December 2009
41 posts
“Even before a Nigerian with Al Qaeda links tried to blow up a Northwest Airlines...”
– Maureen Dowd in her op-ed piece for the New York Times, wondering why our airport security isn’t more technologically advanced. Memo to Maureen: when attempting to use a sci-fi writer’s name as a shorthand for a vision of the future, it’s a good idea to actually be familiar with the writer’s work....
2 tags
Australians set new debt record →
Reserve Bank figures show mortgage, credit card and personal loan debts now stand at $1.2 trillion, up 71 per cent from just five years ago and equating to $56,000 for every man, woman and child in the country, News Ltd says.
[…] personal debt now totals 100.4 per cent of Australia’s annual GDP — one of the highest ratios in the developed world.
This is not good.
“Life in systems-rich environments is understudied. […] Behavioural...”
– John Thackara, In the Bubble, p100.
Let’s ignore that the idea of “behavioural investigations” makes me think of BF Skinner. Let’s also gloss over the idea that any sort of investigation of everyday life is “rare”, a statement with which anthropologists,...
2 tags
“How many people do you know with a General Lee replica, a Delorean, a Pantera,...”
– Bring a Trailer on a US Marshal Liquidation sale of a ponzi-scheme leader’s collection of “all over the map” cars.
I also see a Honda Beat, a T-bucket, a Jaguar XJS with what looks to be a Walkinshaw kit and a bunch of other follies.
Dude had some (possibly unfortunate) taste....
1 tag
Lexus killed Saab, but GM let Saab die. →
Jack Baruth says what I was trying to say. But better. And that’s OK, because he’s Jack Baruth.
1 tag
On Saab's Passing
The values that Saab enthusaists love don’t grab you by the throat. They’re a slow burn and you warm to them as you develop a relationship with the car. The weird dash, the lumpen seats, the strangely upright pillars all combined to have a weirdly sexless showroom appeal (or lack of). Of course, all of those things grow on you. The ergonomics that mean everything falls to hand so...
2 tags
A Lament for Saab, a Quirky Car Loved by Some →
Loved by some, NYT?
Ouch.
2 tags
2 tags
WatchMag+ from Bonnier
The dudes at Berg have designed a new magazine-type experience for Bonnier. The design itself is awesome, but my favourite thing is how non-designed the device is (it looks like a piece of A5-or-so MDF with gently chamfered edges) and how considered and elegant the interaction is. That is, they were totally comfortable with the actual artefact being, quite literally, a flat...
Why the Leno show is ho-hum
People complain that the Leno show is boring or pedestrian or whatever.
Let me tell you a secret: Leno doesn’t care that the kids and critics don’t like his show. He’s having a good time. The show is about paying the bills for this sort of malarkey.
Actually, I would guess that Mercedes is picking up a lot of the bill for dropping and engine from an SLS into a...
“A Turbo: exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, witchcraft...”
– Jeremy Clarkson (via tractioninc)
1 tag
No clean feed!
monkeytypist:
Appropriately, I will clean this post up later. Just notes for now. Links to come as well - check nocleanfeed.com/learn.html
Mandatory internet filtering is expensive, complicated and doesn’t protect children from danger. It is an incredibly bad policy for the purposes of protecting children because it makes parents think that a risk is eliminated or reduced when it in fact is...
1 tag
A Blob Walks Out of a Clock Tower in Brisbane →
bloggedbybjorn:
Brisbane continues to convolute its identity, with yet another infuriatingly conservative and unimaginative design.
Urgh. The mark is horrible. Wait. Is it a mark or a logotype? Anyway.
Also, what’s with the tagline? “Australia’s new world city”. What’s a “new world city”? What’s a “world city”? Is that different to...
“Like all great religious texts, the Ikea catalog inspires both microscopic...”
– Jeffre Jackson makes a welcome return to Pink Air.
Street Computing Workshop 2009 →
Papers from the Street Computing Workshop at OZCHI this year.
“I don’t have time for this. I don’t have time to try and figure out the myriad...”
– Danny Sullivan: Now Is It Facebook’s Microsoft Moment?
‘Scuse me while I go and dig around in my privacy settings. Again.
Nicolas Nova on Don Norman's "design research"... →
Just go read it. (previously)
2 tags
1 tag
Dear Self,
Just a quick note to say that having an awesome idea is not the same as executing an awesome idea. Ideas are basically free while execution takes time which is scarce.
Therefore, finish executing that one awesome idea.
Yours in internal monologue,
Self
PS: Pick up some milk on the way home.
Young Drivers Choosing The Wrong Cars: Study →
TMR reports on a new study by the Monash Accident Research Centre that “has found that the most popular cars for young drivers aged 17 to 25 are major contributing factors in road fatalities”.
According to Used Cars Safety Ratings calculated by MUARC, the two most popular cars for women, early Ford Laser models (1982-88) and the Hyundai Excel (1995-2000), score only one star.
...
“Since you don’t seem to care about things you don’t understand, screw you. We...”
– Nation’s Experts Give Up [via] (via anthropophagous)
Despite its negligible impact on the population at large, the sudden dearth of experts is expected to be devastating for the American media, particularly TV newsmagazines, which have come to heavily rely on experts for their incisive,...
Design Research does/does not result in innovation
Don Norman thinks design research does not result in innovative outcomes:
design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs
Steve Portigal disagrees. Highly recommended.
Service-Dominant Logic →
Service-Dominant Logic is a mindset for a unified understanding of the purpose and nature of organizations, markets and society. The foundational proposition of S-D logic is that organizations, markets, and society are fundamentally concerned with exchange of service—the applications of competences (knowledge and skills) for the benefit of a party. That is, service is exchanged for service;...
“Normal people do have one thing figured out that we geeks don’t: sometimes, it’s...”
– nrbd (via marco)
“Don’t start your research statement with a quote from Albert Einstein. You...”
– Professor of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, Luis Von Ahn’s Advice On Grad School Applications
toldorknown:
Tony Bennett - With Plenty Of Money...
2 tags
3 tags
BMW launches new ζ-series
BMW group announced a new model line-up today, the ζ-series.
Dr. Norbert Reithofer, Chairman of BMW, said that “the new ζ-series is a prime opportunity for BMW and that “the possibilies of the new ζ-series are near infinite.”
The pitfalls of sustainability →
Joe Simpson, at Re*Move:
When it comes to movement and transportation, this approach of sustainability first is clearly causing problems, because it seems to be preventing us from envisioning and demanding the future that we actually want to have, and instead pushing us towards something influenced primarily by guilt over past excess.
If we simply focus on sustainability as our end point,...
“As we gave the A1 that nomenclature there’s clearly room for another product and...”
– New Audi A2 plans confirmed - Autocar.co.uk (via mikespinelli)
Pfft. Integers are so limiting. I can see the press release now.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Audi today announce the introduction of three new models which comprise the Real range.
The Audi Aπ, which fits between the A3 and A4 which...
November 2009
32 posts
Oh, sweet mercy
I’ve just found that Queenland Education, who oversee all of the schools in my fine state of residence, use “learnings”.
Essential Learnings identify what should be taught and what is important for students to have opportunities to know, understand and be able to do. They are the part of the curriculum that is common across all schools, and are specified for each of the key...
Learnings. It's not a word. →
Friends, join me, and others, in ridding the world of this execrable piece of management-speak.
