1937 and my children

Markets and Hobbies

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:16:00 +0000

In Korea there is a very strong culture of early adoption and hobbyists for a number of market types. One in particular is that of photography and in certain areas of Seoul you can't go a few minutes without seeing a top end fully professional DSLR. In this market however there is also a lot of diversity and products like Lomo are quite well established. Similarly film photography is still strong.

It looks like I may do some work looking at this trend a bit later.

In Sinsa the other day, a father with a big camera and a daughter.

Living in Context

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:08:00 +0000

Recently while shopping at the local KAIST convenience store I noticed the clerk was getting exercise by power walking around the small store.

The KAIST Convenient Store with woman running too fast to be photographed

I think the prospect of making our living spaces and working spaces share strange unexpected values is pretty interesting. I should also add that recently in my Ubiquitous Hacking summer class we did a little thinking about combined multimode spaces for living and working. My prototype was based on the prospect of incorporating emptiness to reduce functional specificity. A little like the discussion of bathrooms I noted last time I was travelling in Korea, this concept is also highly motivated by the seeming emptiness and functional agnosticism of many traditional Korean destinations.

A simple room for work and living biased on the lack of objects to create flexibility

Cheese and Asia

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 08:40:00 +0000

A Korean made Brie. I had no knife so I used Chopsticks

Since I first started coming to Asia years ago I have always found that cheese is dealt with interestingly here. As many people know China and Mongolia have had fermented milk from early on. Nowadays milk and yogurts are consumed on mass, however the cheese market is still small and almost exclusively premium. However, most people in Asia I meet seem to really enjoy cheese and this is no secret, as far as I can tell, to the local food industry. One Chinese friend to whom I introduced Goat cheese to in Australia commented that he wished to eat nothing else for the rest of his existence.

Packaging from one of the most common milk suppliers here. I think it is rather nice and that the name Maeil almost communicates Milk. Maeil or 매일 actually means everyday in Korean

In Asia one can buy foreign cheeses at a relatively high price but they are almost never used in foods in restaurants. Various dishes in China and Korea are starting to have cheese options but the cheese used is almost exclusively low fidelity cheddar which I think is made of plastic.

This is an amazing dish which I will comment more on later. What is important at this point is that those rice cakes are full of the previously mentioned cheddar.

A few years ago I thought it would be interesting to start an Asian cheese company which could provide for the local need and introduce more variety. Here in Korea there is a company (Sangha, a brand of Maeil) doing this and selling reasonable Camembert and Brie, still overpriced, but much less than the imported options. I tend to still buy French or Australian products as the flavour is superior but it is interesting to see the effort. This company has also released a Camembert spread which comes in a bottle, sadly it is slightly aerated.

Camembert in a Bottle. I think we should explore the possibility of making this really nice, it seems like a good idea.

In any case, I have a few contacts in this area but should get more investment before tackling Asian cheese. Any ideas?

Thinking Presentations

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:42:00 +0000

A screen shot of one of my presentations from a few years ago. Made with Keynote

I am sitting here looking over my colleagues shoulder, he is building a site map and a bunch of content ideas for a new website. Surprisingly however he is using powerpoint to do this not some specialised app. Interestingly I have in fact used a similar tool, Apple's Keynote, to do the same sort of work in the past. So, I was a little puzzled about why this actually happens.

Various obvious reasons come to mind, one being that in our work here at KAIST we have presentations almost every day and hence use presentation tools all the time anyway. I in fact use Keynote even to prepare ideas for discussions where no presentation will actually be made.

Another factor however, is the fact that presentation tools as they exist today are a little like WYSIWYG interfaces for building idea frameworks and hence can be used in a lot of settings. I think this could be taken a few steps further.

On a related note over the past half dozen years I have thought about the possibility of a computer interface that is more like a presentation at all times. So, everything you do is sort of always ready to be seen, but also always valid and useful to communicate.

I think with presentation like tools we do, or should get the following 3 basic modes; idea collection, organisation and communication. These each have various core features that I think are important and I list bellow.

