You can grab it from Fountain Fonts.

While doing some of my regular R&D recently, I came across an article by Clay Shirky about Social Surplus and how the modern person spends their spare time.

Excerpt:

Starting with the Second World War a whole series of things happened–rising GDP per capita, rising educational attainment, rising life expectancy and, critically, a rising number of people who were working five-day work weeks. For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before–free time.

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

After browsing around a little more I came across the visualisation above from Information Is Beautiful which puts into perspective the potential of our unharnessed minds.

This story isn’t exactly new anymore but I thought it deserved a mention as a great example of new thinking applied to an old problem.

You can find an explanation of how it works from the Gyrobike website:

Gyrowheel essentially has a gyroscope inside. Gyroscopes are spinning wheels that exhibit a special property called precession. When a force is put at the top of a spinning wheel (such as a rider falling on a bicycle), rather than falling, the gyroscope simply turns, or precesses, in the direction of the fall. This occurs on normal bike wheels when the bike is traveling at higher speeds. Hence, it is easier to ride a bicycle once you “get going.” Gyrowheel takes advantage of this property even when the bike is moving slowly.

source: Gyrobike

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates the power of the pentatonic scale, using audience participation, at the event “Notes & Neurons: In Search of the Common Chorus”, from the 2009 World Science Festival, June 12, 2009.

An impressive short documentary on old-skool outdoor advertising (probably also a clever advertisement in itself) that made the rounds in the office this morning.

I’ve haven’t upgraded to the iPhone 4 yet primarily because I’ve been waiting for a stable Jailbreak solution to be released. That is until now thanks to JailbreakMe 2.0, a full (very simple) tutorial can be found at CrispyTech.

To save you questioning my motives, let me make it clear that the only reason I decided to Jailbreak in the first place is because of Optus’ ridiculous tethering charges. Jailbreaking enables a workaround solution to this issue, and wouldn’t you know it, the Optus customer service rep was incorrect when he said that tethering would lead to excessive data charges.

It’s also worth noting that speculation over the DMCA ruling can now be put to rest as it’s been revealed that iPhone Jailbreaking has been declared “fair use”.

Steve Jobs image source

Ninjas scared off three thugs who had the misfortune to attack the 27-year-old medical student outside their warrior school. The incident happened as a German exchange student made his way through a dark alley in Sydney’s west outside a nearby dojo.

The would be attackers failed to notice a ninja, Nathan Smith, standing in the shadows outside the dojo.

Read more at Reuters

Ninja image src

I’ve managed to avoid all the hysteria around the “magical revolutionary” iPad, or at least until now.

The retro styled, handcrafted wooden tabletop arcade cabinet and MAME emulator may actually be the first reason to buy an iPad. iCade has integrated  dolby 2.1 audio (stereo speakers and subwoofer) in the cabinet and includes a 10w USB power adapter retails for around $150USD.

An empty glass resembles a meaningless colorful mosaic, until a liquid is poured into it, revealing its name. Each side of the glass is reserved for a specific drink. Full details at ReLogik.