8
March
2007
At the GAP this weekend I saw a big display of boyfriend trousers. Just caught the commercial on TV with a guy and girl on stage to the music “anything you can do I can do better.” Girl is without pants, guy is with pants, girls rips off guy’s pant’s and puts them on. Queue to “boyfriend trousers.”
What are boyfriend trousers? Are they like leather jackets? Signs of an adoring love’s willing to share clothing?
But just imagine if men met in the locker room to check each other out. “Hey, what is that you’re wearing?” “Oh, those are my new girlfriend trousers?” Quite the different reaction.
So what is it about male female relationships and our reactions? Women wear tiny bathing suits, men wear bags. Female frontal nudity is ok, male frontal nudity is not ok. A woman making love to a woman is being asked for, a man making love to a man is just …
People talk about equality of the sexes, but this on a very primal level seems filled with obstacles. It’s entirely cultural and probably entirely different elsewhere on the globe. I’m not advocating change, but just observing, how many of us work deep inside. Obviously boyfriend trousers are cool. Even for men?
Posted: social/culture, design
7
March
2007
Wombat had to go across the pond to visit the Big City of Honolulu. We had an early official appointment and then had the rest of the day to enjoy ourselves, before our scheduled trip back. What do you do in a big city? For us farm folks from the countryside it’s just exciting to step out the big International Airport and see nothing but concrete as far as the eye can see, eight-lane highways and traffic jams, dozens of car dealerships and lots of fancy cars, big box stores and self-storage places to keep the stuff, correctional center, and other buildings much higher than just three floors. What are simple, country folks to do in this place but … go shopping at the mall.
Honolulu has a nice hang out mall in Ala Moana. It’s 380 stores, three levels, semi outdoors, pretty much a long stretch around an open courtyard, with fishponds and plants. It’s nice, no trouble wasting the better part of a day here. And for us who are shopping deprived, it’s very, very exciting.
So here are a few random impressions of bumpkins in consumerland.
One shopping has become so compartmentalized that you can tell within 5 seconds whether you’re the intended customer. Skulls above the door - nope. Skinny pink bikini bits in the windows, nope (and who calls a swimsuit brand “Raisins”?) Motorcycles extruding out the front wall - nope. Pink flowerly dresses - nope. Everything is designed to look nice, but everything is so thought out, that you have an immediate reaction “yes” or “no.” And I would say for most of the stores the answer is no.
Now design is relative. Prada, Fendi, Gucci all charge you lots of money for their products. You get design and fashion, but we get few reactions for “style.” There are lots of Japanese though in the store, buying status symbols. From a window display I finally realized what the Fendi logo means.
We head into Tiffanys because we’re expecting some design, and sure they have pieces by designers, but it’s definitely split into a “modern” and “tranditional” section. I see some weird pieces designed by Frank Gehry (what else would you expect), but they somehow look like Holocaust memorials, rather aggressive for jewelry. There’s very little that’s simple, I mean simple, simple.
Across from Tiffanys is a Jimmy Choo, shoewear made famous through television series. Looks like there’s unusual things in there (it doesn’t really matter what it is), but looking at the two sales guys gives me enough heebee-jeebies to not get me within 6 ft of the front door. I don’t even want to be “hi, how are you doing today”ed.
Next to Jimmy Choo is a Coach store. Coach used to sell leatherwear, you know belts, wallets, purses, travel bags, and suitcases. How quaint. Now they sell clothing, eye glasses, and fashion items. It’s not about the product, it’s about the brand. And brand is everything. Oakley used to make sunglasses, now I can’t tell that they have anything to do with sunglasses. Just look at the amount of surfstores in the mall, and the amount of surfing stuff sold in them. Or take a look at Banana Republic. Way back when I remembered it as a two level store in a house on Newbury Street in Boston, selling safari clothes and souvenirs upstairs and travel literature and language books downstairs. The current Banana Republic sells some souvenir shirts with the original logo and some Rhinocerous line drawing on them. But the current Banana Republic has nothing to do with a Banana Republic, I wonder if people understand those T-shirts.
But for more branding take a look at Apple. The Apple Stores are very popular, but not for the products, but for the free Internet on their computers. As far as the products go … hmmm. I really don’t like the look of their current products. It’s all nice and clean, but those big monitors look like shiny plastic. The laptops are so unadorned, they almost seem thoughtless, like the only purpose for them was to look simple, at the expense of any personality. They don’t even need to work well (though I think they do).
We spent some time at the Macy’ - “America’s Department Store” it said somewhere. We had some gift certificates that had to be spent. One had expired two weeks ago, we got it extended. As we’re checking for simple tops, I’m watching the clothes on sale and watching the people shop. There sure is a lot of variety out here, but very few pieces I would consider picking. You can tell right away when people are conscious in their decisions, the Eileen Fischer stuff stood out right away in cuts, colors, and materials. But all of the stuff comes with labels, and very little of it causes a response. Who comes up with all these products.
Macy’s also has a few beds for display. We were tired and had to testdrive them. Nice, thick top cover, very comfortable. Found an error on the price label - it said $9600 for the mattress. Yup, for the mattress. We bought a bedsheet that was on sale. Now we’re left with $1.42 on our giftcard. I doubt there’s anything in Macy’s for $1.42.
What else. Realized that Williams Sonoma and Barnes & Nobles are high density stores, that is lots of different products per square foot. Luxury good stores are low density stores, oftentimes sells what seems like less than a dozen products. You spend a lot more time in a high density store, and it’s much more fun to browse and discover. Price is not necessarily the issue, because Williams Sonoma is not cheap.
But you can already tell that shopping here may be no different from any higher-end shopping mall in the country, and yet it is still an Hawaii experience. There were just a few more impressions. 1) I saw a local TV personality doing his lunch shopping at the mall. 2) Found out the reason why security cops are always stationed near the escalators when a bunch of four teens took a joy ride up and down. Escalators are rare around here. 3) I found lockers. These are the first set of lockers I’ve found in the states. They’re not cheap, $1 per hour, $5 per day, but they’re there, tucked away in a dark alley in the bottom level. A place where you can store your bags for the day. What a novel idea, unknown to Hawaii. The airports don’t have them, and we don’t have railway stations here. And I get excited about seeing a bank of metal boxes.
At the end of the day we took the bus back to the airport. Our loot - the above bedsheet and a pair of pants. For lunch we headed into the food court at the Shirokiya Department Store - fresh tempura, sashimi, custard pancakes, marinated cuttlefish and mackerel, ocean salad and kim chee daikon. All “not normal” and all good.
So boy that was a fun day. But let’s not go crazy. Now it’s time to jump back to the quiet life in the wombat burrow.
Posted: social/culture, design, local
4
March
2007
This is an article detailing how the Federal government is proceeding with a new nuclear weapons design.
So two oppositions:
- Instead of eliminating the stockpile, lets expand Nuclear Production
- While we’re asking others to curtail their Nuclear Production (see Iran, North Korea), we go ahead and do what WE want
We have to keep in mind that the weapons development is a large, ongoing part of our economy, and just how other products go into obsolescence, weapons will to, so it’s counter-business to not let them keep developing new weapons systems. It’s counter-business to not keep expanding the defense budget, whether there’s a need for it or not. Plus there’s the safety scare (or whatever other scare you may come up with to justify it this time).
Globally people may be able to support that if we have been maintaining the moral high ground, but this way we’re just hypocritic.
(Original found here.)
Looking for this article online, I found multiple versions of it, all attributed to the same author. How does that happen? And in our paper, the article was strangely cut short (I’m breaking it where it stopped). It sounded somewhat incomplete.
Govt. picks design for nuclear warhead
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration took a major step Friday toward building a new generation of nuclear warheads, selecting a design that is being touted as safer, more secure and more easily maintained than today’s arsenal.
A team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will proceed with the weapons design with an anticipation that the first warheads may be ready by 2012 as a replacement for Trident missiles on submarines.
