K.benton

Designed by LOVE | Country: United Kingdom

“There are some things that money just can’t buy. The Johnnie Walker Directors Blend is one of them. Created annually by Johnnie Walker Master Blender, Jim Beverage, the exclusive Directors Blend isn’t available for sale, instead it is given out as “a personal gift to esteemed friends” of Johnnie Walker. Every year a unique edition is produced. Throughout the course of this year, Diageo will gift 504 individually numbered bottles of the 2012 edition.

In keeping with tradition, the bottle for the Directors Blend is designed by one of Diageo’s design partners; creative agency, LOVE was invited to design the bottle for the 2012 Blend. Instead of using the label to describe the contents of the bottle, LOVE chose to use it to celebrate the recipient of the Blend, drawing inspiration from Johnnie Walker’s Keep Walking philosophy.”

“Gavin Pike, global brand director for Johnnie Walker at Diageo explains: “LOVE composed a series of poetic toasts in celebration of the character of those individuals who might receive a bottle. The labels have been created with an attention to detail and craftsmanship that reflects the quality of the whisky.”

Tim Wu's New Yorker piece on Aaron Swartz and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act explains how Obama could, with one speech, fix the worst problem with the worst law in technology. The CFAA makes it a felony to "exceed your authorization" on a computer system, and fed prosecutors have taken the view that this means that if you violate terms of service, you're a felon, and they can put you in jail. As Wu points out, Obama doesn't need Congress to pass a law to fix this, he could just tell the DoJ that they should stop doing this. There's plenty of precedent, and it would be excellent policy.

When judges or academics say that it is wrong to interpret a law in such a way that everyone is a felon, the Justice Department has usually replied by saying, roughly, that federal prosecutors don’t bother with minor cases—they only go after the really bad guys. That has always been a lame excuse—repulsive to anyone who takes seriously the idea of a “a government of laws, not men.” After Aaron Swartz’s suicide, the era of trusting prosecutors with unlimited power in this area should officially be over...

There is a much more immediate and effective remedy: the Justice Department should announce a change in its criminal-enforcement policy. It should no longer consider terms-of-service violations to be criminal. It can join more than a dozen federal judges and scholars, like Kerr, who adopt a reasonable and more limited interpretation. The Obama Administration’s policy will have no effect on civil litigation, so firms like Oracle will retain their civil remedies. President Obama’s DREAM Act enforcement policy, under which the Administration does not deport certain illegal immigrants despite Congress’s inability to make the act a law, should be the model. Where Congress is unlikely to solve a problem, the Administration should take care of business itself.

All the Administration needs to do is to rely on the ancient common-law principle called the “rule of lenity.” This states that ambiguous criminal laws should be construed in favor of a defendant. As the Supreme Court puts it, “When choice has to be made between two readings of what conduct Congress has made a crime, it is appropriate, before we choose the harsher alternative, to require that Congress should have spoken in language that is clear and definite.” So far, at least thirteen federal judges have rejected the Justice Department’s interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. If that’s not a sign that the law is unclear and should be interpreted with lenity, I don’t know what is.

Fixing the Worst Law in Technology

German artist Wolfgang Stiller created the ‘Matchstickmen’ using head molds that he had laying around his studio. The giant matchsticks created of thick pieces of lumber are standing or lying in the room. The faces are all different and meant to look as if they simply emerged in the wood after burning each flammable tip.

All images © Wolfgang Stiller | Via: Hypenotice

Ian Miles Cheong updates us on the struggles of Electronic Arts to get the new SimCity right.  But it sounds like EA is committed to the original SimCity idea that the user can place stations and pieces of track, but the program will decide the paths that the buses and trains follow.  And it doesn't decide very well.  Key quote from EA's designer Guillaume Pierre:

1. If there are 300 Sims waiting for the streetcar on the other side of the loop for example, they may have to wait a long time for the vehicles to make their way. To remedy this problem, we’re looking into make crowded stops “high priority pick-up” destinations that transit vehicles will go to first.

