Day&Night

02008-12-01 | Design

I read about this watch during the flight from London to Dallas on Saturday and looked up the manufacturer’s web site:
ROMAIN JEROME – Day&Night

It’s a $300,000 watch that does not tell time. It is true, even a very expensive mechanical watch cannot compete for accuracy with a cheap quartz-watch. This watch takes a new approach. It is a limited-edition hand-crafted precision-engineered sculpture of kinetic art. If you want to know what TIME it is, just check your mobile…

From the web site:

With no display for the hours, minutes or seconds the Day&Night offers a new way of measuring time, splitting the universe of time into two fundamentally opposing sections: day versus night.
A new interpretation of Time based around two Tourbillons operating sequentially. The Day Tourbillon operates during the day, defining the wearer’s period of activity, and stops after twelve hours, handing over to the Night Tourbillon dedicated to man’s own private sphere.
An avant-garde approach, that is different and even disturbing.

Related link: TAG Heuer makes a mobile phone

Tuesday, November 4th: Voting Day

02008-11-04 | Design

I hope you have excercised your right to vote.

Cool Japanese Custom Scooter

Alphabet 26:

One man who has been attacking the problem of a simplified alphabet is art director and typographer Bradbury Thompson. Mr. Thompson begins with the premise that there are actually two alphabets in English—an uppercase alphabet and a lowercase alphabet. There are only 26 letters in the language, yet there are 45 symbols for these letters. According to Mr. Thompson, this is an illogical and unnecessary state of affairs.

And

It was Mr. Thompson’s idea to combine the best upper- and lowercase letters into one simplified, unified alphabet using only 26 symbols. If this proposal were to be accepted, it would be the first step toward clarifying an alphabet that was designed by the Romans to express the sounds of Latin and became the staff of the English language.

I wonder how much is due to writing by hand. Letters need to flow together well for hand-writing to be easy.
We use 3 different shapes for the letter A.

The first shape is clearly the easiest shape to make when writing by hand. I found a font that was designed with Alphabet 26 in mind. It’s called Bodoni 26 and you can find it and purchase it here.
Here is a sample of Bodoni 26:

I find it very easy to read, except for the i. When the i does not have a point (called a tittle in typgraphy) at the top, it becomes more difficult to read:

By the way, the Latin alphabet, which you are now reading, is called a bicameral alphabet because it has two joined alphabets; it has an uppercase and lowercase. Unicameral alphabets (the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets) only have one case.

I wonder whether there have been studies regarding the readability of Alphabet 26 for people with dyslexia.

Quote of the day:

Here it is not enough to think, ‘I should just be content.’ Or, “Well, this is my karma,’ and take no action.”
If there is injustice, then I think inaction is the wrong response. The Buddhist texts mention what is called “misplaced tolerance,” or “misplaced forbearance.” So…misplaced patience or forbearance refers to the sense of endurance that some individuals have when they are subject to a very destructive, negative activity. That is a misplaced forbearance, tolerance and endurance. Similarly, in the work environment, if there is a lot of injustice and exploitation, then to passively tolerate it is the wrong response. The appropriate response really is to actively resist it, to try to change this environment rather than accept it. One should take some action.”
– from The Art of Happiness at Work by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and Dr. Howard C. Cutler, M.D.
via Weekly Words of Wisdom

Somewhat related Japanese Preverb.

Totally unrelated:

“Hands Up!”
“Hände Ab!” (translation by Otto)

Bought a utility for my laptop. Found this statement and was wondering what it would be like if this was for music instead of software…

While I know that some will say that’s why they use open source software, it’s not really an option for most of us. It’s like saying I don’t need music, whenever we want to hear a particular piece, my friends and family get together, we distribute sheet music and coffee and we play the music.

We take quite an aggressive approach towards piracy. This is because we have suffered significant losses in the past and we wouldn’t be able to sustain our prices (and therefore our business) if we didn’t take such measures. Here are some of the measures we have taken:

*The download links that we use for our products have timeouts and are unique to each customer.
*We employ a registration process that effectively personalises our products so that if they are widely distributed, we can ascertain its true source.
*We periodically scan the Internet for pirated copies of our products.

If we do find that our products have been distributed, the best the culprits can hope for is being banned from our site permanently, and having their ISP and maybe also their boss notified about their illegal activities.

Please understand that a lot of hard work goes into developing our products and so it’s very upsetting for us when we find our products stolen and given away for free.

Been getting loads of sign-ups for our mailing list that look like this…

Email: fygcri@uektnw.com
Real Name: oBbefKtFy
Location: QKcwyNyw
Comment: xjEARg glysojdcyfjv, [url=http://fdggyefgcodk.com/]fdggyefgcodk[/url], [link=http://hsnrpmgupsif.com/]hsnrpmgupsif[/link], http://thsaywqjmomg.com/

What’s the deal with stuff like that, besides trying to gum-up the works. Is there anybody stupid enough to click on that? Anyway, we are now using the reCaptcha I mentioned before for our mailing list signup.

I think tonight I will open a nice bottle of Spanish red and watch a movie while constantly checking the polls. By the time the winner is announced I hope to be ready to dance a jig or too drunk to care. Like most people I think the world might end if the other candidate wins. May the best man win.

Dad’s Table

02008-10-04 | Design

Coffee table designed by my dad and built here in Santa Fe about eight years ago.

Interesting Move…

02008-10-03 | Design

The mobile phone is very disruptive technology. It replaces so many things, like alarm clocks, timers, watches, notepads, address-books, even cameras.

I find it interesting that TAG Heuer, makers of timepieces for 148 years, decided to make a mobile phone:
TAG Heuer : MERIDIIST – Time in your hand

Sure, it’s beautifully crafted using steel, crystal-glass and leather, but why would one spend almost $5,000 on a phone with a tiny screen when one can get the new Nokia 96 for under $900 and an iPhone for $199? I mean, Nokia tried this with the Vertu brand, but I personally find those dead-ugly and waaaay over-priced. A Vertu screams that the buyer is a moron with no sense of design and too much disposable cash. Well, the TAG-Heuer phone looks a lot nicer than a Vertu, and a battery that can supposedly last for 28 days between charges is very nice indeed, but still…

How can a $5,000 mobile phone, with its (mass-produced) electronic guts, appear to be as valuable as a $5,000 automatic watch, with its mechanical inside? A watch does one thing well, it tells the time, whereas I would find it difficult at this point in time to carry a device that is only a mobile phone – what, no web browser, email, New York Times app, e-reader, file storage etc… I think I actually use the other functionalities (email, SMS, web) of a mobile more than I talk on it.

And yes, I still wear a mechanical watch and wind my grandfather’s pocket-watch twice a day.