Did you forget? Join all of us at metacool in celebrating February 8 as Eccentric Clamp Day
Tell your friends! Gearheads of the world, unite!
Did you forget? Join all of us at metacool in celebrating February 8 as Eccentric Clamp Day
Tell your friends! Gearheads of the world, unite!
08 February 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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It seems I'm not the only one enamored of satin finishes.
Rob Poltras of I Love Substance has been tracking this trend for the past year. Check out his portfolio of mattness: Catching Up on Flat Black Hotness
04 February 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Last weekend, as I tended to my newest market offering's complex fluidic thermodynamic power systems in the wee hours of the morning, I flipped on the tube and watched more than a few laps of the 24 Hours of Daytona.
A Mazda RX-8 (pictured above) won its class, beating out a gaggle of Porsche 911's for the honor. In no sense a stock car (see the video at the end of this post for a walkaround this full tube-framed racer), this RX-8 nonetheless points to the future of car design for us civilians: look closely and you'll notice that the paint isn't glossy. Instead, the luscious carbon fiber panels on this machine are matte black, or satin if you will. Wax not needed or desired.
We've been raised to believe that gloss is good, that shiny equals quality. Those days are over. Hear this now: the cult of the waxed car body is melting, and this RX-8 represents the tipping point. Sure, beating the 911's at Daytona is a win for the ages, but sporting a matte finish and finishing first -- that's a tipping point. If manufacturing and repair (how do you buff out a matte finish?) issues can be solved, I think we'll start to see a lot of matte paint jobs rolling around. And a lot of them will likely be dirt-shedding nano particle finishes. Even cooler. We've already see matte paint on show cars from BMW and Lamborghini.
Matte is the New Black.
Here's a video of the Daytona-winning RX-8 from the driver's seat (oh, the wail of a rotary motor!):
And here's an extra treat in the form of a most gnarly walkaround the car in the presence of race Nick Ham. Check out the paint (shown to best effect toward the end of the video):
02 February 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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"There is a common belief that all designers are artists. I am not. I studied engineering at Stanford and although I took some drawing courses for fun, I am sure that a good many high-school students can top me in free-hand sketching."
05 January 2008 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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My favorite talk from TED2007. As one might expect, this is a meta level talk, a Director's Commentary about being a director dreaming big things. A meditation on designing life.
Here's a transcript of Starck's talk. Let's just say that this is a very provocative and intriguing twenty minutes.
20 December 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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"Vision in Motion", Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's representation of Finnegan's Wake.
Satellite navigation system instructional diagram from the Honda Ridgeline owner's manual.
08 December 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Beautiful can be so... boring. The great thing about race cars is that, since style is not a primary design objective, they tend to fall at either end of an aesthetic bell curve: either they're so gorgeous that no styled object can match their state of perfection (think Ferrari GTO or SR-71), or their ugliness is so extreme that from it rises another kind of beauty, one characterized by exceptions to all norms of classical beautiful (think Panoz Esperante or the first-gen BMW M Coupe). In other words, they are jolie-laide, ugly-beautiful.
There's so much going on with this Kellison. It's the Gerard Depardieu of automobiles. For example, check out the squashed roof and the bulbous behind below it. Driving this car would be like living in a flat with low ceilings and one too many overstuffed leather couches from American Furniture Warehouse. Or like walking around the set of Being John Malkovich:
Looking inside, the lack of workmanship is compelling. Lexus? Flawless fit and finish? What is that? Forget about tight panel fits or unbroken surfaces, this thing is all about undulations and unresolved lines and sharp corners that might make you go "ouch":
And that aircleaner, standing proud of the hood like the conning tower on a WWII sub floating somewhere in the Pacific. It's just there. Standing free and proud, utterly oblivious to all the streamlining floating around it:
Why be beautiful when you could be interesting?
For the adventurous (and masochistic) among you, this particular J-4R is for sale at Fantasy Junction (where these photos were sourced). Props to the upstanding lads at Bring a Trailer for pointing it out.
26 November 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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A wonderful Director's Commentary by by the ever delightful Professor John Maeda on the topics of design, technology, business, and life through the lens of simplicity. See how understanding why we want to finish a big cookie, but not a big pile of laundry, is key to using the principles of simplicity in your work and life.
