sleepinginmyhead

I guess my illness isn't so bad

Here's a shame.... Get well soon MCA.

it got me

I caught the H5N1: the illness formerly known as swine flu. As far as i'm concerned it's not the worst illness i've ever had, just a lot of coughing and sniffling. The worst part is i have to stay in quarantine for 7 days (which is weird, because quarantine means 'about 14 days' in origin, etymology fans). Anyhow, apologies for the silence, whilst i sit here and get these down my neck. Cheers!

persistence of behaviour

I know quite a few folks who read this blog who are interested in behaviour. In my opinion, trying to understand behaviour is one of the strongest assets any designer can have. People do strange things, often not through rational analysis, but through embedded and repeated actions (religion, i'm looking at you). Encouraging people to break out of this cyclical approach, or attempting to make use of it can yield powerful design opportunities. It's not just people though. This video, sweet as it is, is a great illustration of how powerful a repeated behaviour can become. I'm not suggesting we're as 'dumb' as the dog, but sometimes just taking a proper look can be better than trusting your assumptions.

100M100D - go! UPDATE

So, today's the day! In 100 day's time, i will have run 100 miles, hopefully. I consulted an online map, and that's the equivalent of running from my house in London to Calais in France. Paul, Christian and Eric from Ziba and James from Nike (both in Portland) have joined in, and you can follow our progress in the nikeplus widget shown on the right, if the technology works correctly...Wish us luck

Quick update, we are now 7! Welcome to Tom and Dan, also from Ziba in Portland. Others are still welcome, but we're not extending the deadline, you just need to catch up! Final deadline is October 12th by my estimation.

when technology works

My sister moved to Toronto a few years ago. Had this happened in the nineties, our relationship would have been very different, and that's thanks to technology. One piece of technology to be precise: skype. By skype i of course mean all VOIP systems, but skype is my weapon of choice. If these technologies were to be taken away from me, my life would be considerably worse. Last weekend my sister had her first child, and the ability to see my new niece all wriggling and wrinkly from the other side of the world was fantastic. My mum, who by any stretch of the imagination is not tech savvy (her phone is never on, she has no email address) gleefully told me yesterday how she'd seen her new grand-daughter on 'the skype'. That's when technology really works, when it gives you something you can't getanywhere else.

chillax mister president

I love 'The Big Picture' blog from boston.com, always worth a visit if you get a few moments. Today's roundup is a selection of photos of Barack Obama, and i particularly like this one, by White House photographer Pete Souza. (click image for full sized version)

colours, more than meets the eye

see the image above, as gaudy as it is, it's the best optical illusion i've seen in a while. The 'blue' and 'green' stripes are actually the same colour. Don't believe me? Well be a pedant and open it in photoshop then...

Time for a challenge

I am fully ready for a backlash here, but stuff it. I'm challenging myself to run 100 miles in 100 days. Now, before you get all crazy and tell me that's a piece of cake, i know that already, but it's a challenge for me. I know some of you run 10K without missing a heartbeat, but you're not me. I'm not built for distance running, i'm not fat, but i'm no Paula Radcliffe either. This is just my first step towards a regular exercise routing: Rome wasn't built in a day, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step etc. etc. etc. Here's my ground rules: I don't have to run every day. I can do the miles whenever i want, but it'll probably be easier to do lots of shortish runs as opposed to 100 miles in the final week. The start date is today, making the finishing date October 13th. Please also remember that this challenge overlaps my long summer vacation, which means i'll need to fit the fitness around the fun, a continuing challenge in my everyday life. I'll plot each run against my target, and i'll try to work out how i can show that here on SIMH. Please everybody, nag me to do this...

Oh, and anyone fancy joining me?

re-cycling

Marc Newson has just 'designed' a bike for Lance Armstrong. To be honest the bike is lovely, really really lovely, but it's questionable how much design input Marc had. It's a graphics job at best, oh and d'you think it resembles the watch he did for ikepod at all... even just a little bit?

Lacoste v campanas

When i was a kid, for one or two summers Lacoste was king. These things tend to ebb and flow, Nike managed to stay up top most of the time but the likes of Fila, ellesse and lacoste all traded places with each other for the lower positions. One particular summer whilst on a family trip to Marbella i decided that i should part with a considerable wedge of my holiday money, and i bought a pair of mint green Lacoste sweat bands (it was the eighties). Imagine my disappointment when i found that only one of the sweatbands had the lovely crocodile on. I went back to the shop to complain, but the shopkeeper told me that the little embroidered crocodiles were quite expensive to make, so they only used one per pair.

Bummer. Everyone at school decided that meant they were fakes, and the end of my summer was ruined, kinda.

The Campana brothers have just completed a collaboration with lacoste, some of which is quite nice, check it here: LINK. I can only imagine how expensive this shirt is, considering the apparently astronomical price of the little embroidered crocs...