SVG has a method called getIntersectionList buy kamagra online that “returns the list of graphics elements whose rendered content intersects the supplied rectangle”.  That is to say, by calling that method every time the cursor moves within the SVG container, one would be able to determine which path the cursor is on, or perhaps even which path is closest to it.  Unfortunately, getIntersectionList is not yet supported by all browsers

buy kamagra online buy kamagra online

.

So here’s an easy fix that works well: for each path, generate a second thicker path, set its opacity to 0 and then attach the mouseover event to it rather than the visible path.

  svg.selectAll("path")
    .data(data)
    .enter().append("svg:path")
      .attr("opacity", 1)
      .attr("id", function(d) { return "p" + d.id; })
      .attr("stroke-width", 1)
      .attr("stroke", "cyan")
      .attr("class", "treebranch")
      .attr("d", function(d) {
        //path data
      })
      .each(function(d, i) {
        svg.append('svg:path')
          .attr('shape-rendering', 'crispEdges')
          .style('opacity', 0)
          .attr("id", function() { return "transp" + d.id; })
          .attr("stroke-width", 5)
          .attr("stroke", "white")
          .attr("class", "treebranch_transparent")
          .attr("d", function() {
            return $("#p"+d.id).attr("d");
          })
          .on('mouseover', function() {
            //mouseover event
          })
      });

The education levels of world leaders

An anthropological phenomenon that one observes when looking at the progression of people and societies is their tendency to ultimately free themselves from the shackles of servitude and achieve some form of self-governance.  Due to overcompensation, perhaps, the process may end up becoming cyclical, an effect that in its worst incarnations results in inhuman expressions of anger such as genocide.  That’s a question that I’ve been thinking about lately.

One of the threads in that trail of thought that I hadn’t seen visualized anywhere is political longevity, a staple of autocracies.  While thinking about this, I came across several studies that investigated the question of whether the education level of political leaders, among other factors, is a good predictor of positive effects such as economic growth.  Looking at these two questions seemed like a worthwhile and insightful project.

Collecting data began with sources like Britannica, Profiles of People in Power and Wikipedia.  After doing fifty or so countries, there were quite a few leaders about whose education level there was no information.  This was particularly the case with distant leaders in autocratic countries.  For those, I relied on LSE professor Timothy Besley’s dataset.  Note that I only consider academic degrees, which means that military academies that do not teach courses beyond basic military training are excluded.  Academies such as West Point and Saint-Cyr, for example, are considered, but Sandhurst isn’t.

The visualization got about 50,000 views and close to 2,000 shares on social media websites in the first few days of it going live.  It was great seeing people getting the take-away message, and tweeting things like “Oh, I didn’t know such and such country has only ever had this many heads of state” or “Today I learned that such and such country is the only country not to have a head of state who completed school”.  Being descriptive rather than suggestive, that was the whole idea of the project.  I received a few emails from people who pointed out that I had mistakenly noted down the education level of their president and provided me references as evidence.  In all such cases, I went back and fixed the data, citing those references.  The data file is .json and freely available for anyone to peruse, reuse and adapt.

I got into a discussion with someone online who criticized the topic as one that confuses education and schooling.  I mention this hear because it is an important point to keep in mind.  A political leader’s education level does not necessarily imply positive economic growth; put differently, it does not necessarily imply causation.  That is an argument that can easily be falsified by pointing to any number of countries, such as Zimbabwe, where 100 billion dollars gets you three eggs.  Education level as a variable has been shown, statistically, to have predictive power.  That is all.  Were this scientific inquiry, one would get into this further, but it’s not.

Here is a link to the project: http://skyrill.com/leaders

The Celestial Web

The space metaphor has been used a lot in various contexts and it usually works well.  Outer space has some nice characteristics like majesty and tranquility and is usually imagined as a blanket carrying various celestial bodies, harmoniously circling each other like clockwork.

