no2self.net

As I was regaling my boss about Paul Cocksedge the next day, he gave a mischevious smile and I suddenly remembered that he’d been there and done that with the disposable cup lampshade idea back in the 70′s when he was a student. It’s shame he didn’t market it back then.

I’m sat in my living room typing as I watch the Designer of the Year awards (hooray for wi-fi!). I’m going to make some notes and record some links while I watch.

The program is examining the four finalists, first up is Paul Cocksedge. A very good start. First reaction? Breathtakingly beautiful light designs born of a truly inquisitive and creative mind. Lamp shades formed from melted polystyrene cups – inspired by videoing the deformation of the cup in an oven. Flowers in vases that complete the circuit and switch the light on and off when you take the flower out. Sketch pads that switch lights on and off when you complete a sketch – the current passing through the graphite on the page. I love it. This is a very, very good start.

Daniel Brown, web designer whose work – according to chair of the judging panel on the program – ranks in the top three of the people who have influenced web design internationally. This is news to me, but by the looks of it I appear to have been living in a cave with no broadband connection. The five year old noodlebox and it’s sequel are captivating and wonderfully tactile. The contents of play-create.com is probably the most tactile thing I’ve stroked with my mouse since I found the presstube site. Soooo, it looks and feels beautiful, but what next?

Next up is Sam Buxton and his crazy mikroworld. They’re little guys made out of folded metal. They’re mikro. That’s it. Technically interesting but probably destined for the gadget shop.

Finally we have Craig Johnston. Ex-footballer turned designer and creator of the Predator football boot. After shipping a million Predators, he’s back with the Pig. He has a great story about the first time he stuck the rubber from a table tennis bat onto a football boot to experiment with the way it span the ball. The crowning moment for this item is that he’s designed a cheap strap on option that you can buy to put on any boot.

I think a lot of football boots and team-strips rip off the consumer. The Pig boot will give the right performance at the right price.

Respect. After you’ve seen the Pig, you can’t help but get the feeling that the previous three guys are just messing about. The final point to remember is that he’s also the only one on the list without a formal design education.

The Pig is undoubtedly the star, but I’d like to see Paul Cocksedge take the prize and the encouragement. Partly because he probably needs the cash more than Johnston, but also because I wanted to type his name again.

Vote here: www.designmuseum.org

I’ve had an idea. First I went here and then I visited stoppedclocks.org, then I remembered humanclock.com.

Then I thought, what if you took a picture of all the stopped clocks in the world and built up a bank of photographs that catalogued all the minutes in the day? Each of the clocks could live again for 60 seconds, as it was delivered to your desktop by the same system used at the humanclock.com site.

We need 1440 stopped clocks, each capturing a different moment. The stopped clocks foundation aim to fix the world’s clocks, let’s record their ailing patients and take a picture before they regain their health.

Over at the MoblogUK site, we have 5; only 1435 left to go.

ooh, I just checked out palmpixels.com, veerrry interesting. Downloadable content and links for your PDA, I’m off to dig deeper…

The name of this blog is born of the recognition that all blogs are to some extent a vanity project (and the fact that I need somewhere to store ideas and links); No, too self / Note to self. Palmpixel over at MoblogUK agrees, adding;

Vanity project or abjectly yet self referentially depressed goth pointing out the shortcomings of others.

Hello to all the goths out there.

My boss has just returned from a weekend in his home country, bringing with him a national delicacy – the Scottish Buttery. He brought a pack into the office this morning and we had them lightly toasted with marmalade. They were absolutely delicious. Especially when washed down with my new tipple – white tea.

So I donned my Google goggles and went hunting. As you might imagine, it didn’t take long to find something…

The comparison between Aberdeen Rolls and French Croissants, at least in terms of texture if not appearance, has been made by several writers. It has been suggested that rolls and croissants have a common ancestry that dates back to the end of the seventeenth century in Budapest after the defeat of the Turks. It’s unclear as to when rolls were first made in Scotland but where ever they came from they have subsequently became an Aberdeen speciality. If you visit the Northeast of Scotland you will find Aberdeen Rolls on sale in every bakery, corner shop and supermarket and if you taste them you will be hooked forever. The names Aberdeen rolls, Butteries and Rowies are interchangeable so take your pick or even use them all, you’ll be understood what ever you call them.

These quantities will make about 16 rolls.

• 1 lb of plain flour
• 6 oz butter
• 4 oz lard
• 1 heaped teaspoon of salt
• 2 heaped teaspoons of sugar
• half oz fresh yeast
• quarter pint of tepid water

taken from www.ifb.net/webit/recipes.htm (there are full instructions on preparation on the site)

That’s this weekends baking sorted.

Yesterday morning I got an e-mail from Joel at biroco.com to tell me that he’d posted a new entry to his journal. This is great news. It’s one of the few sites I actually read, rather than scan as you spin the wheel on your mouse. You should all pay him a visit.

Four hours, or so, later (yes, I get up at 5am) I was walking across town for a 9am appointment with the doctor, thinking about the contents of his journal entry as I walked. It wasn’t until I was passing Bantock Park that I realised the odd confluence of events that was taking place. My trip to the doctor’s was brought about by the changing appearance of a mole on my back, which my wife thought I should have examined by a dermatologist. As you’ll see when you visit his site, Joel’s latest entry is about a trip to the doctor to have a mole on his hand examined.

It’s not so much that the commonality is odd, rather that it took me about half a mile to spot it. Perhaps I saw a squirrel in my peripheral vision as I walked past the park. Nuts.

I’ve been reffered on to have it examined properly. I’ll probably need a biopsy as it’s looking a little suspicious. Nuts.

Other news is that I’ve finally started to make use of moblogUK – here’s a link to my page: http://moblg.net/blogs.php?show=75

Al has also sent me a link to an interesting blog that I’m looking forward to reading more of – www.cityofsound.com/blog/

When I get to the office later this morning, I’m going to look for this months copy of icon magazine. I think it has an article about LiTraCon, an amazing new product that just got flagged by z+blog.

It’s a concrete block with lots of fiber optic cable laid into it so that it transmits light from one side to the other. It’s still in the testing phase, but the images on the site are fascinating and exciting. A material whose very title is embedded in the psyche as being the definition of heavy collides with light and the result, dare I say it, is a form of deconstruction. Two bi-polar conditions are critiqued anew from somewhere in the middle.

A further bonus is that it looks bloody marvelous.

Whilst I may be temporarily held back by the fact that I’ve misplaced the wheels I bought to finish building my skateboard; the next must-have purchase is already in my sights. The kids at the skate park on Penn Road won’t know what’s hit them when they see the sparks flying thanks to my TailViper.

Now, where are those wheels…

I’ve snaffled a copy of the fantastic Bollywooded mash-up of Micheal Jackson’s Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough. You can find the link over at boingboing.net. Get it quick before the server dies from too much traffic (boingboing is rapidly heading towards a million hits a day).

Further comments on the post in question unearthed links to boomselection and Si Begg; who’s got a 2 hour set coming up on Radio 6 this weekend.

All told, a very successful morning of mp3 hunting.