The new weapons program, which has received cautious support from Congress, was immediately criticized by some nuclear nonproliferation groups as evidence the government wants to expand nuclear weapons production - not move toward eliminating the stockpile.
Critics also maintain that it sends the wrong signal around the world by pushing a new warhead - although characterized as a replacement for existing ones- at a time the United States is trying to curtail nuclear weapons development in North Korea and Iran.
Some lawmakers agreed.
“The minute you begin to put more sophisticated warheads on the existing fleet, you are essentially creating a new nuclear weapon. And it’s just a matter of time before other nation’s do the same,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “This could serve to encourage the very proliferation we are trying to prevent.”
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., chair of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, expressed cautious support, but promised “a long evaluation process” in Congress to assure the warhead will do what is promised without future underground testing.
Nuclear underground tests have not been done since a ban in 1992.
and, what was not included
“This is not about starting a new nuclear arms race,” countered Thomas P. D’Agostino, acting head of the DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear weapons programs.
Steve Henry, deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear matters, said the new design is hoped to lead to fewer warheads being needed. He said it has not changed administration determination to reduce the number of deployed warheads to fewer than 2,000 - the lowest number since the 1950s.
There are believed to be about 6,000 warheads deployed and another 4,000 in reserve.
D’Agostino, briefing reporter on the design decision, said the intent is to develop a safer, more secure warhead to assure increased reliability without the need for underground nuclear tests.
He cautioned that the program remains in the early stages and that in coming months the Livermore team will expand on its design work to give a better estimate on overall costs, the scope of the program and a schedule toward full-scale engineering and production.
The administration is asking for $119 million for the next fiscal year for design work. The officials said they could not say how much the program eventually will cost.
The so-called “reliable replacement warhead” has been the focus of a yearlong, intense design competition between Livermore in California and nuclear scientists at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico - the government’s two premier nuclear weapons labs.
Both of the labs developed proposals and at one point there was discussion to combine the designs into a single program. But that was rejected and D’Agostino made clear Friday the program would be Livermore’s to develop.
The Livermore design was based on an existing warhead that reportedly had been exploded in an underground test in the 1980s, although never actually put into the stockpile. The Los Alamos design was based on a totally fresh approach but without a history of actual testing.
It was this “very robust test pedigree” - as D’Agostino put it - that gave Livermore the upper hand.
“It … gave us the confidence … to certify and go forward without underground testing,” he said, adding that without that assurance “we were not going to go forward.”
Congress authorized design work on the new warhead in 2005, but with a stipulation that its primary goal be to assure the reliability of the nuclear arsenal without resumption of bomb testing, and that it will help in the consolidation of the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons complex.
Some lawmakers have also questioned whether the new warhead is needed, especially in light of a recent finding that the plutonium in the current warheads will last nearly 100 years, twice as long as previously thought.
Some nuclear weapons critics warned the warhead could lead to an increased likelihood of future testing, calling it a ploy to rebuild - not dismantle - the nuclear weapons infrastructure.
“This is a first installment on a plan to develop and produce warheads on an ongoing cyclical basis … similar to what we had during the Cold War,” said Lisbeth Gronlund, a scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear nonproliferation advocacy group.
John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said there’s no need for a new warhead when “the U.S. nuclear stockpile, based on 50 years of research and over 1,000 underground nuclear tests, has been confirmed safe and reliable for at least another half-century.”
“The bottom line is we’re returning to what we used to do in the Cold War years. That’s the message to the world,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project of the Federation of American Scientists.
Associated Press writer Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco contributed to this story.
Posted: design, politics, science
2
March
2007
If you’re worried about terrorism … cheer up.
Here is a strange article about the future of weapons, how we’re replacing bullets with heat beams and how that supposedly is a pacifist’s dream. I’ve also read articles about focused sound waves being used to deter pirates in Somalia. I can’t tell if this article is serious or tongue-in-cheek.
It comes across as serious, but I’m just thinking “huh?” It says no one is harmed, but then talks about Raytheon having programmed limits on the beam’s power and duration. So if somebody hacks this - I mean, who would want to, a terrorist, or a rogue nation that gets a copy funneled through Israel - it’s “fry fry baby.” It’s like putting a speed limit on a car that then gets hot rodded.
Then the beam ceases immediately when the beam is diverter or the target flees. So if a mob of 100 attacks you, you’ll need to keep pointing 100 beams out to hold the people at bay. Or you’ll need to be really fast in a computer game zapping 100 invaders that will never really go away. By the way, don’t let them get the beam, because some idiot may want to keep pointing it at you without the same consideration you provided.
And then there’s the “knowing that your agony will be brief and leave no physical damage makes the weapons easier to fire … your pain isn’t real.”
This has got to be a joke.
(Original found here.)
Shooting Pain
The future of heat-beaming weapons.
By William Saletan
Posted Saturday, Feb. 17, 2007, at 6:27 AM ET
If you’re worried about terrorism, upset about the war in Iraq, and depressed by global chaos, violence, and death, cheer up. We’ve just invented a weapon that fires a beam of searing pain.
Three weeks ago, the U.S. armed forces tested it on volunteers at an Air Force base in Georgia. You can watch the video on a military Web site. Three colonels get zapped, along with an Associated Press reporter. The beam is invisible, but its effects are vivid. Two dozen airmen scatter. The AP guy shrieks and bolts out of the target zone. He says it felt like heat all over his body, as though his jacket were on fire.
The feeling is an illusion. No one is harmed. The beam’s energy waves penetrate just one-sixty-fourth of an inch into your body, heating your skin like microwaves. They inflame your nerve endings without actually burning you. This could be the future of warfare: less bloodshed, more pain.
Military technology has always sought greater precision from longer range. In the Gulf War, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, we exploited the increasing accuracy of laser-guided bombs. In the post-9/11 terrorist hunt and the occupation of Iraq, we’ve sent hundreds of remotely piloted aerial drones to spy and kill. But the lives protected by drones are ours. The pain beam is more ambitious: It can spare civilians and even the enemy. Precision isn’t just the ability to kill. Sometimes, it’s ability to disperse and deter without killing.
That kind of precision is becoming more important. Twelve years ago, the Department of Defense observed that our armed forces were increasingly being used for peacekeeping, humanitarian aid, and protection of civil society. More of our enemies were blending in with, or disguising themselves as, civilians. Through the media, more eyeballs, hearts, and minds could see the infrastructure we destroyed. The DOD proposed the development of weapons “to incapacitate personnel or materiel, while minimizing fatalities, permanent injury to personnel, and undesired damage to property and the environment.”
Like lethal weapons, nonlethal weapons have evolved from short- to long-range. Batons and pepper spray required hand-to-hand combat. Water cannons, rubber bullets, beanbag rounds, and sting ball grenades have extended our reach, but not far enough to keep soldiers clear of rocks or small-arms fire. Some of our weapons are insufficiently discriminate. Tear gas torments a whole crowd, not just the miscreants using it for cover.
Projectiles are also unpredictable. At long range, particularly in crosswinds, rubber bullets can hit the wrong people, or the right people in the wrong places. At close range, they can kill. Look at the absurdly named “FN303 less lethal launcher.” It’s supposed to fire “non-lethal projectiles at established non-lethal ranges.” But when you’re launching things, less lethal is the best you can do.
That’s where the pain beam comes in. Unlike projectiles, beams are “directed energy.” They travel in a straight line over long distances, ignoring gravity and wind. They cause no more damage at 10 feet than at 1,000. Unlike gas, they’re discriminate. Raytheon, the pain beam’s manufacturer, points out that the weapon “allows precise targeting of specific individuals” and that the pain “ceases immediately” when the beam is diverted or the target flees.
