Pengcognito

Notes from the penguiverse

This week’s penguin: Penguins on wheels!

Posted by pengcognito on July 3, 2009

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This week’s penguin: Vast Wasteland: The Next Generation

Posted by pengcognito on June 26, 2009

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This week’s penguin: On the classic penguin Father’s Day gift.

Posted by pengcognito on June 20, 2009

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This week’s penguin: Technological solution to an age-old problem.

Posted by pengcognito on June 12, 2009

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This week’s penguin: Is it my imagination, or is the cutoff for “old fart” getting earlier?

Posted by pengcognito on June 5, 2009

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This week’s penguin: More things for kids to not talk about in front of adults.

Posted by pengcognito on May 29, 2009

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This week’s penguin: One way to handle the financial crisis.

Posted by pengcognito on May 22, 2009

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Life imitates cartoon, again, sorta – Penguathlon!

Posted by pengcognito on May 21, 2009

New Zealand hosts penguin sports tournament

New Zealand is the penguin capital of the world, home to nine of the 16 species of living penguins, so it was fitting that it should host the world’s first ‘Penguathlon’. 

The event running this month at the Kelly Tarlton Arctic Encounter in Orakei, just outside Auckland, sees King and Gentoo penguins go beak to beak in five icy events – football, Frisbee, surfing, swing ball and waddle races.

But the Penguathalon is about more than just delighting visitors. It showcases a variety of the enrichment activities developed by the curatorial team to ensure the physical, mental and emotional well being of the birds in its 80-strong colony.  (read more…)


And here’s how they do it in my penguiverse:



Posted via web from Jen’s posterous

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Perry Ellis owns the penguin! and anatomy of a human DOS attack?

Posted by pengcognito on May 21, 2009

From Google:

“Per a complaint from Perry Ellis International, we are investigating the use of the term ‘PENGUIN’ as it relates to their brand.”

I never would have guessed, though Jen Goode (of www.jgoodedesigns.com) did – she’s had her own run-in with them over her insanely adorable (and entirely original!) penguin tshirts.

Google also says:

“As we mentioned earlier, our review process is manual and mistakes do occur.”

So now I’m kind of feeling sorry for Google. Does it count as a denial of service attack when the resources being tied up are human? 

Step 1: register a common word as your trademark

Step 2: trawl Google ads for your word and issue automated complaints

Step 3: wait till all of Google’s humans are tied up manually investigating your complaints

Step 4: do something nefarious (like suddenly put out a ton of ads using everybody else’s trademarks…? [1] ) 

Hmmm…

[1] Yeah, I’m not very imaginative when it comes to nefarious. 

Posted via web from Jen’s posterous

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This week’s penguin: It’s that time of year again, when penguins (and humans) perform heroic feats of cycling for a good cause.

Posted by pengcognito on May 15, 2009




And now, a word from your human:

Sponsor me, feel good, get a penguin.

Michael and I will be cycling in the American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure fund-raising event again. This will be the seventh Tour for us.

Did you know that research shows that giving is a terrific way to feel good? I am not making this up; generosity turns on the same parts of the brain that usually light up in response to food or sex. I’m just saying. (Here’s the actual journal article, for science geeks.)

As in previous years, I’ll be making an exclusive “Tour de Herring” cycling-themed episode of Pengcognito; anyone who sponsors me will get their own shiny printed signed copy.

Everyone who doesn’t sponsor me will have to wait till 2010 to see it on the web.

(Yeah, a cartoon. What, did you think I was going to give you a live penguin? You don’t want one. They bite.)

Previous thank-you penguins can be seen here:
Tour de Herring! And why you want to be riding in front…

and here:
Penguins bike in some weird places.

and here:
Penguins on bicycles, for a good cause.

So go here for a penguin, and an opportunity to feel great!

Posted via web from Jen’s posterous

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