To quote my wife after I sent her the link to this song, "it sounds kind of 80s / i mean like 80s power ballads / which i LUUUURVE". Yes, you are right, wife. This song is awesome. [thanks chris]

Sung with Charlotte Gainsbourg, the video is absurdist and delightful. [via waxy]

I have two videos for you to watch. This first one is about a NatGeo photographer who was shooting a hooge leopard seal that decided to first offer him penguins and then teach him how to eat them. Pretty awesome.

Next is a funny video from Andrew. Watch as Japanese people pretend to get shot by a pretend gun. Good times.

Wow, How I Met Your Mother is popular. An hour after tonight's episode, this phrase was the top search. If you're curious, the LvM is a pickup technique in which you litter the internet with dozens of pages about a unique, fake name and subtly encourage a girl to Google your name, where she finds stories about your brilliance and wealth. You can figure out the rest.

I feel like this was a challenge amongst the writers to see how quickly they could hit the top of Google Trends. It also reminds me that the show's audience skews young. It doesn't have the broad appeal of Friends, but that's part of what makes this the Friends of the aughts.

For the last couple months, I've been following Chad Ochocinco's tweets (he's a wide receiver on the Cincinnati Bengals). Chad is known as a bit of a clown* but is a really hard worker and an excellent receiver. He's known for his inventive touchdown celebrations and desire to be loved by everybody. He's definitely succeeded in converting me as a fan.

Unlike Terrell Owens, a fellow clown who is a phenomenal talent but toxic in the locker room, Chad is liked by his team and loved by fans. Since joining Twitter several months ago, he's started to give back to his fans. For each of the home games, he flies one of his Twitter followers out to watch from the stands. Originally the idea was that they would tweet in his stead, but that didn't seem to happen.

He's also not afraid to announce his location (especially when he's at a mall, which is often). In fact, he'll often ask fans to give him a lift or meet him for dinner when he's out of town. When he's at home, he often offers to bring 100 fans to a movie (and they show up!).

You could argue (accurately) that's excellent at marketing himself, but after following along for a bit, I just think he's a good guy. He seems to hang with fans and work hard on he enjoys it. To me, it's a typical case of a perosn putting in hard work at something they love and having the success follow.

* See: his last name, which used to be Johnson, but is now officially his nickname, a poor Spanish translation of 85

When all of the augmented reality apps started shipping for the iPhone, I started thinking of the most useful applications of the concept. While it's entertaining to see subway stations all around you, I have a harder time remembering people.

I want an app where you can hold your iPhone up and point it at a group of people, it will recognize the faces of those in your contacts list (iPhoto already has facial recognition) and show their names. You would also be able to go back and look at previously taken photos to see who is in them for a reminder. And maybe, in some future world where privacy concerns aren't an issue, I'd be able to see the names of friends of friends with links to some of their profiles on the web.

Writing this, I remembered I thought of something similar for DVDs. Then I found this Nokia video below (via Nick Bilton) that shows something pretty similar to the app I want. I do like Nokia, but it's funny they're calling this the technology of 2015 when we could probably do this today.

On occasion, I buy things. Since I am lazy, I like it when companies come to me and inform me of their new or cheap wares. This is why I check that box on their site that lets them send me newsletters.

It's a fair deal. They send me information I want and in return I trade them money for goods. Everybody wins, except most of the time.

Oh really? I can now get a $25 discount on a future purchase of swim trunks if I buy $175 worth of linen pants? Is the 15% discount on all striped pantwear you mentioned on Saturday still applicable? Too bad the buy 3 children's AFC North hats get 2 NFC South ladies earmuffs deal is over, because that was doozy.

I'm being clever here, but I would like to tell every manager of every newsletter everywhere to never send me more than 2 emails a month. I signed up for info on new products and sales, not an email carpetbombing. This may have worked with catalogs when that was the only way to access your products from home and they were highly disposable, but I have a computer that maintains a consistent connection to the internet and it's usually within arms reach. Reminding me you exist on a near-daily is annoying, useless and puts you one step closer to my spam folder.

So please, tell me when you have something new or something awesome or something cheap, but do not send me four emails a week about anything. I will unsubscribe and then I will not hear about anything you're doing. And then no one wins.

This Volkswagen factory in Dresden is beautiful. The outside is almost completely glass, the floors are made of hardwood and the parts are transferred by robots that move along thousands of magnets embedded in the ground.

When the production process is a work of art, it makes the end result feel more impressive. Some companies, like Apple, focus on beautiful packaging, but it doesn't say much about the craftsmanship. Unlike the iPod, the Phaeton — the luxury car built at the Transparent Factory — is not an impulse purchase.

Seeing the care put into its creation makes dropping $75,000 (minimum) on a car an easier pill to swallow. More importantly, it makes you believe, or at least hope, that they put the same effort into producing their more affordable cars.