dcdomain - r9

Sony's Rebirth?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:57:00 +0000

I haven't been following the gaming industry since I deleted all relevant feeds from Google Reader but recently my roommate went out of his way to pick up Scribblenauts which looks amazing! With such a seemingly open-ended game flow I wonder if the developers ever felt overwhelmed by the concept. I wish there was an option to draw the object rather than typing it in. That would've made it much easier to port globally too.

A few days ago Ars Technica reviewed Gran Turismo PSP. This was the game I originally purchased the PSP for during launch. I held onto the it for as long as I could but when GT PSP never materialized I became so disgusted with it and Sony in general that I spoofed the PS3 ads. I even traded my PSP for a Nintendo DS and never looked back. Sony has this misconception that technology rules and content doesn't which is weird since so many of their hardware decisions were always hampered by their Sony Music content arm overlords.

So now that the price cut has brought the PS3 to manageable levels, and with the re-release of both platforms through the PS3 Slim and PSP Go does this signal a rebirth? What do the Sony faithful out there think?

In China for the summer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 03:41:00 +0000

Stuck behind the Great Firewall of China, but I think that's a good thing. It's preventing me from updating much and as the popular saying goes, if you have nothing good to say, don't say it at all. Fortunately the better moments in China have all been captured in photographs. Click here to view them.

Blood Drives in China

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:09:00 +0000

A couple of minutes ago a few employees and I drove down the road to the local government compound (nicely-laid brick roads within). There was a government-mandated blood drive going on; some employees were there to give blood, others to provide moral support. Citizens that give blood here usually go straight to the hospitals who in turn pay them a tidy sum. But once a year, the local government requires all businesses to ‘volunteer’ three employees per 100 employed. On our end, we had to provide eight employees for the drive. Two of our ladies were turned away because of low blood pressure, fortunately we were so close it wasn’t much of a hassle bringing in replacements.

When I whipped out my U.S. passport for identification purposes it caused quite a stir and at times I felt like a circus animal. As many of you know, people here don’t believe in lines so every station had a crowd surrounding the tables. After they drew my blood, one of the local officials heard that I was an American citizen and made me return to the last station so that we could stage the blood draw again for a photo shoot. Uncomfortable to say the least.

When I got back to the hotel I told my father and the manager about my experience. They shared additional details about the blood drives, each donor was compensated with ¥300, dinner and a day off by the company. Seems as though all companies do the same and the government heavily encourages the companies to compensate the donors in this manner. ¥300, think that’s about a day’s wage? Not bad, I think I’ll buy a bike with my ¥300.

Driving in China: A game of chicken

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 20:15:00 +0000

I’m not even sure where to begin with this, from what I heard India is much worse, but drivers here in China would give anyone road-rage. People on bikes, mopeds and motorcycles dart out of every conceivable nook you can think of cutting you off without so much as a glimpse in your direction. Every driver seems to operate in their own world where they are seemingly invincible.

Etiquette?
Hah! You know of the stories about ‘lines’ not existing in China? The same can be said of the motor-vehicles. If you leave any space around you, other drivers will try to cut you off. Even if you are traveling at speed, people will turn onto the road from driveways without any consideration forcing you to stomp on the brakes.

On single lane roads slow mopeds and even cyclists will take up the center of the lane. Instead of hugging the side of the road to let you pass they expect you to swerve onto oncoming traffic to get around them. I’ve even seen cyclists riding three abreast blocking traffic. I assume they want you to hit them so they can sue and collect.

Roundabouts
Taishan City seems averse to traffic lights though the few they have managed to snag me blowing through them by accident twice so far (¥100 each ticket). How can you blow through a light by accident? Because they don’t have a red light. When it’s a signal to turn left, there’s only that signal and no red instructing you to stop if you are traveling straight. Roundabouts DO NOT WORK. They are a pain in the ass and especially with the aggressive driving in these parts it’s a nightmare. To get around them you basically have to put your blinders on and drive like one of them. Go and pray that people will stomp on the brakes for you.

Driving at night?
Be prepared to be blinded. Drivers leave their high beams on permanently. Not an issue in the states since I can just peer down onto the road in front of me and follow the embedded reflectors. They don’t have that here and there is a real risk of hitting a cyclist since they never have reflectors.

But hey look at me applying a double standard here. I don’t even have a license and I’ve been driving around. I’d never do this in any other country but the cops basically can’t be bothered with such trivial matters. They have much more important things to do like being wine-and-dined.

