Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Contract
Sigh. I have to write something again. It is a contract this time. I hate writing something formal. It will cost (waste) most of my time which should be used for visualization and so on (actualy work). Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! Help!
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Glad to Know
The existing photos (art directed) about forgetfulness are so cheesy. I do not want mine to be one of those cheeses.
Mini Reminder Offers Help for the Forgetful
If you're a forgetful person, you know that always misplacing your wallet, keys, PDA, or children turns from an endearing foible to an infuriating and expensive curse pretty quickly. Perhaps you could use some help, and your options are pretty limited. You could go to a hypnotist to fix your faults, or you could just get this Mini Reminder to do the remembering for you. The Mini Reminder is a two-part device, with a receiver that clips onto your belt and a transmitter that clips onto whatever valuable you're most worried about misplacing. If you happen to move 10 to 25 feet away (you can set the distance), the gadget will beep or vibrate at you until you go retrieve it. You can also hook up multiple transmitters to one receiver, so you won't be able to leave without your wallet, iPod, and umbrella. Just imagine all the trouble you'll save when it forces you to remember to take, say, your medication with you when you head out on vacation, or your baby with you when you leave the supermarket. The possibilities are endless. The Mini Reminder is $40 and available online now.
Londoners the Most Forgetful Taxi Passengers
London is the greatest security risk as found in a global survey of 2000 taxi drivers from eleven major cities around the world which shows that thousands of valuable mobile phones, handhelds, laptops and USB Sticks are forgotten in taxis every day.
Mountains of mobiles are left every day by fretful and forgetful travellers at the back of city cabs as passengers rush to leave taxis for their next destination, a new survey reveals.
In the last six months alone, Londoners have forgotten a staggering 54,874 mobile phones (that’s over 2 per taxi), 4,718 handhelds or Pocket PCs, 3,179 laptops and 923 USB stick drives at the back of licensed taxi cabs and there just the ones that have been reported.
London is not alone when it comes to forgetful travellers. It would seem the story of lost and forgotten mobiles echoes around the world with the same fate afflicting Sydney, Bombay, Stockholm, San Francisco, Washington, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich and Oslo.
However, of all the cities London still comes out on top as the capital with the most forgetful population losing more mobile phones than any other city, followed by Bombay travellers who have lost a total of 32,970 and Sydney citizens who come third with 6,440 mobile phones reported as lost. Interestingly the survey found that when it came to handheld devices such as Pocket PCs London once again came top with 4,718, Washington came out in second place with 2,260 and the Germans were also forgetful with their devices in Munich losing 1,902 and Berlin 1,125.
The numbers of lost laptops was also highest in London at 3,179 with Munich in second place with 355 and Bombay in third place with 349.
In light of these staggering figures Pointsec (mobile security experts) who conducted the survey is encouraging business and individual users to back-up, encrypt and password protect their device in the event of it falling into the wrong hands and the data then being stolen, compromised or abused.
Mobiles a potential Security Threat
A warning message to the business community and individuals to be vigilant when travelling with their mobile devices has never been more relevant as this survey comes at a time when the latest crop of mobile phones are now capable of storing 4Gb of memory. That’s equivalent to physically storing data on 400 boxes of paper in 9 filing cabinets with the capacity to retain 4 million emails and 4000 songs.
The space provided by these recent 'must have' mobiles means business travellers can now use them as a mobile office and a convenient replacement to the home filing cabinet to store a host of personal and business data including customer and personal names and addresses, pictures, insurance details, bank account and credit card information, NI numbers, and other highly sensitive data, making it even more important to secure the data, in the event that the device is lost.
Peter Larsson, CEO for Pointsec said: “This survey shows that no-one is infallible and looking at this survey’s findings you look to stand a pretty good chance of losing a mobile device in a cab or indeed any public place. With the new breed of phones being able to store 4Gb, users need to be aware of the amount of power and data they are literally carrying around in their hands. If your device falls into the wrong hands take a moment to think about how it could affect your livelihood especially if it has not been probably secured. Our advice is that if you have something valuable stored on your mobile device, then make use of all the security that comes with it or encrypt it – that way when you do lose it, no-one will be able to read your data!”
