yaean design shanghai: blog > articles from January, 2010

For someone who spent 14 years in a corporate research lab (seven of those in China) I don't write much about research. Perhaps I should. One of the things that was obvious to me went I came East was that, given the scale of investment and the determinism and hard work going on, China would soon be catching up with the West in research. The numbers seem to be suggesting this will soon be true.

The New Scientist is reporting that by 2020 China will be the World's largest producer of scientific knowledge. Between 1995 and 2006, China's gross expenditure…

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When I went to school the teachers had a kind of hit and hope approach to the teaching of English. (I mean "hit and hope" in the sense a careful aim was not taken. I do not mean I was hit. Ever.) As I recall there was very little teaching of grammar rules or sentence structure. We would write stories, they would come back with red pen on them and from that we were meant to learn something. You could call it learning by osmosis. As opposed to say maths or sciences which are based on learning rules and formuli.…

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My first PDA was a Psion Series 3c. A classic. This was followed by a Series 5. Even better. And then a slightly mis-judged Series 7. Probably one of the World's first netbooks; released in 2000. These machine were well designed and some what ahead of their time. In classic British fashion Psion managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and gave up the PDA market. They now live on as a supplier of industrial handhelds called Psion Teklogix. The Psion operating system (EPOC) was also ahead of its time: small, realtime, embedded. It…

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Do you browse Amazon? Do you know what information in your Amazon profile and viewing history is publicly viewable?

1. Go to Amazon.
2. Click on "Your Account"
3. Scroll down. Click on "Your Public Profile"

This can include:

1. What you looked at
2. What you purchased
3. What you added to our Wish Lists
4. Your age
5. Where you live

To edit and control what people see click "Edit Your Profile" in the top right of the profile page. Turn stuff off!

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There's a saying: "The only difference between men and boys is the price of the toys." For those that like their toys in the form of cars they can tinker with, bulding a car is the ultimate. Now here's the Trexa electric car platform which looks like a very nice platform to start building on. No more mucky engines. Sort of the next step after the next step after the next step after.... Lego.

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Akamai's State of the Internet Report make an interesting read. I would never have guessed that China is number two in numbers of Internet connected devices (see above from the Q3 2009 report). The Q2 2009 report is also interesting for China Internet users because it brings news of a new regional undersea cable called the Asia Pacific Gateway (APG) which should be on line in mid 2011. You can never have too much bandwidth.

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ASCIImeo renders video from Vimeo as coloured ASCII. It is quite brilliant. The above still is pulled from the ASCII version of SCINTILLATION. (Original embedded below from Vimeo.) ASCIImeo was developed by Peter Nitsch - lots of details and links on how on his blog.

SCINTILLATION from Xavier Chassaing on Vimeo.

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New Sephora shop, Infiniti mall, Huaihai Lu, Shanghai.

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Not content with adding new tube lines at an alarming rate, Shanghai is also giving all the "old" stations a face lift by building a "new" layer of clean walls over the "old" layer of dirty walls. Literally a new skin buttressed off the old walls. So we'll look spiffy for the Expo! The new face comes with new signs like the above which, in its infinite wisdom, says "For Safety, Please Accept the Security Check. Thank You." Apparently they didn't get the memo re: sign chinglish.

BTW: The coolest Shanghai tube map is at ExploreShanghai.

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Above is a screenshot (taken at the weekend) of the weather forecast for Shanghai over the next few days. According to this forecast it's going to go from +15C to -6C plus snow some time on Wednesday or Thursday. That's quite a jump! Today the forecast is merely from +18C to 0C - no snow. Still a big drop in temperatures. One day of sun bathing followed by a day of artic weather. Global warming in action?

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