His book on simplicity, by the way, continues to be one of my all-time favorite points of inspiration.
16 November 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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The Jawbone Noise Shield Bluetooth Headset.
I really like mine. The design of the component parts is very well done and everything fits together very nicely -- snick snick, snick snick. I do feel like a dork wearing it, and vaguely antisocial at that, but I suppose that may change over time as more people wear these things.
What's absolutely stunning -- and what makes this device worthy of gnarly status -- is its amazing noise reduction technology. Check out the following demo video:
12 November 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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GT-R. Probably my favorite performance car brand ever. Capable of spanking a Porsche 911 Turbo around the famed Nurburgring. The new version of the GT-R is here, which means it is time to start saving up my quarters. Yowsa.
28 October 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Yes.
My brother Carlos is quoted in today's New York Times in an article about making quiet computers:
Some customers are paying attention. When Carlos Rodriguez, a community manager for a Web start-up, built out the PC for his home theater, he turned to a Zalman CNPS9500, a $49 cooler for the C.P.U. that comes with hundreds of thin copper fins and weighs almost a quarter of a pound.
“It’s got huge heat-sink fins,” Mr. Rodriguez said. “It’s got a 92-millimeter fan. I just can’t hear it at all. It’s big, but it’s also kind of beautiful.”
Right on, bro!
Having designed the thermal system for the original Intel Xeon processor, I'm really in to cooling fins. They are beautiful.
11 October 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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06 October 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Were I an atom of titanium, I'd try and pull every string I could (bear in mind that I would be Italian titanium) in order to be packed in to this amazing Luminar Marina Automatic by Panerai. I'd lobby hard to land some choice real estate near that tasty winding mechanism.
Oh man. Hubba hubba. Titanium.
24 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Consider This: the 2007 David H. Liu Memorial Lecture Series in Design is about to kick off at Stanford!
As usual, it is a pretty amazing roster of speakers, including Jan Chipchase, whose Future Perfect blog has been a mainstay of the metacool Cool Destinations blog roll for quite some time. I had the great fortune to hang out with Jan at a beach party at TED earlier this year, and we had a (no surprise!) really interesting conversation. Can't wait to hear him again.
I'd also like to issue a challenge for all of you with blogs or other means of spreading the word. Over the years, attendance at the Liu Lectures has been less than one would expect given the quality of the speakers. Which is a real pity, not just because the speakers are always amazing, but also because the series is a celebration of David Liu's love of designing things, and by showing up we pay respect.
We can change that. Let's embark on an experiment in creating infectious action. Here's how:
Cool. See you there!
20 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (3)
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"The beauty of Italy continues to amaze me. Maybe you need to be non-Italian, new to the country, to really notice it. I love it here. Every day feels like a Sunday."
07 September 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Here's a great Director's Commentary centering on the new Boeing Dreamliner. In this video interview, Fortune's David Kirkpatrick interviews Teague CEO John Barratt about the development of the Dreamliner's passenger experience. I enjoyed hearing about the design process used to get to the final result, which looks quite promising.
Though I have to admit that at a personal level I'm a bit reticent to fly in a plane made largely of carbon fiber, I do admire Boeing's return to a structural paradigm pioneered by aircraft of seventy years ago, such as the innovative Lockheed Vega, piloted by the equally groundbreaking innovator Wiley Post.
I had the pleasure of meeting John at DMI's International Design Management Conference last year, and we will both be speaking at a Marketing Science Institute conference in October.
31 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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The past few weeks I've had the pleasure of making my way through a wonderful book about the amazing life and times of Bill Milliken. The title is Equations of Motion: Adventure, Risk and Innovation. An MIT engineer by training, Milliken's varied and exciting life makes Indiana Jones seem a wimp by comparison, and places Buckaroo Banzai in the category of simpleton. Here's his bio from the publisher of the book:
William F. Milliken was born in Old Town, Maine in 1911. He graduated MIT in 1934. During World War II he was Chief Flight Test Engineer at Boeing Aircraft. From 1944, he was managing director at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory (CAL/Calspan), retiring as the head of the Transportation Research Division, which he founded.
Bill joined the SCCA in 1946 (Competition License No. 6) and contested over 100 races as well as holding many responsible club positions. Milliken Research Associates was founded in 1976 and continues as a foundational research asset to the automotive and auto racing industries. Bill remains active in MRA, which is now run by his son, Douglas L. Milliken.
