Ever catch yourself keying a phone number from layout or gestural memory rather than numerical memory ? Cool. Bravo! to ATT and Mental Floss, for a peek into the 1960’s era user testing when phone designers were puzzling over how to redesign a ubiquitous tool… replacing the telephone dial with push-buttons. Turns out the winner, the 3X3+1 layout of the modern telephone was not the most efficient design, nor the closest to the existing pattern, but merely the mostly generally pleasing overall according to the folks on the other side of the glass.

More information and data are at (and via) Mental_Floss and Gizmodo.

Seriously. Because they’re having a really good time, and so am I, following their exploits. Below is an extensive catalog of ships believed to be currently held for ransom by Somali pirates, and their cargo. Crude Oil, Tanks and Munitions, it’s all fair game and as long as they treat the [universally fillipino?] crews well, and honor ransom agreements, the world’s insurers and oil companies just count their hazard-premiums while sitting on their hands.

CAPT. STEPHANOS: Seized Sept. 21. The freighter was flying the Bahamas flag. It was carrying a cargo of coal and has 17 Filipinos, one Chinese and a Ukrainian aboard.

FAINA: Seized Sept. 24. The ship was carrying 33 T-72 tanks, grenade launchers and ammunition destined for Kenya’s Mombasa port. Pirates have demanded $20 million in ransom.

AFRICAN SANDERLING: Seized Oct. 15. The Panama-flagged, Japanese-operated, and Korea-owned bulk carrier has 21 Filipino crew aboard.

STOLT STRENGTH: Seized Nov. 10. The chemical tanker with 23 Filipino crew aboard was hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden. It was carrying 23,818 tonnes of oil products.

THE KARAGOL: Seized Nov. 12. The Turkish ship with 14 crew was hijacked off Yemen. It was transporting more than 4,000 tonnes of chemicals to the port of Bombay.

TIANYU 8: Seized Nov. 13/14. The Chinese fishing boat was reported seized off Kenya. The crew included 15 Chinese, one Taiwanese, one Japanese, three Filipinos and four Vietnamese.

CHEMSTAR VENUS: Seized Nov. 15. The combined chemical and oil tanker was travelling from Dumai, Indonesia to the Ukraine. It had 18 Filipino and five South Korean crew.

SIRIUS STAR: Seized Nov. 15. The Saudi supertanker, the biggest ship ever hijacked, held as much as 2 million barrels of oil. Captured off east Africa, it had 25 crew from Croatia, Britain, the Philippines, Poland and Saudi Arabia.

THE DELIGHT: Seized Nov. 18. The Hong Kong-flagged ship with 25 crew aboard is loaded with 36,000 tonnes of wheat bound for Iran. It was captured off the coast of Yemen.

ADINA: Seized last week. The Adina is a Yemeni-operated bulk carrier and carried seven crew, including three Somalis, two Yemenis and two Panamanians.

BISCAGLIA: Seized on Nov. 28. The Biscaglia is a Liberian-flagged chemical tanker with 30 crew on board, 25 Indians, three Britons and two Bangladeshis.

source: http://in.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idINLS21154720081128?sp=true

Do Somali Pirates say “Arrr” ? It’s like something out of a William Gibson novel. War is a racket. Now, apparently, so is Piracy for Hire. Nations have been subjugated liberated with shock and awe for less offenses against the world. This ‘Failed State’ seems to be outwitting the western world.

The difference between these guys and the Nigerian email scammers ? They work with their hands, man, and they’re clearly for hire. Want to spike the market price of oil ? Have your newest tanker taken hostage. Want to interdict an arms shipment to your rival ? A well dropped coke bottle and a note will do the job. [yes, it was an obscure reference.]

What does it feel like, Ishmael, commandeering 2 million barrels of the Saudi Royal family’s oil in their brand new supertanker, with 6 guys, a whale boat and a 2-stroke motor?

For emotional context, enjoy this oft-censored Bugs Bunny short, a strong influence on my own formative years…particularly the ‘locks’ off the Panama Canal… I hope it inspires you, like it did me…And the Somali Pirates.

Happy Monday.

John Francis at TED. He is the founder of Planetwalk, an organization around raising environmental awareness and peace.

This talk is not about the Environment or Peace.

His path has been to walk the Earth…What’s Yours? HD Video below.

More at TED.org

Crossing a Theremin and Surface would sound trite, but g-speak really represents a key leap in data visualization and HCI. Demo video and assorted links below.

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Here’s a clip about Microsoft Surface, mentioned previously if you’ve been in a cave.

And a gratuitous link to where you can buy a Theremin and read more about them and other Gestural Control devices.

This past summer, Steve Portigal and Dan Soltzberg spread a blanket and sat down to talk about the Creative Process and the art of Noticing. It’s about as Meta a concept as you can get when thinking/talking about the creative condition…Bonus points awarded for tying into Zen Mindfulness. Excerpt below with links to full article.

There’s an interesting noticing-plus-time version as well. For example, while traveling through Japan earlier this year, I took 1,400 pictures in two weeks. Maybe a sign or person would catch my eye or activate my “spider sense.” In many cases, I only knew that something was up, that there was a point of interest to capture. As a photographer, I’ve learned to hear that voice and take the shot whenever that happens. In a place like Japan at times I wouldn’t know what it was I was documenting or even be able to explain why I was taking the picture (beyond describing the scene as “cool”). But once I’d noticed something and photographed it, chances were good that I’d notice it again—as if that click of opening the shutter coincided with the creation of a new info-capture zone in my brain.

This process of noticing once and then noticing again is how you start finding patterns and uncovering themes.

Here’s the link.

Breaking News: Thankfully, we’re capturing the advance troops before they can do much damage. As reported previously on this very site… Nuclear waste is surely causing these discarded toys to grow in size and number…like Godzilla.

The Telegraph reports:

The Lego man is 6ft tall in red, yellow and green. It is presumed to have washed up on the beach, but whether it has come from a cargo ship or from across the Channel is not clear.

Brighton resident Gerry Turner, 34, said: “It’s very odd. God knows how it got here but people are saying it’s from Holland because it’s got some Dutch writing on it. It must have fallen off a boat of something. The kids love it.”

Children helped stand the Lego man up on the beach, but are still mystified as to where it came from. One said: “It’s great, but we don’t know why it’s here.”

A spokesman for Brighton and Hove City Council said it didn’t know the origin of the Lego man, but said it was fine for it to remain on the beach.

He said: “There’s no problem at all. It will be interesting to see how long the Lego man stays there for. We’ll keep an eye on it.”

A different giant Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort in August. That model was yellow and blue, and had the words “No real than you are” in English across its torso. That toy was said to come from England, so perhaps the Dutch decided to return the favour.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3285275/Giant-lego-man-appears-on-Brighton-beach.html

Not a Prada fan, and out of the loop, but new illustration anthems and downloadable art moves them… if Pan’s Labyrinth comes to mind, that’s some fine company. Video and downloadable after the jump.

You can Download the illustration here.

September 29, 2008. 700 Points. Shock doctrine applied to the stock market, enjoy this awesome video. Banks are failing, but it’s cool. I was tired of having to pay a royalty to WaMu everytime I said “WaHoo!” anyway… Are these ‘victims’ Bankers, or the Taxpayers, or completely unrelated to the news but serving my ends… You decide. -via Kottke.