Category: ultrarandom

My Aim Is True

schiphol_urinal.jpg

So it wasn’t my imagination. When I was stopping to take a quick leak on my way through Schiphol Airport yesterday morning, I spotted this little thing that looked like a fly in the urinal, except it clearly wasn’t a fly. It sort of seemed like something stuck to the bowl, so I found myself trying to wash it away. I fell right into their nefarious social-engineering trap! What a chump.

Stop men from peeing on the floor. Authorities at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam have etched the image of a black housefly into each urinal. It seems that men usually do not pay much attention to where they aim, which can create a bit of a mess. But if you give them a target, they can’t help but try to hit it. Similar designs have been implemented in urinals around the world, including mini soccer goals, bulls-eyes, and urine video games (seriously). Do they work? Since the bugs were etched into the airport urinals, spillage has decreased by 80 percent.

[From Good, via BoingBoing.]

Actually, it’s a pretty brilliant idea, and really not sinister at all. I have to admit that when I first realized it wasn’t a fly or a speck of dirt in the bowl, my immediate instinct was that it was some kind of viral ad campaign, since I’ve been getting more and more pissed off [heh.] about how hard it is to escape ads in public spaces. I’m really pleased this was an intentional attempt to get dudes to do the right thing. (Note to other airports/places with public restrooms: Please don’t try to do this with ads. The urinal cakes with ads in them are horrifying enough. Thanks.)

Copiers

New Xerox logoLike many others, it seems, I’m not wild about the new logo that Interbrand has trotted out for Xerox. I think the typography is pretty nice, but hate hate hate the clunky, overdone, and seemingly pointless and trendy (in the really bad way) ball sitting there on the end. Even worse, it seems as if the whole marble-like thing is just a bad rip-off of the slightly goofy but certainly more dramatic flag of the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan:

Flag of Kyrgyzstan

Winter in Southern England

The U of R campus

(Originally uploaded by pauldhunt.

I was just talking to my mom, who was reminding me to pack warm clothes when I head home next week. I hadn’t yet forgotten what winter in upstate New York would be like, but it’s not a bad reminder when this is what winter looks like here.

(Photo taken by my flatmate Paul, who knows a thing or two about cold winters in New York state.)

The Scary Side of Capitalism

In the wake of Ye Olde Blackoute, there was a lot of talk around the office about what a pain it was to walk down 20 flights of stairs that had no emergency lights. One of the women I work with was raving about the usefulness of the great keychain flashlight she owned that sheds a startling amount of light, so Monday morning a bunch of people chipped in and bought a bunch of them.

Curious about the nifty trinket, I took a look at the website where they were ordered, and probably placed myself right at the top of an FBI or Homeland Security watchlist the minute the site hit my bowser logs. Discount blowguns? Knives fit for a Klingon? Spy cameras? Man, who knew it could be so easy to acquire everything needed for a superhero utility belt or a anti-establishment fortress. I’m glad I found my flashlight and all, but I get a little squeamish thinking about the endless varieties of suspicious stuff that’s out there for the taking.

Junk Drawer

I’ve been menaing to write more about the many exciting or at least mildly amusing things going on lately, but it’s been hard to gather the will to sit and concentrate on the blogging thing. Here are a bunch of quick links that I’ve been meaning to pepper throughout a series of scintillating posts…

The Junk Drawer

  • Art Chantry, Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 is an incredible restrospective of the work of my all-time favorite designer, now showing at P.S. 1. I can’t rave about this enough. The work is fun enough to look at in reproduction, but he does so much with materials and printing tricks that seeing the stuff in person is about a million times cooler. (And they’re using the same title for the exhibit as I did for a fictional exhibit years ago. but I’m not bitter.)
  • Speaking of P.S. 1, I’d like to point out that it’s not the same place as P.S. 122 in the East Village. You really ought to check out what’s going on at P.S. 122, because they put on tons of great theater and dance and performance and such, and it’s their ticket prices are great for what you get. More on this later, because I’m starting to work on a number of projects with them.
  • And speaking of great stuff at P.S. 122, Heather Woodbury is kicking off their new season in September with her one-woman, eight-installment, 100+-character show, What Ever. You really ought to check out her web site, where you can listen to streaming audio of entire acts of the show, so go and whet your appetite.
  • Flaming Fire were one of the guest acts in the Devo Tribute Show I saw last week. They were pretty exciting, and the lead singer was pretty hot, but you must check out their site to see the progress they’re making on their project to have artists illustrate every single verse of the Bible (1079 illustrations complete; 35586 remaining).
  • The Grand List of Comic Book Cliches is funny because it’s true.
  • Typophile: The Smaller Picture is a project that’s building a typeface via collaborative effort over the internet one pixel at a time. (Thanks, Mike!)
  • Gilles Barbier is the artist of a fantastic, witty sculptural installation called L’Hospice that depicts elderly superheroes loafing around in a nursing home. (Better pictures halfway down this page.)