Village sanitation services

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:37:00 +0000

During my run this morning an elderly woman walked in front of me outside the village I always stop at to stretch. Curious as to what she was doing with the bag of garbage in her hand I gave her a head start then started jogging after her. Around the bend she stopped and simply tossed her garbage off to the side of the road then turned around and walked back to the village. I stood over the spot where she launched her bag of garbage from and saw nothing but trash covering the ground, some still sealed in colorful plastic bags. I guess I now know where much of that litter on the side of the road comes from.

I brought this up with my father during breakfast and was told that the government doesn’t have the money to provide sanitation services to all the villages in the countryside. When I stated that it seemed unfair, and brought up the villagers’ taxes (where does the money go?), he told me most villagers live on some sort of welfare so they aren’t exactly being scammed out of their taxes.

Passing judgment from my life of luxury it would be nice if the villagers set up a land-fill area rather than choosing a random spot on the side of the road to dispose their trash but they have more important things to worry about like where they are getting their next meal from. From the highway I sometimes see farmers burning refuse nearby their huts. Though it contributes to CO2 levels I almost prefer this over seeing bits of garbage all over the land.

Maiden run in the sticks

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:35:00 +0000

It’s been a week since I got here and this morning was the first time I was able to will myself out for a run. I briefly glanced over my destination (a small village to the north) a few days ago while checking out the surrounding area via Google Maps Satellite. View the route here: Gmaps Pedometer.

You’d think the countryside would offer fantastic air, but every time a truck passed by I was choking on its exhaust. I don’t think they believe in catalytic converters out here. I tried taking big gulps of air whenever I heard one coming up behind me so I wouldn’t have to breathe until the exhaust dissipated out in front of me.

The run there wasn’t bad, but I did feel a little stiff and my left shin was really tight. At the turnaround point I stopped for a few minutes to stretch, felt a bit uncomfortable when a villager walked up his driveway and circled me. The run back felt better but I didn’t notice the gentle slope down on the run there so the return leg felt like eternity at some points.

Hope I’ll be able to keep this up since it’ll be my only form of exercise. My father removed the hotel gym a month ago because no one used it and the equipment was getting rusty. Sounds like the local Dragon Boat festival is not going to happen this year either so paddling is out of the question.

Panel Takeaways 2: Chicago Conversations Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:24:00 +0000

The notes from this panel probably won't make much sense to anyone since it was more of a discussion than a structured lecture. Posting these selected quotes for my own record, you marketing types probably know of many of these theories already so it might not be all that interesting.

Means-end chain theory and the laddering technique

Imagine you want the consumer / end-user to feel or think a certain way. That would be the top rung, and to get to that top rung, you need to figure out what words or other factors might trigger the user to climb the bottom rung of that ladder. Apparently skilled interviewers can deduce these patterns in language. I can't help but think of Dr. Sweets character in Bones.

Where you say something is more important than what you say.

This isn't about product placement, this is about placing your message around specific sources that elicit a certain emotion which promotes emotional contact to the brand. So let's say a beloved child character passes away on a show due to some illness. That would be a perfect time to follow up with a commercial asking for donations to save children from a similar illness because the emotions are already there, riped for picking.

CEO vs. CMO

CEO's push big changes while CMO's push incremental changes. This was quoted by a panelist who mentioned a study that produced these results. This statement stumped me since it's definitely not the case with one of my old bosses. The marketing department was always pushing for new services or products to be added since we were always the customers' champion. CEO would always play it safe and 'stay the course' striking down any new service we tried to pitch. I suppose everything we pitched were incremental improvements whereas a CEO might have the big picture handy that could lead to big bets and big gains (or losses). I guess my old CEO just wasn't a visionary.

Internet: People are measuring what they can right now, not what they should. SO TRUE! And how do you decide on what was a success and a failure since you can't compare it to traditional measurements?

Noncognitive research (most decisions made on subconscious level)

I can attest to this, my best ideas come while working out or brushing my teeth. So I guess I might also make my purchasing decisions then too? According to a panelist, getting in touch with unconscious mind is akin to getting in touch with humanity. 85% of decisions are made noncognitively and what people think they think is not what they think =P.

Set expectations / promise / delivery > meet consumer needs / efficacy!

Pillar 1: Competition Space
Pillar 2: Trademarks, positioning
Pillar 3: Profit pool, shares, how they move over time.

Companies go from vertical to distributed management every two years.

Closed loop multi-channel marketing: This PDF is a year old but a Google search didn't turn up much.

Everyone is still figuring out social media. Companies can't dive into it but they need to experiment / launch pilots in social media.

Analytics are an excuse when you don't know the answer. Lack of control makes better marketers get in touch with consumers more.

