Nathan's Possibly Interesting web site
Commonsense design blog
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of everyday product design
Here is a bit of outstandingly smart design I saw in Terminal Five at London Heathrow airport. To fully appreciate the ingenuity, you should know that there are two security inspection areas (you know, where they check your shoes and X-Ray your hand luggage): Security North and Security South. Both serve the same function, and … Read more
My father, God rest his soul, was a young physics student when Israel’s war of independence broke out, and he was among the defenders of the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s Old City. When the quarter fell to the superior forces of the Jordanian Legion, he was taken prisoner and spent 9 months in a POW … Read more
When I was QA manager in an Intel fabrication plant I had this Honda Acura ad copy stuck to my cubicle partition: To fully appreciate the precision that goes into our 24-valve, 2.7 liter, 161-horsepower engine, touch the ashtray. And indeed, a quality product – be it a car or a flashlight – reflects its … Read more
Unlike the US, Israel doesn’t celebrate its Independence Day by sending its president to fight invading aliens in huge spaceships (our presidents are too advanced in years for that). We do, however, have other traditions, and one of the earliest of these has been for the Jewish National Fund to issue each year a small … Read more
Check out the new article in the History of Computing section of my Possibly Interesting Web site: Five Intel chips that changed the world. These are the five “Firsts” that Intel introduced during its first four years as a small start-up: the first chip in each of four key memory types, and the first microprocessor. … Read more
I wrote recently about the batch of WW1 postcards left by my great-uncle Ettore… and while the cards described in that article focus on hate propaganda, there was also one postcard that is quite endearing, and here it is: This postcard was issued 100 years ago by the Third Regiment of Telegraph Operators – basically, … Read more
New on my Possibly Interesting site: Heroes and Barbarians, Propaganda postcards from the Great War. Showcasing a collection of postcards issued to Italian soldiers in the first world war, in order to urge them to fight in that tragically senseless conflict. An illuminating, if disturbing, lesson in how to craft hate propaganda.
So here is a wonderfully useful tool from Shachihata: the Artline 710 Long Nib Marker. What’s the big deal, you ask? Not if you’re a handyman, you don’t! This funky looking tool is designed to fill a very specific need: marking through deep holes, as when you have to drill holes in the wall to … Read more
Was in Germany and saw these in a supermarket. The thing is called Bischofsmütze – which means Bishop’s hat, although there’s something vaguely oriental (Islamic oriental, I mean) about it. This is the weirdest fruit I remember ever running into – it looks like it’s a mashup of two different species, with the poor attention … Read more
Here we have two glove compartments. The one on the left is from the Renault Clio; the other from a Mazda 3. They serve the same simple function and – not surprisingly – look pretty much the same, if you ignore the nice touch in the Mazda’s, that places the latch closer to the driver. … Read more