Lifestyle
In: Alex Moore, Director of Digital Development, Twofour
Alex Moore has been appointed as Director of Digital Development at Twofour in London, reporting to Spencer Conway, Head of Online. Read more: C21
I Know What Drugs You Did Last Night: Ketamine Kid
Three Billion dug up this video of a guy at a party and suggest it could be the best anti-drugs video ever. Decide for yourself:
Hey NYC, What Song Are You Listening to?
Ty Cullen went out on to the streets of NYC to ask random strangers what songs they were listening to and compiled them into a soundtrack of the city. Watch the video: via PSFK
Borrow a Dog From the Library
Yale Law Library‘s handsome terrier Monty has new responsibilities. He is being loaned out to law students for periods of 30mins to help reduce their stress levels. Read more in the Yale Daily News.
Butterflies by Post
Spanish firm Mariposeando supplies live Monarch butterflies for celebrations and events. (They are sustainably raised by mentally and physically handicapped workers.) All you have to do is open the special shipment box and the butterflies will flutter free, up into the sky. It costs from 20 Euros for two butterflies to 935 Euros for a […]
The Most Debt Ridden US Cities
CNN have revealed the US cities that have the greatest credit card debt. Columbus, Ohio tops the list with an average credit card debt of $4,631, with Spokane, Washington and Shreveport, Louisiana not far behind. Read more on CNN.
British Airways Interactive Ad
In March 2011, British Airways staged a competition at Westfiled shopping centre in West London in which shoppers were invited to ask holiday makers on a mystery Caribbean island questions about their location. The competition happened in real time via SMS. If the shoppers guessed where the holiday makers were they could win a luxury […]
Shopping for Men
French dating site DealduJour puts a new twist on online shopping – you can bid for men. For one day only a man will appear in a video and interested women are given a limited amount of time to express their interest. Read more on PSFK
Mills & Boon covers inspire self-portrait project
Artist Alex Holder recreated a range of classic romance covers in photographs for International Women’s Day
Cat Cafes and Dog Yoga
Japanese pets are some of the most pampered on earth (second only to the USA), with yoga, tap-dancing and aromatherapy for dogs and acupuncture and cafes for cats. The Japanese pet industry rakes in more than a trillion yen a year. Read more on PSFK
Bereavement Holidays
German travel company TUI has launched a series of holidays for the bereaved aimed at helping them overcome their loss and “journey back into life”, with the aid of a special routine of reflection, sight seeing and good food and music. Holiday makers are accompanied by a grief counselor and are encouraged to travel without […]
Health Books for Kids
Medikidz has produced a series of comic books that explain serious illnesses such as breast cancer, HIV, depression and autism to children. With clearly defined facts, irreverent humor, and a comics format, the titles in the Superheroes on a Medical Mission series offer accessible, entertaining introductions to health topics from sleep issues to HIV. Every […]
Grandma Takes Over
According to a Pew Research Center study as many as one in ten US children live with their grandparents, a trend sparked by the recession. Children of white parents are most likely to be shipped off to the grandparents in these straitened times. Read more.
Redneck Bank
There’s a new internet banking concept in town that claims to be “funner” than the rest: the Redneck Bank, which is based in Oklahoma. It has a Mr Ed. style laughing horse as its mascot offers a choice of pictures on its debit cards for you to choose from.
Got Nothing to Wear?
Stella Brennan (mother of two and owner of a dog and three cats who was about to start a new job) challenged herself to wear just six items of clothing for one month: “a black blazer and pants from H & M; two button-down shirts, one black and one pink; a pair of Old Navy […]
Takkoda
Looking for a gift? You could do worse than take a look at Takkoda which sells all kinds of merchandise decorated with the pictures of pets pretending to be celebrities. Choose from Audrey Hepburn, Mr T, Dame Edna Everage and Lady Gaga among others.
Mom Caves
The next thing in home design is the ‘mom cave’, a place for the woman of the house to retreat to and find respite from the family and household chores. While man caves are full of tech gadgetry, mom caves are more likely to contain cushions and knitting supplies. Read more on Iconoculture.
