omenti

those da*n glassholes are on my lawn! and cum hoc non propter hoc

As the year 2000 approached human computer interface labs all over the world were hot onto studying what comes after the desktop and handheld computer.  Some were doing tablets, but others were wondering what happens if you combine a phone that happens to talk to the Internet with a camera, what happens if you have a radio equipped watch with a display on it, what if a fairly powerful computer can be shoehorned into something handheld with a wireless Internet connection, what if that little powerful wireless computer knows where it is ....  My lab was involved in several of these as well as what happens as computing becomes more invisible and ubiquitous. 

 

A few like Steve Mann were doing leading edge work to sort out how a person may integrate with sensors and networks.  The stuff that excites technologists and science fiction writers.

 

You could make reasonable predictions based on Moore's Law and some educated guesses on mobile phone technology.  Designing interfaces was extremely difficult, but just as important was how acceptable to the public would it be.  Some of these devices would be worn.  What had good design and was fashionable?  Could the design be so good so as to be aspirational?

 

The social dimensions of the problem were, and still are, enormous.  We were making all kinds of observations and performing simple tests.  It wasn't science by any means even though some called it that.  People were learning bits and pieces of a larger problems.  We were learning more about the problems so as not to appear totally stupid.¹

 

Some of the trials produced location dependent results.  A lab in Cambridge using a located ID badge found its employees building any number of useful applications for themselves.  A sister lab in Palo Alto had a near revolt with the same devices even though they had similar backgrounds.  The culture of the two different labs rendered the badges aspirational in one location and a pox in the other.  Sorting out why was non-trivial.

 

There were a lot of crazy leaps being made based on small amounts of work.  It was a real disease in labs that did not have a diverse range of skills.

 

Oh yeah - the post's title?  That's Latin for "with this, not because of this" and is found in statistics to emphasize that correlation does not imply causation.  It is one of the first things taught in any statistics class to warn about jumping to conclusions.  You run into nearly everywhere these days - except in science.  It turns out to be a phrase that almost guarantees the speaker isn't a scientist.

 

An explanation is one of degree.  People without a statistical background jump to conclusions - we're pattern recognition machines and historically have come to some very wrong conclusions.  Not only that, we're still doing it.  A good statistical background gives you some tools to calculate correlations, but caution is advised.  A scientist subjects their work to very elaborate testing measuring and taking into account errors along the way and producing a result in terms of how likely it is.  If they don't their competitors will do it for them and there is little tolerance for mistakes.

 

But back to the phrase ...

 

To a scientist correlation suggests causation.  It is an early clue that there is something worth pursuing.  You might quickly rule the linkage out or perhaps there is something wonderful to be learned that generates a shower of new questions.  You don't want to eliminate possibilities early out of hand..  Much of science is playing with any number of ideas seeing if they are worth going deeper.  As in many other fields you develop a talent for it.  

 

Too frequently it is invoked to dismiss something out of hand even though the person who uses it often has no sense of the depth of the statement they are dismissing.

 

All of that the device and interface/interaction exploration in the late 90s was probably good as it was creating a space of interesting questions.  Except for a few technologies like camera-phones, smartphones and high capacity mp3 players it wasn't essential that anyone understand them deeply right away.  Some of those who worked on the near horizon problems were richly rewarded. But now it is time to begin to understand issues associated with wearables. 

 

It seems daunting as we haven't yet worked out social conventions for the use of smartphones.  Technology often outruns the understanding of its consequences.

 

In the past few weeks at least a half dozen have been in touch to ask for my opinion on Google Glass.  A fascinating area, but they're well over their heads.  Not only does the user interaction model need considerable work, but the design and social issues are daunting.²  They aren't going to pull it off by having a designer put together a frame for them.

 

People may develop appropriate interaction and social conventions - that seems to be what Google is counting on - but the company that introduces a new social technology rarely has a change to ride the wave very long. Deeper thinking is required and it will be  more demanding than ever before as we're going well beyond conventional engineering and technology.  I suspect something approaching real science will need to be done and people from a wide range of fields will need to be involved.

 

A few years ago I tried to put together some one line descriptions for each component of STEM ..  it is far from perfect, but here's what I said:

 

° Science is the study of nature.  Some useful insight becomes available as a result, but that is not the driver

° Math is language of science and also of engineering.  It is beautiful by itself.  

° Engineering is the art of building tools and 

° Technology is the tools and their use

 

These four fields are now insufficient.  Social clue is necessary..

 

We need to understand fashion, design and aspirational design, human nature, local and global cultures, and several other areas. I've been trying to become a student of design and fashion and have been reaching out to people in these and several other areas, but am only getting to the point where my questions aren't completely foolish.  Hopefully one can get to the point where they can have useful connections with enough diverse people to make a dent in the problem.  I'll probably be writing much more on the subject as time goes on.   In the meantime I wish Google luck, but this is a really deep people and the Silicon Valley engineering notion of solving everything with technologies is insufficient and broken.

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¹ I look at my own record and find it mixed after 15 years.  There were some solid hits - particularly with location aware services and a large number of misses.  One tends to remember the hits and forget the misses. 

² from an email I sent last week

Google has a habit of asking designers to come in at the end of the process …  they have a reputation for driving HCI types and designers crazy ..  they like to just bolt it on at the end.  So this isn't surprising.  It will be essential to make the things look presentable.

Their approach appears to be taking a vocal command with a specific interrupt, but such approaches have failed in the research world (not for technical reasons). What is needed is a nice set of orthogonal out of channel communication commands - what linguists call phatic interactions (the communications we all use not to carry core information, but rather are meta commands that kept the channel open. If I say "you're breaking up" on a cellphone call, I'm giving a phatic vocalization. There are any number of phatic signalings that are non-verbal - your phone vibrating to let you know there is a text message for example)

They use verbal phatics like "ok glass", but that can be socially awkward and is fairly unnatural.They really need to crack that one - or find some work that has.They may be interested in having the public solve it for them. Just like hashtags on twitter.

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Recipe Corner 

 

Waldorf salads are delicious, but hardly healthy.  I threw together this one that was delicious and healthy.  I like to add some dried fruit like cranberries or cherrys

 

Heart Friendly Waldorf Salad

Ingredients

 

° 1 tbl white-wine vinegar

° 1 tbl walnut oil 

° sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

° 1 Granny Smith apple, cored, quartered, and thinly sliced

° 1 cup seedless red grapes, halved

° 2 celery stalks, thinly sliced, leaves for garnish if you like

° 50 grams coarsely chopped toasted pecans and or toasted walnuts 

 

Technique

 

° whisk together the vinegar, oil, some salt and pepper to taste

° add celery, grapes, apple, and nut to the bowl, and toss to coat with dressing.

 

beyond 3d printing

4:37 AM - a minute past nautical dawn and a pleasant breeze of negative pions continues from the South Southwest at 17 GeV/c ...

 

We tried to make at least one log entry per shift entertaining for the next shift.

 

This was from a particle physics experiment.  We were colliding negative pions into a target that was mostly protons (liquid hydrogen).  There were millions of tiny collisions that had enough energy that allowed the creation of new particles.  I was specifically interested in finding a few that would say something about the fundamental nature of the charm quark.  The problem was such events were very rare - there was an enormous amount of uninteresting information to sort through.

 

You get rid of most of this - about 99.99%) very quickly by knowing something about what the physics of the interaction you were looking for predicted.  This had to be done quickly as information was constantly flooding in.   Back then we built event triggers out of fast logic elements - literally AND, NOT, OR, and NOR gates.  It looks like a rat's nest as all of this had to be precisely timed.  A one foot long wire provided about a billionth of a second of delay.¹  We also had a more complicated trigger...

 

At the heart of two of our charm triggers was a then huge two megabyte memory array that allowed us to store the geometry of likely charm events directly.  If an event fell within some predicted position and energy boundaries, it was saved to tape - if not we dropped it on the floor. This was a new revolution in physics at the time - programmable triggers.

 

What made it possible was the rapidly falling price of memory and the emergence of cheap microprocessors.  There was a revolution underway with hobbyist computers fueled by eight bit chips like the Intel 8080 and  Motorola 6800.  We took advantage of it and I programmed the 6800 in assembly language to make it run as fast as possible.  We were surfing the microcomputer tsunami.  

 

A few years later I found myself at Bell Labs doing physics and applied physics.  I found myself doing lithography - one of the fundamental technologies of the past few hundred years - how finely can you draw lines and something at the heart of making integrated circuits.  The process was automated with computer aided design tools and the bits became atoms in the photomask.  The process was a form of custom manufacturing.  There were a couple of chemical processes for positive and negative image masks, several sizes of quartz plates, design rules and so on - but it was rare for the writing tool to write the same design unless it was a replacement.²

 

Somewhere along the way I did some work with a computer vision group.  There was an interest in building a 3d copy machine.  What would it take to scan an 3d image and recreate it in atoms rather than bits?  A hot topic in the late 1980s and it continues to be interesting.  Somewhere about 1990 I printed a crude 3d part taken that replicated a scanned model of the Star Wars death star.

 

My little death star wasn't very impressive, but it was an exercise you learn from.  I went on to other things, but periodically tried state of the art printing just to see how it had evolved.  By 2000 it started to make a dent in the prototyping world and, maybe 5 years ago, the hobbyist market began to explode.

 

There have been many predictions on how 3d printing is the next PC revolution or, a bit more conservatively, the next printer revolution.  While it is fundamentally important to some types of design, I don't buy those predictions for a variety of reasons.  Materials, physical limitations of existing and laboratory tools,  and the difficulty of design drive my belief.  But it is a great hobby and it is making a big impact on industrial design.  And for a few like Iris Van Herpen,  those who understand design and art, it is given access to new materials and shapes that influence their creative process.  

 

There is a larger revolution underway that 3d printing is often connected with...

 

The revolution is inexpensive computer assisted manufacturing in low quantities.  Mass customization and even single unit manufacturing.  The barriers to manufacturing anything used to be enormous, but now hobbyists can find a niche. Perhaps a niche that would allow them to quit their day job.  The hard piece -- going from a few dozen examples to thousands is now relatively easy.³  

 

There are still many tools to build and write and people need to be trained in design (STEM k12 education is not sufficient - you need to add the arts - STEAM eduction!).  Good design is approximately hard - most of us have no idea how difficult it really is.  There is great design in physical objects and services, but the best way to appreciate it is simply to get your hands dirty - most of us are functionally illiterate when it comes to articulating design, let alone creating it.⁴  

 

One can go on and on, but a recent interview of Chris Anderson by Glenn Fleishman (52 minute mp3) on his The New Disruptors podcast is a great tour of the new bits to atoms world of mass customization and scaleable manufacture

 

Highly recommended!