Brand management is the closest thing to owning your own business in a large corporation.

Elevate brands in their lives... connect! (Heard this repeatedly, make the emotional / human connection.)

This wasn't from the panel but for some reason I thought of something David Kelley of IDEO (and CMU alumn!) told me when I visited the d.school at Stanford. All companies value people with broad skills, those able to jump from one role to another and collaborate, but they also need deep dive experience / skill set. Something I don't think I have right now. The whole jack of all trades, master of none metaphor continues to haunt me five years after I left architecture school.

Marketing is science & art, one of the panelists stated this and I thought to myself so is design, architecture etc. Architecture is engineering & art (if it wasn't why did I suffer through years of statics, structures, statistics, design economics, etc.?). The architects observe people similar to marketers observing their customers. Have you ever walked up to a door and pulled on a handle when you were instead supposed to push on the door? Terrible user-interface, that handle should have never been there...

Panel Takeaways 1: Behance: Make Ideas Happen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 18 May 2009 02:25:00 +0000

Finally sat down to type up my notes from two of the more insightful panels I've been to recently.

Behance
The first was held at the Behance offices as part of Creative Week. 'Make Ideas Happen' was a small group session where we discussed issues we were dealing with as creatives. Scott introduced a few concepts that I thought were insightful. According to my notes, I sometimes suffer from idea-to-idea syndrome where I generate a ton of ideas and never take the time to develop them. In the future, to deal with it, I should provide a week of skepticism before I act on it. At that point, I should either reject the idea or commit to it and decide on a ship date and work backwards, breaking it down to action steps. Problem is, I feel like I'm missing out if I don't pursue every single idea...

Related to idea-to-idea syndrome, Scott introduced me to the 'project plateau' when I made a comment about how I loved conceptualizing, but as I work on an idea and bring it through to production I find myself having a harder time concentrating on the project. This is because at the conceptualizing stage, the excitement level is high, but as you go into production, the excitement level drops and plateaus. New ideas start at a high excitement level which takes away my attention from the production aspects of a previous idea.

Another concept Scott mentioned was the categorization of people into three buckets; dreamers, doers and incrementalists. I don't like to call myself a dreamer since I prided myself on getting things done back in high school, college. But as time goes by, I find myself jumping between the dreamer stage and doer stage. So I guess I'm an incrementalist who leans heavily to the dreamer side of things. I need to stop dreaming so much.

I did a quick search and found others who had attended conferences where Scott, the CEO of Behance lectured at. Here are notes from SXSW, a video from SXSW and some background information on Behance and what their Action Method is all about.

Fast Talk: McG
That evening I attended Fast Talk: McG at Fast Company's headquarters. I was lucky enough to be looking over the updates in TweetDeck and saw that @fastcompany was offering tickets to the event to the first ten responders. McG, the director of the upcoming Terminator movie and Fast Company's May 2009 cover story was surprisingly friendly, engaging and full of entertaining stories. Catch clips of the talk here. Looking forward to a sneak preview of the movie on Wednesday night, thanks Visa signature!

Vitaminwater10 Dest10nation and RocPopShop

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:48:00 +0000

Popped in on these two pop-up shops in NYC recently =P.

Both were pretty cool, but I couldn't get past the Vitaminwater10 branding. What a total sham... I took a look at one of the many mini-bottles of Vitaminwater10 that I downed during my visit and saw that the bottle had 15 calories, not 10. It's 10 calories per serving, but a mini bottle has 1.5 servings whereas a regular bottle has 2.5 servings. So... Vitaminwater10 is really Vitaminwater25. Googled it and found the following analysis at Wallet Pop. Anyway thought the wall forming the 10 was cool (see photo on the left). The intake and exhaust fans in the light cabinet made me recall the days of PC building. Never has airflow been so important on a personal level.

The RocPopShop in my neighborhood incorporated a totally different atmosphere than the Vitaminwater one. Vitaminwater was bright, tall ceiling and airy. RocPopShop was dark, cozier and utilized more textures. I really liked the edges of the glass shelves which incorporated the reptilian skin texture that was in the background. The security guards were also very nice and engaging. Definitely +1 to RocPopShop, D-ASH Design did a great job with what they had to work with.

Additional photos on my Flickr stream.

"My inspiration was not the Ferrari. It was the potato."

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:51:00 +0000

Caught the NYC showing of Objectified a month ago and though I loved the film, I thought it was a bit short. One of the more interesting bits in the movie was their interview with Naoto Fukasawa (I think best known for his Muji CD player while working at IDEO) who described his process for the W11K cellphone.

