3D Product design work. Glassware suite.
Another computer modelled project for a major department store in the UK.
3D Product design work. Three vases.
I was sorting through an old external backup drive and came across some 3D product development work I did for various high street retailers in the UK. I'll post a few of them as my sorting continues.
Progressive dentistry?
I cover quite a wide range of subjects here - about some of which, I consider myself to be quite knowledgable. Dentistry however, isn't one of them.
I had a tiny front filling replaced just before Christmas. The one it replaced had survived around fifteen years of apples, Thornton's toffee and unexpected date stones, so I expected its replacement to last for a similar period.
My dentist is young and obviously passionate about advances in materials techniques and technology. In a five minute session of inserting at least half a dozen pieces of equipment into my mouth, flashing ultra-violet light, beeps and whistles, my filling was in place. He then proudly quoted a passage from a supplier's catalogue, which was, essentially a twelve month guarantee on the filling. (Remember, I was hoping for 15 years). With a cheery "Happy Christmas, see you for a check up in 12 months", I left the surgery.
Five days later, the filling fell out.
I returned today to have it replaced. My dentist decided that the cavity wasn't the right shape to hold the filling securely, so decided to drill it out a little larger. "Okay", he said, "I'll just numb the gum". Out of the corner of my eye, I was aware of a syringe in his hand. I asked whether I really needed an injection. He said no, and that in Poland, people tend not to have anaesthetic - a useful snippet of information. The attendant dental nurse looked shocked that I had declined the injection.
Anyway, now I have the same hi-tech filling, though a little larger, and slightly less tooth than I had earlier this morning.
There was no mention of a twelve month guarantee.
As I left the surgery I thought back to the days when teeth were drilled at slow speed with a blunt drill bit, attached to a contraption that looked as though it was made from Meccano. The days when nobody had ever heard of local anaesthetic. The days when fillings were mixed in a small pot and applied with a spatula and wiped smooth with a damp piece of cotton wool. The days when fillings lasted fifteen years or more.
Were those days so bad?
One of those days.
Some days you just feel like a good old moan, and today seems to be one of those days.
A succession of rather trivial things have managed to keep my annoyance levels nice and high for the last couple of hours.
Firstly, there was an update to my favourite iPhone Twitter client, Twitbird Pro, available this morning. (January 6th).
The only obvious change is the inclusion of a Santa hat on the application icon. WHY?
I tweeted a complaint about it and await a reply.
I then called into a Costa Coffee shop for a quick coffee. I'm constantly annoyed by the staff who will insist on putting the till receipt on the saucer, then placing the cup on top of it. It always results in a soggy, wet receipt. WHY DO THEY DO THIS?
I was then given a small jug of milk for my coffee. For some reason, it was only about a third full. When I asked for it to be topped up, I was given a short lecture about the amount of milk appropriate for the size of coffee cup I had ordered. WHY?
It's only mid morning. I wonder what further delights the remainder of the day will hold.
Originally posted on my Posterous blog.
Three bags of crisps, two chocolate bars, one can of Coke and two fingers to the NHS.
I spent quite some time sitting in the waiting and assessment area of a hospital Accident and Emergency department yesterday, for reasons I won't go into here.
Whilst there, I witnessed a steady stream of walking wounded with pained faces. The staff dealt with them efficiently and seemingly without judgement.
One young man arrived with his girlfriend. She explained to the assessment nurse how he hadn't been able to go to the toilet since the previous evening, and that he had severe lower abdominal pain. He sat, looking suitably uncomfortable, saying little.
The nurse suggested that he should be checked out by a doctor and asked them to wait to be called through to the consulting room.
It was about lunch time and the couple were getting hungry. Unable to move, the young man muttered something to his girlfriend and she walked over to the bank of vending machines on the other side of the waiting room. She returned several minutes later and handed him three bags of crisps, two chocolate bars and a can of Coke, which he consumed before his consultation with the doctor.
I don't think I need say any more.
(Posted this morning on my Posterous blog).
A Happy New Year - 2011.
Wishing all of my family, friends and social media followers a happy and prosperous new year.
Resolutions.
A new year begins, and with it, the associated hopes and dreams we call resolutions.
So, eat less chocolate, drink more water, exercise more, lose weight and give more to charity it is then.
Phew! That was easy…
Damn, I just ate a piece of Toblerone. Well, when it's gone, it's gone - then I can really start to stop eating chocolate. Hm, just one more piece.
This rain… It's been raining all day, and now it's going dark. Guess the planned walk is out of the question. No point in going out in the dark and the wet. I'll start exercising tomorrow, when it's dry.
Talking of water, I must get a glass of water.
The weather forecast says it will be icy tomorrow. After all this rain, it may be unwise to go out cycling. Perhaps a walk then.
I'm feeling rather bloated. This Toblerone is quite filling. Better not get on the scales just yet, to check my start of year weight. I'll do it next week, when the excesses of Christmas and new year are but a distant memory.
Of course I could have given the Toblerone away.
That would have been charitable.
Steve Jobs pitches the iPad to BBC’s Dragons' Den.
Its a spoof, but it made me smile.