 

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¹ Rear Admiral and computer pioneer Grace Hopper used to carry around foot long wires and handed them out as "nanoseconds"  In the old charm experiment all of the fast signals were timed to within about a half nanosecond.  Colleen, who is exactly two meters tall, sometimes tells people she's six and two thirds of a nanosecond tall when people ask...

² The lithography tools of choice were electron beam writing machines.  We had a homebrew system called EBES - the Electron Beam Exposure System.  It could write half micron features to about a twentieth of a micron accuracy.  There have been enormous improvements since then.

³ I still regularly build 3d objects.  They are still temperamental and very restricted to design and material.  My larger interest lies in other types of mass customization.  In particular clothing.

For those who are interested in this revolution - even those who just track the state of technology - I  strongly encourage you to get your hands dirty.  You can learn an enormous amount trying to design and 3d print something on your own for example.

⁴ This notion of the learning of design is something that has been fascinating Jheri and I for the past few months.  How is design learned and articulated in apparel and how is that impacted by different types of community? There is a good deal of change taking place.

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Recipe Corner

 

Two recipes this time.  The first is so quick, easy and good.  And many variations with topping them.

 

Roasted Brussels sprouts

 

Ingredients

 

° a kilo or so of brussels sprouts

° 3 to 4 tbl olive oil

° sea salt

° ground pepper

° maple syrup or honey

° white wine vinegar

 

Technique

 

° set oven to 450°F 

° cut the brussels sprouts in half, coat in oil salt and pepper 

° arrange face down on a tray and roast for 25 minutes or so until beginning to caramelize

° flip over with a spatula and continue roasting for about 10 minutes

° plate and drizzle a mixture of maple syrup or honey and white wine vinegar

 

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The second is hardly a recipe, but is way better than store bought peanut/cashew/almond butters.

 

Peanut/Cashew/Almond Butter

 

Find some honey-roasted cashews, almonds or peanuts and throw them in a blender for 5 to 6 minutes, scraping down the sides of the blender as necessary, until you have a peanut butter consistency.  

That's it!

If you like you can roast the raw nuts yourself (7 - 10 minutes in a 350°F oven), but the honey-roasted nuts (or legumes in the case of peanuts) have a little sugar and sweet and work out very well without all of the stabilizer nasties you get in most commercial spreads.  If you roast your own you probably want to add a bit of salt and possibly some honey or maple syrup.

 

 

design, diy, boredom and creativity

As a first year grad student I was required to take a few shop classes to get my key to the department's shop - something necessary for any experimentalist.  People of my vintage were used to building projects - everyone was good at soldering as we were weaned on Heathkit projects and we mostly knew basic woodworking and drafting from home and shop classes, but I had never done any machining so I took a metal working class.  It was basic - learn how to use a lathe and milling machine.  

 

Of course it came in handy and I had to weld too (fortunately I learned how in high school), but it wasn't until after I cleared the preliminary exam before I worked on a project for fun.  

 

The inspiration came from old Popular Science magazines in the library.  There were a few engines of various types and I decided it would be neat to make a solar powered Stirling engine using a parabolic mirror's focus to provide the necessary heat.  I poured over some existing designs and came up with a simple two cylinder design, bought the steel, aluminum and brass stock I'd need and some neat ball bearings from the SKF company. I ruined one of the pistons, but everything else came together and I had something that generated about 30 watts at 1,500 rpm using a blowtorch flame.  I never got around to finding a nice parabolic mirror to turn it into a solar powered engine, but learned a lot in the process. It wasn't elegant or beautiful, but it worked.

 

About a month ago I found myself part of a group charged with trying to understand mass customization (extreme personalization and whatever you want to call it) a bit better.  There is the notion that 3d printing will become a major force changing the world in the near future.  I don't agree - at least not in the next decade, but there is so much more to mass customization and extreme personalization than 3d printing.¹

 

The successful companies to date, other than those specializing in prototype support, are those that offer multiple choice of already designed products - think of it as an extensive options list.  Manufacture is still conventional, but the process may have to be radically different.

 

 In theory one of the largest opportunities in this area is machine assisted bespoke.  Jheri and I have worried about this and have discussed it as it relates to clothing and I've mentioned bicycles.  The clothing piece is more interesting as it has seen much more attention and some automation - the largest benefit is probably getting away from sizing, but also to give a bit more freedom in fashion.

 

Jheri has been giving me a better sense of what fashion means as a personal expression of taste and even artistic sense.  She notes that women her age in the US are generally lacking in creativity compared to many of the major European cities and also notes the Americans tend to spend more money and buy many more pieces of clothing.  But the clothing is poorly made out of inferior materials, mostly in Southeast Asia under conditions approximating slavery.  This exists in Europe too, but apparently a middle ground of clothing that vanished from the American market still exists.  Workmanship, materials and fit are still important and the idea is to get pieces that will last and can be modified from year to year.

 

Jheri added something very interesting.  Young American women are no longer being taught how to sew whereas most of their European counterparts - particularly in France, Italy and Northern Europe - are. A bit of checking around shows the boys are also receiving shop training.  The continent has a larger percentage of young people who know how to build things.  This doesn't mean they will, although it happened on a large scale in Iceland a few years ago when their economy crumbled, but when you build things you get a better sense of what design is.  You won't become a master, but you'll appreciate it more.  This may translate into a different appetite for well designed objects - watches, clothing, furniture, cars, bicycles or whatever and, more interestingly, it may translate into different tool needs for personal involvement in mass customization.

 

The Do It Yourself movement is alive and well in the US, but is notable as it is such an enormous contrast with the rest of the country.  This type of activity is more common in many of the European countries where hobbies and crafting take up a larger percentage of time that is devoted to passive entertainment in the US.  Jheri follows street fashion and notes a few world class hotspots in America, but generally it is more interesting in European cities.²

 

The basics for beginning to appreciate fabrication and design were once taught in the school system.  A few people are doing it themselves, but is this something we should try and bring back?  What does it say about education?

 

The notion I'd like to have you think about is the power of free time and boredom and its relation to home fabrication and design.  Over the years I've become convinced that intense periods of single tasking followed by periods where you aren't doing much in particular and may even be a bit bored, are very important to creativity.  The interesting thoughts usually strike me out of the blue during those quiet periods, but they are rare or absent if I haven't been pushing myself.  I've noticed that tasks associated with building things and trying to sort through that intensely connect the dots world of design and fabrication can leave me completely puzzled where I just have to quit and think of other things - or just sit around being very bored with my lack of progress.  For whatever reason those have proven to be very rich moments.

 

If you are looking for something for your kids or yourself that is probably totally different and may expand your horizon and possibly provide new insight into your normal work I recommend learning a bit about building things and design. But this usually needs to be hands on and it is going to be much easier and more fun if you can find local people to learn from and with.³ 

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¹ It would take many pages to go into this, but basically there are some major roadblocks.  3d printing makes enormous sense for very low volume fabrication - prototypes, certain types of hobbyist kit, some medical apparatus and the like and it is revolutionizing those worlds.  The idea of having the spare parts for your washing machine or a new household device appear from your home or even community printer is off in the future.  If you are willing to compromise on material choice, fit and finish and price, you can do it - but those are major concessions.  On the other hand 2d printing is approximately here now.  Ping me for details if you want a discussion.

If you have the time and patience I do recommend playing with it.  You can even design objects and have them printed by someone else so you don't have to pay a few thousand bucks for an "ok" printer.  They've made great leaps since the early days - I first used one at Bell Labs in 1993 and most recently a few months ago.  An amazing difference, but we're still in the early days for home use - certainly not at the IBM PC or Macintosh level and not even at the Apple II or TRS-80 level.  But great fun for learning.

² She puts it a bit more starkly than I stated - "American women mostly dress only as they are told by advertising.  The streets are so predictable and boring with all of those poorly made outfits marching around with each similarly dressed wearer proclaiming 'I am an individual'  There is so little personal art involved."

I add that there is a lot of crafting in the US, but it is reduced from what it was mostly because it is done as a hobby rather than for making things we really need.  Now we just buy cheap imports.

³ Our school system used to offer inexpenise shop classes, but those vanished with the shop program.  The community college still offers them.  Some cities have clubs that share a well equiped workshop for a low fee - here is a neat one in Cambridge in the UK and you can find them in regions where people build things - Brooklyn, the East Bay, Silicon Valley, Cambridge, Mass, and so on....  Check out the local university- some of them do this sort of thing.  If you are into clothing there are any number of sewing, weaving and other forms of 2d fabrication with people who have deep expertise.  It often helps to live in an urban area, but see if you can find a good match.

 

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Recipe Corner

 

Tree nuts are good for you in moderation.  As a vegetarian I'm supposed to have 30 to 50 grams a day of almonds, cashews, pecans or walnuts.  All great things in my book. Here's a neat little salad for pecans

 

Apple-Pecan Broccoli Salad

 

Ingredients

 

Salad

 

° 6 ounces brocoli slaw or one cup shredded broccoli stems, one cup shredded carrots, and one cup shredded red cabbage  (I cheated and used a 6 ounce commerical bag which was on sale for $2)

° one tart apple cut into matchsticks

° a handfull or so of pecan halves

 

Dressing

 

° 2 tbl plain Greek yogurt (I used 2% Fage)

° 2 tsp mauonnaise

° 1 tbl honey 

° 1/2 tsp sweet curry powder

° 1/2 tsp fresh black pepper

° 1 tsp rice vinegar

 

Technique

 

° toast the pecans over medium heat in a dry frying pan until you can smell them.  Don't brown them!!

° In a mixing bowl whisk the dressing ingredients.  Add the salad ingredients except for the pecans and toss 

 

 

why lift and separation is important

I was struck by this Louis Vuitton ad with Michael Phelps and Larisa Latynina - two remarkable athletes in the service of formal clothing and quite a shift from the standard attire as well as depiction of athletes from the original ancient games.  

 

Modern athletes wear a wide range of clothing appropriate to the sport.  Some is protective, some only has minor functionality other than basic modest and offering sponsors billboard space for television, but some athletic clothing offers competitive advantage.

 

Running offers some interesting examples.  If you run fast enough you can feel a considerable amount of wind resistance.  You want to reduce that force against you as much as possible.  Basically you are moving the air in front of you as you run.  About a year ago I wrote a post with a quick derivation of the power you have to develop to deal with that force.  The force turns out to be  half of the coefficient of drag for your body * the area you present as you run * the density of the air *  the square of your velocity relative to the air.¹  The important bits that you can control are your velocity, your frontal cross sectional area, and your coefficient of drag.  A cyclist can adapt a posture to minimize her frontal area while running generally makes that impossible.  Cyclists use a lot of aerodynamic trick with their bikes and runners can play with their clothing.  

