One thing that can really get me cooking is industrial design.
Today it is the plastic little flipp on the cat-5 cable connector that after some time, at least when it is connected to a laptop that is carried around the flat, breaks off. It really grinds my gears. I have not counted, but I believe that I currently have at least five cables that are broken. The cable is probably designed to be stationary, you plug it in to a router and a computer and then you leave it, and then there would be no problem. But I can not be the only one that use a cable connected to a laptop right? It baffles me that the connector has not evolved into something sturdier. (One reason might be that most people use a wireless connection and hence circumvent the problem entirely, but I don't since I got in a fight with my isp regarding a wireless modem that they promised me over the phone but then cheated me of).
a blog about nothing
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
2011-12-28
2010-04-06
A little note on design
One of my big interests in life is design. (I might have written something quite similar to this before, but my memory is poor and I really dig the subject so here goes...). Good design makes me happy and poor design can really make me loose all confidence in the species called Homo sapiens sapiens. Most of the stuff you encounter fall in the huge grey area in-between, they do their job but not with splendour. And I have a hard time figuring out why, it should not be so hard to put in just a little bit more thought and testing before finalizing a product. Some of the things that has occupied my brain recently are:
Plastic CD casings. Who the hell designed the first prototype? The hinges are so fragile that they break if you just breath on them. The plastic nubs in the middle that are supposed to keep the CD secure, they break for no reason at all and then the disk just flaps around in the casing. That problem is multiplied by a thousand if you consider the 2-disk models. (These are just a couple of my hang-ups). So, who the hell designed the first model? And who the hell thought 'Yes! This is it. This is what the casings should be like for our new music media. They look sturdy and resilient. Or maybe not, but it is not like a lot of drunken people will throw them all over the room at parties'. And How the hell can the design have survived for so long (the design that is, the casings do not survive for very long). I do not get it.
The way that the power cord is connected to a MacBook. A magnet holds the cord in place, so if you stumble upon it it just comes loose instead of sending the computer crashing to the floor. It is simply beautiful.
The TV image format. I want to see my tv in a format that keeps a square looking like a square. That should be the default setting. If that means that I get black stripes at the sides or over and under the image, so be it. I absolutely do not want the image to be stretched a little at the sides (and not stretched in the middle) so that the entire screen is filled, it makes me nauseous. (There might be TV's out there that handle this in a good way, but our set does not).
Speaking of TV's, just a word on digital boxes. I want to be able to quickly zapp between channels. Maybe it is stupid, but that is what I like. The boxes that I have so-far encountered takes more than a second to switch between channels. Why the fuck would a digital apparatus made in the year 2010 need that huge amount of time to do something so trivial?
DVD casings. Now as durability goes they are vastly superior to their CD counterparts, but why are they so huge? They must be at least fifty times as large as the disk that they contain. (Compare them to the cardboard boxes that video cassettes comes in).
Various household appliances. How hard can it be to make the controls for microwave-ovens/washers/ovens simple and intuitive to use? Bloody fucking hard it seems.
By the way, why in hell does the stove 'on' light light up when you turn the stove on even if the child-safety switch is on and hence the stove is not on? Why? Why oh why?
Sometimes I really regret that I did not consider studying industrial design when I went to college. I think I would have been good at it. I think I would have enjoyed it. Or maybe I would just have been stressed by the deadlines and money restraints and pushed out poor design that people would loath and that I would have hated myself for. Who knows?
Plastic CD casings. Who the hell designed the first prototype? The hinges are so fragile that they break if you just breath on them. The plastic nubs in the middle that are supposed to keep the CD secure, they break for no reason at all and then the disk just flaps around in the casing. That problem is multiplied by a thousand if you consider the 2-disk models. (These are just a couple of my hang-ups). So, who the hell designed the first model? And who the hell thought 'Yes! This is it. This is what the casings should be like for our new music media. They look sturdy and resilient. Or maybe not, but it is not like a lot of drunken people will throw them all over the room at parties'. And How the hell can the design have survived for so long (the design that is, the casings do not survive for very long). I do not get it.