The shift from hardware to software, from matter to energy, can do more than control the unpredictability of weapons. It can control the unpredictability of the people who fire them. Early nonlethal devices, such as rubber bullets and Mace, often caused injuries due to abuse by hotheads. When the pain beam was initially being developed, somebody accidentally fired it on a high setting, inflicting a second-degree burn. The designers responded by programming limits on the beam’s power and duration.
Years of work have gone into making the beam safe. It’s been tested thousands of times on 600 volunteers. It’s been reviewed and revised by a human-effects review board, a human-effects advisory panel, and military surgeons general. It’s been tested for effects on skin cancer, fertility, jewelry, and drunks. The results have been published in peer-reviewed journals. Never has an organization licensed to kill jumped through so many hoops to make sure nobody gets injured.
The nonlethal weapons program is a pacifist’s dream. Its “vehicle lightweight arresting devices” are built to stop cars with minimal damage, allowing minor injuries only if you’re “not wearing a seatbelt.” Its “acoustic hailing devices” are engineered to deliver sound waves “below Occupational Safety and Health Administration hearing limits for prolonged exposure.” Its founding directive pledges to avoid environmental damage. Even the less lethal launcher projectiles are “non-toxic.”
But the ability to inflict pain without injury doesn’t just make injury less necessary. It makes pain more essential to military operations—and easier to inflict. To achieve the desired “repel effect,” I have to make you suffer. Knowing that your agony will be brief and leave no physical damage makes the weapon easier to fire. It’s almost as though, like the imagined flames on the AP reporter’s jacket, your pain isn’t real.
That’s the metaphysical gap nonlethal energy weapons exploit. The rain of pain falls mainly in the brain. The long-range acoustic device, for instance, “can target narrow sound beams at excruciating decibel levels, but below the threshold of hearing damage,” according to a military account of a presentation by its project manager. Four months ago, Congress passed and President Bush signed legislation to prosecute torture, defined as intentional infliction of “serious physical or mental pain or suffering.” But that rule applies only in captivity. On the street, pain administration won’t be a crime. It’ll be a policy.
Two weeks from now, military leaders will convene in London to discuss the pain beam and the next generation of directed-energy weapons, including microwaves and lasers. Law enforcement agencies are interested. Raytheon is already advertising the technology for commercial applications. We’re even developing a “personnel halting and stimulation response” system—yes, a PHaSR—to stun targets instead of killing them. But don’t worry, nobody will get hurt. Sort of.
Posted: social/culture, design, politics
2
March
2007
Two articles regarding recent efforts to protect locally grown products by labelling them as “Made in Hawaii,” and making sure that that label only is applied to products 100% grown here. If you don’t then blended coffee ends up on the Consumer Reports test table, gets rated a “yuck,” and ends up defaming all those people that have a superior product that they’d like to charge $30 a pound for.
The trick of course is that the label has to be a positive thing.
I’ve often thought that the supermarkets should be way more up front labelling local products as such, and also to label where non-local products come from. It might make a difference to me that my lettuce comes from a local farmer or from the Salinas Valley, or that my garlic does not come from Gilroy but from China. And if it doesn’t, it should. The same goes for GMO foods by the way. Labels would provide information. Information should guide the decision.
(Originals found here and here.)
Protections sought for Hawaii-made products
By MARK NIESSE
Associated Press Writer
Feb 24, 6:57 PM EST
HONOLULU (AP) — Despite the name, that Aloha Hawaii Lei for sale at a local store is made with flowers from China.
Kona Coast Hawaiian Style Pancake and Waffle Mix comes from a company in American Canyon, Calif. Aloha Gourmet Hot Coconut Candy, complete with a “Hawaii” sticker on its label, is actually a Thai product.
And that’s just some of the fake Hawaii you can buy right here in the islands - not to mention products with supposedly island-grown ingredients available in grocery stores and gift shops around the world.
The state Legislature can’t do much about the fake products sold beyond Hawaii shores, but there are moves to crack down on the widespread pseudo merchandise aimed at fooling island residents and tourists.
“The list goes on and on,” said Matthew Loke, administrator for the state Department of Agriculture. “The proliferation of Hawaii copycat products is on the increase.”
From macadamia nuts to colorful lei and Kona-labeled coffee, several agriculture imports are the target of proposals aim to protect authentic Hawaii ingredients from products masquerading as island grown.
All these bills are moving ahead in the state Legislature with broad support except for the coffee bill, stalled by disagreements within the local coffee industry.
“It basically comes down to truth in labeling. If it’s a Hawaii-grown product, we’d like it to be stated as that,” said Alan Takemoto, executive director for the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation.
The macadamia nut proposal would require that packaging clearly tell customers what percentage of the nuts were grown in Hawaii.
Local nut growers insist Hawaii-grown nuts are the best, but even some local processors are sometimes accused of importing cheaper nuts from Australia, California, Costa Rica or elsewhere to mix in with the local nuts. Schmitzler said the Kona nut crop was good last year, but rainy weather stunted the Hilo output.
“We need to embrace and protect this industry,” said Sen. Jill Tokuda, D-Kaneohe-Kailua, of the Water, Land, Agriculture, and Hawaiian Affairs Committee. “We have to add value to these products that are made in Hawaii.”
The biggest agricultural debate among lawmakers surrounded a bill that would only allow coffee to be called “Kona coffee” if it contains at least 75 percent coffee grown in the South Kona or North Kona districts of the Big Island. The current requirement is 10 percent.
State law already requires Kona coffees to tell customers on their labels what percentage of the blend came from Kona.
“It’s unknown what the economic impact will be on the coffee farmers, processors and the market in general,” said Steve Collector, treasurer for the Hawaii Coffee Association. “You don’t raise something that drastically until you know the effects. We’re pushing to have a study done.”
Another proposal would force the state government to give preference to buying lei and flowers grown in Hawaii, which may be more expensive than lei made in other countries. In particular, most of the purple orchid lei are brought into the state from Thailand.
Some lei makers say they are being forced out of a business closely identified with Hawaii because they can’t compete with less-expensive flower growers from other countries. A Thai lei can wholesale for $1.50, compared to a similar one locally grown for $4.00.
“What we do is embedded in our culture of aloha. So much of that is being lost,” said Tina Rasmussen, who works at a flower farm making 15 types of lei. “We are an industry that deserves to live on.”
From a broad perspective, agriculture officials are trying to get more money for the state’s “Hawaii Seal of Quality,” a branding designation for Hawaii-grown premium products, Loke said.
So far, 26 growers and processors of flowers, mushrooms, macadamia nuts, noni, papaya, coffee, honey, asparagus, beef, tea and other products have signed up.
The bill would reinvest revenue from the Hawaii Seal of Quality program rather than pool it with the general fund.
“It shows these products are genuine Hawaii-grown, Hawaii-made premium products,” Loke said. “The people who pay for it will get the benefit.”
On the Net:
Hawaii Legislature: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/
and on Macadamia Nuts
Mac nut, coffee bills eyed
Legislation may tighten Hawaii nut’s labeling
by Nancy Cook Lauer
Stephens Honolulu Bureau
HONOLULU — Bolstered by support from the state Department of Agriculture and the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, a bill tightening labeling standards for macadamia nuts easily cleared the House Committee on Consumer Protection and Commerce on Wednesday.
The bill, HB 1628, will require the percentage of Hawaiian-grown macadamia nuts to be specified on the label of any container purporting to contain them. It also prohibits labels to imply there are Hawaii-grown mac nuts inside if they’re not.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bob Herkes, D-South Kona, Ka’u, has already unanimously passed the House Agriculture Committee. Its next stop is the House floor, before being sent to the Senate.
The state’s macadamia nut farmers, many of whom are on the Big Island, have been experiencing a glut of unsold crop because of an unusually good production year, coupled with competition from cheaper imports.
One of the problems, said Captain Cook coffee and macadamia nut farmer Una Greenaway, is that mac nuts are shipped in the shell from Australia, and as long as they’re cracked open in Hawaii, they call themselves Hawaiian.