Idea Collection

Data Dropping - ability to quickly add data
Quick Capture - ability to create nice text or other media fast
Sketching - this includes typical sketching and the sketching in the more abstract sense

Organisation

Data Types - ability to take data and group it or render it or do something to it which is useful quickly. Like Smart Graphics from Powerpoint though I think they could do a lot more with that idea.
Trend Visualisation - a way to see how things are flowing and to design flow

Communication

Data Pulling - ability to take data out quickly, easily, and conveniently - Keynote is exceptionally good at this.
Pretty Core - things have to naturally be presentable, designing a presentation style is a whole different project, it should be made easy
Communicative Features - features that actually enrich the communication and storytelling value. Perhaps Scott McCloud can say more about this. I really like the idea of non slide based communications and I often emulate this in my presentations.

I think perhaps what I really want is not actually a presentation tool but more generally a thinking/communicating tool which would be really great for designers of various sorts as well as probably many other people. I have looked at a lot of tools branded in this space and I think they get some things right but nobody makes me sing. Some I like are Compendium and PersonalBrain but these are really tailored for a slightly different process and are absolutely not as pretty as required.

I know there is a lot more I could write about these things but perhaps I will later. Ideas, additions or suggestions?

Animals at University

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 16:25:00 +0000

Here at KAIST we have some animals; Several geese, one duck (who pretends to be a goose), a collection of rabbits, the occasional dog randomly in the corridors of the design building, and various other dogs, cats and birds. Here I have linked to a gallery of examples.

Click to see big and map and other junk.

What I can see in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 15:46:00 +0000

This is my dorm building at KAIST. In the background are apartments outside the university.

So when I got here I wanted to start a blog relating to my stay but I have had a few reasons not to and thus it has been delayed. In any case, I am going to start documenting my stay a little more readily, and feel free to remind me to do so more in the future.

My school is quite small, about 6000 students I think, though the campus is quite large given that number.

View Larger Map

A map of KAIST.

Spelling Google

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:13:00 +0000

Spelling the number. More info. Mostly unrelated this post.

I was reading through my old unread items in Google Reader and came across this amazing piece I had set aside to read and never got around to. It is like a Google state of the union address and I really think that it offers not only a lot of insight but a lot of context into what we know and have, and why. In any case, I suggest everyone read this and then read it again to make sure they did not miss any of the interesting details.

I also should mention, I quite like the title, "From the Height of this Place," which gives me ideas, unrelated to how tall I am.

What makes what we want

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 08:12:00 +0000

This is obviously and Android phone that I have been working on. It has solar on the back, e-ink on the sides with a possible advertising model for free service/media. Touch based of course and being who I am I am excited by the potential of PixelQi. The case is snap together PolyCarbonate or something so it is relatively continuous and we get some interesting optical properties, as seen in the render. The screen size is based on the current HTC G1's screen (320x480), in this case of course we do not have any other buttons etc. so the device ends up being quite a lot smaller.

The model is not that good so I am going to do a fresh one as soon as I know a little more about the details.

I have not decided where to put the camera so for now it is in the middle on the back.

Any suggestions or ideas would be great.

What makes what we want different from what we have and what we think is available?

USB + TSR + Bidirectional Grip + Power Switch

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 18:04:00 +0000

This is just an adaptation of the Zen Data device I was thinking about earlier. I have added a TSR socket, AKA headphone jack, so that it can have audio output. (in looking for a documentation of the standard I found out they seem to be technically named TSR) I also added a Switch but I am not sure if that is really necessary. No sign of controls yet. I think buttons are too hard to design well (I agree with Apple on that one) so for now we should just assume that it know what music you want to listen to, or you can give me a better idea in the comments.

Update: Thanks to Nick Kemp Greenhood for pointing out that it is really TRS not TSR. Woops - Dyslexic.

More Guessing and Shiny Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:15:00 +0000

So I got an idea the other day which I think is not yet finished but I have made an initial model anyway. Here is an early stage render of the back. Any guesses to what it is?

