Business

Today is Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry’s

If you’re near a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream parlor today, make sure you stop by because they’re giving away free cones between 12 noon and 8pm in your time zone (U.S.).

This is Ben & Jerry’s 32nd annual Free Cone Day which they hold as as way of saying thank you to their loyal customers.

Over one million free cones are given away each year and this year is set to be just as big, if not bigger. What’s best though is that participants can stand in line as many times as they want to. Yay.

Find your nearest outlet at the Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shop Locator.

Link

World’s First Ferrari Theme Park Unveiled

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, which is set to open in 2010, is the world’s first Ferrari theme park and largest attraction of its kind.

The Park is located on Yas Island – set to become a global tourist destination with a wide range of accommodation and entertainment facilities – on the North East side of Abu Dhabi’s mainland.

It will fittingly feature the fastest roller coaster in the world, capable of travelling at speeds of up to 125mph and generating the same G-force as driving a Ferrari Formula One car.

More details about the park in the link.

Link

Top 5 Internet Millionaire Kids

#1 – Catherine and David Cook

Age at startup: 15 & 17
Company: My Year Book
Net Worth: $10 million

Bio: Catherine Cook, 15, and her brother David, 17, were looking through their high school year book when they came up with the idea to create a free interactive version online.

Catherine persuaded their older brother, Geoff, who was a budding internet entrepreneur at the time, to invest $250,000 in their idea. The site was launched in April 2005 and 950,000 members joined in the first year.

Fast forward 5 years, and the site has a net worth of around $10 million.

(more…)

Mexican Billionaire Is New World’s Richest Man

Carlos Slim Helu has been declared the richest man in the world – the first time a non-American has held the title for 16 years.

Slim Helu is a telecoms tycoon who controls a number of companies, including Telmex and America Movil. His net worth is a staggering $53.5bn.

Meanwhile, American investor, Warren Buffett fell to third place with a net worth of $47bn, Indian businessman, Mukesh Ambani takes fourth with a net worth of $29bn, and Indian steel magnate, Lakshmi Mittal is close behind, with $28.7bn.

Bill Gates was knocked off the top spot for only a second time since 1995, despite gaining $13bn in the past year. I’m sure he won’t lose too much sleep over it.

Forbes’ 24th list of the world’s richest people sees the number of billionaires rise from 793 last year to 1,011 now. In 2008 the total was 1,125.

Link

Burger Dominance In The USA

Take a look at this ironically beautiful map which illustrates the territory controlled by seven of the largest burger chains in the USA compared to McDonald’s.

Link Via Consumerist

PETA Uses Tiger Woods For Sex

Tiger Woods’ sex scandal has just landed himself on a PETA billboard. Yes, that’s right, PETA.

The animal rights group will launch the ad, featuring Tiger Woods, on billboards in two weeks. The golfer’s photograph will bear the tagline, “Too Much Sex Can Be a Bad Thing”. Underneath the heading, it reads “…for little tigers too. Help keep your cats (and dogs) out of trouble: Always spay or neuter!”

The organization has not got Tiger’s blessing in publishing the ad nor it has a local advertiser to put up the billboard in. “It’s a fun, tongue-in-cheek approach. We hope these billboard companies will understand,” Virginia Fort who worked on the project said. The plan is to erect the ad in Windermere the soonest being in two weeks.

Link Via imwiddstupidd

Pac-Man is LG Logo!

Ever noticed this before? It’s clear that Pac-Man evolved from the LG logo. I think I’m going to have to get an LG phone just because of that.

Via

Man Gives Company To Employees On His Birthday

I think I may have just found the best boss in the world – Bob Moore. Bob Moore, gave his company to his employees on his 81st birthday. Yes, he gave them the WHOLE company!

Moore, whose mutual love of healthful eating and old-world technologies spawned an internationally distributed line of products, responded with a gift of his own — the whole company. The Employee Stock Ownership Plan that Moore unveiled means that his 209 employees now own the place and its 400 offerings of stone-ground flours, cereals and bread mixes.

“This is Bob taking care of us,” said Lori Sobelson, who helps run the business’ retail operation. “He expects a lot out of us, but really gives us the world in return.”

Link

Airline Paints Plane With Idiot’s Guide To Flying

South African low-fare airline, Kulula, have given one of their new Boeing 737-800s a re-branding, by covering the plane with funny remarks and a beginner’s guide to flying.