“This is really, really disastrous for the Hawaii macadamia nut industry,” Greenaway said.
Sandra Kunimoto, chairwoman of the Board of Agriculture, said the bill would bring “truth in labeling” to this segment of the agricultural industry.
“The proposed changes enhance consumer awareness by requiring clear and understandable disclosure of the amount and origin of the raw or processed macadamia nuts contained in the package,” Kunimoto said in testimony.
Alan Takemoto, executive director of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation, said the new label requirements could help the state stay competitive in the global marketplace.
“Establishing a niche ‘Hawaii-grown macadamia nut’ brand provides the grower the additional marketing tool to ask for a higher price for their product,” Takemoto said. “Macadamia nut is a commodity that Hawaii is becoming less competitive in the world market. We need to protect the name Hawaii for products that are truly grown in Hawaii.”
Committee Vice Chairman Angus McKelvey, D-Lahaina, Kapalu, agreed. At Takemoto’s request, he also amended the bill to include enforcement provisions.
“It seems to me, without an enforcement clause, it has no teeth,” McKelvey said.
Nancy Cook Lauer can be reached at nclauer@stephensmedia.com.
Posted: social/culture, design, local
16
January
2007
Last response of the day - a completely different topic, the US car industry. Guess all this commotion came up because we had a big card show in the midwest. Here are four articles talking about the troubles the industry is facing.
Article 1: Detroit News Changes Needed for Survival
Article 2: George Will UAW Faces Hard Economic Times in the Auto Industry
Article 3: AP Chinese Car Companies Likely to Bring Competition
Article 4: AP China Replaces Japan as No. 2 Vehicle Market
The question to me, when (it’s not a question of if) GM hooks up with a Chinese manufacturer to have cars made “for” GM, not “by” GM in China, will consumers mind? Right now you might not want to drive a car Made in China, but then Walmart used to be full of banners with US flags proclaiming the “Proudly Made in the USA.” That used to be a major irritant. Well, it resolved itself. Now most things in Walmart are made in China and nobody minds. So a Chinese made car sold by a US Manufacturer (well actually a US Brand) may raise no wrinkles.
Article 1
Monday, January 08, 2007
Editorial: Reliability reality lost in perception of cars, trucks
The resurgence of the domestic auto industry hinges on two simple concepts: reduce costs and sell more cars. That’s a tall order for an industry that until recently has been reticent to tackle work force issues or acknowledge that its products weren’t up to par.
The result has been a collective market share drop for the Big Three from 70 percent 20 years ago to roughly 54 percent today, and falling. The Big Three could once count on Americans based on patriotism, but no longer.
Consumers today are demanding and much more educated about their options. The Internet provides an endless array of information about cost, fuel economy and reliability of every make and model vehicle. They are also keenly aware of the global economy and, outside of Metro Detroit, much less stoic about the union label.
But the real problem for General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler Group is with the perception that their products are inferior to their Asian competitors, according to a survey conducted exclusively for The Detroit News by J.D. Power and Associates.
Fewer than half of 500 consumers who said they would consider buying or leasing a vehicle in the next 24 months said they would “most likely” buy a vehicle built by the Big Three. And 18 percent who said they’d avoid American brands entirely cited reliability, poor quality, resale value and fuel economy as their primary concerns.
Those results aren’t lost on the Big Three. When the doors open to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit to the public next week, the Big Three will highlight new styling, safety and dependability to try to woo back customers.
“American vehicles are avoided due to perceived quality concerns much more frequently than imported vehicles,” the study said. “Actual quality of American vehicles shows a much more competitive outlook.”
Annoyed is a modest way to describe the reaction of auto executives when presented with the perception-versus-reality issue.
“It is frustrating,” Mark Fields, president of Ford’s Americas division, told The News.
Asian vehicles actually cost more to maintain in the first three years of ownership than do American vehicles ($209 vs. $163), according to the study. But for dependability, American vehicles rate slightly worse than Asian cars and trucks. American products suffer 234 problems per 100 vehicles after three years of ownership, against 208 occurrences for Asian products.
That gap must continue to be narrowed, including over the long haul. And it must be realized by the United Auto Workers, which will play a significant part in the revitalization of the domestic car and truck industry. More efficient work rules, the elimination of gold-plated and outdated benefits and fewer workers are a necessity and must be achieved in the upcoming contract talks.
Only then will the domestic auto industry realize its potential.
Article 2
UAW gains no longer roll off assembly line
January 11, 2007
BY GEORGE WILL
DETROIT — Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end. Unions were on the march, and the marching songs were grand, especially here, home of the United Auto Workers. Recently, the UAW has been retreating, crippled by economic forces beyond its control — and by its past successes in winning benefits that companies can no longer afford as they compete with foreign manufacturers in America who do not have unionized workers and the legacy costs of union retirees.
Soon, a quietly angry UAW man, whom most Americans have never heard of, will be heard from. Ron Gettelfinger takes strenuous exception to the idea that he has America’s most unenviable job. He enjoys getting to the office early — before the Solidarity House cafeteria opens at 6:30 a.m. But as head of the UAW, he had a wrenching 2006, and this year he must negotiate new contracts with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler. He will not be negotiating from strength. But, then, neither will they.
A generally soft-spoken man, he has been a union man since 1964, when he signed on as a chassis line repairman at a Ford plant in Kentucky, making pickup trucks. There he participated in resolving productivity and quality issues that had Ford contemplating closure of the plant.
Today, Ford has announced closings of 16 plants. It has hocked the rest, using almost all its assets — including even the blue oval logo — as collateral for $23 billion it has borrowed for a two-year dash to profitability. Much of that cash will pay for the buyouts — worth up to $140,000 apiece — that have been accepted by almost half of the company’s UAW workers, who at the beginning of last year numbered 83,000.
The UAW says its concessions amount to $3 billion of Ford’s $5 billion annual reductions in fixed costs. There also have been roughly 34,000 buyouts at GM, where UAW concessions ($3 billion in health care, $3 billion in work force attrition) account for two-thirds of the company’s $9 billion annual reduction of fixed costs. The UAW notes that although Canadian autoworkers are unionized, GM spends $1,000 per car less on health care on cars it manufactures in Ontario because there government pays those costs.
But now Gettelfinger insists, ‘’You can’t cut your way to profitability,'’ and he says the UAW is ready to dig in its heels. He says the UAW adds value to members’ lives by limiting subtractions — damages done by attrition and bankruptcy. In September, the UAW stopped negotiating concessions with Chrysler because it considered the company’s problems less than severe, but is now re-examining the company’s condition.
Gettelfinger resents workers paying the price of management blunders, one of which, he says, was Ford’s mismanagement of the Taurus model, the last of which rolled off the line in October. He says Taurus would have had ‘’years of life left'’ if Ford had constantly refined it, as Toyota has done with the Camry.
‘’Obscene'’ is Gettelfinger’s description of executives’ pay and retirement protections at Delphi, the giant auto parts manufacturer that entered bankruptcy protection in 2005.
He believes bankruptcy has become a management tool by which companies shred labor contracts, and he warns that if Delphi tries to void its contract with the UAW, that ‘’will be the biggest mistake they ever made.'’
But more than 14,000 of Delphi’s 24,000 UAW employees have accepted early retirement or buyout offers. Furthermore, the UAW has swallowed hard and accepted a two-tier wage system — lower wages ($14 an hour rather than $27) for new hires.
Ford, GM and Chrysler might seek such wage systems in the coming contract negotiations. The UAW allowed Chrysler to hire temporary workers — $18 an hour; they can be fired at any time; they are not eligible for the jobs bank — at its Belvidere plant.
The jobs bank was negotiated in 1984 on the assumption that, in the cyclical automobile business, laid-off workers would eventually be rehired.
Workers in the job bank receive a small portion of their pay plus unemployment benefits for 48 weeks, but then are restored to full pay while unemployed. Gettelfinger vows to fight to retain this.
