(via magnificentruin) Funny, but this is exactly what e-cigarettes need to do to go mainstream.
Current e-cigarettes are fakes — they are pretending to be a smokable stick of tobacco. The designs, then, are plastic, garish, cheap looking. And don’t get me started on the blue LEDs. (If these are a healthier alternative, wouldn’t green be a more sensible color?)
A thing that wasn’t pretending to be a cigarette, but was instead true to itself — a tiny nicotine inhaler — could forge an authentic design. I don’t know that such a thing could ever build the old-Hollywood sexiness of a real cigarette, but good design is authentic. As long as e-cigs are fake, they’ll be tacky.
Zippo lighters from American soldiers who fought in the Vietnam war.
This is really powerful and thoughtful, though (and perhaps because) it is very upsetting. It captures the different personalities of soldiers, yet it’s united through not just the theme and medium but by the omnipresent sense of someone trying to outwardly accept a premature death. Some men accept it with anger, others with humor, a facade of ambivalence, some with tragic romance, some very emotionlessly. It’s a horrifying, simple way of representing the psychology of a Vietnam soldier; even if he physically survives the war, some light, some flame within him is killed the minute he enters combat.
TedTalks: Gender roles in modern children’s movies and their subsequent impact on the boys and girls, men and women in this society.
“It’s almost as if you’re a boy you are a dopey animal and if you’re a girl you should bring your warrior costume… Now there are plenty of exceptions; I will defend the Disney Princesses to all of you. [These films] do a great job of teaching little girls how to defend against the patriarchy, but they don’t necessarily teach little boys how to defend against the patriarchy.”
This is why I’m so blown away by Adventure Time. Finn is the first, best, only male role model for young boys to come along in years.
My first foray into product design: flatpack iPhone docks. Laser-cut cedar planks and rubber bands. Models for both iPhone 5 and iPhone 4/4S, charging and synching via standard lightning or legacy dock connectors. And they smell hela nice.
Also an iPad mini “bedtime dock,” although it still needs some work (iPad should sink about 3-4 inches deeper). But I’ll probably abandon it, as they need to be individually fitted to one’s bedframe.
Unsure if there’s any future in selling these. We tried to run a t-shirt label once, fulfillment is a bitch.
Thanks to Aymie Spitzer and Deroy from Hyperakt for use of their laser toys!
I’ve been a fan of Dan Savage going back to his “hey faggot” alt-newsweekly days, but more for his cultural and political writing than the sex-advice stuff (already learned enough about unhappy couples and santorum (both kinds) for a lifetime).
A lot of his, er, extra-curricular writing takes place on the blog for The Stranger, but I don’t have much use for coverage of Seattle politics. So I whipped together this Yahoo Pipe that filters his posts into a custom RSS feed: Dan Savage @ Slog
I just learned that Henry Rollins has been contributing to the LA Weekly “West Coast Sound” blog, and while I’m sure their notes regarding audio waveforms near the Atlantic ocean are quite informative, I’m just here to read some angry rants: Henry Rollins @ LA Weekly
re: Apple needs a new hit, Apple needs to build a time machine, etc.
This attitude has been nagging at me for a little while. It’s indicative of a very short-term perspective of technology, and I’m amazed that people who espouse these ideas get taken seriously anywhere.
Three major innovations that Apple is directly responsible for:
- The first commercial personal computer: Apple //, 1977
- The desktop PC with a GUI: Mac, 1984
- The multitouch, mobile* PC: iPhone & iPad, 2007
Now one could say that I’m overlooking some major milestones — the multimedia PC perhaps, the Internet-connected PC most certainly, maybe laptops — but the point is that truly revolutionary changes don’t come along very often, and Apple is responsible for a disproportionate number of them.
It will be years before we see something as disruptive as multitouch, maybe more than a decade. In the meantime, we’re in the early days of a new era, and this time Apple secured their head start.
Keep that in mind the next time some addle-brained pundit calls the iPhone a fad.
* I don’t like the term “mobile” (is a laptop not mobile?), but everyone uses it so whatever.
holy fuck this is a real thing. re acehotel:
Stills from Blancanieves, a silent, monochromatic re-invention of the Grimm fairytale Snow White by director Pablo Berger. The film is set in 1920s Spain…
lately people have been making things just for me and I’m not sure what I did to deserve the honor
“I think it’s why so many geeks — myself included — feel such a visceral connection to gay rights. I realized this several years ago, why is it that my adrenaline starts pumping, I get the fight-or-flight response, over hate crimes or homophobia and all that gay rights stuff? And I realized I’m having this reaction because it’s people being treated badly for who they are.
“I think growing up a geek and being subject to that can do several things. It can turn you into a misogynist, yes, but it could also turn you into someone who is keenly attuned to other people who feel the way you felt, maybe even 100 times worse. You know that feeling, it’s terrible, it must be stopped.
“[…] The hallmark of geek culture — or any marginalized group who has experienced discrimination or exclusion and ridicule in your formative years, because of something that’s part of your nature and should not be condemned but is — your mission in life should be to never let another person feel this way. Even if it’s about something that has nothing to do with you, ‘it doesn’t matter, I’m not gay, but I know what that gay kid feels like right now, and it’s terrible and it needs to stop.”
This is a sentiment you often hear from people: casual users only need «entry-level» devices. Even casual users themselves perpetuate it: «Oh, I’m not doing much on my computer, so I always just go with the cheapest option.» And then they buy a horrid, underpowered netbook, find out that it has a tiny screen, is incredibly slow, the keyboard sucks, and they either never actually use it, or eventually come to the conclusion that they just hate computers.
In reality, it’s exactly backwards: proficient users can deal with a crappy computer, but casual users need as good a computer as possible.
The exact same thing happens with bicycles. Novices go out and buy these inexpensive “comfort” bikes that weigh as much as a Volkswagon Bug, and their casual ride to work turns out to be more effort than an hour in an intense spin class. “And they either never actually use it, or eventually come tot he conclusion that they just hate [bicycles].”
It would take a person who had been riding daily for years — e.g. someone like me — to effectively push one of those beasts. “Casual” riders would be far better served by a simple, lightweight single speed — e.g. the sort of bicycle that daily riders like me use.
