To Liar Cameron,
Please find below our suggestion for fixing the UK 's economy.
Instead of giving billions of pounds to banks that will squander the money on lavish parties and unearned bonuses, use the following plan.
You can call it the Patriotic Retirement Plan:
There are about 10 million people over 50 in the work force.
Pay them £1 million each severance for early retirement with the following stipulations:
1) They MUST retire
Ten million job openings - unemployment fixed
2) They MUST buy a new British car.
Ten million cars ordered - Car Industry fixed
3) They MUST either buy a house or pay off their mortgage -
Housing Crisis fixed
4) They MUST send their kids to school/college/university -
Crime rate fixed
5) They MUST buy £100 WORTH of alcohol/tobacco a week .....
And there's your money back in duty/tax etc
It can't get any easier than that!
P.S. If more money is needed, have all members of parliament pay back their falsely claimed expenses and second home allowances
If you think this would work, please forward to everyone you know.
Also.....
Let's put the pensioners in jail and the criminals in a nursing home.
This way the pensioners would have access to showers, hobbies and walks.
They'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical treatment, wheel chairs etc and they'd receive money instead of paying it out.
They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance.
Bedding would be washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to them.
A guard would check on them every 20 minutes and bring their meals and snacks to their cell.
They would have family visits in a suite built for that purpose.
They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual counselling, pool and education.
Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, PJ's and legal aid would be free, on request.
Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens.
Each senior could have a PC a TV radio and daily phone calls.
There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards would have a code of conduct that would be strictly adhered to.
The criminals would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised. Lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room and pay £600.00 per week and have no hope of ever getting out.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Design for small spaces: A Trendy cabinet that turns into stools
Most of us don’t have seating space for more than ourselves, let alone our friends.
Eindhoven grad Rianne Koens has come up with a pretty ingenious solution to this problem, and it’s good-looking too.
The design is simple: it’s a wooden cabinet that converts into sturdy stools and side tables.
The mismatched drawers of this multifunctional cabinet are stacked, each with foldable legs, so when unstacked, they can serve as stools and coffee tables to make it easier to accommodate guests.The design, called Oturakast, was inspired by the hospitality of the designer’s Turkish in-laws (otur means “to sit” in Turkish) as well as by Dutch design (kast is “cabinet” in Dutch).
According to Koens, the design is an “elegant replacement for the stackable stools in western households.”
This cabinet is not only a space-saver for those of us who have the common storage and space issues of apartment living, but it’s also considered and stylish.
Clever ideas to make your life easier
Rubbing a walnut over scratches in your furniture will disguise dings and scrapes.
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Remove crayon masterpieces from your TV or computer screen with WD40 (also works on walls).
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Stop cut apples browning in your child’s lunch box by securing with a rubber band.
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Overhaul your linen cupboard – store bedlinen sets inside one of their own pillowcases and there will be no more hunting through piles for a match.
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Pump up the volume by placing your iPhone / iPod in a bowl – the concave shape amplifies the music.
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Re-use a wet-wipes container to store plastic bags.
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Add this item to your beach bag. Baby powder gets sand off your skin easily – who knew?!
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Attach a velcro strip to the wall to store soft toys.
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Look up! Use wire to make a space to store gift wrap rolls against the ceiling, rather than cluttering up the floor.
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Gotcha! Find tiny lost items like earrings by putting a stocking over the vacuum hose.
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Make an instant cupcake carrier by cutting crosses into a box lid.
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For those who can’t stand the scrunching and bunching: how to perfectly fold a fitted sheet.
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Forever losing your bathroom essentials? Use magnetic strips to store bobby pins (and tweezers and clippers) behind a vanity door
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A tip for holiday packing. Store shoes inside shower caps to stop dirty soles rubbing on your clothes. And you can find them in just about every hotel!
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A muffin pan becomes a craft caddy. Magnets hold the plastic cups down to make them tip-resistant.
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Bread tags make the perfect-sized cord labels.
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Bake cupcakes directly in ice-cream cones – so much more fun and easier for kids to eat. Definitely doing this!
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Microwave your own popcorn in a plain brown paper bag. Much healthier and cheaper than the packet stuff.
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Brilliant space-saver: install a tension rod to hang your spray bottles. Genius!
