It all started with a laughable product: a USB-powered chainsaw. Given the range of computer accessories out there, it wouldn’t be completely unheard of for a company to take things too far in hopes to cash in on the selection. The brief video and clean-looking website got lots of media attention.

After the pre-orders started pouring in, the folks at BBH Asia Pacific revealed it was all a hoax to promote the conservation of paper. The folks who pre-ordered the i.Saw were greeted with this message:

Hello.

We love that you liked the i.Saw enough to pre-order.

Truth is, you already own a chainsaw. Your keyboard.

Help save more trees by cutting down on unnecessary printing. Download PaperCut, a free application that plays the sound of a chainsaw each time you press Ctrl-P.

Available for Mac and PC.

Thanks for the support. Help spread the buzz, if you will 🙂

PaperCut Team
(formerly known as i.Saw Team)

The harmless prank was taken well by those fooled and it’s certainly a unique path to promote environmental awareness. Bravo.

NOTE: This post was written for and originally published at PSFK.  I’ve decided to republish a number of my recent articles written for other websites here.  They will go under the new category called Clips.

I went to the US Botanic Garden recently and had to take the opportunity to revisit my favorite photographic subject.

The poem inscribed at the entrance to the Dupont Metro reads:

Thus in silence in dreams’ projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals;
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all dark night – some are so young;
Some suffer so much – I recall the experience sweet and sad…

– The Wound Dresser from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, 1876