Parkour at the Olympics
Shouldn’t parkour be an Olympic sport by now? I’m thinking freestyle and synchronized… And I’m not the only one who thinks so. Watch the 3Run showreel: Hat tip: three billion
Speed Yoga
Want to feel bad about yourself? Watch this:
Socially Networked Newborns
The New York Times picked up on a survey by BabyCenter.com, which revealed 50% of mothers in labour updated their Facebook page or sent texts and 72% of births were announced via text and/or Facebook status. Read more of the findings here.
Teaching Kids Financial Literacy
Mint.com, an online personal finance software service, has teamed up with Scholastic to develop an interactive game and produced classroom materials to help children understand budgeting and financial planning. Students who use the material will learn how to set goals and budgets with real life examples, such as getting a babysitting job to save for […]
Multicultural Twitter
According to Iconoculture, African Americans represent 25% of Twitter users, and their conversations can often dominate the trending topics. And they get heard – when CW cancelled the popular drama The Game, BET noticed all the complaints on Twitter and picked it up (along with all the loyal viewers).
Need to buy a gift but all out of ideas?
15Gifts is a site that helps take the leg-work, and guessing out of shopping for gifts. You enter in the person’s sex, relationship to you, age, interests and price range and the site suggests 15 presents that have been selected from independent and quirky online stores. The best bit is that if you don’t like […]
Asda Dating
Walking down the the aisle with your beau takes on a new meaning when the aisles are stocked with potatoes and floor cleaner. Supermarket chain Asda has launched a new online dating website, claiming that “the supermarket has overtaken the pub and the internet as the nation’s number 1 spot to find love”, and that […]
My Perfect Life
LA-based comedienne Molly Erdman has a nice line in catalogue criticism. On her website, Catalog Living, she posts photos of impossibly tidy, stylish and serene living spaces and then skewers them with a barbed description. See them here.
Walking Proud in East London
The marvelous Vestry House Museum in Walthamstow has been marking the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transexual History month with a series of oral histories from people in the LBGBT community in East London. See what they think about whether the battle for equality has been won. Hat tip to the brilliant Walthamstow Scene
Bored of Your Diet? Try Nutrigenomics
According to Iconoculture, “more than half of U.S. consumers like the idea of using their genetic makeup to tailor-make dietary advice”, (via Datamonitor). The name of this new trend? Nutrogenomics: not one to trip off the tongue… Read more on Wikipedia.
Black Farmers
Last year’s Black Farmers and Urban Gardeners Conference in Brooklyn aimed to raise awareness of ecological and food related issues and career opportunities for the African American community. They quote some startling statistics, including: almost 50% of African Americans will suffer from diabetes heart disease and stroke in the African American community there are 30% […]
Hunting for Dinner
Urban Quest gives diners a series of clues that lead to a slap up restaurant dinner… if only you can find it. The clues lead diners on scenic journeys around Ottawa, Kingston or Toront, Canada and might be by foot, cycle or bus. Read more on Urban Quest
Love: Chinese Style
With growing prosperity, China is facing new challenges. Or rather young lovers are, as newly minted parents become increasingly reluctant to see their offspring marry someone from a poorer family and are demanding prenuptial agreements to safeguard their fortunes. The children of rich and powerful parents – known as fuerdai – are finding it hard […]
Speed…Kills: A Town With a New Name
A town of just 45 people called Speed in Australia pledged to change their name if more than 10,000 people ‘liked’ their Facebook page. They reached that target on the day of launch, so local farmer Phil Down said he would change his name to Phil Slow Down if the ‘likes’ reached 20,000. At the […]
The Father of Modern Fitness
Jack LaLanne was able to do fingertip push-ups well into his 90s. Never heard of him? If you struggle to the gym before or after work you can thank him because he founded the modern fitness movement in the 1930s, when lifting weights was considered weird (some still do consider it weird…). In 1951 he […]
How to Give £1m to Charity – For Non-Millionaires
Why not make it your new year’s resolution to give away a million to worthy causes? Toby Ord earns just over £2,000 a month and gives £833 of that to charity. He has pledged to give away £1m over the course of his lifetime and he insists that it is possible for anyone to do. […]
The People of Walmart
For some reason someone has been photographing shoppers in Walmart. The result could form the basis of a great What Not to Wear: Extreme Edition.
Awkward Pregnancy Photos
If you are expecting a happy delivery from a stork in 2011, don’t forget to document your pregnancy bump. Pregnant chicken has assembled some fine specimens… The naked-upside-down-man-bump-combo is particularly arresting.