Taxis a safe place to lose your mobiles
There is some good news for our absent minded travellers though in that, if you are going to lose your mobile device, you couldn’t do it a better place than a taxi!
That is according to the findings of the survey: globally an average of 75% of passengers were reunited with their mobile phones and 78% with their Pocket PCs and Laptops – with the cab drivers in almost all cases tracking down their owners. Once again London came out on top – this time for having the most honest drivers with 96% of all mobile phones reported as being re-united with their happy owners.
However, the case was very different in San Francisco with just 32% of passengers being reconciled with their mobile phones and just 32% getting back their laptops compared to 100% in Bombay, Berlin and 97% in London!
Not just mobiles, but pork chops, babies, drunken women, judges wigs and machine guns...
When asked what was the strangest items left in their taxis it was interesting to note that around the world a large number of people strangely leave their false teeth at the back of cabs and it was not uncommon to hear of artificial limbs being forgotten in almost every country surveyed!
UK taxi drivers admitted to finding a telescope, a drunken women left as a tip by her boyfriend, a machine gun and £100,000 worth of diamonds.
In Helsinki a taxi driver found secret papers from the military forces and in London a cabbie returned a laptop belonging to an employee from the United Nations which he managed to return after turning on the device and finding out who owned it – which nicely shows why it’s so important to encrypt and password protect every device to stop less scrupulous individuals from tampering with the information.
So if you don’t want to risk a virtual custard pie in the face from family, friends or your employer, heed the message and protect both your device and yourself.
Mountains of mobiles are left every day by fretful and forgetful travellers at the back of city cabs as passengers rush to leave taxis for their next destination, a new survey reveals.
In the last six months alone, Londoners have forgotten a staggering 54,874 mobile phones (that’s over 2 per taxi), 4,718 handhelds or Pocket PCs, 3,179 laptops and 923 USB stick drives at the back of licensed taxi cabs and there just the ones that have been reported.
London is not alone when it comes to forgetful travellers. It would seem the story of lost and forgotten mobiles echoes around the world with the same fate afflicting Sydney, Bombay, Stockholm, San Francisco, Washington, Helsinki, Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich and Oslo.
However, of all the cities London still comes out on top as the capital with the most forgetful population losing more mobile phones than any other city, followed by Bombay travellers who have lost a total of 32,970 and Sydney citizens who come third with 6,440 mobile phones reported as lost. Interestingly the survey found that when it came to handheld devices such as Pocket PCs London once again came top with 4,718, Washington came out in second place with 2,260 and the Germans were also forgetful with their devices in Munich losing 1,902 and Berlin 1,125.
The numbers of lost laptops was also highest in London at 3,179 with Munich in second place with 355 and Bombay in third place with 349.
In light of these staggering figures Pointsec (mobile security experts) who conducted the survey is encouraging business and individual users to back-up, encrypt and password protect their device in the event of it falling into the wrong hands and the data then being stolen, compromised or abused.
Mobiles a potential Security Threat
A warning message to the business community and individuals to be vigilant when travelling with their mobile devices has never been more relevant as this survey comes at a time when the latest crop of mobile phones are now capable of storing 4Gb of memory. That’s equivalent to physically storing data on 400 boxes of paper in 9 filing cabinets with the capacity to retain 4 million emails and 4000 songs.
The space provided by these recent 'must have' mobiles means business travellers can now use them as a mobile office and a convenient replacement to the home filing cabinet to store a host of personal and business data including customer and personal names and addresses, pictures, insurance details, bank account and credit card information, NI numbers, and other highly sensitive data, making it even more important to secure the data, in the event that the device is lost.
