13 December 2009

An ear for a nose (a sound for a smell)

Would anyone who could actually dine on the smell of roast beef not be making a fine saving? [127] ... [127] Allusion to a famous legal tale related by Rabelais: a chef complained that a fool was savouring the smell of his roast beef: the judge ordered the fool to pay for his pleasure with the sound of his coins.
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Michel de Montaigne
from ‘III:5 On some lines of Virgil’
The Esssays: A selection. Trans. MA Screech
Penguin 1993, p.309 (fn 127)

12 December 2009

Sight-specific

In developing nations, where over half the population requires corrective lenses but often do not have the money to purchase them, Oxford Physics Professor Joshua Silver has a viable solution. Adaptive Eyecare glasses are a liquid-filled alternative whose prescription can be altered at the time of fitting simply by adjusting the amount of injected liquid into the flexible membrane lens. By injecting more or less liquid using the attached syringes, the lenses become more convex (a stronger prescription) or concave (a weaker prescription). The patient, at the time of fitting, simply alters the amount of injected liquid while wearing the glasses, until they can see perfectly. The syringes are then removed, the lenses sealed, and the glasses are ready to wear. Each pair currently sells for just under $20 USD, though Joshua Silver, who is now director of the non-profit Centre for Vision in the Developing World at the University of Oxford, hopes to soon offer them for under $5.

FROM HERE
Project H Design
Design Revolution Roadshow
10 December 2009 >>>
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POSTSCRIPT
Fetishised form facilitates refined function ...
LE CORBUSIER c.1938