Most are probably aware of how important packaging design is in Japan, and while it’s often gorgeous it can feel a little wasteful in these times. But PingMag has a How-to-Reduce-Packaging Journal up today, showing examples of things going in greener and more bio-degradable directions.
Shown above is Tofu packed in a balloon. Not only does it seem material efficient, but also easy to open since you only have to prick it to have the material shrink away and leave a perfectly round ball. I wouldn’t mind seeing Mozarella and other similar European cheeses packaged like this either.
I mentioned in the last post that while I gave in and bought a phone with a slider design, I still don’t get the thing with flip-phones (or clamshells or whatever you want to call the design). They aren’t that much smaller – a bit, sure, but that’s usually offset by thickness that increases the bulge in your pocket. And you need to open the phone before being able to do just about anything. With a regular candybar design all that is needed is a quick keystroke to unlock the keys. Even with the slider compromise, I only need to open the phone when texting or otherwise entering information into it. In my opinion, that small saving in size comes at a cost in usability.
As I see it, the only benefit is dramatic effect. The opening (or closing) makes a statement that you are about to make a call, or just have finished one. Maybe that’s a good function if you’re a soap opera character who needs to emphasize your anger about having found out about your husband’s mistress by snapping the phone shut, and if you’re a Jack Bauer-type agent you might want to be able to flip open your phone and spend a moment in thoughtful hesitation before making that call that will save the West Coast, the president and your family at the cost of an evil terrorist getting free…
But for anyone else? I can’t really see the point. But there seems to be something, since there’s a lot of such phones on the market. Feel free to enlighten me.
I also mentioned that when the iPhone type all-touchscreen design becomes available in all price ranges, the need should clear for foldable and otherwise compactable designs… but who knows?
Or at least someone with a year of fine art education behind them, and another year at the same school coming up. It’s somthing I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but for various reasons I’ve felt that I couldn’t make the best of the sort of resource art school is. But better late than never, as the saying goes. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done, and I’m intent on keeping on this path as far as it goes – hopefully by getting accepted to a bachelor program after this coming year (and with most schools here in Sweden that pretty much guarantees a place in the masters program as well unless you screw up totally).
I’ll have plenty of time this summer, and unless I get too bogged down with attention defiency and house moving I’m going to get a portfolio site up during the summer. Until then, I might post something here while I consolidate my work.
Here’s a Smithsonian interview with environmental scientist Wallade Broecker, who proposes CO2 scrubbers as the way to go when it comes to reducing global warming. If it could be put into practice, it would be a great idea.
But what if we add a bit of sci-fi to the concept, along with a splash of water? Then we’d have one neat natural resource on our hands because, as anyone with basic knoledge of chemistry might know, with carbon, hydrogen and a handful of other elements you can make a lot of stuff. Broken down into atoms, not many percent of what we eat is anything other than carbon and hydrogen. The same goes for many of the plastics that much of our stuff consists of. And a lot of construction can be done with fullerenes made out of carbon itself.
It would take some major advances in nanotechnology (which might be on the way…), but the thought of turning global warming into stuff is kind of neat. Especially if you’d end up with a magic fabricating box that anyone could own and use to tap into this resource. I believe this civilization thing we have going won’t work properly before the means of production are in the hands of the individual – but that’s an entirely different story.
Rob Beschizza at Boing Boing Gadgets posted about his first fetish gadget, a Pilot V-Point pen, and I was reminded that I’m looking for a substitute for what recently became a favorite of mine - the Bic Exact-Tip rollerball pen. Any suggestions?
I found one that for some reason had been stuck in a drawer for years, maybe because while it felt great to write with, the ink would smear a bit too much on glossier paper qualities which caused some ugly results on forms and envelopes of such paper (which is what I usually use pens for – when it comes to writing and note taking by hand I’m a pencil user).
But anyway, I found the Bic and I realized it had an excellent use as an instrument for sketching and doodling – with very smooth action, a bit of variation and vividity in the lines and a flow that allowed filling larger areas.
