The only issue I see is that it not only guides your key tip but dust and dirt as well. Oh, also it requires a custom key format because of the additional length required to reach the tumbler.
The bigger opportunity: retrofit existing locks?
I wonder whether someone could design a cover for existing locks?
The Harmon Kardon Soundstick II speakers are stunning — there’s no two ways about it.
Versatile
Notice the base? It’s a heavy ring so they can be hung upside-down from an upper shelf. So they’re super versatile, yet with very, very impressive quality. The bass unit is unidirectional so you can tuck it away while placing the high frequency ’sticks’ wherever you like — they’re very discrete.
Works of art
And as for looks: my wife paid them the ultimate compliment by placing the base on her desk because ‘it looks nice’.
We’ve been looking for candlesticks for a long time and just never were happy by the clumsiness or fiddliness of what we saw. Howeve then we got this candlestick by Robert Welch Arden for Christmas and its a stunner:
It is superbly elegant. It looks like it nearly disappears and this is enhanced by the reflective surface to appear almost impossibly thin.
Available from John Lewis and Peter Jones (same place). Yeah, not super cheap but then, things well made rarely are I’ve found.
I saw one of these gorgeous fans at the Conran shop in Marylebone High St. Its beautifully designed — so simple, and its just plain weird that there aren’t any blades in the air hole.
Its a thing well made for 2 reasons. Firstly, it does its job amazingly well:
Normal fans: lots of buffetting of air:
Whereas the Air Multiplier creates a continuous stream of wind. It really feels like wind.
Now at £200-odd its not the cheapest fan in the world, but then, things well made often aren’t.
Secondly, its beautiful to look at. Very simple, clean design. Because it has no fan blades, and no blade cage, it is visually as simple as a fan could be.
I’ve always appreciated things that have had love, care and attention put into them. Where its obvious that the thing that was created was created for reasons above purely commercial gain.
Don McGlashan says it best in ‘Thing Well Made’ by the Mutton Birds:
To make a thing like that you’d need to know what you were about.
You’d have to know where you were going and go there in a straight line.
And everything else you’d have to shut right out.
Can you see the man who made that?
Can you see him putting it down and standing back?
Can you see the moment when he said “That’s it. That’s perfect.”?
At a time like that you wouldn’t care about your job,
Or your mortgage, or the fight you had with your wife.
‘Cause when a man holds a thing well made,
There’s connection,
There’s completeness when a man holds a thing well made.