Deciding that conventional cellphones were uncomfortable to hold, he hit upon the subtly angular shape of the W11K cellphone by remembering the reassuring feeling of grasping a freshly peeled potato in water.

Cool. But what really got me was the faceted form of the phone which totally brought to mind, the HTC Diamond series. Wonder if the W11K inspired the industrial designers at One & Co.

Oh Karim Rashid was also in the audience (and film) and took part in a pretty entertaining Q&A afterwards. Caught his guest curated exhibition, Totally Rad: Karim Rashid Does Radiators at MAD and thought it was pretty neat. Wish I had use for those sick looking radiators.

MIA

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:32:00 +0000

I've been neglecting the blog for a bit because microblogging all the interesting design-related items I find is so much quicker. And since I've been thinking about developing the Citizen Chan moniker I might just keep all design-related posts separate. For now I'm going to stick with the Facebook Link shares and will incorporate FeedBurner's BuzzBoost in the near future . For the time being, you can grab all my design-related posts via this feed. I should just move this blog over to Layouts shouldn't I? Had some success working on the Ride Qi blog which uses Blogger Layouts.

The most EPIC snowboarding trip EVER!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:38:00 +0000

It's been over a week since I've been back so details are already a little hazy at this point. Rather than go into my usual anal retentive post covering every single aspect of the trip I'm going to borrow Edda's list and merely expand on it. Most of my detailed write-up of each mountain can be found in my Snowbook.

100 inches of snow
3 Broken Ribs (Tim @ Powder Mountain)
1 Punctured and Bruised Lung (Tim, see above)
Broken Tibia and Fibula (Will @ Snowbird)
1 Busted Lip (Elmo returning from Brighton)
100 inches of snow
Busted Arbor board (Jack, not sure which mountain)
3 runs to the hospital
Did I mention 100 inches of snow!!!
"AMAZING"
Untouched powder... everywhere!

On this trip to Utah, though we stayed at an awesome condo at the Canyons Resort, we never rode at that resort or nearby Park City. We did drive up north to the Huntsville area to ride at Snow Basin and Powder Mountain which I feel are the top two mountains in Utah. Big Cottonwood's Brighton Resort is a distant third.

Snow Basin is really glitzy, most amazing lodges I've ever seen and their lift system is impressive. The mountain is no slouch coming in larger than Snowbird and Alta combined. Powder Mountain is the direct opposite of Snow Basin. The lodges look like something you could've built during booth, the lifts are few and slow as hell but the mountain is totally worth it. I also got to do my first CAT tracks there and pulled my first few BS360's on this trip (first one was at Snow Basin).

I was hoping to get a few more days in back on the East Coast but it looks like we are done, so Utah was a fantastic end to the season. The trip also inspired me to pick up a powder board; ended up with the Burton Fish in 156cm and since the Hero was back in stock at Sierra I grabbed a 152cm. Surprisingly, white EST bindings in medium are incredibly hard to find so I ended up buying the Magenta Madness Cartels off of Ashy Larry on the Burton forums.

On a final note, I had to retire my F20s at the end of the trip. The left boot was on its last legs a few days into the trip. The pull string on the tongue snapped on me and portions of the laces were coming apart. The boots served me well, loved the styling and they travelled with me to South America and Japan. Great memories. Have a pair of new F20 SLCT's ready to go for next year though the color scheme is a little wack.

Additional Photos:
Bao's Photo Set, Will's Photo Set, Edda's Photo Set

Red Bull sent me some Wiiings!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:06:00 +0000

The gifts keep on coming! In February after I saw all the subway posters for Red Bull's Snowscrapers event I contacted both Red Bull and the NYC Parks department to see if I could get my hands on one of them to put up in my apartment.

NYC Parks hooked me up with a tiny foldout poster. I guess beggars can't be choosers, so props to them for actually responding and hooking me up!

Red Bull's rep, Lindsey also got back to me and though she didn't have luck procuring any posters she sent me a surprise package in the mail consisting of a 4 pack of Red Bull, 4 pack of the Red Bull Cola (which I only recently discovered in a supermarket in Tahoe) and a 2006 Red Bull Winter Sports Compilation DVD. Awesome and totally on message =T.

I've always wondered though how large Red Bull's marketing budget is. They sponsor an insane amount of events and teams. Their two F1 teams is mind boggling when Honda can't even keep one afloat (with the help of other sponsors). And that's not all, Red Bull also fields a NASCAR team, soccer clubs and more. Does anyone have any leads on Red Bull's numbers?