 

To understand running attire it is useful to consider golf.

 

Sports balls are fascinating objects.  Apart from ping pong balls, few are smooth and spherical.  The shape gives them unusual properties that makes playing with them more interesting.  Balls tend to evolve with a sport and then, at some point, standardize so everyone can play on even terms.  

 

Early golf balls were mostly spherical hardwood.  It was noticed at the time that some balls were better than others, specifically some that we beaten up a bit would go further on a drive, but other beaten up balls performed worse.  Progression eventually led to a realization that small surface imperfections were important for good performance and the modern dimpled ball emerged.

 

The physics is pretty neat.  Two things are going on - one is caused by the spin on the ball and the other is related to the airstream immediately around it.²  The second is the larger effect, so I'll only consider it for the time being.

 

There are two basic types of airflow - laminar and turbulent.  Laminar flow is smooth (think of laminations), while turbulent flow is rough and choppy.  Laminar flow tends to take place at "low" speeds and turbulence becomes dominant as airspeed increases. 

A smooth ball generates a large wake as it pushes air molecules aside. Immediately behind the ball the air molecules are further apart compared to the air around and in front of the ball. A region of low pressure forms just behind the ball sucking it backwards and slowing it in the process. The air immediately around the ball is the boundary layer and one worries about where it separates from the ball - having it separate further behind the ball produces a smaller amount of total separation and the pressure drop behind the ball is smaller.  

. The dimpled ball separates the air less and has a smaller wake. The air behind the ball does not differ in air pressure as much as with the smooth ball so the dimpled ball has a smaller pressure drag and can travel further.

 

If you look at the airflow very close to the dimpled ball you notice they are roughing up the flow a bit and generating a bit of turbulence.  This makes the air stick a bit more to the ball.  It generate a bit of drag, but that turns out to be completely washed out by the fact the boundary layer sticks around a bit longer.  

 

Sweet   Dimpled balls are just better and have been around for a long time, but the effort was mostly trial and error - these days it has been possible to show what is taking place.  

 

But what does this have to do with running?

 

As it happens we create boundary layers when we run.  Our size and speed mean that if we're wearing something smooth - like a lycra bodysuit - the airflow is mostly laminar and there is an early and largish boundary separation that creates a low pressure area behind us.  One can imagine a diet of beans might help, but only for brief moments and the impact wouldn't be that great anyway, so it makes much more sense to make sure the boundary layer doesn't detach as quickly.

 

It turns out the trick is a tight fitting almost smooth body suit (you don't want a loose fit as the flapping fabric would present extra area creating even more drag) covered with a thin ribbing - about a half millimeter high and just enough to rough up the air and get the boundary layer to hang around a bit longer.  The C_d drops and the runner can put more of her power into moving herself rather than wasting it on moving air.  The effect can be dramatic.  The effect is more important as the airspeed goes up and at the very high speeds seen in the 100 meter event such suits are worth as much as a tenth of a second.³  At slower speeds air resistance is much less important (remember the force goes as the square of the relative airspeed and therefore the necessary power required to overcome it goes as the cube).

 

Hair, it turns out, is less of a problem than you might think.  There was a period when sprinters wore hoods, but the heat generated around their heads became excessive.  The head is only about 7% of your total body area and the impact of air resistance is about 3% of the total effort a sprinter must create at top speed.  Seven percent of three percent is under a hundredth of a second and the impact of heat buildup renders that counterproductive.

 

Talk of the Olympics and specialized suits brings up the Speedo LRZ swimsuits see prior to the 2008 competition.  Of all of Olympic sport, more science has probably been devoted to swimming than anything else.  Lowering the drag from moving through water is a big thing - after all - water is nearly 800 times denser than air and the underlying physics is well understood (although the calculations can be very difficult).  Speedo came up with a seamless and wrinkle-free shell of a suit and its shape stayed smooth throughout the swimming stroke. There was also a thin layer of a foamy material that had very small gas pockets that made the swimmer more buoyant.  They rode higher in the water and produced less drag.  

 

The overall effect was pretty dramatic - a 5% to 8% reduction in overall drag - but the cost was high.  The suits were very expensive ($500), took a half hour to put on and only lasted a race or two.  Since their impact was about the same on the top swimmers the decision was made to ban them and records set using them are noted separately.

 

There are many more examples - it turns out shoes are a fascinating area, but it would take pages and pages to describe the current understanding of shoes vs no barefoot as well as the difference between shoes.  So that's it for today.

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¹ The area for this is what only what the oncoming air sees and is often called the frontal cross sectional area.  Also note that the relative velocity is important.  If you are running at 10 mph with a 10 mph tailwind, the effective velocity is 0 - you don't have to move the air that is in your path.  Tailwinds are even better and records have strict limit on how big they can be.

The coefficient of drag, or C_d, is a quantity that represents how easily a shape moves through a fluid.  At a given speed the frontal area times the C_d will tell you the force you have to generate to move the air column before you aside - double the area or C_d and you need twice the force (or power).  C_d range from well under 0.1 for a sailplane, about 0.20 to 0.30 for many sports cars,  0.7 for a cyclist, 1.0 for a runner, 1.4 for the Empire State Building, 1.9 for the Eiffel Tower, and 2.1 for a brick.

² A spinning ball produces lift through the Magnus effect.  I won't go into it, but ping me if you are interested.  I've worked it out for volleyballs and found an interesting result that explains part of the ball's trajectory ..,

³ In his world record 100 meter run Usain Bolt was moving at 12.27 meters per second at the 65 meter point - about 27.3 mph!  He was producing about 3,000 watts of power at the time - about twice what a stove top electric burner consumes.  This is near the human limit for burst power production and can only be maintained for a short amount of time. The body can't sweat out this extra heat immediately and the core body temperature of a sprinter increases rapidly.  If their muscles could be powered a bit longer the increase in body temperature would kill them.

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Recipe corner.

First a technique from shesimmers for making sticky rice that doesn't require much kit.  I just tried it and had excellent results.  recommended!

 

There are a variety of tiger salads.  I don't know where this one originated, but we tried it last night and found it deliciousSim as well as easy to make.

 

Simple Tiger Salad 

 

Ingredients

 

° 1 large bunch cilantro, with the thick stems removed, cut into 3-inch lengths (about 5 cups, loosely packed)

° 1 green bell pepper stemmed, seeded and slivered (cucumber would do nicely too)

° 1 fresh chili pepper, stemmed, seeded and slivered

° 2 scallions, slivered

° 2 tsp vegetable oil

° 1/4 teaspoon salt

° sesame oil and white vinegar, to taste

° a handful of chopped peanuts (optional)

 

Technique

 

° In a bowl, combine cilantro, green pepper, chili pepper and scallions. Add vegetable oil and salt; toss lightly.

° Add peanuts if you like and a few drops of sesame oil, vinegar and more salt to taste; toss again. Pile on a plate and serve immediately as it wilts quickly

 

don't even bother trying to comb a hairy banana and a gathering of themes

Or a hairy ball for that matter.. at least not if you want to perfectly comb them so their hair lies perfectly flat everywhere on their surface.

 

Imagine you have an unruly donut hair covered donut and want to comb it flat (I can't imagine eating a hair covered donut).  It turns out to be an easy task.  Now think about the problem of combing a hair covered ball.  It turns out you can't do it perfectly - the best you can do is to make the fur like flat (locally tangent to it's surface) at every point but one where you are left with a cowlick. 

 

\ A banana is really the same thing as a sphere topologically.  Imagine the banana was incredibly pliable - really really ripe - and the skin just as flexible.  You could push in bits here and pull out others there and change its shape into a sphere.¹

 

The hairy ball theorem has been proven.² Math, unlike science,  is an areas where solid black and white proofs are possible.

 

It turns out there is always at least one point on the planet where there is no wind.  This point is the eye of a cyclone or anticyclone (wind spirals around it - air can't flow into or out of it as it is static).  So there is, and has been, at least one cyclone everywhere on Earth ever since there was an atmosphere.  You can say the same about any body in the Universe with an atmosphere.

 

so if you want to take bets ...

 

And if you wonder what brought this on, the banana I had for breakfast this morning was on the verge of being too ripe and looked like it might be growing hair one of these days.  I also have an unruly cowlick today - put this together and some math has to come out.  Math is neat stuff!

 

While I'm far from being fashionable, some of you play it well.  It is really fascinating to think about as there is an ephemeral nature and personal style can be very artistic.  In the US personal style for many has been replaced by inexpensive, ephemeral uniforms.  Getting something cheap that looks like something that a vetted style setter wears has become more important than finding a personal style.  In theory there is much more choice in stores, but in reality this translates into a very narrow "look".  

 

Jheri and I have been re-thinking our views on mass customization.  The genesis of this was marrying some work I did for the Defense Department with the need of Jheri and some others to find clothing that fits.  The notion was that mass customization was becoming easier and fit was the most important component.  While fit still is the most important component there are clearly other drivers as well as roadblocks.  Recently Jheri pointed to a new book on overly-cheap apparel (halfway into this post).  The book is mostly about the over consumption of very low quality fashion and the dramatic change that has swept the industry.  We are now wondering if some changes we're seeing among the 20 to 30 year old demographic may be important sources of kindling for the ignition of real mass customization - forget things like fancy printing technologies which are still a long way off from large scale viability ...

 

Apparel is still largely handmade at this point and the cost structure is going to keep it that way for at least another decade or two.  A pair of jeans may have a few hours of hand labor in them, but if you can do that for two dimes an hour, why change? Major designers are now working for the high volume firms, but the quality of material and construction is poor.  The middle tier of quality and manufacture has mostly disappeared.  A few speciality makes have appeared that exploit this need - Lululemon is a good example.³  Their quality matches their pricing, but this is fairly rare - to first order even $300 dresses are very poorly made.  Many consumers no longer have the ability to judge construction and material quality.

 

The signal we are seeing among at the edge - mostly in places like San Francisco, NYC (especially Brooklyn and lower Manhattan!), Seattle, Minneapolis and San Diego may be the rejection of overconsumption and more value placed on owning a smaller number of higher quality items that can last.  These are also areas that tend to support the notion of a strong sense of personal fashion.  There is more of the diversity you see in some European cities and mall uniforms are distinctly clueless.

