Thought Lateral

You’ve heard it said “Necessity is the mother of invention”, well one day I met her distant cousin and ended up with an ipod nano ‘case’ (or pocket) made from a sheet of paper. My shirt had no pockets and I wanted one to put my ipod into, paper was nearby and the photos below show what I ended up with.

The pocket attaches to the back of the tie and is invisible from the front. Neat! A Tie-pod.

Here’s a few photos of how it inserts onto the tie.

The front of the assembled tie-pod

The rear of the assembled tie-pod

The tie-pod inserted onto the tie

Side view of the Tie-pod secured onto the tie

Rear of tie with the tie-pod in place

Front of tie with the invisible tie-pod in place

I’m sure I’ve still got this item around somewhere, so if there’s interest I’ll have a look for it and create a video of the initial origami.

I have made different versions of the tie-pod since, but the initial one shown above is a much sturdier model.

…For extra credit the candidate may route the cabling to the auditory senses via the shirt collar, thus hiding the cabling to the minimum. (I’m sure you can think of uses for this, particularly if you are listening in mono

Sometimes it is all too easy to lose touch with people who you’ve been enjoyably communicating with for a period of time. Routine changes – a new job, a new environment – moving home, or other changes in your life chip away at the time you used to spend in the company of another. Sometimes a big boost to your life can be just to renew that contact.

“There’s a fire burning in your home and you only have time to get out with one thing. What would you take with you?”

Apparently this hypothetical question is about showing what is important to you. It was posed to me a number of years ago, but with a change of situation over the years my answer has remained constant. In fact, I don’t see my answer ever changing from what instantly popped into my mind at the time.

What would you take with you?

I’ve heard a number of answers, ranging from the obvious; “the family”, “the pet”, through the material; “passport”, “files”, “jewellery”, “phone”, to the eclectic such as “Love”. No, I don’t understand that last answer either, but the question is a personal one and as such it has no right or wrong answer.

From the answer I gave to the question I’ve discovered that what is important to me is a fresh approach to problem solving. In fact the answer partly influenced the creation of thoughtlateral.com.

What was my answer? “The fire itself”.

“Perambulatory anomalies” is not an attempt to create a tongue twister but an earnest attempt to describe the appearance of a lateral motion that is unlike normal walking that I’ve been doing for nearly 20 years now. Some people get odd looks for their mode of attire, others for their laugh, or perhaps facial expressions. For me it tends to be my perambulation. Let me explain…

irrotational perambulation, for which cause I’ve settled upon the term of ‘vortiCity’

I’ve oft noted people looking down at my feet when they see me move in a form of lateral motion, akin to the strafing motion within a first-person-view computer game. The motion is probably best described as irrotational perambulation, for which cause I’ve settled upon the term of ‘vortiCity’ to label it. In turning, the body would first turn to the intended direction, then only after the actual body rotation would translation occur in the new direction. So there is a brief period of facing the ‘new’ direction, whilst walking in the ‘old’ direction – giving the appearance of slipping / gliding across a surface. This allows for greater efficiencies in navigating right angle corners. The motion is parallel to the corners, rather than a certain radius of curvature with overshoot, as is the norm. This perambulatory anomaly is quite different from that of walking downstairs backward as I tend to do, but that and step-malfunction-recovery I’ll leave as a topic for another time!

Time has three dimensions, the past, the present, and the future.
The first of these, our past, is recorded in videos, photographs, print, inscriptions, and memory.
The second, the present, is a constantly flowing flux that is being played out to, and absorbed by, our senses.
What about the third, the future? What does the future hold? What will the world look like in say five, or ten years time?

If we could take a mental snapshot of humanity, a photo of our minds’ thoughts we’d see what is yet to unfold. For the thoughts of our mind now will become actions of the future.

For the thoughts of our mind now will become actions of the future.

Wide angle lens anyone? Just don’t think about cheese when the ‘photo’ is taken!

No the title isn’t an inebriated typo, or a forage into composition of Engrish prose. Those with communication induced sore thumbs may immediately recognise it as a reference to the Blackberry communications device from the company Research In Motion (RIM).
In a long saga spanning pretty much an entire year I have finally become an owner of a Blackberry device. Though the painfully expensive and protracted saga ended but a few weeks ago I can already state it was worth the hassle. Well worth the hassle.
I’ve never had any predisposition for RIM devices and still don’t, as long as it gets the job done I’m a happy bunny. Palm and Windows mobile devices just didn’t cut the mustard.
I wondered why many successful business people, and presidents owned Blackberry devices. Now I know; from experience.
Full Qwerty keyboard.
Suitable for one hand use.
A universe of software and support.
All of its features are geared towards getting things done efficiently. (Checkout its shortcuts for instance).
That last point is the clincher for me. I’ve had too many device features fail to live up to their promise, turning out to be mere eye candy rather than fulfilling a useful purpose.
The wow factor fails to impress me much, but the “can do” factor?.. mmm that sounds Berry nice!
[Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device - where else?]