Zen Data Storage

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:41:00 +0000

Thinking about what it would be like if USB sticks were simple.

Also thinking about putting back a few features, potentially Multi-Directional Positive Grip as can be seen in the Benchmade knife below, and also considering how an LED and tow point should be incorporated.

Modo and a Saddle Zip

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:34:00 +0000

A more accurate version of the previously drafted orthogonal view. (Having the base 2d representation did actually help quite a bit when building the previous model because of the unusual curves in the channels)

I have done another model which is a little more easy on the eyes this time. Still there are a few inaccuracies and some newly realised design issues. Sadly the symmetry system in Modo is not as sophisticated as is really needed so I think one of the issues came though because of my methodology for creating the fundamental components.

I think the next version will have a more sophisticated joining space.

Ideas about applications?

Please ignore the really bad surfacing. I will do a better job in the next representation.

Finished Mockup

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:53:00 +0000

The coin it is sitting on is an American quarter for scale.

I have finished a really basic and sloppy mockup of the thing I was working on. It tuns out it is a kind of zip. Does anyone know how it works?

I will do a nice version in Modo at some point. Sketchup is not what I need for the surfacing I would like to achieve. However, the component methodology came in very handy when creating this.

More about New Stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:10:00 +0000

Keep Guessing :-)

Here is another picture of what I am working on. I will still not tell you what it is but I will give you the hint that "Saddle" is in the name.

This thing is not that easy to model with the software I am using so I may switch back to a different package for some of the surfacing.

A new thing

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:21:00 +0000

I am working on modelling and finishing up a design I started a few years ago.

If you can guess what it is I will give you a prize.

Making Things and How They Work Together

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:20:00 +0000

I just watched this great TED talk by an interesting man named Saul Griffith. My interest here is in a few capacities.

First, Saul speaks about the level of assembly of a few objects, which I have previously discussed as technology density, and compares organic and artificial assembly systems and manufactured solutions. In doing so he considers the advantages of each and contexts in which each would be more suitable. This is of course quite interesting to me as I think there is a significant market for improving human decisions by relying on a wider frame of decision making systems, including naturally inspired ones, and ensuring appropriate use.

Second, Saul shows some example projects including crossover decision making systems. These, I think, are quite neat though obviously far from complete in this talk.

Lastly, in the beginning he mentions project, seemingly names, A Registry of Standard Biological Parts , which offers a good perspective into another notion I have been interested by, which is that of software for the design and development of biologically inclined systems. In my mind this can include things which utilise some or even just one of the key elements of biological systems. A software like this, from my perspective, would help organise the involved ideas and approaches in order to generate short cycle evolution at much higher rates than natural selection would offer. Such a software could also be used to deal with the issues of human perception when trying to solve for the physical parameters when creating objects.

All in all the talk has reinvigorated me to think about a few problems I haven't for some time. As is often the case I am also reminded that the release early release often approach is good in almost every way and I should adopt it more seriously.

The fall begins

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:13:00 +0000

Today Google announced the closure of some of there products. Most are of limited importance to me however I am a little impacted by one, Google Mashups Editor.

A early prototype for a personal website in Google Mashups Editor.

When Mashups Editor first came out I instantly applied to be a user and was quite impressed and interested by the things it allowed me to do. Sadly at the time my knowledge and understanding of web languages was minimal so I did not make as great tools as I could have, however, I did make a number of test sites and apps including a few which were early prototypes for a javascript website and portfolio I wanted to make. I never finished this project as my comprehension of the appropriate technologies was not good enough and I did not realise which these were until much later. However, now, I feel I could make some interesting sites with this product I have just been busy doing other things and not had a specific need yet to return to this tool. I am sad they are discontinuing it because I think it was a lot of fun and really easy to use on some levels and opened a door for me in creating webapps that I have not seen done by many other sites.

I know Google App Engine is more powerful but I have not yet had a chance to interact with it and I have yet to start to engage in the learning process. I may never have time to deal with this system. I hope something like Mashups Editor comes again.

