Industrial paper airplane folder.

This is what happens when engineers play with paper airplanes.

It takes about three seconds for the automatic paper airplane folder (for lack of a better term) to convert a plain sheet of paper into a fully functional, flying paper airplane. The machine-precision extends even to the flying: every airplane flies along the same flight path into a cardboard box a few feet away.

'Case study' on improving factory efficiency

This is the story of the toothpaste factory that had a problem detecting empty toothpaste boxes at the end of the assembly line.

Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.

The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution — on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using some high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box weighing less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done.

A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints, and they were gaining market share. “That’s some money well spent!” – he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report.

It turns out, the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should’ve been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren’t picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.

Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before it, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes out of the belt and into a bin.

“Oh, that — one of the guys put it there ’cause he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang”, says one of the workers.

Regardless of whether it's just a made-up story or not, it's still a good way to look at things. Sometimes the solution is easier than expected.

Too many passwords!

When a website forces me to use upper case, lower case, numbers, and symbols in my password...

via 9gag

"Would you really take a game such as this so seriously?"

With 800,000 copies sold, Takeshi's Challenge is by no means an unknown game.

But, it was still a very niche game in the grand scheme of things and it never went any further than being released for Famicom in Japan (which is probably why you've never heard of it).


Japanese personality Kitano - Beat Takeshi to his fans - is a comedian, actor, writer, director, chat show host... he's best known for the insane gameshow Takeshi's Castle (and also as the teacher in the movie Battle Royale), but there are few mediums that haven't known his touch (the Japan Times once referred to him as "the king of all media"). It was just as Takeshi's Castle launched in Japan in 1986 that Takeshi began to dabble in video games.

Kitano originally claimed that the idea for the game came to him while drunk in a bar. The box says it all: "This game is made by a man who hates video games". The only advice given to prospective players? "Common sense is dangerous."

Watching people talk about this game with a mystical, utterly bemused recounting of how it came to be developed is utterly brilliant. Watching the game being played is ever better.

Pepsi Max brings you the Unbelievable.

I don't normally go for reposting advertising campaigns unless it's contextual to the post I'm writing, but this one really caught my eye.

It's a fantastic implementation of augmented reality where unbelievable visuals are played over the top of a live camera feed which is embedded in a bus stop in central London.

I love the execution and the people's reactions (whether they're actors or not), it's a great example of using AR technology for something other than experimental purposes.

If you know the agency that created this campaign, please write it in the comments below.