A week or so ago I asked Vik Olliver (the same guy who made the “meccano glue gun” fabber – reLink) to post images of his latest device, Zaphod. I didn’t get any pictures, but we do now have a nice clip of the device in action over on YouTube. Excellent.
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Interesting post on New World Note (Link) discussing the spike in new accounts after the recent Second Life security breach (reLink). While I don’t track statistics, I did find myself watching the SL front page stats, and also noticed that active logins were relatively high following the breach; usually over 8000. And by virtue of my new Google custom page (which I’m still not sure I like), I was seeing a whole slew of articles on the breach – from MSM to never-heard-of-’em press (reLink). That story did have some legs.
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This one seems rather intuitive for anyone who has spent time in Second Life, but an article over on nature.com (Link) reports on findings which suggests that people using avatars appear to behave in much the same way in the virtual world as they would in the real world. From that article:

With thousands of people using Second Life at any one time, Nick Yee and colleagues at Stanford University realised it presented a chance to assess whether users interacted in similar ways to people in the real world.

After using a computer program to monitor the behaviour of over 1,600 avatars in one-on-one interactions, they conclude that the answer is ‘yes’. Male avatars (whether created by a man or a woman) stood further apart than female avatars, for instance, and were more likely to avert their gaze. And when an avatar gets within a few metres of another, the user reduces eye contact by moving their character to face slightly to the right or the left of the other ‘person’.

I guess the social scientists are all giddy over this news. I just got this to say to all the researchers out there: Anyone a youse touches my stuff… I’ll kill ya. Anyone a youse touches me… I’ll kill ya.

via VRoot

Big news in the design world today: well-known designer Bill Stumpf, best known as one of the designers behind the now infamous Aeron chair, has died at the age of 70. For those outside the profession, for designers this is a little like hearing of the death of a famous film director. Imagine if you heard that Ridley Scott Steven Spielberg had passed away. Same difference.

From the interviews I’ve read over the years, Stumpf sounded like a classy individual. He’ll be missed by the profession.

For most Americans, today has to feel uncomfortable. At least I know I feel out of sorts. Five years ago when a co-worker informed our design group that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, the first words out of my mouth were that we were under attack. There was no question in my mind that there was more to come, and sadly I was correct.
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A couple months prior I purchased a sketch pad. Nothing special. I usually only sketched in the office or in private; never in public. That day and the two that followed would be different. After purchasing the pad I went to a small used book store where I usually only stopped in to get some chai. This time I decided to stay and sketch on that new pad.

Usually when I sketch, I sketch product. And the first two pages are sculptural pieces based on product influence (I was taking a metal sculpture class at the time). And then I started drawing the image below.

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