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I like: Nissan | Datsun (Fairlady) 240Z

It is hard to imagine now but Japanese cars used to be seen as cheap economical cars – good value, but not good fun.
Datsun 240Z Fairlady
Hino were the first Japanese sports-car makers with their Contessa 900 sprint looking very reminscent of Alfa Romeo’s and the Volkswagen Karmann Ghia, although the Contessa didn’t last long as Hino was soon acquired by the Toyota Jidōsha Kabushiki-gaisha.

The first car to change people’s perceptions was the Toyota 2000GT which co-starred with Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice.

The Toyota 2000GT was a fantastic car, but priced in the Porsche cateogory of its time, so were very rare.

However, the idea was sewn in western consumers minds. By the 1969 you too could be like Sean Connery in an exotic sports car with the Datsun 240Z (in Japan it was known as the Fairlady, in a nod to a series of Japan-only sports cars reminscent of the MG and Austin-Healey British sports cars).

Where UK sportcars fell to pieces in your drive, were the warmed over remains of the parts bin, handled like a pig and were driven by pompous chaps with string back driving gloves; here was a modern sports car. As a bonus the 240Z was also reasonably priced.

If you squinted it could even look Italian, some people fitted lourve shades on the back window to ape the ventilation slats that the Lamborgini Miura had at the time like this well used model I saw in San Francisco.
Beautiful looking Datsun 280Z just off Haight
Whilst Datsun cars had their fair share of problems such as body corrosion they were getting steadily better and the 240Z was at the forefront of this charge. Both Datsun and Toyota was revolutionising the way quality was built into everyday cars, but it was the Japanese sports-car that gave them the brand permission to surge ahead.

Hat tip to Salim whose picture got me thinking on what ‘SXY CHIC‘ should really mean when refering to Nissan | Datsun.

The history of Guitar Hero

Vice magazine have put together a great short film with Alex Rigopulos on how he came to come up with guitar hero.

It’s actually been a 15-year odyssey to make music creation accessible to plebs like me. More at VBS.tv

Making vinyl records

I love this short film shot at The Vinyl Factory in Hayes, Middlesex – it reminds me of the industrial films that were shot up to the middle of the last century.

The Vinyl Factory Manufacture from thevinylfactory on Vimeo.

Links of the day

No Surprise Here: Millenials Cherish Mobile Devices – media companies should be a bit worried through as content consumption is harder over a mobile device

Work Smart 2: How to Take Smart Meeting Notes | Fast Company – good stuff here

Motorola Out-Apps Apple in China – China Real Time Report – WSJ – but where’s the profit?

HSBC Bank International Expat Economics Report 2010 – great bit of research by HSBC

Michael Geist – EU-Backed Study Finds Counterfeits Pro-Consumer, Rejects Company Complaints – interesting report on intellectual property and effect on consumers, flies in the face of government actions in this area

The Vinyl Exchange at The Silver Bullet « Format Magazine Urban Art Fashion – get along to this

Digital Pharma: Augmented reality gateway for Bayer haemophilia site | InPharm – really nicely done site

IAB guidance on ASA extension into social media

CAP – New UK Advertising Codes – ASA codes embracing social media

SMCKL #8 Video | Social Media Club Kuala Lumpur – interesting debate moderated by Rachel Lee

3 methods of fighting churn among US operators.Find out which one is the most effective. – Josh Dhaliwal – customer service is key, interesting point about churn being a social phenomena

BackType – similar to backtweet but has a nice graphing function

Obama’s frustrating, unfocused speech on Iraq – Slate Magazine – it is just me or is the Obama administration’s ability to communicate looking less like JFK’s Camelot and more like the Gordon Brown government in the UK?

Microsoft claims that google’s android is not free – The Inquirer – reminds me of the old Microsoft competitive displacement campaigns on LAMP and the Mac platform to try and spread disinformation

Microsoft co-founder sues tech giants for patent infringement | Pinsent Masons LLP – some interesting comments on the forthcoming Paul Allen case

FT.com / Telecoms – Eircom in talks to restructure its debt – basically Eircom has been LBO’ed into financial ruin by a number of investors since privatisation. I wonder what this says about the EU telecoms deregulation push. Expect a breach of bank covenants in the medium term and a lack of investment in the network for the foreseeable future

Facebook Creates Universities Page, Showcasing Deals and Tips for Students – this reminds me of the kind of content that portals like Aol and Yahoo! have done for a number of years

Army Revises Training to Deal With Unfit Recruits – NYTimes.com – real impact of sedentary lifestyles

Computer Chips Seem Poised to Shrink Again – NYTimes.com

The prescient cultural criticism of Max Headroom. – Slate Magazine – I love Max Headroom, though when watching it, I find its funny how dated it feels; particularly the portrayal of TV as a dominant figure in society

Blogger Outreach: Katherine Hannaford | Grapevine Consulting – nothing groundbreaking in here, though the perceptions around blogger relations specialists was interesting

Five things to consider before starting an SEO campaign | Econsultancy

Lanyrd | the social conference directory – the new Upcoming

Autodesk returns to the Mac with native version of AutoCAD, iOS devices | VentureBeat – makes sense given that a number of people present off an iPad

TV’s New Rule: Celebrities Only Use iPhones (and iPads) | Mobile Industry Review – looks like the iteration of Apple for the good guys, Dell for the villains that used to feature in 24

Michael Jackson Is Nokia’s Most-Downloaded Musician – is this due to Nokia’s developing world customer base?