For this project, orbiting planets are used to visualize browser market share.  Browsers are coded as planets.  Each country is coded as a moon that orbits around the browser that has the majority market share in that country.  Moving back and forth through time, one can see the differences in majority market share for different browsers.  Press ‘f’ and begin typing and you’ll be able to follow the shifts in majority market share for your chosen country.  Press ‘j’ and enter a date and you’ll be able to jump to ab arbitrary date.  The page dynamically changes size to fit the browser window, though one can also zoom in and out using the controls to the right.  Turn on the audio to be reminded of the track from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos!

The visualization is coded using SVG, JavaScript and CSS and animated using SMIL, which means it only works in newer browsers and not yet in mobile ones.

Here’s the link to the project.  Enjoy!

http://www.thecelestialweb.com

The Xtreme Kinematix concept is a new generation electric roadster, aimed at pushing both performance and power efficiency to a new level. This concept tries to revive the glorious design lines of the brand, combining fresh solutions, a unique, new aerodynamics, tailored around the electrical elements of the power system as well as cutting-edge energy feedback.

Inspired by the e-type from 50 years ago.

One of the main challenges during the concept drafting was avoiding the heaviness associated withmany of today’s muscle cars. The first inspirations came from classic Jaguar models. Like with themodels of the golden era, we wanted to recreate a thin, elegant profile, but still showing off all theextra power and technological improvements. The solution was dividing the volume into two separateperceptive entities: one that “floated over” and transmitted the characteristic veil-like feeling, andanother, below this layer, that spoke of all the power and adrenaline this car was capable of, whichwas translated into ample front and rear openings at the sides. The morphology of the lower part wasthe most important and is obviously the most distinctive compared to current roadsters; the delicateequilibrium of the large curves of the air intakes had at the same time to transmit aggressiveness, butstill appearing light and ephemeral, giving the adequate perceptive lightness to the upper curves.

Another element added to the mix aside from the endless paths and delicate air movements was thefeline factor. The side view of the vehicle was a deliberate metaphor of the leaping predator, whilemany frontal elements, culminating with the headlights, were carefully shaped to induce a pleasantadrenaline discharge by resembling the angry expression of an attacking feline.

Brand Exploration

Sketches

Plans

Clays

Studio Renders

Mirrors

Another characteristic feature of the Jaguar XKX are the totally disappearing side mirrors. At about 1cm thickness, the mirrors perfectly fit the shallow hatch made in the door piece when the car is stopped and they unfold again in working position when it’s turned on. This adds to both the aesthetics, and protects the side mirrors from any damages when parked.

Aerodynamics

Given a much smaller and cooler power plant than conventional, the aerodynamics was conceived in a new innovative way. The side deflector intakes of the front were made broader, so a much larger amount of air does not get stuck by the engine, instead, it flows behind the front wheels, getting out behind them and sliding along the doors and then taking another shortcut through the rear wheels and out from the big rear openings, greatly reducing the total flowing path and subsequently drag.

Regenrative Power

Almost 60% of the energy used by a typical car at highway speeds is spent to counter air friction. Obviously, that is A LOT of energy spent for a function that is indispensable, but not the primary (to push the vehicle forward). The body of the XKX is covered by a layer housing microscopic ripples of piezoelectric cells, which, stimulated by the pressure of the air flowing over them (the actual air friction experienced by the car) produce electricity that is fed back to the vehicle’s battery, increasing both efficiency and performance.

Details

The Jaguar XKX

We were asked by Jaguar to change our original disclaimer to this: *Disclaimer: The concept vehicle designed by Skyrill.com and Marin Myftiu was not undertake in connection with or is in any way authorized by Jaguar Cars Limited.