 

New small business is emerging to fill these needs and some people are becoming craftsmen and artisans.  Clothing repair and re-tailoring shops are exist in greater number and I even saw a few new cobbler shops in Brooklyn last week.   While it isn't clear that this is a trend that will spread, it should be pointed out that the traditional apparel industry control on media is much weaker with forces like Pinterest exploding in popularity and Etsy creating a new channel for accessories.  

 

It is very curious to note that those who ply vintage stores note that items at least thirty years old are worthy of salvage and modification - newer items become progressively more poorly made to the point where anything made in the past decade is so poorly made that it isn't worth bothering with.

 

There are some great opportunities for design tools and even manufacture automation that may come to the small scale shops before the large manufacturers.  The big guys (like Levis) have tried what they thought was mass customization a decade ago and have mostly abandoned it.  I think this is like Microsoft's decade old notion of the tablet - they simply lacked the chops to dive in deep and re-imagine that was really needed. TRVL is another example of a publication more properly reimagined for the iPad world - and a need to break beyond conventional tools (like InDesign and pdfs used by the publishing industry) and thinking.  They were trying to hammer their square peg into a round hole and, guess what... it didn't work very well.  

 

It is likely this won't be very large at first - a ten percent shift in the market within this age segment would be big in my mind, but very indicative of a major trend.  We may see the re-emergence of the middle tier of apparel quality and manufacturing along with people taking a more focused interest in what fashion is - they may become their own artists rather than mere consumers.⁴  Remember - these are the guys who see iPads and creative tools.  My generation tends to see them (and very improperly!) as consumption devices.

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¹ Try a little experiment:  The famous example would be to change a donut into a coffee mug - cookie dough will show the way and had a big advantage over modeling clay in that it is edible. This can make for a sweet introduction to topology:-)

² There are many proofs. Most are pretty complex requiring some deep math - usually homology theory is involved.  I could follow some in the day, but now I'm more rusty - you have to keep at this to be in good form.  I did see an elegant and simple proof by John Milnor when I was a student and have it in my notes.  Since at least one of you is a mathematician and several are physicists and serious computer scientists it is reasonable to show it.  Normally it would take at least an hour to typeset it in LaTeX and arrange images to embed in html, but here is a nice reproduction in a math blog. The warning is this is probably greek if you haven't done an college level math - so please ignore it and accept this a proven result, but if you had an advanced calculus course, you have the tools you need and it is a sweet little proof.

³ I've visited their shops a few times.  Once with Jheri trying to learn a bit and then out of curiosity when I was in Manhattan.  Several of the customers told me construction and material quality is much more important than the very careful marketing - it represents good value and is what makes them repeat customers.  The chain has established itself as one of the few mid-quality outlets in existance.  Sort of a sad thing when mid quality is the highest level most of us have access to - and many of us can't even get that.  A real opportunity space...

⁴ Distributed design and IP ownership needs tools that are probably closely linked with social media.  Improved mathematical models to convolve design and fit patterns need to be made along with improvements in user/designer feedback.  Automated and semi-automatic manufacturing tools.  More uniform measurement tools, improvements in user and designer feedback, user and designer education tools ...  the list goes on and on and the surface has only been scratched.  But it is important to note that this is an enormous industry - something like a half trillion a year in the US.  Even niches can be non-trivially large.

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Before getting on with the recipe, I'd like to make a recommendation.  I'm afraid my education is very narrow.  High school was ok, but in college I focused and spend most of my time in the physical sciences and math - placing out of other subjects where possible.  A really big mistake in retrospect.  Then on to grad school with a much more intense specialization.    

 

I do read a lot and am reasonably curious, but there isn't a lot of structure to this approach.  Recently I've been taking a few courses on iTunes U (there are other flavors of this sort of online learning). I'm not diving in deeply and doing the homeworks and all of the readings at this point, but am enjoying those with great lectures.  It is an excellent way to pass time on long boring trips and during exercise sessions.  Over a three week period, for example, I listened to all of the lectures in David Blight's excellent History 119 course at Yale: The Civil War and Reconstruction Era. Since then I've read a few of the books on his reading list.  Great stuff and highly recommended!

 

All of the iTunes U online material is free and some of the classes are extremely interesting.  It isn't a substitute for deeply focusing and doing all of the coursework and interacting with the professor, but it is so much better than TV or movies.

 

Here is a guide I use to hunt courses.  I'm sure there are others - if you know of good ones, let me know.  And a recommendation for me - an excellent short introduction to Quantum Mechanics from Oxford by James Binney.  He does an excellent job.  The warning is you really need to work out the problems to gain any understanding of the subject.  The class notes, recommended books and problem sets are here.

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Recipe section

 

Yesterday saw 97°F here and the urge for a homemade milkshake was strong as recently I had a rather poor excuse from what had been described as the best ice cream parlor in the area.

 

Homemade tahitian vanilla bean ice cream, homemade chocolate sauce + broken bits of Lindt 72% (added after the blending).  I used my antique Hamilton Beach milkshake maker from the mid 1960s - a very high speed spindle and careful attention is the trick for velvety textured, very thick shakes.  This one was - well - perfect (sigh)……

 

I won't go through this one exactly, but rather give a cheater's version that may be just as good for you.

 

 

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip Milkshake

Ingredients (for one or two servings depending on how much you like milkshakes)

° a pint of super premium vanilla ice cream - I like Häagen-Dazs Five Vanilla Bean as it is reasonably well crafted, widely available and is very simple with only five ingredients. Depending on where you are you may be able to find better and a really excellent homemade can be far better.

° about 120g whole milk (a half cup)

° a good chocolate topping - I've been making my own and can't make a recommendation.  I've seen many in stores.

° 20-40g dark chocolate chopped into small bits - I used Lindt 72% 

 

Technique 

° For a thick and velvety shake you really need a high speed spindle.  I use an ancient Hamilton Beach single spindle unit from the 1960s.  It's shaft runs at 17,000 rpm and should be treated with care.  For a consistency like many current ice cream parlors use a blender, and for a very thick shake find a study container for the mixture and use a table knife and large, heavy spoon and a LOT of elbow grease.

° cool the milk to near freezing and let the ice cream sit on your countertop for about 3 or 4 minutes before starting to soften it.

° Mix the milk, ice cream and chocolate syrup and blend using one of the techniques above.  I start with eight parts of ice cream for every part of milk - if you like them to be drinkable use a four to one mixture.  If you are using a pint of ice cream, try about 2 table spoons of chocolate syrup for a very light chocolate and increase as desired.  I like the lighter version.

° After blending mix in the chocolate chunks with a table knife.

° Pour into a chilled glass and, if you like, top with a bit of whipped cream and/or shaved chocolate.  I couldn't take it anymore and just had it as is.

 

 

keeping myself accountable, cheap fashion and two recipes

To keep myself accountable I publish periodic charts showing my weight maintenance results to date.¹ I've found maintenance to be much more difficult than loosing weight. Motivation can be difficult and there is often some hunger towards the end of the day.

 

The serendipity in all of this is I'm learning quite a bit about metabolism and hunger mechanisms and have been doing experiments to see what works for me - this has proven to be a rich area for a bit of amateur science.  

A scientist does not coddle ideas. They crash test them. They run them into a brick wall at hundreds of miles per hour and examine the pieces. If the idea is sound, the pieces will be those of the wall.

The experiments are slow by nature as it is difficult to sort out the results and identify the bits of the wall, but so far there are indications that:

° breakfasts are essential

° a good amount of protein for breakfast seems to be essential

° dramatically reducing fat alone increases my food cravings. This is leading to some curious breakfasts that seem more like light dinners

° periodic treats are essential to prevent long term cravings.

 

I suspect that what I'm learning is far from universal - quite a bit of individual tailoring will be required.  For me exercise is also important - not so much for actual weight control as the amount of exercise necessary for modest weight change is large compared to food intake - but for overall health as well as what appears to be a handle on hunger feedback.  If I exercise a huge amount at high intensity, I tend to be very hungry, but moderate exercise appears to leave me less hungry that very low levels of activity.  It makes you wonder about possible mechanisms.

 

For those who are interested, here is my note on the technique I used for losing weight in the first place as well as the beginning of the maintenance phase.  There weren't any silver bullets, and I assume that will be true for everyone.  I think a case can be made that the diet industry - as long as it lacks focus on the maintenance phase - is something of an expensive waste of time and resources.²

 

One technique I've been using in the current maintenance phase is both practical and psychological.  I dramatically changed clothing size and much of my old clothing has been given away or donated and replaced by a small number of higher quality pieces of clothing.  Clothing that will last longer and can be repaired over time.  Since I'm cheap, this should give me good reason to put the brakes on if I'm gaining weight at some point, plus there should be quick feedback as this happens as these clothes were picked to fit much better than what I've worn in the past.  

 

The difference in clothing quality was remarkable.  I'm certainly not the fashionistra that some of you (Jheri, Om ...) are, but it is clear the new clothes, although more difficult to find, have much higher quality materials and construction.  They should last for many years and I have to wonder if they will be less expensive in the long run.  

 

Recently Jheri recommended I read Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth Cline.  Here is a quick note I sent to a friend:

Last night I finished my advance copy of Overdressed by Elizabeth Cline (Jheri is fascinated by this and wrangled me a copy figuring I should have some literacy in the area).

A useful read for understanding a bit more about apparel culture and business and the enormous change that has taken place in the past 30 years as middle line clothing essentially disappeared being replaced by cheap imports with low quality materials, cheap labor and huge production runs.  It goes into hauler culture (I was unaware of this, but it is really part of the basis for Pinterest and a direct outgrowth of a social form of scrapbooking - very popular with teenage girls and it the interest seems to continue with age --  Pinterest really fascinates me as it is so female dominated)

Much of it talks about the bad things associated with cheap clothing - overconsumption, pollution, etc., but what I found interesting - and why Jheri wanted me to read it - is there seems to be a reaction again Zara, H&M, Forever 21, Target .. and so on ..  growing in the 20-30 yr old group of women.  Interest in clothing with quality and repairability as well as more individual style is growing rapidly and that often means vintage or small shops in places like Brooklyn.  It is clearly leading edge, but doesn't seem to be associated with wealth - it is more of a cultural leading edge force at this point.  Jheri points out about 95% of good street fashion, as curated by the better online sources, comes from this path.  She does it herself and she spends about what an average American female her age might spend on clothing - but she buys very few pieces and is adroit with alterations (she pretty much has to as her size is unusual)

It isn't clear if this will become a larger force in society - the seeds are there, but cheap and cookie cutter/non-adventurous is a powerful draw.

I can't recommend the book as a fine literary piece, but I learned quite a bit about an area I need to learn more about …  recommended. 