Some of the cheeky remarks include the captain’s window being marked as the big cheese (”captain, my captain!”), the co-pilot’s window as co-captain (the other pilot on the PA system) and the jump seat  as wannabe pilots.

In addition, the following descriptions of plane parts can be found:

• galley (cuppa anyone?)
• avionics (fancy navigation stuff)
• windows (best view in the world)
• wing #1 and #2
• engine #1 and #2 (26 000 pounds of thrust)
• emergency exit = throne zone (more leg room baby!)
• seats (better than taxi seats)
• some windows = kulula fans (the coolest peeps in the world)
• black box (which is actually orange)
• landing gear (comes standard with supa-fly mags)
• back door (no bribery/corruption here)
• tail (featuring an awesome logo)
• loo (or mile-high club initiation chamber)
• rudder (the steering thingy)
• stabiliser (the other steering thingy)
• a.p.u. (extra power when you need it most)
• galley (food, food, food, food…)
• boot space
• ZS-ZWP (OK-PIK) = secret agent code (aka plane’s registration)
• overhead cabins (VIP seating for your hand luggage)
• fuel tanks (the go-go juice)
• cargo door
• aircon ducts (not that kulula needs it… they’re already cool)
• front door (our door is always open … unless we’re at 41 000 feet)
• cockpit window = sun roof
• nose cone (radar, antenna, and a really big dish inside)

Via Flightstory

Yahoo! Owns Google?

Yes, that’s right, Yahoo! dissed Google on Twitter after Google launched ‘Google Buzz’. When will these internet giants ever grow up? There’s only one way to settle this – RAP BATTLE!

Bolivia Launches New Drink That Puts The Coca Back In Cola

Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, who is known for chewing coca leaves at UN meetings, has launched a drink featuring the leaf called “Coca Colla”.

Intended to rival its more famous US cousin the fizzy drink is at the centre of a plan coca growers from Chapare in central Bolivia submitted to the government last week to boost coca production.

Farmers proposed the name Coca Colla in reference to people living in the Andean part of the country.

The project will be launched in four months and could be either run by the state or a joint partnership with coca growers.

Officials said the drink’s packaging would feature a black swoosh and red label similar to the famous Coke insignia.

Link

Man Gives Away Every Penny of His £3 million Fortune As It Made Him Miserable

Austrian born, Karl Rabeder dreamt of being rich and awed at the comfort money would bring ever since he was a young boy. However, once Karl had made his £3 million fortune, he decided to give it all away because it didn’t make him happy.

My idea is to have nothing left. Absolutely nothing,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “Money is counterproductive – it prevents happiness to come.”

Instead, he will move out of his luxury Alpine retreat into a small wooden hut in the mountains or a simple bedsit in Innsbruck.
His entire proceeds are going to charities he set up in Central and Latin America, but he will not even take a salary from these.

“For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness,” he said. “I come from a very poor family where the rules were to work more to achieve more material things, and I applied this for many years,” said Mr Rabeder.

But over time, he had another, conflicting feeling.
“More and more I heard the words: ‘Stop what you are doing now – all this luxury and consumerism – and start your real life’,” he said. “I had the feeling I was working as a slave for things that I did not wish for or need.

Link

Weird Fact of the Day (02/15/10)

A lot of things are printed around the world every day, but if I were to ask you what is the most printed item in the world, would you know?

It’s the IKEA Catalogue! Yes the IKEA Catalogue  has surpassed the Bible as the most published work on earth, with 198 million copies being printed in the financial year of 2008. That probably makes it the most thrown away book in the world too!

However, the Bible remains by far the best-selling book of all time. The Guinness Book of World Records says 2.5 billion copies have been distributed since 1815, with some estimates suggesting closer to 6 billion. In second place is probably Mao Tse-Tung’s Little Red Book, with around 900 million copies published.

Revolutionizing Bookbinding With Revolver Bound Books

Revolver Bound Books and Journals revolutionizes the ancient art of bookbinding with this patent-pending binding technique that allows the journal to turn inside out and back again around a floating spine – actively demonstrating that there are indeed two sides to every story.

PepsiCo Misses Court Date, Costs Them $1.26 Billion In Default Judgement

This has got to be the most expensive legal secretary PepsiCo ever employed – she cost them $1.26 billion. How? Well, she forgot to deal with a lawsuit noticed that was put on her desk. Consequently, PepsiCo’s lawyers didn’t show up to court, so the judge handed down a $1.26 billion judgement against the company.