Speaker Series Roulette Assault with Kris Aman | Global VP/GM – Football, Baseball, Athletic Training

This weeks speaker series was with Kris Aman, who started at Nike 16 years ago as a Product line manager and worked his way up to become the VP/GM of three categories. Just like other speakers, Kris shared lessons he has learned over the years and talked a lot about being passionate and working up to your set goals and dreams. Kris is definitely a fund and inspirational person to listen to and learn from. Here’s points of things he shared:

Kris Aman

Growing up, Kris always had the dream of working and being at Nike, he followed that dream and never gave up, which led him to where his is today. Kris got his degree in advertising, then moved to a small apparel company before he joined Nike as a Product Line Manager, and over the course of 16 years jumped from one role to another until he made his way up the corporate ladder. From the many projects he has worked on, he shared a great example on how to be successful, as he puts it, if you want to be successful, be global and local, global as a brand and local in the things you do. A great example about that was the Beijing 2008 Olympics, where the whole Chinese nation had their hopes on Liu Xiang for the gold medal. Liu was injured at the start of the race and wasn’t able to compete, bringing the hopes of the whole nation down. The next day, Nike turned the tables and launched a new campaign turning that sad occasion into one that the whole nation started celebrating, with a tagline saying “Love Sports, Even When it Hurts!”. The next day, that tag line had gone viral and so did the Nike ads, turning this sad event into something everyone was celebrating. What Nike had done was stick to the athlete even when they couldn’t race, supporting the athlete as a global brand and being part of how people felt on a local level.

Another great example of being local was when Nike organized the “Human Race”, where local communities in China could run with great athletes, and doing the same in other countries by supporting both the sport and the athlete. An event like this laid the ground work that Nike isn’t about the initiative only but also how the initiative gives consumers the opportunity to participate on their terms.

Also a few great pieces of advice I thought he shared where:

• Keep your eyes on the futures and the prize, your dream and goals!
• You must be hungry and intense, compete! Be serious, its better than any experience and it will take you places much faster.
• Our jobs are to make what others think are not attractive, attractive.
• Convince people with a vision how exciting something is.
• Put innovation in everything.

To sum it up, he shares 3 things he has observed over the years to be successful:

1. Commitment:

• This is the single most important thing to start your journey.
• Good companies and recruiters are looking for people blown away by passion and commitment and not necessarily your resume and experience.
• Are you ready to take over this company and the world as a “Team”?
• Compete like crazy.
• If you don’t care enough theirs someone else who does!

 

2. Separation:

• Believe that your job is to create separation. It’s not about the talent, but how you become special, either through your work, attitude, or anything else you can bring to the table.
• Let everyone know you can exceed or reach their passion.
• If you fall the path to your dream and stop trying to achieve what you want by giving up, then your not really walking the walk and serious about the dream. If it’s truly you’re dream then you will keep trying and trying.

 

3. Leadership:

• Be a leader not a follower, every time Nike follows they get in trouble.
• This is the highest level of aspiration you have to have.
• By being a great leader that means you have to be a great team member as well.
• Have the team spirit.
• As leaders, our job is to build teams.

That’s all for this week!

Roulette Assault

How to Maximize Our Networking?

Obvious truths about “Networking”:

• In almost any company or industry, networking plays a pivotal role in jobopportunities, career growth, and your general ability to get things done.
• Your job is the best weapon/ambassador you have—your quality of work,who you work with cross-functionally, your sense of teamwork.
• Effective networking doesn’t come naturally to everyone , but it ainrocket science and it gets easier with experience.
• Networking isn ’t a one-time exercise to find a job—it ’s an everyday partof your career and you ’re building up capital for situational use.
• The world and this industry are very, very small — for better or for worse.

The Best Networkers:

• Use relationships from work/work meetings as a jumping off point.
• Set clear context/purpose for why they want to meet when they reach out.
• Find commonality if it exists: same college, hometown, former employer, organization, etc…
• Do their homework on the person/the business & come prepared with questions.
• Are prepared to talk about themselves: their goals, their job, their NIKE experience.
• Follow up with thanks and follow through on any agreed-upon next steps.
• Stay connected & find ways to return the favor.
• Understand networking is a two-way street, not a one-way favor.
• Understand that there is incredible power in asking great questions.
• Understand networking isn’t just about finding a job, it’s about learning and building long-term relationships.
• The common denominators (respect, humility, motivation).