 

A definite recommend if you are interested in an enormous industry that has gone through enormous change and the consequences.  It should also be essential reading for those of you (like me) who are wondering about future paths for fashion and the apparel industry.  Understanding more about the past twenty years as well as what precipitated that change alters some of the scenarios I was thinking about - a few of them, in light of what is taking place among twenty somethings in places like Brooklyn, LA, San Francisco, Paris and Amsterdam.  

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¹ For the record I am 6'1 and a shade and started well over my current weight.  The recommended maintenance weight range from my family physician is shown in light green.  I don't show the weight loss phase anymore as it is only noise from the past as I must focus on dealing with small deviations.  My doctor is impressed that I was able to make the target and also suggested that, based on common experience, that one can only keep on target is through constant maintenance.

Oddly a lot of people feel I've lost too much weight.  But relative to 1950 norms along with some more recent European norms I'm quite average at this point.  It may be the American perception of average has moved with increasing average weight.

Since two people asked, I deal with water weight fluctuations in weight by weighing myself without clothing at 6am on three consecutive days and use the median figure. Not exact, but it deals with some of the variation.

² Most obesity experts will tell you the surest path to gaining weight is to go on a diet.

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Two recipes

I have been trying to figure out a winner sorbet recipe for a friend who is lactose intolerant.  Here is the latest experiment.  This is clearly part of the "need for treats" during weight maintenance as Sukie is allergic to chocolate.  Any that comes through our door is mine ...

Rich Double Chocolate Sorbet for Juliette

Ingredients

° 500 ml (about 2-1/4 cups) water 

° 200g white cane sugar

° 75g unsweetened "Dutch process cocoa" powder

° a pinch of salt

° 170g good bittersweet chocolate finely chopped (if you have a sweet tooth go with semisweet)

° 1/2 tsp high quality vanilla extract

Technique

° Whisk part (I use about 375g) of the water, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt.  Bring to a boil stirring.  When it comes to a boil continue whisking for a minute and then pull from the heat.

° Stir in the chocolate until it is fully melted and then add the remaining water.  

° Transfer it to a blender and give it a short whirl- maybe a half minute or so and chill in your refrigerator.  It may get a bit to thick to transfer to a freezer - if so, whisk it a bit to thin it.

° Churn freeze by the freezer's instructions.

° Serve in a cup, perhaps with a dusting of a chocolate or chocolate shavings and some chopped nuts.  It also rules in waffle cones or krumkake.

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 Jeri mentioned a fancy homemade ketchup in an email and I was intrigued.  I've had some amazing ketchups in restaurants, but didn't think much of them.  I looked a few up and found some interesting looking recipes.  Finally I mentioned it to a chef friend who said he loved one based on cherries.  Jeri lives in the cherry rich Flathead Lake area in Montana, so this is for you Jeri.   I have a couple of additions (the cinnamon, nutmeg and type of vinegar) and the amounts probably aren't optimal, but this came out spectacularly well.  No - I won't get into spelling variations on ketchup - spelling has always been a challenge.

Cherry Ketchup for Jeri

Ingredients

° 700g stemmed, pitted cherries.  These were generic sweet cherries from the market.

° 120g (about a half cup) water

° 2 tsp ground mace

° 1-1/2 tsp black peppercorns

° 1 tsp dry yellow mustard

° 1 tsp whole cloves

° 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

° 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg (a bit less if freshly grated is my general rule - and freshly grated nutmeg rules)

° 1 tsp kosher salt

° more than 60g apple cider vinegar (we had some lovely unfiltered vinegar sitting around)

Technique

° Simmer the cherries in the water in a saucepan over medium low heat until they soften - maybe 10 minutes. Let it cool a bit and put it in a food process for a bit to get a chunky liquid.

° In a few saucepan combine the juice, spices and salt. Stirring frequently, simmer over a low heat until it reduces by about half - 15 or 20 minutes depending on your heat.

° Add 60g of the vinegar and cook until it thickens to the point where it will coat the back of a spoon. Let a bit cool so you don't ruin your mouth (this stuff has a very high heat capacity!) and taste.  Adjust the salt, spices and vinegar until it is properly tart, spicy and sweet.

° Cool and refrigerate in an airtight container.  

 

 

mean free paths - from pinafore to removing risk to custom design

It was a beautiful late Spring day and I found myself of singing a song from The Mikado as I strolled down West College past the Conservatory.  I'm not a good performer, but my rendition must have been recognizable as a chap walking next to me took the one of the other parts and we were doing a bit of harmony as our paths became a formation.  We stopped for the light, stopped and continued until we had finished.  I smiled and nodded.  He reciprocated, but then he started into the first song from  Pirates - We sail the ocean blue.  He had a strong voice and I followed him in whatever harmony I could muster.

 

We crossed the street and continued a block to the intersection next to the conservatory and more magic - two others joined and we continued walking until the song was over smiling broadly and nodding before we parted.

 

Oberlin, Ohio is a tiny town and we had all probably overshot our destinations as we sang together that day late in April 12 years ago.   It was a powerful manifestation of how serendipity - at least a certain type of serendipity - is possible when the mean free path between people with similar interests is small.

 

In physics mean free path roughly means the mean distance between objects that may collide - the mean free path between molecules in a very high pressure gas is less than that of one at a low pressure.  There is also a social mean free path and it is one of the reasons why cities, Silicon Valley, the restrooms and central atrium of Pixar, the old Bell Labs, and any number of other concentrations of talent are important.  Bring people within a few meters of each other and they interact.  Bring passionate and talented people within a few meters of each other and you may just get the unexpected.

 

These clusters may not be stable over time as people migrated - Brooklyn has become one of the East Coast regions that shrinks the mean free path between creative residents. Take a look at the Outlier video Om has featured for an excellent example of what a low mean free path can mean for someone interested in something novel in dungarees.  

 

Brooklyn has become so important for a certain type of young creative that the new Pixar building in California is known in some quarters as "Brooklyn"...  

 

Now back to Oberlin ..  There is enough talent in the Music Conservatory that it is possible for someone without great means (me) to have a piece of music composed.  You need to be tapped into the roots of the beast - I was an adjunct professor there for several years as part of a joint AT&T Research/Oberlin College Music Conservatory project.¹  This position gave me a rich interaction with students and faculty often into the wee hours of the morning with drink and good food.  Ideas would bounce around and people began to sense a few new possibilities that would normally remain hidden.  These things can and do happen over the Internet, but their cross section - the probability of them happened and being recognized as interesting - is much lower.  Our online environment, rich as it is,  is much less sophisticated and rich than the real world

 

Under the right conditions the Internet can decrease the mean free path between parties. Long distance mentor relations and even a few projects.  The problem is finding people well matched for serendipity and creativity.  A large amount of research has gone into creativity in individuals and groups.  To date online creativity - the connecting the dots/serendipity kind - is still a loooooooong way from face to face human interaction.  

 

But the Net can help creative enterprises - often at crucial movements.  Om has recently talked about Kickstarter.  Now most projects proposed on Kickstarter fail, but well thought out and articulated projects do succeed providing enough money to get them over a critical initial hump.  

 

Perhaps just as important is a funded project also gives insight into potential market size. Horace Dediu has an extremely insightful blog and a fairly well known podcast.  Some people had encouraged him to make a transcript of all of the shows aired to date available for sale.  Unfortunately the problem with this is he had about sixty hours of material and even the cheapest transcription services would introduce a risk of several thousand dollars if people didn't purchase the final product.  There was also an issue of understanding how to price it and if a print or ebook version should be made.  

 

He decided to turn it into a Kickstarter project and learned (a) there was a market large enough to support the transcription and editing effort, and (b) the price he picked was considered reasonable by those who bit - two absolutely vital pieces of information acquired with almost no risk.  His success gave me paused and made me think of a few small projects I've seen fail due to incorrect estimates of these questions.  

 

The Kickstarter approach may be superior to funding it yourself even if you have the money as it provides a sandbox to answer potential market size and price questions

 

One of you (the Jheri of the Jeri/Jerry/Jheris I know) happens to be very tall and hard to fit - not only clothing, but also airline seats, countertops, chairs and so on.  She introduced me to her taller friend Colleen.  Both of them don't think about their poor fit that often as you get used to your environment and learn to compromise, but being different can take a physical toll with bad backs being far too common in that crowd.  It is good to have friends like this as they provide a rich problem space you may not have considered.

 

I decided to work on a simple cutting board for Colleen who happens to love to cook.  It turns out there have been numerous studies on work surface positioning for almost every body type and physical condition.  It became clear a raised wooden board would be the best bet and I had one made for her as the cost of hardwood is so high that a woodworking shop could do it at a lower cost than I could and they would probably do a better job.   The owner of the shop became interested in the idea of making this a product and Colleen put together a page promoting it as she loved hers.²  A bit of asking around got the attention of a well-known women's tv show and they wanted to feature it.  The problem was they also demanded a copy be given to everyone in the audience in a special "tall" show.  In the end the cost of doing that was greater than the profit made selling these online.  The product remains as it is custom made for the user, but I don't think they have made  profit on it.  

 

In retrospect this may have been a great Kickstarter project.  Although it is custom made by a small shop the more important function of Kickstarter would have been gauging the size of the market before any major effort was undertaken.  It may also have allowed a volume purchase of hard maple as well as specialized shipping materials.

 

The other project that should have been done on Kickstarter was an attempt to make very long inseam jeans for tall women.  The designer spent about a year online lining up customers, finding a boutique manufacturer and so on.  He rounded up about 2,000 firm commitments that they would buy - enough to allow an initial low volume production run and sell them at a reasonable price.  Based on these commitments he went ahead with a somewhat smaller run to err on the side of caution thinking 500 or so would bring him close enough to break even that he could proceed.  Unfortunately only about 25 orders materialized and he lost a large amount of money.³  The beauty of Kickstarter is that not only must a threshold be reached to start a project, but the money will be there once the threshold is signup period has successfully concluded. 

 

We are moving to a world where individualization and shared design and intellectual property will become much more common.  The Maker movement provides some fuel for this and grassroot interaction street fashion is likely to become important. Sites like Etsy as outposts for the tiny manufacturers and spaces like Pinterest for matching interests with the makers.  There will probably be a lot of evolution and new thinking in this area - current sites and tools aren't up to the task.  We may be at a diamonds on the beach period.

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¹ At once the least musical and most mathematical faculty ever associated with the place

² It turns out the standard countertop height in the US is 36" and was determined in an ad hoc fashion when cabinets began to be mass produced for the great suburban expansion after WWII.  This turns out to be optimal for a 5'4 to 5'5" cook.  Significantly shorter or taller cooks will have ergonomic issues and those who are seriously away from average can experience pain bending or an inability to comfortably reach the surface.  On the tall side the threshold is around 5'10 - certainly cooks 6' or taller should use a higher surface.  The shop own and I both thought this meant a market might exist. If you think you might use one I can give a strong recommendation to AWP.

