archaic icons

In a recent lecture it occurred to me how many of our current icons are actually unknown objects to many younger users. Here are a few that depict items that are no longer in everyday use.


The floppy disk hasn't seen regular action for many years but it is the universal save icon nevertheless.



When was the last time you saw a telephone with a rotary pulse dial? This is one of a couple of common symbols still used to indicate a telephone.




Funny that my mobile telephone call and hang up buttons show green and red icons that look like traditional phone handsets. The mobile phone itself (of course) looks nothing like an old handset.





A pencil for write... come on... we live in the world of the paperless office. How did you get more tip? With a pencil "sharpener"? What?! The clutch pencil is certainly an improvement! Does anybody actually write still?



Incandescent bulbs are on their way out of light sockets around the world. It will be awhile before they are gone from the collective memory as representative of ideas though.




Until recently a popular digital photo application still used an icon (and text label) for a film roll when importing pictures from a digital camera. Slide shows in that same application are still represented with an icon that depicts couple of old 35mm slides.

...I am sure there are plenty of other traditional icons for modern concepts. Keep me posted if you find any more...

hirame pump head

For years, and years (and years) I have stood by my trusty Silca Super Pista track pump and fumbled with its brass head trying not to let air escape as I removed it. Trying not to separate the valve stem from the tube as I wriggled it.

Could there be a better way to inflate tyres? ...a Silca Super Pista with a Hirame pump head! The best of Italian and Japanese technology combine to make tyre inflation a (200+ psi) breeze.

Really, this device is worth its weight in gold. It slides on easily and locks on tightly. It is beautifully finished and should last as long as you. The head size is small and fits into the valve cavities on the HED 3s and my HED disc. Brilliant.

hed 3 track use - review

For some reason Hed3s are not popular on the track here and I found it difficult to find any information/postings by people that have tried them. As a community service announcement I am therefore posting this message about the wheels.

For the record I am very (very) light, not a big sprinter. I am a masters level rider. The wheels I have raced are the clincher, aluminium-rimmed version.

Build quality: The carbon work on these is very sexy, no two-ways about it. An ugly carbon-weave immitation sticker at the hub disguising the interface between the fabric and the hub body was poorly applied. The hubs spin very smoothly although the non-drive-side rear hub outer shell is not quite round. This does not effect the rolling in any way but it shows poor manufacturing tolerances. The wheels are not quite true but they are very nearly so – good I think for this kind of untruable wheel!

Conditions: I have raced them front and rear on an outdoor concrete velodrome with Vredestein Fortezza tyres (700x23) and latex tubes in a couple of scratch races, 500m ITT, flying 200m, and a single match sprint.

I have also raced them front and rear indoors on the boards with Continental Supersonic (700x20) tyres and latex inner tubes in the team-sprint, 3000m individual pursuit, 3000m team pursuit and in one very fast scratch race.

Speed: These are fast wheels! They have a terrific runaway-hell-train feeling when they are up to speed.

Wind: Outdoors in the wind these wheels are much easier to handle than a full disc. If it is blowing a gale, leave them at home, but a breeze is no problem as long as you concentrate on holding your line.

Flex: I never noticed any flex under power or at speed through the bends indoors or out. The front wheel took a little getting used to though – I was not well prepared for my first team sprint run indoors on the wheels and as I hit the bend at full tilt the steering of my bike was not quite as I expected it – practice on these before racing on them or you won't hug the measuring line ;-)

Weight: The clincher version especially is not the lightest wheel on the track. This might be a problem in getting up to speed, but the aerodynamics might overcome the disadvantage. That is a tough call to make! I suspect that the longer the race, the more the aerodynamics will be of assistance. Conversely, the more rapid accelerations you must make, the more the weight will be a hindrance. Whether or not these are suitable for a particular race will depend on your racing style as much as anything else.

