has fashion design lost it's plot ?

I must admit that i do not really follow reports of fashion events and my awareness of the latest fashion trends or the hippest new look is rather rudimentary, but one recent event - London Fashion Week - stuck in my mind as pictures of one specific show, that of Charlie Le Mindu, where published in any possible web magazine (above). Models were nude or semi-nude, some covered in fake blood, others wearing gas masks, etc. I mean... REALLY ??!! I am sure this show was meant as a joke or sarcastic jibe at the mostly overrated and overexposed fashion industry, because no designer can seriously think of this as design. Besides the rather obvious shock 'value' (Yawn... so new..... NOT), I could not see any other value in this as much as I looked at it from different angles. But hey... in our superficial world even fashion butchers as this Mr. Le Mindu will have their minute of fame, talent or not. And I contributed.... sigh . AJ

design file : Pinky

ok .. i didn't ask SCMP for permission to add this pic (noted herewith), but this was the only pic I can find
of 'Pinky' the doll created for real Hong Kong girls, modelled after a real HK girl (according to the article I read in the SCMP.. shown here the creator, a Mrs. N. to the right and a Ms. Y, the inspiration). It was also noted by Mrs. N in that same article that girls in HK are very fashionable and trendy when it comes to clothing, not necessarily just looking for big name brands or running after the most expensive items. They can even be creative on a budget and are always well dressed and well groomed.
I am not challenging that statement, but what puzzled me in all this is the result - the doll. If Ms. Y was the inspiration (or representation) of HK girls, the same should be up in arms. Not only is the doll named 'Pinky',
which is not the first doll by that name, but .. well... looks pink, which seems to be the only color in the spectrum that can be associated with HK Chinese girls. If the observation and inspiration was that of fashionable and trendy females, then I don't understand why this doll is wearing a pink ball gown and hair looking like grandma's wig (including the flower). Looks to me someone has watched 'the world of suzie wong' a bit too often to be able to translate observations into tangible results. One of the many Pinkies... AJ

anatomy of a product

It is just mind boggeling looking at this pictures and amazing how many parts are needed to put products together (not even thinking about the machines needed to make them and the man hours to put all those together). Photographer Todd McLellan has captured beautifully the disassembly of average products on his website toddmclellan.com and created pieces of art, but there are also other such images to be found on the web as the one of the VW Golf. Thinking of a car and looking at all those parts it serves as a rude awakening that we focus too much on the environmental impact of the final product and its use, rather than the energy consumption of all machines and equipment needed (including shipping, etc.) to make the components. Calculating the combined energy consumption needed for production I wonder how that compares to the energy consumed using the final product. AJ
An interesting clip of the deconstruction of a Hyundai Genesis:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HcFMWKThpg&feature=player_embedded

Disposable Tech.... or ?

In our inconsiderate 'trash-and-replace' culture it does not come as a surprise to be able to purchase 'disposable' USB sticks (Art.Lebedev) or mobile phones (BIC). However, detaching ourself from the aspect of 'disposing' this two items are actually quite ingenious. A USB stick encased in cardboard appears to be more environmental concious than the ones in a plastic shell or metal. I liked the snap-off and little space to write notes on it. Can easily be mailed and reused by the receiver.
At first glance the phone seemed like a bad idea to reduce our mounts of waste, but let's put it this way : Being able to purchase a pre-charged phone with 60 minutes free at any 7/11 can be an extremely useful thing under certain circumstances. Priced at close to 50 Euros it is not necessarily cheap, but a small price to pay when really in need. Of course this can never be considered a cheaper alternative to the real thing and - let's be honest - at the end of the day will still be thrown away. AJ

spy in the sky

 not sure what to make of this 'Nano Air Vehicle' by AeroVironment developed over the past 5 years for millions $$$  to look and function like a humming bird. From a technology perspective its quite cool, while the intended purpose for this device seems rather rediculous (check out clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9R9LtsdMz90&NR=1) While I give credit to the developers I also do imagine quite some handy civilian applications (checking out the neighbours' bedroom actions without them noticing for instance.. just for scientific purposes), but i still don't understand why they don't just strap cameras on real birds... oh, they can not be remote-controlled. I'll be laughing seeing all this robo-birds being attacked by real falcons and being picked to pieces. AJ

the new cool of drilling holes

ever wondered why all modern handheld power drills no longer look like this dull, grey (green or blue) boring machines as they used to ? Because DIY ,my friends, is fun and drilling a few holes to put that damn painting up is a serious exercise for some couch potato. Others may even consider is a sport, which is why some of this tools look like gym equipment. Having designed such products many years ago my boss would have killed me suggesting a white drill driver ('ex boss... ahm, perhaps they don't leak motor oil as much as they used to..?'). But I especially liked the B&D drill. AJ

ever heard of...

... 'steam punk' ?  Well, I didn't until today when i found the work of Belgian artist Stephane Halleux on the web (the two bottom pics are examples). Steam punk is not just some cyber gothic mod movement, but is in fact some quasi victorian interpretation of Jules Verne-style sci-fi translated into robotic technology. Quite some amazing stuff. Check link.

Big Bang

Just recently NASA has discovered and made visible a galaxy that is the furthest away from earth at about 400 million years. ' No big deal' one thinks, but then i started to wonder what this means. Our universe apparently started with a 'big bang' about 15 billion years ago (may be a few minutes more or less..) and formed the star and galaxy structure as we know it 1 billion years ago. Meaning before that was absolutely nothing, just endless blackness which has been appropriately named the 'dark ages'.
It just blows my mind to think how big the whole universe is and to think that it is infinitive any reference of measurement is actually useless. Does it end somewhere and we just don't know about it yet ? Creepy to think that perhaps our universe fits on a particle of dust of some parallel dimension. AJ

LCD addiction

perhaps the old fashioned way to be 'glued' to a computer screen, but a good metaphore of what is happening around us. I have just calculated that, on an average work day, I spend about 8 hours staring
at some LCD or OLED display. From smart phone (4.5"), laptop at work (15.6"), iPad at home (10")
to TV (32"). It's almost as if humans have evolved into a display-centric life form being constantly connected and visually stimulated by digital information displayed on a screen. As we evolve further perhaps our eyes
will grow larger and we will develop 3D vision, thus avoiding wearing this stupid 3D glasses. Our capability of speech and verbal communication will be reduced to something comparable to sms-slang. rdy 4 lnch.c u ltr. dmn cmptr. AJ

KNokia-ed Out!

Android and iPhone suck up Nokias meal...I still argue that this is thinking coming from the mindset of the western world where tech use serves a huge social and business purpose. In the economically developing world on the other hand it's still serving to connect people in the most basic way, "hello"...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12403466