Coconut carrying Octopus!

Improvisation at it's best! But if you think a little further, this is happening because they do not have any more coral reefs and sea plants to hide under anymore. Another interesting thing to note is that the use of coconut actually screws up their camouflaging ability i think. They should be blending with the sand, not the coconut. Blending with the coconut makes them so much more obvious to enemies.

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Barry Schwartz: The paradox of choice

I posted this as a juxtapose to the previous one by MalcolmGladwell. Is more choice always good? I'm a strong believer that it's not. You really only need a few or 1 good one (food like i said can be exempted from this statement). However people around the world probably saw what happened to the food industry and copied it to apply to their own industry. This resulted in the explosion of choices we have today. Most of which are rubbish.

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Malcolm Gladwell: What we can learn from spaghetti sauce

If you have been following this blog, you would have known that Malcolm Gladwell is an author that i really like. He's the author of "The Tipping Point","Blink" and "Outlier". Once again in this TED talk, he talked about interesting findings of some researcher around.

In the talk, he made a point about the food industry trying to find one single solution to fit everyone in. That point caught my attention as i remembered in one of my research done in my University days where I looked at advertisements in various countries and their implications. I noted that globalization has in fact resulted in the possibility of creating a product for everyone. This is especially true for gadgets etc, however the only thing that is not affected by globalization is the area of food. They are still very much dominated by cultural influence.

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BooneOakley's advert

Love the way they actually considered YouTube's environment into this work!

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Objectified - Interview with Jonathan Ive

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Icsid World Design Congress 2009

I've just came back from Icsid World Design Congress 2009. It is the first of 3 days of this congress and i must say there are some pretty good discussions going about among the studio leaders. Bruce Nussbaum of businessweek and Singapore Minister of Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam got the day started with some really good discussions. Both of them obviously really know their stuffs. I've always appreciated people who speaks because he does have a point rather than someone who does that for a statement or just to grab some attention. Unfortunately congress like this often is a magnet for attention seekers as well, as the day went on, you start getting people who will grab any chance to stand up, have the cameras on him and ask the most out of point questions ever. Somehow it's always that few people asking the same few questions.

Most of the speakers are really people with substance, however I find the rest to be too idealistic in their views. They seem to be like they have just rejoined civilization after a really long period out. I'm very sure anyone who reads the newspaper and watches TV (someone who's not out of touch with society) will be able to say, "Yeah i think we should cut down on our spending and move away from this consumption driven society." The question is then how do u propose that happening? Yes rat is a stable in some developing society, but that's because those rats are feeding on natural grains and etc. I don't think rats in cities are safe for consumption really. Even the pigeons in Singapore are known to spread disease with their droppings. Even if we get pass that fact, i do not see the human race moving pass this habit of consumption easily. The consequences are unimaginable.

To be really frank, design and the green movements are really so huge because they push sales. People spend money thus the economy thrive. If people stop consuming, companies will basically go bust, workers lose their jobs and the economy go bust. I think the key is to educate the world to cut down on unnecessary spendings. Products to reduce unnecessary parts and styling, with gimmicks totally taken out. I think we already are moving towards that, although most of the time still really superficially.

Another observation I've made on the first day, is that most designers are really pessimists. Maybe they are just jumping on the bandwagon, but most of their visions of the future are really really dark. I really hope they are bad prophets. Anyway visions of the future have always been more about the present than anything else so that really shows the confidence those designers have of today's world. Bruce Nussbaum made a comment which i totally agree as he said (after a long contemplation) that he had gone through a lot of really dark period, and it always turn out fine. Personally i think what he really wanted to say is that he do not think the earth is as bad as what the media has made of it, but obviously that's not really politically correct thus he decided to rephrase his reply. Anyway to be really frank, i'm wondering, other than the forest fires and pollutions that we're so responsible for, can anyone be sure the change in climate is really our fault? If the scientists have been right to say that the earth has gone through the ice age to the present date, hasn't the earth been constantly heating up then? Maybe the dinosaurs have been producing too much carbon dioxide then. Many scientists also agree that the earth plates have been shifting since its existence. They hypothesize that all the land are joint and the shifting of the crust resulted in our landscape today. If the land area remained about the same, while area covered by the ocean increased dramatically, isn't it to say the earth actually expanded? That alone will result in major errors to our calculations, the poles melting may simply because it is shifting or even earth trajectory have shifted. Anyway we now know that the space is actually expanding, and that by itself also results in shifting of path of the earth...