Recently Gettelfinger suggested that the UAW, which soon will be more than two-thirds smaller than it was when it had 1.5 million members 20 years ago, might consider merging with another union. A UAW card no longer means that life cannot be hard.
Article 3
Chinese automakers showing wares in U.S.
By DAVID RUNK, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jan 8, 5:53 PM ET
A year ago, a lone Geely Automobile Co. sedan sitting outside the main exhibit halls marked the first time a Chinese automaker displayed at the North American International Auto Show.
This year, Geely was absent from the Detroit show. But another Chinese automaker — Hunan Changfeng Motor Co. Ltd. — was showing its cars in a more polished display, albeit one in a basement exhibit hall.
Changfeng’s Liebao and Feibao vehicles, including a pair of small sport utility vehicles and two pickup trucks, are being built for the growing Chinese market. But the company is looking for a way to get them on U.S. roads.
“Through the collaboration with local dealers, we will jointly promote Changfeng’s products in the North American and global market,” Li Jianxin, chairman of parent Changfeng Group Co. Ltd., said during a news conference Monday.
Regardless of whether Geely or Changfeng themselves make the jump, the Chinese auto industry represents a tenacious future competitor in America. Roadblocks remain, such as the cost of getting them here and consumer worries about the quality of Chinese cars, but some observers expect Chinese-built cars to be competing for drivers before the end of the decade.
“One of these days you’re going to see Chinese cars all over the place,” said American entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin, who brought the Yugo and Subaru to this country and wants to export luxury vehicles from China to the U.S. as soon as 2009.
While the U.S. market likely will be important for Chinese carmakers, surviving in their home market may be a shorter-term focus. Foreign automakers are competing aggressively in China, where sales are expanding at double-digit annual rates and major U.S., European and Asian producers have set up factories.
The industry estimates that vehicle sales in China this year are expected to rise by 15 percent to 8 million, up from an estimated 7 million in 2006, compared with predictions the U.S. sales will be flat to lower after dropping to about 16.5 million in 2006 from just under 17 million in 2005.
Africa, Asia and the Middle East have been major markets for Chinese exports. And Rebecca Lindland, an auto analyst at Global Insight, an economic research and consulting company, said Chinese companies need to balance efforts to satisfy their growing domestic market while looking to expand exports.
“You need to see it as a credible — if long-distance — threat,” Lindland said Monday at the Detroit show. “You just can’t bury your head in the sand.”
Chinese manufacturers face tough logistical issues in bringing vehicles to the U.S., such as establishing dealer and service networks, as well as the cost of bringing them in from afar, Lindland said. The overall cost of importing, she noted, is part of why Japanese and South Korean automakers built plants in the U.S.
Some of those obstacles could be avoided through partnerships with companies that already have a significant share of the U.S. market. And because of that, the first Chinese-made cars for the U.S. might not be sold under Chinese nameplates.
Last month, DaimlerChrysler AG’s Chrysler Group and China’s Chery Automobile Co. announced that they agreed on a plan for the Chinese manufacturer to build small cars to be sold worldwide. They will be sold at Chrysler dealerships including those in the U.S. under the Dodge, Chrysler or Jeep names.
General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. already have significant manufacturing deals with Chinese companies, but they aren’t sold in the U.S. GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner said it is possible that GM would build a small car in China and import it to the U.S, but the company has no plans to do that at present.
Wagoner said Chinese manufacturers are smart and will be careful not to bring products to the U.S. before they are ready for the market.
“The domestic manufacturers in China are on a steep learning curve,” he said in an interview with a group of reporters last week.
Public perception of Chinese vehicles — and their quality — will be key in how well they are received. People were evenly divided on whether they would consider buying a car from a Chinese manufacturer — 49 percent said yes and 49 percent said no in an AP-AOL Autos poll conducted last month.
Young people are more open to the idea of buying a Chinese car than are older people — 70 percent of those under 35 would consider buying a Chinese car, compared with just 39 percent of those 35 and older.
Steve Wilhite, chief operating officer of Hyundai Motor Co.’s U.S. division, said concerns about the quality of Chinese-made cars likely won’t last long as the companies improve their products.
“I think that those cars will be affordable and I think those cars will be much better quality than people in the industry want to believe,” Wilhite said. “More and more, people recognize that it doesn’t matter where a car is manufactured, conceived, designed or engineered. It only matters how well it’s built and how it meets the needs, wants and expectations of consumers.”
John Mendel, senior vice president for automobile operations for American Honda Motor Co., said the examples of how Japanese and South Korean automakers established themselves in the U.S. market provides a lesson on China’s possibilities.
“It wasn’t that many years ago that the industry discounted the Japanese as significant players in the market,” Mendel said. “And again we discounted the Koreans as an industry. I’m loathe to discount any competitor from a competitiveness standpoint.”
Article 4
China becomes No. 2 vehicle market
By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer
Thu Jan 11, 6:29 AM ET
China surged past Japan to become the world’s No. 2 vehicle market after the United States last year as car purchases by newly affluent drivers jumped 37 percent, the Chinese auto industry association said Thursday.
The announcement highlighted China’s lightning evolution from a “bicycle kingdom” into a major auto market where foreign producers are racing to open factories and target a growing urban middle class.
Struggling U.S. automakers General Motors and Ford have gotten a boost from double-digit sales growth in China and fledgling Chinese manufacturers are starting to export their own cars, trucks and SUVs.
“There’s money here and people spend that money on cars,” said Michael J. Dunne, vice president for Asia-Pacific for auto research firm J.D. Power and Associates. “The Chinese government has made no secret of its intention to develop a car culture and a car industry. All of the forces are working together.”
China’s overall vehicle sales, including trucks and buses, rose 25.1 percent to 7.2 million units last year, China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said. Passenger car sales rose to 3.8 million, it said.
Japan’s total vehicle sales last year came to 5.7 million units, a slight decline from 2005, said the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association.
U.S. car and truck sales totaled 16.5 million units last year, down a bit from 2005, according to research firm Autodata Inc.
The Chinese car boom is driven by economic growth that is estimated to have reached 10.5 percent last year.
The officially endorsed car culture has changed the Chinese landscape almost overnight, with ancient city centers bulldozed to make way for broad avenues and the government spending heavily to build a nationwide highway network. Big cities are ringed by car dealerships. Fast food restaurants are opening drive-through windows.
The car craze has taken a toll in smog and congestion. China has most of the world’s 10 dirtiest cities, and air quality is worsening as car exhaust increases. Rush-hour traffic slows to a crawl in Beijing, Shanghai and other urban centers.
China could overtake the United States as the top car market some time after 2015, Dunne said.
“It could happen,” he said. “China’s annual income per person is just over $1,000, and they’re buying 7 million vehicles. Imagine what happens when that goes to $2,000 or $3,000.”
Red-hot Chinese sales have brought relief to U.S. automakers, which have seen weak demand at home.
General Motors Corp. said Monday that its total sales in China last year rose 32 percent over 2005 to 876,747 vehicles. Ford Motor Co. said sales of its brands, including Ford, Lincoln, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo, rose 87 percent to 166,722 units.
European and Japanese automakers report similar surges. Luxury auto maker Rolls Royce, owned by Germany’s BMW AG, says its 2006 sales were up 60 percent. The company is expanding its work force to meet Chinese demand for its $380,000 luxury Phantom.
China’s biggest-selling automaker last year was Shanghai General Motors Corp., a GM joint venture, with 365,400 vehicles sold, according to the Chinese industry group.
The top-selling car was the Jetta, made by FAW-Volkswagen Co., one of Volkswagen AG’s joint ventures.
The biggest Chinese manufacturer was Chery Automobile Co., with 272,400 units sold. Chery and DaimlerChrysler AG announced a plan last month for the Chinese company to make small cars for sale worldwide under the Dodge, Chrysler or Jeep brands.