Networking Going Horribly Awry

• The Cut and Paste – Don’t create an email template that you would just send out to a group of people, it just wont sound personalized and people will know that, and definitely won’t appreciate it. Some emails are addressed to the right person then in the body the name changes. Therefore, be more precise and accurate with what you send out!
• The Zombie – When you meet someone make sure you don’t just stay quiet and make them do all the taking, it needs to be a 2 way dialogue.
• The Cowboy – Be modest and humble, don’t speak of yourself as if your the next great thing. Ben gave a great example of someone he interviewed for a position who talked about himself in 3rd person.
• The Carpet Bomber – Don’t mass email everyone, won’t look good and people won’t take you seriously when 2 colleagues sitting next to each other get the same email at the same time, it just won’t seem that you really care about who you’re reaching out to.
• Entitled Flaky Guy – Be respectful and on time.
• Bitter, Aggressive, and/or Borderline Violent I’m Calling Security Guy – Make a good impression, keep your enthusiasm and energy.
• The Stalker (aka the Stage 5 Clinger) – Don’t email over and over!
  

The Punchline – Fundamentally, we are drawn to want to work with and do things for people we like.

Networking as an Intern

• You more or less have an open door as an Intern.
• If you haven ’t already, find & meet with alumni of your college and/or your former employer—they have a built-in, heightened interest in connecting!
• Cross-functional meetings: make sure you’re noting who might be good to follow up with individually to learn what they do and build rapport.
• Spend time 1:1 with your teammates and ask who else they recommend meeting with.
• Spend time 1:1 with fellow interns—they have an inside look at other NIKE businesses and another set of leaders.
• VP’s are exciting, but Directors and Managers are the ones with the jobs.

That’s it for this week!

Meeting with great

The past few weeks I’ve been meeting with some of the greatest designers and minds here at Nike, the WHQ is a true gem and definitely has a lot of great people and resources to benefit from. Two great people I had the privilege of meeting this week where Tinker Hatfield and Russell Stott.

Tinker is one of the first designers who was part of the Nike team, and sort of built the foundations for this company along with the small team they had back in the 80′s. He currently serves as VP of design, leading the innovation team and the “ZOO”, where all the special projects are handled as part of bigger projects for the future.

Tinker is known to be one of the best shoe designers in the industry today, having worked on the Air Force 1′s from the very start and walking throughout his journey very closely with Michael Jordan. What hits me most is that Tinker came into Nike, as an Architect, and with an Architecture background, and was asked to work on a shoe one day and this is what it lead him to. That tells me two things, that you could always end up in a different place then what you had anticipated, and find yourself great in things you never thought you’d be part of, and second, if you have a dream you would like to pursue, your degree or background never becomes a barrier that could stop you, it’s all about the passion you which would drive you through life and towards your goals.

With Tinker Hatfield, VP of Design at Nike Inc.

Another great and aspiring designer I met with this week was Russell Stott. Russell works as the Design Director for Nike Sportswear, and has been with the company for more than 10 years. Russell just has too many cool and awesome designs, for all kinds of celebrities and athletes. His settle and detailed work just amazes me, one of his latest big projects was the destroyer jackets, and looking at the level of detail and storytelling behind each jacket is just great.

I got to ask both of them lots of questions related to my thesis i’m working on as well as lots of other questions and advice, it was a real great experience.

With Russell Stott, Nike Sports Wear Design Director

The Journey for a Better World

As part of Nike Better World’s initiative for making Nike’s products more sustainable, innovative, and cautious of how it impacts the earth, they teamed up with Athlete Jason Lester to go over a journey to relay their commitment to serve the needs of athletes and the planet at the same time. Jason rand and biked over 4800 miles, 102 days, from coast to coast, making his way through the US. His passion and determination for sports and life is just amazing, check out his story in the video below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjDgXjaWsCQ&feature=player_embedded

Jason ran his final mile and lap at the World Head Quarters where other employees joiend him in support and celebration for his great achievement. It was great to actually meet him in person, I had never heard about him before this journey of his, but hearing such stories and meeting such people definitely keeps us all inspired, motivated, and most importantly dedicated to what we chose to pursue, and do it the best way possible no matter what the obstacles could be.

