Welcome to Conspire’s Fun Friday Links, a weekly collection of interesting discoveries from around the Web. Most of the time, the goal is to get you thinking differently about innovation, collaboration, business culture, and life in general. Other times, we may toss an infographic or fun video your way. Submissions are welcome, and you can send them to conspire@mindjet.com for consideration.
MobCraft Beer Becomes First to use State’s Crowdfunding Law
From: JS Online
Laws allowing and regulating equity crowdfunding are brewing all over the country. As soon as Wisconsin got its law on the books, it was tapped for the best use humanly possible: BEER.The founders of MobCraft have taken getting friends to chip in on a twelver to the next level. How very deliciously innovative of them.
“Equity crowdfunding got off the ground in Wisconsin Wednesday, as Madison’s MobCraft Beer announced an agreement with a bank to help with the state’s first deal using the new investment vehicle. MobCraft is teaming with Monona State Bank, which will handle money the craft brewer will seek to raise under a recently enacted law that lets private companies sell stock over the Internet to people of modest means.”
Strap an iPad to Your Face with a Virtual-Reality Gadget for iOS
From: CNET
Do you think that Google Glass is just too svelte? Is the Oculus Rift just not Apple-y enough to satisfy your iOS-driven VR desires? No worries, now you can strap an entire iPad straight to your face! Really! No more looking at people, where you’re going, and definitely no more looking cool. Check out the picture in the article and let us know if this is groundbreaking innovation, the end of society as we know it, or just plain goofy.
“Raise your hand if you already have an Oculus Rift. Not many of you, huh? Raise your hand if you already have an iPad Mini or have ordered an iPhone 6 Plus with a Retina Display. That’s a lot. The creators of the AirVR project on Kickstarter did the math and decided the quickest way to get virtual-reality-headset technology to the masses would be through adapting existing iOS devices.
The prototype looks like a weird set of goggles with straps that go over your head. The iPad or iPhone slips into a mount on the front and you look through two lenses at the screen. It works in conjunction with apps that have been optimized to display in two parts so that each eye gets a separate image feed.”
The Oldest Jokes Meet the Crowdsourced Wisdom of the Internet
From: The New Yorker
People have depended on the crowd to evaluate jokes since the first neanderthal comedian stood on a rock in front of her friends and made a grunting noise that sounded like a tiger fart. Now, the power of Internet-sourced crowd has been used to judge the jokes from the world’s oldest known joke book. The reaction is the expected collective groan you would expect from 1,000-year-old jokes, but this makes the study no less interesting.
“As Professor Mary Beard informed us last week, the world’s oldest joke book, the Philogelos, has been around for thousands of years. And it’s even been online for a few years. But not until last week was it possible to bring the power of Internet crowdsourcing to evaluate those jokes. Even the best of these oldsters never crested a rating of 3, which signified only “somewhat funny.” The low ratings are not all that surprising, simply because having to rate humor rather than experience it makes it less funny. “
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