In the early and mid-90s, Pharcyde (along with De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest) were the kings of alternative hip-hop. Featuring socially concious rhymes, jazz-influenced beats and some extremely talented raps, The Pharcyde acheived moderate commercial success, culminating with their appearance at Lollapalooza 1994, before things started taking a turn for the worst, with several members leaving to form solo projects. “Drop” was one of the few songs Pharcyde had to chart with Billboard, hitting #5 in the rap charts and featuring this great video directed by Spike Jonze, who worked with several Pharcyde-related projects in his career. Spot the Mike D and AdRock (Beastie Boys) cameos!

Watch the video for “Drop” by The Pharcyde after the jump..

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In our previous posting we saw post-WWII (1940s-1950s) Soviet propaganda poster art, now we have a mega-gallery of posters, featuing over 1200 pieces and covering the years 1917 until 1991, the hayday of Mother Russia design. Many of these works are stunning, with of course many striking tones of red used throughout. I hope many of these originals are well-preserved.

See more: Flickr gallery of Soviet propaganda art

Please excuse the light postings that we’re giving you this weekend (and early next). We’re currently at several meetings in Vienna, Austria, discussing blogging, social networking and exchanging ideas and information with a room full of nerds. Always a fun experience.

For anyone interested, we are at Barcamp Vienna (currently blogging LIVE!!!) and for the next few days, will be attending Blogtalk Reloaded, two very interesting meetings happening in Vienna this weekend, which we couldn’t resist bringing our special brand of nerdiness to. If anyone happens (by some small chance) to also be in town and attending, feel free to leave look us up, we have beards.

While many see shopping as a normal, everyday activity, there are many who understand that sometimes it’s a bit more sinister than that. Many stores today utilize various psychological tricks in order to coerce the potential buyer into parting with their hard-earned cash, often times in exchange for something they weren’t really interested in purchasing in the first place. Known as Architectural Psychology, companies are spending millions in order to design their stores utilizing tricks to make you spend more money. Thankfully, a group of consumer-advocates have put together a small A-Z list of architectural tricks that stores use, so you, the consumer can learn a little more about the ways your favorite electronics or grocery store may be trying to manipulate you.

Read more: Architectural Tricks to Control Consumers

Perfect for offices that have a problems with wallspace, these giant monster sticky notes are almost as large as one’s head, meaning, you’ll always be able to cover up your coworkers notes, getting you one-step closer to that promotion you’ve been dreaming of. Called the Genius Pad, these giant sticky note pads measure 30cm x 30cm and come in Classic Yellow (just like the ‘real’ sticky notes). Unfortunately the 100 and 150 sheets package are sold out, but, there are plenty of 300 sheet packs left!

Read more: Arash and Kelly’s Giant Sticky Notes

The classic science fiction series Dune is one of the major bodies of work in the genre, having influenced many major movie and television films and countless science fiction novels in the time since it’s publishing in the mid-60s. One of the films to be heavily influenced by Dune was Star Wars, an influence that George Lucas is happy to admit to. Surprisingly, there were many homages to Dune in the early Star Wars scripts, though most of the Dune-like scenes were cut, there are still quite a few references in the final works which can easily be identified as clearly being influenced by Herbert’s magnificent work. Thanks to the mega-nerds at Star Wars Origins, there is an extremely informative piece on the history and influences behind Frank Herbert’s Dune and a detailed list of Dune references within the original Star Wars.

Read more: Frank Herbert’s Dune and it’s influence on George Lucas

Hold on to your bandwidth, cause this is a monster post. Cosmos: A Pesonal Voyage was a 13-part documentary series studying the origin of life and our place in the universe, produced in 1978 and 1979 in Los Angeles by Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan and Steven Soter for PBS. The budget was huge for a public-television documentary at the time, clocking in at roughly $8.3 million US, with it being rumoured that the LA affiliate, KCET, went into heavy debt due to it’s production. But it all worked out in the end, with the documentary being a huge hit, winning an Emmy and Peabody Award and being broadcast in more than 60 countries by over 600 million people. Cosmos was the most widely watched series in the history of public television until the 1990′s Civil War documentary.

Watch all 13 episodes of Carl Sagan’s “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” here! (Thanks to DXG for the link!)

Looking through Flickr photo sets of business cards, trying to find a good high quality print shop for my soon to be announced new company, I stumbled upon Keven Mitnick’s card for Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC. Celebrity hacker, activist and security consultant, Keven Mitnick has been legit for several years now, doing high-paying security talks and naturally, consulting. His business card is perhaps some of the best imagery I’ve seen for marketing one’s business, him being quite a well-known hacker turned security consultant, what screams “I know security” better than a business card that also functions as a pop-out lock-picking set? An absolutely brilliant idea and many props go out to Mitnick and his design team for envisioning and following through on the idea so fashionably.

Read more: Mitnick’s business card photo on Flickr | Mitnick Security Consulting

Buyer beware is an old adage, but, it usually involves buyers being aware of scams or offers that were too good to be true. Lately it’s taken on a different meaning. Many buyers now must beware of the fine print (and even the fine print’s fine print) so easily concealed on just about every unit of packaged merchandise sold. Enter consumer advocate MousePrint.org, a consumer-rights and advocacy blog, focusing less on the marketing-speak and more on the fine-print, exposing consumer goods manufacturers’ sometimes abusive usage of ‘mouseprint’ to basically nullify or negate the large headline offers that all consumers are flooded with on a daily basis.

Read more: Mouseprint.org

Scottish knob-tweakers, Boards of Canada, have been creating their unique style (many people have tried to imitate over the years) of dreamy electronica for almost 20 years and just keep getting better and better. The secretive duo, consisting of brothers Michael Sandison and Marcus Eoin Sandison, have been quiet about their plans for upcoming new work, but, that’s par for the course for a group that hid the fact that they were related for years until an interview in Pitchfork revealed that they were keeping it a secret in order to avoid comparisons to similar sibling groups (Orbital for one). With dark themes and experiments with subliminal messages, Boards of Canada constantly reach out from their dark myst to provide fans with pure electronica gems every few years, content with sitting back and enjoying the relative quiet that living in suburban Scotland provides.

Watch the brilliant video for Board of Canada’s “Dayvan Cowboy” after the jump..

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