Jonathan Biddle – Made in Taiwan

Month: August 2009

  • Small Site Updates

    There have been several details on my website that have been bugging me for the last year or two since i did the redesign. First, the frankly stupid decision to remove the link back to the front page, from pages of content, has been revoked, so the site should be a wee bit easier to navigate now. Second, the layout of the ‘profile’ part of the page always really irritated me; I could never get it to line-up properly, and the text always failed to wrap properly. This problem has been more or less solved by deleting most of the information. Finally, there have been very detail changes to the layout and colours, and a couple of broken links have been reinstated.

    I have been playing with the idea of adding an animated ‘badge’ back to my Flickr or Last.FM pages, but they all look more like adverts when loaded up, rather than the subtle layout I would like more.

    At the same time as this ‘toy’ research, it has made me rather think how I want to move forward with the site. It looks comically small on my high-resolution monitor at work, and it is not especially easy to navigate or access older pages. I am wondering about adding a ‘greatest hits’ list to link to my favourite entries, or a tag cloud … but I don’t know, I think the list is already long enough as it stands – I don’t want to add any more complexity.

    I can imagine some paradigm shift in the near-future; geo-blogging enriched with photos, or Blogger offering some more intelligent and interactive way to engage … but until then I am more or less happy to continue to tweak and preen the site as it stands. What fun.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Wake Boarding Taiwan


    Wave rider

    Nick had the genius to book a day of wake boarding in west Taipei, near Wugu. After incessant requests from my sister to go while in the UK, I finally had the opportunity to bite the bullet, and ‘shred the rad’, as we wake boarders say. It took a few attempts to get up on my feet, but after that it was fun in the sun. A perfect activity for an oppressively humid day in Taipei, and one that I would like to repeat in the near future. Add to that this morning’s mountain bike ride, and I had a real ‘action’ weekend … and my body aches to prove it.


    The price of old rope


    Sneak pics


    Taipei Yacht Club


    Beautiful clear water – just don’t touch the bottom.


    Rear view mirror


    Views to the mountains / motor ways. It was nice to see Taipei from a different angle …


    … which I did. Several times.


    Rocket man.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Window Undressing


    Walking home after a late night in the office, and I stumbled across a window being re-dressed at Sogo. Or undressed, perhaps. Flickr.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Suschi

    I am feeling a little over-indulgent with my travel of late, with not so much a ‘Carbon Footprint’, as treading my big, muddy carbon boots across the carpet and into the living room. Indeed, checking my Dopplr record, I have clocked up 3200 kg of CO2 since June. Ouch.


    Cute as a button

    Anyway, I popped over to Kyoto last weekend to meet up with one my best friends from my university days in Glasgow, Robbie, and his fiancé Imke. They were there at a Neuroscience conference – flying in from Germany – where Robbie was learning about some of the recent developments in the field. It’s not exactly brain surgery, as far as I can ascertain.

    It’s my third trip to Kyoto, but it is not too much of a hardship to return. We focused on eating some good food, a wee little bit of hiking, and checking out some of the areas of the city that I had not been able to check out previously. I have a feeling that you could be there for a month and still not run out of interesting things to see.


    Luverly textures and pillars and depth of field


    Stairway to heaven


    Reflecting.


    Studying the largest bell in Kyoto. Or Japan. Probably.


    Busman’s holiday


    Hiking


    Obligatory mirror shot


    Kyoto from afar – good to get out of the city


    Stumbled upon a rather nice little village of thatched houses


    Reminds me of my local pub!


    Sunshine of my life.


    Political posters – Japan style.

    Kyoto is famous for its humid and hot summer weather, but we managed to mix in a little light rain, which cooled things down nicely. Still, the drinks vending machines took a pounding, and we had some kind of magnetic attraction to the Starbucks Frappuccinos, that seemed to line the routes of the streets. We did manage to pack in some temple action, interspersed with time spent in the Pachinko and video parlours, and some rather embarrassing results from the photo machines. One for the best man’s speech, perhaps.


    The drumming game – after two nights of waiting for people to stop using it, we finally had our time!


    Girls at play.


    Adjusting the artwork


    And a present for Nikki in Goettingen – we could not resist opening it, after one last bottle of Shochu.

    Cheers Robbie – hope to see you out this way again soon!

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…

  • Typhoon Morakot


    In the eye of the storm

    The island has been hit by the first proper Typhoon of the year; ‘Morakot’. Well, I say hit, but this was a particularly impotent Typhoon by my standards, barely shaking the windows. The island did shut down on Friday, meaning I was working from home. This is okay, but I do tend to get a dose of cabin fever when stuck inside with the sound of rain outside – frustrating and greasy … but I did manage to complete Mario Kart in Arcade Mode yesterday so all is not lost.

    As ever, jumping on the mountain bike this morning managed to blow out the cobwebs and redeemed the weekend. Great feeling it is; riding in the rain when everyone else is indoors. Been off the wheels for a few weeks now, so it was well overdue.

    Update: While it has been pretty safe in Taipei, the rest of the island has been pretty hard hit … best wishes to all those down south who are facing some pretty tough conditions.

    The story of a British Industrial Designer in Taiwan…