When you travel to foreign countries, some words and gestures may work differently than you expected. Be cautious!
Category Archives: Videos
The lumbersexual
Would you like to be as free as this man?
All you have to do is grow a beard and join the ranks of the lumbersexuals, a new fashion and lifestyle trend for men. (If you’re a woman, there may still be hope even without a beard). Its typical exponent has been described by GearJunkie as
He is bar-hopping, but he looks like he could fell a Norway Pine. He looks like a man of the woods, but works at The Nerdery, programming for a healthy salary and benefits. His backpack carries a MacBook Air, but looks like it should carry a lumberjack’s axe.
The commercial, by the way, was made by Urban Beard, a Canadian cosmetics company that sells organic beard grooming products.
My question to you: is this a real thing or just an invention of marketers? Does it appeal to you?
Quirkology
Today we talked about the word stunt, which is used differently in English than in German. Here’s a video about party stunts:
Richard Wiseman, a psychologist from the UK, also runs a blog with more interesting videos about optical illusions and the power of imagination.
By the way, Quirkology (the name of Richard’s YouTube channel) is a made-up word (from quirky = weird, eccentric and a standard Latin suffix). So quirkology is the science of the weird and eccentric.
The changing themes of commercials
Have a look at these three commercials. What has changed from the 1980s until today?
Lifestyle Sports discounter (Ireland), 1980s
Speak ‘n’ Spell (Texas Instruments), 1980s
Coca Cola, contemporary
A phone to feel good about?
Since we were talking about sustainable product design last week, discussing the need for longevity and repairability as well as social and environmental values becoming a natural part of doing business, there seems to be a cell phone accomplishing theses issues: the Fairphone 2. It’ s a modular phone, ethically produced, open and build to last.
The only point to raise questions is why the developers have chosen Android 5.1 Lollipop with Google Apps and Google Play Store as operating system. Sure there would have been alternate solutions…
The story of stuff
The Story of Stuff is a series of videos about impacts of our consumer culture on people and the planet. Here’s one about electronic devices:
You will find more information on the Story of Stuff website.
The weird world of numbers
Last week we did some maths, trying to compute the side length of a cube that would contain our average yearly per-capita oil consumption in the Western countries.
If you’re more deeply interested in how mathematics work in English, I can recommend a wonderful series of videos by the wonderfully enthusiastic Dr James Grime and his colleagues. Here’s an example:
Go and check out the rest at their YouTube channel, Numberphile.