2. Another problem is that, well, all the vehicles that are in the same area and want to go to the same destination type will all follow the same path, resulting in clumping and general traffic problems. We’re looking into various ways to improve the situation so traffic will spread out better.

If this all sounds oddly like demand-responsive service, well, that's more or less the model of fixed route service -- even subways -- that EA is using.  

I criticized Sim City (original and version 4) long ago, but my understanding that EA's priority continues to be "immersiveness" for the gamer, not any relationship to reality.  (Yes, I'm aware this argument is like the argument about whether movies about science and history should be accurate or at least flag their biases -- and given their influence I personally wish they did.)  I look forward to what the new Cities in Motion 2, expected soon, comes up with.

Remember the Thonet bicycle concept, and how we weren't sure if the seat-tube-less design would be possible to execute in steambent wood? Seeing as there's still no word on whether it will become a reality, Japanese design student Yojiro Oshima has done them one better with a prototype of his unconventional bicycle concept. For his degree project at Musahino Art University's Craft & Industrial Design Department, he has designed and built a Y-Foil/Softride-style frame by hand (it wasn't based on a chair per se, but I'm seeing a little Wegner myself).

The designer recently sent the project to James Thomas of BicycleDesign.net, where Oshima notes: "This proposal is about the shape of the frame and the handle mainly which doesn't concern what material it's made out of. The maximum comfort can be put into practice by wood." Thus, the frame concept also echoes that of the previously-seen (steel) Van Hulsteijn, which is currently in production.

A visible seam

Regarding the construction and other carpentry/bike nerd concerns, Oshima adds,

It is all hand made. The down tube and seat tube are hollowed with plenty of thickness left not to disturb the surface when planed too much. As a result, it weights about 14kg in total. The thickness is uncertain though, I guess it's about 6-12mm. It is bonded the half and half into one.

I was also curious to learn that the trispoke-style wheels were originally known as "baton" wheels—the renderings of the Thonet concept has a set of HED's top-of-the-line carbon fiber version—and that the clover-like construction is intended to "soften the ride." Similarly, the cantilevered saddle intended for comfort, while the short stays speak to performance by "assuring the stiffness."

Check out the full-size images at BicycleDesign.net

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Bookshelves and stacks of books in this amazing Paris studio apartment featured in The Village.

Hong Yi is widely recognized as the artist who ‘loves to paint, but not with a paintbrush’. She is ‘painting’ portraits of iconic Chinese figures, using local everyday materials like a basketball, seeds, candles or even socks as her medium. Her grandparents left Shanghai in the ’60s and after she returned to the Middle Kingdom two generations later she was blown away by the city. This experience inspired her to start her project, picturing local icons such as Ai Weiwei, Yao Ming or Jay Chou.

All images © Hong Yi

We've seen plenty of variations on the now-canonical input device known as a keyboard, from touchscreen interfaces and, um, exterfaces to a tactile surface treatment (currently available on Kickstarter). However, a new keyboard concept has more in common with so-called index typewriters—as seen in hipstomp's typewriter round-up—than these superficial keyboard treatments, at least to the extent that it offers a more economic layout.

source

Specifically, Minuum improves on the concept of a linear arrangement of letters: screen-based UI and predictive text allows for a QWERTY layout to be transposed into a single line of letters. (It's worth noting that index typewriters were initially developed as a less expensive, more portable alternative to keyboard-based typewriters, though they were reportedly slower than handwriting in most instances.)

Minuum is a tiny, one-dimensional keyboard that frees up screen space while allowing fast, accurate typing. Current technology assumes that sticking a full typewriter into a touchscreen device is the best way to enter text, giving us keyboards that are error-prone and cover up half the usable screen space (or more) on most smartphones and tablets.

Minuum, on the other hand, eliminates the visual clutter of archaic mobile keyboards by adapting the keyboard to a single dimension. What enables this minimalism is our specialized auto-correction algorithm that allows highly imprecise typing. This algorithm interprets in real time the difference between what you type and what you mean, getting it right even if you miss every single letter.