What i am trying to get across is that with so many other possibilities that we can't prove, why we are so dead on on that possibility that we are the cause? However, on the other hand, i do believe that there's no harm on cutting down on mindless expenditures.

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"Barefoot" Running

I've hardly been blogging for a period of time, partly because of my reservist and partly because i decided to spend my free time running rather than gaining weight LOL. With the view that Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon 2009 is coming up, i decided to talk about running in this post.

Having seen the title to this post, you should have already guessed that i'll be talking about "barefoot" running. Basically the idea is that researchers have discovered that people in more developed country seem to suffer more from running related injuries as compared to citizens of less well off countries. There are in fact published researches that show runners wearing "better" pairs of running shoes to suffer more from injuries associated to running compared to runners who are wearing poorly cushioned and supported shoes.

Picture taken from http://www.barefootrunner.com/barefoot-101/

The image above explains the reason behind it pretty well. Our feet have evolved to the present form for a reason. By introducing cushioned shoes to our feet, we're changing the way we run. Without padded heels support from shoes, no one in the right frame of mind would have tried to run by landing on their heels (what everyone's doing now with shoes). This action will result in a very sore heel that will inevitably lead to the runner trying other method of landing their feet. They will finally settled down to landing on their forefoot, which is "designed" to flex and cushions such impact. This change in landing method will prevent the locking of your knees and back while you run, the impact thus doesn't get transferred to them. In fact we tend to land way heavier when we are wearing shoes as we can't feel the pain and the ground with the thick cushion in between. The pain from the heel in this case is a signal to tell you that you are running the wrong way!

Running shoes are also design to prevents your feet from working too much. In the long run, your feet start losing their ability to work to their best of ability without the shoes. With less than fully developed feet, we will start getting too dependent on shoes. We then get injured easily in the absence of them.

Thus recently, I've been running with Nike Cortez Flywire shoes below.

You can see the slits on the soles that allows it to flex. To be frank, i'm not even sure if they are designed to be ran in. The arch support is almost non-existence, but as I've always been a forefoot runner, I've not have much problem running in these (My friends have always commented that i look more like bouncing than running as a result of my running style). I've since progress from running in them from 5km to about 12km per run to date and so far everything pretty ok. The only problem is that it feels too flimsy to sprint while wearing them. Thus i will wear another pair of shoes if i know i'm gonna do circuit training.

From a design viewpoint, I've always struggle between creating a product that helps and improves people's life or should we design to really benefit users without making them suffer in the long run. As a result of technologies, we become over reliant on technologies such as handphone and personal computers. I'm sure most of us can remember that we used to be able to recall telephone numbers of all our friends by heart, now how many can still claim to do that? Thus i'm a strong believer of "too much help is no help" and hopefully there are many more designers out there who share my view on this. This case also shows that conventional wisdom may not be always correct, by understanding deeper issues and how things works, we tend to get really useful insights.

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12th Man

LOL, now everything make sense.

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Adidas Predator X Absolion 2

Adidas X Absolion Floor, originally uploaded by linyou.

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Adidas Predator X Absolion

Adidas X Absolion B/W, originally uploaded by linyou.

My new Adidas Predator X Absolion Boots. Yes they are not the top of the range Predator X as i've already stated that it's Absolion. I do not see the need to get the top end model. Anyway these boots fit really well, feel right the moment you wear them on. Adidas has made a few changes to this new design, and they are all welcome changes in my opinion.

One of the changes is that the "Predator area (P area)" have been reduced so that the toe end area is free from it. This brings your feet closer to the ball itself, allowing players to feel the ball better. Personally I have always believe that the P area should be at the area where the ball touches just before leaving the boots, that's when the spin gets transferred to the ball. The new position of the P area does just that, so i'm really happy with it. This version of Predator X is amazingly flexible and this allows the real use of your feet to either control the ball or change direction on the field.

