Design: August 2007 Archive Page

Sean McBride:

The problem I discovered was that one of the thin walls between the holes had broken and bent down, forming a ramp. When I plugged the DVI adapter into my computer, two of the pins went into the same hole, and the projector could no longer understand the output from my computer.

However, it doesn't end there. When I plugged the DVI adapter into the broken socket, the ramp formed by the broken wall bent the corresponding pin upwards, forming a wedge with the adjacent pin. Then, when any other Mac user plugged the same adapter into their own computer, the pin wedge would press down on that same socket wall, breaking it and bending it down in the same fashion. (alwaysBETA)

SOMETIMES there is a huge disconnect between the people who make a product and the people who use it. The creator of a Web site may assume too much knowledge on the part of users, leading to confusion. Software designers may not anticipate user behavior that can unintentionally destroy an entire database. Manufacturers can make equipment that inadvertently increases the likelihood of repetitive stress injuries. | Enter the usability professional, whose work has recently developed into a solid career track, driven mostly by advancements in technology. --Barbara Whitaker --Technology's Untanglers: They Make It Really Work (New York Times)

The techno bloggers sort of scoffed at this article when it first came out, since usability is a basic concept to people who work on the internet. Still, it's a good thing that a reporter took the time to educate the general public.

There is ultimately no way to "justify" SCMRPG in the minds of those who find it deplorable but I believe even the game's detractors will find that the film fleshes out the controversy to better understand the future of games as a medium. The film is essentially a challenge to game developers to rethink the limits of their medium and a challenge to the general public to expect (demand!) more from games than mere entertainment. --Danny Ledone (interviewed by Keith Stuart) --Danny Ledonne on Super Columbine Massacre RPG (Guardian GamesBlog)

Filing for future reference.

Masahiro Mori's Uncanny Valley hypothesis states that, as artificial beings get closer to resembling real humans, the slightest errors or inaccuracies can shift our responses from empathy to disbelief and even disgust. It's why, in Toy Story, we love Woody and Buzz Lightyear, but are totally unmoved by Andy, their human owner.

This is something both videogame and movie special effects artists are having to grapple with now that processing power is allowing ever more naturalistic representations of human characters. And grappling with it they are. --Artists climb the uncanny valley (Guardian)

A good introduction to the subject.

James Hays and Alexei Efros from Carnegie Mellon University have developed an algorithm to help people who want to remove bits of photographs.

The parts being removed could be unsightly lorries in the snaps of the rural idyll where they took a holiday or even an old boyfriend or girlfriend they want to rub out from a photograph.

To find suitable matching elements, the research duo's algorithm looks through a database of 2.3 million images culled from Flickr.

"We search for other scenes that share as closely as possible the same semantic scene data," said Mr Hays, who has been showing off the project at the computer graphics conference Siggraph, in San Diego. --Mark Ward --Photo tool could fix bad images (BBC)

I wonder whether such a database could also be used to detect doctored images? Thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary.

Vicary and Fraley modeled their study on a 1979 Random House interactive fiction series, "Choose Your Own Adventure," which allowed the reader to select from multiple options at critical points in the story. Each choice directed the reader to a new scenario.

This approach appealed to the researchers because earlier studies of individual behavior in relationships asked participants to make choices based solely on descriptions of isolated events. The sequential nature of the new study was more like an actual relationship, Vicary said, in that it involved ongoing interactions with the same partner. --Simulated Relationships Offer Insight Into Real Ones (Science Daily)

Measuring test subjects' responses to tree fiction, with a branching plotline that reflects how positively or negatively the subjects responded to a simulated partner. Sounds cool.

Like locked cell phones and copy-protected music, Facebook is on the wrong side of the open-network debate. Facebook is a sealed bubble. Facebook users are locked into Facebook, just as iTunes locks music fans to Apple's iPod.

This serves companies' business interests, but not the wider interests of consumers.

[...]

At this point, "friend" relationships remain unique to the social networks. The web still lacks a generalized way to convey relationships between people's identities on the internet. The absence of this secret sauce -- an underlying framework that connects "friends" and establishes trust relationships between peers -- is what gave rise to social networks in the first place. --Scott Gilbertson --Slap in the Facebook: It's Time for Social Networks to Open Up (Wired)

I couldn't have said it better. This is why I have no particular desire to use a fenced-in system. Yes, I have my students blog with MovableType, but the software is free for private users.

Having said that, I realize that the appeal for some people is precisely that they can share their information with a small group of friends, but all it takes is for one friend to squeal.

I also confess to feeling a bit uncomfortable at the prospect of contacting a researcher whose work I find useful, and telling them I want to be his or her "friend". In the clinically hierarchical world of academia, even "colleague" might be presumptuous.

--3D Hectopus Animation (Rainbow Hector Weblog)

Just a 3D, six-legged character animation. Not the best walk cycle I've ever seen, but it was fun making it.

Besides not beaming down, another factor that showed to increase the survival rate of the red-shirts was the nature of the relationship between the alien life and captain Kirk. When Captain Kirk meets an alien woman and "makes contact" the survival rate of the red-shirted crewmen increases by 84%. In fact, out of Captain Kirks' 24 "relationships" there were only three instances of red-shirt vaporization.

The caveat to this is when Captain Kirk not only meets the local alien women, but also starts a fight among alien locals. The combination of these events has led to the elimination of 4 crewmembers (3 red-shirts).

Here are the statistics:
Red Shirt Death episodes = 18
Episodes with fights = 55
Probability of a fight breaking out = 70%
Kirk "conquest" episodes = 24
Kirk "conquest" + fights = 16
Kirk "conquest" + red shirt casualty= 4
Red shirt death + fight + Kirk "conquest" = 3

--Matt Bailey --Analytics According to Captain Kirk (The Inside Track)

There's an amusing chart that shows crewmember deaths (by shirt-color-coded tombstones) in relation to Kirk's romantic conquests and the number of fights.