I love the styling of their F1 team. I guess it's a good start when your logo already has a badass bull on it. Not a stretch to apply it to your car but if this is the 2009 design, I think they need to step back and go with the previous design where the bull was a much larger and integral part of the car. There may be hope as 2009 test photos show this livery which retains the large bull design. Perhaps the two cars have different designs? Or does the secondary team, Scuderia Toro Rosso, stay with the large bull and the main team sticks with the more conservative paint job?

They also had a pretty awesome promotion with Star Wars back in 2005 when their pit crew dressed up as Darth Vader and Stormtroopers for the Monaco Grand Prix.

Updates
20090421 Red Bull sent me the poster I requested but with a bonus! Signed by Pat Moore! SICK! Talk about brand engagement...

Santa Kang(s) brings me Soundwave and an 8-bit Ape

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:45:00 +0000

I returned home from San Francisco to find the Soundwave Mighty Mugg awaiting me courtesy of Natisha. I think it was one of her many purchases earlier in the week as part of the Kang Family's Stimulus package. Lauren got herself the Chewbacca one which has some really great box art, I love the top flap! Haven't really been following the Mighty Muggs much, came across them at Forbidden Planet a few days before I left for San Francisco but chose not to drop any of my ever dwindling cash supply on Soundwave. I guess Natisha does listen because she got my favorite Transformer right! 2 eProps for her. Maybe if I repeat Burton Hero enough to her I'll come back from Utah with one on my bike rack =P.

I just Googled Mighty Mugg and it seems like a pretty successful mass market entry into the vinyl toy arena by one of the big dogs, Hasbro. I'm not a vinyl toy collector myself so I wonder if there's actually any backlash from the community. Either way, when that GI Joe movie comes out, the already badass Snake-Eyes should be FLYING OFF the shelves. Look at him. He's so badass every part of his body is covered lest the awesomeness peek through and knock you out.

This might be bad for me in the long run if I ever decide to go the custom route. Check out the awesome customized Muggs at CustomMightyMuggs.net and MuggLab.

On another note, Natisha's sisters think I take princesses as prisoners and roll barrels towards mustached plumber for fun. Thanks ladies!

Update: Check out this creative use for the Wolverine Mighty Mugg!

Audi A4 Production Line Video

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 05:12:00 +0000

A follow up to the Audi lovefest from last week. Saw the above video of the A4 production line posted by one of the blogs on my RSS feed. I think it's just the way that it's shot, but overall I get a sense of much more movement by the employees than the Toyota factory line I observed when I visited Japan. Other than that, a car is a car whether it be German or Japanese and the steps along the line and final testing looked very similar.

San Francisco, Palo Alto FTW!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:49:00 +0000

I just spent an amazing two weeks out in San Francisco. Rode at Squaw, Heavenly and Kirkwood for the two weekends that occured in the middle of my trip. Many thanks to Andy for hosting, driving and lending me his longboard for my daily commute. Also thanks to Bob and his fellow co-founders for the gig and awesome office environment. Really miss working in an office atmosphere. Met a lot of great people and I just straight up love NorCal! Sad that I'm back in NY already and will be missing Bruizzapalooza.

Some things I noticed: Andy and his buddies like using acronyms when they talk, you know like the ones we use on GTalk / AIM, they actually use it in real life which surprised me at first but I got used to it. Andy and his roommates are also really open about lending out their cars. I lost count of the number of times they asked me if I wanted to just borrow their respective cars to cruise around SF and Palo Alto. CRAZY isn't it? I don't think you'll ever get offers like that on the East Coast. I told them that whatever they do, never to lend Zan their cars if he visits.

The commute every morning to the SoMA area was really nice. You'll see some photos on the left that I took, it couldn't have been more than 15 min. on Andy's longboard and the weather held up the entire time I was out there. Bob's crew also tagged up many parts of SF with their 750i stickers so keep your eyes peeled next time you are out there.

Snowboarding and Sierra
That first weekend we hit up Squaw and got a pretty awesome slopeside condo, Kimchi from the Sierra forums also joined us. The second weekend was spent at Heavenly and Kirkwood. We hit up Sierra's physical store on the way up to and back from Squaw and hung around for quite a while both times. Everyone in our crew picked up some gear (I picked up another pair of Sessions pants since the new pair I got was slim fit and not to my liking). Andy and Agnes both picked up pants as well, think Agnes got a jacket too. Dave who was sorta new to the sport picked up an entire setup and on the way back Andy picked up a Stairmaster. Sierra's Donald also hooked me up with a few diecuts which I have plastered on my Stairmaster and Darkstar. Finally, after so many years I got to see the store in person, but a little peeved that I didn't plan my trip better, should've stayed an extra weekend to hit up Bruizzapalooza. Shoulda, woulda, coulda.