That’s it for this week, see you next week!

A link to our project feature can be found here.

The Story About Story

This week we were given a great workshop about the art of story telling by Dennie Wendt, a Senior Copywriter at Nike, called “The Story About Story”.

Dennie gave us a 2 day workshop discussing the importance of a story, things to look out for, and different techniques overall. It was a real insightful workshop with a lot to walk away with.

Denny Wendt; Senior Copywriter at Nike

As a Designer, or any individual in any other discipline, we tend to present our work and projects to our colleagues or clients. Presenting good work is just part of a great presentation, the second part relies heavily on your ability of storytelling, and you might sometimes be presenting the work of others which puts more responsibility on your shoulders.

To start with this is a great video that sums everything up for you about stories and storytelling:

The topics discussed in our workshop today mainly focus on 2 things:

1- The power of story within design.

2- How that translates into your presentation.

A story can make a product much better and stronger, the better the stories the better people could understand and appreciate it. As Ken Kessey says “To hell with the facts, we need stories.” It’s the stories that create that personal connection with the audience, and puts reason and thought behind your design to back it up, leaving them with no questions or uncertainties, and only left with appreciation. So basically have the story first, and hang the facts on it later. Nevertheless though, both are important, and go hand in hand, except it’s that they complement one another. It’s as if the facts are the notes, and stories are the song that plays.

We should all knock our audiences with the greatest, a great story means business! I personally experienced something of this sort when I interned at Ogilvy in Bahrain in 2008. We had a client meeting at the F1 International Circuit to present some of the ads and ideas we had been working on, so I went along with my Creative Director, Tony Peck, who’s actually one of the most creative people I’ve worked with. We were trying to pitch this idea of three kinds of give away gift boxes for the fans, the content of the box and the way the box was designed was kind of unique, and we were worried they would just like to go with the old fashion way of making them to save up on money and avoid any risks. Tony had a great story for every idea and concept we presented, and what was more important was that he made every story personal and about himself, somehow relate it to an experience he had when he was back in Australia. Once we were done with that meeting the client had signed on all the ideas with a big smile. A story is truly the core to the human experience in a presentation.

Great stories are one thing, but telling them is another thing to look out for, the way you sequence the events should knock the other person off. For example, a good way to look at this is, if someone has been in a coma and had no idea what had happened in the NBA Playoffs, how would you tell them what happened? You would probably not start by talking about the first rounds and the players that got injured, but you would start off by saying who won the championship, which is the highlight of the story! You would then move on to the small details of what things lead to that big moment.

William Staton is a great storyteller, he says “Stories are who we are”. I recommend you check out his Ted Talk below:

We all love stories, and telling them is way much harder then listening to them. Be a great story teller that is always ready to tell a story about anything, and based on how the audience wants to hear it. If you’re audience doesn’t get it, then you should know it’s bad. You should keep the excitement on throughout the whole experience, make people care and want to listen to what you have to say.

John Carter, one of the latest films made by Disney was written by one of the best storytellers of our time, but it has been perceived very badly and lost millions of dollars from this movie. The main problem why people where disapointed and felt like they had wasted their time and money, was that they had no clue what the story was about. The story was about a million things and had no real target audience, which just left people extremely confused and disappointed. What could have been a pleasurable experience turned into a very unpleasant one. Therefore, beware of what your story is about, and who and what you are addressing.

Finally, if you have an idea, product, or story, be as open as you can to people’s advice and input, but don’t always do what they want to be done. Their ideas might be great and relevant, but that’s just not what you want or what you’re looking for. Sometimes great ideas which you feel a personal connection could get totally off-track because you keep changing your idea based on others inputs. We sometimes feel that changing things up could avoid that sort of criticism when it’s time to present, but that’s not true, because you can’t please everybody. But if you are please by your work then even the presentation and storytelling process would be much stronger.