Peter Larsson, CEO for Pointsec said: “This survey shows that no-one is infallible and looking at this survey’s findings you look to stand a pretty good chance of losing a mobile device in a cab or indeed any public place. With the new breed of phones being able to store 4Gb, users need to be aware of the amount of power and data they are literally carrying around in their hands. If your device falls into the wrong hands take a moment to think about how it could affect your livelihood especially if it has not been probably secured. Our advice is that if you have something valuable stored on your mobile device, then make use of all the security that comes with it or encrypt it – that way when you do lose it, no-one will be able to read your data!”
Taxis a safe place to lose your mobiles
There is some good news for our absent minded travellers though in that, if you are going to lose your mobile device, you couldn’t do it a better place than a taxi!
That is according to the findings of the survey: globally an average of 75% of passengers were reunited with their mobile phones and 78% with their Pocket PCs and Laptops – with the cab drivers in almost all cases tracking down their owners. Once again London came out on top – this time for having the most honest drivers with 96% of all mobile phones reported as being re-united with their happy owners.
However, the case was very different in San Francisco with just 32% of passengers being reconciled with their mobile phones and just 32% getting back their laptops compared to 100% in Bombay, Berlin and 97% in London!
Not just mobiles, but pork chops, babies, drunken women, judges wigs and machine guns...
When asked what was the strangest items left in their taxis it was interesting to note that around the world a large number of people strangely leave their false teeth at the back of cabs and it was not uncommon to hear of artificial limbs being forgotten in almost every country surveyed!
UK taxi drivers admitted to finding a telescope, a drunken women left as a tip by her boyfriend, a machine gun and £100,000 worth of diamonds.
In Helsinki a taxi driver found secret papers from the military forces and in London a cabbie returned a laptop belonging to an employee from the United Nations which he managed to return after turning on the device and finding out who owned it – which nicely shows why it’s so important to encrypt and password protect every device to stop less scrupulous individuals from tampering with the information.
So if you don’t want to risk a virtual custard pie in the face from family, friends or your employer, heed the message and protect both your device and yourself.
Related Image
Oops! This is an old idea. Haha! I thought it would be original. Maybe I can exaggerate it.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Mr. Forgetful
You might have been familiar with this cartoon, but it is new to me. The narrator speaks too fast! I can not follow!
Club Forgetful
http://tw.myblog.yahoo.com/CaT-C/archive?l=f&id=41
Someone established Club Forgetful, but I believe this club has been forgotten since it has not been updated for a long long time. It contains a lot of interesting events about forgetfulness, but it is in Chinese.
Someone established Club Forgetful, but I believe this club has been forgotten since it has not been updated for a long long time. It contains a lot of interesting events about forgetfulness, but it is in Chinese.
The Forgetful Boss
Boss:
The conference on August the 1st is very important. Please remind me.
Secretary:
It took place the day before yesterday.
Boss:
Oh my God! I forgot to attend it!
Secretary:
You have already been there.
The conference on August the 1st is very important. Please remind me.
Secretary:
It took place the day before yesterday.
Boss:
Oh my God! I forgot to attend it!
Secretary:
You have already been there.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Humour
This is the kind of humour and creativity I am looking for: http://www.art-studios.de/home/index.php?play=pommes.
Information Share
The "Voices of White City" project is a good and successful example of sharing information. First of all and the most important of all, it attracts people to participate in this sharing process because it is fun and simple. People peel off stickers and stick them everywhere, which helps get this project widely knownly. The left stickers on the wall reveal the messages.
Abnormal Psychology
The series of designs for Hans Brinker Budget Hotel are good examples of "abnormal psychology" if it is what I intend to mean. Take a look at their website too: http://www.hans-brinker.com/.
Concepts
The most difficult part of a design project is to explain. Oh god! I have my ideas deep in my mind, but I just can not translate them into a language (especially English). Forgive me.
When thinking about a concept, I always keep my objective in mind.
"Enhance people’s understanding of forgetfulness to change their negative feelings towards forgetfulness into being slightly more relaxed and forgiving."