Honest costs, Closed Market Economics

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:57:00 +0000

If we were going to pay for things more reasonably I think we might break them into three groups:

Environmental Costs
Human Outlay
Design Value

I think these are relevant because as far as I can tell so far they represent most of the points of need in a economic chain. The combined cost would look like this:

Amount Paid = Environmental Cost + Human Outlay + Design Value

B2B and other relationship models would also assume this cost system.

Environmental Costs

These are the costs that have been determined by the absolute impact of a thing and all its contributing processes to the environment. A specific value would be associated with these things based on how cheaply they could be cleaned up and then, the money in this aspect of the cost would be used directly for only that. Essentially this cost pays for the removal of the environmental impact of a product. If that is impossible the cost is infinite. (Bad system design. Perhaps that end state could be more elegant later)

Human Outlay

This cost is that of the impression this product makes on the humans in its creation and handling.

Design Value

The perceived value of the design work done in a production cycle. In some respects this is the only subjective part of a pricing I think, though that could just be because I am a designer.

I know that this approach is not very new but I think an point of innovation could be achieved by standardising various things within the system. For instance, each of the cost analysis systems would have standardised and independently evaluated indexes, also the cost of things would be clearly marked on everything purchasable so it would be very clear to people why things cost what they do.

One problem that I am not visiting with this model is the fact that economies seem to have a hard time remodelling fast. I do not yet know how to achieve a model like this, or if it would cause major problems because everything would be too expensive

Google Sites not Google's Sights

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 20:34:00 +0000

My new homepage on Google Sites

As I may have mentioned before I am in a gradual shift from Google Pages to Google Sites . So far I have been happy in most respects however there are a few core aspects of Google Sites that really annoys me.

No RSS Feeds - Though a user can sign up for email update of changes or posts under a specific title or whatever there are no RSS feeds accessible. I want everything to have feeds and I want to be able to make this site into a blog of sorts.
Crap (Fake) Commenting - The commenting is currently either limited to only collaborators or the whole site has to be editable by anyone to allow normal people to leave comments. This is lame, and another thing making it hard to do blog like things.
No Scripts, Limited to Gadgets - Because Sites is a hosted solution they rather you not editing the main template's HTML or CSS. However, they have also made it so scripts can not be pasted into HTML content boxes. This means users can only use interactive things that come from the google gadgets library (which is okay but way too small).

One of the reasons these things annoy me is because I really want to test out some of the new Google tools but they have not even made them compatible with the background system. Friend Connect for example, it is far to tough for me to implement such a technology within Google Sites. Hence, I think it would be really interesting if Google made Google Sites into a sandbox of sorts where all the new web technologies could be available to be tested etc. Perhaps this could be something like Blogger in Draft .

The things I love most

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0000

A awesome advanced mechanical pencil I got from Jetpens

I love stuff, especially products, especially good ones - and, I love telling people what to buy. So I want to make a list of things that I think are good that I think people should buy. However, my opinions are limited by what I own, what I have seen, and what I have heard about online or wherever. So, I want to make this a open project to find the best products of each of a number of categories. The categories may include such things as different kinds of cameras, pencils, watches, jeans, flip flops, and everything else that money can buy. Also, when I say "find the best products" I really mean find the products that suit an unknown list of requirements that I agree with - for now lets just say things that make people happy.

I am not sure what platform to use for this project yet. Perhaps a google spreadsheet thought that might be a bit bland, perhaps a google sites pages. Suggestions? Also any products you love... tell me about them.

Lastly, I need to think of a name for this. One of the driving forces is that I think people have a lot of things they don't need. A lot of bad pens and pencils for instance, so I was considering a name which suggests singular solutions. Something like "Just get this one.com", this obviously is not good so please think of a good one and tell me about it.

LinkedIn Answers and Questions

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:54:00 +0000

Answering LinkedIn questions has been quite helpful for me in the past year or so and I have managed to find a few good business contacts as a result however I tend not to ask questions so often. One particular connection that I gained as a result of answering one of her questions is Karen Fu who seems to ask an inordinate number and answer just as many. Recently as I have been working on a wide variety of projects I have come to realise that I could do the same sort of thing as a form of expert research. I feel a bit stupid not trying this earlier but in any case it seems like a great method for the time being.