Exploring San Francisco
Aside from the weekends, I took two days off to check out SF and Palo Alto. My day in San Francisco started like most others. I took the same route to the office so I could swing by the small street sculpture area a block away. From there I longboarded to the Golden Gate Park on the other side of San Francisco, all in all, it was about 5.5 miles of some slightly hilly roads. It's amazing the abrupt changes between neighborhoods. I saw some amazing graffiti on Turk Street right off of Market (check the photos on the left) and had a pretty good time dog watching in Alamo Park.

When I finally reached Golden Gate Park, it started raining on me so after vieweing the roof garden on the Academy of Science Building I hopped on the bus for Chinatown. Was in no mood to make the 5.5 mile return trip by longboard in the rain. Without exact change I ended up going through two nice individuals to get change but in the end some nice lady was kind enough to give me her transfer ticket which gave me free rides on the bus for the rest of the day. In Chinatown I went to Andy / Jon's favorite bakery, the Golden Gate Bakery, to pick up dan tats then went to Yee's Restaurant up the block to try out the food. The rest of the evening was spent at the Borders in Andy's neighborhood catching up on some magazines.

The morning before my last day of work I got into the area early and went around the corner to check out the SoftSpot exhibition. It pretty much consisted of a lot of communication design pieces attempting to convey how design can help society. Not sure if a physical exhibition was warranted but I was happy to make the stroll through the gallery space.

Exploring Facebook and Palo Alto
Facebook's offices are pretty standard, rows and rows of computer terminals, each employee gets a pretty sweet setup though. Their offices weren't crazy like the Pixar ones but I hear the marketing offices are much more posh. Also got to see Mark Zuckerberg's desk which was really pedestrian, he doesn't even have an office =T. Gotta give props to a leader like that. Cafeteria wasn't bad, stuffed myself...

That evening after having dinner at The Counter with Amy, Will, Paul and Andy we dropped by The Old Pro. Since it was St. Patty's day the bar was packed and charged cover which I wasn't happy about since I don't drink anyway. But Andy and Frank weren't taking no for an answer regarding the bull. Apparently every visitor needs to have a go at the bull so Paul and I rode the bull and ended up with bare knuckles on our respective index fingers. The gloves they lent us had holes at that spot so they weren't of much help. Definitely a lot harder than I imagined. later on in the night some cocky guy got on there and whipped out his phone while riding the bull. It was the most amazing feat of the night... he rode the bull longer than anyone else and with no hands!

Stanford's d.school
Stanford was really interesting. The campus was huge but I didn't get to sit in on any classes since everyone was in the middle of exams. Before the campus tour I stopped by the Thomas Welton Stanford Art Gallery to check out their Design in Balance exhibition which they were still in the process of installing. My favorite piece from the show is photographed on the left, the Trouble with Modernism Teapot.

With no classes to sit in on, I dropped by the d.school space on a whim and was inspired by the people and their facilities. Their Director of Community, Charlotte, was working when I went up to Erika at the front desk and overheard me requesting permission to check out the facilities. Erika was extremely friendly telling me to snoop around and take all the photos I wanted, etc.

Charlotte and I struck up a conversation and upon learning that I was also from Carnegie Mellon took me to see David Kelley, fellow Carnegie Mellon alumni and founder of both the d.school and IDEO. I told David that I was pretty lost, interested in everything and having a hard time focusing on one thing, his response? "Join the club." That was great and sympathetic to my issue, but then he explained that companies want people with breadth which the d.school provides but they also require people with specialized skills, basically going deep into one specialty which I haven't been able to do.

Their building housed a resource-filled prototyping room at the far end. I wish I had a room like it in my condo, Charlotte told me there's another facility in the engineering building with even more resources. Laser cutters, CNC milling machines, etc. It's like having their very own Ponoko! As I left, Charlotte told me to go see Bill Burnett, Executive Director of the Product Design Program which I was looking forward to. Before I start taking classes to meet the basic requirements for admission consideration I assume I should have a chat with Bill. Unfortunately he wasn't in when I paid a visit so it looks like email will have to do.

The West Coast rocks in so many ways! A few more photos available on my Flickr.