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Win friends at breakfast with this heart-shaped egg tutorial. Aww shucks!
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Turn your muffin pan upside down, bake cookie-dough over the top and voila – you have cookie bowls for fruit or ice-cream. Click here for recipe.
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Freeze Aloe Vera in ice-cube trays for soothing sunburn relief.
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Gutter garden: Create a window-box veggie patch using guttering.
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Use egg cartons to separate and store your Christmas decorations.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, November 28, 2011
The Title Design of Saul Bass - Video
The Title Design of Saul Bass from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.
To celebrate the release of the highly anticipated and altogether fantastic Saul Bass monograph, one of the 11 best art and design books of 2011 and among the most important design books ever published, Art of the Title editor Ian Albinson put together this brilliant brief visual history of Bass’s most celebrated work, which influenced generations of designers, animators, and visual storytellers alike.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Wonder Object on Vimeo
Wonder Object from Mark & Angela Walley on Vimeo.
Artist Gary Schott utilizes his skills as a Metalsmith to create playful and beautiful mechanized objects. This documentary was produced in association with Southwest School of Art. Learn more about their BFA program at swschool.org. Learn more about the artist at GarySchott.com. Learn more about the Filmmakers walleyfilms.com.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Innovation: The Six Sides of the Box
Unless you've been in a coma for the past 20 years, I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase "get out of the box." It's everywhere. Whole industries have sprung up around it, including mine.
No one can deny that getting out of the box is a good thing to do. Seems like a no-brainer, eh? Kind of like helping little old ladies cross the street. Or tearing down the Berlin Wall.
But before you start planning your heroic escape, answer me this:
What the heck is the box, anyway?
What is this so-called thing that keeps us so contained, confined, caged, trapped, claustrophobic, and otherwise unable to succeed?
Let's start with the basics. A box has six sides, including the top and the bottom.
If we can understand what these six sides are, we'll know what we're dealing with -- and this knowledge will improve our chances of getting out. Or, as Fritz Perls once said, "Awareness cures."
Let us proceed...
1. FEAR: If you want to raise the odds of being trapped in a box for the rest of your life, all you need to do is increase the amount of fear you feel.
Fear inhibits. Fear paralyzes. Fear subverts action. Indeed, when fear rules the day, even reacting is difficult. Fear not only puts us in the box, it makes it almost impossible to get out the box.
Fear of what?
Fear of judgment. Fear of failure. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being revealed to be an impostor. Fear of this. Fear of that. And fear of the other thing, too.
Do you think it's an accident that Peter Drucker devoted his entire life to driving fear out of the workplace? Or course not.
Fear sucks. And precisely what it sucks is the life right out of you. There is no box without fear. Get rid of fear and you get rid of the box.
2. POWERLESSNESS: Powerlessness is the state of mind in which people think they have no choice -- that they are victims of circumstance, that the act of attempting anything new is futile.
It's why Dilbert has become the patron saint of most cubicle dwellers.
Some in-the-box people have dwelled in the state of powerlessness for their entire life, going all the way back to childhood, overpowered (or disempowered) by parents, schools, and who knows what else.
If you work in a corporation, you've seen this powerlessness paradigm in spades -- as the "powers-that-be" don't always take kindly to the ideas, input, and grumblings of the "rank and file."
If you're feeling powerless, not only are you in the box, it's highly unlikely that you'll be able to muster the energy, intention, or urgency to get out of it.
3. ISOLATION: Boxes are usually small and confining. Rarely is there room for more than one person. Isolation is the result. There's no one to talk to, no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to collaborate with.
Curiously, solitary confinement is the biggest punishment our society doles out -- second only to the death sentence. Being cut off from the tribe has been a very effective "behavior modification" technique for centuries.
When you're in the box, that's exactly what's happening.
And while your isolation may give you a momentary feeling of much-needed privacy, safety, and relief from the judgment of others, it's fool's gold. Sitting in the dark, being completely on your own, vision obscured -- all reduce your chances of getting out.
4. ASSUMPTIONS: Assumptions are the guesses we make based on our subjective interpretation of reality. They are short cuts. Lines drawn in the sand.
We end up taking things for granted because we are either too lazy to get down to the root of things or too entranced by our own beliefs to consider an alternative.
