Since that story broke, new instances of mass animal deaths have been popping up around the world. 300+ Turtle doves in Italy, hundreds of dead pelicans…

…150 tons of red tilapia in Vietnam, 40,000 crabs in Britain, 2 million dead fish in the Chesapeake Bay…

In what was perhaps one of the most tragic instances of animal deaths, the beloved Twitter bird was found dead among the thousands of black birds in Arkansas.

Someone posted a link to this Google Map that is tracking the mass, unexplained animal deaths around the world. The mass deaths are more than a little unsettling when you see them all displayed around the world like this.

Needless to say, end-of-the-world theorists are pointing to this as definitive signs that time is short for everyone on this planet while end-times scholars are trying to find new ways to interpret these animal deaths according to verses in Revelations.

Before anyone gets too carried away, it’s important to remember that mass animal deaths like this occur all the time. On average, 163 such events are reported to the federal government each year, according to USGS records. And there have been much larger die-offs than the 3,000 blackbirds in Arkansas. Twice in the summer of 1996, more than 100,000 ducks died in Canada.

But that explanation is too boring. The end of the world makes for much better conversation around the water cooler, right?

Just for fun, let’s jump on the conspiracy bandwagon for a minute. What do YOU think is to blame for all these unexplained animal deaths around the world? Military Experiments? Global Warming? Signs of the times from Revelations? Glen Beck?

Weigh in with your explanation below… (the more far-fetched, the better)

Do yourself a favor, skip the 22 minute sitcom you were going to watch on Hulu during your lunch break or later tonight and watch this instead. The illustrations and explanations make it easy to understand, plus, you’ll be able to throw around economic terms like “planned obsolescence” or “externalized costs” at your next party.

(If you found this video interesting be sure to check out the other videos from The Story of Stuff Project)

Here are a few of the statistics they shared in the video that I found most disturbing:

• Over the past three decades, one-third of the planet’s natural resources base have been consumed.
• In the United States, we have less than 4% of our original forests left.
• Forty percent of waterways in the US have become undrinkable
• In the U.S., industry admits to releasing over 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals a year.
• The average U.S. person now consumes twice as much as they did 50 years ago.
• Each person in the United States makes 4 1/2 pounds of garbage a day. That is twice what we each made thirty years ago.
• For every one garbage can of waste you put out on the curb, 70 garbage cans of waste were made upstream to make the junk in that one garbage can you put out on the curb.

Here’s the question I’ve been pondering since watching this video, How do we raise children in this consumeristic society without them jumping on the consumer hamster wheel themselves?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for social justice causes and I love seeing more corporations becoming socially conscious, but don’t you think you could show even the tiniest bit of creativity when creating a new product or campaign? Competition is good. Outright copying is lame.

What do you think of the new Bobs shoes?

And then, it was on.

Accompanied by Fallon’s house band The Roots, Fallon and Timberlake took to the stage and ran through a virtual history of hip-hop, starting with the Sugar Hill Gang classic “Rapper’s Delight” before touching on The Beastie Boys, Snoop Dogg and Eminem, among other rap luminaries.

Check out Jimmy and Justin getting their rap on in the video below.

Gotta love the combined talent of Jimmy & Justin. It’s no wonder this video has gone viral overnight.

There were a lot of different eras and styles of rap represented in that video…Which era of rap did you grow up in? Which type of rap/hip-hop (if any) do you throw on the boombox now?

I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way. 12 for 12 and I’m done. I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread … I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically.

That’s quite the statement for a successful author to make. You’ve got to remember, we’re not talking about a small-time author – in its first two years of release, Purple Cow sold over 150,000 copies in more than 23 printings and The Dip was a Business Week and New York Times bestseller. So what is making him jump ship?

Godin’s little gem of a statement is right in the middle of that quote when he talks about trying to get people to “pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread.” That is what separates the traditional publishing industry from electronic forms of idea distribution like blogs – if you can’t Tweet it, Like it, Digg it or email it, then how will you spread it?

I’m not saying that books are a thing of the past but I do agree with Godin that there are some significant paradigm shifts about to rock the publishing industry over the next decade or two. The earliest waves of that shift are already starting to hit the magazine world which often relies on current news stories to sell their stories. How can a traditionally published magazine keep up with the speed and flexibility of the Internet where stories trend and fall into obscurity before a printed page can even hit the stands?