Bill is co-author of Race Car Vehicle Dynamics and Chassis Design. He is an SAE Fellow, member of the SCCA Hall of Fame, recipient of the SAE Edward N. Cole Award, the Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award and many other citations for innovation.
Today Bill lives in the Buffalo, New York area with his wife, Barbara. He continues to consult with racing and chassis engineers. He jogs around the half-mile track behind his home and spends several evenings at the gym.
This book works on many levels. It's a fascinating look at the world of aviation pre- and post-WW II. You get a ringside seat at the dawn of the sports car movement in the United States. It is an honest glimpse at what life was like in America around the turn of the Twentieth Century, and what it feels like to enter early adulthood under the weight of a major economic depression. Most of all, it's a tribute to what it means to be a racer, to be an entrepreneur and a generative person, to get up each morning and say "How am I going to change the world today?".
I believe "design" is a verb and "innovation" is best thought of as the outcome of relatively tight set of behaviors and life attitudes embodied to their fullest by people like Bill Milliken. He designed his life, and continues to live a remarkable one today.
I love this book.
PS: if you don't have the time (or inclination) to read Equations of Motion, please take a look at this charming profile of Milliken written by Karl Ludvigsen: Mister Supernatural
28 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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I'm fascinated by Fuji Kindergarten, as profiled by Fiona Wilson in Monocle magazine. Fuji Kindergarten is a school whose building was designed by Tezuka Architects.
I wish my kids could go to Fuji Kindergarten. I wish I could have gone to Fuji Kindergarten. I wish I could go now. Fuji Kindergarten, I reckon, is what happens when "chutes and ladders" meets a thought experiment about education which goes back to first principles. What makes it so unusual an educational institution is that it places the most emphasis on learning, rather than on teaching. And on students rather than teachers (and, I'd wager, on teachers rather than administrative staff...). Think about that one for a while.
Next time I travel to Japan, I'm going to try and visit Fuji Kindergarten. In the mean time, I'm going to try and apply some of its lessons to our own school project over here at Stanford, called the d.school. Perhaps we can work harder to make the architecture really support the learning process behind design thinking.
By the way, I'm beginning to really dig Monocle magazine.
19 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Tachometers with telltales...
... and straight-sixes from M Power...
... rallye timepieces...
... it's the Monterey Weekend!
Forgive my lame attempt to ape the Sound of Music. I'm just so excited about the gnarlyness I will experience over the next 48 hours or so!
I'll be hanging around the Monterey Historics and BarCamp this weekend. Two days of atoms and bits, dorks and geeks. Drop me a line if you'll be at either one -- I'd love to meet up.
Props to the gnarly boys at Bring a Trailer for the tasty photos.
17 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Here's a great Director's Commentary: architect, designer, and author Bill McDonough speaks about cradle to cradle design. If you've never heard him speak, I highly encourage you to give a listen. And if you have, well, I learn something new each time I listen.
I first heard Bill speak on February 11, 2003 at a lecture given at Stanford's Graduate School of Business. I remember being in that miserable state of having just recovered from a winter flu, and not really wanting to do anything more than go to sleep, but something told me to leave work early to grab a good seat.
I'm glad I did. His words changed my life, because for the first time I saw a potential path forward. I took a class on environmental science in the Fall of 1988 as a freshman at Stanford, and had been aware of the science of global warming and of the importance of toxic concentrations of chemicals since that time. But, as a design engineer, I never felt there was much I could do beyond specifying good materials and making sure they were labeled for recycling. McDonough's Cradle to Cradle philosophy changed all of that for me, because it helped me see clearly the value of being able to combine, at a personal, corporate, societal, and global level, the lenses of business, human values, and technology.
14 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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An extra heaping serving of power-on oversteer, anyone?
This video is a hot lap of Laguna Seca as seen by driver Michael Sheehan behind the wheel of a gnarly -- gnarly! -- 1968 McLaren M6B Can-Am racing car. To be precise, this doesn't seem much like driving a normal car to me; it seems to have much more in common with being strapped to the tip of an ICBM. Here's what lighting the wick on a M6B feels like, in the words of Sheehan:
This was the car driven by ex-Formula 1 driver (and race winner) Jo Bonnier. The car has in the neighborhood of 600hp and weighs in around 1,700lbs. It's an aluminum monocoque, which is very different from modern racecars. Think of it as sheet aluminum origami secured with rivets. The only "safety cage" to speak of is a not very confidence inspiring main hoop, braced only with a stringer from the center top of the hoop back to the head on the engine, which is secured with removable pins.