China’s automakers exported about 325,000 vehicles last year, about 80 percent of them low-priced trucks and buses bound for developing markets in Asia, Africa and Latin America, the government says.
They also are eager to break into the U.S. market, though analysts say they will have trouble meeting safety and environmental standards.
This week at the Detroit Auto Show, China’s Changfeng Motor Co. displayed a pair of sport utility vehicles and two pickup trucks ahead of what it said were planned exports to the United States.
On the ‘Net:
China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (in Chinese): http://www.caam.org.cn
Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association: http://www.jama.org/
Posted: social/culture, design
16
January
2007
Yeah, it’s finally here. On January 09 Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, the phone to beat all phones. And the day after there were people at work lusting after a $500 device. I’m sure it’s good, but Apple has often been the triumph over marketing over technology. But just like Sony they’ve foisted their particular standards upon the world, kept things protected, hoping that everybody would jump ship. So is this impressive?
Here are three articles. 1) the original announcement, 2) a reaction from the Japanese, 3) a reaction from the technical community. I’m certainly not lusting.
Article 1
Apple’s Phone of the Future
By RACHEL KONRAD, AP Technology Writer
Tue Jan 9, 6:12 PM ET
Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs on Tuesday announced the iPod maker’s long-awaited leap into the mobile phone business and renamed the company just “Apple Inc.,” reflecting its increased focus on consumer electronics.
The iPhone, which will start at $499 when it launches in June, is controlled by touch, plays music, surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh computer operating system. Jobs said it will “reinvent” wireless communications and “leapfrog” past the current generation of smart phones.
“Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo. “It’s very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. … Apple’s been very fortunate in that it’s introduced a few of these.”
He said the company’s name change is meant to reflect Apple’s transformation from a computer manufacturer to a full-fledged consumer electronics company.
During his speech, Jobs also unveiled a TV set-top box that allows people to send video from their computers and announced the number of songs sold on its iTunes Music Store has topped 2 billion.
Apple shares jumped more than 8 percent on the announcements, while the stock of rival smart-phone makers plunged. The run on Apple stock created about $6 billion in shareholder wealth.
While Jobs noted the explosive growth of the cell phone market, it’s not clear that a device as alluring as the iPhone poses a threat to mainstream handset makers due to the price, said Avi Greengart, mobile device analyst for the research firm Current Analysis.
“My initial reaction is that this product actually lives up to the extensive hype, and I’m not easily impressed,” he said. “But the vast majority of phones sold cost way less than $500.” Instead, the rivals most likely to face new competition from Apple’s handset are makers of higher-end smart phones such as Palm Inc.
Tim Bajarin, principal analyst with Creative Strategies, said the iPhone could revolutionize the way cell phones are designed and sold.
“This goes beyond smart phones and should be given its own category called ‘brilliant’ phones,” he said. “Cell phones are on track to become the largest platform for digital music playback and Apple needed to make this move to help defend their iPod franchise as well as extend it beyond a dedicated music environment.”
Article 2
In Japan, barely a ripple
Apple’s much-anticipated iPhone is ‘business as usual’ in a country where mobile features already are so advanced.
By Bruce Wallace,
Times Staff Writer
TOKYO - Tomoaki Kurita presides over racks of cellphones lined up outside his shop on a busy sidewalk in Harajuku, Tokyo’s catwalk of youth street culture where people attracted by the riot of phone options can stop to flip open and fondle the latest models of what the Japanese call keitai.
From behind his busy counter, Kurita giggles when asked about the excitement in America over the arrival of Apple’s iPhone, which can also be used to download music and surf the Internet.
“Sounds like business as usual,” he says.
On the day when stock markets swooned and techies buzzed over Apple Inc. Chief Executive Steve Jobs’ long-awaited entry into the mobile-phone market, Japanese consumers could be excused for wondering: Why the fuss?
Yes, the iPhone seemed to reaffirm Apple’s ability to wow with design. Its finger-driven navigation might bring a new level of sophistication to the way cellphones operate. But many Japanese had a harder time buying Jobs’ line about “reinventing” the phone.
“Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” Jobs said as he unveiled the iPhone on Tuesday at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco.
But the revolution is already well underway in Japan, where cellphones are used for everything. Besides downloading music and surfing the Net, Japanese use their cellphones to navigate their way home by global positioning system, to buy movie tickets and to update personal blogs from wherever they are.
They have been a natural extension of daily life here for the last few years, spurred by Japan’s decision to be the first country to upgrade to third-generation mobile-phone networks, or 3G, which increase broadband capabilities and allow for better transmission of voice and data.
Apple’s iPhone, by comparison, will operate on a second-generation network.
It was 3G that sparked the boom in music downloads that makes it common for phones to be used as portable digital music players here.
And it is 3G that has led the Japanese into a world where they can watch live TV on their phones and use them as a charge card to ride trains or buy milk at the corner store or take a taxi. Ticket Pia, Japan’s major entertainment ticketing agency, has been selling e-mail tickets to cellphones since October 2003. The phones also can be used to conduct conference calls among as many as five people.
Another widely used 3G feature enables users to point cellphone cameras at bar codes and be directed to websites. For example, every seat in the Chiba Lotte Marines baseball stadium has a bar code, which takes a cellphone to a special home page where users can subscribe to get “inside” information and columns not available on the regular team site.
Also, every Marine game can be watched, live, on a phone.
As with other Japanese baseball clubs, cellphones can be used to buy tickets. Teams have examined the possibility of installing turnstiles that would allow ticket holders to enter stadiums by swiping their cellphones across the terminal. That technology is already used at some movie theaters. And cellphones can be loaded with prepaid credit and then be swiped at terminals to allow access to Japanese trains.
Most observers contend the U.S. has begun to close the gap on mobile-phone use with Japan, South Korea and Europe.
Music downloads by cellphone are rising in the U.S. The long-term threat to iTunes’ commanding lead in downloads was a major force behind Apple’s entry into mobile phones. Other functions are on the way.
“We plan to introduce one-way videoconferencing in the U.S. this year,” said spokeswoman Melissa Elkins of LG Electronics MobileCOMM. The function would allow one person to be visible to another caller over a cellphone. Two-way videoconferencing has already been available in South Korea for about 18 months, Elkins said.
But the biggest difference between the U.S. and countries like Japan is not the array of bells and whistles on cellphones but the cultural differences the keitai has created.
Keitai form a cyber social network in a highly mobile society. To wait for a light on a Tokyo street corner or to ride a train is to see crowds of people with their heads down, thumbs pumping as they send photos, write text messages or play online games on their phones. Increasingly, they are reading books and manga, or comic books, on their phones too.
The keitai has also become an extension of personality. There is software to create a personalized home page for a cellphone. Young men and women customize their phones by hanging tiny dolls off them and covering them with stickers and paints.
“I like it because it’s cute,” says Mami Nawa, 23, as she shows off the dial pad she has painted in purple and pink tones. “And with my long nails, the paint gives me a better feel for the phone.”
Nawa spent about $170 on her sharp phone, and $25 more to decorate it, though she says some friends spend much more on decorations. But neither she nor her friend Makiko Yamada, who are sampling the phones in Harajuku, would ever pay anything close to $500 for a cellphone. A hundred dollars, tops, Yamada says.
Apple might find it hard to lead a revolution with iPhone priced as an elite gadget.
Like other Japanese consumers, Nawa and Yamada pick and choose the functions they want. They don’t use their phones as charge cards — known here as the “wallet function.” But they check train schedules and have made hotel reservations with their phones. They keep their music on their phones and subscribe to daily e-mails that deliver news headlines and daily fortune telling. They use their phones to shop on online sites and bid in online auctions.
It’s a dynamic market. After buying mobile company Vodafone’s Japanese operations, the Internet company Softbank Corp. has made a splash with a campaign claiming to offer significant savings for customers who switch to its service.
That process has been made easier by industry changes allowing customers to take their phone numbers with them when they switch carriers.
