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Inward Investment, Magic and Love

As the world becomes more and more global and the European national political and economic frameworks remain stressed, each city is left to its own devices to attract inward investment and keep and grow talent.

In researching this area for a number of UK cities, a friend in the US sent me the link to this video.  It is so clever on so many levels you have to watch it more than once:

Enjoy!

Oh, and anyone thinking of moving into a new career of iPad magic shows, please let me know!  I would love to learn how to do this kind of magic!  Brilliant!

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Shaving, Saving ….. and Laughing

Once in a while you see a viral video that makes you laugh so much you want to cry!

It is also BRILLIANT marketing!

My thought for this Thursday is:

Could you create a short video with with such simplicity and humour?

Doubt it!  Go on, surprise me!

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The Duck and the Bee

Once upon a time there was a duck

And the duck thought it was in luck

When it saw a tiny little bee

Buzzing in a nearby tree.

–

For the duck saw a chance

To show that it could advance

Into higher planes above the lake

Wherefrom it had been born a drake.

–

However, the bees in the tree

Had other ideas, you see.

The bees saw the duck

As a great chance to suck….

–

Suck what? I hear you say!

Ah, well, the bees could not pay

For the new nest they were creating

So the duck was definitely worth bating.

–

The tiny bees flew out of the tree

And began to sting the duck, you see.

So the duck quacked and quacked

And far away from the lake it flapped!

–

So the bees then drank from the lake

And stung any beast that came near to drink

And they quenched their thirst when it was sunny

So they could then to create lots and lots of honey.

–

The morale of this tiny fable that you all can take,

Is that however much a duck wants to rise up from the lake,

The little bees from the tree have other ideas that’ll mean, you see,

The duck can never elevate itself into the trees like a bee!

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The Scale of Things

I was chatting to Oscar the other night and he pointed me to a really interesting site:

If the frame above does not work for you, then you can link to the site HERE.  It makes you think how extraordinarily small in the Universe we are.  And how big we are too!  If you did not see my previous entry, the great 1977 video from IBM: “The Powers of Ten”, then have a look at that too.

The day before, I had come across another rather more abstract view that sets a new world record for representing a Mandelbrot Set – which gives a bit more of a zany trip towards infinity.

Oscar liked it – and called it “trippy”!

I hope these two views stretch your mind to think a bit more about our place in the Universe, touching both your left and right brains.

As ever, please feel free to comment below.

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Four Beautiful Christmas Trees

In celebration of the time of the year, I found these four sets of elegant Mathematical Formulae which I thought would make excellent Christmas Trees!  As we leave 2011, here are two that celebrate the symmetry of eleven:

                               +

                      1 x 9 + 2 = 11
                    12 x 9 + 3 = 111
                  123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
                1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
              12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
            123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
         1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
       12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
    123456789 x 9 +10 = 1111111111

                       =====

                          ===

And here is another that balances the tree above with another set of elevens:

                                   *

                             1 x 1 = 1
                          11 x 11 = 121
                      111 x 111 = 12321
                   1111 x 1111 = 1234321
               11111 x 11111 = 123454321
            111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
         1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
     11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
  111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

                                =====

                                   ===

And for those of you who believe, like the Chinese, that “8” is lucky, I have dressed this one in red:

                               +

                      9 x 9 + 7 = 88
                   98 x 9 + 6 = 888
                 987 x 9 + 5 = 8888
               9876 x 9 + 4 = 88888
             98765 x 9 + 3 = 888888
           987654 x 9 + 2 = 8888888
         9876543 x 9 + 1 = 88888888
       98765432 x 9 + 0 = 888888888

                           =====

                              ===

And finally this one, my favourite, which took me ages to decorate!

                                +

                       1 x 8 + 1 = 9

                    12 x 8 + 2 = 98

                  123 x 8 + 3 = 987

                1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876

              12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765

            123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654

          1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543

        12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432

      123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

                           =====

                              ===

A very happy Christmas and successful and abundant New Year!

 

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What a Prank!

For those of you who know me, I have spent so long in the Telecoms Industry, that I simply love to wind up the appalling degradation of customer service over the past 15 years.  What a fantastic prank our colleagues in Belguim pulled-off here to reverse the situation! Enjoy!

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