Let me honest by saying that I currently feel like someone has beaten the crap out of me with a baseball bat. My lats, shoulders, pecs and upper arms are sore from wrestling with the car. I have a bruise/abrasion the size of a Coke can on my right buttock from sitting directly on the aluminum floor. Don't ask me how, I still don't know. Oh, and despite the earplugs, my ears are still ringing. All in all, I couldn't be happier and I wouldn't change a thing. Every muscle ache brings a happy memory back from yesterday.
Aside from being remarkably gnarly, the McLaren M6B is the tangible expression of a wildly successful innovation program called the Canadian-American Challenge Cup, or Can-Am. Can-Am was a racing series which attracted the very best engineers and drivers. What made it unique was its lack of rules. The only real constraints facing the teams particpating in Can-Am were time, money, and the physical layout of the tracks to be raced on. When it came to what you wanted to race, the sky was the limit -- and it engendered some incredible designs, including the some very advanced aerodynamic and structural solutions. And horsepower came oozing out of every nook and crevice, leading up to the amazing Penske Porsche 917, whose dominance effectively killed the series, because it "cracked" the code -- no further innovation was possible given period technology, no matter one's budget.
What's the lesson for creating innovative behavior? It's that macro conditions matter the most when your goal is to push the state of the art. Setting macro context is more important than mapping out a golden strategy at the micro level. If you want to produce astoundingly innovative solutions in a revolutionary sense, perhaps the best thing you is to set a few very broad boundary conditions, such as time and money, and then let everyone go do their thing. In this way, Can-Am was very much an early type of automotive X PRIZE, if one which pursued a very different performance vector. Just as in an X PRIZE competition, the governing body behind Can-Am declared set amounts of prize money, told people where and when to come and do performance tests, and then watched lots of adult human beings spend lots of blood, sweat, tears, and cash in the pursuit of victory. Can-Am was the ultimate in high-variance automotive innovation, and at the right end of the Gaussian distribution of car designs came things like the M6B. And they were awesome.
For the serious UGG types among you, here's a twenty-five minute video of Sheehan driving a race around Laguna Seca:
The annual Monterey Historic Races are on August 17-19, and the West Coast staff of metacool will there in force. The races are not just a great chance to see historic pieces of machinery such as the M6B in action, but are a wonderful way to appreciate the ingenuity, courage, and sheer beauty involved in this human endeavor we call design.
06 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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Here's another Director's Commentary tale, this time from the design and build team behind the Honda Ridgeline Baja racer.
Don't let the gearhead nature of this particular commentary put you off -- this is a story about attention to detail, iteration, and evidence-based management. To create a successful race car, you have to execute a design which won't be let down by trivial logistics ( failing due to a cheap, trivial part), but which also hews to a winning overall point of view ( balancing the weight which comes with reliability with the conflicting need for agility and speed). Holding opposing constraints in mind, making choices - that sounds like design thinking for strategy to me.
Here's a cool bit of detailed design thinking which might not be insignificant were it to be needed:
When done properly, the seat attachment points are part of the rollcage, not welded to the truck's floor. This way, the seats can't tear loose from the floor in case of a severe accident or rollover. The occupants and their seats stay inside the cage.
And of course, there's some serious unabashed gearhead gnarlyness at work here. Check out this elegant rollcage creeping forward over the front strut towers, and those gorgeous welds:
And this is what informed intuition - a critical part of design thinking - looks like in action:
Hey Dennis, how cool is this? 8-)
03 August 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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I once heard the great Sara Little Turnbull tell my group of student design engineers at Stanford that the way to become a great designer someday was to be a great reader today.
As you can imagine, I liked what she was saying.
I also like this article titled "C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success", though I wonder if it doesn't confuse correlation with causation. I think rich folks have big libraries for reading because they're rich, not the other way around (your local library is a more eco-friendly way to enjoy the literary works of mankind). But reading is certainly a fine way to understand the world, to develop critical thinking skills, and -- perhaps most important of all -- to grow one's ability to recognize patterns in information. That's a key design thinking skill. In that vein, I particularly like this quote in the article from Sidney Harman:
I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.
