Max Dalton's first solo show in the US features dozens of the artist's limited-edition prints (and plenty of love for ’80s and ’90s movies).
The post Breaking Bad Meets Where’s Waldo? in a Pop Culture Art Show appeared first on WIRED.
Delta Air Lines says it will get your checked bags to the baggage-claim carousel in 20 minutes or less, or it will compensate you with 2,500 reward miles.
The carrier began testing the program in February, and decided to extend it permanently for all domestic flights in the U.S. International flights are not included in the promise.
Getting the miles isn't automatic, though: Passengers must request them through Delta's website, and they must be a SkyMiles member.
Would be nice if airlines refunded baggage fees when bag is late, wouldn't it? #delta
— David Rawnsley (@DavidRawnsleyPG) January 1, 2013 Read more...
Syrian activists say the Islamic State militant group is hitting citizens of Raqqa, its de-facto capital city, with new sanctions on men wearing skinny jeans, smoking cigarettes, playing certain music on their cell phones, and arriving late for prayers at the mosque.
The extremist Islamist group has been in control of the city since September 2013 and has gradually strengthened its grip as it continues its expansion in eastern Syria and northern Iraq, imposing its interpretation of Sunni Islam on local residents.
The activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently first reported on the new sanctionsintroduced in the city. Read more...
The Solo Traveler lid takes in to account human anatomy, ergonomics and functionality in a simple and elegant way. It is very hard to improve upon this form-follows-function design.
The Solo Lid broadcasts, by its very design, how to use the product; many other lid systems do not. The iconic design has been featured in a number of Modern Art exhibits and has won notable design awards.
There have been at least 40 different, individually-patented drink-through plastic cup lids created since 1934. The styrene plastic hot beverage lid for Styrofoam and cardboard containers have been around since the early 1970s. Prior to this invention, a cardboard cup lid was the only option.
There are 3 basic lid systems: fully closed, directly drinkable and indirectly drinkable using a straw. We will focus on the directly drinkable version. The challenge of any directly drinkable lid system is to meet the primary goals:
The secondary goals are:
Examples of hot beverage lid designs. The Solo Traveler and copies display a clear easy of use functionality.
There are five basic methods and design concepts for lid designs:
There are variations to these designs, but there are not too many other options. Many of these design concepts are confusing and perhaps frustrating to use. Some designs are so poor that even in optimal cases the usability is suspect. Just about everyone has experienced this while trying to negotiate the hot beverage. In many cases, spillage and perhaps burns are a result of these poor designs.
In most of these lid designs, the user’s anatomy — the tip of the nose and the protrusion of the upper lip — are not fully addressed. When drinking from a cup, the tips of our noses will come so close as to typically enter the cup if there is no lid. Thus with any lid system it is important to address the tip of the nose and the top lip.
The Solo Traveler has addressed these issues most directly — and that is one of the reasons for the stellar success of the product. The Sweetheart Company has a competing product, the Sweetheart Gourmet lid; however it does not address the anatomy issues directly. On an ergonomic account alone the Solo Traveler is far more a superior design. This is accomplished by raising the lid surface about 1/2 inch above the edge of the cup. Most completing lid systems sit at or slightly below the edge of the cup and limit how these systems can solve typical lid usability issues.
All disposable lid systems are not fully able to deal with heat transference and steam dispersion very well. The issue is really one of balancing the needs for this class of product. Other than being burned by a beverage that is too hot to drink, the largest complaint seems to be the pooling of steam that can be as hot as 120 F. Almost all lid systems have a small hole to aid in the venting of steam, but they are less then ideal as they must also be small enough to not allow too much beverage to escape.
There is also the issue of cooling too rapidly to be balanced. In the case of the Solo Traveler there is actually a “Chimney effect” because of the upward angle on the drinking side of the lid. This is both a benefit and a problem. The “Chimney effect” will efficiently move steam up and out through the drinking hole and it is important to avoid drinking until a reasonable period of time has elapsed to allow the early venting as the beverage cools.
The benefit is the Solo Traveler will accelerate this process by its design. One could design a system that is optimized for perfect cooling coefficients but this would create far higher costs.
The Solo Traveler’s design is so well optimized there is little that can be done to improve the design. However there was one issue Solo could address: complete sealing by the lid to limit any inadvertent leakage. They took on this problem with the Solo Traveler Plus lid, designed for Solo by Metaphase Design Group of Saint Louis, MO. This is a luxury improvement to the classic Traveler lid that includes a sliding closure system.
Using the same design firm that created the Microsoft 2.0 Mouse and the plastic Listerine bottle, Solo challenged Metaphase to create an innovation on the basic concept: to create an updated version of the classic Traveler cup lid. The design premise would be centered around the ability for the lid to be resealed so there would be little to no spillage of potentially hot liquid. This was not an easy problem to design for as cost and ease of use was one of the top priorities.