Book Themed Dinner Party Menus
Vinegar Hill House, a restaurant reached down a dark and deserted cobbled road at the far reaches of NYC’s trendy DUMBO district held an American Psycho themed New Year’s Eve Dinner. Not to be outdone, Flavorwire have come up with a number of literary dinners, such as: Dracula – featuring tomato soup and blood orange […]
Dispensing Fruit and Veg to Patients at the Farmers’ Market
Doctors in Massachusetts have started prescribing fruit and vegetables from the local farmers’ market for their more economically disadvantaged patients. Each family member is prescribed $1 per day that can be spent at the market on fresh food, which is often in scarce supply in poorer neighborhoods. Read more on Iconoculture.
Making NYC A Place to Retire To
As the population ages, NYC is looking at ways to make the teeming city more livable for elderly people. Ideas include ‘perches’ in shops where people can rest, more public toilets in shops and cafes and personal shoppers in supermarkets. Read the full article in the New York Times.
The Lies People Tell in Search of a Mate
There are some common things that can mislead you if you are using an online dating site to look for love: People say they are 2″ taller than they are The more attractive the picture, the more out of date it is likely to be People are earning 20% less than they claim 80% of […]
Online Social Matchmaking
Wings is a new dating website that aims to match potential lovers by trawling the internet to piece together their personality profiles by tracing the footprints they’ve left on social networking sites. The site’s creator claims that people with a small, tight social group on Facebook is likely to be best matched with someone with […]
Dress for Success
Dress for Success is a not-for-profit organization that supplies disadvantaged women with business attire to help them secure a job and become successful in forging a career and supporting themselves through employment. Every year they help 50,000 women around the world. Once admitted to the programme women can access training and mentoring throughout their working […]
Scrubs Magazine
Take a peek behind the scenes of life as an Emergency Room worker in this online magazine aimed at ER nurses. Scrubs “The Nurse’s Guide to Good Living” is more of a niche lifestyle mag than a clinical journal, with tips on How NOT to Gain Weight As A Nursing Student, 4 Fun Facts About […]
What Does an Army March On? Its Stomach…
The New York Times has published a list of the various army rations fed to the troops of different countries – and which have various barter values between the soldiers keen to give their tastebuds a break from the monotony of home-grown (or at least packed) food rations. Aussies are issued with Vegemite and the […]
No Shame
Christine Rosen notes that people seem to have no problem undergoing beauty treatments – like teeth whitening or eyebrow (or ladies’ mustache) threading – in public places, such as in the middle of shopping malls and wonders if we have lost the capacity to be embarrassed. It’s safe to assume she’s yet to be acquainted […]
Rome
John Hooper writes an article about the pleasures and frustrations of living in – as opposed to visiting – Rome: the snarled traffic, two-tier system for locals and tourists, the sense that anything could happen at any moment and holes in the road that swallow whole cars. Sounds a lot like New York. Read the […]
White Collar Boxing
Here’s a video on white collar boxing on Babelgum – where bankers knock seven bells out of each other. Now wouldn’t it be nice if ordinary folk got a chance to step into the ring with bankers to vent their frustrations…
Online Dating Infographic
Buzzfeed has published a fascinating infographic about online dating, which reveals among other things: At 28 women have more online suitors than men; at 48 men have twice as much interest from the opposite sex than women; 1 in 10 sex offenders use online dating; The porn industry believe that online dating is behind it’s […]
The Real Estalker
The Real Estalker is a website dedicated to snooping about the properties that celebrities are buying or sellling. Take a tour around the Hamptons home of Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson; Julianne Moore’s NYC townhouse; and Penelope Cruz’s LA pad.
Ethical Hotels
Salve your air miles conscience by staying in an ethical hotel. More Intelligent Life has found five of the best – in Morocco, Mozambique, Dominica, Cambodia and Indonesia. You really will have to plant a whole forest to offset that lot. Never mind, just gaze at them instead.
Survival Gardening
Forget survival shelters, the new paranoid hobby du nos jours is survival gardening. Residents in Lafayette, New Jersey, USA are turning their lawns into veg patches in an attempt to become self-sufficient in the face of threats from climate change, terrorism and declining oil stocks. Linda Grinthal teaches survival gardening skills on her farm, including […]