I've play in a match so far using this pair of boots and i must say i'm really happy with them. The ball goes where ever i'm intending to send it, i've even tried blasting from 2/5 of the field away and the ball flies right into goal. Seriously so far i'm very impress by it. The best part of this shoe is that is just feels correct, the fit is perfect! It really just wrap around your feet. However i also feel my feet gets pretty tired after a while because of the flexible sole. This could be due to the fact that i'm trying out barefoot running during my weekdays run. But generally i'm happy to have a really flexible boots.

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Survival Technique of a Caterpillar

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Meet The Super Cow

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This is pretty cool!

Click here to see GIF image.

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Archer Fish Water Pistol - Weird Nature - BBC wildlife

Nature is amazing!

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Ants create a lifeboat in the Amazon jungle - BBC wildlife

Wow, nature never cease to amaze me. Anyway came across this site (Ask Nature) today, which promotes learning and taking hints from nature. The believe is that we will be able to design more effecient and better products if we can do that. Pretty interesting resources can be found there, simply key in what you like to find out about how nature will do certain thing and the results will be shown. Have a look at it! I'm sure you will find a lot of interesting knowledge there.

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JetLev

Wow this looks pretty fun. You can see that the water is sent to the pack by an accompanying device which probably house the battery and most of the components needed for this to function. This is a very good idea as it allows freedom of movement while freeing up unnecessary weight to be carried. You get an endless supply of water because of this and not need to worry about running out of water halfway in mid air. The pipe also can act as a safety feature to prevent rider from flying too high and ending up injuring themselves. Lastly if it really runs out of battery, you will at most be landing on water (as compared to a jet pack on land). Personally i think this is a really good product base on the context it's suppose to be used in.

My only concern is the amount of disturbance it will create to the eco system, but well one can always argue that a jet ski does as much damage as well.

Click to JetLev's Site

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圬木不可雕也

出处《论语·公冶长》 

宰予昼寝。子曰：“朽木不可雕也，粪土之墙不可污也。”  

释义:这个成语也称“朽木粪土，比喻人已经败坏到不可救药的地步。  

故事:孔子的弟子宰予，言辞美好，说起话来娓娓动听。起初，孔子很喜欢这个弟子，以为他一定很有出息。可是不久，宰子暴露出懒 惰的毛病。 一天，孔子给弟子讲课，发现宰予没有来听课，就派弟子去找。 一会儿，去找的弟子回来报告说，宰予在房里睡大觉。 孔子听了伤感他说： “腐烂的木头不能雕刻，粪土一样的墙壁不能粉刷。最初我听到别人的话，就相信他的行为一定与他说的一样；现在我听别人的话后，要考察一下他的行为。就从宰予起，我改变了态度。” 

This is basically a famous proverb by Confucius. Upon getting disappointed by one of his favorite  student, he made the comment of ," Rotten logs aren't suitable for craving, walls that are like waste matter can't be painted". In short it's use to describe cases of hopelessness. As a continuation of my views on Alain de Botton's TED talk, personally i think if someone (who is not doing very well) do not blame themselves for their fault, if someone thinks he/she is born to behave a certain way and only chose to listen to the good things people comment about, then they are as good as hopeless.

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What makes a good designer?

I remember attending this talk by Dick Powell and one of the audience asked the usual question like what do you think makes a good designer. He paused for a while and hesitantly replied, "A good designer is one who can draw very well". A person's answer often tells you a lot about himself/herself, in this case i can know for sure Dick Powell is definitely someone who can draw damn well. However i'm very disappointed with that answer as he probably should just go get any comic artist out there to be designer and surprised that he actually doesn't already have an answer to this question.

Personally i think he's partly right to make that statement because a person who can draw well is usually someone who has observed the things around him/her to an certain extent. This together with their visualizing skills allow them to represent their ideas in their drawings. When you are drawing, you are really picking out features, hint, semantics and etc to communicate an idea of what you are trying to represent. Depending on your style of drawing, you almost certain to practice a form of minimizing (keeping the essence while taking away the unnecessary). Thus you are more sensitive to curves and lines etc. Some people call this intuition, and because they do not really know why they feel certain way, they also call it an art. But really, i think it is something that can be and should be understood.