What is the difference between the alarm going off in the morning and getting out of bed? For me it is the snooze time in between.
When the alarm goes off I’m still semi-concious and hit the snooze button for extra repose. So the time set on the alarm to get up is not the actual time I arise.
How do I get up at the set time? I could set the alarm earlier, so that after snoozing I’d be up at the time planned. However this is interpreted by a freshly awoken brain as “useful time when I should actually still be asleep”, and consequently it feels it is owed extra slumber than the snooze button will give.
The optimal solution is to arise on the sound of the alarm, yet my freshly woken mind is convinced that the one hour for morning tasks (allocated before I went to bed) can be accomplished in just half, which leaves the other half hour for snooze time.
Coersion, threats, etc, have limited impact upon the awoken mind. The most significant impact I’ve found is to bed down earlier the night before, which significantly increases my chances of getting up on the alarm. So changing me over time from a night owl to an early bird.

Increasingly people in cities are succumbing to the symptoms of hayfever. My question is “Where is the hay?” There is less and less greenery in the city with each passing year as front gardens turn into driveways and rear gardens are decked. Granted, hayfever is not caused by hay and is attributed to the effects of pollen, but the point remains. The number of hayfever sufferers appears to be inversely proportional to the amount of greenery, which suggests to me that hayfever would be better called “pollution fever”.

I hypothesize that increased pollution is either directly causing the symptoms of hayfever, or accentuating the sensitivity to pollen.

Hayfever? Pollution fever more likely!

We love Pixies!

On an obscure night in 2008 whilst creating a design using pixel buttons (which also go by the names of pixel badges, and antipixel, etc)  I thought “Wouldn’t it be a great idea if no pixels were used? Instead the button (or badge) is composed entirely by Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) code!”

Yeah, fantastic! My web fortune is upon me and I can retire in the lap of luxury!

In the sober light of day however, I find the idea is sooo fantastic it had been thought of  years ago (going back as far as 2002 I discovered). So I kept the day job.

Even so,  I’ve not yet come across CSS badges (pixeless buttons) that mimic the style of their pixel counterparts. This may be because no one has tried it, or more likely because my browser doesn’t  get about much. So I set about constructing a demo of a CSS badge (pixeless pixel button) that would look like a pixel button.

The CSS has ‘scope for refinement’ – which is a kinder way of saying it was a quick kludge.

/*CSS code */
table.badge {
border-style:solid;
border-width: 1px;
border-color: #666;
font-size: 8px;
font-family: sans-serif;
color: #fff;
line-height: 6px;
background-color: #fff;
}
table.badge tr {
background-color: #888;
text-align: center;
text-transform:uppercase;
margin: 0px;
padding: 0px;
}
table.badge td.main {
background-color:#f60;
}

<!– html code –>
<table cellspacing=1 cellpadding=0 class=”badge” width=”88px” height=”15px”">
<tr><td class=”main”>px</td><td>free</td></tr>
</table>

Some examples I made earlier can be found here.

I refer to these pixeless pixel buttons as “Pixies” because it sounds cute, and is less likely to leave your tongue in a knot when saying it.

Other related sites:

www.pixelbutton.com – the pixel button website where you can create pixel graphics.

ZwahlenDesign, “Web Badges / Buttons” – the site containing CSS web buttons

http://www.antipixel.com/blog/archives/2002/10/22/steal_these_buttons.html – the original antipixel blog post

Web 3.0 arrives in 2009

I believe there is a new trend developing in web design in early 2009. Having had this feeling for many months I’m now seeing evidence to support it.

Having been on the web before the days of inline jpeg images, Internet Explorer, and Yahoo, I’ve seen many trends and development and I can see another transformation taking place once more.

Web ’1.0′ was about accessible content. “Content is King” is the mantra that still rings true in web design today.

(Ever heard of a site called Google? This is why – Google’s goal was to be the Internet content King .

Web 2.0 was all about social interaction. Given that you already have some content how do you enrich it? By leveraging the link power of the web and allowing many users to interact with that data, even modifying or adding to it.

(Have you ever heard of a website called Facebook? It is popular because it allows people to interact with data from their network of friends)

I believe Web 3.0 has arrived and it will revolve around user interface design. The way that we access the web will change, browsers will evolve. For example, your clothing could be a ‘browser’, or your hands may be the ‘mouse device’. Why?

O.K. Here’s why…

In building a house the initial priority is not where to put the T.V. in the living room. It may be about the depth of the foundations or some such.
Similarly the web started with access then content – accessible content, out of which the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (dealing with web standards) was seen to grow. Then later, true to it’s name “the web” was about creating a web of  links to data in the form of social networking.

So, now that the data exists (Web 1.0) and there are meaningful links between the data items (Web 2.0)  the next ‘fashion’ I believe is in the way that data is accessed – Web 3.0. Augmented reality systems and intuitive navigation is what lies on the road ahead. Then after, perhaps, the much disscussed semantic web will arrive in Web 4.0

Some early examples of what I believe to be Web 3.0 are as follows:

Google maps on a mobile device

General Electric augmented reality website http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/?c_id=Matter#/augmented_reality

BMW mini augmented reality advert  http://technabob.com/blog/2008/12/17/mini-augmented-reality-ads-hit-newstands/ (English article about the German BMW mini website)