Coasters with the iphone home icons on it. While an interesting idea, at $62 for the set, it might be more worthwhile to just spring for bricked iphones to use as coasters.

iphone coasters

2 years from now people will look back and kick themselves at the missed opportunities available.

So simple, yet this is something that I would pay to have. I guess it could double as some sort of anti-war sttement that they spend too much money on guns and……etc….whatever it just looks cool.

I have seen similar ones of these in the MoMa, but they were made out of McDonalds bags and were cut into trees which actually made the tree pattern pretty well. The Euro building below looks pretty good, but were they not aware that Euro’s are still a valuable commodity?

What is it about a wall of money that makes other people want to write on money and stick it on a wall? Reminds me of that place in chinatown that the greeks like to tag up / deface. Question is, what do the restaurants do with the cash when they run out of money? And yes they do take down the walls of cash.

[via WebUrbanist ]

“Another client was Fix Asset Management, which had an account worth at least $400 million with Madoff Investments. The firm said it’s checking with lawyers about the holdings.

“We are very shocked,” John Fix, the son of founder Charles Fix, said by phone from Greece. “We put in redemptions in the past few months and got our money back no problem. We are just so surprised about all this.”

I actually interviewed with this company for a Due Diligence position……..so I probably would be fired by now if had I got the position. As a side note, this “asset management” firm is actually just some family with a lot of money and bends to the whim of their father who still heads up the company even though he is 80 something years old. They made him get on the phone while they interviewed me and I am pretty sure he was snoring while on the phone. Their english skills are also quite poor, I cant imagine how they even managed to do the due diligence on Maddoffs funds.

At least Maddoff he had some credentials to back it up, unlike that guy who ran a hedge fund with famous athletes / actors investors and ran it out of his Etrade account with no real financial statements. Guess that is how he managed to get real hedge funds to invest and not just pretty people with money.

Live.com is offering 25% cashback on purchases.

Steps for iPhone deal
1. Go to live.com. Search for “ATT” or “ATT Wireless” and then look for the 25% cashback link.
2. Click on 25% cashback link. At this point, you have to enter your existing live.com account or create your own live.com account
3. Purchase the iPhone
4. Wait for email confirmation of the 25% cashback.
5. Take that saved 25% and go buy the accessories - cases, new headphones, extra charger, spiffy new shoes.

Yes it does work.

They actually integrated the butterfly (or mystical flying creature) into their fashion show as well.

Speaking of Dior, I noticed a guy rocking Dior sneakers in the rain.
Dior sneakers in the rain….a little background, Dior sneakers go in the range of $300 - $600 a pair made of thin leather material. Rain would probably melt them off. If the rain doesnt get ot them, the impossibility of getting dirt off leather would.

But they sure look good…

How costly? Sending only 1mb of data would cost you $1310 in text messaging fees. So how can you curb this down? Send email instead to peoples texts —
Use the extensions below. There are some applications which was narrow this down for you for $5.
Either way, now that AT&T has upped the costs to 20 cents per text, costs are going to rise a lot more quickly.

Free Email To SMS Gateways (Major US Carriers)
Carrier —- Email to SMS Gateway

AT&T (formerly Cingular)
[10-digit phone number]@txt.att.net
[10-digit phone number]@mms.att.net (MMS)
[10-digit phone number]@cingularme.com
Example: 1234567890@txt.att.net

T-Mobile
[10-digit phone number]@tmomail.net
Example: 1234567890@tmomail.net

Verizon
[10-digit phone number]@vtext.com
[10-digit phone number]@vzwpix.com (MMS)
Example: 1234567890@vtext.com

151 Orchard St
New York, NY

Staple’s annex store which has been used for pop-up shops is going to be used for Gizmodo’s upcoming gallery display. Whats there? Theres no complete list up, but they have a partial one up for things thus far -

- Panasonic Flatscreen…103″
- Live “WILL IT BLEND?” demo.
- Back to the Future Delorean! With the matching Nike Hyperdunks, too!
- FREE laser etching!! Bring your gadget and some vector art and we’ll tag it up for you!
- OG Sony Walkman display.
- The Lego Death Star.
- The RED One Camera.
- Ancient Apple Prototype Exhibit
- Wierd Japanese gadets

I cant say that an OG walkman would be the top on my list of things to see, but the 103″ flatscreen should be pretty awesome as well as the free laser etching. I wonder if that could take the place of a tattoo…no?

Gallery times -
12/4 Thursday (12pm-8pm)
12/5 Friday (12pm-8pm)
12/6 Saturday (11am -8pm)
12/7 Sunday (11am,-4pm)

If you’re in the neighborhood, definitely worth checking out. I’m more interested in how Staple is branching out into different areas (cars, art, electronics) and not just street wear.

Speaking of Asia, Stader & Muller’s recently put up a Johnny Walker ad at Warner Village in Taipei, Taiwan. If you know anything about Taiwan, Warner village is sort of the Americanized hangoutspot for shopping and eating (theres an Olive Garden there….which weirded me out enough for me to not want to try it).

Whats interesting about this is that Taiwan isnt very big on the creative advertisements. If you check out their ads on tv, all commercials are basically the same, coupled with billboards here and there throughout the city. Out of the ordinary ads are generally….out of the ordinary.
Hopefully this puts Taiwan in a better direction, it is such a condensed city that it would almost be a shame to follow the path of traditional advertisement.

If you go overseas to say Asia, people tend to get a lower salary (no not everyone over there makes 2 cents an hour in a nike factory). But people working in real occupations tend to make say 40k as a nurse and are not taxed on that salary. Compared to generally the salary of a nurse here (~70k) that may seem like a pretty big difference, but lets compare after tax of say 35%, that leaves 45.5k. That’s still higher than overseas, but then you factor in the fact that the cost of living over there is much lower as well.

A studio in Asia’s in the heart of the city, near a subway stop - $400/month
A studio in NYC in the heart of the city, near a stubway stop - $1700/month

Cost of a week of meals eating out in Asia - $2 breakfast, $3 lunch, $6 dinner = $77/week
Cost of a week of meals eating out in NYC - $4 breakfast, $8 lunch, $14 dinner = $182/ week

Cost of living per year in Asia = $8804
Cost of living per year in USA = $29864

Total cash after expenses / tax ( asia ) = $31196
Total cash after expenses / tax ( NYC ) = $15636

Obviously these are pretty rough numbers, but the difference is pretty dramatic.
I am soo moving overseas if when I become unemployed.