To me what makes a good designer will be someone who's observant to things around them. He/she understands why people react a certain way, how trends are started, why a certain lines doesn't complement another. They can turn a sub conscious decision into a conscious effort.

Lastly to design a good product, I really think a designer needs a good rational mind and critical thinking skills. This is because when faced with factors coming from technology, environment, psychology, manufacturing etc you are almost certain to have many clashes of ideas. This is when you have to weigh what is necessary and what's not and trade them off in a well thought out manner. This is a key point that differentiate a good designer from an comic/art artist. While an artist maybe able to create beautiful object, they may not be able to be realistic enough to do something that's manufacturable and functional. They may be too drawn into their own world to realize people in the real world doesn't behave the way they imagine them to be.

The Ideal designer will probably have all these skills, however i'm sure most of you have seen sketches of famous designers (1,2) that are oh no so inspiring, but still their final products are works of "arts". So i will put good observation and critical thinking skills as the most important point a designer should set out to attain.

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Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success

I like what this guy talked about here. Something which I have always believe in is how the people have been influence (by movies, advertisement, news) to believe in what they want. The TED talk by Dan Ariely has shown how our decisions are easily influenced by our options. There are people who want to do well in every single thing in order to be happy. These people often end up to be really miserable.

However I know there's a paradox in this belief as well because the whole human race may stop progressing if this level of competition is gone. If everyone just accept failure as something not due to himself/herself then we may find ourselves living in a totally different (maybe worst?) world. The key i think is to be able to make a mark and say yes this is enough, not in the barely enough sense but to be comfortable enough.

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EF-535SP-1AV

EF-535SP-1AV, originally uploaded by linyou.

A watch i got for myself. Casio is making some pretty nice watch that's pretty affordable. This is the choice of watch of Sebastian Vettel from RedBull's F1 team. The watch is designed with a hint of old school style in it but given more youth and energy with it's angular treatment of it's band and cross hatch of it's dial. In fact you can notice they did not have 3 full rings you normally see from Chronograph watches, the designers actually tried to introduce the semantics of a car speedometer in here. The carbon fiber (a material often found in F1 car) face completes the look.

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Golan Levin makes art that looks back at you

Wow this guy does pretty interesting stuff.

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EFE-500D-1AV

EFE-500D-1AV, originally uploaded by linyou.

A watch that we bought for my friend's birthday. This watch comes with lotsa functions like international time, alarm, and Anti-Reflective Sapphire glass. This cost about 2 times the price of EF-535SP-1AV.

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Design is

People think that design is styling. Design is not style. It’s not about giving shape to the shell and not giving a damn about the guts. Good design is a renaissance attitude that combines technology, cognitive science, human need, and beauty to produce something that the world didn’t know it was missing. — PAOLA ANTONELLI

Yes i cannot stand people who talks about design as styling, especially when they are supposed (self proclaimed) to be a design thinker.

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MV-22 Osprey

Just as i was saying on the previous post, it probably will become a hybrid of plane and helicopter because of the wing span needed for clearing both rotor blades, i found MV-22 Osprey. The motor tilt in the axis perpendicular to the body rather than parallel to it, allowing it to gain speed while losing it's hovering ability. For the size and use of this, agility is not it's main concern so it's justified. However for an aggressor they may want to look at sideway tilts or better still a ball joint?

Yeah it's easier said than done. They took more than 20 years to make this happen. They probably started with an ideal vision of a free rotating rotor blade, but after a many setbacks and disasters, reached a compromise of functions and abilities. Anyway it looks really cool.

Go to here for part 1

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Sky Armor

What caught my eyes is the unique way the propellers are placed and positioned. By aligning them at an angle, it allows the toy to change directions without the need to tilt like normal helicopters do. This could be a very good function for real life helicopters.

However before you get too excited and go design another concept helicopter, this is not a realistic way of doing things because it results in the blade ending lower than normal. As a result it

(1) needs bigger open area to land

(2) the propellors have to stop moving before anyone can get in and out of the helicopter.

I can think of a couple more points but just these 2 points are enough to make this a stupid idea for real life applications. Obviously we can solve the problem by simply placing it taller, this results in a helicopters becoming much taller itself, resulting in

(1) more materials needed

(2) more weight

(3) increase air resistance?

