David Lidsky's Blog, page 4893

Yoink: Part Craigslist, Part Dumpster Diving, It's an iPhone App for Freecyclers

It's the world's first app for crap ... a crapp.

If you dropped big cash on an iPhone 3GS and spend $100-plus a month on service, the makers of a new app figure you could make up the difference in scavenging quality free stuff from the neighborhood.

The Yoink iPhone app, scheduled to officially launch next week (it has technically been available since mid-January), helps you do just that, using the phone's built-in GPS. So if there's a toaster oven that someone is trying to get rid of a few...

Coming Soon: "Melting" Drywall That Cools Your Home

A new type of dry-wall could shave 20% off of cooling costs.

Not too long ago, it would have been sci-fi, but "phase change" materials are making their way to the U.S.: ThermalCORE, a new type of dry-wall panel created by National Gypsum and BASF, promises to help cut cooling costs with tiny little wax molecules that melt by day and harden by night.

Your typical dry wall is just a sheet of plaster, coated in paper-pulp; it's used in almost every building that goes up today because it's...

Cycling Snobs and Lit Snobs Agree: Huzzah for The New Yorker Bike Jerseys!

Monocle not included with a new line of cycling gear.

Retro, a company that makes cycling apparel, has announced their newest product: A pair of jerseys emblazoned with covers from The New Yorker.

The men's jersey design comes from a 1929 cover by by Theodore G. Haupt, depicting a bicycle race with a heavy Art Deco gloss. The women's jersey is a newer design, drawn by Ana Juan for a 2008 cover. According to the press release, it depicts "a femininity both delicate and strong."

Leaving...

Super Bowl XLIV Ad Quiz: 30 Brands. 30 One-Second Ads. How Many Can You Spot?

What do you do if you want to advertise on the Big Game but only have a $100,000 ad budget? Try a one–second "blink" ad. It's a daunting design challenge to get a powerful brand message to stick.

Seventy-five thousand fans will jam into the Sun Life Stadium on Sunday to watch the New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts compete for the Super Bowl ring. If you can't afford the obscene ticket price, you can join the other hundred million who will be in their living room or man cave glued to an...

The Boy Scouts Turn 100

When publishing tycoon William D. Boyce started the Boy Scouts of
America in 1910, he envisioned a program that would teach boys courage
and self-reliance. As it prepares for its $4 million centennial
celebration, the group needs a healthy dose of both. Membership has
eroded since 1972, when it peaked at 6 million. Some supporters have
yanked funding because the Boy Scouts still bars members who are gay or
atheist. Now, the country's largest male-youth organization must rally
the troops -...

National Biodiesel Conference and Expo

So many things suffered in 2009 -- and you can add biodiesel to the
list. Oil prices sank, taking biodiesel demand down with it; the EPA
was late drafting its renewable-fuels standard, delaying federal
mandates that were supposed to help biodiesel gain a foothold in the
market; and the EU, the U.S. biodiesel industry's largest market,
imposed tariffs on American biodiesel. And yet the tone at the 2010
National Biodiesel Conference in Grapevine, Texas, will be decidedly
upbeat. That could, in...

Teens in Tech Conference

Any parent seeking to make a kid feel inadequate need only point to
17-year-old Daniel Brusilovsky. The Californian is founder and CEO of
Teens in Tech Networks (for young media producers), a TechCrunch
writer, and a marketing manager for mobile-video startup Qik. The whiz
kid, who's cochairing this San Francisco conference, says his
generation has the power to lead technological innovation, citing
Facebook as inspiration. Does he hope to be the next Mark Zuckerberg?
"I'm the kind of...

The $30 Billion Man

It could be the understatement of the fresh decade to say that the government's bailout of large Wall Street firms--known as TARP--was not super popular with most folks. And for good reason: The very people who got us in this mess were, rightly or not, perceived as getting off easy while the rest of us suffered.

Now the Obama administration is hoping a new lending program will go some way toward ameliorating the situation (not to be confused with The Situation). The White House is...

Infographic of the Day: What Crises Could Crush Us in 2010?

A map connecting the myriad risks to the global economy.

Last weekend, the World Economic Forum held its annual meeting at Davos, and the theme this time was "Improve the State of the World." Which naturally meant coming to terms with the risks out there. Their economists came up with a comprehensive list and assigned probabilities to each--and also mapped the linkages between each one. Then they summarized all those findings in a handy dandy interactive map that's sure to delight paranoid...

Hack the Rainbow: Social Media Abuse Forces Skittles Web Site Redesign

Companies are leaping aboard the social media platform left, right and center...but a recent re-design to Skittles.com shows that it's not a simple game to play. Skittles change was forced by social media abuses.

Last year Skittles tried a radical approach, reshaping its online presence such that the primary message came not from Skittles itself, or its PR team--but from the ongoing online conversation about the brand, fed from Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

But of course that opened the...