I'm going to need to read up a bit on that.
20 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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This latest Director's Commentary on metacool is truly meta: it's a designer being interviewed about what it means to design with simplicity in mind. In this simply awesome interview, NPR's Ira Flatow talks to Professor John Maeda about The Laws of Simplicity.
I truly appreciate any opportunity I get to listen to Professor Maeda talk about his approach to the process of designing things. My favorite law of simplicty is Law 5: Differences. This law can be stated as follows:
Actually, that's a big, fat lie on my part. If I put on my professional hat, then my favorite law of simplicity is actually Law 7: Emotion, which is:
If you decide to take a listen to Maeda's interview, you'll hear him talk about why desirability can make even a complex, cultish device such as the iPhone seem simple. Wanting something makes it easier to use. Think about that one next time you're dealing with the Internal Revenue Service. I'm a big believer in starting and ending with desirability when it comes to designing for success in the marketplace, so you can see why I like Law 7.
By the way, he wrote a wonderful book about the subject, too. I highly recommend it.
17 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (2)
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Phil Patton has a nice story in the New York Times about the increasing recognition by the automobile industry that green cars more red, if you want them to be desired by a broad market:
15 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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"Whether in music or in fiction, the most basic thing is rhythm. Your style needs to have good, natural, steady rhythm, or people won’t keep reading your work. I learned the importance of rhythm from music — and mainly from jazz. Next comes melody — which, in literature, means the appropriate arrangement of the words to match the rhythm. If the way the words fit the rhythm is smooth and beautiful, you can’t ask for anything more. Next is harmony — the internal mental sounds that support the words. Then comes the part I like best: free improvisation. Through some special channel, the story comes welling out freely from inside. All I have to do is get into the flow. Finally comes what may be the most important thing: that high you experience upon completing a work — upon ending your “performance” and feeling you have succeeded in reaching a place that is new and meaningful. And if all goes well, you get to share that sense of elevation with your readers (your audience). That is a marvelous culmination that can be achieved in no other way.
Practically everything I know about writing, then, I learned from music."
09 July 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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The 24 Hours of Le Mans race is on! If you're a motorsports fan, it doesn't get much better than the complex brew of strategy, technology, and teamwork necessary to win a day-long endurance race. It's fascinating stuff -- Le Mans is to auto racing fan what Wagner's Ring Cycle is to opera buffs.
Le Mans is still relevant even if you loathe racing. Last year Audi made history by winning the race with leading-edge diesel technology, a racing first. This year Peugeot joins the diesel fray with their wicked-looking 908. Diesel is not the ultimate answer to the environmental challenges facing us today, but it is a more efficient alternative to traditional gasoline technology. What Audi and Peugeot are doing at Le Mans is all about creating a more attractive story around clean diesel motors so that they become more desirable to the general populace. It's a good example of trying to make green more red.
16 June 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Dennis Whittle, the Chairman and CEO of Global Giving, is blogging about the student projects which were launched a few days ago in my CIA-KGB class at the Stanford d.school. The class project ended up being a good experience because Dennis and many others from Global Giving gave an enormous amount of their time to help support the students in their work to create infectious action around the idea of social entrepreneurship in general, and Global Giving in particular. Here's an excerpt from his blog:
I was absolutely stunned by what each [group] could deliver in such as short period.
I was, too. And since I think innovation only happens when real change is made in the world, I'm looking forward to seeing the impact of the six student projects over the next few months. Here's the first of Dennis's posts on the class:
04 June 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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"The way I produce a chicken is an extension of my worldview. You can
learn more about that by seeing what's on my bookshelf than having me
fill out a whole bunch of forms."
-- Joel Salatin of Polyface Farms, as quoted in The Omnivore's Dilemma
31 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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The Audi RS4, as piloted by one David E. Davis, Jr., along the beautiful string of roads which make up the California Mille. In my book, Mr. Davis is the biggest voice to hit American literature since Twain, or Hemingway -- or perhaps even both -- and here he takes us on a wonderful video journey about cars, landscape, friendship, and memories of winding roads and the cars that need them. As you hear him playing that sonorous V-8 up through the gears, it's hard to disagree with his belief that "... God does not charge us for hours spent driving before breakfast."
