Instruments from inside

A musical instrument is a thing of beauty.  The way it is played and the sound it creates can portray almost any emotion you could think of, but often the actual instrument itself is overlooked as just the facilitator.

These series of photos advertising the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra convey a wonderful sense of an almost architectural art space from where the emotion is created.

[More via Behance]

If Carling made easter eggs...

With Easter rapidly approaching, there is a whole host of chocolate available in the shops, but I think that these home-made beauties knock socks off everything else!

How fabulous are they!  Chocolate eggs filled with cheesecake and passion fruit sauce to look exactly like real eggs.  I think they look brilliant, and if they taste even half as good as they look, it will be a gastronomic eggstravaganza (see what I did there...)

But the best part about them is that their creator, a sweet-toothed baker from Australia, has put the recipe online for you to recreate at home.  Steph, we bow down to your culinary brilliance.

And not only that, but the recipe itself looks very straight forward so that anyone should be able to have a go. 

[Recipe and more via RaspberriCupcakes.com]



Rubik's lamp

Oh. Em. Gee.

The Rubik's Cube has been a staple item on the shelves of geeks for decades.  Now, the fabulously simple to understand yet horribly difficult to master toy has taken a giant leap forward in the shape of this fabulous lamp.  Available with coloured or textured white sides, this very cool example of geek decor would look great practically anywhere.

There is, however, one flaw in this plan.  It's not actually being made yet.  The designer is still looking for a developer, which is a huge shame, but if it ever makes it in to production I want one!

[More via Behance]

What'cha writing...?

It's always useful to have a friend on hand...

[Via Explosm.net]

Conveying so much in so little

I stumbled upon the website OneSentence.org by accident, and it appears I'm a little late to the party.  OneSentence.org has been going for over five years, but it contains an intriguing series of true stories (at least they are claimed to be true - this appears to be based on trust) and, as you might guess by the name, each story is told in only one sentence.  Not long, rambling sentences either, but concise and often very emotive sentences.

What intrigues me about it is that we get no detail as to the background situation that leads to these sentences.  For example, one of the first ones I read was this:

My very open-minded mom looked at me as if I had three heads, but my devoutly Muslim best friend didn't bat an eye.

Where are they?  What was said?  What happened next?  We don't know.  The only clues we have to go on are any tags that the story is given (in the case of the above they read "bisexual lgbt coming out family") the rest of the story is up to us to imagine what might have occurred.

 [More via OneSentence.org]

Need a new boardroom table? Make one from Lego

Boardrooms are serious places.  Serious men and women meet to discuss serious matters and make serious business decisions.

But why not retain a little bit of fun at the same time?  All you need is 22,000 pieces of Lego.  Genius.

[More via Behance]

What I think of Google+

Generally I like Google (and I'm not just saying that because Google own Blogger!) but this does generally sum up my views of Google+.  I just don't see the point in moving from Facebook, and as far as I can work out, neither does anyone else.  Sorry Google!

[Via Datamation]

iBike concept design

I generally don't like concept designs as they tend to be incredible good to look at but appear to be incredibly impractical in the real world, and generally are not much more than a chance for a designer to indulge their own fantasies.

But I make an exception for this bike.  

It is a very funky looking concept bike that appears to have integrated rear lights and an integrated locking system (although why you would ever want to lock it up and let it out of your sight is beyond me...)

Not entirely sure about the integrated music player though.  I'm not a fan of listening to music when cycling, but I guess that's just personal preference.

[More via Behance]

Accrington Stanley? Who are they?

Thinking about Apoel Nicosia in the Champions' League led me on to a little bit of reminiscing about the classic milk advert that catapulted another footballing minnow in to the public eye nearly 25 years ago.  Accrington Stanley.  Fab.

Apoel Nicosia take to the main stage

One of the main criticisms that many people have about sport, and football in particular, is the level of money in the game.  Everything revolves around money to the point that the actual game being played often appears to be a side issue.  But sometimes events happen that show it is possible to be successful on a limited budget.

Tonight is the start of the quarter final matches in the UEFA Champions' League which sees Real Madrid playing Apoel Nicosia.

Who?  I hear you ask, which is much the same response my wife gave when I mentioned it to her.

Apoel Nicosia are the current champions of Cyprus and have so far had an amazing run in this year's Champions' League, progressing against Skënderbeu Korçë (Albania), Slovan Bratislava (Slovakia), Wisła Kraków (Poland), F.C. Porto (Portugal), Shakhtar Donetsk (Ukraine), Zenit St. Petersburg (Russia) and Lyon (France), earning the right to take on one of the biggest clubs in the world, Spain's Real Madrid.

But what makes this journey so amazing is that Apoel have an annual budget to run their entire football club of just £8.5m.  That's it.  £8.5m.  To run any large business, £8.5m is peanuts.  And that is to include player transfers, wages for players, employment of coaches and other support staff, maintaining their ground, and all other costs.  To put that in to context, their opponents tonight Real Madrid paid Manchester United almost ten times that amount (£80m) to buy Cristiano Ronaldo three years ago, and on top of that, £8.5m is about the same that Real Madrid spend on Ronaldo's wages each year.  Yet tonight the two teams face each other as equals.

It’s also worth pointing out that the prize money that Apoel receive for reaching the quarter finals tonight is about £2.5m, plus a percentage of the television and ticket revenue.

It would be no surprise to learn that Real Madrid are the odds on favourites to win tonight, but there are many people hoping that Apoel can apply the same level of skill behind their financial nous to their performance on the pitch and show, that it’s not all about the money and success in sport is possible with little cash.

UPDATE

It turned out to be as expected, with Real Madrid winning the first leg 3-0, and the second leg at the Bernabeu is likely to be a similar result.  However Apoel put up a very spirited fight and it is still an incredible journey for the Cypriot club, showing what can be acheived with such a small budget.

Vool wooden laptop stand

This is a laptop stand that is gorgeous to look at and I love the idea of the natural wood smell that grows as it is warmed by the laptop.

Very cool.

[More via Behance]

Answering life's big questions #1

I was thinking about the big questions in life, but this one struck a chord with me.  We must find an answer...

 

[Via Datamation]

So what's this all about, then?

For a little while I've felt as though I've got stuff to say with nowhere to say them and no-one to hear them.  All these thoughts rocking around inside my head that were desperate to be aired for the world to hear.  Some of these thoughts might be popular, some might be controversial, some might raise a smile, others might lead to a tear or two running down your cheek, but I hope all would be interesting to read, perhaps thought provoking, maybe even change your outlook on life.

I decided that the ideal place to air these views would be on a blog.  A place where I could collect my thoughts in one place and muse about life's big questions:

Why are we here?  What is love?  What caused the big bang?  Is there a God?  Are we alone in the universe?  Is there an afterlife?  Will we ever find the Higgs boson?  Why do people find Harry Hill funny?  What is the point of Katie Price?

So there I was, beginning to put my thoughts into some resemblance of organised thinking when something struck me.  It was gobbledygook.  My brain was more interested in looking up videos of a cat chasing a laser and other random stuff on Youtube than solving the great mysteries of the world, and so I scrapped the idea and started this blog instead.

This I intend to use as a brain dump with links to stuff I like, stuff I dislike, stuff that amuses me, and all that jazz.  Every so often, there might be the odd thought and opinion thrown in to the mix as well, just to keep you on your toes.

So come in, put your feet up and enjoy.

Oh, and I know that, since I mentioned it, you are thinking about the video of a cat chasing a laser, so here it is.