One Plus One Equals Three

Dangerous Australians

A British friend of ours (who now lives here) jokes that it's difficult for him to do outdoorsy things in Australia (at least I think he's joking). According to him, If he 'goes bush', deadly spiders, crocodiles and snakes will get him. If he decides to go for a swim, man-eating sharks and stinging jellyfish will attack, and if he goes to the cricket here, England always loses. No fun.

He may not rush in to see Dangerous Australians, part of the Surviving Australia exhibition at the Australian Museum, but he could learn more about the creatures he fears most, and what first-aid treatment to use (if required). Sydney's Lightwell has developed a "six-metre long interactive table exploring Australia’s deadliest top ten creatures ... Scurrying across sand or lurking under rippling waters, the table’s inhabitants respond immediately to prying visitors in a scarily life-like way." The interactive funnel-web spider certainly had me jumping! Very effective and nice work indeed.

PS: That's refreshing to know.

Tufte on the iPhone, but Jobs wins on countback

Here's Edward Tufte on the design of the iPhone interface.

Immensely interesting and well-argued, but I'm not sure I'm with you 100% on this one Ed...

The logic of Tufte here is perhaps quite sound to a point (if a little condescending in tone in its presentation). But – paraphrasing Graphpaper: do I really need to see a radar image of a city's weather when I'm quickly checking the temperature whilst walking to a meeting down a busy street whilst dodging a skateboarder? Don't think so. But Tufte does. He's of the opinion that more information is better on the screens of our mobile devices – and it's an interesting point.

But – using a simple finger-click to jump to another level of a visually appealling, (and very easily understood) device interface to access more information – if you really need it – is no problem for most people. Many (especially 'young people') would wonder what to do with that finger if they're not actively clicking it someplace on their device (it burns calories too). I'm more than happy to click away to the radar image if I really (really?) need to see one. Ditto for any other layer of information that I really don't need to know immediately and/or at a glance whilst 'on the go'. I'm also content to click and explore within levels of the interface/information when time and availability of a comfy couch permits. It's fun.

And besides - examine the image above. I know which interface I'd prefer to use: (the existing Apple one on the left). It looks like Friday is going to be hotter than Thursday. Do I need the right interface's icons, numerals, text and radar to tell me that? Nope.

I concur with Graphpaper's solid criticism of Tufte here. "From all of this, I am not getting a strong feeling that Tufte is up to speed on how we do things on the Internets these days. If this is Tufte vs. Jobs, this one goes to Jobs hands-down".

Tufte's presentation is a 56MB movie file download (which neatly illustrates Graphpaper's point). It comes across a little like 'the old dog' not biting perhaps, but certainly nipping, 'the new dog'.

Via Information Aesthetics.

Dream Skincare & Female Power Emergency Up!

Take that conventional, male game playing! Dream Skincare is a new game for women soon to be released on Nintendo's DS Lite gaming platform. The game will "dispense advice on all manner of pressing personal concerns such as how to manage skin tone, how to achieve a winning smile, and ultimately, how to appear more attractive to men."

Women and older players are now the target of many games created by gaming giants such as Nintendo. Balancing moisture content and enhancing the elasticity of one's skin is a world away from the traditional game world of marauding cyber-enhanced super-soldiers.

Perhaps you get bonus points for conquering an oily t-zone?

More at MSNBC and (related) at Wired.

It Must be the Robots

My partiality to things Asian (especially things Korean) will well and truly be outed here...

For years I've been telling anyone that would listen to me how effective and pleasurable it is to use international airports in Asia. (Try starting up a conversation with that as an opener...). This may be because they're some of the most modern around – but they are some of the most enjoyable and easiest to use too. Hong Kong International Airport and South Korea's Incheon International Airport being 'el supremo airports' for me. I would (almost) happily spend hours there. Actually, I have (spent hours at HK on occasion). I used to enjoy Japan's Narita too, but that's now been updated and is sprawled over multiple terminals (but the modern bits are very nice), and Thailand's new Suvarnabhumi airport I'm yet to visit.