Ultimately, it is our assumptions that shape our world. The world is the screen and we are the projector, seeing only what we project -- which is all too often merely a function of the assumptions we've made.
As one wise pundit once put it, "When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees our pockets."
Bottom line, we see what we are primed to see. Change your assumptions and you change the world -- starting with your own.
5. MENTAL CLUTTER:
If you find yourself in the box, it would be fair to say that the box contains you. But what do you contain?
If you are like most people in today's over-caffeinated, twitterfied, fast food, information overloaded world the answer is: too much.
With the amount of information doubling every few years, most of us have way too much on our minds. Too much to do and not enough time.
We have no time for musing. No time for pondering. No time for reflecting. No time for contemplating, incubating, or making new connections -- behaviors that are essential to true out-of-the-box thinking.
The result? Not a good one.
We glom onto the first seemingly "right idea" that comes our way -- or else desperately try to declutter our minds with an endless series of mindless distractions that only increase the amount of clutter we need to process. Ouch.
6. NARROW MINDEDNESS:
When you're in a box, it's hard to see. Sight lines are limited. Vision is obscured. We become shortsighted. Our vision conforms to that which confines it. We become, soon enough, narrow-minded.
I'm sure you know a few people like this. Their ability to see beyond their immediate surroundings has become disabled.
When this kind of phenomenon becomes institutionalized, we end up with a bad case of "next quarter syndrome" -- especially in organizations ruled by the need to constantly please profit-seeking shareholders.
Few people are thinking six months out. Few are thinking 12 months out. And almost no one is thinking five years out. Everyone is trapped by the short-term.
What we call "focus" becomes a euphemism for tunnel vision -- just another form of narrow-mindedness that makes getting out of the box about as likely as my credit card company rescinding their usurious late payment fees.
OK. I hope I've not depressed you. That's not my purpose. Neither is it my purpose to obsess about the "problem." But until we know what we're really dealing with, all this hot talk about "getting out of the box" is just hype and a complete waste of time.
NEXT WEEK: Tips and techniques for getting out of the box. Until then, reflect on these questions:
1. What are you afraid of?
2. If you are business leader, how can you reduce fear in the workplace?
3. How can you get reclaim your own God-given power?
4. If you are a business leader, how can you start letting go of control?
5. How can you connect with a more diverse group of collaborators?
6. If you are a business leader, what can you do this week to foster more cross-functional collaboration?
7. How can you identify your three biggest limiting assumptions?
8. If you are a business leader, how can you identify your direct reports' three biggest limiting assumptions?
9. What's the simplest thing you can do this week to decrease the amount of mental clutter in your life?
10. If you are a business leader, how can give people more time think creatively?
11. What can you do this week to dream bigger than you usually do?
12. If you are a business leader, what can you do help your organization conceive a more compelling vision of its future?
No one can deny that getting out of the box is a good thing to do. Seems like a no-brainer, eh? Kind of like helping little old ladies cross the street. Or tearing down the Berlin Wall.
But before you start planning your heroic escape, answer me this:
What the heck is the box, anyway?
What is this so-called thing that keeps us so contained, confined, caged, trapped, claustrophobic, and otherwise unable to succeed?
Let's start with the basics. A box has six sides, including the top and the bottom.
If we can understand what these six sides are, we'll know what we're dealing with -- and this knowledge will improve our chances of getting out. Or, as Fritz Perls once said, "Awareness cures."
Let us proceed...
1. FEAR: If you want to raise the odds of being trapped in a box for the rest of your life, all you need to do is increase the amount of fear you feel.
Fear inhibits. Fear paralyzes. Fear subverts action. Indeed, when fear rules the day, even reacting is difficult. Fear not only puts us in the box, it makes it almost impossible to get out the box.
Fear of what?
Fear of judgment. Fear of failure. Fear of change. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being revealed to be an impostor. Fear of this. Fear of that. And fear of the other thing, too.
Do you think it's an accident that Peter Drucker devoted his entire life to driving fear out of the workplace? Or course not.
Fear sucks. And precisely what it sucks is the life right out of you. There is no box without fear. Get rid of fear and you get rid of the box.
2. POWERLESSNESS: Powerlessness is the state of mind in which people think they have no choice -- that they are victims of circumstance, that the act of attempting anything new is futile.
