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[Time ONE] An artist has sparked a debate about what women's skirt lengths say about the wearer. Rosea Lake, 18, who is studying graphic design and illustration at Capilano University in Vancouver, posted a photograph titled Judgements to her Tumblr account. The image shows a woman from behind with ten words written up her left leg indicating various hemlines, with 'matronly' scrawled at the bottom of her calf and 'whore' seen just below her buttocks. Resting under her knee is the label 'proper' while 'flirty' sits above. In just two weeks Miss Lake's photo has attracted more than 270,000 comments as it has been shared on various social networking sites. One commentator wrote on Facebook: 'It doesn't go down to the ankle, would that be graceful or elegant? I think so.' While another showed their distaste adding: 'Sure, let's judge women like we did in the 1600's. Disgusting!' However Laura Beck of Jezebel said: 'This picture really resonates with me. Like many women, I've been subjected to confirm my skirt was long enough at school and been asked, while wearing a maxidress, why I was so covered up. There's some days a lady just can't win.' Miss Lake, who shot the picture when she was 17 as part of a high school project, said she wanted the piece to stop people jumping to conclusions when it comes to women and the way they dress. She told The Province: 'I realized that when I looked at a woman in a short skirt I automatically thought ‘slut’ - I felt bad about that.、 'And I thought all women who wore hijabs were being oppressed. I thought about slut shaming and thought we need to get to a place where we are not judgmental.' Due to demand she is now planning on selling prints of Judgements, however she says one minor tweak must be made first as the word 'prudish' is spelled incorrectly, 'I didn’t catch that when I first did it. But for prints or other stuff I will fix it,' she explained. [344]
【TIME TWO】 Can a Buzzing Fork Make You Lose Weight?
The HapiFork wants to make you less piggish. Photo courtesy of HapiLabs. Utensil history was made last week and I, for one, took pleasure in seeing that we had finally evolved beyond the spork or, as some of you may know it, the foon.
But sadly, the unveiling of the HapiFork at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was not universally greeted with great jubilation, but rather with a fair amount of ridicule.
Produced by a Hong Kong company called HapiLabs, the HapiFork is curious little thing. It looks like a fork and works like a fork, but it vibrates like a cellphone. And why it buzzes is the reason the media largely responded with one big group eyeroll.
See, the HapiFork is a fork with a simple and noble mission–to get you to stop eating like a pig. It buzzes to remind you to slow down.
It tracks not only the number of bites you’ve taken, but also how much time has passed between them and how long it takes you to finish the meal. The slower you eat, the fewer calories you consume. And because all the data can be stored on your smart phone, you can measure how less a chowhound you’ve become.
But some critics were not enamored of the concept, portraying the HapiFork as the essence of nanny technology, another “smart” gadget enforcer of data-driven moderation. How, the thinking goes, did it come to this, where forks are telling us to shut our pieholes? [256]
【TIME THREE】 The measure of a man
But maybe, given the obesity epidemic in the U.S. and Europe, it’s time to start listening to buzzing silverware. In fact, there are those who believe the current boom in mobile apps and devices that track our health and bad habits could play a big role in helping the U.S. get its outrageous health care costs under control.
A major health trend this year, according to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, will be a shift by employers and insurance companies to encourage employees to be a lot more proactive when it comes to taking care of themselves. That’s in part due to incentives in the Affordable Care Act, but also because today’s technology–whether it’s sensors, WiFi or smart phones–has made it so much easier to track every move we make, every breath we take.
We’ll likely see more companies turn to employee wellness programs focusing on prevention and tapping into all that data that our smart phones and other health gadgets are able to gather about us. Already, start-ups such as the Boston-based Healthrageous are being hired by companies to work closely with their employees with chronic conditions, such as diabetes or hypertension or even sleep disorders. Healthrageous provides both a tracking device–say a blood glucose monitor for diabetics–and a customized plan to help employees reach their personal goals, which could be anything from fitting into pants you last wore 10 years ago to being able to play with your grandkids.