Beijing to give state-run unions more power over pay | SCMP.com – smart move, will allow for regional and sector differences

Chrome Experiments – Arcade Fire – the how it was done

Official Google Reader Blog: Fullscreen and more! – incremental productivity improvement

#Apple development that no one has talked about

Steve Jobs has moved on from mock turtlenecks to black long-sleeved t-shirts. More on the keynote once I have had a chance to digest it all.

Disappointed that no iPod has more than 64GB of memory and convinced that my broadband connection would make the new hockey puck-esque AppleTV absolutely useless – Digital Britain is a sick joke.
Stevenote

Amazing film about craftsmanship

Check out this amazing film by Henrik Hansen about custom motorcycle engineer Shinya Kimura work works at Chabott Engineering in California. My father is a mechanical fitter by trade and much of this film reminded me very much of him.

The close-up shots of Kimura-san’s workshop tools reminded me of my Dad’s garage at home with his tools. Like my father Kimura-san has an instinctive relationship with his tools and materials that product design and engineering just can’t teach.

Shinya Kimura’s machines make you realise how soulless modern vehicle engineering has become, the complex mechanical nature of the machines giving his machines an almost organic nature and a steam punk aesthetic.

shinya kimura @ chabott engineering from Henrik Hansen on Vimeo.

There film also brought out to me the direct lineage in the work of Kimura-san and the approach and attitudes prevalent in Japanese design through the great artisan and apprenticeship traditions. If you would like to know more about this I can recommend Elements of Japanese Design by Boye Lafayette De Mente.

In terms of the film itself, what makes this even more amazing is that Hansen didn’t shoot this video on 35mm film but on a couple of Canon digital SLR cameras.

Frank Miller Gucci commercial is a nexus of high-fashion and geek culture

Frank Miller of 300 and Sin City fame has produced a commercial for Gucci. This will feature on MTV on September 12.

It is fantastic to watch, but it also a point of convergence between high fashion and geek culture. This has been going on for a while with people like hackette and fashion model Anina who pioneered lifestreaming. Hat-tip to PSFK.

The secret history of Silicon Valley

The story of Silicon Valley, that I have helped to perpetuate in my career as a PR professional is that of the classic plucky young start-up founders going from garage to boardroom. Dare I say it there is even a ‘start-up’ monomyth. Bright young things work really hard developing cool | amazing inventions in a spare room | garage. Their ideas inspire rich people or organisations to fund them and they become financially successful. The world is enriched by their innovation. The truth of course is somewhat postmodern in comparison, but that wouldn’t have paid my bills.

There are a number of histories of Silicon Valley, some include the beat and counterculture generations of the 1960s, others include square-jawed engineers who would look right at home on the set of Mad Men. This video of a talk at Google highlights the role of the military industrial complex in the growth of Silicon Valley.

Links of the day

William Gibson: I’m agnostic about technology. But I want a robotic penguin | The Observer – I love the phrase agnostic in relation to technology, its often how I feel

Do people grow out of Location based services? – broadstuff – another post on check-in fatigue

Turn Your Head & Swipe: Doctors Love the iPad (Infographic)

The PurpleList expert network – reminscent of the first iteration of Google Answers, but with a tighter focus | specialism

Briefs: A Cocoa Touch Framework for Live Wireframes – this looks awesome, I hope that Apple oks it soon

Chicago House FM – Online Radio Station – I can’t believe I hadn’t found this sooner

Parks Associates – Caregivers and their concerns for chronically ill family members drive early market for home health monitoring services – big tech opportunity, particularly with the aging boomer population

Why Intel Is Buying Infineon | Fast Company – all about integration and mobile devices

Welcome NASA to the Commons « Flickr Blog – hell yeah!

More Sophisticated Rigs Drill Deeper Still for Oil – NYTimes.com – but where are the facts?

For Arms Sales Suspect, Secrets Are Bargaining Chips – NYTimes.com – continuing story of Viktor Bout

Hackers blind quantum cryptographers : Nature News – interesting use of lasers to grasp the key with no apparent trace

Japan calls for transparent labor rules in China › Japan Today – interesting dispute between Japan and China

HOW TO: Make Free iPhone Ringtones – right off to sort new ringtones for the phone

Apple App Store: 250,000 and counting – Apple 2.0 – Fortune Tech – but how many of them have most people tried?

Groklaw – A Bird’s Eye View of the HTC/Nokia/Apple Patent Litigations – Nokia spurs patent shitfest. Bottom line its going to take more than lawyers to appropriately reinvent Nokia

New Face of Iceland – Iceland’s social media efforts, look as if they have done it on a budget

Mormons ‘own’ Microsoft’s I’m a PC campaign

The LDS Church has been running some ad spots in trial markets across the US (and has also posted them to Youtube) which owe a creative debt to Microsoft’s I’m a PC campaign. But I have to admit that this video featuring motorcycle fanatic Jeff Decker for the Mormon’s campaign beats any of the I’m a PC spots hands down.

His sculptures and the vintage bikes in the video are underpinned by an awesome rockabilly soundtrack.

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