Concept Bikes & Bike Innovation - for better or worse

I come from a long line of quantity surveyors so was raised to believe that all architects are wankers.

No doubt about that. Horrendous achingly bijoux tin pot dictators. The lot. Just confirms the need for more Wankery Police.

@ lae - thanks for the response a few posts up. Interesting - makes me think about dumping advertising and going back to school.

And if you want to talk wankers, have any of you ever worked in advertising? Buildings full of vapid, useless, bellendian wankers! Must be the highest concentration of any industry. So many people that do nothing yet shout loudly about it. I have fallen foul many times. Just yesterday I described something as a "pastiche" when I wasn't entirely sure I was using the word correctly. To cover up any doubt, I just said it loudly, with confidence.

That is problem with being creative.

Other creatives.

(Engineers inc.)

(said the dictator)

B-)

Oh and another thing... An old example but a good example of function and beauty co-existing. The Concorde, amazing in every aspect of it's design and engineering. See also the SR-71.

Dyson design is rubbish and the engineering is not that great. They're heavy, yet made of poor quality plastics. The engines are not built to last. Anecdotal I know, but my mum is a professional housekeeper and she hates them. Most of her clients have spent over $1000 on these (in aus) and she says they are heavy, break down all the time and depending on the model and extremely hard to use in a normal house environment. Marketing over substance.

I do like the way some cheap OEMs have taken the brushless tech and made the conventional dryer much better and more reliable than the dyson. With the God awful addition of say a blue light. The Dyson at my current work has gone mouldy in the recess. All the paint has bubbled. However it still persists with the tagline 'Worlds Most hygienic hand dryer' . Smoke and Mirrors.

I did an assessment for an job at Dyson, they told me my design wouldn't work. It definitely would have, I copied it from elsewhere. I asked them if they wouldn't mind explaining why it wouldn't work, but haven't heard back. /csb

To get the debate going again, anyone who isn't a mechanical engineer is a wanker. Also, mechanical engineers are wankers.

I think the debate is ending because we've reached the conclusion that people, in general, are wankers. Regardless of profession.

I remember watching an interview with some venerable test pilot who said, after years and years of flying prototype aircraft, he came to the conclusion that the most beautiful planes are also the ones that fly the best.

Somewhat related - Don Norman's book Emotional Design (and lots of others, but this is the most accessible for non-designers) cites a lot of studies showing that people perceive attractive objects as having greater functionality than products which are unattractive but identical in terms of functionality. I wonder about the specifics of this - is the ugliness of an object a cause of frustration, or is it merely beauty mitigating poor functionality - and additionally, are highly functional objects perceived as more beautiful? This might be something to research.

Nah? B-)

Imagine a bike made out of this!

Nano-truss supermaterial... a bike frame made out of it (could even be steel) would be about 200 grams...

I think the debate is ending because we've reached the conclusion that people, in general, are wankers. Regardless of profession.

We have a winner.

'The majority of the time when a product looks 'functional' an industrial designer or stylists has been consulted, because 'functional' is a look just like 'curvaceous' is a look. People who buy functional products want other people to know that they buy functional products, and therefore stylists are employed to make stuff look more functional than need be.'

this is a textbook definition of post-modernity, which (according to the best accounts) means that as well as an epochal cultural shift - i.e. a change within the superstructure - it is also (only) an expression of a change in the base, i.e. the mode of production.

#latecapitalism

Is that not just social acceptance? (Evans Bicycles)

Regardless of timescale or aesthetic.

See Brothel Creepers.

It reminds me somewhat of Annie Liebovitz, who when asked about the total and un-ignorable artifice of her shoots (lighting, costumes, make up, locations) replied (something like) 'there is no artifice there, since it all actually happened'.

And the answer was a) stupid and also b) true and quite brilliant, since it recognizes that what people want and like about her shoots is that they are - they really are - ridiculous and expensive (and tasteless and stupid and so on).

don't know how this fits with CGI / photoshopping - where I get the impression that even though we were very clearly through the looking glass we are only just going through the looking glass - at least you can't CGI a bike.

wait, Ordinata, is what 'not just social acceptance'?

All right Marx.

wait, Ordinata, is what 'not just social acceptance'?

ie. Whatever is peddled is generally accepted.

Is the consumer making the choice?

or is it other constraints, (because there is nothing else, what neighbour has etc.)

The 'pastiche' (good word) of copycat mass production?

Is it the 'buyers' predefined safe bet?

A more complex and limiting path between product and consumer?

Rather than 'the design' ?

I'm not sure - I have to do some work instead of talk about bikes, how they look, and society - but I think pastiche is a key concept, yes. Certainly making something look more functional than it is seems to me a pastiche of functionality. And Marx is relevant, as ever, not just because of the relation of culture (in the widest sense) to the economic organization of society but because this is a question of exchange value (something looks functional so it is desirable, priced more highly; I find myself 'worth' more for owning and endorsing it) vs. use value (preference for functional objects was supposed to be a prioritization of use value over exchange value, even though insofar as 'choices' like these are always social signifiers it instantly became - always already was - also an invocation of exchange value).

dialectics is as maddening as it is necessary

The functionalist preference for use values is also predicated on & implies a positive valorization of labour - the human effort and ingenuity of the workers. Its aufhebung into a 'look' is the depoliticization of the political, which is itself thoroughly political.

Hang on, just need to edit that...

Yes

Wankery >>>>
Concept bikes & innovation <<<<

:D

oh sorry thought this was 'concept bikes' so concepts would be welcome

So, another attempt at bicycle revolution:

http://www.gizmag.com/izzybike-chainless-folding-bike/32528/

Certainly interesting although donning my internet engineer spectacles it looks like a lot of energy and stress would have to carried by the seat/head tube junctions.

And am I losing my mind or - does the 2 wheel drive jockey wheel completely not work? ie each wheel would be forced in opposite direction of rotation?

The idler wheel works, except it'd bork your tyres and would slip in wet weather, and would probably feel quite horrendous.

I have always wondered if it is possible to make a super-compact folding bike by using a step-up epicyclic gearbox in one of the hubs.