From: 2010 Unwrapped, with Miranda Hart. BBC2.
Disjointed Reality on Posterous.
Follow the link to look at my Posterous presence.
Festive greetings.
I want to thank everyone who follows the activity here at Disjointed Reality. It's great to see both new and regular visitors from so many distant places.
I know that I haven't written much over the last few weeks and that needs to be rectified. I've been enjoying putting together a couple of galleries and want to expand upon those too, in the new year.
Gradually, I will be building links with other social media sites so that there is a steady flow of content from a variety of different sources. I've also considered the future possibility of publishing work from other contributors, but that needs careful thought and management. I do however, like the idea of a wider view; with material from people whose knowledge, skills and experiences differ and contrast with my own.
Lastly and most importantly, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy Christmas and new year.
Very best wishes to you all.
Hallelujah!
This has been around on the internet for a while, but I think it's well worth linking to, from my blog. It really does stir the emotions and have that special "feelgood" factor.
I wish I'd been there.
Christmas is coming.
What better way to celebrate it, than with some Christmas music, performed entirely on iDevices.
The ePad.
A spoof ad for the new ePad. It made me smile. Hope you enjoy it.
Unfortunately it's in Flash format and won't play on all devices.
Danny MacAskill - "Way Back Home"
Way Back Home is the incredible new riding clip from Danny MacAskill, it follows him on a journey from Edinburgh back to his hometown Dunvegan, in the Isle of Skye.
Stunning photography, scenery and bike handling skills.
Light.
"Light glorifies everything. It transforms and ennobles the most commonplace and ordinary subjects. The object is nothing; Light is everything".
- Léonard Misonne.
I want these fridge magnets.
Where can I find them?
Oh... I just realised that my fridge and freezer are built in, and have wooden doors.
Photo credit: Don McAllister. Screencasts Online.
Update on 2010-11-07 21:48 by disjointedreality
A better photograph.
Where good ideas come from.
A very cleverly produced advertisement for Stephen Johnson's book, Where Good Ideas Come From - The Natural History of Innovation.
Only in Liverpool !!
I saw this van yesterday. A fine example of Scouse business branding.
Escape!
This made me smile.
So, why Disjointed Reality?
Twelve months after buying the domain www.disjointedreality.com I've opened it up for everyone to see. Those who had tried typing the address into their web browser over the past year would have seen a very basic web page with a picture of a Highland cow and a small amount of text, promising to post something better designed and slightly more meaningful.
Well, here it is.
So, why Disjointed Reality? What does that mean?
I've been asked on a number of occasions and perhaps not explained it particularly well. At least, I thought I knew in my own mind, but when the explanations came, they were confusing.
Hopefully I can now, finally, make a fair attempt at a precise definition.
I wasn't a particularly early adopter of the internet. As I recall, it was about 1996 when I first set up a dial-up account at home. I used to wait until after 6pm, when phone calls were a little less expensive, bring up the modem utility on my computer and click on the connect button. After a lot of buzzing, squeaking and purring, I was online. From there it was one eye on the screen and the other eye on the clock, knowing that every minute was costing money. With web pages taking minutes to load, especially pages rich in graphic content, time went by very quickly. By 6:30pm, I'd managed to see four, maybe five pages of interest and logged off quickly, thinking… "If I do this every day, my phone bill is going to be huge". It was a fascinating but frustrating experience.
I remember once discovering that there was an operating system update available for my computer and the only way of getting it was to download it from the Apple website. But, it was 80Mb and at about 5Mb an hour download speed over dial-up, that was going to take a long time and cost quite a lot too. Looking back, I think I may have been overly conscious about the cost.
Anyway, I decided to take a chance and started at exactly 6pm the next day. At least it was possible to stop mid-download and continue the next day from the same point. I'd managed to download about 60Mb over the next week, I was feeling confident and was looking forward to the new features promised in the upgrade. The next evening I clicked on the resume download button and nothing happened. Then the progress bar returned to the start and I saw it begin again. 12K, 24K, 48K, 96K… There was quite a lot of cursing that night.
Through all the frustrations, there was a huge sense of mystery and excitement about the internet then. It really felt like a great adventure, going "online".
An online presence is now very much a part of our lives. It can take many forms and each person's experience will be very different. With mobile computing now being far more prevalent, and the availability of high speed wireless connectivity almost everywhere we go, we drift in and out of this online state throughout the day, almost without thinking. Yet going "online" is still like passing through a door into an alternate world or reality, where the ability to learn, to communicate to experience, takes on a whole new scale.
We jump from Facebook to Twitter to Wikipedia, to Google to YouTube, to Skype, to instant message clients to virtual worlds, like Second Life, InWorldz and 3rd Rock, with ease; adapting to the range of social interactions with friends, family and complete strangers. We make new friends and acquaintances as we begin to assimilate all the myriad, disparate applications in this strange, yet now quite familiar alternate reality.
With Disjointed Reality, I'm hoping to bring together the many, disjointed parts of my alternate reality, into the one place.
Primarily the site contains my blog, but over time, I'm looking forward to sharing a wider range of the things that interest and inspire me.
I suspect there will still be some confusion.