The solution was to create a two piece lid that has a small sliding knob at the top of the lid. To open or close one would slide the knob and a mechanism inside the lid opens or closes the sip hole. This design was tested at a number of locations and became available in the United States in early 2004. The lid was an instant hit with high end coffee houses and restaurants. It went on to become an award-winning design and shown at museums events. The only issue was the cost — about 7 cents per cup in comparison to 2 cents for most versions of the classic Solo Traveler.
With the Solo Traveler lid we see the crystallization of how many competing design elements have been simultaneously addressed. There is a point of optimization where a product cannot really be improved upon and I believe we see it with this product. As long as human anatomy does not radically change, cups continue to be the primary delivery system for beverages and gravity continues to work, I think we will continue to see the Solo Traveler on into the foreseeable future.
About the author: Brian Roemmele , Alchemist & Metaphysician
Why is the Solo Traveler the dominant coffee cup lid? originally appeared on Quora. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.
This answer has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
When your own dad calls you out on Twitter, it's time to pack it up and go home.
Deion Sanders Jr. got owned by his dad on Thursday after tweeting about the need to get "hood doughnuts" in the mornings.
@DeionSandersJr you're a Huxtable with a million $ trust fund stop the hood stuff! Lololol. Son#Truth
— Deion Sanders (@DeionSanders) April 2, 2015
The elder Sanders, a former football and baseball player who is an analyst for CBS Sports and the NFL Network, told his son to "stop the hood stuff" and called him a Huxtable with a trust fund. Read more...
Your leads are the driver of your business. To grow and to gain customers you need to have quality leads that are actively engaged in your organization’s offerings—leads that are a fit for organizations strategy.
While every organization has a unique approach to categorizing its leads, there are several myths associated with lead quality many organizations fall to. Lets take a look at 10 lead quality myths and debunk them using facts derived from industry data.
NEW YORK — Fiat turned to technology to promote its 500X Trekking vehicle at the New York Auto Show on Thursday
The company collaborated with Icon Interactive to create a giant digital display attached to a Microsoft Kinect, which allowed users to interact with the car with just a wave of their hand
Standing 12 feet wide by 7 feet tall, the massive display presented the Fiat 500X as a life-sized image, as viewers swiped to launch various functions while standing 10 feet away. They could flip the car on its side, change its color, throw virtual beach balls and basketballs at it, and even change the background scenery from a beach setting to a city skyline Read more...
Anyone who likes YouTube gaming shows might want to look away.
This hilarious sketch by CollegeHumor's Brian Murphy pokes fun at just about every trope and cliche in the genre. From retro reviews to Wikipedia fact listing, this goateed game reviewer covers everything, all the while offering the baseline criticism of "X is just a Grand Theft Auto clone."
Consider it tough love, YouTube gamers.
California's mountain snowpack has vanished
Typically, the snowpack provides up to 30% of the state's annual freshwater resources and is at a seasonal peak depth in early April. But in the face of mild Pacific storms that brought rain instead of snow, as well as drier-than-average conditions and a record-warm winter, the snow cover stood at just 5% of average on April 1, by far the lowest level ever recorded
Conditions are so dire that California Governor Jerry Brown announced on Wednesday the first-ever statewide mandated water restrictions, aiming to achieve a 25% cut in water use across the state. While the governor's executive order would require agricultural interests to report more information to the state about their water use, potentially paving the way for water restrictions in the future, it would not, however, impose new limitations on growers. Read more...
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed a freshly revised religious freedom bill into law on Thursday over objections from LGBT groups who believe the measure is "anti-gay" — and he Meerkated the momentous occasion so everyone could watch him do it live.
Hutchinson, a Republican who previously served as Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration before his January 2015 election to the statehouse, says the changes addresses concerns that the law would legalize discrimination against gays and lesbians in the Land of Opportunity. Read more...
Venmo is a great way to ditch your wallet or buy drugs with your smartphone. Part of the fun is the simple fact that the app’s social networking features allows you to publicly shame your friends spending habits with emoji. The most popular emoji used on Venmo, by the way, is pizza—by a landslide.
There’s no shame in pizza! Quartz recently analyzed a few trends in emoji use on Venmo. As you may have expected, the majority of activity comes from people paying their friends for delicious snacks (like pizza) and delicious booze (like wine and beer). Pizza is the most popular emoji with 17,470 of the nearly 450,000 emoji analyzed. Wine and the clinking-beer-mugs emoji came in second and third with 12,454 and 11,590, respectively. From there, it’s honestly a bunch of other party-oriented emoji like that weirdly brown tropical cocktail emoji. The sake bottle and cup emoji did not make the list.
This is more or less what you’d expect if you’ve ever used emoji for pizza-filled fun. More surprising, however, is this red herring: “The ‘pile of poop’ emoji only holds the top spot in the midnight hour because a single payment used it 1,116 times.” That’s a lot of piles of poop.
[Quartz]
