Printed Antimatter

Where's the combination screwdriver/fondue fork?

In the spirit of the spork and the scrench, here comes Wrenchware, hybrid tools you can use to service both your car and your piehole. I have no idea if those pliers are functional or not, but if so, they seem to be perfectly made for accidentally stabbing yourself in the lung.

I haven't the slightest idea what the individual names of these objects would be. Spooch? Pliefe? Forket wrench? This set is a must-have for anyone who doesn't mind axle grease on their meatloaf and gravy on their camshaft.

The Interstate system in the style of a subway map

An art-making Boulder dude named Chris Yates is selling this incredible depiction of the Eisenhower Interstate system simplified in the style of a subway map. (Click the image to get the full effect.) Not only is it both lovely and freakin' cool, it makes cross-country road trips about a hundred times easier to plan.*

One of my favorite aspects of simplifications like this is the implied distortion of the actual geography underneath. It's a bug, not a feature, but it has funny results. For instance, check out I-4... It makes the distance from Tampa to Daytona Beach (i.e. the width of Florida) look like about a third of the width of the entire US. A similar effect occurs in the NYC subway map, which makes Manhattan look almost as big as the boroughs surrounding it, simply because the subway stops are much more densely packed. (Note to tourists: Never gauge walking distance by the NYC subway map!)

Another thing I like is the way this map has San Francisco jutting out on the west coast like a balcony. That's right, we're special.

I found this via the Strange Maps blog, which is worthy of a post in itself, but for now I'll just strongly urge you to visit.

*That's assuming you stick to major interstates, and if you watch the same movies I do, you will.

Best- and worst-selling weekly magazine covers of 2006 offer spark of hope

The Media Industry Newsletter (aka "min") reveals which weekly/biweekly magazine covers were the best and worst sellers of 2006 (I think this link is going to expire, and there's no apparent permalink that's not behind a subscription wall).

The two bestsellers: The Oct. 23 edition of Time, featuring Barack Obama, and an unspecified issue of Newsweek, featuring Hillary Clinton and... Barack Obama.

The two worst: Us Weekly's special collector's issue of TomKat's "Dream Wedding," and an issue of Maclean's featuring Bonnie Fuller.

Having been in magazines for a while, I've heard many people decry the ascendance of shallower titles while more serious books face dwindling readerships. But this should give us all a bit of hope, right? It seems that weekly buyers are increasingly embracing world events and shunning celebrity gossip, right? Or is it just that Barack Obama is the newest celebrity they've flocked to?

D-Wade's Sidekick slam-dunk

In today's edition of Third Screen, screen-queen Michal Lev-Ram talks to some basketball player named D-Wade. That shows you how much I know about basketball-- I've never heard of him, even though he's a big enough name that T-Mobile tapped him to design a Sidekick. When Michal described it to me as white with gold accents, I shuddered at the thought of how tacky it was going to be. But then I saw the photos, and for some reason, I think it looks great! I especially love the basketball texture on the back. It would be totally cool if that allowed you to dribble it.

I do think they missed an opportunity, though-- the phone screen still features that purple-haired cartoon girl with her tantalizing pixelated cleavage. Why not go all the way and replace her with Dwayne's smiling face?

A graphic designer's dream phone

So what if LG is coming out with a pink phone. Softbank Mobile is releasing the Sharp 812SH in 20 different colors! And even better, the colors all come from the Pantone Matching System!

For those who don't know, the PMS (yes, PMS) is a way for designers to specify an ink color for a printed piece. For instance, if I request Pantone 368 from any print house in the world, my piece will always come back the same bright green. Now I can order a cell phone in Pantone 368 to match that printed piece. Actually, I can't, because like all things cool it is only available in Japan.

Anyway, it is interesting that Pantone is branching out to become a consumer brand. They've also released such products as stationery, luggage, and stools under the name Pantone Universe. They've also created the Colorstrology site, which tells you what your birth color is and what it means. Mine is Pantone 13-0116, pastel green (earnest, compassionate, magical). Well, I suppose that's no less ridiculous than regular astrology.

Plagiarism: Not just for words and music

David Segal has an interesting article up on Slate called "Can Photographers be Plagiarists?"

The father-and-son photography team of Horst and Daniel Zielske caused a stir in September when their show, "Megalopolis Shanghai," opened at MKG, a museum in Hamburg, Germany. But it wasn't the sort of stir any artist could relish. Another German photographer, Peter Bialobrzeski, accused the pair of ripping off two images from his highly acclaimed series "Neon Tigers"—right down to the luminous, Blade Runner-like glow that was the "Neon Tigers" signature.

I'm not sure why Segal phrases the title as a question, because the answer is clearly "Yes." He writes that the issue is made complicated by the fact that artists pay homage to each other and that a photo is a record of a scene which is accessible to all, but he illustrates them with examples that don't prove his point.

Plagiarism is a matter of intent. If you deliberately tailor a photo to look like another photo, that's plagiarism. The example of the Zielskes may not be clear-cut, but it doesn't disprove the possibility.

At Business 2.0 we have had occasion to hire photographers to reproduce an existing photo, with changes to make it suit our purposes. In those cases, we have gotten permission from the original photographer and paid him for the idea. Had we not, we would have a lawsuit on our hands, and using the example of Steichen and Stieglitz shooting the Flatiron would not have helped.