Before settling on a simple raised table I was interested in an adjustable board.  It presented a challange so I attempted to crowd source some solutions from readers of another blog of mine  here and here adding some notes on design. Some ideas were submitted, but nothing earth-shattering, so I went with a simple table.  There are times when brute force is appropriate.

³ It turns out 20:1, 50:1 or even 100:1 ratio between people who say they will order a product and those who follow through is common in apparel

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And a recipe.  I needed chocolate and pistachios recently.  In order to manage my weight and deal with Sukie's chocolate allergy a few neighbors had a happy evening.

 

Chocolate Pistachio Cookies
 

Ingredients

° 185 g  (6.5 oz) shelled pistachios

° 28 g (2 tbl) unsalted butter

° 115 g (4 oz) unsalted butter, sliced into tablespoons

° 115 g (4 oz) bittersweet chocolate, chopped - I used Lindt

° 1.5 tsp vanilla extract

° 60 g (1/2 cup) AP flour

° 35 g natural cocoa powder

° 1/2 tsp baking powder

° 1/2 tsp fine grained sea salt

° 100 g (1/2 cup) white sugar

° 2 large eggs 

° 1.5 tsp vanilla extract - you need the real stuff - mine is rum based

° 120 g chopped milk chocolate - again I used Lindt ..  reliable for baking

Technique

* Place one oven rack at the center of the oven and preheat to 350°F

° Line two cookie sheetswith a silicone mat or parchment paper.

° Spread the pistachios on an unlined baking sheet and bake for ten minutes until golden brown, Remove from oven and immediately add the 28g butter and stir well. Set aside to cool.

* Melt chocolate and remaining butter together in a microwave oven. Stir together until smooth and set aside to cool slightly as you beat the eggs. While the chocolate is melting combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in a food processor and pulse to blend completely. 

* Combine the eggs and sugar and beat until they become pale yellow and light in texture. Stir in the chocolate. When it is mostly incorporated, add the vanilla. When the vanilla has been incorporated, add the flour mixture and stir gently to blend. When the flour is almost completely absorbed, add the pistachios and milk chocolate folding into the batter. It will be dark and shiny with a texture similar to marshmallow Fluff.

° Spoon about a heaping tablespoon (or 1.5 inch ice cream scoop) of dough onto the sheet tray for each cookie, arranging them in a 3X4 pattern on the tray. Bake the trays one at a time on the center rack in the oven for 10-12 minutes. The cookies will rise slightly, develop a shiny crust and appear to be just set. Let them cool for two minutes and then loosen the bottoms from the lined tray. Let them finish cooling on the sheet trays or move them to racks depending on the final texture you want - experiment the first time.

 

 

 

the intersection of tech, art and the social - and the beginnings of change

People are often perplexed when they learn I have an interest in fashion. No one has successfully accused me of being a snappy dresser or understanding trends, but it does happen to be one of those areas with rich and dynamic intersections of other fields - specifically the arts, social sciences, and technology.  It also happens to be an enormous worldwide industry and one that is likely to undergo enormous change in the next decade or two.  Observing and trying to understand a developing revolution is, for me, time well spent.  If Apple has Apple TV as a hobby, this is sort of my hobby at this point..

 

About two weeks ago I visited Fashion Week in New York mostly to observe and listen.  I set up a few interview sessions, spent a bit on snacks and coffee and went into learning mode.  After thinking about the experience for awhile, I wrote a brief note to capture what seemed significant.  The note went out to a few people and two encouraged me to expand it in a blog.  To save time I’ll do the next best thing.  Here is the letter followed by some other comments that may be of greater interest to this group. (for those who have read it, I changed a few bits)

 

I have an interest in the social mechanisms of fashion, the changes being driven by a shift in communication modalities and emerging changes in manufacturing and distribution.  Fashion Week in NY is a good place to observe and ask questions.  I have a close friend who happens to be a well known model - this is her fifth year,  She has her own perspective and helps getting contact with interesting people.  This year talking to some small designers as well as the street fashion people and some fashion bloggers.

 

I went in on three days and the two of us talked to about 20 young women, a few other models and some people associated with one name and three small labels.  It turns out that a top model is attracts a lot of attention among the young street fashion types.  There were four discussions in a cafe with five or six of them at a time running an hour or so each.  I bought the coffee and a few pastries (the beer and pizza technique and the cheapest way I know to conduct this sort of interview).   The labels were by separate introduction.  It is good to know fashion royalty.

 

The industry has a very convoluted structure that defines a series of "looks" for a season and has rather strictly defined roles and information sources (last year I sat down and came up with a diagram showing the flow of information, material and money at a high level - ugh).  This traditionally comes out of an interplay between the designer and influential magazine editors. Prototypes are show to buyers who must sort out what will work in their stores about six months down the road.  Orders are placed and a rather clunky mass production web starts into action. Recently the time from prototype buy decision to delivery to the shelf has been dramatically tightened - down to a few weeks.  A few retailers (Zara, H&M,etc) have achieved a more or less constant flow of new fashion that is less coupled to the traditional model.

 

Fashion distinguishes itself from apparel by being all about an out of band communication - one that tends to be more important for women than men (and nearly non-existent in people like me). Its social nature means someone usually goes to a store and puts together the basis for combinations of pieces using what is available as a their pallet.   There is a lot of reference to what other people are doing and this is shifting away from the magazines -- quickly in fact. Fashion sites and blogs, at this point, have probably replaced physical magazines as a core sources of ideas.  The magazines all seem to have their sites, but the street fashion people and their followers aren't paying much attention.  There seems to be an explosion of interest in street fashion over the past few years.

 

Bringing up the subject of Pinterest brought a lot of conversation and debate.  It is clear there is a love/hate relation with it …  mostly love from the sample I spoke with.  It seems to be a natural extension of the pinboarding activities common among teenage girls - only it is now distributed to a larger group.  It involves this same out of band communication - or at least part of its vocabulary and I suspect it can be considered basic.  It certainly isn't optimized and one suspects more specialized versions will either emerge organically and/or be supported by Pinterest.  It is not the sort of thing I can imagine Google or Facebook - or Apple or Amazon for that matter - pulling off well.  I can imagine some of them getting involved as partners.

 

In the twenty and early thirty year old group Facebook is still a necessity - but something that can be frustrating and isn't the sort of thing people find cool anymore.  Time is still being spent there, but some of the apparel makers I spoke to suggested FB has almost no value to their business. They all have presences, but none of them can show the time and money they have put into it has been rewarded. Pinterest, on the other hand, is already making a change and driving business.  It is much more closely linked to the model of how some people communicate what "the look" will be - at least among their group.

 

"The look" is something very important that needs a lot of consideration.  It used to be dictated, but now there is a lot of communication from people who wear clothing.  There are still constraints as the pallet of available clothing is limited, but that is changing as mass customization emerges.  The industry has always been plagued by misjudging what the look and in recent years there have been more mistakes than the sour economy might suggest among the major players.  It is probably part of the growing disconnect between magazines and the consumer as the later group patches into different sources of active and passive communication. 

 

The structure of the industry is cumbersome and reminds me of the talent/production/distribution mechanism of the music industry fifteen years ago.  To the labels the end customer is really the store buyer - not the consumer.  Similar to the cellphone manufacturers - where most see the mobile service providers as their primary customer, and the four ecosystems - where Google and Facebook have different primary customers than the end user. In the examples of the music and fashion industries this creates opportunity.

 

There was an awareness of mass customization.  Most see the real benefit as better sizing, but freedom of personalization is also a benefit.  This is interesting as the size variation of the groups I was with is much less than the general female population (they were all young and mostly thin) where the need for better sizing is much stronger.   I brought up Threadless vs a few others as examples of image customization and a few of the shoe companies.  In general the Threadless model was preferred - very interesting as it is also constrained.

 

Many other questions come to mind, but time was limited and I was mostly injecting questions along with my model friend (who is absolutely great at this) and observing.    

 

I'd hate to be in the fashion magazine business

 

Separately my friend notes, and I saw a few examples, of how the catwalk itself is changing.  Tech is mixing in as part of the art, but also video is important.  All of the important shows were streamed and most had expert commentary and/or community commentary - almost like a sporting event. Some of the labels produced separate video spots that allowed a much closer look at the piece and there was experimentation with letting the model have a personality.  Probably due to the economy there were more beginning B-list models being used …  the sort who will probably not walk next season.  The whole notion of what a model does seems to be changing a bit, although high fashion runway models are still pretty much unchanged from those 10 years ago.  I'm told catalog modeling has seen a much larger shift as online catalogs become more important - things to say on the modeling piece, but I'll stop here…

 

A few additional observations:

 

° iPads, iPhones and MacBook Airs were everywhere.  The great majority of those I spoke to had Apple kit and 100% had smartphones. I asked a few questions and the fact this group has bought into the Apple platform is key.  Their music is from iTunes, apps are *extremely* important, and the Air is the only laptop they consider.  Granted this group is obsessed with style and fashion, but there is certainly no movement to Android.  I was frankly amazed by the acceptance of the Apple platform. 

 

° Most of them owned iPads.  It is seen as being hired for a different task than the iPhone or the Air, but the fact that these products link up and synchronize through the cloud mostly seamlessly was important.  The cafes I used had net and there were people, mostly women, watching the walks in being streamed live from the runways across the street.  There was a lot of social commentary going on face to face (ear to ear?) as well as in chat windows and text messages.  Twitter seemed to be an important space for commentary. Facebook seemed absent.

 

° People couldn’t stream to their phones or iPads.   An iPad linked to WiFi might seem to be the ideal viewing platform, but it was impossible as Flash was used.  They complained about the failure, but didn’t blame Apple.  The blame goes to whoever was doing the streaming.  There were also complaints about poor cellular service in the area - again it was not seen as Apple’s responsibility.  Flash on tablets and phones really is a non-starter at this point.

 

° Space doesn’t permit me to write the pages I learned about street fashion, which may be a central piece of the developing future as magazines lose influence and the process of fashion becomes even more social.  Material, money, and information flows are all in the process of changing.

 

° The backstage use of iPads surprised me.  I don’t think I’ve seen that density outside an Apple Store.  There appear to be several important custom apps as well as regular commercial apps.  One young designer joked that they are moving to the paperless atelier...  Steve Jobs would not approve that I saw a few people frantically sketching with a conductive stylus for last second visual notes to be communicated to others.  There was also a great deal of photographic annotation.  