In court papers, PepsiCo claims it first received a legal document related to the case from the North Carolina agent on Sept. 15 when a copy of a co-defendant’s letter was forwarded to Deputy General Counsel Tom Tamoney in PepsiCo’s law department. Tamoney’s secretary, Kathy Henry, put the letter aside and didn’t tell anyone about it because she was “so busy preparing for a board meeting,” PepsiCo said in its Oct. 13 motion to vacate.

Link

KFC’s Colonel Sanders Tricks His Way Into Posing For Official UN Photos

A man posting as KFC’s Colonel Sanders tricked his way into the UN headquarters in New York to pose and have his photograph taken with a senior official.

The impersonator, who looks shockingly like the real Colonel, managed to avoid tight security to gain access to the restricted areas of the complex. He even got as far as shaking hands with Ali Treki, the president of the UN General Assembly, before the alarm was raised and he was ejected.

Quite unsurprisingly, Dr Treki denied that he held a meeting with the Colonel Sanders impersonator, claiming that he only shook his hand out of courtesy during the incident on Thursday.

As part of its campaign to promote its new menu range, KFC is “lobbying” the UN for the fictional Grilled Nation to be accepted as a member state.

The fast food giant has written to Mr Ki-moon personally asking for grilled chicken lovers to get a seat, in a letter dismissed by Mrs Montas as “absolutely void”.

Link

McDonald’s Adds Extra Drive-Through Lane In UK

The UK recession has led to a boom in McDonald’s sales as people opt for cheap fast food, rather than splashing out on more expensive meal. As a result, McDonald’s is to open two lane drive-through restaurants to help cope with the increasing demand.

Despite numerous government campaigns for health eating, McDonald’s had its best summer ever in the UK this year, serving 100 million customers a month.

Steve Easterbrook, McDonald’s UK chief executive. told The Sun: “We simply don’t have the capacity to serve the number of customers as quickly as we want to”.

The fast food chain has responded by opening dual entrances so that two drivers can order their meals simultaneously. Menus are also being printed on kerbside signs

The new system is being tested at outlets in Telford, Shropshire, Kent and Edinburgh. If successful, the scheme will be extended to up to 50 McDonald’s restaurants across the country.

Burger King Sells a Windows 7 Whopper

Introducing Burger King Japan’s exclusive Windows 7 Whopper. Yes, a burger with 7 patties, only available for 7 days, and launched at the same time as Windows 7. Anything for a sale, huh?

Via Engadget

It’s Official: Your Bullying Boss Really Is An Idiot

I’m sure it will give many of you great satisfaction to know that new research has proved that leaders who feel incompetent really do lash out at others to temper their own inferiority.

The research was carried out by psychologists at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles who led a series of experiments to explore this effect.

In one, 90 men and women who had jobs were asked to complete online questionnaires about their aggressive tendencies and perceived competence. The most aggressive of the lot tended to have both high-power jobs and a chip on their shoulder.

In another, the volunteers were asked to select a punishment to be given to university students for wrong answers in a hypothetical test of learning. Volunteers chose between horn sounds that ranged from 10 decibels to a deafening 130 decibels.

The volunteers who felt the most incompetent and empowered picked the loudest punishments – 71 decibels on average. Workers who felt up to their jobs, selected far quieter punishments, between 55 and 62 decibels, as did those primed to feel incompetent yet powerless.

They also found that flattery seemed to temper the aggressive urges of insecure leaders.

So there we have it – your bullying boss is simply an idiot, if you didn’t know that already, and to temper the idiocy, all you have to do is flatter them, if you can pain yourself to do so. Alternatively, a swift kick to the…wait, don’t do that. Flattery is best.

Link

New Fan Technology By Dyson Is Awesome

The Dyson Air Multiplier fan works very differently to conventional fans. It uses new technology to draw in air and amplify it 15 times. With no blades or grille, it’s safe, easy to clean and doesn’t cause unpleasant buffeting.

Dyson explain the technology as ‘air being accelerated through an annular aperture and over a 16° airfoil-shaped ramp, generating an uninterrupted stream of smooth air. Huh? This video fully explains how the technology works so we can all understand it.