Taking swabs of office equipment in New York, San Francisco and Tucson, scientists have revealed something of the microscopic ecosystems that exist on our keyboards, desktops and chairs. It is a truism that your keyboard is crawling with bacteria. However, researchers have been able to glean a more precise picture by looking very closely at […]
Oddee has compiled stories about 10 Incredibly Nice Robbers, thieves whose consciences got the better of them mid- or post-robbery. One such morally complex gentleperson stole a university professor’s laptop in Umeå, northern Sweden. The laptop was nabbed from the prof’s apartment stairwell while he was attending to some laundry. The academic was devastated, with […]
A Swedish man was taken aback when he pulled out a mouse from a cash machine. Gholam Hafezi was visiting his daughter in Ersboda, Umeå. Outside a Coop Forum supermarket, he tried to take out 700 Kronor from an ATM. “I got my 700 kronor but I never got the receipt. At the same time, […]
In 1981, in response to the suggestion that the recent Handsworth and Brixton riots were a reaction to unemployment, then Employment Secretary Norman Tebbit told a roomful of eager Tories, “I grew up in the ’30s with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work, and he kept […]
Today it’s the turn of the SIMbook notebook from Spinning Hat. The SIMbook is styled after the rather more recent SIM card, making it an apt place to store your telephone numbers, in a “ha ha”, knowing way. Cue marketing: “Get all your phone data backed up in one of our funky iconic SIM style […]
Burglars are stealing less entertainment products like CDs and DVDs as their value has fallen, reports The Economist. CDs, DVDs, tapes and videos are now taken in just seven percent of all burglaries in England and Wales. This figure is down from just under a quarter of burglaries in 2003. The same period saw burglaries […]
Audio equipment company Behringer have unveiled the loudest “the loudest iPad®, iPod® and iPhone® dock you’ve ever heard” to help launch 50 new EUROSOUND products. The $30,000 beast measures an absurd eight feet wide by four feet tall, bangs out a 10,000 Watts of power and weighs about the same as a smaller breed of […]
SplashData has released its annual list of the worst internet passwords. The passwords are ranked by how common they are. “Password” tops the list with the imaginative “123456” in hot pursuit. “Monkey”, “dragon” and “bailey” also feature (but why are they so popular?). The list in full: password 123456 12345678 qwerty abc123 monkey 1234567 letmein […]
Andy Warhol was early in anticipating (and contributing to) the commodification of culture. He challenged notions of authorship, authenticy, origin and value in art by drawing from popular and commercial culture to create instantly recognisable and very reproduceable images. It is all too apt that in an age in which we consume things before we […]
A lack of IT savoir-faire is causing British office workers to struggle with computers and other office machines, according to a recent poll commissioned by Computeractive. The survey of 2,000 office workers found that technology was perceived as making life more complicated and many blamed IT devices as a source of their woes. A quarter […]
How to plan the office Christmas party Whether you count down the days, or desperately scrabble around for an excuse not to go, the office Christmas party is an event on almost every company’s calendar. So, how do you plan a party that everyone will enjoy? It’s a tricky balance to get Bob from Accounts […]
Top tips to improve your time management skills Despite what people say, time is not a commodity. It cannot be traded, expanded or reduced. It is fixed. Our perception of time, however, is another concept. How often do you think at 4pm “Where has the day gone?” and go into panic mode to try to […]
Planning in business is essential Everything from the monthly sales drive to a new product launch or project needs planning. It promotes joined-up thinking and good decision-making throughout the whole organisation. “A goal without a plan is just a wish”, observed the famous writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery, summing up a key business principle. Each business […]
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