 

__________

And a recipe or two!

 

After a few people saw this post, two wrote and asked where are the recipes?  OK - here is a fun one with a bit of science.  But first a word on measurements.

 

Most of my recipes have approximate measurements.  When cooking with fresh ingredients it is often necessary to adjust for the freshness and taste of the ingredients as well as your own tastes.  I'll try to supply weight and volume measurements, but encourage you to move to just weight for anything that isn't a liquid at the very least when amounts are important - some types of cooking and most types of baking.  Get an electronic kitchen scale that can tare - it will change your life in the kitchen.  Good enough ones aren't expensive.  I use the  EatSmart Precision Pro- about $25.

 

Now on to the food!

 

Maillard Reaction Squash in a Pressure Cooker

 

The Maillard reaction is this wonderful event that takes place between an amino acid, a reducing sugar and some heat.  Without going into details a complex mixture of molecules forms that are involve in the flavors and smells of many foods.  The browning of meats, the browning on toast, french fries, fried onions, roasted coffee, the browned sections of cakes and cookies.  In short it has a fundamental importance in baking and cooking.

 

Most of these reactions begin at around 300°F, although some start much lower - perhaps 250°F.  It would be nice to cook with the reaction, but in a boiling or immersed environment.  The trick is to use a pressure cooker.  Most will go to 15psi - pushing the interior boiling temperature to something past the threashold for some of the reaction.  Physics just works - increase the pressure of the gas over water and the boiling point increases.

 

It would be wonderful to get that great taste on something like squash in a pressure cooker.  It turns out a bit of experimentation shows the way.  Some of the experiments didn't work, but were edible none the less.  Adding a bit of baking soda increased the reaction just enough to make everything work (alkali environments generally encourage the reaction - we're sitting on the fence at 15psi and need to be pushed just a bit)

 

This one works:-)  

ingredients

° 55g (4 tbl) unsalted butter

° 0.75kg (1 1/2 lb) delicata squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into half inchish cubes

° 1/2 lemon grass stalk 

° 1 tsp kosher salt

° 1/2 tsp baking soda

° honey to taste

method

1. Melt butter in a pressure cooker. Stir in squash, lemon grass, salt and baking soda. Cover tightly with pressure cooker lid and cook at a gauge pressure of 1 bar (15 p.s.i.) for 20 minutes. Begin the timing after the pressure has been reached.

2. Depressurize the cooker according to the pressure cooker's manual.

3. Remove lemon grass. Blend the squash to a smooth purée.  Add honey to taste.

 

mmmm

 

Pressure cookers, if you haven't tried one, rule.  I use a Kuhn Rikon¹ and love it - spendy, but you probably won't find a better pressure cooker.  A core component of the kitchen and safe. 

_____

 

And a somewhat unhealthy, but delicious bonus.  This is especially good on a chilly night and guests love it.

 

Baked Hot Chocolate

 

ingredients

° 250g (9 oz) very very good quality semisweet chocolate (Lindt, Scvharffen berger, Guitard, etc) - maybe 60% to 70% - finely chopped
° 85g (6 tbl) unsalted butter cut up.  excellent grade butter only
° 4 large eggs
° 50g white sugar (1/4cup)
° whipped cream to taste

method

1. Preheat an oven to 350° F


2. find four oven proof coffee mugs or similar sized ramekins and put them on a pan


3. melt butter and chocolate in a double boiler and whisk until smoothly melted and mixed. Remove from heat and set aside


4. Stir eggs and sugar in a mixing bowl over simmering water until warm to the touch.


5. Beat egg mixture with a beater until light and fluffy - 3 to 5 minutes. Gently fold the egg mixture into the chocolate


6. Spoon batter into cups and add enough hot water in the pan to come up halfway on the cups


7. Bake until top of mixture looses its glossy look. About 15 or 20 minutes.


8. Remove and let cool to a bit above room temperature on the outside.  Put on whipped cream and serve

wicked fine

 

_________

¹ A review of the pressure cooker I use.  It was about $200 and worth every penny.

 

 

 

 

apple stores and jc penny

I found myself thinking about Apple Stores the other day...

 

It turns out I know a bit about audio and it occurred to me that I should ask for help in selecting audio gear for a household that has iPhones and iPads given how many manufacturers have entered the market.  How would they steer me?  As there are 11 Apple Stores in NJ and several in Manhattan I would have a chance to get a reasonable sample.  So I went in asking the questions of an average consumer who doesn’t know much about audio ... five stores in about a week and very similar answers at each.

 

All of them, despite the large number of customers, took their time with me and four of them pointed me to the resident expert who knows about audio.  All of them gave an answer that would give me minimal configuration grief, good enough sound quality given my tastes, and a reasonable cost to fit my budget.  In fact three of the audio experts gave excellent advice that would save money encouraging buying kit not in the store.

 

Very different answers than I would have heard at a big box store, a Bose mall store or a dedicated audio shop.  What I got was a pragmatic answer with several viable options.¹

 

Something you couldn’t get at Amazon either as there is far too much noise in the recommendations.

 

Something is working.

 

When I first visited an Apple Store in the early days (my first purchase was the original iPod on the day they were released), it was a place where Mac fans gathered.  Sort of a clubhouse where people went to talk.  The first visit saw me purchase the iPod, but I hung around chatting with other customers and employees enjoying cookies and fruit juice provided by the store.

 

Over the years the cookies and fruit juice disappeared and were replaced by increasing numbers of non-Mac customers.  Curiously those of us who knew something about Macs or iPods would give advice to other people who were waiting for a clerk or just looking.  Showing up a few hours early to buy a new version of OS X or the latest iPhone was a fun experience.  The place was incredibly social.  

 

Some of the stores developed reputations.  Since you could use available Macs for anything as long as you weren’t getting in the way, students would use expensive software to get work done.  It was common to see teens working on video and music projects after school often with help from the store clerks.  The stores started hiring software specialists.

 

The SoHo store in Manhattan developed a reputation as one of the best places to pick up dates for awhile and people in their twenties made trips just to hang around.  A few of the stores, including that one, began to offer live music nights as a part of promoting iTunes music.

 

There has been a constant evolution within the stores, but there is a strong link between the functionality of the product and making the customer happy.  You generally have just enough choices to consider and helpful people - employees or other customers - to guide you through the choices.  Pricing tends to be stable so you don’t have to worry about wading through  another layer of information.  There is some of it that feels very much like Trader Joe’s. ²

 

And now Ron Johnson, the guy who was responsible for Apple Stores, is running JC Penny and they have begun to announce their changes.   Many companies just redesign logos and shuffle management, but I suspect Johnson will go far beyond the new logo and simplified pricing they've announced.

 

Department store retail is as broken as computer stores were and much can be done.  It made me wonder about areas that are ripe for change and what that change might be.  This certainly isn’t advice for Mr Johnson as he has undoubtedly spent a lot of time thinking wrestling with the issues and is a proven expert in retail change, but it is interesting to think through this sort of thing as it will differ widely across companies.  What would you change and what changes would you make in your company or companies you regularly deal with? 

 

JC Penny sells a lot of clothing.  Women are primary customers and there is a lot of research, including my own, that shows the shopping experience is far from optimal.  Sizing is broken, selection is often broken, there is a need for information on what looks good on a person, getting good clerks is often difficult, pricing is confusing and so on...

 

At the same time apparel is a large part of the economy and we all need clothes.  Fashion can be very enjoyable to many as can be an artistic expression and enhancement of self - amplifying good features and hiding the less than good - and is a form of social communication. 

 

I spent some time talking with Sukie and some female friends about this and adding my own thoughts.  So in addition to things like lining up the right brands for the customers and other normal approaches here are a few thoughts from the peanut gallery.  The caveat is obvious if you've ever seen my clothing, but Sukie and some friends have excellent fashion taste and I listen well.

 

° Attack the sizing issue

This will take a long time to get right, but a good start would be to match someone up with clothing that is likely to fit and to concentrate the selection.  Since different lines have roughly consistent sizing within the line it might be possible to take someone’s measurements as well as a list of clothing that mostly fits and make predictions.  If the store is made of of small regions each of which represents a different line, the shopper could then visit areas with much higher probabilities of finding a fit.

 

Have some tailors on hand and take a complete set of measurements a few times a year as part of the experience.  This can be kept on file and used to match people directly with the clothing.  A database of preferences can also be assembled and folded in with current street fashion information.

 

There can be expert advice from the tailors as well as from street fashion experts - sort of a genius bar for fashion.

 

° Get social locally, nationally and internationally

Understand Pinterest.  Have staff members who understand street fashion and get involved in it.  Be able to help customers get social advice and feedback from the segments of the population they want their fashion to communicate with.  You don’t need experts in each branch of fashion at every store, but you might have someone who can bring in these people on video chats.

 

Create social fashion places on the web that the customers can be part of.  Pinterest is a much better potential partner than FaceBook or Google and it may make sense to have a dedicated site if it can be scaled, but getting customer involvement would be a big thing.  

 

Encourage expert street fashion bloggers in different regions.  What is going on in Manhattan vs Chicago?  It would be difficult to find people at the Bill Cunningham level, but they are extremely important.

 

° Teach people more about creating their own look. 

Seminars in store and online.  Don’t worry about bringing in third parties - you might tell someone she would be terrific with something from Etsy for example.  Involve some of your customers in this as advisors and teachers.  Create a Fashion U.  Give several levels of interest reason to visit at least once a month.  

Recognize that fashion can and should be very personal.  It is much more rewarding for the wearer if she participates in the act.  That may be putting a wardrobe together completely from store purchased pieces or it may be more customized than that, but the final result can be special and may even be unique.  Fashion is meant to be an ephemeral expression and the creativity and participation of the wearer must be considered and respected.  You are not merely selling clothing, you are providing the raw materials of expression.  Perhaps the best service you can provide is to figure out how to enable her craft.  How does she collaborate, what inspires her and how does she create?

In many ways this may have come under the "get social" bullet

 

° Curate collections - emulate Trader Joe’s

Give customers concentrated selections of what they are likely to want.  This may be very regional and street fashion may inform you better than the ready-to-wear Fashion Week designers.  Channel Bill Cunningham locally.

 

° Improve the fitting experience

Solve issues of fitting and understanding what clothing will look like you under different lighting and with other types of clothing.  There are several technical solutions ranging from trivial to leading edge.  There is great opportunity to innovate and lead.

 

° Work towards the future - mass customization/made-to-measure

Move towards manufacturing made-to-measure clothing.  Even if you are matching people more closely with clothing there is still a frustration that not all interesting choices can be made to fit or are in the right color or style.  Reasonably priced made-to-measure is the disruptive future.  You can lead.