Softbank’s ad campaign features actress Cameron Diaz. Across Japan, Diaz stares out from posters and billboards, a Softbank phone pressed to her ear. In TV ads, she stumbles down a street, struggling to keep her phone to her ear.
Diaz is talking. Not watching TV or shooting digital video or checking her horoscope. Just talking.
How American.
Article 3
Sunday, January 14, 2007
iPhone - the roach motel business model
Randall Stross has a great op-ed in today’s New York Times about how Apple’s iPhone comes chock-full of DRM that will restrict your freedom and your consumer choice. He makes the great point that although Apple claims it adds its DRM (which locks you into buying Apple products) at the behest of the music industry, that many of the copyright holders whose work Apple sells in the music store have asked it to switch off the DRM. An Apple lawyer has gone on record saying that Apple would use DRM even if the music industry didn’t want it.
It’s ironic that a company whose name is synonymous with “Switch” has built its entire product strategy around lock-in. The iTunes/iPhone/iPod combo is a roach-motel: customers check in, but they can’t check out.
And it doesn’t stop with the iTunes DRM. Apple and Cingular have been trumpeting the technical prowess they’ve deployed in locking iPhone to the Cingular network, to be sure that no one can switch carriers with their iPhones. Even the Copyright Office has recognized that locking handsets to carriers is bad for competition and bad for the public.
There’s another thing you can’t switch with the iPhone: the software it runs. You can’t install third-party apps on handset. Steve Jobs claims that this is because running your own code on a phone could crash the phone network, which must be news to all those Treo owners running around on Cingular’s own network without causing a telecoms meltdown.
Lock-in isn’t good for you. Does anyone really believe that Apple will make better products if its customers aren’t free to switch to a competitor? Or that Cingular’s network and pricing will be improved by lock-in?
Even if you are ready to pledge a lifetime commitment to the iPod as your only brand of portable music player or to the iPhone as your only cellphone once it is released, you may find that FairPlay copy protection will, sooner or later, cause you grief. You are always going to have to buy Apple stuff. Forever and ever. Because your iTunes will not play on anyone else’s hardware.
Posted: social/culture, design
16
January
2007
This is a little scary because there are people designing the smell of a place. I’m not sure why this is significantly different from designing any other aspect of an environment, except that maybe smell goes a little closer to your core identity, your basic senses. The manipulation is more direct. Present a smell, subconsciously evoke a feeling. It seems different from designing a gadget or an office space. Smell may be a little harder to turn off when it’s not wanted, plus it may stay with you long after you leave the environment.
(Original found here. In our paper this was titled “Whiff of Success - Neal Harris’ Companies Develop Fragrances Used to Enhance Special Events and Household Products)
Entrepreneur captures essence of events with fragrances
By Ronald D. White
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES - For last year’s Los Angeles premiere of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” Warner Bros. executives wanted to infuse the air outside the theater and inside the lobby with the rich fragrance of Wonka bars. They turned to Neal Harris for the aromatic task.
Harris operates two small Los Angeles-based companies devoted to the world of smells. The entrepreneur assembles as many as 200 ingredients to come up with the perfect ambient aroma to enrich events and a variety of everyday products.
To entice Warner Bros., Harris used 40 ingredients, including cocoa, vanilla extracts and spices such as nutmeg.
“We had to work through layers of decision makers at Warner Bros., so before we started, we made sure we had a great chocolate fragrance,” he said.
Harris settled on one that smelled “like a very realistic milk-chocolate candy bar.” To demonstrate how it could be spread throughout a large area by means of a scent diffuser, he filled an entire floor of Warner Bros.’ Burbank offices with the fragrance. It worked — employees recall following it to the source in hopes of finding actual candy.
On premiere night and at the party that followed, “you walked into a wonderful cocoa smell. It got you in the mood. It definitely added to the atmosphere,” said Gaetano Mastropasqua, senior vice president for corporate global promotions and partner relations for Warner Bros. Entertainment.
The use of fragrance is the final frontier of so-called senses-based marketing, said Harald Vogt, founder of the Scent Marketing Institute in Scarsdale, N.Y., which consults on how to use fragrance as a business tool.
“It’s a tremendous growth industry,” he said.
and this was left out from our paper
Unusual requests
Through his years in the business, Harris has fielded some fairly unusual requests.
In 1993, after a series of wildfires throughout Southern California, Harris was asked to help with a charity fundraiser for weary police officers and firefighters.
The sponsors wanted a doughnut-scented cologne, and he came up with a cinnamon crumble fragrance packaged in a doughnut-shaped bottle.
“I just hope no one tried to wear it,” Harris said.
This year he collaborated with Topper Schroeder, maker of Gendarme cologne, when Angeleno magazine asked what might be used in the personality-based fragrances of three Los Angeles “Alpha Dudes”: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, restaurateur Wolfgang Puck and Lakers basketball star Kobe Bryant.
Schroeder sought out Harris for some ideas, and they made six colognes. One of them, dubbed Villaraigosa I, “begins with an unexpected burst of freshness created with Italian bergamot.” Another cologne, Kobe I, “embodies self-confidence and independence [in a] captivating woody, spicy, ambery fragrance.”
The idea led to a three-paragraph brief in the magazine, though not one of the three men smelled his custom-made cologne. Harris still has them.
“A lot of good work came out of it, and someone may discover them,” he said.
One of Harris’ most challenging exercises was to try to give a true feeling of Halloween to a group of blind children as part of his volunteer work as a board member of Junior Blind of America. He used leaf alcohol, oak moss and other ingredients to mimic the smell of the musty basement in a haunted house.
Harris, 46, learned the scent trade by working his way up the ranks of Belmay of Yonkers, N.Y., “Home of Olfactive Innovation.” Eventually, he became president of the fragrance manufacturer’s Western division.
Three years ago, he co-founded a company called ScentEvents with his friend Scott Roeb, a caterer. This year, Harris founded Harris Fragrances with minority partner Custom Essence of Somerset, N.J.
ScentEvents uses fragrances to enhance the ambience of parties, product marketing events and other functions. It employs air diffusers, triggered by motion sensors or timers, to spray fragrances into the air in spaces as small as a single room or as large as a stadium.
Harris Fragrances produces scents for all manner of products, from lemon for household cleaners and shampoos (for as little as $3 a pound of scented product) to fine perfumes (for as much as $150 a pound). Harris said he kept about 100 scents on hand. Custom Essence performs the lab work and chemistry.
“It’s exciting and fulfilling,” said Harris, who expects combined sales of about $1 million this year for his companies.
Creating a perfume
For the recent opening of the Annette Green Perfume Museum at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising in downtown Los Angeles, where he is an advisory board member, Harris created a new perfume, Musee Femme.
“The objective was to develop a great fragrance quickly,” he said. “It’s not a major launch. The idea was more of a public-relations concept that we hope will turn into recurring business.”
Sometimes, the task is to help market an existing fragrance. In those cases, Harris simply has to determine the right concentrations for the diffuser, which resembles a small surround-sound audio speaker.
In February, Harris used the device for perfumer Ron Robinson, who wanted customers to be intrigued by a new fragrance well before they reached the sample bottles.
The occasion was the launch of a perfume tied to the lesbian-themed cable series “The L Word,” developed in a joint venture with Showtime Entertainment. Every guest was greeted with the fragrance as he or she arrived, as if someone wearing it had just walked by.
“All of a sudden there was something in the air — just kind of there — and that was the beauty of it,” said Robinson, president and chief executive of Apothia at Fred Segal. “People were saying, ‘What a great scent.’ There was no way we could have put that fragrance in the air like that.”
With a modest Web site and little in the way of a budget for advertising, Harris is relying on word of mouth to make his young businesses a success. There seems to be plenty of that, at least at the moment.
“I was a skeptic. I wasn’t even going to meet with him,” said West Los Angeles party planner Julie Pryor, who needed ambience for a 1950s-style birthday event. For that occasion, Harris provided a bubblegum scent.
