http://www.thedesignblog.org/entry/artific...tural-movement/

i dont think many amputee's would run in shorts like that...

oh, wait, is there an article attached to this? i thought it was the new name of ADIDAS' running shorts

I can't help but notice that all they have are some pretty pictures and basic ideas that people came up with a few decades ago.

great resource to "borrow" some material for a SR game - thanks!

Sites like "Design Blog" are basically full of folks trying to sell themselves as designers. There is no real invention or product behind many of the articles, just some mope trying to come up with something that looks like a real company hired them to do something important.

This one is particularly amusing for the following:


Huh, so carbon fiber, aluminum and electromagnetic steel, are found in human body???

Something about the "almost what they meant to say, but really the opposite" grammar there that makes me think the author of the copy text learned English as a second language.

In shadowrun that´s actually true for many people ;-P

Especially funny when one run into a computer design that is clearly made using a 3D modeling program rather then CAD, and seems to be running on fairy dust (as in, so thin and lite that there is no way to get the computer hardware in there, much less a battery).

yeah, not really seeing anything there that makes me think any actual research has been done.

well, except for the stuff about the fact that there is a need for prosthetic limbs.

which i rather suspect was shamelessly plagiarised anyways. probably from some company which actually designs prosthetic limbs, and has concepts more likely to work than "electromagnets, yo!" and "hey, you know what the real problem with prosthetic limbs is? they don't look cool enough!"

There is a link in the article back to the creator of the design, and he seems to have worked for Nike and some other sports gear companies before.

So wait. Nike didn't like the idea enough so he went to Adidas?

But yeah, this looks like some pimply geek article than any real tech.

Nah, to me it looks like he slapped various sport company logo's onto designs he did in design school. Which is grounds for expulsion here in the USA, but probably allowed or even required the designers country of origen (eastern block, by the look of the grammar- they have some VERY good, active designers).

As a former bike mechanic, I'd say the bike design he supposedly did for Bianchi would be difficult (or even impossible) to produce (especially for Biachi, as they don't make cranksets), and would carry a hefty weight penalty (a pretty biog no-no for a tri bike). So if he was working for them, it was in some pie-in-sky department.

The shoe with the tri-angulated sole just plain scares me. The mechanics of its compression would all but ensure you twist your ankle on a regular basis, due to squirming and traction loss as the segments fold over. Cool looking, but bad physics.

The "armadillo cleats"? Can't you just see the pain of not being able to put your foot flat because there's soil caught in between the segments?

Despite this, I wouldn't write him off as a pimply geek- he's a talented designer and marketer. But those are not products likely to ever see production in anything like the original form. Which is fine- the same holds for a huge range of existing products that had cool initial designs that ran up against the wall of real world engeneering and product testing, and ended up retaining only some cosmetic clues to the original design conception.

As for the nike thing, it says it was something done in class that was sponsored by nike. Almost like a 'design a shoe for nike' contest.

That bike looks uncomfortable as all hell. I mean the seat is like 30cm above the handle bars.

Edit: And yeah, those shoes look like a twisted ankle waiting to happen.

Edit2: I have to admit he is really good with whatever graphics program he uses to make his concept drawings with, and he certainly has a talent for making things look good, but he seems to be distinctly lacking in the 'innovative ideas' department. Does anyone else find it exceedingly odd that he sets a specific number of colors that things that haven't been invented yet will be offered in? I mean, why only 12 different colors for the SEEET? Is 12 the magical perfect balance between verity and cost of making a ton of extra options?

I haven't been able to locate these shoes (or the bike).
A little help?

I am reminded of this TED talk.

The thing that I noticed was they have north of 10% of the US population missing a limb. This seems to be made up or exaggerated. Out of knowing hundreds of people, I've known 1.

I suspect there is a larger concentration around military bases...

I'm not sure where you get 10% from exactly, but nearly 0.5% of the population losing a limb yearly does seem a touch high, as does the 80% of diabetics are amputees as well. He of course fails to site anything for his statistics, so it is hard to say.

Ah, here we go. He took the 'current US population living without a limb' and made it a yearly statistic.


Here you go. Still haven't found that armadillo shoe though.

How about the "twisted ankle" shoe?

It's the shoe on the same page, with that webbing design in the soul. My fear is that if you land heavily on one side of the shoe or the other, it is going to give too much and cause you to twist your ankle.

Of course, I looked at the bike and forgot there was a main page.