Designing better futures

on the pursuit of ideal beauty

Here is an interesting video, maybe creepy for some, but an interesting message about the pursuit of beauty and image in a video centric era.  It represents a bit of a cold dystopian view, but is interesting all the same.

Japanese culture and design.

Some of the best design comes from Japan.  One of my favorite periods of cultural explosion was the late edo period during the Meiji restoration.  Here is a very interesting video highlighting modern Japanese architecture in a very interesting way.  A lot of people don't know that the impressionists from France in the mid 19th century took a lot inspiration from a huge influx of Japanese prints and art works.

Thanks Core77.

Here is some 80's video cheese about the whole thing.

And here is a good starter link with japanese designers. from Mocoloco

You can also read about Murakami, one of the more well known contemporary Japanese artists here.  An example of  his work is below.

Wave your hands in the air

Our interactions shape our beliefs.  Here is a new way of interacting with things.  Remember when people, used the "drive" metaphor for a computer.  He or she knows how to drive a computer.  If you are under 35, you probably don't.  Touch, and gesture are natural anthropic behaviours. 

Here is a very anthropic, what is commonly called "friendly" or ergonomic way to interact...oh and its cool as well. thanks new launches

spy toys: Helicopter in a tube.

I recently bought Mercedes a copy of Spy Wars a great book about the CIA counter intelligence efforts during the cold war.  Never under estimate the Russians, which probably holds true today as well.  Here is some real spy gear that never made it to the field.  Read more about it here at new Launches

interfaces of the future

Thanks Core77. Johnny Cheung Lee is pointing the way to the future of interaction and is a great hacker.  Lets hope the digital hardware designer out there are watching his work here.

Lenny & Vinnie with Wisdom from Queens....

Recently I have been focusing professionally on the slow downfall of the CDS market.  The potential for as some politely put it a dislocation in the market is growing larger.  The CDS market involves $45 trillion in notional amount of derivatives all based on the default of CDO's

Today I learned a bit financial wisdom while watching my neighborhood at work.  Over the weekend my car battery died and couldn't be jump started.  Living in Queens and knowing no one in the repaid business, I used Google.  I decided to go for the full experience. 

I contacted Vinnie of Vinnie's auto.  Now Vinnie sounded like a good guy on the phone so I asked if he could tow my car and have a look.  He said he couldn't, but gave me a phone number for Lenny.  Lenny being a good fellow said he would be right over at 9:30AM.  I called Lenny to confirm and yes he could be at my place at 10AM.  At 10:15AM, I met Lenny, he was actually a very nice fellow who had been in the business for quite some time.

I asked Lenny what he thought of Vinnie and his auto service, he said "don't trust anyone."  This seemed like sage advice.  I then asked Lenny if he thought Vinnie was "ok".  He said he didn't trust anyone, but that he takes his car sometimes to Vinnie. 

This I took as a ringing a endorsement not only of Vinnie but of the whole system of Queens.  Lenny even politely offered to up the towing cost, should the insurance company be paying.  I assured him we didn't need to worry about that.  I didn't let on that I am from Iowa and prefer to keep things straight and simple.

Vinnie did actually fix my car promptly.  Upon asking for paymnet Vinnie informed me that if I used my Credit card there would be "tax" to pay on it.  Cash was preferred in the same way it is at Nick's Pizza.  I seems the businesses in Queens are allergic to tax paying.  Again being slow and simple from Iowa I paid with Credit card, thus assuring myself in the eyes of Vinnie of being a big mook (sic).

The lessons from all this for the derivatives traders out there in the world.

1. According to Lenny (Trust no one) probably not even a ratings agency.
2. See what the locals are doing. (anthropology lesson)
3. Everyone is looking for a short cut.

Being from Iowa and assessing the current CDS and CDO markets. I don't trust the ratings agencies, the banks or the hedge funds as they either know too much about what they are doing or have no idea what they are doing.   Their is no free lunch, if something is hidden or too good to be true skip it, there is always another deal.  and for all I know Vinnie and Lenny are having dinner together with their mother right now.

a video from 1969 Britain on computers.

An interesting experience, to watch and feel the sense of future in the video below.  The technology is now 6-8 orders of magnitude cheaper and better but hasn't fundamentally changed.  thanks to the personal genome site for digging this up

The next real revolution will happen with either analog environments or a shift from the purely Von Neumann architecture used today.  My guess is something mimicking a highly redundant biological system for solving complex non-discrete problems.

A little music from my European past

I always dug ATB's music, he does good club tunes and has a great sense for the female voice.  My wife is more into classical.

Secret look inside Moody's, S&P and the Bond insurers

This is a 30 minute close up of some of the advanced financial research going on in the world's largest capital markets :)

Please keep this in mind the next time you here about advanced SIVS, Sub-prime, risk modeling and AAA securities.  CDO or CDO^2 anyone?

And now available in French and German, spread the risk, spread the fun: Caveat I hold short positions in some of the firms mentioned.

Good interior design book

Spotted a nice book while out with my wife Mercedes this weekend.  Interior Design Inspirations (Inspiration Books) makes a nice gift for our friends who are buying a new house. Daab is Euro cool series of interior books. 

Europeans, Finns and Japanese still generally do the best design work in the world, something about the culture I guess.

Martha Stewart (reall named Helen Kostyra) and Ralph Lauren (really name Lifshitz) are close but not quite up to the real deal.

For other great books check out Taschen which is a world unto itself.

As always a trip to Core77 or MoCo Loco can be a treat.

James bond trivia for the day

On the 100th anniversary of Ian Flemings birth with a tip O' the trivia hat to the Economist.  Ian Fleming the author the Bond Series also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Liquid Nitrogen Frozen still life

My wife, Mercedes and I went to the Metropolitan Museum here in New York a few weeks back to catch what was over billed as a Rembrandt exhibition.

We even prepped for it by watching a few documentaries about the old fellow, thanks netflix. 

The exhibition itself was more about the Met showing off a few Dutch pieces and a few Rembrandts, like I said overbilled. 
One recommendation, for visitors to the Met, go in the evening when the crowd thins and you can top off the day with glass of wine in the cafe overlooking the entrance.

I have always admired the rich texture, technique in the dutch paintings.  Here is a new interpretation to the left.  Frozen pictures of flowers in liquid nitrogen exploding.  Pretty Jazzy stuff from Ori Gersht.  And here is an old Dutch Master in the more traditional sense.

A great place to keep up on design and industrial design, where I came across this image is the Core77.com blog.  I read them every day :)