It’s not much better in terms of performance than the one i already have. All the gigahertz and gigabytes are basically the same. It just feels cooler.
The beveled edges. The thumbscoop with just the right depth. The uninterrupted glass display. The battery light that tells me how much power I have left. The otherwise invisible sleep light shining through tiny laser-cut perforations in the aluminum.
I want one.
Design makes me feel I NEED something. It will make me feel better if I have it. I know it will. I know I don’t need it. I just want it. Give it to me. Give it to me now.
Big ideas require big doses of sugar. Which is why we were distraught to see our local Krispy Kreme close down with no warning. This crisis is truly getting out of control. You’re having an Original Glazed and cappuccino on Sunday, and greeted with a hastily put up notice on Monday:
We regret to advise you that Krispy Kreme has ceased trading with immediate effect.
If you have any questions about the affairs of the Company please contact Briscoe & Wong Limited whose address is 18/F, 1801 Wing House, 71 Des Voeux Road, Central, Hong Kong.
Tel: 2899 2178
Fax: 2899 2948
So please show your support for the cause by calling the evil liquidators, writing to them, and joining the ‘Bring back Krispy Kreme in Hong Kong’ movement on Facebook.
We at Shift. firmly believe that a healthy balanced information diet of media outlets is essential to the functioning of one’s brain. Much like Sarah Palin, we read most of them with a great appreciation for the press for the media. Specifically, you ask? Um, all of ‘em, any of ‘em that um have been in front of us over all these years, um…
So it is with great interest that we’ve watched today’s launch of The Daily Beast, IAC’s attempt to edit the web.
From a design perspective there are some clever features that seem to target real needs, or fears, people have with managing information overload:
The ‘Cheat Sheet’ gives you 10 daily must-reads so you don’t come off as a retard at the next cocktail party or CBS News interview.
The ‘Big Fat Story’ is reminiscent of the immortal BMP Guardian ad and attempts to give multiple points of view on one key story.
The ‘Buzz Board’ gives you some snappy picks from famous smart people in the hope that their genius somehow rubs off on you, presumably sans the libido in the case of Bill Clinton.
All original content has a convenient pop-up bio by the contributor’s name so you can apply the appropriate discount rate to what you’re reading.
All of this is fine and dandy, but we’re left with two questions. First, on a practical level, will this format prove to be too constricting in the longer run? Can you really boil the world down to one big fat story and a cheat sheet on the rest, especially within a daily news cycle without the benefit of perspective?
Second, on a philosophical level, should people really be outsourcing the editing of their information diet to one person, or one group of people, no matter how brilliant or well meaning? With tools like Google Reader making it easy to do yourself, we are not convinced.
All in all The Daily Beast gets points for trying, but we’re not canceling our Economist subscription just yet.
With India attempting a smoke ban this week, it feels like the appropriate moment to go old skool. Turn back the clock 50 years and check out a chain-smoking Mike Wallace interview Frank Lloyd Wright.
The man, the myth, the legend talks about religion, war, mercy killing, art, critics, his mile-high skyscraper, America’s youth, sex, morality, politics, nature, death, and has a great rant on being accused of arrogance. Blockbuster stuff.
My name is Mike Wallace, the cigarette is Philip Morris.
As an expat living in Hong Kong, it is very easy to get trapped in the Central bubble and not leave the 100m radius around Goccia. But this weekend, we were determined to venture into the depths of Kowloon and check out the newly opened Jockey Club Creative Arts Center.
Billed as Hong Kong’s answer to London’s Tate Modern, the centre occupies a remodeled 1970s factory in Shek Kip Mei. Hong Kong being the most capitalist place on Earth, however, the place resembles Oxo Tower more than it does the Tate. Everything is for sale.
Most of the 110,000 square feet of the space are filled with tacky crap, but the building is spectacular and there are a few exceptions. Like the Kwok Wah Laundromat photo series. Ninjas are always cool. Check it out at unit L2-13. If you need directions call Subha Hari.
We at Shift. have been watching the carnage unfold on Wall Street this week just like everybody else, thinking about our friends who have been affected, and trying to dodge drunk bankers stumbling around the streets of Hong Kong.
Once again, the best summary of the situation comes from the infographic wizards at the New York times. Take a visual look at nearly half of the financial sector’s market value melt away in less than a year.
Interbrand’s brand valuation rankings scheduled to come out next week should provide some interesting reading. Provided they were able to get their armies of interns in this week to revise the numbers, that is.
But with brands like Lehman Brothers, which not long ago was valued at $4bn, now technically worthless we are also reminded of a fundamental truth in branding.
Brands are never really owned by companies. They only exist in people’s heads and continue to do so even after the business disappears. Just witness the $90+ that a Lehman baseball hat is fetching on eBay. Now there’s retro-brand potential if we’ve ever seen it.
The brand is dead. Long live the brand.
At this point we are reminded of a certain 80s song …
While most of the world is captivated by whether or not winning eight gold medals is worthy of being the greatest Olympian ever, or whether to count all medals or just gold ones to determine the winning national team, we think it is a good time to take a longer view.
Our friends at the New York Times have produced what is arguably the greatest Olympics infographic ever. In true Hans Rosling style, it shows the medal counts by country for every modern summer Olympics ever held represented as a world map.
As you scroll through the data you can see the rise and fall of world powers, you can see Cold War boycotts, but most strikingly you can see how much the world we live in has changed.
During the 1908 summer Olympics held in London, Britain won more medals than the rest of the world combined. Not a single one was won by an Asian or South American country.
Fast forward a hundred years, and it is clear we live in a fundamentally different world. One defined by the rise of the rest, to borrow a phrase from Fareed Zakaria.
What has pigtails, is often on the wrong side of the law and sports a bejeweled turban? It’s Snoop Dogg in his latest avatar.
On 08.08.08 while some of us partied at the Culture Club Gallery in HK, and others watched the Beijing fireworks, a few million Indians were at the opening night of a movie that has since become Bollywood’s biggest ever blockbuster.
‘Singh is Kinng’ is a comedy starring the popular actor Akshay Kumar, but the real hero of the movie is its music, especially the title-track. It brings together Snoop Dogg with the bhangra remix group RDB for a chartbusting, toe-tapping fusion of hip-hop, bhangra and Bollywood that’s taken nightclubs in India by storm and is now one of India’s favourite ringtones. The over-the-top music video claims to unite the “powers of the East… (with)… the powers of the West” and features a turbaned Snoop and Akshay shaking it amid sword-wielding Sikhs and long-haired dancing ladies.
See Snoop D-Oh-Double-G struggle with the bhangra moves in this behind the scenes video.
Snoop is hardly the first hip-hop artist to take notice of the potential the Indian market offers. 50 Cent, Akon, Black Eyes Peas… they’ve all toured India recently, but Snoop’s certainly come in with a bang. And with a smarter strategy, it would appear. Snoop’s Bolly-hip-hop blend is not unlike McDonald’s Maharaja Mac – an adaptation of a Western product for the Eastern palate. And Snoop’s got big plans. “This is just the beginning, yo”, he promises.
Bring it on, big Dogg… the ladies of ‘Moom-bye’ can’t wait.
