The brief: Help the new café across from Poke put itself on the map.
Poke’s answer: A ‘magical’ box that enabled the staff to announce the arrival of fresh baked goods via Twitter. It was both novel and useful, getting people talking and ensuring that locals knew when to turn up to get the freshest bread.
Moral of the story: Social media is for us and not the other way around. Proved by the crazy bunch at Poke.
We were looking out for an option to Microsoft Word for a distraction-free writing writing experience. Much to our pleasant suprise, we found quite a few. But that one that caught our eye was WriteMonkey.
Writemonkey is a Windows writing application with an extremely stripped down user interface, leaving you alone with your thoughts and your words. It is light, fast and free. With an array of innovative tools under the hood and full Markdown* support, it helps you write better.
Our favourite part is the splash screen, which has Monkey’s pearls of wisdom. A perfect to begin the writing process if you ask us!
Write a Bike by Juri Zaech. Juri states that he’s working on prototyping one of the designs. Very curious to see it when that happens.
I was stuck in evening traffic on my way to KFC, Bandra in a cab when the cabbie started a conversation with an interesting and amusing thought.
Cabbie: Goverment ko family planning chod kar ab car planning shuru kar dena chahiye. Kitne car hain road par.
Me: (smiling) Hmmm.
Cabbie: Aapko yehi utarna hain ki aur aagey jaana hain?
Me: Aur aagey. McDonalds pata hain aapko? KFC ki yaahan.
Cabbie: Yeh KFC ka full form kya hain?
Me: Kentucky Fried Chicken. Kentucky America mein hain. Ek aadmi ne fried chicken banaya aur woh famous ho gaya. To usne yeh shuru kar diya. Kyunki Kentucky Fried Chicken itna lamba naam hain, to usne…
Cabbie: Use KFC kar diya (laughs).
Me: Haan. Wahan ka Vada Pav hain samjh lo.
Cabbie: Mujhe goverment ne Special Magistrate ka post diya hain. Pata hain aapko. Woh True Copy karke sign aur stamp karte hain na, woh. Doctors, lawyers ko banate hain…Gazetted Officer. Government ne mujhe bhi banaya hain.
Me: Attestation ke liye…hmmm. To aap taxi kyun chalate hain?
Cabbie: Yeh to hamara purana kaam hain. Ise kaise chod sakte hain. Maine ek card bhi banaya tha. Mere naam ke baad maine likh diya ‘Taxi Driver’. Mere dost ne kahan ki Taxi Driver kyun chapva diya. Maine kahan ki to us mein kya hain. Baad mein maine use short karke TD kar diya.
Me: (laughing) Yeh accha kiya. Log poochenge ki TD kya hain.
Cabbie: (smiling) Haan. Jaise Bcom, BA hota hain waise TD. Woh aa gaya KFC.
Me: Wohi left mein ruka dijiye. Kitna hua? (giving money) Apke paas aapka card hoga ab?
Cabbie: (taking the money) Nahi. Aap number le lo.
Me: Aap ka naam kya hain?
Cabbie: Gyan Singh. Number hain 99XXX XXXXX
Me: Attestation kahan se karte ho? Rehte kahan ho?
Cabbie: Malad.
Me: Aap pure din taxi chalate ho to attestation kaise aur kab karte ho?
Cabbie: Ab thodi der mein ghar jaakar shuru karunga. Line lag jaati hain raat ko. Nahi to logon ko keh deta hoon ki ghar ka pata de do, subeh subeh mein hi aa jaunga. Area ki ladke kehte hain ki aap bhi. (smiles)
Me: Accha hain. Chaliye. Khyal rakhiyega aap ka.
Cabbie: Thank you. Aapka shubh naam kya hain?
Me: Karthik.
Cabbie: Woh Ganesh ke bete hain na.
Me: Nahi. Bhai hain.
Cabbie: Accha, accha. Chaliye.
I walked away smiling towards my destination. I particularly loved our farewell where he wrongly assumed Lord Karthik to be Ganesh’s son. Thank you, Mr. Gyan Singh, for the useful gyan. 🙂
Even sound, when used creatively, can paint a very good picture for you. NOTE: Listen through stereo headphones only. And just a warning: don’t get scared. It’s only virtual. Via: Lester Fernandes
A perfect blend of old and the new. I remember, as a teen, I used to do this ‘cool’ thing of making mixed tapes. At that time, it was kind of making a statement about who you were by what you were listening to. And man, was I paranoid about sharing my tapes with others. I started making the tapes seeing my big brother who got inspired from somewhere else and so on. Coming back to the present, Adam Parks of Gigawatt Design decided to take this enjoyable process from the past and give it a technological twist of his own. The result: a website called The Illuminated Mixtapes. Started in 2007, this series of ‘mixed tapes’ is in its 6th edition. Each of his tapes comes with its own illustrated album cover and a song list. The songs are streamed online, so you can log on, click on a tape and listen to the songs anytime, anywhere. Provided, of course, you both share similar tastes in music. Via: Swiss Miss
Fill in the blanks. With laughter. A nice web experiment, built by two guys from Seattle, WA. It will instantly bring a smile to your face. Write your smart take on any subject under the world. Filling in the blanks has never been so much fun. Try it! Thank you, Hans Johnson and Jared Wunsch.
The image says it all. Clean and simple. Gimme Bar. We love it. Thanks to the guys at Fictive Kin for creating yet another gem.
Simply awesome. Sometime back, this image had caught our eye and before we knew it, we were in the wonderful world of Noma Bar. Bar is an extremely talented artist who conveys complex messages with amazing simplicity. We couldn’t find our favourite piece from his work because they are all equally mindblowing. We won’t write anything more now because we would rather prefer you explore his work and enjoy it as we did. Via: Dutch Uncle
A while back, I had stumbled upon Good Fucking Design Advice which, well, gave good fucking design advice and then some. I happened to visit the site again to download another wallpaper and I noticed this small line at the bottom after the Copyright stuff which said, “Inspired by this and this.” Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it didn’t bother me. I went ahead and clicked on ‘this’. And the other ‘this’ too. The first one led me to a website called ‘What The Fuck Is My Social Media Strategy‘, made by two other guys which takes a dig at corporate jargon about Social Media Strategy (duh?). I enjoyed the dig and I noticed something at the bottom. Guess what? A line that says, “Inspired by this.” I clicked on that too. I mean ‘this’. Meanwhile, the second this from the first website called for my attention. I checked it. I landed up on ‘What The Fuck Should I Make For Dinner‘. This site shouts out random dinner suggestions which you can keep on rejecting if you like (don’t try it with your wife, though). Remember the first ‘this’ on the second website. Yes! That one led me to this same dinner website. I couldn’t help it. I checked the bottom of the site. There was a ‘this’. But it was not a clue. It was a part of a sentence that said, “This site was fucking made by Zach”. “To hell with the cat”, I said and clicked on Zach and it led me to a website of Zach Golden, a copywriter in NYC, who, by the way, didn’t have ‘Fucking’ anywhere on the site. So, all in all, a nice fucking search from one fucking interesting website led me to another and then another and then yet another one which further led me to one fucking cool guy who fucking started it all. Fucking copying, you might say. Well, I think it is fucking inspiring. Maybe, I will start a fucking website. Be sure to check the bottom that will say, “Inspired by this, this and this. Or maybe that. Whatever. If you are still fucking reading this, don’t! Go and surf these fucking awesome sites instead. Thank you fucking Zach for starting it all.