Actually i've thought of a better solution by making the motors tiltable, but it meant that it probably will be more of a hybrid of a plane and helicopter as it requires clearance between the 2 blades.

Anyway this robot needed this because it is standing up and way harder to make it change direction by tilting.

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Pink (Gay) Gundam

The broken wrist pose completes the look.

Via Jandan

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SUSHI tutorial!!!

This video is for fun and laughter, please do not think it's teaching the real thing.

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New Video for BMW GINA Concept car

BMW Concept Car: GINA from 12FRAMES on Vimeo.

This is the kind of design that i like, one that ask questions on conventional wisdom (in this case the need for full metal housing). New possibilities arises when you find existence of these irrelevant acts.

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The Hangover

Watched this movie without any expectations, i didn't even know a single actor in this movie, but somehow looking at the poster of the movie, i kinda have a good feeling about it. This is sounding very weird because i have never ever decided to watch a movie just by looking at the posters.

Turn out it is a very good show! I totally enjoy watching it. Maybe it is because of the zero expectation, but i really like the way the story was being told. How it allows the viewers to experience the chaos the characters were in.

Seriously go catch it, it's worth your money! Probably knowing nothing about it will make it even more entertaining so i shall not talk about the story.

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Let's go get this T Shirt!

I think this is Resident Evil 4 promo T-Shirt. Ha pretty good idea!

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Doride Lamp by Karim Rashid

When i first saw this lamp, i'm thinking this looks like some concept done by students. Sounds a lot like some ideas my classmates came up with. Then i realised it's by Karim Rashid! I never like his stuff, because they are always stylist to a point it's not functional anymore. In other words, i find them superficial ,shallow and most importantly, for the fact that he's a stylist, i find his design ugly.

However the thing is, i actually quite like this lamp. It's supposely inspired by a leaf blowing in the wind. Although a leaf has no relation to light (ok unless you want to give some crap reason of photosynthesis etc), the form actually communicate the idea of a articulated stem. Diffuser are added in the pattern of leaf veins to complete the look while also blocking glare. Finally, yes according to him, he came up with this idea while he's still studying. No wonder it's better than the rest of his design and that explains why it seems like a student's work.

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There are too many things I need to do

Thus i got myself a MUJI To Do List notebook! I really like how the cover tells you about what to expect inside and how because the graphic on the exterior is embossed, it is very subtle and can only be seen when light falls on it.

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Good Design is all about the Attention to Details!

I'm not a fan of big revolutionary ideas. Thus most of the time i do not really see the value in coming up with concepts that can't be made. When you try to change the world, the world has to change and that is a big problem.

Very often i see people coming up with a new (sometimes better) way of doing things, it may cost the same as it's competitors, but it has a big problem, everything else needs to change. People gotta reinvest in infrastructures, send people for training and throw away their old equipments that cost a fortune.

What happened is nothing will happen. Unless it's benefits are really significant. This is why certain things just never change, like how you hope self assembling PC can be much easier, why electric plugs still looks the same after so many years.

I prefer design that pays attention to details, small little things that people do not think matter. These small little things often create irritation for the user in the long run. One example is this medicine bottle designed by Deborah Adler. A medicine bottle with a label that's easy to read. Small idea big benefits. (I can totally imagine some guy proposing using some OLED sorta display for something like this and fitted with solar panels so it's earth friendly and finally the hospital will have a system to update all the display through wireless technology). In this case, it's the execution, the attention to details that's key to its success. Good execution is the key to any success. So please do not dream about big ideas only, pay more attention to the detailings of the design.

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moving

moving, originally uploaded by linyou.

Is the world moving or me on the escalator? I sure hope i'm the one moving, but it looks like the world is.

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crossroad

crossroad, originally uploaded by linyou.

2 paths that's lit with opportunities. One straight forward and leads you straight out of the building, but you can only admire the sky from ground level. The other is tougher and full of unknowns but promises more, you will get closer to the sky if only you can find the route to the roof. Which to take?

I took the stairs, and am starting to wonder if there's a sky.