The way that the power cord is connected to a MacBook. A magnet holds the cord in place, so if you stumble upon it it just comes loose instead of sending the computer crashing to the floor. It is simply beautiful.
The TV image format. I want to see my tv in a format that keeps a square looking like a square. That should be the default setting. If that means that I get black stripes at the sides or over and under the image, so be it. I absolutely do not want the image to be stretched a little at the sides (and not stretched in the middle) so that the entire screen is filled, it makes me nauseous. (There might be TV's out there that handle this in a good way, but our set does not).
Speaking of TV's, just a word on digital boxes. I want to be able to quickly zapp between channels. Maybe it is stupid, but that is what I like. The boxes that I have so-far encountered takes more than a second to switch between channels. Why the fuck would a digital apparatus made in the year 2010 need that huge amount of time to do something so trivial?
DVD casings. Now as durability goes they are vastly superior to their CD counterparts, but why are they so huge? They must be at least fifty times as large as the disk that they contain. (Compare them to the cardboard boxes that video cassettes comes in).
Various household appliances. How hard can it be to make the controls for microwave-ovens/washers/ovens simple and intuitive to use? Bloody fucking hard it seems.
By the way, why in hell does the stove 'on' light light up when you turn the stove on even if the child-safety switch is on and hence the stove is not on? Why? Why oh why?
Sometimes I really regret that I did not consider studying industrial design when I went to college. I think I would have been good at it. I think I would have enjoyed it. Or maybe I would just have been stressed by the deadlines and money restraints and pushed out poor design that people would loath and that I would have hated myself for. Who knows?
2009-12-16
Why??
One of my pet peeves is poor design, and I just have to tell you about one heck of a poor design that I encountered two days ago.
It was snowing here in the wonderful town of Eskilstuna and even if the town is excellent in almost every way plowing the streets is an area where the town falls short. That is not the design I was talking about, it isn't a design at all. The poor design was on a zimmer frame (aka rollator här i sverige). The zimmer frame was equipped with mudguards (stänkskärmar). Now why in hell would a zimmer frame need mudguards? I have seldom seen old folks running along in such high speeds that muddy water splash up from the wheels of their zimmer frames. If they did, I hardly think they need the device in the first place. Anyhow, the poor design was not just the fact that the zimmer frame was equipped with devices that was totally unnecessary. The poor design was that in this climate, in this town where plowing the streets just does not happen, snow piles up between the wheel and mudguard and acts as a very effective break. It was freaking hilarious to watch the old man trying to get home with a fucked up zimmer frame, he looked so incredibly helpless. Then I saw his wife and thought 'why the hell are you trying to get home, run away damn it' but of course he couldn't. He was stuck right where he was. Poor fella.
It was snowing here in the wonderful town of Eskilstuna and even if the town is excellent in almost every way plowing the streets is an area where the town falls short. That is not the design I was talking about, it isn't a design at all. The poor design was on a zimmer frame (aka rollator här i sverige). The zimmer frame was equipped with mudguards (stänkskärmar). Now why in hell would a zimmer frame need mudguards? I have seldom seen old folks running along in such high speeds that muddy water splash up from the wheels of their zimmer frames. If they did, I hardly think they need the device in the first place. Anyhow, the poor design was not just the fact that the zimmer frame was equipped with devices that was totally unnecessary. The poor design was that in this climate, in this town where plowing the streets just does not happen, snow piles up between the wheel and mudguard and acts as a very effective break. It was freaking hilarious to watch the old man trying to get home with a fucked up zimmer frame, he looked so incredibly helpless. Then I saw his wife and thought 'why the hell are you trying to get home, run away damn it' but of course he couldn't. He was stuck right where he was. Poor fella.
2008-12-02
Followup
Yea, regarding the Non YKK zipper procedure. I hope you understand that the jury under no circumstances would approve the use of such a thing. Never ever. (Just as a sidenote, the zipper in my jacket fell totally apart today, when I was driving my moped, in the rain)
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