I find these terrific. At the price (compared for instance to the Mavic IO) I think these are fantastic.

gnome

Before gardens there were garden gnomes. As they couldn't be proper garden gnomes without a garden, they invented one, the garden of Eden. The gnomes filled it with all manner of flora so that they would have somewhere to sit in the shade. As well as various animals, they put two dullard giants in the garden. The first was made from earth, Adam, and the second, made from his rib, Eve. Adam and Eve then misbehaved and were kicked out of the garden to live in a world where they had to make their own gardens. Nevertheless, to this day the gnomes keep watch over them and their offspring from various vantage points around suburbia.

cataclysm

A sunny afternoon was smothered by a billowing black blanket this last Saturday. What a downpour ensued! Massive hailstones punched holes in cars, windows, roofs and smashed vegetable gardens across Melbourne. The wind drove torrents across the velodrome in pursuit of those who only seconds before had been dashing for the line... a sprint that was called to a halt as the canvas gazebo, uprooted by a violent gust, was sent collapsing across the finishing straight. Riders scampered clumsly from the track through the gate, shouldering their bikes and clambering in cleats for shelter.

This morning's ride down the bike path in the aftermath was something of an obstacle course. The icy canonballs have of course melted. Still the evidence of their visit is everywhere. Trees appear to have been whipped through a blender. Roads, gutters and paths are covered in a shredded litter of leaves and twigs. Drifts of mud set traps for narrow tyres and dam puddles of black. Riding through them creates artistic café latte patterns as the mud is stirred... and destroys them as the rear wheel follows the front. My bicycle needs a wash!

All this gave me cause to check the maps available on the Bureau of Meteorology website. Here I discovered a map type I hadn't seen previously (see above). This map indicates the percentage of the mean rainfall that has fallen in a particular month. Pretty good! It clearly depicts the areas of above and below mean rainfall. I am very pleased to see they didn't just run through the usual (ugly) range of hues available whilst maintaining a constant (usually full) saturation.

ultimate wheel?

Start with a bicycle. Remove one wheel. Remove the saddle. Remove the frame and handlebars. Remove the brakes and drive-train. Jam the pedals into the rim and what have you got? A penny-farthing with only the farthing?

I just watched a student attempting to ride one of these a few metres. It was the most inelegant thing I have seen for quite some time! Darn funny though. I wonder how long before somebody tries to cross the Nullabor plane on one unsupported.

acmi : independent games festival and hand dryers

Today I visited the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to see (and play) the "best of" the Independent Games Festival 2009. There were a few games simple enough even for me. My favourite was Machinarium (illustrated), a click-and-drag Flash interactive game by Amanita Design. This had me puzzling over discarded pieces of junk, climbing power-poles, crossing draw-bridges dressed in disguise... all to enable a cute little telescopic rubbish-bin android to explore a lusciously illustrated industrial planet. I was hooked! Sadly I had to relinquish control of the game after I became stuck on a puzzle and a queue of onlookers gathered. I will download a copy for home^h^h^h work use.
Osmos (Hemisphere Games) was visually striking although not as rich as Machinarium. The game play was reminiscent of asteroids... pilot a ship (well, in this case a biological cell with a little "rocket" thruster) around an asteroid field (well, in this case a soup of larger and smaller cells) and attempt to collide only with smaller cells. When any two cells collide, the larger one sucks the smaller one dry for nutrients. Your aim is to grow (really big) by consuming cells smaller than yourself, without being sucked dry by larger cells. Simple, fun, lovely to look at (for awhile) but not particularly deep.
Being an old man, I couldn't quite master the controls of a couple of the other games, as enticing as they looked. Blueberry Garden by Erik Svedang was lovely to look at and fun to play... as far as I got (not far!)... but I see it is available for download from his website.
Upon leaving the screen gallery I visited the toilet. After washing my hands, I dried them... using a wall-mounted blow-dryer with a built in screen!!!! The screen unfortunately played an advertisement for a soap company and blared horrible distorted music at me over the sound of the fan. An amusing, appropriate (and slightly annoying) thing to find at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.