“I can see from the little acquaintance that I have with using AI programs to make music, that what you spend nearly all your time doing is trying to stop the system becoming mind numbingly mediocre. You really feel the pull of the averaging effect of AI, given that what you are receiving is a kind of averaged out distillation of stuff from a lot of different sources.” Brian Eno

It’s that single measure in the mix that contributes more to your enjoyment on the water than any other piece of equipment or design feature. You can’t buy it at the chandlery, you can't order it online and you’re not likely to see it in the inventory or the specifications. It’s a hull form that’s conceived at the design stage to maximise waterline length, quiet the motion in a bumpy anchorage, dampen pitching motion in a head sea and enhance optimum all round performance. It’s a...

First, design is imagining a future and working toward it with intelligence and cleverness. We use design to close the gap between the situation we have and the one we desire. Second, design is a practice built upon making things for other people. We are all on the road together. These two things dictate our relationship to the world and our bond to one another. They form the foundations of the design practice, so our work should revolve around these truths.

“Although in design we are hard-wired to consider beauty to be a basic and superficial quality when creating something, maybe we should acknowledge how important it may be. Beauty in the things we design and the creative we produce matters. Yes, design needs to be smart, and yes, it needs to be functional. But at the heart of it all, give beauty the time and care it deserves. Make it enjoyable to look at, the rest will follow. Beauty is at the heart of function, and thus, beauty is human.”...

A 14th century Franciscan friar, William of Ockham, is credited with having formalised the principle that simpler solutions are likely to be more correct than complex ones. This "keep it simple" concept is often referred to today as "Ockham's razor" – a tool to be used in cutting away extraneous material when getting from point A to point B. A typical response to a design problem is to fight complexity with complexity. Simple is often confused with easy and complex is confused with...

Not easy to think of a lot to say about the horizon, at least until you stumble upon the evocative writing on the topic by prolific author and poet David Whyte. Whyte’s writing encapsulates insights about our quest to sail and explore the world beyond the horizon. What is it that drives our fascination with what might lie around the next bend in the road, around the next headland, or over the horizon? Is it a primal urge to search of food or more hospitable living environment that drives us...

Water behaves in ways that have fascinated and confounded scientists for centuries. In very recent times a group of scientists based at Boston University have arrived at a hypotheses that there’s not one water, there are two waters, both sharing the basic construct of two Hydrogen atoms and a single Oxygen atom, but with different linking structures that make it possible for water molecules to bind to each other in two different ways. One type of construct for water is a spacious low density...

A Fascination with Water and Waves "I'm sitting a the edge of a pool. Somebody dives in. I think of the waves that are formed in the water. When lots of people dive in the pool there's a great choppiness with all the waves moving in the water. And to think that it's possible - maybe- that in those waves there's a clue to what's happening in the pool. That some sort of insect, or something with sufficient cleverness could sit in the corner of the pool and just be disturbed by the waves, and by...

There is something mysterious that we call quality that is inherent in some objects, in some actions, in some works of art. We intuitively know it's in there but difficult to identify, to point to. Quality is somewhat subjective and potentially deceptive in the hands of a maker with not so good intentions. Apparently the ancient Greek philosophers had quite a bit to say on the topic. But can we be sure their thoughts on the matter have been faithfully and comprehensively translated over the...

All design work is problem solving. If there's no problem to solve, no specific vision to be arrived at, there is no point to design. While we can set out with the best intentions in our efforts to simplify design problems the reality is that a motor vehicle, cel phone, or a boat is a collection of a broad range of diverse and highly specialized technologies. Economist Matt Ridley makes the point that while one person can craft a stone axe, the design and manufacture of a computer mouse, an...