Filed under: Architecture, Media, Technology | Tags: Frank Gehry, Gehry, UTS
I felt for Frank Gehry yesterday. Here was an 84 year old architectural genius battling through an interview in front of 600 people, despite being clearly exhausted. He was generous with his time, but clearly after a busy week in Sydney to launch the design of a stunning new “tree house” building for UTS, he was ready for a quiet lie-down. And who can blame him? Running a business of 150 staff working on projects in multiple countries and time zones would be hard work for anyone – let alone when you’re 84.
But, weariness aside, under the questions from Geraldine Doogue, Gehry offered some amazing insights into his life, and his pursuit of perfect design. It was interesting to listen to the points he made in respect to creativity – to consider how these observations could apply to other arts such as photography, music, and so on.
Some observations from his comments:
- Creative projects work. The Bilbao building paid for itself in eight months.
- Simple things require more precision than the complex
- There is beauty and energy in collisions of spaces and design
- Always be yourself – and then you will be the expert in your work. Your signature is your own, no one else does it like that – so do that in your work and don’t think about it.
- Every new project is a challenge.
- The constraint of the budget is a welcome challenge
- Be childlike, playful, and free of constraints as you design
- Encourage push-back from the client, it helps him find the edge
- Too many colleagues don’t challenge the clients early optimism on costs. You need to do that at the outset
- Get out of the project if the client is not engaged.
A word that Gehry used repeatedly was “engage.” The work has to engage the client, it has to engage the users, it has to engage the community. It has to engage him as the architect. He kept coming back to this word – and it surely applies in all creative pursuits.
When asked what he wants his legacy to be, he responded, “Well since I’m not going to be here, I don’t care.” I think he meant it – he simply designs and creates without worrying what the naysayers and critics care to focus on. That to me, is a sure sign of a great mind at work.
A model of architect Frank Gehry's Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, dubbed The Treehouse. (Gehry Partners)
Filed under: Music, Technology | Tags: Audioengine P4, DAC, Devilsound, hi-fi, hifi, Kimber, Miniwatt, Miniwatt N3, Miniwatt S1, N3, review, S1, valve amp
Somehow in my web travels I came across an enthusiastic review for the Miniwatt S1 amplifier. Which led me to another, and then another. I wasn’t really looking for an amplifier, yet this diminutive beast seemed to be drawing “OMG” type comments from some seriously nerdy Hi-fi types. Something was up. While none of the reviews were saying it was the best thing since sliced bread, they were all noting the S1’s surprisingly high quality – surprising because it costs a mere US $229. These expert reviewers seemed gob-smacked, so now I was really interested.
The Miniwatt sounded like a sweet way to power some desktop speakers for the office – after all, I thought, a tube amp would add some warmth to the slightly cool feel of digital audio, so that might even things out nicely.
In swapping emails with the good people at Miniwatt in Hong Kong, I learned of the N3, a slightly bigger and better spec’d model which, at the time, was about to be launched.
Cut to two weeks later and the N3 is on my desk. Sporting three tubes instead of the S1’s four, up from 2 watts per channel to 3.5, and with options for 4, 6 or 8-ohm speakers (the S1 is confined to 8 ohm), this single input amp is quite something.
The S1 is billed as, “the worlds smallest 4-tube integrated amp”, and looking at the slightly larger N3, it might be that this is “the world’s smallest 3-tube integrated amp”? Honestly this thing is small.
While waiting for the amp to arrive I got some Kimber 8TC speaker cable
for my AudioEngine P4 speakers…
…and a DevilSound USB DAC – figuring my computer soundcard wasn’t going to do justice to the rest of the set-up.
My N3 was shipped from Hong Kong to Australia via UPS in two days. It was well packed in high-density foam and was quickly unboxed. There is no manual, but frankly adding a manual would be as redundant as when the airline shows you how to fasten your seat belt.
I connected the DAC to a USB port on my computer, added the speakers and then plugged the N3 in to the mains (you need to supply your own power cord, and like the S1, the N3 can handle universal voltage). I switched on, waited a short while to let it warm up and then played a familiar CD to see what I thought.
Well the first song was less than a minute in when two colleagues came into my office to see what was going on. I had hardly turned the volume up so it was not very loud at all, but they could tell something was up. “Are these new speakers?” (Yes), “Is that little thing the amp?” (Yes), “How come it sounds so good?” (Don’t know), “Where did you get it?” (Online), “How much was the amp?” ($378), “Wow!”