“The beauty of what he does is that it is never overwhelming, never too powerful, and people have no idea where it is coming from,” she said.
Harris hopes for the opposite with the limited release of Musee Femme in just 150 bottles. He already seems to have made an impression.
“The fragrance is beautiful. It is young, it is sexy. It’s soft and it has a little kick to it. It is very easy to wear,” said Irene Cotter, assistant department chairwoman of the beauty industry merchandise and marketing curriculum at the Fashion Institute.
“Neal is a pro. He has a great nose.”
Posted: design
3
December
2006
(Original found here.)
I’m glad somebody is working on that, I’ve been looking for that for years. I found something before that required a pedal underneath the cabinet to control the flow of water, but it was too “ugly” to install. We’re doing the dishes without a dishwasher. Seems like a major environmental benefit to not have to do that with the water running continuously.
Hands-Free Faucets are Catching on at Home
David Bradley
The Associated Press
Heila Hubbard doesn’t dare tell her neighbors, but she recently spent weeks figuring out how to run water out of her tap.I felt silly having to practice using my faucet,” says Hubbard, of Lafayette, Calif. “But I felt confident from the beginning I’d master it.”Honed by how-to DVDs, Hubbard’s faucet skills became old hat in a matter of weeks. She had good reason for the home schooling: Her faucet was a cutting-edge version of a hands-free, tap-on, tap-off appliance that may become common in U.S. kitchens within a few years.
Newer, better: The faucets are similar to, but light years beyond, technology routinely seen in public facilities where water flow activates at the wave of a hand. The user simply taps this new breed of faucet anywhere on the spout to turn water on or off. Motion sensors and a traditional handle lend added operational flexibility.
On Hubbard’s model, the user adjusts the handle to set temperature and the strength of stream in advance — among the nuances that Hubbard became adept at with practice. Trial and error helped her negotiate slipping dirty dishes into the sink without tripping the motion sensors.
“You have to slide in dishes from the side rather than head-on like you normally do,” Hubbard says. “Other than that, it’s terrifically easy and handy.”
Long overdue: Bob Rodenbeck of Brizo, the company that makes the faucet Hubbard toiled to conquer, says video research in kitchens showed cooks were bogged down by messy hands and often fumbled to fill pots or rinse foods. Hands-free technology was overdue in kitchens, Rodenbeck says.
Hunter Dance of Galleria Bath and Kitchen Showplace in Bradenton, Fla., forecasts that such faucets will be the norm in five to 10 years. “Homeowners are blown away by the functionality, especially those who do a lot of cooking,” he says. “It’s definitely the trend.”
So why the long wait for household versions of technology long used in public bathrooms? Product engineers needed to catch up to complicated needs in the kitchen, Rodenbeck says.
“The sensor technology wasn’t high-performing enough,” he says, crediting the robotics industries with key improvements in sensor technology.
The bugaboos skirted by supposed hands-free products were temperature control and water pressure. The one-function approach — water on, water off — is fine for public facilities, but it’s a whole different kettle of fish in kitchens where cooks want to control cooking apparatuses.
Still pricey: The new technology isn’t cheap. But like other consumer goods, prices may drop as the technology enters the mainstream, Rodenbeck says. Chrome versions are $849, while the stainless faucet is $995.
Brizo touts advantages beyond convenience. Cooking is inherently messy, and the faucet promotes a cleaner, more hygienic environment. And the absence of knobs makes the faucet easier for aged, arthritic hands.
Water conservation is also a plus; Brizo research showed homeowners often leave faucets on for minutes at a time.
When the faucet use stops, Pascal turns the water off automatically in moments, a point not lost on Hubbard: “The ability to save water is a big deal in California.”
Posted: design, environment
3
December
2006
(Original found here).
Quick illustration of the complexity of achieving a “just” society. What is somebody’s success is somebody else’s desire. Since we can’t all share, people will lose out. Even with complicated rules and adjustments, the sense of fairness and entitlements can get complicated.
This is about a successful school district in Seattle that does reverse discrimination - encourage minorities to attend for a better education. Of course that means that other people will get kicked out (in this case 300 other people).
Clueless In Seattle
By George F. Will
Sunday, December 3, 2006; B07
SEATTLE — This city’s school district decided in 2000 that because the son of Jill Kurfirst and the daughter of Winnie Bachwitz are white, they should be assigned to an inferior and distant high school. If they had not left the Seattle school system, this would have required them to rise at 5 a.m. in order to leave home by 5:30 a.m., alone and in the dark, to take the first of three buses, returning home between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., with almost no time left for homework, family activities and adequate sleep.
The parents argue that the racial school assignments — actually, assignments by pigmentation — that so injured their children violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws. The reliably unreliable U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — often reversed but never in doubt — predictably ruled, with interesting indifference to pertinent Supreme Court precedents, against the parents. Soon — oral arguments are tomorrow — the Supreme Court can remind the 9th Circuit of the Constitution’s limits on what schools can do in the name of “diversity.”
Students can seek admission to any of Seattle’s high schools. But the Seattle School District decided to engineer a precise racial balance in its most popular — because much better — high schools, which are chosen by more students than they can accommodate. The district wanted each oversubscribed school to reflect the entire system’s ratio of 40 percent whites and 60 percent nonwhites. So it adopted a race-based admission plan to shape the schools’ “diversity.”
The district gave preference to certain applicants, using considerations it called “tiebreakers.” One, which benefited about 10 percent of applicants, was whether the student had a sibling at the desired school. Another was whether the student’s race would produce or maintain a 40-60 balance.
When registering children for high school, parents were asked to specify each child’s race. If parents did not specify, the district did so based on visual inspection of the parents’ or child’s pigmentation. The school board president has said that “skin tone matters.”
The two children wanted to attend Ballard High School because of its biotech academy. In the 2000-01 school year, when 82 percent of the city’s students sought admission to the five best schools, the children were among the 300 students denied admission to the school of their choice because their race interfered with racial balancing.
Although Seattle never had segregated schools, the district discusses its racial preferences with reference to “segregation” and “integration.” But a statement by the district reveals that racial preferences are supposed to serve social engineering: “Diversity in the classroom increases the likelihood that children will discuss racial or ethnic issues and be more likely to socialize with people of different races.” Or different skin tones.
Is that a “compelling government interest,” sufficient to justify race-based school assignments? The 9th Circuit, siding with the district, argued two propositions, both of which conflict with Supreme Court precedents.
One was that racial preferences are benign if they do not ” unduly harm any students” or ” uniformly benefit any race or group of individuals to the detriment of another” (emphases added). But the Supreme Court has rejected this idea that the equal protection clause protects group rights rather than individual rights.
Second, the 9th Circuit said broad deference is owed to the judgments of local school districts. But no line of cases has established that high schools enjoy even the limited latitude that universities have in treating race as a factor when deciding who may be admitted. Rather, the Supreme Court has held that public secondary education “must be available to all on equal terms.” And here are samples of the Seattle district’s judgments which the 9th Circuit thinks deserve deference:
Until June, the school district’s Web site declared that “cultural racism” includes “emphasizing individualism as opposed to a more collective ideology,” “having a future time orientation” (planning ahead) and “defining one form of English as standard.” The site also asserted that only whites can be racists, and disparaged assimilation as the “giving up” of one’s culture. After this propaganda provoked outrage, the district, saying it needed to “provide more context to readers” about “institutional racism,” put up a page saying that the district’s intention is to avoid “unsuccessful concepts such as a melting pot or colorblind mentality.”
The Supreme Court has said that all racial classifications by government are “presumptively invalid” unless narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest. The district’s repellent Web site revealed the interest that the district considers so compelling that it justifies racial preferences. Supreme Court deference to such race-mongering would make a mockery of the equal protection guarantee.
georgewill@washpost.com
Posted: design, politics, education