 

There are many other departments within Penny’s, but better apparel solutions would make a huge dent in the problem.  Beyond fair and square pricing and store design and functionality it will be fascinating to see where Johnson goes.³

 

How would you change a telco?  a movie company?  a restaurant chain? ...  your company?

________

¹ Drop a note if you are interested in comments and suggestions on inexpensive and low hassle room stereo solutions for AirPlay enabled devices. It was fascinating hearing what the Apple Store employees said and squaring that with my own recommendations.

² If  you are a fan of the store you know what I mean.  They do many things correctly and don't follow.  It certainly wouldn't hurt to have Trader Joes's or Apple Store calliber employees.  This part of the TJ's Fortune link is telling:

... "In the early days we never tried to be the neighborhood store," says a former employee. They didn't have to: Trader Joe's was the neighborhood store. And yet walk into the Chelsea location on a busy weekday night and you'll see something you almost never see in Manhattan: strangers chatting with one another. Veteran customers tell newbies what products they absolutely have to try, and serious cooks share tips on how to spike sauces and semi-prepared foods to make them even tastier.

³ Some good information from the horse's mouth here

 

 

 

 

images that speak

Ten days ago I was talking with Dave and the subject of amateur astronomy and telescopes came up.  This happens to be something I know a bit about as I built my first ‘scope as a teenager and have been fascinated by astronomy for most of my life.  I promised to put together some notes and will probably post them here as this isn’t the first time I’ve been been asked for recommendations 

 

On the train ride back from seeing him I started thinking about the two types of serious amateur astronomers I know - those who love the telescopes and those who love the sky.  Of course these mix, but for some the end passion is the hardware and they tend to build or buy the best they can afford.

 

When it comes to nature I’m mostly in the other camp. I love to observe.  There are times when what you want to look at is difficult to see without some sort of aid and then I take an interest in the tool and there is the serendipity of using a tool to see the world in new way, but observation comes first.

 

About a week later Om posted a note on his blog asking for advice on photography.  His blog is popular and several people offered comments ranging from mechanical to how to “see” images.  It took me back a dozen or so years...

 

I was in a four floor studio in Manhattan’s Little Italy directing a fashion shoot.¹   The photographer was a well-know fashion photographer - I was more than a bit intimidated by his reputation.  He wanted to see my “book” - some samples of my editorial work.  This was all Photoshop work - image manipulation had been a hobby of mine dating to pre-Photoshop days.   To my surprise he approved and accepted me as a peer. Walking to a bookshelf he pulled down one of his “books”..  As I paged through I was struck by how many of the images I knew.  Iconic fashion photos that I recognized even though fashion was far from a core interest.

 

I was tempted to pull out my camera and photograph him at work.  Fortunately he said something that prevented me from doing that.

 

He was testing the lighting with an old Polaroid camera.  He had the model stand for a few test images and shot in black and white.   After a half dozen images, each with some lighting changes, he pronounced he was ready and his assistant handed him a loaded Pentax 6 by 7cm medium format camera.

 

Even with the change from film to digital images medium format cameras are the standard used in commercial and editorial fashion.   They aren’t as small or flexible as a 35mm camera (or an equivalent DSLR these days), but they can still be handheld and the resolution can be excellent.

 

He and the model stumbled around for about fifteen minutes until they were both comfortable and understood each other.  She needed to have a sense of what to do and what she would look like.  She needed to understand the light as well as present him with a series of potential poses. His job was capturing the moments when she moved her body through the amazing.  It was dramatic when both of them synchronized with each other’s needs.  The shutter fired at a regular rhythm - they had both achieved a flow of sorts.

 

During the first wardrobe change I had some questions about his gear as most of it was exotic to me.  He told me a little story to move me towards something a bit more productive.

 

It seems years before he was on assignment for an important shoot for Vogue.  He had been flown to Fiji along with an art director and a few excellent models.  To his horror the trunks with his camera gear were lost.  There was little choice but to improvise.  He went to a store in the hotel and purchased a dozen or so Instamatic cameras and all the film the hotel store had and directed the models and his assistant to get as much film as they could find.  

 

The Kodak Instamatic was the ubiquitous cheap camera of the 60s and 70s - the camera you might give to a kid on his tenth birthday.  Fixed focus, a cheap lens and most had no settings.  Your choice was usually limited to the film cartridge - black and white or color.

 

But it was a camera and he was a photographer.

 

They spent two days shooting and went through about one hundred film cartridges.  He experimented a bit putting vaseline on some of the lenses to soften the image even more.  The strong constraints were a fantastic experience and focused him very strongly on rediscovering the subject and the story that was unfolding.

 

He showed me the photos that were published in Vogue - I instantly recognized them.  They were and are iconic images.

 

His epiphany - and what he wanted to share with me - was the camera is not as important as many people think.  

 

I had been prepared to bring out my camera and photograph him.  It was a then new Nikon N90S with some fancy zoom lenses and a lot of settings.  He was working with heavily worn and very manual cameras and only three fixed focus lenses.  He knew his tools - cameras, lighting, lenses and film - well enough that he wasn’t even using a light meter.  It struck me that bringing out my camera was silly so I focused on the work and hand and tried to observe and learn a bit.

 

We were looking for eight, maybe twelve, usable images for each of five clothing outfits to give me enough choice to tell a story. He and the model knew what they were doing and over 900 frames were exposed in the twelve hour session.  He would make a verbal comment when he thought something was great - mostly as part of working with the model. I marked those comments and all of the usable photos came from that subset.

 

The constraints of the shoot were strong, but he was used to working with constraints of many types and, with the help of a good model, some art was created.  

 

I’m not a great photographer by any means, but he and others who are offered some advice.  After awhile you realize the good ones are telling you the same thing.

 

° Learning is worth more than expensive gear. Once you have a basic camera you can learn how to see images.  Several hundred dollars budgeted towards a new lens might be better spent on a photography course or perhaps a ticket to some location that might inspire you.  

 

Part of this may be travel.  I was lucky enough to have grown up in a place is amazing physical beauty - that is if you went out and looked around a bit.  Jeri is also from that area and has shown me a few of her photos.  It is clear she has developed a good "eye" and sense of photography.  You can discover scenes around you wherever you are, but sometimes a trip gives you a bit of insight.

 

°  Don’t discount cheap point and shoots or the current crop of good smartphone cameras.  They allow you to take photos quickly without your being noticed. You can blend into the background and take shots that would be impossible with an expensive and physically large camera.  You can carry the point and shoot everywhere you go in case you notice something interesting.  The best camera in the world is the one you are carrying when an image presents itself.

 

° Constraints are important.  Very flexible and automatic cameras can make you lazy.  Giving yourself constraints to move yourself to a state where you have to think about the shot and try something new.  Using a fixed focus lens - otherwise called a “prime” - is a wonderful way to force creativity. Forcing yourself to a single aperture or shutter speed is also a great way to learn.

 

° Images are part of a story.  Observe, shoot and write.  When you can see a story the right sort of images will appear.  If you are shooting people try to see their story and have them tell it.  This is particularly important when you are working with people.

 

° I’m terrible at it, but shooting video - capturing audio, video and creating a story - is a powerful way to learn.  It is an area I need to spend more time with. Some of you (hi Juliette and Jheri) are very good still and video story tellers.  You certainly don’t need fancy gear to do this - perhaps a better microphone.  The video capability of your point and shoot is probably just fine.

 

° Learn how to edit.  Be critical and throw away the bad learning what has worked.  Shooting digital is very inexpensive.  Even the pros rarely get one good image for every hundred they shoot.  One National Geographic photographer told me he is happen for one great image in a thousand.

 

° Know when to just watch.  Years ago I traveled to a total solar eclipse.  There were a few hundred people, dozens of specially prepared telescopes and nearly everyone had a camera.  During the two or so minutes of totality most people were trying to get photos.  It was such a waste.  I’ve never seen a photo that captures the feeling of totality and there are thousands of photographers who are much better than me.  My learning was any time spent fooling around with a camera when nature is offering real drama is time wasted.  It is much better to just observe and be astounded by what you are seeing.  

 

Let the pros do their thing and look at their work later.  You need to observe a lot before you know anything about the story that is unfolding and some events are ephemeral and so well captured that experiencing the event directly is more powerful and teaches you more deeply.

 

° Give yourself some interesting challenges.²  Find a muse using your passions as a guide.  Spend a lot of time doing what you love.  Sometimes it makes sense to extend yourself and to shoot something that from a different point of view.  Learn what the world looks like with a from a different point of view in time or space or even the wavelength of light you are exposing.  Serendipity and discovery can happen.  

 

° Save the crutches for the end.  My sister and I both enjoy the digital editing phase - trying to add a bit to the photos we take to make art.  She’s much better at it than me, but it is a fantastic learning experience and gives me a better sense of images to take in the first place.  

 

There are some easy to use digital editing tools to spice up images.  They are a cheap way to get to the unusual and become old very quickly - in the end they are toys. Use them, but only after you have taken good images in the first place.  I would stick with more serious tools and learn the basics.³

 

In a nutshell I would say just learn how to observe.  Don’t be lazy and let your camera make it easy for you - give yourself constraints and you will learn how to observe.  Focus on trying to tell a story.  Don’t spend a lot on gear.  If you have a cheap point and shoot, you have enough to learn on and - if you are great - you could even publish iconic images in Vogue.  Critique your own work and learn from it.

 

If you have kids or young relatives encourage them to observe the world.  Even a 14 year old kid using a camera primative by the standards of today's point and shoots can take credible photos and learning how to do it can sharpen his or her observational skills.⁴

 

I’ll put together a telescope and microsope note soon for Dave and post it here for anyone else who may be interested.  Perhaps I can suggest a few directions and save some money.

 

 

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¹ Why I was doing this is a story a bit too long for here, but I go into it a bit in my TED^x talk.  It is remarkable what you can do if you just try things - people just sort of grant permission.

² This was taken about a decade ago from a very different point of view taken with a disposable Barbie's First Camera.  Some details are in the TED^x talk...

³ Pixelmator is an inexpensive starting point as is Photoshop Express.  Photoshop has a serious learning curve and is spendy, but can be wonderful if digital manipulation is your thing.

⁴ A rainbow in early June taken near my home in Montana when I was 14 with an extremely simple camera and scanned from a fading print.  I was only intent in capturing the double rainbow, but it appears I had learned a bit about composition by then.  If I had a smart camera that wasn't forcing me to be clever, perhaps I would have never learned these things.