he tries to buy low and sell high at various markets, or with contacts he’s made along the way.

This is a good listen, with many funny anecdotes along the way, and some good lessons to learn. Worthwhile.

(audio book – I didn’t know about the TV series when I chose this audio book – I’m sure it is even more fascinating in that form, I’ll try to find a way to watch it).

Alain takes on a tour of some of the causes of Status Anxiety, mainly focussing on our need for acceptance within our social group and how money has changed the way that acceptance is perceived, and on the ways to think about it such that you can control it rather than it controlling you. This is an interesting book providing a light read containing some food for thought about how we view ourselves within a modern society, but, as with most philosophy books, he doesn’t really seem to say anything that we don’t know already.
(audio book)

Unusual Paintings of Obama Naked with Unicorns, no, really (painter of pancakes excels himself again)

5 across: structure or act of creation creation

Personalised urn

If only all of Russia was like this

I’m pretty certain that’s Latvia, not Cafe

Bandai Gyoza maker

Sushi train

Plastic Yakiniku

Whiteboard clock

Gay Gundam

Hand-driers from around the world

Dr Manhattan play kit

Using caffeine to develop film (and some results)

Finally, Lego Revelations

Broken picture telephone

Noodle slide

Back from Tokyo into the beta maelstrom, its still going to take a while to catch up properly. I’ve finally uploaded some pictures. Its fantastic to be back there and makes me want to go back for more. I’ll write some more about it at some point, but don’t expect anything very quickly. Right now I’ve got a project to concentrate on.

For some reason Operation Falco seems relevant again, 11 years on. Is it really that long? www.word.com were the first one down, now replaced by Merriam-Webster

Lets play. Who is going down this time around?
(anon ok)

Product manual archive

Mitsuoka finally produce something worth looking at

Sex Pixels (worksafe, probably, but with thumbnails that look like they’re not)

25 best programmer errors (which actually look like security mistakes to me, not actually the kind of bugs that I was expecting)