Interesting idea, shape coins according to their value relative to a dollar, or 100 cents in the case of Australian currency… a semi circle coin would be 50 cents, quarter shaped coin, 25 cents.

Easy on the eye if nothing else though.

Via Authentic Boredom.

Anyone can learn how to toss a coin to their advantage – most of the time anyway – with one person managing to make a coin land heads up 68 per-cent of the time from 300 tosses.

This study shows that when participants are given simple instructions about how to manipulate the toss of a coin and only a few minutes to practice this technique, more than half can significantly manipulate the outcome.

With every 6000 flips a coin – statistically – will land on its edge once creating what has been called a flipistic singularity… here’s hoping something like that doesn’t have repercussions for the space-time continuum.

An amazing collection of model bridges, towers, and assorted other objects made entirely from carefully stacking coins on top of each other.

But, how about using cash to send mail, rather than a stamp? Could that work?

The letter was adressed from me (Philadelphia), to my girlfriend in NY. 39 Cents composed of one Quarter, one Dime and four Pennies were attached into the spot where a stamp would normally go. An additional 5 cents (nickel) was attached at the bottom right corner of the letter as a “tip” to the postal worker.

I think the outcome of this “experiment” may have been an error though… take a close look at the “after” photos of the envelope to see what I mean.

Font Creation Case Study: Joules: an in depth look at the font creation process by Alec Julien. Many years ago the thought of creating a font set appealed to me, until I realised just how much time and effort the process requires. I simply wouldn’t have the patience to see such an undertaking through. +

Coin Flipping Isn’t Fair: if Stanford says it’s so, it must be so…

Three Stanford statisticians concluded that a flipped coin caught in midair has a 51 per cent chance of landing the same way it started. Their data comes from a mere 27 flips, recorded with a high-speed camera in a Stanford lab. It would take 250,000 flips to experimentally confirm such a small bias, but for now, the authors advise giving coins a vigorous pre-flip palm shaking to randomize the coin’s starting position

Mind you 51 per cent isn’t too bad. To be sure maybe we could roll a dice instead. Even number I win, odd number you win? +

Opera’s Antitrust Complaint: Microsoft Must Support Standards: browser manufacturer Opera is taking Microsoft to court in Europe over its failure to provide adequate support for web standards in the Internet Explorer browsers.

Although Internet Explorer is certainly the least standards-compliant of the major browsers today, each and every release of Internet Explorer has included improved standards support. It seems that Opera is saying that Microsoft’s slowness to develop Internet Explorer is in itself an illegal and anti-competitive act.

As Kevin Yank points out Opera may have an uphill battle ahead of them proving such an allegation, but there’ll be a few frustrated designers having a chuckle about the lawsuit… +

You’ve Got Letter: I can’t even remember the last time a penned a handwritten letter. First my handwriting, is, and always has been, atrocious, and second, electronic communication, complete with spell checking and coherent presentation, is just too easy. At least I’m not the only one who doesn’t write/scribble letters anymore.

Every December we go back to Mexico for the Holidays and spend time with our families. And every December, invariably, my 91-year-old grandmother asks me to write her a letter “every now and then”. I always say yes but, eight years later, I have only sent her one. As another family gathering nears, and another year passes where I don’t write a letter, I wonder if I’m the worst grandson ever. I find some superficial comfort knowing that it’s nothing against my grandma, as I don’t write letters. Period.

While I can’t see myself being involved, would you believe my Parker Jotter appears to be out of ink, you however may be interested in taking part in Craig Oldham’s hand.written.letter.project, which seeks to somewhat revive letter writing.+

Airbag: As Seen from Around the World: ever wondered your website looks like in other timezones? +

There’s nothing like crunching after dinner cheese and crackers over intelligent conversation. And where oh where do they keep finding these “fresh” topics of discussion?

I was quite amused to recently find myself in the middle of a very animated discourse about money. Not that you’re really surprised on that count? But I’ll stop beating about the bush, we were debating at what point we stop picking up dropped, or discarded, coins we see lying on the footpath, or in the kerbside gutter.

Enlightening after dinner talk surely. Some points of view were presented quite passionately. Someone insisted she picked up every coin she saw, considering it to be “good karma” of sorts. It seems the humble five cent piece leads to bigger and better things, like a 20 cent coin, which in turn eventually leads to the one dollar coin.

Were we to follow this “argument” through to its… logical conclusion, I expect you would one day end up claiming the grand prize, the one hundred dollar note.

Another claimed never to pick up any coins whatsoever; he didn’t “need” to. Notes of any denomination were another matter however. Others said they would pick up one or two dollar coins, but nothing less.

I tended to agree with the last point of view. Though if I saw a tasty 50 cent coin, I’d just have to consider stooping down and bagging it. Then again logistics and location will play a big role in determining my “plan of action”.

I was at the bus stop one morning a few weeks ago. Preoccupied in my usual early morning semi conscious daze. Alert yet inert. Then a glimmer caught my eye; a shiny two dollar coin! It was almost on the gutter/road cusp, and therefore potentially in view of all at the bus stop. Yet no one seemed to have noticed it…

Therein lay my problem however. Do I walk over to the gutter, and in front of all assembled, brazenly, and at the same time, non-chalantly, pick up this gleaming prize? I mean some of these people could have been neighbours. I may never live down the embarrassment; especially if it should turn out one of those gathered was exclusively a “note collector”.

Oh, the shame of being seen as only going after the “small game”. But crunch time was rapidly approaching. A bus was nearing the stop and I would have to act quickly. Then I had an idea, it wasn’t the bus I waiting for anyway, so once it had picked up its passengers, and fewer people were left at the bus stop, I would “make a grab for the booty”.

Fortune does not favour the foolish it seems. The approaching bus pulled into the stop, and before I could blink, a schoolboy stepping off the bus had spotted and retrieved the damn coin, right before my eyes!

Needless to say I didn’t share this tale of woe with my dinner companions. What a shame, two dollars almost buys a coffee. Maybe it is a “karma” thing after all. If only I had picked up that five cent coin I saw yesterday…