Reddit /r/place
Instead of trying to fool people every year on April Fools day Reddit creates a social experiment for users to take part in, last year’s was The Button this years is known as Place. On the sidebar of the front page is a link to a new subreddit called /r/place.
Essentially the idea is that people can place 1 pixel down onto the board in a variety of colours and after 5 minutes you can do this again, this repeats until the experiment is over. After a while people start to make stuff with the pixels on the board but others try to get rid of what you make, as you only have access to 1 pixel every 5 minutes if you want to keep something up on the board you’ll be forced to work with other Redditors to continually redraw the same image.While it only lasted 72 hours the experiment was something that got widespread attention and people are already trying to create their own clones of /r/place.
Nimuno Loops
For many years Lego, Megablocks and other construction-based toys have helped spark creativity in the minds of kids and adults alike. While traditionally you are restricted to working with flat surfaces the adhesive-backed Nimuno Loops tape take all the fun of creating 3D models and can quite literally turn it on its head.
As well as being able to stick on to any surface the Nimuno Loops tape is flexible enough to create its own new surfaces to build off of and much like standard tape is easy to cut into whatever size pieces you need, most importantly though the Nimuno Loops tape works with any standard Lego block and with the receiver tape, can become part of an existing Lego model.
The tape is currently being crowdfunded on IndieGoGo and at the time of writing has already smashed its initial goal of $8000 with people having given a total of $1,531,290 while still having 10 days remaining.
Blockhead
The MacBook charger has always been known for being very bulky, especially when comparing it to standard appliance plugs. The Blockhead turns this problem on its head by offering an option to plug in your charger from the side instead of having it sticking out while also adding a splash of colour.
As the plug adapter is a universal size it can be used with any large MacBook chargers, medium iPad chargers in addition to small USB chargers. At $19.95 for one or $34.94 for 2, it’s not expensive but also not cheap, it’s all a matter of whether having a bulky charger sticking out from your wall is a big enough problem for you to want to spend the money on the Blockhead. Personally, if there was a UK version of the adapter I would consider it but I’m certainly not in any major rush to get one.
Migrant Business Show
Run by fellow Ravensbourne incubatee and founder of Mi-Hub Rafael Dos Santos the Migrant Business Show is an event where migrant entrepreneurs showcase their businesses to people in hopes of receiving future business opportunities.
While not being a migrant entrepreneur myself it was fascinating to see the broad range of businesses on show from a new and innovative storage service all the way to IT solutions for large companies.
The event also doubled as a party for the launch of Mi-Hub’s new office space in Aldgate. By day the space will not only be a place for Mi-Hub and its operations but a place where migrant entrepreneurs can develop their own businesses, network with like-minded people and work in the heart of London at an affordable rate.
Subtleties of Czech Culture: Prague Metro Stations
While living in Prague I found that quite a lot of things people consider to be a boring part of their everyday lives are actually pretty interesting to those who haven’t experienced them, one such example is the design of the Metro stations in Prague.
The use of anodised metal to make patterns and signage is quite striking especially when you realise that every station has a distinct colour palette that has a lot of hidden design detail embedded into it.
Beyond the front-facing aesthetic layer if you know what to look for you can actually read the patterns in shapes and colours to see where you are in relation to the city centre and what lines connect to the station you’re currently at.
The best example of this can be seen at Mustek, Muzeum and Flora stations where the mass number of concave domes indicates the density of the area they reside in, central Prague.
With clever use of colour, people can also identify which lines can be connected to via the current station. While the Green line uses domes to show these different lines have methods such as the red lines use of rectangular tiling.
Due to the level of design detail being so subtle it wouldn’t surprise me to find that even few of the local residents know of this little life hack, but if you’re ever in Prague and need a little help navigating just remember to look at the station’s walls and you might get a hint.
