Here at ArcStone, we only dream of the kind of corporate office angst that spawns entertainment like this:

• ^ ^ ^ Crazy and hilarious video compilation of corporate peons going postal to the tune of Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day.”
• Five Minutes to Kill Yourself. A flash game where you have only five minutes to kill yourself before a mandatory meeting.
• The USB Rocket Launcher. Nick has one of these and can testify to its usefulness in dispelling office tension. Now that he’s found the USB extension cable, he’s twice the threat.
• Scott Adam’s Blog. Who better to get you through the day than the evil genius behind Dilbert? (I should mention that ArcStone has not one cubicle and nary a Dilbert comic pinned up on the wall.)
• Corporate Gibberish Generator. In case you’re stumped for copy on your website. (Joking. You were tempted, weren’t you?)
• Online Anger Management Classes. Maybe it’s safer this way — no risk of beating up your classmates.

Edit: I forgot one. Get Yourself Fired. For those who *really* hate their jobs.

Any lover of words invariably goes through a phase of trying to learn all of the group names for various animals. You know the obvious ones:

a school of fish
a flock of birds
an army of caterpillars
a pride of lions

And the not so obvious ones:

a troubling of goldfish
a trip of goats
a wake of buzzards
a battery of barracudas
a parliament of owls

Perhaps it’s a bastardization of the English language to take this concept and apply it to something other than animals, but I was trying to come up with a name that describes a group of links. And then…of course… I couldn’t leave it at just that. Imagine the possibilities. (more…)

I tend to be a very thorough and detail-oriented person… at least I hope so (there are other words for it, but we’ll leave it at that). So naturally, when I’m writing code - whether it’s xhtml, CSS, ActionScript etc - I try and keep things neat, clean and easy to read. I indent like it’s going out of style, I strive for consistent naming conventions, and I use descriptive variable and function names.

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Anyone else notice the makeover gone wrong over at Blingo?

For the un-initiated, Blingo is a search engine where you are eligible to win a prize for up to 25 searches a day. I have been using it for about the past four months, and not too long ago won a $5.00 Amazon gift certificate. The regular search results were — until very recently — powered by Google.

Well, Spring has sprung and change comes with it, but in this case not for the better. Blingo’s reconstructive surgery has left it one hot mess. Now with intermixed results from Yahoo, LiveSearch, and Ask, inquiries on Blingo return mostly useless results. Nice work, Publisher’s Clearing House.

Boo. Hiss.

One of my favorite days of the year. Endless possibilities for marketers, and so much fun.

Highlights in the ‘net-o-sphere today:

• If you’ve got a Google Docs account, sign in and open a new document. Under the file menu you should see an option for New Airplane. As Nick says, “Be careful. It’s in beta, so it may crash.”


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Tags:entertainment Fun Funny

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In an effort to simplify audio visualization experiments with ActionScript 3.0, I’ve developed a SoundData class. The class’s main attraction is centered around the flash.media.SoundMixer.computeSpectrum() method, but it also provides additional control over playback, including startSound(), stopSound() and toggle() methods. The class also allows manipulation over volume and panning.

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I realize it’s been a while since my last flash experiment covering Audio Visualization with ActionScript… but fear not - I haven’t been taking a break. Very much the contrary

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I listen to a lot of audio books. I have had a subscription audible.com for over four years and have amassed a personal audio book library of over 150 books. For $21.95 per month I can download any two books in the audible.com collection - usually the retail value of each book is in the $30 - $50 range, so I figure it’s a pretty good deal.

I typically use my phone for the listening, which is nice because you always have it with you and it enables you to make really good use of car time. Currently I use an iPhone, prior to that I used my Treo, before that I used my Audiovox PDA running Windows Mobile (*cringe*, but I thought it was cool at the time). I have learned a ton doing this and would sooner lose my Tivo than my Audible subscription. I highly reccommend developing an audio book habit if you don’t have one already.

Of the 150 books in my library, I have gone out and purchased physical copies only three times. I am just finishing Kieth McFarland’s The Breakthrough Company and will be going to the book store to buy the physical book as soon as I’m done.

The majority of business books seem to focus on either the start-up stage of a company (think Starting on a Shoestring by Arnie Goldstein) or large company issues and sustainability (think Good to Great by Jim Collins). The Breakthrough Company fills a gap by focusing on the stages between start-up and massive. It profiles nine companies (much in the style of Good to Great) and through research and comparison has teased out principles and tactical priorities that have differentiated successful, growing mid-stage companies from those less successful.

If you don’t have the time to read it, go to Audible or iTunes and give it a listen - it’s well worth the price of admission.

Last week, Adobe officially announced the release of AIR - Adobe Integrated Runtime. My December post on the power and integration of AIR only scratched the surface of what it is capable. In fact, it may have only tilted some heads and failed to communicate the potential of the new technology…

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On February 16th, 6 ArcStonians raced in the Minneapolis Valentine’s Day 5k around Lake Harriet. We survived, and I have the pic to prove it:

From left to right: Me, Ryan, Bart, Jess, Jess (friend of Tim), Tim, Nik. Don’t ask me what kind of face Tim is making.

Go ArcStone!!!