Uranium Ore on Amazon

No matter how much shopping you do on Amazon, you'll always find something new.  You can be the proud owner of radioactive uranium ore for $39.95. Product features include:

• Radioactive Ore Sample
• License Exempt - low radioactivity
• Useful for testing geiger counters
• Shipping compiles to NRC and postal regulations
• Radioactive minerals are for educational and scientific use only.

As with any product, you want to be sure that you're getting quality, so be sure to check the reviews. This particular product rates fairly highly.

"The quality of this Uranium is on par with the stuff I was bying from the Libyans over at the mall parking lot, but at half the price! I just hope the seller does not run out..." -Kyle Von Bose

"Finally, someone had the gumption to package this stuff! As a busy single mom, I no longer have the time to prospect for uranium, let alone dig my own open pit mine. Also, handling that stuff makes my gums bleed and I cough up small pieces of lung. Nasty." -MN Ghosthunter

"DO NOT USE AS LUBRICANT!!!," -Laki Red


"Since buying this product from Amazon I am now invincible at croquet and can sing all of Andy Williams' songs (since 1974) at the same time. What's more, I'm able to change night into day with a small shake of my mandibles, and have just worked out how to make cheese on toast levitate" -Nitrous McBread

"My tomatoes and cucumbers have never had better yields! Best of all, its organic!! I mix a little with the compost every month and amend my garden every 2 months.
Funny, though, the deer and opossums have stopped browsing through the garden. I think the 4 foot tall Praying Mantis, and 18 inch wide garden spiders have done their job.
Now if I could only get the kids to STOP saddling the tomato horn worms and convice them their NOT beneficial insects" -Christopher Brown

Redhead sense for your business

Erica Nappoletano writes "Readhead Writing/ Ranting" and true to the name, she lays it out as it is.  Her recent post 19 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started My Business hit some great points.

2. You’re not a freelancer. You own a business. Start treating what you do like a business from day 1 because sooner or later, you’re going to wish you had.

9. Some people just don’t give a shit. From contractors to clients, vendors to the asshole meter maid who just ticketed your car…people will screw you, If you assume everyone is in business to do good business, you’re wrong. Start your business on planet Earth with real-world expectations and get off Space Mountain.

10. Karma’s a bitch. No matter where you live, the business community is small. Think you can hide from someone you hosed? Think again. What comes around goes around, and it’s glaringly obvious in the professional world. Keep that in mind the next time you think people won’t notice.

13. Failure is always an option. And if you learn to fail faster, you can actually get on to the stuff that works toot-suite. Some things just really need to die.

17. You don’t want every piece of business that walks through your door. Standards are important. And yeah, sometimes we take business because our business is young and food needs to show up on the dinner table. But stick to your standards. For me, the best clients are those who understand who they are and who they want to reach. The worst ones expect me to be a savior of sorts. I can build strategies, but I can’t perform miracles."

 Erica's site for straight talk and snark.

Fill Reader's Baskets with Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates program allows bloggers and website owners to place products or ads on their site for a percentage of each sale from that link.  While it's a good way for publishers to list individual items they have for sale or recommend, there is no way to provide a package of various Amazon products.

Amazon's marketplace provides an enormous array of products which can be selected to match the site or a particular article. From books and music to technology and tools, Amazon has it all. Users click on the link and are taken to the product page for the item using a specially coded link that let's Amazon know who sent the person there (and who to pay if they buy).

I've been impressed by their recent upgrade to their widgets where I can edit the code in what they call "Widget Source." What I haven't seen is a mechanism that allows visitors to my site to buy a package of products. Whether it's 10 mp3's for a road trip, materials for a craft project or ingredients for a spaghetti sauce, there are times where people should be able to add all of the products to their cart in one click.

Below, I've created an Amazon widget which has some of the basics for a spaghetti sauce. Clicking on any of the individual items will take you to the Amazon product page and if you buy it, I get a small percentage (same with the books on the right hand side of the page). However, if you want another from the list, you have to return to my site to click the next link, and so on until you've added all six.



A better option would be to allow the customer to place multiple items in their cart in a single click, even see a subtotal of the items prior to adding to their cart.

I've mocked up an example of how this could function. On the left are check boxes which would allow someone to choose only those items which they want, and a subtotal would be displayed at the bottom of the page. There is also a button to add to cart. Clicking that would add all items to an Amazon.com cart, and take the person to the cart rather than a particular product page. There they could remove additional items or continue shopping.

Providing am means to refer customers to multiple items rather than one at a time could prove lucrative for both publishers and Amazon. It improves the flow to the purchase, and allow publishers to be able to create custom packages for their readers. This could be valuable for cooking, craft, project, sewing or other sites which feature instructional articles which require multiple items to complete.

Happy Dancing Balls

F5 2011 RE:PLAY Film Festival. Inductance from Physalia Studio on Vimeo.

“Happy” was the theme we were given by the organizers for this year's F5 Re:Play Fest, held in April in NYC, to create this edition's pieces, probably the hardest thing to convey in any artistic expression. After a good deal of introspection, and teaming up with awesome motion graphics artist Gerardo del Hierro, we decided that happy wasn't happy for Physalia unless pliers, microchips and a bit of soldering were involved, and with this idea we resolved to create the happiest machine Physalia has built to date."

I love the final effect, what fun. It reminds me of a lava lamp.  I wonder whether it's possible to then choreograph different color balls given that they appear to have chips in them. 

Direction: Physalia ( physaliastudio.com ) & Gerardo del Hierro ( grrddh.com/​ )
Music: Fernando Dominguez
via BoingBoing

Selection of Pictures: Northern Ireland 1980's

"Children burn tyre and block Flying Horse Road, Downpatrick, Co. Down, anniversary of internment (1980's)"

  Boy wears "Proud to be a Prod" t-shirt, East Belfast (1980's)

Co. Derry farmer takes his wife shopping on the tractor bucket (1980's)

I was struck by these images, particularly the kids posing in front of the burn out vehicles.  They could as well been posing at the football field or playground. 


The Bobbie Hanvey Photographic Archives are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Citations should credit the Bobbie Hanvey Photographic Archives, John J. Burns Library, Boston College."

Big Bad Wolf finds an Ally

(Via Twisted Sifter)

Skin Cancer PSA: Dear 16 year old me

Spare the 5 minutes to watch this video to the end.

Amazing Wood

I love wood.  I'm fascinated by it's properties, colors, grains and what people can do with wood.  Below are some beautiful pieces from some amazing craftsman

Boefloor

Using wood scanning systems, the manufacturer optimizes the use of each board by cutting along the unique lines that a tree gives providing a truly unique product. Sadly, it doesn't appear to yet be available in America.

Splinter Bike 

Splinter bike is an all wood bike crafted by hand by Michael Thompson and will be ridden by James Tully in an attempt to break the land speed record.  This amazing piece of engineering has been hand crafted and uses no metal fasteners.

Kinetic Marble Track

A project that you can build, this marble track is the baddest of kids toys, running around the entire room.

The Floris Wubben upside down chair and upside down lounge chair

These stunning chairs were made using inverted willow trees.

"The legs have been obtained by twisting and splinting its branches and letting it dry into the final shape.  The seat and back were naturally kept in line with the bole’s silhouette. This project had been put in practice jointly with the artist Bauke."