Cupidtino will allow your Macbook, iPad, iPhone and iPod be seen as dating assets, rather than geeky gadgets that could turn away a potential partner.

The dating site will provide a platform for Apple fans to chat, meet and hookup. It’s planned to launch in June this year. Currently on its website, the following message is displayed:

Cupidtino is a beautiful new dating site created for fans of Apple products by fans of Apple products! Why? Diehard Mac & Apple fans often have a lot in common – personalities, creative professions, a similar sense of style and aesthetics, and of course a love for technology. We believe these are enough reasons for two people to meet and fall in love, and so we created the first Mac-inspired dating site to help you find other Machearts around you.

Cupidtino will launch in June 2010 exclusively on Apple platforms – including sweet location-based social apps for the iPhone and iPad.

Apparently Cupidtino was started by two developers and one designer who have worked for impressive organizations like Google, Microsoft and Yahoo in the past. The company is based in San Francisco and is currently hiring a new developer, new designer and a PR consultant.

Even if you think that Cupidtino is a lame idea, it has already developed a buzz online in the last few days and also gained a few hundred Twitter followers in the process.

Currently, there are already niche dating sites for the extremely wealthy, the beautiful and just plain wacky pet-lovers. So it was only a matter of time we would see a dating site dedicated to Apple fans.

What do you think of the idea? Would you even join Cupidtino out of curiosity?

The new program launched by Kraft Foods means that Mac-users finally have the freedom to decline working on a PC. While trendy PC-users? can choose to run Windows Vista/7 Ultimate rather than the standard Windows XP.

Not only does Kraft Foods offer the flexibility, but the company will also offer to subsidize part of the cost if you choose to work on your own computer.

Bring Your Own Computer lets you purchase the computer of your choice, giving you the flexibility to accomplish your work on your own computer in your own way, when and where you want. Kraft Foods helps pay for the costs with a stipend. In return, you agree to maintain your own computer and follow certain guidelines

The company outlines a few minimum system requirements for the program that is pretty standard. PCs has to run Windows Vista/7 Ultimate and use the Home, Business, or Professional editions. Intel Mac running Snow Leopard has to be equipped with at least a 2GHz processor and 2GB of RAM.

Before you think you can finally slack off at work by downloading songs and playing World of Warcraft, employees also have to comply with the usual company policies regarding software, security and data requirements.

Currently, “Bring Your Own Computer” is only being rolled out to Kraft’s salaried employees in the US. However, the company does have plans to expand the program globally.

If Kraft Foods ever starts supporting work-related items like the iPad, I know who I would want to work for before my next big gadget purchase.

Coming from a well known third world country, and being rather sensitive to these issues as a caring soul, the theory behind the designboom.com Shelter Cart competition struck me as very interesting.

The concept of the competition was to create a shelter cart to benefit those homeless who needed something that could benefit them during their daily lives.

Although this competition is quite old; one design, in particular, has stood out among the rest. Gregor Timlin with the help of Barry Sheehan of Sharc Design came up with this nifty invention that not only houses the homeless but makes their travelling and “collections” that much easier to handle.

It is not that uncommon to see homeless people struggling along, collecting bottles, cardboard and other various knick-knacks to help earn a few cents here and there; particularly here in Africa where millions of people are jobless and without even the basic day to day necessities that we take for granted, such as running water and proper sanitation.

While, Gregor Timlin has categorically stated that “the project is not seen as a solution to the social problem of the homeless but instead as a method of raising awareness about the issue,” one can only hope that such a great idea and concept will be put to good use in the future, perhaps as an advertising tool for companies, and in turn a fabulous way to protect the many homeless who need a place to call home.

Besides, these unsung heroes deserve something special as a thank you for their never-ending work on cleaning, clearing and general recycling in my opinion.