Do you agree with Seth Godin’s quote? Are books on the way out? Will authors start dropping traditional publishers in favor of electronic mediums?

If for some reason you haven’t seen the movie yet then I should point out what should be obvious by now: SPOILER ALERTS BELOW.

So for everyone who has seen the movie (or for those of you who haven’t but are just nosey and want to keep reading anyway), were you as sucked into that story as I was? I didn’t know whether to stand up and clap at the end or throw my popcorn at the movie screen. Instead I just said, “Whoa” and then realized how much I sounded like Neo from the Matrix.

Of course, a movie as complex and popular as Inception simply begged for designers to jump in with stylish info-graphics analyzing the many intricate levels of the movie. Here’s a few of the more popular ones I’ve seen floating around the Internet.

There, everything make sense now?

Probably my favorite explanation of the movie was this hilarious video from CollegeHumor:

“Sorry, my bad. Sometimes my thoughts of my dead wife manifest themselves as trains.”
“So everyone has weird neurosis but for some reason yours can disrupt other peoples dreams?”
“Just this once…maybe another time.”

lol…ahh, what is it about our strange fascination with being confused?

So, here’s the million dollar question…

One invention that most older people have been forced to adapt to is the cellular phone. Nearly everyone has one. And yet in the 10-15 years that cell phones have been around, another shift has come: texting.

I read an article in the most recent Wired Magazine called, “The Phone Call Is Dead – How text messaging is threatening (and preserving) the telephone conversation.” In it the author noticed a trend in his cell phone bills in recent years that many of us have probably seen as well. He found that his mobile phone minutes have been steadily decreasing while his text messaging usage was increasing.

According to Nielson, the average number of mobile phone calls we make is dropping every year after hitting a peak in 2007. And our calls are getting shorter: In 2005 they averaged 3 minutes in length; now they’re almost half that. We’re moving, in other words, towards a fascinating cultural transition: the death of the telephone call. This shift is particularly stark among the young. Some college students I know go days without talking into their smartphones at all. This generation doesn’t make phone calls, because everyone is in constant, lightweight contact in so many other ways: texting, chatting, and social-network messaging. And we don’t have just more options than we used to. We have better ones: These new forms of communication have exposed the fact that the voice call is badly designed. It deserves to die.

The author goes on to say how our culture chose to adapt to the text message because it’s a better method of communication. When we call someone, we’re interrupting them. It’s the phone equivalent of showing up at someone’s home unannounced and ringing their doorbell. We have no way of knowing if this is a good time to talk for them or not. The text message is less intrusive and more polite. Using our illustration above, it would be akin to slipping a note under someone’s door. They can read it and reply when it’s convenient to do so.

Alas, for those poor couples at the restaurant table across from me the other night, their world just keeps changing. Just about the time they get used to talking on cell phones in the car, along comes texting, DMs and Facebook. What’s next?

Just for fun, I put together a little poll to find out how you prefer to communicate. Choose one of the answers and then, if you want, let me know your thoughts on the future of communication in the comments below.

I grew up in the 80s, which weren’t perfect of course but still tame by comparison to today’s entertainment scene. MTV had just come on the scene and featured lots of big hair and cheesy music videos. Artists like Michael Jackson or Madonna pushed the envelope and caught flack for their “edginess.”

Today is a different story though. It seems every time I pull up a news page one artist or another is making headlines for setting the bar lower still with some racy music video or concert publicity stunt.

Lady Gaga, no stranger to controversy, released her latest music video on Tuesday for her song ‘Alejandro.’ It features Gaga dressed in a latex nun’s habit, sucking on rosary beads and at the center of a gay orgy dressed in a crucifix-emblazoned robe with a cross over her crotch.

Katy Perry (remember the one who “kissed a girl” and liked it?) made news when she publicly slammed Lady Gaga’s blasphemous video saying “Using blasphemy as entertainment is as cheap as a comedian telling a fart joke.” In the article I read about Katy’s issue with Gaga, the author added at the end in a humorous touch of irony, “The teaser for Katy Perry’s ‘California Gurls’ video, in which frosting shoots from her breasts, was also released Tuesday.”

