July 2007 Archives

Peace Wall

Graffiti over Peace Wall's thousands of tiles painted by schoolchildren on Arbat pedestrian street in Moscow. Project "Our Names".

• Peace Wall — full format 1600 × 1200
• Peace Wall — wide format 1920 × 1200

The Wall of Tsoi

The Wall of Tsoi on Arbat St. in Moscow is covered with graffiti dedicated to Russian rock musician Viktor Tsoi (Russian: Виктор Робертович Цой), leader of the rock group Kino, who died in a car accident in 1990.

• The Wall of Tsoi — full format 1600 × 1200
• The Wall of Tsoi — wide format 1920 × 1200

Scratches

Scratched inscriptions on a house wall in Bucharest.

• Scratches — full format — 1600 × 1200
• Scratches — wide format — 1920 × 1200

Pro versions

For the graphic professionals that cannot afford saturated colors on their desktop, low contrast versions (grayscale picture + 50% opacity neutral gray) are available:

• Peace Wall — pro, full format 1600 × 1200
• Peace Wall — pro, wide format 1920 × 1200
• The Wall of Tsoi — pro, full format 1600 × 1200
• The Wall of Tsoi — pro, wide format — 1920 × 1200
• Scratches — pro, full format — 1600 × 1200
• Scratches — pro, wide format — 1920 × 1200

Send 'em in

If you decide to use one of these wallpapers and you don't mind sending a screenshot of your desktop (e-mail to kit at kitblog followed by dot com) along with your name and/or web site address, your precious captures will be appended to this post.

Be brave — if you’ve got it, why not flaunt it? Send 'em in!

Live in Romania

After The Rolling Stones, I got to see the iPhone live in Bucharest and it was no less amazement — "the largest commercial product launch in the history of electronics" after "the world’s greatest rock & roll band". Not a bad week.

During my one-hour play (thank you Richard, you lucky dog! I evy your guts sincerely) I made some quick notes:

The indescribably good

• I thought it's larger but it's exactly the right size • I thought scrolling it's going to have a lag, it doesn't • The screen beats the PSP and it's the most gorgeous screen I've seen • Typing takes a while to get, but it rapidly improves • Photo gallery "flicking" is as natural a GUI can get • Pinch resizing just works both in photos and web pages • The web browser (Safari) is in a class of its own.

I thought i will be able to describe it, I'm not. That's how amazing it is.

The faintly bad

• Yes, EDGE is slow • Using it for CPU-intensive tasks makes it get hot • Come on Apple, send that copy-paste feature via software update, please!

Quick conclusion

• The GUI is as polished as the Macintosh GUI and it makes a world of difference • The attention to the details is staggering (and there are lots of little gems hidden in there, for instance deleting a note employs a minimizing effect animation, graphically throwing the page in the trash) • the construction is at or above the "iPod industry standard" • I'd pay double triple the price for one.

The name is misleading, it's not a phone — do not compare the iPhone with any other phones you have used or seen. It's the first of a new breed.

"Ce rochie draguta, pacat ca pantofii sunt ieftini" (What a nice dress, too bad the shoes are cheap), Mick Jagger said in Romanian toward Lisa Fischer (wow, Lisa — her voice was astonishing) during A Bigger Bang Tour concert in Bucharest, to the public's amusement and delight. Click to play video.

Loving Scandinavian design means buying Scandinavian design. Otherwise it would be just another case of virtual consumption.