PUSH Wellness, in Chicago, also contracts out an employee wellness program, but with a different spin. It actually pays cash incentives to workers who meet goals that raise their “PUSH” score–a number based on a person’s Body Mass Index (BMI), blood pressure, cholesterol and fitness level. With PUSH, it’s not enough for an employee to exercise; they have to show real measurable results or there’s no pay out.
The big health insurance companies are getting in on the act, too. Last month, Aetna unveiled Passage, a fitness app it developed with Microsoft, that allows people to feel like they’re running or biking in some of the world’s great cities–Rome, New York, or Barcelona, for instance.
Also last month, Cigna announced that it has made available, for free, to the first 20,000 people who download them, four apps bundled together as the “Healthy Living App Pack. One is designed to track your workouts, another to get you to relax, another the help you sleep. The fourth, Fooducate, is a food nutrition app designed to make you health savvy when you’re food shopping. 【464】
[TIME FOUR] When sensors speak
Here are five other health devices that made a splash at CES last week:
?Would your wrist lie to you?: Another health wristband is coming on the market soon. Called Fitbit Flex, it will be able to track your daily activity–steps taken, calories burned–and also how you’ve slept, plus wake you up with a little buzz in the morning. For motivation, a display of four LED lights shows how far along you are in meeting that day’s goal. And at $100, it will be less expensive than the competitors already out there, Nike Fuel and Jawbone’s Up. ?Keep running or we’ll play “Gangham Style:” Or you can let little earbuds do the monitoring work. Coming out this spring are iRiver On headphones equipped with PerformTek Precision Biometrics technology that measures a range of body metrics, including heart rate, distance traveled, steps taken, respiration rate, speed, metabolic rate, energy expenditure, calories burned and recovery time. ?It was so much easier when pills looked like the Flintstones: For those dealing with a daily dose of multiple meds, there’s the uBox. The little box reminds people when it’s time to take their pills with a combination of beeps, blinking lights and smart phone reminders. And if you’ve already taken your meds, the box remains locked until it’s time for another set–the better to keep forgetful seniors from double dosing. It even lets other family members know if grandpa’s missed a med. ?Giving new meaning to “Let me hear your body talk”: Then there’s Metria, a small patch a person wears on their chest that measures heartbeat, skin hydration, breathing, steps taken and sleep patterns. (It records the duration and quality of sleep based on how much you’ve tossed and turned.) Each patch gathers information for seven days and can send it to a phone or tablet anywhere in the world. Metria’s designed primarily for elderly people who live alone, but the U.S. Air Force reportedly may use it to monitor pilots. ?Will walk for prizes: And bringing us back full circle to obesity is the ibitz PowerKey, a pedometer for kids. It doesn’t just track their activity, but rewards them with games, apps, shows and prizes for staying on the move. And yes, parents can check in on their kids’ progress on their own smart phones. 【429】
[TIME FIVE] Inauguration Security -- A Year In The Planning
WASHINGTON — More than 500,000 people are expected to converge on the area between the Capitol and the White House for Monday's presidential inauguration. That's about one third of the people who attended President Barack Obama’s first inauguration four years ago. Still, a large event like this poses security challenges.
Presidential inaugurations are elaborate. There's the swearing-in with domestic and foreign dignitaries present. The moving of the president to and from the White House, and the massive crowds that gather along the way. All present complex challenges for security.
“The event is going to span a very large area. We are talking about the inaugural parade, the swearing-in ceremony throughout DC. There are issues of making sure these perimeters are secure without stopping everyday business,” said Jessica Zuckerman, a homeland security expert with the Heritage Foundation.
Officials have been working on a security plan for the inauguration for more than a year. The U.S. Secret Service, which guards the president daily, is in charge and will be joined by federal and local law enforcement from more than 80 jurisdictions around the country.
They will have eyes and ears on the tops of buildings, in the sky and in the crowds.
“Mainly watching for anything out of the unusual. It is the same principle of, if you see something say something. They are going to be looking for anything that indicates something is not quite right and there might be a potential threat,” Zuckerman said.
Six thousand National Guard troops have been deputized by the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. They will assist with crowd and traffic control. Barriers have been erected around federal buildings and along the parade route to control crowd flow and access to secure areas.