So I am going to try to ask questions as soon as I find one I am interested in. This way building a wide and active set of data and opinions.

Any suggestions?

Update: It looks like I am limited to 10 per month. My goal is now of course to use all 10 every month.

Better Banking (2.0)

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:49:00 +0000

Ammunition's work for Wells Fargo ATMs

I have talked about banking before, and talked about bank related online interfaces, and I think in both cases I have expressed a number of negative emotions. Either way, I was looking over an interesting little design company's website and I came across this image thinking it was their work for a bank website. I realised it was actually for an ATM and became saddened because for a brief moment I thought someone might have actually had some good ideas about web banking. As a reaction I thought perhaps this was a seed for a development process.

So far I like the ideals of simplicity and clarity and I think that online things are perceived as fast and that it is an important aspect of the whole issue of modern banking. More than this however I think data is one of the most relevant things when sitting at a computer so I think providing a lot of really useful data visualisations would be great. Lastly, money needs to have tight security however there are some imaginable instances when some of the more social aspects of the web could come to play. Not sure how yet. We will see.

More to come I hope. Comments and suggestions are encouraged.

Other places and things that begin with KAIST

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:07:00 +0000

Recently I have been working on another, new website. I may have mentioned it before but it is starting to actually have pages and content and stuff. I can not get a RSS feed out of it very simply yet so I am not bothering but I hope to at some point. In any case, my new home page is now located at google sites. For now the URL is not really that nice but at some point I am hoping to get a good one.

KAIST Emblem

In other news. I have been accepted to KAIST and have been given the appropriate scholarships to go there. I will be pursuing a Masters in Design Management and Strategy and hopefully learning a lot of Korean at the same time.

In other unrelated news, Soumitri is working on a project that I think is kinda cool and has been pushing me to think more about the before mentioned Google Design School. Also, given the new website etc. I have been commenting on my project more here, than on this blog.

Comments comments comments. Any medium available.

11-11 11:11:11

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:13:00 +0000

From Da Zai

Me in Da Zai, we were in a mountainous hotel in room 11

11 is my favourite number which makes November 11th my favourite day. I know this conflicts with most of the world's thoughts on this day so I try not to bother people with my strange habits.

Pepero Box

Also, I should add, 11-11 is Pepero Day in Korea and Singles Day in China which are both related to love and things, a bit like valentines day.

Writing to be translated

noreply@blogger.com (Mark Whiting) — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:46:00 +0000

With Google Reader's recent new feature, being able to translate all one's feeds into a language of their preference, using Google Translation Tools, it seems the language of the web is becoming less and less noticeable. However, reading the output of translated sites can often remind us of the value of knowing more than one language. The value I perceive is of course having expression for things which are not included in ones base language. French, the language of love has many shortcomings when describing technical situations, German, great for precise and complex descriptions but with a very different kind of romance, and for my self with asian languages, a word like rènào or 热闹 which has no direct English translation yet describes one of the key things I love about China.

When it comes down to it, Google translator sucks quite a lot, however languages do not make this task easy.

Where do we go from here?

I think there are 2 directions of interest.

Write content with the intention of it being translated - For the time being we do not really know what this means I think most of us do not really know how Google Translator works, perhaps however Google could provide some guidelines on how to make things more translatable by their service. I think this could also include a feature which evaluates a given translation task and suggests words that are uncertain or sentience structures that may cause some problems.
Create a systems of exceptions - If a writer tacks advantage of the specific strengths of a language it will become harder to translate, however those strengths are really important and can offer significant changes in meaning. To deal with this situation I think known exceptions could be added to a system like the Google Translation Tools. These exceptions would extend the ability of the translation system to firs state that there is some difference in meaning and secondly suggest words that may approximate the idea in the target language. The scheme of having user editable results (which google now has) is great but going on to use that data to create richer output would be really fabulous.

What do you think about this?