Strange world

A recent experience showing again that we are living in a crazy world (that I already knew for a long time). I learned a lesson about pricing and about the nonsense world economy and traveling products. The story is as follows: some products (I don't want to mention details, this is not really relevant) available on Amazon are cheaper if they are ordered from amazon.com than from amazon.fr for instance. As a European, I order some stuff from the .com site, and goods are supposed to be delivered from the US to Europe. Now the path being followed: the products in question are produced/printed in the US, distributed by a company in California. According to the package I received, it seems that the goods have been shipped from Auckland, New Zealand. Delivery was in Belgium, Europe, with a very reasonable delay and perfect packaging. 5 stars service. But what about the number of miles traveled, everything for a lower charge than similar products delivered from the European warehouse...

This kind of story is not new, of course, and BTW I am a happy customer, but as said in the beginning, we live in a crazy world.

And just for the fun, I just saw that the apple I was eating while typing this is coming from New Zealand too. We produce apples locally, not in this season, but again...

Letters

Sometimes brand name and logo are so strong you can recognize the brand just by having a look at one single letter using their standard font... here is the "company" alphabet... guess who is who

Interesting quality links

While browsing, I found a few interesting sites about poka yoke (mistake proofing) and bad designs.

This one is about badly designed user interfaces, or systems:
http://www.baddesigns.com/

This one is a very nice mistake proofing site with a lot of useful information:
http://www.mistakeproofing.com/example1.html

Specifically about software mistake proofing
http://www.mistakeproofing.com/software.html

and the famous hotdog sawstop example:
the video
http://www.sawstop.com/
how it is designed
http://www.sawstop.com/how-it-works-overview.htm

Turkish traffic lights

TU3_2482, originally uploaded by gugs.

an interesting concept: the number of remaining seconds is being displayed on traffic lights, red or green, you exactly know when the lights will change...

Rest rooms size - do architects know their job ?

there is something I have noticed for years in almost all buildings I have visited... restrooms are the same size for men and women, resulting in HUGE lines of women waiting. This is absolutely normal since they need more space and take more time than men, This is a universal fact negated by all architects in the world. The surface dedicated to women restrooms should be almost twice the surface for men... it seems that no architect in the world knows this and has been capable of doing his/her job properly for the last 30 years.

Cans Poka Yoke

I found a can with an old design during one of my recent travels... this has been modified for a long time in most countries so that when you open a can, you cannot get cut with the seperate metal pull tab anymore.


Old bad design found in Hong Kong



The recent classical design

There is another problem, in the new design the tab is moving inside the can and comes in contact with the beverage, a potential hygiene/safety issue because the cans are not that clean... I found an example in Italy where they have a solution for this:

Ethernet Poka Yoke

This is an interesting example of mistake proofing for a simple connector: the well-known ethernet cable connector... as many other people around the world, you probably have broken the small plastic piece clicking into the female connector to secure the connection. This is a major design flaw because those things break too easily if you move the cable...
I just found a new type of cable with a simple mechanical protection avoiding the issue. I am traveling a lot with such a cable and I broke a few of them very quickly... I am now using the new design for months, not a problem.


The old design (broken)

The better design