The video is, as they say, a must-see:

Yes, the last bit is cool, but nota bene: it's currently an alpha-stage prototype, and Will Walmsley & co. are currently seeking funding on IndieGoGo. Suffice it to say that we'll be keeping an eye on this one... if all of the hypothetical wearable implementations become a reality, we could see the emergence of a new set of curious rituals.

Hat-tip to Nik Roope

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Crowd Supply is Kickstarter for product designers. That's an overly simplistic description and a disservice to what Crowd Supply has accomplished at launch, but it's the best way to explain what it is. When you dig past the surface, into what a crowdfunding site developed specifically for product designers could mean, the differences become exciting.

The site launched this morning with nine projects and three read-to-ship products, ranging the gamut from an iPhone case with a built-in hand crank charger to a cyclocross bike to a dog collar with a built-in leash that I am admittedly thinking of Backing for my own dog.

About two weeks ago, I spoke via Skype with Crowd Supply's CEO, Lou Doctor. He was coming from Crowd Supply's headquarters in Portland and had the familiar look of someone under the gun getting ready to launch a product—happy and sleep deprived. Doctor, like the five other employees at Crowd Supply , comes with a background in engineering that has veered into business, entrepreneurship and running project teams.

I came away from our discussion thinking that Doctor and his team have smartly thought through the experience of running a crowdfunded product design project while simultaneously creating a better experience for Backers.

Let's start with how Crowd Supply is the same as Kickstarter. All of the big design issues that Kickstarter solved are kept in place. Projects are pitched by Creators. They have funding goals and deadlines. If they meet or exceed their goal by the deadline, they get funded. If they miss their goal, they don't get funded. Project pages mimic Kickstarter's familiar layout: Video and funding goal at the top, description and backing tiers below. Creators retain all ownership of their projects and give Crowd Supply 5% of their fundraising total.

Beyond these fundamentals, Crowd Supply has built a platform specifically tailored for product design and manufacturing. They've done a bunch of little things right, but I want to focus on three key areas that I think makes them meaningfully different from Kickstarter.

1. Mentorship
This has the potential to be a real game changer: Crowd Supply is staffed by product development veterans who will advise Creators throughout the course of their projects.

When Creators send their projects to be reviewed, Crowd Supply's team vets them, looking for potential pitfalls in their plans. The feedback could come in the form of, "This will be more expensive that you are thinking, you need to raise your funding goal," or "Have you thought of adding an engineer to your team? Here is someone that could help," or "Have you thought through your production plan yet?" If proposals aren't up to snuff, Creators are given feedback on how to improve their project or rejected.

This is such a great feature, not only for Creators but for Backers too. For any Creator manufacturing solo for the first, or even the second or third time, asking questions like these before launch can be the difference between success and failure. Backers can feel assured that someone with expertise has vetted the project and deemed the Creator worthy of launching a project.

Once Creators are allowed through that gate, Crowd Supply's staff offers support for the duration of the project, offering advice and even providing their own fulfillment services.

I love this approach to helping Creators, because it solves a major issue of not only crowdfunding but launching products in general. The team shares their learnings of fundamental knowledge of what it takes to launch something. We're not talking about IP issues, it's basic stuff like finding a factory or figuring out how to do fulfillment. It's one of those things you can only really learn by doing, but man wouldn't it be nice to have an Obi-Wan there to show you the ways of the force.

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Illinois-based Superior Joining Technologies is "a Woman-Owned Business," as they proudly point out; for several years they've also been the owners of an incredibly bad-ass machine called the Trulaser Cell 7040, a 5000-watt beast manufactured by Germany's Trumpf.

The Trulaser 7000 series are multi-axis laser cutting and laser welding machines that run off of CAD file input. What can these machines do with metal? A better question is what can't they do. Observe their sheer majesty:

By the bye, while I rate this video highly for the machine's kick-assery, I still think the cat guy would've made this video awesome.