[source]

Whilst, these days, game characters such as the Big Daddies from the Xbox smash hit Bioshock set gamers pulses racing, one can only imagine how truly unnerving the works of Hieronymus Bosch were in their time and, of these, his work The Garden of Earthly Delights serves as testament of his freakish visions borne, seemingly, on the fringes of a surrealist nightmare.

In truth – and without delving too deeply into the subject (and the politics) of fine art history – Hieronymus Bosch was not a Surrealist as he was producing work long before the likes Andre Breton (the founder of Surrealism) had arrived on the scene – Bosch died in 1516 – but the Surrealist movement certainly took a great interest in his work, and its not hard to understand why.

Now, you’re probably wondering why we are featuring these on TFTS?

Simply put, in an age where we seem so enamoured with curious, freakish and apocryphal computer game characters and comic strips it is hard to understand why the work of artists such as Hieronymus Bosch have not seen a renaissance. After all, if you are looking for characters that truly haunt the mind and that set the nerves on edge there isn’t a game or comic out there whose characters come anywhere near to the truly grotesque, nightmarish characters as conceived and painted by Bosch.

Hopefully, however, the release of these figurines of characters featured in Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights will serve to draw in a new, younger audience as far as his great and decidedly unsettling work is concerned.

At the time of writing, two figurines taken from painting The Garden of Earthly Delights are available – the Bird-Headed Monster and the Helmeted Bird Monster – with each being intricately hand painted and cast from resin and presented in a presentation box complete with a miniature print of the painting itself as well as a history of Bosch, his work and the inspiration and meaning behind the master’s work in four different languages.

Each figurine retails for 49000 South Korean Won – which is approximately $53 / £26 / €37.

Incidentally, by way of a footnote, whilst drafting this article, I happened across a host of further Hieronymus Bosch inspired collectible figurines that may be of interest.

The object was caught on the shuttle’s cameras purely by chance as the astronauts were conducting a last minute once over of the shuttle’s exterior prior to its planned return today. Resembling a jelly fish, the object could be any number of things which may or may not be considered critical for Atlantis’s safe return to Earth with NASA stating that it could be anything from an ice formation to piece of plastic trimming.

The Fist Image Captured of the
Mystery Object
(Courtesy of NASA)

At present, however, the exact details of the mystery object remain unknown and if it cannot be identified then another space walk seems inevitable. Of course this isn’t the first time on this trip something has seemingly been let loose as a bolt was lost into space a few days ago and is now presently circling the Earth in low orbit.

Close-ups of the Mystery Object, which
seemingly resembles a jellyfish
(Courtesy of NASA)

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This evening, for no apparent reason, I decided to enter my surname into a search engine to see what it would return.

I am not entirely certain as to what led me to do this, but I would venture that there is a fairly strong chance that you have either done exactly the same yourself already, or that you will think that I must be a particularly sad case in having done this, only to then go and do it yourself.

What was I hoping for? This I cannot answer, but I can say that even though I was not aware of having any particular expectations, I know that what I did find fell way below the expectations I was not consciously aware that I even had. It was as if, unconsciously, I had thought that the returns would somehow, in some strange and unfathomable way, perhaps serve to define who precisely I actually am – and I do appreciate that this in itself sounds at best bizarre, and at worst wholly ridiculous.

And, if you are thinking along those lines, I have some good news for you as, if I were to truly define myself by search results emanating from a search term that happens to be my surname, then I have tonight discovered that I am, for want of a better word, a condom.

The saving grace here, if there must be one – and for me, in light of this shocking revelation, I do indeed feel there must be – is that, following further research, it would appear that I am a condom whose users are, in the main, rather complimentary towards.

“This has got to be the best condom yet, we love it!!!” writes one satisfied user on one of the many sites offering Mint Tingles.

Unfortunately, just at the point where I was winning the battle to successfully convince myself that things were not that bad after all – a condom I may be, but a damned good one – I then made the silly mistake of clicking another of the returned search results, only to find that I come in the form of a lubricant as well.

At this point I thought it best to cut my losses.

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