Shuhfabrik by Puma

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:19:00 +0000

While putting on my shoes (Adidas Stan Smith, a model with some history) one morning at Andy's place I looked down and saw the photographed shoe staring up at me. I've always been a big fan of the whole Dassler Brothers shoe story, which I covered in this old post, and never realized that Puma had a line playing up their founder's name, it's nice to see them utilize it in their marketing.

Pre-SF: Hell hath no fury like the Phaal Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:58:00 +0000

On the first of the month I made the mistake of attending a dinner organized by Jessica. I roped Natisha and Mikey into attending the dinner too but they were smart enough to not accept The Phaal Challenge. As stated in the linked article, the bowl is a challenge, it tastes like cigarette ash and it's a total PITA to finish. Here's the comment I left on the blog (I know, too much information).

The dish tastes absolutely terrible which adds to the chore of eating it. It is indeed one of the spiciest dishes I've ever eaten. I thought that being half Malaysian would help me deal with it, but I was the last of my group to finish it. Five of us ordered it, all but one finished it. Uhm, anyone else get a burning sensation when doing the #1? Cuz I sure did... that spicy!

I took almost 1.5 hours to finish the bowl and I wasn't happy with myself that night and the following day. Total pain... when it comes to this dish, no one wins. Those who eat it aren't winners, those who have to observe the aftermath definitely aren't winners. No one...

Pre-SF: Poster Boy @ MoMA Atlantic Pacific

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:40:00 +0000

MoMA @ Atlantic / Pacific ended recently, but not before some enterprising artist had some fun making the stale reproductions more lively. New York subway poster guerrilla artist, Poster Boy, brilliantly transformed a number of the pieces as detailed by PSFK and NY Mag. Wish the authorities left his work up and allowed people to continuosly make modifications to the work.

Pre-SF: The Golden Ratio & Web Design, Typography, etc.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:25:00 +0000

Before I write about my fantastic trip out to San Francisco, thought I'd go through all my drafts and get them out of the way first.

Golden Ratio: The golden ratio / rectangle was introduced to architecture students early on, probably during my first year. It never crossed my mind that it could be applied to the web as well. One of my favorite sites, Nettuts (part of the Tuts+ network), has a short explanation on how it applies to web design. You really just have to remember the magic number, 1.62, and to get you started, why not just apply the ratio to your photo crops whenever you post one up? The location of your subjects may not play nicely with the 1.62 cropping but it's worth a shot to get you in the groove. I always wondered how the widescreen aspect ratio came to be and why it wasn't based on the Golden Ratio, and if you ever wondered that as well, wiki is here for you.

Typography: As a typo n00b I still struggle all the time when picking out fonts for various applications whether they be a logo design or some other non-web based piece. I've been using a program I mentioned previously called NexusFont. Flipping Typical is a web-based font picker that does something similar to NexusFont, so if you aren't a fan of launching another app and having it index your fonts, then check out the site.

De monsters shows you the more lighthearted outcomes of having monsters in our midst combining character animation with live action clips. Amusing.

Thom Glick has pulled off something I've considered but never managed to execute, posting up an illustration every day, I'm digging his style.

Probably sick of hearing about the whole AP and Shepard Fairey controversy surrounding the Obama Poster so this will probably be my one and only mention of it. Tom Gralish at The Inquirer posted up a lengthy entry which I assume is an all encompassing write-up of the issue.

PingMag went on hiatus =[. This blog was such a great resource for me when I was in Japan for two months. It basically covered everything of interest to me; design, architecture, culture, etc. If you ever find yourself in Japan, consult the archives of this blog to find noteworthy things to see outside the usual tourist traps.

Objectified premiered down in Texas at SXSW. I wasn't there to catch it but Jeremy did and gave the following review:

Objectified was pretty good, much like Helvetica but not as focused or thorough. It still kept that "design history class" feel to it. I did love the look of the film- it was beautifully shot. Also, I really liked the soundtrack, I would like to get a copy of it!

So who wants to catch the April 9th showing in NYC?

Audi is in(nie)

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:36:00 +0000

A terrible title, but a great looking car (the A5/S5) built by a company on a roll.

On the drive back from Kirkwood yesterday we followed what we thought was an A5 onto the freeway only to discover that it was an A4. I haven't been following the automotive scene for a while and had no idea the A4 had been updated with a similar rear end to the A5. The A5/S5 is definitely the best looking Audi ever, coming from a non-Audi fan its a meaningless statement, I know. But let me put it this way... I've lost interest in cars for a while because I know I'll never need one in NYC, the whole recession (or 'reorder' as some people have called it) along with the green movement will make cars as we know it obsolete (whether that's a decade or two from now, in the end, the combustion engine is a goner) and yet, the A5/S5 has managed to catch my interest enough for me to look up the specs, reviews and pricing. That's how powerful the design is... sure there are better performing cars in its price range, but MPG has overtaken 0-60 in terms of importance (would still like to keep the handling aspects important though), and there are gorgeous super cars out there but they are out of reach so I lose interest in them as soon as one of them passes by me.