I let the disc play on, and gradually raised the volume some more. Oh yes, this was sounding good. Very good… I remembered reading some old marketing material from LINN, and their advice was to ignore the spec. Simply, if it sounds better to you, then it is better. Wise words that came back to me as the CD played on.
The MiniWatt runs quite warm, but this is considered normal so I wasn’t alarmed, I did feel a little sad as I turned it off later in the day though.
The next day I did some more critical listening. I am no audiophile so don’t worry I’m not going to rave on with some specialist vocabulary, and besides there are several elements at play here – from the source to the speakers – and a proper evaluation would swap out the MiniWatt amp for “something else” if I were to try and isolate it’s contribution. But here’s my point – the whole set up sounds fantastic. 3.5 watts is plenty loud enough for the office, and all up I’ve likely spent the same or a bit less than some of the “main street” audio gear that just isn’t going to come close to this for listening pleasure.
I’ve been amazed at the clarity of the music, there’s no obvious noise (no doubt some, but not hearing it in my office environment), and there seems to be a wide dynamic range – the little speakers are obviously going to be modest when it comes to bass, but even here I was not disappointed – everything just seems, well, balanced I guess.
I have been wondering about a cost effective power cable, something up from the spare computer one I am using now, but I am wary of these – are they snake oil, or do they help? (Comments welcome!)
The Miniwatt is the star player for me in all this though; it was cheaper than the speaker cables but fractionally more than the speakers and DAC. Those with more knowledge may criticize my seemingly random choice of components, but the whole lot plays nicely together, it sounds awesome to me. I thank Miniwatt for putting so much quality into a small, low-cost, no BS package. Talk about putting a capital “V” on Value. That’s heroic.
You can buy your MiniWatt N3 (or limited stocks of the S1) from MiniWatt in Hong Kong, or in the US from ALO Audio
The DevilSound DAC (which I hardly touched on, but clearly adds to the sound chain in a positive way) is detailed here
A review of the AudioEngine P4 speakers is here and you can learn more about Kimber cable here
I will add to this review as I become more familiar with the set-up.
Specifications of the Miniwatt N3
Tubes: TungSol 12AX7 + 2 x Sovtek Matched Pair EL84
Input: RCA
Input Impedance: 50Kohm
Output: Banana Jacks
Output Impedance: 8/6/4 ohms (Japan Z11-EI48*24 Output Transformers)
Output Power: 3.5W + 3.5W
Frequency Response: 30-25Khz (+-1db)
Residual Noise < 0.8mVac
AC Input: 100-250Vac
AC Socket: Standard IEC Jack with Fuse protection (2A Fuse)
Dimensions: 130 (W) x 130mm (D) x 130mm (H)
The original S1 and newer N3 side by side
Filed under: GTD, Technology | Tags: Getting Things Done, GTD, iPhone, Remember The Milk, RTM, Task manager, Tasks
Kudos to the little company that could. Remember The Milk is a truly impressive way to manage your tasks.
Having tried many “Getting-Things-Done” (GTD) applications, RTM was something of a revelation – it works so well that I use it several times a day. In fact “use” is the wrong word, I totally rely on it.
Less is more. Simple is best. What I really like about RTM is;
1. I can access it via any web browser on any computer.
2. It syncs to the matching iPhone app over the air (and vice versa of course)
3. Recurring tasks are easy to set up – and you can use almost any wording you like. For example, “repeat every third Tuesday”, “repeat every 4th day” and so on.
4. Tagging allows you to triage your tasks by topic (e.g. shopping, Christmas, holiday plans), day, event, location – whatever you want really.
5. The RTM plug-in for iGoogle is fantastic – I use this as my primary access gateway to RTM
6. The one-click “Postpone” feature rolls the task over a day – this is incredibly handy
7. Yes there are priority’s, due dates etc – all the usual stuff.
8. RTM is free, but the iPhone app is an annual sub (and well worth it too)
9. You can get email reminders, work offline, interface to Google calendar, share tasks and more. Despite the simplicity, there is enough for power users too.
10. It works well with GTD principles. For example I have a tag called “someday” and I add this to undated tasks. Later I can see all my “someday” tasks grouped together – moving some to active dates as required.