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Michael Weinberg from Public Knowledge sez, "We are bringing the 3D printing community back to Washington, DC for 3D/DC II. This time around, we are having a public reception in the Rayburn House Office Building on April 24th to give policymakers a chance to see 3D printing in person and talk to some of the people behind the machines. If you are in DC and are interested in 3D printing, this could be your chance to check it out." Michael wrote two amazing, definitive papers on 3D printing and the law.

I love a lot of things about “Justified”: the blend of serialized and segmented storytelling; the grand sense of place and adventure; the dialogue and characters. But time and again I’m taken with the show’s sense of place, and its commitment to creating a burned-out little universe that feels as real and lived-in as the Baltimore of “The Wire.” I finally realized what it is about the show’s depiction of Harlan that’s so arresting, and what reminded me of “The Wire” to begin with: its sense of poverty.

Poverty on television is something to be mocked or ignored, especially when dealing with people from the South. MTV’s latest reality show, “Buckwild,” takes place in West Virginia and gets a lot of mileage out of turning its characters into cartoons. But “Justified” looks with open eyes into the real face of people who are struggling to survive, and who in their desperation and anger have made some very bad choices. Ellen May, one of the strung-out prostitutes who works for Boyd Crowder, is a truly pitiable woman, but she’s not a joke. She’s a real person, bruised and lonely, and worthy of so much more than being a punch line.

Her decision to attend the church in the wild — to raise her hands with snake-handlers, to cry at the thought of being saved and held close — makes absolute sense. Logistically, the show needed a narrative way to put the church on Boyd’s radar, but emotionally, it rings true for ELlen May to find these people and ask for help. Similarly, the show doesn’t treat the church’s members as rubes, or its charismatic leader as a charlatan or psycho. These are simply real people, living poor and troubles lives the likes of which we rarely see on narrative television.

It’s not that these people are all saints, or that they don’t do stupid things. But their downfall is never because they’re poor, and the joke is never that they don’t have clean shirts. The series does its characters and viewers a powerful service by simply taking these types of poverties and folding them into the larger narrative. That’s what makes it feel so real, and why it has the power to move us.

The audience at the screening of Side Effects I attended was on par with those for most free screenings I’ve been to in my time as a critic: uncaring, prone to talking, and regretfully hostile toward displays of adult sexuality and emotional nuance. A scene of two women kissing drew uncomfortable titters; a shot of someone attempting suicide drew laughs when it cut to black. Etc., etc.

This is lamentable and not remotely new. When it happens, I usually get angry and sad for the same reasons Daniel Mendelsohn laid out when talking about why critics love things: “What motivates so many of us to write in the first place is, to begin with, a great passion for a subject … that we find beautiful; and, then, a kind of corresponding anxiety about the fragility of that beauty.” When people laugh or sneer at the wrong moment — and believe me, there are such things as wrong moments — it makes me feel cold and separate from the crowd, unable to share in a community because the one around me doesn’t have any interest in the thing I’m there to enjoy, namely, the movie. The art.

But I also think about things like context, and attention, and the perils of nervous laughter. It’s not that the more inconsiderate members of the audience actually think suicide attempts are hilarious: it’s that these moments are presented so starkly on screen that we as viewers have no choice but to reckon with them, to make ourselves vulnerable to the story, and a lot of people would rather deflect than engage. It takes a certain level of commitment to let your emotions be guided by a film, and when you couple a mass audience’s general unwillingness to yield such control with the degraded focus and dying courtesy born of the home video environment, it’s no wonder that going to the movies can be such a damn grind. You’re sitting there with people who often have no desire to give of themselves, and who wouldn’t know the first way to go about it.

This is all related to the Asshole Quotient, but in ways that I’m still figuring out. It’s not just lack of consideration that causes some people to be so odious at the theater. It’s larger issues of perception and attention, and of the level of care and commitment they bring to the process. It’s about how they/we view movies in the first place, and what we want to get out of them. When a movie does something startling or weird or uncomfortable, nervous laughter is both the most understandable and least appropriate response because it lets you choose to avoid dealing with the film on its own terms. You’re not just alienating other viewers, but missing out on what the film might have to offer. It’s work, and it’s worthwhile. But you have to stay honest.