Hello Pot? Yeah, this is Kettle. You do realize you’re black too, right?

And don’t even get me started about Miley Cyrus’ shenanigans. You would think that an artist that started off her career appealing to young kids as Hannah Montana and openly professes to be a Christian would hopefully display some restraint and at least think about the example she is setting for her fans.

But of course, Miley proved indeed that “nobody’s perfect” when she decided to release a rather risque music video for her latest song and then went on to further generate controversy with her extremely sensual bumping, grinding and fake-kissing in a couple of live shows in Britain and Spain.

But don’t worry parents, Miley helped set the record straight for all her young fans on her blog: “I just want to put an end to this right now and just say one thing to everyone out there making this performance such a big deal. GET OVER IT! NOTHING HAPPENED. THERE ARE WAYYYYYYY MORE IMPORTANT THINGS IN THE WORLD!”

So yeah, this is the world that I’m raising my two daughters to grow up in. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t scare the crap out of me. Sure, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry are setting new lows for what’s acceptable but where does it go from there? What will the “new low” be that the next artist sets? When Disney stars are bumping, grinding and almost-making-out on stage while their TV shows air on Disney every day, what will the next generation of kids entertainment look like? Where will it end? Will our world ever stand up and say Enough? Or are doomed to watch each generation try to out-do the last and push the envelope further still?

I don’t even know if I want to know the answers to those questions. I’m just a Dad to two little girls trying my best to raise them right in a world gone wrong.

So what do you do with all those cassettes of The Eagles sitting in your garage? Turn them into a necktie of course!

These Recycled Cassette Tape Neckties ties are made out of something called “sonic fabric” which is woven from 50% recorded audio cassette tape and 50% colored thread (his same “sonic fabric” is even used to create a sweet-looking fedora). Here’s the best part – since the ties are made out of recycled cassette tapes, the fabric is actually audible if you run a tape head over it! Although I wouldn’t advise trying to play your tie – play them backwards and you might hear “Satan…Satan…Satan…”

If you could have a sonic-fabric tie made out of one of your old cassette albums, which one would you choose?

This tongue-in-cheek ad campaign for the Swedish newspaper “Dagens Industri” disguised as a case study in the future of advertising pokes fun of the social media phenomenon.

There’s no doubt that there are tremendous benefits to be gained through social media tools. Some of my best business contacts, church connections and even friends have come through social networking sites. However, it’s easy for organizations to go overboard and get stranded at sea, desperately clinging to the sinking lifeboat of failed social media attempts (hey, I’m milking this metaphor for all it’s worth!).

I’ve had a number of opportunities lately to advise organizations (especially churches) about the best way to integrate social media into their brand. While I’m hardly an expert, I do have a few suggestions. The advice I give most frequently? DON’T DO IT!

• Don’t do social media just because everyone else is doing it. Remember what your mom used to say, “Just because all your friends jump off a bridge…”
• Don’t launch your social media efforts prematurely. Splash around in the kiddie pool before you take off your floaty and jump into the deep end.
• Don’t do it all. There are a lot of fish in the sea. Throwing a few lines out is good but if you have too many you’ll probably get your lines tangled.
• Don’t venture into social media without a well-thought-out strategy. It’s an awfully big ocean out there and it’s easy to get lost at sea. Think through your strategy before embarking into open waters.
• Don’t do social media if you’re looking for a miracle fix. Social media is a tool to help your organization communicate with your fans and followers. It’s not a silver bullet. Jumping on the social media boat will not instantly make you cool, hip or connected.
• Don’t do social media if you can’t do it well. The social media ocean is littered with the floating remains of abandoned Twitter profiles, under-utilized Facebook accounts and YouTube accounts with one video from 2007. If you don’t have the time or people to do it well, wait until you can.
• Don’t do it if you’re looking for instant results. With all the buzz about viral campaigns some people think that after their first Tweet they’ll instantly start an international sensation and the followers will come by the thousands. Not true. Growing your presence in the social media landscape takes time.

These are just a few reasons I advise people or organizations to hold off on social media. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge social media advocate and love when I see companies that utilize it well. I would just rather see more organizations that look before they leap. There’s already enough abandoned ships on the social media ocean.

What advice do you have for organizations looking to venture into social media?