Remember the Milk say that their app is “The best way to manage your tasks.” No argument from me. Two thumbs up.
Visit them here. Even if you only find RTM half as useful as I do, you’ll still be well impressed.
Filed under: Media, Technology | Tags: Andreessen, Bonnier, eBook, TechCrunch
Impressive work from a Swedish company called Bonnier. The video is well worth a look – especially given the growth of eBook readers, tablet devices and so on lately.
After you’ve watched that, you have to wonder if publishers will “burn the presses” as Marc Andreessen argues here on TechCrunch. It’s a great read – as thought provoking as the above video.
Filed under: Media, Technology | Tags: Apple, Bare Bones Software, iPhone, Yojimbo
Yojimbo has earned a lot of fans for Bare Bones software. It’s a nice app for the Mac and probably has many uses as there are users – because there are countless ways to organize notes, clippings, passwords, in fact any kind of information.
Sadly there’s no iPhone version. Two years after the iPhone launched the Bare Bones site FAQ simply implies “don’t count on it”. I imagine there are plenty of challenges around syncing the database (maybe use Mobile Me?) so I’m not saying it’s easy, but now I’m looking for an alternate solution as I really want this kind of app sync’d on iPhone and Laptop. Surely there is a revenue stream in the iPhone App store waiting for them, as people are prepared to pay $39 for the desktop version of Yojimbo.
Yojimbo will sync (via Mobile Me) across multiple computers, but I would like it on my phone. There’s also a product called Webjimbo for this need – but you have to leave your Mac turned on – which is not ideal.
An interesting read – kinda like Photoshop layers maybe??
via How Regular Movies Are Converted To 3D.
Filed under: Media, Technology | Tags: iPhone, Kaywa, QR Code, QRcode, QRstuff, zazzle
A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. (Wikipedia)
I’ve been wondering how these things are catching on – I see a few more all the time, but it’s not exactly an avalanche.
There are plenty of sites that will generate turn your text into a QR code – for the one above I used kaywa.com and from here you can use the image for pretty much anything – business cards, t-shirts, posters, flyers, adverts, and even a plain old blog like this.
One downside I have found is that while it’s an easy scan on the iPhone (plenty of free apps for that), if your QR Code points to a web site that uses Flash, well it won’t render on the iPhone – kind of defeats the point of using your iPhone as a scanner.
I also made a t-shirt with a code I generated at QRStuff – the code file can be ported to Zazzle who will soon have it on a t-shirt for you, BUT there’s a lesson here. My delivered t-shirt had a code that was a bit like the truncated address you get from a service like Tiny URL. This kind of frustrated me as that isn’t what I wanted. If someone scans my QR Code they should get an idea of where they’re going off the URL (my URL) and not see someone else’s domain as the decoded message. Sure it eventually points to my URL in the same way Tiny URL does, but this is what you get if you use QRStuff as a free-user. Another risk is that the parent URL (qrstuff) is out of my control – if they go bust my referral service is lost. So, the free-access to their generator is for fun but not really suited to business use – for that you’ll need to pay with QRStuff.
Lastly, if you use a free iPhone app like i-nigma as you camera/scanner you can scan if off screen before you commit to your code.
Press and hold down the Home button, then tap the Power button. The current screen will be captured and added to your Camera Roll of photos. Too easy.
Filed under: Photography, Technology | Tags: D3, Flash, Manfrotto, Nikon, Photography, Sydney
An interesting shot this one – it involved securing the camera to the car with a Manfrotto suction cup and arm. The camera was fired by Pocket Wizard, roughly an eigth of a second to get the blur off the tunnel walls, and at the end of the expsoure, the hotshoe fired another PW that in turned fired flashes on the back seats and one on the dash. Sweet. If not nerve wracking.
While it “appears” that eBay have backed down from their “PayPal only” position which I wrote about earlier), the Sydney Morning Herald writes today that all is not as it seems..
eBay is surreptitiously strong-arming its users into embracing PayPal despite publicly announcing it has shelved plans to block other payment methods.
Although eBay yesterday backed down on plans to lock out paying by money order, direct bank deposits and cheques, it has not rolled back a recent policy forcing all sellers to at least offer PayPal as one of the payment options.
Sellers are reporting that eBay is systematically deleting auction listings from sellers who state in their item descriptions that they “prefer” to be paid with non-PayPal methods, such as bank deposit.