Security will be coordinated from a command center at an undisclosed location outside the city. Officials say they have planned for every contingency from terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, to a single individual looking to disrupt the proceedings 【332】
【越障】 Jicky, the First Modern Perfume
According to Guerlain, the bottle is inspired by a 19th century medicine jar with a stopper shaped like a champagne cork, intended to evoke movement and celebration – “a clever nod to parties and the sparkling woman who wears the fragrance.” One hundred years after the French Revolution began, the Eiffel Tower rose above Paris as a testament to the new century’s innovations in engineering and construction. It could be seen from everywhere in the city; an inescapable sign of a different type of revolution. But the Eiffel Tower wasn’t the only technological innovation to dominate the streets of Paris in 1889. That same year, the first modern perfume was created: Jicky.
What makes Jicky modern? As mentioned in our previous post on “The Art of the Scent,” it is widely regarded as the first fragrance to incorporate synthetic ingredients as well as natural extracts, making it one of the most significant perfumes in the history of scent design. Jicky was created by Aimé Guerlain, the son of perfumer Pierre-François-Pascal Guerlain, who founded the family perfume house in 1828 when he opened a small shop in Paris. At the time, natural floral perfumes were all the rage and the senior Guerlain was a master of the craft whose clients included Queens and Tsars. When Aimé took over as master perfumer upon his father’s death in 1864, he continued to develop new floral fragrances but he also brought his own unique innovations, adding exotic spices from the far East to the traditional Guerlain bouquet. In 1889, with the Eiffel looming above Paris, everything changed with the creation of Jicky, a new scent Aimé named after a lost love.
Breaking with traditions and trends, Guerlain challenged conventions by introducing synthetic molecules into his perfumes. At its most basic, Jicky was primarily composed of lavender and vanilla scents, along with secondary citrus notes and a hint of the traditional Guerlain bouquet. While the lavender was steam-distilled through a standard process, the vanilla scent presented a unique problem—it was an expensive and rather weak extract. So Guerlain sought out an alternative: synthetics. According to The Little Book of Perfumes, when the perfume was being conceived, only a single firm in Paris, De Laire, had the rights to patent synthetic vanillin, which was cheaper, sweeter and creamier than the natural alternative. Not only would these designed components—terpene alcohol β-linalool, coumarin and ethyl vanillin—add to the multi-faceted complexity of the scent, they also made it last longer. Although the process wasn’t perfect, the impurities of the synthetic extract added to the complexity of the scent. It was brave. It was bold. It was the first perfume designed to stir emotions, rather than just recall flowers. And it was worn almost exclusively by men. At first, anyway. Women soon came around and Jicky was actually marketed as a unisex fragrance. The ambiguity became a part of the identity of Jicky and is still referenced in the official description of the perfume:
“Oriental chypre Fresh, dynamic, surprising Filled with contrasts and dualities, freshness and oriental notes, Jicky is a magical perfume that plays on the olfactory ambiguity between masculine and feminine. The subtle spicy notes that blossom with the usual warmth of the oriental facet also play skillfully with the fresh and aromatic notes of lemon and lavender at its heart. Underneath this audacious structure, one detects woody and vanilla notes for greater vibration and character.”
Jicky is still made by Guerlain. And though it enjoys the distinction of being the oldest perfume in continuous production, the modern Jicky is different than the original. According to the authors of The Little Book, the scent was once “raunchier, more curvaceous, less stately.” The disparity can be partly explained by the purity of the vanillin, which improved as the process of creating synthetics was refined. Though measures were taken to recreate that certain je ne sais quoi with the addition of birch tar, the contemporary scent remains slightly different from the original. We may not think about it often, but all scents are the result of rigorous experimentation, trial-and-error and, sometimes, revolutionary invention. By breaking with tradition, Aimé Guerlain introduced perfumers to an entirely new, nearly limitless palette and changed perfume forever. The story of Jicky is the story of modern perfume. It’s a union of science, art, and perhaps even a little romance. And it proves, beyond a doubt, that scent is not only a design discipline but an art. Although it may evolve over time, it seems safe to say that as long as the Eiffel Tower stands, there will always be Jicky.
Previously on Design Decoded: Designing Scent: An Olfactory Exhibition at the Museum of Art and Design 【789】
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