Asian international airports swept the field in the recent 2006 Airports Council International (ACI) Airport Service Quality Awards. The top four airports were: 1. Incheon in South Korea, 2. Hong Kong, 3. Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and 4. Singapore. But I could have told you that already.

And a factor that would have significantly contributed to South Korea's 'service quality' success would be their friendly, tireless and extremely helpful airport robots.

Thank God You're Here!

The First Wave: Beyond a White Australia tells the stories behind the first wave of post-WW2 migration to Australia. This is a well-designed, well-researched and fascinating interactive created by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in conjunction with the Migration Heritage Centre of New South Wales.

From The First Wave site: "On April 20, 1947, the Egyptian-registered SS Misr docked in Melbourne with its multicultural human cargo: 624 men, women and children from 26 different countries, plucked from ports in the Mediterranean, Middle East and East Africa ... a voyage that sailed deep into the national psyche, exposing widespread fears that the very future of White Australia was suddenly threatened by the arrival of so many Jews, of so many swarthy dark-skinned southern Mediterraneans. (They being) Un-British, un-Australian, 'unsuitable' aliens".

Nice work Fairfax interactive team (apart from a few typos) and to all those "Un-British, un-Australian, unsuitable alien" immigrants: Thank god you're here...

Revolting Behaviour

"Consumer militancy erupts as individuals join forces on the internet to fight back against the state and big business".

The Independent reports that via internet-based consumer campaigns, British Gas lost 1.1m customers in one year and "3 per cent of people have stopped flying to help the environment, while 10 per cent are cutting back on flights". More more in the Indep article...

More examples of 'net activism, where you 'don't get mad... you get online and voice your opinion'... and it works.

Via PSFK.

Exclusive Rights to a Font Auctioned on ebay

Local designer and typographic man-about-town, Stephen Banham of Letterbox has created what this blog thinks may well be a world first. Stephen has designed a new OpenType font called Bisque and the exclusive international rights to this particular font for "a limitless number of CPUs for a period of a year, will be up for grabs on ebay between April 17 and April 27 (World Graphic Design Day)."

We're still waiting on official confirmation of the 'world-first-ness' of all of this – mind you, we're not even too sure whom we should officially ask anyway (!) – but the successful bidder gets Bisque to themselves (or their studio or agency) for an entire year.

The Machine is Us/ing Us

Has been mentioned on a few blogs about the place - but it's a goodie... The Machine is Us/ing Us by Michael Wesch, an assistant professor in Cultural Anthropology, meditates on why Web 2.0 is culturally important. Nothing terribly new here – but this is some nicely-packaged edu-tainment. (YouTube video 4.5 mins).

The Trials of David Hicks

The Age interactive team has done it again. An 'interactive news' presentation that comprehensively outlines the David Hicks scenario has been posted online. The background surrounding the case is presented, along with interviews, maps and video of the people involved. An example of the burgeoning field of 'interactive news' done extremely well (save for a few errant typos).

"On January 11, 2002, (Australian) David Hicks was transferred under US military guard from Afganistan to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

He was one of hundreds of foreigners detained by the US during its "war" on terror. Five years later, Hicks remains in detention..."

Photo above is of Hicks' cell.

Quipsologies: A Qlever Idea

US design blog Speak Up has just released a sister-blog containing the list of links that once would have appeared in the Quipsologies section of Speak Up. I guess it seemed logical to call this new blog Quipsologies as that is what it contains. (I have always liked the name).

And it's a very clever idea. I enjoy the constant updates of links on the other big US design blog Design Observer, which is similar to what's on Coudal, which is updated daily (other blogs do similar). I'd endeavour to do that here on 1+1=3 but this is a solo gig and that extra workload would be difficult to manage. My day job is running and designing in a small design studio. Which is also often my night job, so the constant linkage thing for me is seriously out. I have to fit 'life away from the desk' in somewhere. Sleep too.

But the really clever thing about Quipsologies is that it features links supplied not only by the Speak Up authors but by, well, anyone. So the 'community' aspect of blogging (which is one of the reasons why I like blogs and blogging) is maintained in a very clever way with half the site content being supplied by interested parties. Very smart stuff. Nice 'Q' too.