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Chimpanzees learn from video demo

Just saw this post on BBC News, that talks about Chimps building their own tools after watching video demostrations. The Chimps were broken up into several groups and shown progressively shorter video of less information. To their findings, the group of chimps who had see the full video can easily replicate what they had seen and build the tools easily, while a handful of those exposed to less information can build the tool. Then the reseachers noticed an interesting phenomenon.

"What was interesting about this group was that, when we presented them with the grape at different distances from the cage, they made the appropriate tool to reach it. Those that had been shown the full demonstration, and had socially learned to make the longer tool, continued to make it even when the grape was so close that it was more awkward to use."

"It could be that social learning is such a strong force for the chimps that they apply a blanket rule of 'go with what you've seen' (rather than work out what's most appropriate for the task)."

They are now trying to test their findings on young children and personally i think they're just going to get the same results. I think the chimps are totally demostrating what human beings will do if they are exposed to the same thing. We quickly accept and settle on a single solution that was taught by others, usually without questioning why was it done in that way. We are usually lazy to think so we will just follow what has proven to be useful. Very often when i questioned why certain friends did something, they will answer ,"I never think so much la". This answer never fails to irritate me. The group of chimps that built their own tools have thought through the process and understand what needs to be done and why, thus able to come up with the more efficient method.

In fact there were some research done that asked participants to draw what they were shown on the screen. They will be shown pictures of a real kitten and the outcome of their drawings will be a caricature of a kitten, simple line works that most easily represents a cat. They were then hypnotized or using some scientific method (i do not know how) to temporary clear their memories, this time round, the same participants dutifully drew out what they seen on screen, rather than some caricatures of it. This experiment shows how what we have seen and learnt affect what we will do in the future. How when we faced with different task on hand that we may end up using the same solution even when they may not match.

I often hear people commenting that if you want to design only functional things (things people really need), then you do not need to design anything because we already have everything. Well they are right and wrong, because of the reason stated above, a lot of things around us are done without much thoughts, we call those conventional wisdoms. As the world progress, people changed, technology improved but many things still remain. By spotting these, we can surely find opportunities for new products/ design that makes sense.

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Henderson Wave

A picture i took of Henderson Wave, located at Henderson road i think. Played with some effects. Usually I will just try all sorts of effects and settle on one that i like. The process is so random that I usually do not know how to recreate back the same effects even if i really like it.

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Manchester United Jersey 09/10 (By Nike)

Pictures taken from Manchester United Official Site

Frankly speaking i'm very disappointed from what i've seen from the pictures so far. Most of the jersey of the other clubs (like arsenal's Nike away kit. England's Umbro tailored jersey looks especially sweet) i've seen so far are all pretty nice, but this so far doesn't excite me. Hopefully in real it will be much better.

I'm not sure why but i always prefer jersey with elastic band on sleeves. Somehow Manchester United's jersey always doesn't come with it, leaving the sleeves flare. Maybe it's a request by people of Manchester United that Nike excludes it. Nike also always use a different fabric for Man U's jersey, often using the "air vents" to form some pattern, and they do not always turn out in a nice way. One thing about this jersey that will surely irritate me is how small the crew neck is, but the long sleeve version's detailing at the neck line looks different and on the whole the the long sleeve version looks more retro and nicer than the short sleeve one.

Yes it looks like Mexico's jersey by Nike here.

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The Hawthorne Effect

I am not someone who believes in all the stats and research readily, because you need to know how and why the research was being done in the first place. Poorly conducted research will only generate results that researches hoped for. Research funded by certain company normally will yield result that is of advantage to the company itself.

Now i just read about another effect that may alter research result. The Hawthorne effect.

The Hawthorne effect is a form of reactivity whereby subjects improve an aspect of their behavior being experimentally measured simply in response to the fact that they are being studied,^[1][2] not in response to any particular experimental manipulation.taken from wikipedia

Click on the link above to read more about this effect. Basically it noted that regardless of what changes the researchers did, they posted positive results in the experiment. Actually it is pretty straight forward, when you are being viewed, you always behave better. This is why breadtalk and other restaurants adopted an open kitchen concept and artist only do stupid things when they do not know they are being watched.

This is why good experiments conducted do not allow subjects to know what they are being tested for. Personally i feel asking subjects direct questions on scenario based questions will normally yield a different answer to what they normally do.

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