The most fascinating part of Segal's article is the example of two cheeky artists who straight-out photographed other artist's photographs. Yay for conceptual art! [Warning: the second link leads to an image of a naked 10-year-old. But it's Brooke Shields, so it's art, not porn.]

Like a spork but manlier: The scrench

While browsing the more outdoorsy parts of the internet I learned about this cool hybrid tool known as the bar wrench, or scrench. Being a city boy I have never even held a chainsaw, let alone maintained one, but apparently the scrench is exclusively designed for that purpose.

The word "scrench" has such a visceral sound, and wouldn't be surprised if it was onomatopoeic. I can totally imagine the sound of chainsaw maintenance being "scrench, scrench." I have not been so simultaneously delighted and repulsed by a tool's name since the nipple wrench. ("Supplies leverage necessary to remove even stubborn nipples.")

If you're wondering what to get your scrench-enthusiast mate this Valentine's Day-- why, a scrench holder, naturally.

The man who designed my pre-school chair dies at 92

From the NYT:

Hans Wegner, whose Danish Modern furniture — most famously his chairs — helped change the course of design history in the 1950s and ’60s by sanding modernism’s sharp edges and giving aesthetes a comfortable seat, died on Jan. 26 in Copenhagen. He was 92...

He also earned a footnote in political history, when, in 1960, Vice President Richard M. Nixon and Senator John F. Kennedy were seated on Wegner chairs during the first nationally televised presidential debate.

That's a nice thing to have on your résumé, even an incredibly long one like Wegner's. Check out the wide selection of artful and pricey chairs that bear his name here and here and here.

But I was surprised to discover (via daddytypes.com) that Wegner had even ventured into children's furniture:

When in 1944 Wegner's good friend and colleague, Børge Mogensen, fathered a son, it was difficult for Wegner to find an adequate christening gift because of the war. So he decided to make one himself, and what was more appropriate than a small piece of furniture for the new-born... He finally decided for a chair consisting of 4 flat parts that could be assembled to a chair without the use of tools. In this way little Peter not only got a chair but at the same time a toy he cold assemble himself and take apart again.

Maybe my memory is faulty in my old age but I swear I've seen this chair, or knock-offs of it, in every nursery school, kindergarten, and day-care center I've attended or come across.

Wikipedia has a few choice Wegner quotes that are applicable to every area of design:

"Many foreigners have asked me how we made the Danish style. And I've answered that it...was rather a continuous process of purification, and for me of simplification, to cut down to the simplest possible elements of four legs, a seat and combined top rail and arm rest."

"The chair does not exist. The good chair is a task one is never completely done with."

"A chair is to have no backside. It should be beautiful from all sides and angles."

Hans, dude, a chair with no backside is called a stool. J/K all the way, I know what you meant.

AppleTV: A lovely product I will never buy

Okay, first of all, what the hell is up with using the Apple [AAPL] icon in the name of the product? Did Steve learn nothing from Prince's foray into unpronounceable, un-typeable symbol usage?

Now that that's out of the way: Am I the only one throughly unexcited about the red-headed stepchild of MacWorld, AppleTV? There are three reasons:

1. I'd hoped it was going to be a PVR. Yeah, that's not Apple's fault.

2. I'm not interested in using my Mac as a video hub. I would much rather buy a movie or TV show on DVD than download it from the iTunes Music Store.

3. And most surprisingly, considering we're talking about Apple: It just seems kludgy.

It sounds simple: You attach a $300 box to your TV, it syncs wirelessly to the iTunes of every computer in the house, and then you play video and music from it directly with the Front Row interface.

I know I'm expecting too much here, but syncing to an additional hard drive seems like one step too many. It would be so much more elegant if you could attach an Airport Express-style box to your TV and then stream video directly from your computer, á la AirTunes. This would sidestep the AppleTV's disk-space limitations, and it would probably cost half as much.

The Apple iPhone's design: 10 cool features and curious choices

1. A touchscreen qwerty keypad does not look at all fun for texting or writing emails. I rely on feeling the bumps of the little keys when texting-- I slide my thumb over to the right key, and when I know it's there, I press. Not an option with a touchscreen. Plus it seems like there would be a lot more mispressed keys, like from your finger brushing against the screen. Could be wrong, will have to try it. At least the auto-spelling correction will help.

2. Visual voicemail is the greatest thing ever invented. The worst aspect of voicemail is having to listen to every message in order to find the one that interests you. This was especially bad when I had a Cingular phone, because I couldn't delete a voicemail message in the middle of playing-- I had to wait until the message was done. Like I said in my last post, in a few years visual voicemail will be the standard. And it's a godsend for call screeners like my girlfriend.

3. Why no iChat? Dressing SMS up as IM is not an appropriate substitute. IM is one of my most-used features on my Sidekick, and my last three phones before that all had IM capability. One commenter I read suggested it's because IM would rob Cingular of SMS revenue, but that explanation might have a hole in it. Does no Cingular phone have IM? I suspect also that it may have something to do with too many cooks already being in this kitchen, what with Cingular, Yahoo, and Google all helping out. Maybe there just wasn't room in the kitchen for AOL.

Seven more after the jump...