#creates new problems

[f---nobaddesign]

(via Shape-shifting home transforms throughout the year in response to changing temperatures | Daily Mail Online)

It's very “cool”.

But as a design solution to the problem of dealing with weather and seasons, it's bonkers and terrible. Insulation (and say, double-glazed or triple-glazed windows) is a good partial solution towards both the problem of heat and the problem of cold. Heating and cooling systems do most of the rest. Am I seriously supposed to believe that moving a house every day, continuously throughout the day, takes less energy than cooling or heating a well-insulated non-moving house?

Plus, the unfolding system means this house takes up a tremendous amount of space relative to its internal square footage. You know what actually is an efficient, sustainable way to live? Multi-unit housing! Row houses are more efficient than detached! High rises even more efficient!

Also, you gotta make sure all human and pet inhabitants are away from any walls that'll squish together or any second-floor doorways that will soon open onto empty space instead of formerly adjacent rooms.

[f---nobaddesign]

At Yanko, we believe in concepts. No matter how unearthly, how futuristic, how impossible...a good idea needs to be shared. This Mag Lev train comes into our lives from the future with a crazy awesome aesthetic and an incredible ability to split into two and be pulled in two directions by separate engines. What CAN'T magnets do!?

(via Split Personality Train | Yanko Design)

"A good idea needs to be shared.”  For example, instead of trains running in one direction per track, what if they ran in both directions on the same track?

And what if we added a ton of weight in metal and glass dividers so a train car could be segmented into chunks no longer than 1.5 meters?

Less important:

The train sits entirely above the rail. Most real maglevs surround the rail, because otherwise, magnets that are just floating above other magnets due to magnetic repulsion tend to, you know, repel each other and fly away.

Why is it shaped like a tube? Aerodynamics? I guess, but it’s also hella awkward to get on the train. Not that any doors are shown. Are there stairs? Did he even design seating? In fact, how do you navigate boarding this thing?

Why can’t a conductor see out the front of the train via a window?  There’s just a huge light in front.

[f---nobaddesign]

This is gross and it's dumb.  Assume that everyone who uses the toilet also has to wash their hands.  Putting the sink over the toilet incurs these new problems:

The user now ties up the stall for longer. The purported space saving is entirely undone by this factor.

If hand-dryers / napkins are not installed in the stalls, then users will have to open the doors with wet hands.

Making something move means you've added something else that can break.

Also,the greywater issue could be handled without actually combining sinks and toilets.

[f---nobaddesign]

A modular mobile phone has been a dream of the mobile phone industry for many years and now Google is giving it a go.

[...]I believe that the engineering problems behind making this device a reality can be solved but the ergonomic and the economic issues will never work.

Ergonomics

A device of this type will always be bigger and clunkier than a regular design with exactly the same specification.

This is because it is custom components and system integration that allow such small packages to have top end performance.

The nature of this modular design prevents substantial parts of the device from being integrated together removing the usual space saving benefits gained.

Furthermore, standard connectors and the need for each component to be in a separate case will mean that there is far more material in this unit than a regular device.

Economics

To make this device viable, every module will have be specifically designed to fit into one of the standard sockets.

Furthermore, every module will have to be cross-tested with every other module to ensure that they can all work together properly.

As more and more modules are produced there will be a combinatorial explosion in terms of the testing required to ensure that each module is fit for market.

Thought this was a nice set of followup thoughts to Phonebloks Makes Me Sad

[f---nobaddesign]

I maintain that the trash compactor onboard the Death Star in Star Wars is implausible, unworkable, and moreover, inefficient.

[...]

The Death Star clearly has a garbage-disposal problem. Given its size and massive personnel, the amount of waste it generates -- discarded food, broken equipment, excrement, and the like -- boggles the imagination. That said, I just cannot fathom how an organization as ruthless and efficiently-run as the Empire would have signed off on such a dangerous, unsanitary, and shoddy garbage-disposal system as the one depicted in the movie.

From 2002, but man, I love this piece.

[f---nobaddesign]

(via BBC - Future - Technology - The egg box that updates a humble yet classic design)

An amazing 'update' that manages to fix a couple of non-problems and introduces a bunch more. Let's take these in turn:

Flat packing. No. Existing egg cartons already flat-stack when empty. Yes, the new design saves a little space, but it's not nearly as much as one might think.

Boxes do not adjust to size of eggs, part 1: Who cares?! Eggs are sorted by size at the factory!!!

Boxes do not adjust to size of eggs, part 2: This update doesn't account for more than two different egg sizes anyways, and they have to be in separate rows. Consumer eggs come in at least four different sizes in the US...

Eggs can't be seen inside traditional carton... unless you open the carton like everyone does at the store! And if that's too hard, Land of Lakes sells eggs in an egg carton that's functionally identical to the traditional one but made of clear plastic!

The update depends on a rubber band to hold the carton closed enough to protect the eggs. So how awkward is it going to be to remove the last egg from a row?

Also, can the rubber band even keep enough tension on the carton once it's half-empty?