These were probably the highlights from the workshop along with the videos that pretty much cover all the exciting stuff, but not to worry, here’s a summary summing everything up:

1. Storytelling is hard.
2. Beware of the story about your story (Disney’s John Carter example).
3. You’re making art, own the idea, be in love with your work.
4. Even the big storytellers could fail sometimes, don’t let that stop you.
5. Don’t let your story get Frankensteined. Don’t let others change it up with their own ideas.
6. If you become a great storyteller, you will be unstoppable.
7. Make them care. Your audience is the center of your story. Know whether you’re moving them out of their comfort zone or reinforcing their core beleifs. Then tell your story as you can, and with the authenticity and passion of someone talking to a group of friends.
8. Make them get it. Reveal what already exists within the design, object, or product. Reveal it in a logical sequence. You’re already to Step 2 in the making-them-care process. Don’t reduce youre chances of success by being confusing hoping they get it. Demonstrate your own genius. Express your own expertise.
9. Make them yours. Deliver on the promise, win them over. Wrap it up simply that anyone in the room could give your presentation to someone else.
10. Great stories need 3 things:

Logic – Know when your story comes from and make it simple.

Feeling – Tell it with passion, don’t bore people.

Payoff – Make your point painfully clear. The end of your story should be like the end of a closing argument in Law & Order.

I personally benefited a lot from this workshop and I hope I was able to bring across the things I learned as clearly as possible, I hope I did a good job in telling my story .

Lessons on Leadership

This week we also got an opportunity to meet up with Jason Carter Mayden, Director of Digital Innovation at Nike. Jason had lots of great stories and moments from his life which he shared with us. His talk was mainly about advice on becoming a great leader, pursuing our dreams, and reaching our potential. He had broken his ideas into 7 lessons, each with a story to go with, and here they are:

Jason Carter Mayden; Director of Digital Innovation at Nike

1. Learn to be a catalyst rather than a crutch.

Take action and don’t expect great things to just happen to you, don’t expect dreams to just come true. Take the initiative of contacting people, companies, and mainly not being shy or giving up one what you want!

2. Dare to dream out loud, tell people about your dreams.

Let people know what you want, don’t be afraid to dream and tell others about it. If people know what you want, that could maybe one day help you achieve that dream through them or a connection they might have.

3. “No” can often be disguised as a slow “Yes”.

Jason shared the same dream most students and interns who are into sports have today, and that was to design for a company like Nike. He tried applying over and over for almost 3 years, and he was rejected every year. Each of those rejections though made the HR person know him and see how bad he wants this, as well as his progress and determination. Therefore, all those “no’s” and rejections actually lead to that “Yes” at the end. So in short, never loose enthusiasm, it will only make you loose your dreams and slow you down.

4. Stay ready.

Always be prepared for everything, be on top of things. Have your portfolio up to date, look your best, and be at your best, as you never know what could come up. Jason shared his story from his first day of his internship when he was lost and trying to find the building he was supposed to work in, and guess what, he ended up in an elevator with Michael Jordan. He obviously had very short time in that elevator and was extremely nervous, he just had to say the right things and act quick to cease this great opportunity. Many years from then, Jason and Michael are close friends, and which it has obviously opened many doors for him.

5. Ignore the top of the iceberg “You want me to design what?”

Don’t get too caught up in trying to make the next new big innovation, and don’t undermine a small task that’s given to you. Small tasks can often make you feel useless and unimportant, but in fact, it is your role as a passionate designer to show that passion through your work, and sometimes, those small tasks and small steps can actually become the next big innovation. It’s all about your attitude and how devoted you are to the project, hard work always shows, and pays off, no matter what your working on! Any task is an opportunity.

6. Grow where you planted.

Once you are happy and settled where you are, try to stay focused and grow from there. Don’t think about moving around, switching companies or moving to other places. Once your planted you can grow much faster and achieve much more, all that in a place where you love to be!

7. Your ambition should always match your impact.

See you all with a new post next week, with more interesting talks and events to cover!