It's why Dilbert has become the patron saint of most cubicle dwellers.
Some in-the-box people have dwelled in the state of powerlessness for their entire life, going all the way back to childhood, overpowered (or disempowered) by parents, schools, and who knows what else.
If you work in a corporation, you've seen this powerlessness paradigm in spades -- as the "powers-that-be" don't always take kindly to the ideas, input, and grumblings of the "rank and file."
If you're feeling powerless, not only are you in the box, it's highly unlikely that you'll be able to muster the energy, intention, or urgency to get out of it.
3. ISOLATION: Boxes are usually small and confining. Rarely is there room for more than one person. Isolation is the result. There's no one to talk to, no one to bounce ideas off of, no one to collaborate with.
Curiously, solitary confinement is the biggest punishment our society doles out -- second only to the death sentence. Being cut off from the tribe has been a very effective "behavior modification" technique for centuries.
When you're in the box, that's exactly what's happening.
And while your isolation may give you a momentary feeling of much-needed privacy, safety, and relief from the judgment of others, it's fool's gold. Sitting in the dark, being completely on your own, vision obscured -- all reduce your chances of getting out.
4. ASSUMPTIONS: Assumptions are the guesses we make based on our subjective interpretation of reality. They are short cuts. Lines drawn in the sand.
We end up taking things for granted because we are either too lazy to get down to the root of things or too entranced by our own beliefs to consider an alternative.
Ultimately, it is our assumptions that shape our world. The world is the screen and we are the projector, seeing only what we project -- which is all too often merely a function of the assumptions we've made.
As one wise pundit once put it, "When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees our pockets."
Bottom line, we see what we are primed to see. Change your assumptions and you change the world -- starting with your own.
5. MENTAL CLUTTER:
If you find yourself in the box, it would be fair to say that the box contains you. But what do you contain?
If you are like most people in today's over-caffeinated, twitterfied, fast food, information overloaded world the answer is: too much.
With the amount of information doubling every few years, most of us have way too much on our minds. Too much to do and not enough time.
We have no time for musing. No time for pondering. No time for reflecting. No time for contemplating, incubating, or making new connections -- behaviors that are essential to true out-of-the-box thinking.
The result? Not a good one.
We glom onto the first seemingly "right idea" that comes our way -- or else desperately try to declutter our minds with an endless series of mindless distractions that only increase the amount of clutter we need to process. Ouch.
6. NARROW MINDEDNESS:
When you're in a box, it's hard to see. Sight lines are limited. Vision is obscured. We become shortsighted. Our vision conforms to that which confines it. We become, soon enough, narrow-minded.
I'm sure you know a few people like this. Their ability to see beyond their immediate surroundings has become disabled.
When this kind of phenomenon becomes institutionalized, we end up with a bad case of "next quarter syndrome" -- especially in organizations ruled by the need to constantly please profit-seeking shareholders.
Few people are thinking six months out. Few are thinking 12 months out. And almost no one is thinking five years out. Everyone is trapped by the short-term.
What we call "focus" becomes a euphemism for tunnel vision -- just another form of narrow-mindedness that makes getting out of the box about as likely as my credit card company rescinding their usurious late payment fees.
OK. I hope I've not depressed you. That's not my purpose. Neither is it my purpose to obsess about the "problem." But until we know what we're really dealing with, all this hot talk about "getting out of the box" is just hype and a complete waste of time.
NEXT WEEK: Tips and techniques for getting out of the box. Until then, reflect on these questions:
1. What are you afraid of?
2. If you are business leader, how can you reduce fear in the workplace?
3. How can you get reclaim your own God-given power?
4. If you are a business leader, how can you start letting go of control?
5. How can you connect with a more diverse group of collaborators?
6. If you are a business leader, what can you do this week to foster more cross-functional collaboration?
7. How can you identify your three biggest limiting assumptions?
8. If you are a business leader, how can you identify your direct reports' three biggest limiting assumptions?
9. What's the simplest thing you can do this week to decrease the amount of mental clutter in your life?
10. If you are a business leader, how can give people more time think creatively?
11. What can you do this week to dream bigger than you usually do?
12. If you are a business leader, what can you do help your organization conceive a more compelling vision of its future?
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