Then, when it ran out, I found that Bic had discontinued it while my pen was gathering dust in a drawer. Apparently I’m not the only one missing them, for example an Amazon commenter claimed to have seen a box auctioned off for $60 on eBay. A bit of searching last time I thought of it found a mail-order company in Australia or New Zealand with some left, but ordering pens across the globe felt a bit too geeky…
So, while it’s a long shot, I ask this question to the internets on the odd chance that someone who shares this conundrum, but has found a suitable replacement, stumbles on this post before I go to the stationery store and buy a dozen liquid ink rollerballs to see if I find something that works…
Unless the Swedish potato chip commercial above was shot back in the day, on the actual Western frontier, which I doubt, there must be some stock of Longhorse left in the world. Maybe there is an obscure fellowship of breeders that have kept these noble beasts alive, awaiting a time when they can serve us again – and now, at the eve of the petroleum age, have decided that their long, powerful are needed to carry us away from our dependence on SUVs and other gas guzzlers.
(Don’t ask me about the short horse, though. Maybe something for urban traffic.)
Found this couple of days ago. Eerie but nice short, directed by Christian Simmons for a project of the Savanna College of Art and Design. It has a feel that I can only describe as, well, very slipstream.
Check their SCADshorts site for more info, high quality version and links to their earlier monthly releases of short films.
Now for that request: I’m looking for the title of an animated short, and I haven’t been able to feed Google with the right combination of words. It’s probably best described as a cut-out/stop-motion hybrid centered on a train, made by folding and cutting printouts from classic live action films (which then play on the created objects). It was made by a German group.
I got to see it during the two week introduction course to traditional animation which was one of many things I got to do at art school this last year, and it would be fun to see it again.
I just bought a pair of new shoes, and came to think of these. I seem to have very tender feet, or maybe awkwardly shaped heels, or both… but whatever the reason, almost every new pair of shoes is an exercise in excruciating pain until they are worn in. So these Compeed patches have become a bit of a staple for me. They are ridiculously expensive (about SEK50 for a pack of five, and directly converted that’s about €5.50 or US$8.50), but I haven’t found anything that works half as well. They stick well, staying on for a couple of days, and they cushion really well. They are thick and gel-ish, and seem to work by absorbing moisture from the blister since the part of the patch covering it swells up (that’s even if the blister has been punctured and the outer skin has fallen off). Don’t know what more they do, but something makes them unsuitable for diabetics.
Anyway… they have the ability to take me from a grimacing zombie stagger to walking more or less normally in a matter of minutes, so I try to always keep a pack at hand.
Now I’ll stop unless Johonson and Johnson offer me money to be their spokesperson…
I really needed that one. (Nothing seriously wrong – just sitting here with the clock going towards 2am, with a bit of the weird kind of backlash blues you sometimes get hit by as you realize that things aren’t too bad)
A robot may not seek to be promoted above a human being who has been at the company longer, because the human being may have a wife and kids to look after whereas the robot just goes home and tries to have relations with a bucket. -Isaac Asimov's 30 Laws of Robotics
I've mentioned that I decided it's about time I set up an artist's site, and I'll try to do better than most artists, who in my opinion very often don't take that very seriously. But I doubt it will end up as ambitious as Wim Delvoye's site, with a whole little pixel town to explore. At least not until I have studio emplyees to delegate that to. And a studio to keep them in....
Firefox 3 (you have gotten it already, haven't you?) comes with support for color profiles. Even though it's disabled by default for various reasons, I think it's good news since it means that when everything gets ironed out more images will get to be seen as they were intended to. More info from DRIA.
...haven't I read Ken MacLeod before? Why, why, why? I picked up The Star Fraction yesterday, and I'm probably going to finish it tonight. It's so damned brilliant I'm almost considering sunglasses to be a good precaution when going near it. Got to make a note to get the rest of the Fall Revolution series asap!
I think this needs some sort of change in direction, as far as there ever was one. Both closing the site down or just letting it sit here being updated every other month seem a bit like the wrong options.
...William Gibson's Spook Country, and I just "accidentally" added the Deluxe Collector's Edition of Chan-wook Park's "Vengeance trilogy". Probably the most extravagant film item I've ever bought. More to follow on that, and that much anticipated book, when they arrive.
So, the multiplying posts are gone. Seems it was an older version of this otherwise very nice Sideblog plugin not playing nice with a newer version of Wordpress.
Weird Al is back, kicking off his upcoming album with "Don't Download this Song", a Band Aid-style anthem about not downloading songs. "Don't take away money from artists like me, how else could I afford another solid gold Humvee".
