Culture

[Tech] Buddy Bugs: bugs and instant messenging

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Buddy Bugs is an ambient peripheral physical interface that represents Windows® Instant Messenger contact list, where people are represented by glass bugs on a leaf..

Touching a bug initiates an instant messaging conversation.  Buddy Bugs’ basic ideas include: making status information of a few key people more readily available; using its physical form as a peripheral display that can be situated appropriately in the environment; and taking advantage of people’s spatial memory by having contacts associated with bugs at particular positions on the leaf. The leaf is made from papier machiêr to exhibit natural and organic characteristics. 

I really like the design of the bug!

[Tech] Heads-Up versus Heads-Down Display

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A comparison of heads-up and heads-down display in International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Comparison of head-up display (HUD) vs. head-down display (HDD): driving performance of commercial vehicle operators in Taiwan a paper by Yung-Ching Liu and Ming-Hui Wen.

This study investigates the effects of two different display modes—head-up display (HUD) vs. head-down display (HDD) on the driving performance and psychological workload ratings of drivers operating commercial vehicles in Taiwan. Twelve commercial lorry drivers participated in a 2 (high/low driving load road)×2 (head-up/head-down display)×2 (different arrangements of display sequences used) mixed-factor driving simulation experiment. Participants were divided into two groups according to the level of driving load conditions within each driving load group; the participants were further divided into another 2 subgroups based on two arrangements of display sequences used. For each driving load condition, there were two 20-min driving simulation experiments, separated by a display sequence using head-up first and then head-down or vice versa. The subjects were asked to perform four tasks: "commercial goods delivery", "navigation", "speed detection and maintenance" and "response to an urgent event". Results indicated that for the first task, commercial goods delivery, the two display types showed no significant performance difference in terms of average accuracy rate. However, in terms of response time to an urgent event, it was faster with the HUD (with a low driving load—head-up vs. head-down: 1.0073 vs. 1.8684 s; with a high driving load—head-up vs. head-down: 1.3235 vs. 2.3274 s) and speed control was more consistent (having low speed variations) than with the HDD. In addition, using the HUD caused less mental stress for the drivers than the HDD and was easier for first-time users to become familiar with; with a high driving load, however, the difference between the two displays was not significant.

The first picture depicts the HUD and the second shows the HDD:

[Weird] Nice Children beliefs

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I used to believe is full of children beliefs website.

As a young child I used to believe that if my belly button knot came untied, my skin would fall off. (...) When I was little, I would always wake up with snot in my nose. I thought that in the night a guy would come in my house and stick boogers up my nose. (...) I use to think that sanitary pads were adult diapers and that was why no adults ever peed in there pants. (...) I used to believe that when I peed, if I could fill up the entire toilet bowl with bubbles I was protecting my family for 1 more day from burglars. (...) I used to believe that the handicapped signs in parking lots was someone on a toilet. (...) i used to think that the road sign "dangerous" was actually "dang-er-roos" a kind of bouncy marsupial

[TheWorld] More about dolphin social network

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Lusseau, D. The Emergent Properties of a Dolphin Social Network. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London- Series B. Retrieved 24 August 2004. I did not expect dolphin social network being so close to www topology...

Many complex networks, including human societies, the Internet, the World Wide Web and power grids, have surprising properties that allow vertices (individuals, nodes, Web pages, etc.) to be in close contact and information to be transferred quickly between them. Nothing is known of the emerging properties of animal societies, but it would be expected that similar trends would emerge from the topology of animal social networks. Despite its small size (64 individuals), the Doubtful Sound community of bottlenose dolphins has the same characteristics. The connectivity of individuals follows a complex distribution that has a scale-free power-law distribution for large k. In addition, the ability for two individuals to be in contact is unaffected by the random removal of individuals. The removal of individuals with many links to others does affect the length of the 'information' path between two individuals, but, unlike other scale-free networks, it does not fragment the cohesion of the social network. These self-organizing phenomena allow the network to remain united, even in the case of catastrophic death events.

[Art Tech] Ghost in the cave

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Ghost in the Cave , an interactive collaborative game using non-verbal communication is a collaboration including four partners within the MEGA project: Speech, Music and Hearing, KTH, Stockholm; Octaga/ Telenor, Oslo; DIST InfoMus Lab, University of Genoa; DEI, University of Padua; and with CID, KTH, Stockholm.

A collaborative game in which two teams of players use the voice or body gestures for input control. Players not directly involved in  controlling the avatars are participating by influencing the music through movements. The task is to navigate in the 3D world and to find three caves. Within each cave the players do an "emotional" task.


[Video Games] Digital game research lab

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Digital gaming research group is a lab that focuses on video game study.

Our mission is to understand digital games more thoroughly, particularly in the context of intercultural communication.

To advance our understanding, we are currently conducting two studies that examine specific aspects of digital games.

The first study relies on usability techniques to examine immersion and engagement within digital games. We are comparing two games (one that is educational in nature and one that is purely entertaining) in terms of their ability to engage players; our model of engagement is based on the Singer/Witmer (1996) model for virtual environments.