The key words are "understanding" and "change", which I immediately relate to "informational" and "interactive", "awaken" and "action".
I am so afraid of the word "concept". No matter how many times I try, people still do not think my "concepts" are concepts. Let me try one more time.
As I rewrote and re-considered my proposal, I realized I have mentioned two "concepts".
1. Metaphor of forgetfulness. Basically, I will use metaphor to explain the mechanism of forgetfulness and its related things such as retrieval failure so that it is not boring, hopefully. This approch is more scientific.
2. Evoke an echo of people's experience. Simply, it is experience share, to discover the interesting, humorous, and "lovely" aspects of forgetfulness. This is quite similar to the thesis.
However, in my proposal I discuss these two together as if they are bonded. I believe that a design can achieve both of them. In this sense, maybe they are not even concepts? Are they too specific? Let me try again.
1. Forgetfulness and forgiveness. Troubles caused by forgetting things are not intentional, and we commonly have ever had. Should not we be more forgiving to forgetfulness?
2. Abnormal psychology. I am not sure if that is what I mean, but Kessels Kramer does a lot of such designs like Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. Since this project is about "negative" to "positive", when over emphasizing "negative", people will shift to "positive". Humour is the most important role in this concept.
3. Compare and contrast. What are the similaities between two forgetful people? What are the differences between a forgetful person and a remindful one? What are the similarities and differences between forgetting your best friend's birthday and forgetting your dog's? It can be something "stupid". It is mainly about experience share.
I hope at least one of my five "concepts" is a real concept. Thanks!
When thinking about a concept, I always keep my objective in mind.
"Enhance people’s understanding of forgetfulness to change their negative feelings towards forgetfulness into being slightly more relaxed and forgiving."
The key words are "understanding" and "change", which I immediately relate to "informational" and "interactive", "awaken" and "action".
I am so afraid of the word "concept". No matter how many times I try, people still do not think my "concepts" are concepts. Let me try one more time.
As I rewrote and re-considered my proposal, I realized I have mentioned two "concepts".
1. Metaphor of forgetfulness. Basically, I will use metaphor to explain the mechanism of forgetfulness and its related things such as retrieval failure so that it is not boring, hopefully. This approch is more scientific.
2. Evoke an echo of people's experience. Simply, it is experience share, to discover the interesting, humorous, and "lovely" aspects of forgetfulness. This is quite similar to the thesis.
However, in my proposal I discuss these two together as if they are bonded. I believe that a design can achieve both of them. In this sense, maybe they are not even concepts? Are they too specific? Let me try again.
1. Forgetfulness and forgiveness. Troubles caused by forgetting things are not intentional, and we commonly have ever had. Should not we be more forgiving to forgetfulness?
2. Abnormal psychology. I am not sure if that is what I mean, but Kessels Kramer does a lot of such designs like Hans Brinker Budget Hotel. Since this project is about "negative" to "positive", when over emphasizing "negative", people will shift to "positive". Humour is the most important role in this concept.
3. Compare and contrast. What are the similaities between two forgetful people? What are the differences between a forgetful person and a remindful one? What are the similarities and differences between forgetting your best friend's birthday and forgetting your dog's? It can be something "stupid". It is mainly about experience share.
I hope at least one of my five "concepts" is a real concept. Thanks!
A Sketch About the Previous Ideas
Are people absolutely forgetful? I think it is relative.
In an information overwhelming environment, because there are too many thought bubbles (metaphor), and you have a fixed numbers of wires and plugs, you can only "choose" to remember some things, at that particular moment. The wires plug to different thought bubbles as the environment changes. For example, (this is not necessarily true) at school you probably remember more assignments than at home. This situation is called locational context-dependant. Now you know it is quite reasonable for us to forget doing some homework. Do not blame us.
In a leisure environment, because there are only a few thought bubbles, our wires and plugs are likely excessive. Since thought bubbles are floating everywhere, the excessive wires tend to plug to them randomly. That explains why we indulge in wild flights of fancy in a leisure environment.
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