I kept reading and it looks like Audi is on a roll. They just posted record numbers while cross-country rival BMW took a nose dive. Their interactive annual report is beastly, check it out! I'm not a fan of the narrator's voice. Sounds like he's trying too hard. Reminds me of Redd Pepper who was on an episode of Fifth Gear this past season, but I would have preferred Redd to whoever the existing narrator is.

Don't forget to DVR this Friday's Truth in 24 on ESPN at 8pm EST! The story centers on Audi's 2008 effort at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And if you are interested in test driving a Q5 (I know, not as exciting as the S5) then you might be in luck if your city is listed on the Audi Driving Experience site. I miss these driving events, way better atmosphere than having to step into a dealership. For the NYers reading, I'll probably be signing up for the Sunday that it's offered...

Hemlock by Tyson Ibele

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 18:33:00 +0000

Idea behind this animation is pretty damn cool, but it gives away the ending way too quick. The robotic mouse is a great touch. I like the rendering in the previous video I posted more, but the concept here is just awesome.

A stroll through SoHo, wowed by Droog!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:07:00 +0000

Droog is awesomeness distilled. Lost track of the number of times I said WOW.

The NY blogsphere has been on fire over yesterday's opening of Droog in SoHo. Given all the commotion I figured it was worth a visit. But before we dive into the main topic, I just wanted to mention two interesting galleries I dropped in on enroute to Droog.

Animazing has a pretty long history. Established in 1984, I'm surprised I haven't run into it prior to today. What drew me in was the huge PEANUTS painting by Tom Everhart in the window. Once inside I was blown away by work from other artists in their roster especially David Kracov's shadow boxes which reminded me of the shoebox dioramas we used to make in elementary school. If anyone is interested, the owner there offered me a discount on Kracov's work if I purchased something this weekend. Unfortunately, no Alex Ross works were displayed. The second gallery, William Bennett, was featuring Salvador Dalí's work, so if you are a fan, swing on by! I liked Dalí's Le Christ print. Anyway, onto Droog!

The interior isn't that unique compared to some of the other interiors in SoHo. I will give credit to them for the integration of the product / fixtures with the interior which isn't done much. Anyway, the product photos on the website do no justice to the actual products. Seeing them in situ gives you much more of an appreciation for the wittiness of the designs. My personal favorites?

Marcel Wanders' Birdhouse, yes why can't avians eat off fine china?
Do hit chair by Marijn van der Poll, will there be a 'Do it chair', nyuk nyuk nyuk.
The Push and store cabinet by Chung-Tang Ho / Tong reminds me of the Pin Art boxes.
Heavy lightweight by Bas Warmoeskerken which looks much better in person. Then again I'm a sucker for carbon fiber weave.
Mario Minale's Red blue Lego chair would've been cooler if it was structurally sound without the metal frame.
Absolutely blown away by the Indonesian craftsmanship of the Godogan table by Niels van Eijk & Miriam van der Lubbe. Thought it was cut in some way by laser when I came upon it.

If you are in NYC, it is TOTALLY worth your time to check it out. I'll probably be back there early next week since Klitty's going to be in town.

Best Lion Dance performance I've ever seen in NYC

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:41:00 +0000

As a youngster I used to look forward to the Lunar New Year. Free money in red envelopes, firecracker shells covered the streets and the lion dances were always cool to watch if not repetitive. Since moving to Jersey I rarely came back out to see the festivities. Especially with the ban on fireworks the festival has been pretty boring.

This afternoon I attended a Lunar New Year luncheon for an association my family makes regular donations to. When I saw the lion dancers walk in, I thought to myself, oh great, here we go again, the same old crap again. Not so! Check out the video above for a crappy recording of their entertaining performance. The guys totally killed it in terms of characterization. The facial movements, tail movements and prancing, best lion dance performance I've ever seen in NYC.

For the record though, you'll find AMAZING performances by Chinese and Malaysian troupes online. True acrobats.

Burning Safari

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 05:07:00 +0000

Was disappointed that Oktapodi didn't win for the best animated short category. Here's another animated short that I found somewhat entertaining, not as fun as Oktapodi but good enough to warrant a mention here. Really dug how they stylized the rendering so it looked as animated as possible rather than CG.