I’ve always been fascinated by propoganda materials like old World War I recruiting posters.  Via Boing Boing I found this site that has propoganda posters for the Chinese space program.  I definitely recommend reading the site for background on the evolution of the Chinese space program and how it has been promoted to the Chinese people.

Here’s a poster from the 80’s:

And here is a poster intended to appeal to the Falun Gong adherents:

Well, bookofjoe continues to amaze me.  Here’s a small sampling of some of the stuff he’s put out there recently:

• Hands-Free Doorknob
• Star Trek Phaser Remote
• Jumper Cables with Built-in Flashlights
• Flexible Clock
• Mercora.com – Three times as many songs as iTunes and it’s free
• Clip-On Pet Water Dish

I thought I’d post this today so that Celeste can get started on her Christmas shopping…oh wait, she never stops her Christmas shopping.  Well these could make for some interesting additions.

This is a business I’ve seen mentioned on about a jillion blogs, websites, etc.  It’s SaveMyAss.com and it’s one of those things that makes you wonder, "Now why in the hell didn’t I think of that?"

Here’s the first sentence from their website: "
SaveMyAss is a personal assistant that keeps your girlfriend or wife happy
by sending her flowers on your behalf.
We make sure you never miss Valentines day, her birthday, or your anniversary (again),
and you will surprise her with "just because" flowers on a regular but semi-random basis."

Brilliant.

Just found the World Press Photo 50 year retrospective via Joe’s blog.  Joe said he cried twice while looking through the photos and I can see why.

I was reading through the list of MacArthur Fellows and noticed that a lot of them are in their 30s and with a shock realized that they were younger than me. I’ve always wondered how I would feel the first time I saw a doctor younger than me (hasn’t happened yet), but I have a feeling it will be one of those mid-life crisis moments I’m experiencing more and more these days.

Out of curiosity I added all the ages of the Fellows together and divided that number (1,095) by the number of Fellows (25) to discover that their average age is 43.8 years.  That means I have 4.8 years before I’m past the average age for exhibiting some form of creative genius.  There’s hope!

Here’s the breakdown of the Fellows’ age by decade (20s, 30s, 40s, etc.):

• 20s = 0
• 30s = 11
• 40s = 9
• 50s = 1
• 60s = 4

What with all the noise about the baby boomers they appear to be a bunch of slackers in the creative class (only 1 in the 50s?).  Of course it could be that as we age our creativity goes right down the toilet, and maybe if I wasn’t so lazy I’d look back at the averages from 10-20 years ago to see if the boomers were as creative in their 30s and 40s. But it’s nice for my so-called slacker generation to have something to lord over the Boomers so I’m not going to look any deeper.