Myself, I quite fancy the RS4. It's one amazing piece of engineering. A bit thirsty and heavy, yes, but if thought of as a four-door 911, it makes more sense.
But forget Porsche. Audi is the new BMW. Close the cubicle door, turn up the volume on your laptop, watch DED, Jr. drive those roads again, and you'll see why I think that's the case. Audi is on fire.
Winding Road video: 2007 California Mille, June 2007
30 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
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Here's a Director's Commentary from MacArthur genius grant winner Amy Smith. This was one of my favorite talks from TED2006. Enjoy!
28 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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A special reminder for all you Silicon Valley members of the metacool community:
John Maeda is speaking tomorrow night at Stanford. I can't wait.
Check out his SIMPLICITY and Laws of Simplicity blogs -- two of my favortie.
Hope to see you there!
22 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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The past few days my get-up-and-go-to-work routine has been spiced up by the rumbling above of a B-17. I see it each morning out of a skylight in my house. Yes, a WWII-vintage Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress restored and flown by the Collings Foudnation. Out of thousands built, there are only 14 left flying, and this one is buzzing Silicon Valley, giving pay rides.
I've been a big airplane fan for as long as I can remember (are you at all surprised?), but I've never heard a B-17 in flight. Mustangs, yes, Spitfires, yes, but never a multi-engine bomber. The sound it makes is really distinctive and unlike any modern airplane. It's not so much the loud, piercing buzz or wail one gets from a turboprop or jet-powered plane; the B-17 is powered by four huge Wright Cycone radial piston motors which together put out a massive, low rumble, like a pack of NASCAR racers flying over your head. Seeing the B-17 makes me think about a few things:
Anyway, it was cool. Maybe someday I'll take a ride. Special thanks to the good folks at Telstar Logistics for their full write up of the Collings B-17 here and here.
(photo credit above Telstar Logistics)
21 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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What makes something gnarly? And when can one be sure that one is experiencing true unabashed gearhead gnarlyness, and not some flimsy substitute?
Weighty questions.
I'm not sure of the answer(s). I know gnarlyness when I see it, but I'm only just starting to tease out the underlying design principles. Perhaps I'll embark on a public journey, a la John Maeda and his Laws of Simplicity, of surfacing the true drivers of gnarlyness via a public conversation. Let's see. Where this goes depends largely on you.
For now, though, I think gnarlyness happens when four design principles are held in mind:
1. Embrace the visceral, dude:
2. Have a strong point of view:
3. Celebrate workmanship:
4. Be red. Really, really red:
15 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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11 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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How does a 400 horsepower, fire-breathing Honda Odyssey strike you?
Not exactly the greenest of conveyances, but I bet some hyper-fast minivans would go a long way toward changing the "vans are for soccer moms" story which makes people go and buy silly, tippy SUV's for road use. A powerful van would at least be greener than an equally powerful SUV. After all, a mini van really isn't a small van; it's a tall car. And space is the ultimate luxury.
08 May 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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A white roof on a car has been a good idea for a long time. It keeps things cool.
It was a good idea on a Chevy Suburban back in the 60's. Good for proportions.
When they designed the original Mini, they thought white was great. And it was.
An uncle had a Landcruiser. It was very tippy in the corners (with a white roof).
It looks not half bad on the new FJ Cruiser. Helps it look less like a Hummer.
White works very well on the new new Mini... at least on the roof.
White is the new black roof... and it's even on top of the new Ford Flex.
Thank you for your time. This is just the way my brain works.
Citroen photo: Jessica Bee
Suburban photo: SF Steve
Mini photo: mparthesius
Landcruiser photo: CasaLuMa
30 April 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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What happens when a singular talent like Joshua Bell plays Chaconne on his $3.5 million Stradivarius for rush-hour commuters in Washington D.C.?
Nothing. Or very little -- $32 in exchange for 43 minutes of music, which is only bad if you're Joshua Bell. And aside from the lack of monetary compensation, very little attention from adults (click thru here for a few must-see videos of Bell playing in context). Who listened? According to the article, only the children, with a few exceptions:
There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.
Why the kids? Partly because they know beauty in their hearts and not in their analytic brains. Partly because they're not rushing somewhere like all the adults (even if they're in tow -- young children don't rush anywhere they don't want to go). The kids were listening because that's what kids do. They listen and observe with an intensity that only the most talented and highly-trained professional ethnographers can muster. In the face of such beauty and mastery, how could they not spend these precious moments of life soaking in the music?
This sense of "beginner's mind" or "mind of the child" is a pillar of design thinking. It's the ability to see things afresh. To see deeply and to sense the truth and the beauty. It's not the same thing as ignorance -- far from it. Rather it's a cultivated ability, an ability which, ideally, is matched with deep technical expertise and wisdom. A structural engineer with the ability see with the mind of a child gives us the works of Robert Maillart. Learning this skill, and keeping it alive and sharp and curious, requires lifelong dedication.
In that sense, my hat goes off to John Picarello, one of the few adults to stop and listen. Here's what he said to a reporter afterward:
This was a superb violinist. I've never heard anyone of that caliber. He was technically proficient, with very good phrasing. He had a good fiddle, too, with a big, lush sound. I walked a distance away, to hear him. I didn't want to be intrusive on his space... It was that kind of experience. It was a treat, just a brilliant, incredible way to start the day.
Picarello was once a devoted musician, which is the reason behind his ability to analyze Bell's technique. But what Picarello has is beginner's mind. He heard Bell for what Bell is even without knowing that it was Bell. Perhaps a distinguishing mark of a design thinker is the cultivated ability to "know good" when one sees it. Is he a practicing designer? No, and he gave up the violin a long time ago. But somewhere along the line he picked up this skill, and it's a strong argument for giving children the kind of broad, creative education advocated by people like Sir Ken Robinson. This last quote from Picarello gave me chills:
"If you love something but choose not to do it professionally, it's not a waste. Because, you know, you still have it. You have it forever."
Thanks to Matt from Signal vs. Noise for highlighting this article
12 April 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
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The good folks over at Winding Road have posted an incredible set of their 25 favorite images from the last year. Even better, they've provided a wallpaper-size version of each photo so that you can enjoy them from the comfort and privacy of your very own LCD.
Doesn't the photo above of DED Jr's '62 fuelie Corvette just knock your hat in the creek?
photo credit: James P. Morse
07 April 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Why settle for beautiful when you could be interesting instead?
That's what jolie-laide will do for you.
April 2 means that metacool is now three years old! Thank you for all your attention, ideas, conversation, help, and interest. Let's see where we are on April 2, 2010!
Gnarly!
photo credit: the.voyager
02 April 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Ever wonder what tumblehome is? Ever wonder why you've never wondered what tumblehome is?
The New York Times is running a nice interactive graphic which shows and defines the terms which form the basis of an auto designer's aesthetic vocabulary. Strictly speaking, since there's no designer speaking here, this isn't exactly a Director's Commentary; it's more like a commentary on commentaries.
Zero tumblehome? A Land Rover. Massive tumblehome? A Pagani Zonda (whose factory is a great place to visit, by the way).
And the car in the NYT's diagram? A Saturn Aura, proof of the resurgence of their brand. Good stuff.
31 March 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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We live in a wonderful age where digital controls add another layer of life and complexity of behavior to analog devices such as the Renault Formula 1 motor above being played like a choir using a computer to control the rpms (the fun starts with 32 seconds left in the video).
Why must things sound boring or terrible? Why not design them to sound the way they would sound if you stopped and thought about the right sound for the occasion? You know that ominous landing gear whine and clunk you hear right after take off in a jet liner? Why not make that sound confidence-inspiring? Everything can be designed, and to deliver a total experience, probably should be.
17 March 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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"There was a time not so long ago when egomaniacs made media to their own personal standards, and when you make something for yourself, it will always be far better and more honest than something you make the please the marketplace. With computers, individuals can be egomaniacs and make the media they think is good."
- Tibor Kalman, as quoted in Wired magazine, December 1996
14 March 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Until the TEDTalk video comes out, Tom Guarriello's great blog post about Philippe Starck's incredible speech at TED last week will have to do. It's a good brain rattler.
photo credit: PMO
13 March 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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I’m double blog-stinting this week. Along with my fellow guest bloggers David Hornik and Bruno Giussani, I’ll be over at TEDBlog for the week writing posts on a daily basis.
Actually, I’m always double stinting in that I’ve been a guest blogger for TED over the past year. One of my recent posts talks about whooping it up with Toyota in NASCAR, and another one is a march through my daily life in search of my Starck Factor.
In case you are wondering, no, I didn’t receive any hate mail for daring to talk about NASCAR in the same sentence as TED. Honestly, I think NASCAR is a great example of what happens when technology meets entertainment meets design in a premeditated fashion. It may not be your cup of tea – or it might be your can of Bud – but it is obviously working, so why not learn from it? One of my goals for 2007 is to make it to a NASCAR race.
But do please check out the TEDBlog this week.
06 March 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
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Wow, what a lot of fun that namestorm was! The "KGB" names are still rolling in, and I have to say there was some very creative thinking going on (see Reilly's comments on the previous post below). The winner is Kindling Gregarious Behavior, because it sounds good, actually describes the content and aim of the course (not a bad thing at all when you think about it) and -- best of all for me -- it echoes the observation that Wikia CEO Gil Penchina made on a panel I hosted at last year's AlwaysOn conference. Gil made the point that, instead of spending all your time, energy, money and luck building a big bonfire on your own and then hoping that a bunch of other people will choose to come and sit around it, why not identify all the myriad little campfires burning around you and pour a little gas on each one? That's the way infectious action and gregarious behavior get fed. It's not about some big top-down mission, though centralized thinking matters. It's about embracing the power of the community. It's about kindling.
Anyway, I'm really excited to be teaching CIA-KGB along with a truly fabulous -- FABULOUS! -- teaching team. We learned a lot teaching CIA last year (and got lots of great coverage in BusinessWeek and other august journals), so this year we've made some tweaks to the class to try and make it an even better experience. This year's class will again involve a creating infectious action project for the good folks at Mozilla, and will then focus on a project for Global Giving. I'm very excited to be working with Global Giving, and it already feels good to be brainstorming project ideas with my Mozilla friends.
This will not be your usual classroom experience. Everything is real, everything is open-ended, and the sky is the limit. It'll be scary. It'll be fun. It'll be something, hopefully, which knocks your hat in the creek. As if all that weren't enough, it looks like Global Giving will be supporting some summer internship positions for CIA-KGB students who A), kick butt in the class, and B) want to keep working on Global Giving-related issues. How cool is that?
Are you a Stanford student with Master's standing? Please consider applying for the course. You can find an application here. It's due March 9, and we'll be selecting 24 people to part of the CIA-KGB classroom community. The journey is the reason we do all of this, and the fruit of the voyage will be more experience with the design thinking process as well as further developing methodologies for creating infectious action and kindling gregarious behavior.
28 February 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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I've always wanted one. Growing up in Boulder as a lad in the Ford + Carter years, I saw them everywhere. An ubiquitous presence on the aesthetic landscape. I just assumed that a third of America drove a Saab 96 or 95. Along with bobbing Citroen DS21's, snorty BMW 2002tii's, prim and proper Volvo Amazons, and some wickedly Mothra-like ur-Subaru's, the Saab 96 was the car of choice for all the forward thinking 1970's pseudo intellectual and non-pseudo intellectual hippies who inhabited (and still inhabit) my hometown. Each day on my trudge to and from elementary school I'd stop and goggle an off-white 95 wagon, marveling at its bulldog proportions and vestigial tailfins. "Why?," I wondered. "Why not?" I now realize, was the answer.
It's a design classic. Penned by Sixten Sason, it built the Saab brand by winning rallies the world over, its little two-stroke heart beating away pop-pop-poppoppopopop-pop in freewheeling gravel drifts through dark forests. Of course the brand lost its way, as most great brands do when they become exercises in linear, rational corporate thinking. Too bad Subaru is the new Saab, but thank goodness Subaru is the new Saab, too.
Long live the 96!
16 February 2007 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
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Here's a fantastic Director's Commentary from architect Joshua Prince-Ramus. It's a video of his talk from TED2006, and it he provides an eye-opening look at the design process which has created works such as the Seattle Public Library, among others. Three interesting threads are woven in to his commentary:
The storytelling is great. If you can, it's easily worth the twenty minutes you'll spend. This is how innovative behavior looks and feels and happens.
06 February 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
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