The second study looks at a specific massively multiplayer online game and the communication differences that arise among the different cultures for which the game has been translated. This study will lead to conclusions about the quality of the game's localization for other cultures, as well as a clearer understanding of how gamers play and associate with one another in countries other than the USA.

[VideoGames] Next-gen consoles will features wireless hub

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According to Electronic Arts chief financial office, next generation consoles will act as wireless hub. And this would allow new gaming opportunities.

Speculation has been rife for some time that the next-generation consoles would offer wireless connectivity, allowing them to tie in with the wireless LAN functionality of the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP handheld consoles as well as connecting to wireless routers or other consoles in the vicinity.

And here is the dark side:

"Ultimately what you'll see is a microtransaction environment where we'll be able to create additional content and sell it into these games," he explained. "Over the long term, you'll also have an environment where we'll build tools that allow the user community to build content and sell it into these games themselves."

[Life] What's IT people side jobs?

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Slashdot discussion on which side jobs are carried out by IT people.

Flagg0204 asks: "Growing up in a primarily white collar household I wasn't exposed to 'side-jobs' until I met my girlfriend whose family was mostly blue collar. This got me to thinking. What do people in the IT field do for side jobs? Electricians, plumbers, HVAC, mechanic, these fields have many opportunities for a little extra cash on the side. What are some IT/IS side jobs that Slashdot readers do for extra money?"

[Life] What's IT people side jobs?

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Slashdot discussion on which side jobs are carried out by IT people.

Flagg0204 asks: "Growing up in a primarily white collar household I wasn't exposed to 'side-jobs' until I met my girlfriend whose family was mostly blue collar. This got me to thinking. What do people in the IT field do for side jobs? Electricians, plumbers, HVAC, mechanic, these fields have many opportunities for a little extra cash on the side. What are some IT/IS side jobs that Slashdot readers do for extra money?"

[Culture] Barbapapa crazy DRM policy

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I received this in a mailing list about copyleft.

"Si vous utilisez un matériel BARBAPAPA sans autorisation vous pouvez géner les personnes cherchant réellement des renseignements sur BARBAPAPA; vous limitez et interrompez le libre et facile accés à une vraie information qui ne peut venir que des seules personnes pouvant donner des renseignements exacts et à jour, à savoir les éditeurs des livres BARBAPAPA et les créateurs de BARBAPAPA"

It's crazy!

[Video games] Game Studies Journal 04 is out

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It's been a long time since I did not check wether the <a href="new issue of Game Studies has been released or not. Now it's out. It's not HCI-oriented but rather 'ludologic'.

Alexander R. Galloway: “Social Realism in Gaming“ Zach Whalen: “Play Along - An Approach to Videogame Music“ Castulus Kolo & Timo Baur: “Living a Virtual Life: Social Dynamics of Online Gaming“ Stewart Woods: “Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious Videogames“ Aki Järvinen: “A Meaningful Read: Rules of Play reviewed“ Anja Rau: “Game Studies - Review: Germans at Play“

[Culture] L.F. Céline, Capitaine Haddock et les insultes

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Une histoire qui vient de chronicart à propos d'un livre (Céline, Hergé et l’affaire Haddock, éditions Ecriture)

Quelle est la provenance de la bordée d’injures suivante ? "Mataf ! Sorcier ! Albanais ! Joueur de boules ! Marchands de cithares, pompiers nanterrois !". Et celle-ci ? "Vampires des cavernes ! Cromagnons salaces ! Valets de cirque ! Pourchasseurs de martyrs !". Pour nombre de lecteurs, la réponse ne fera aucun doute : de la bouche du capitaine Haddock, dans l’une ou l’autre des aventures de Tintin. Erreur. La première salve est tirée de la page 128 de l’édition originale de Bagatelles pour un massacre, le pamphlet de Louis-Ferdinand Céline (Denoël, 1937), la deuxième de la page 132. Page 302, on trouvera une phrase encore plus saisissante de par sa proximité avec le registre de l’irascible Archibald : "Djibouks, agents doubles, magiciens, bourriques, illusionnistes, charlatans". Etonnant, non ? La frappante ressemblance entre certaines sorties comiques du capitaine et les phrases torrentielles écrites par Céline dans ses pamphlets a poussé Emile Brami, biographe de l’écrivain, à mener l’enquête. (...) Sur les 46 insultes proférées par Haddock dans l’aventure où il apparaît pour la première fois, Le Crabe aux pinces d’Or, en 1941, 16 sont également présentes dans le texte de Bagatelles pour un massacre, paru trois ans plus tôt ; si certaines sont courantes donc peu convaincantes ("canailles", "parasite", "renégat"), d’autres sont au contraire pour le moins originales ("canaque", "invertébré", "aztèque", "iconoclaste", "anthracite"). L’hypothèse de Brami est simple : immergé depuis toujours dans un milieu conservateur et catholique dont il partage les vues, les valeurs et l’antisémitisme, Hergé aurait très vraisemblablement été amené par ses fréquentations (souvent plus politisées que lui) à lire le pamphlet de Céline, fût-ce en diagonale ; frappé par le potentiel comique du vocabulaire qu’il y trouve, il lui emprunte "des mots, des expressions et surtout les formes dont il a besoin, qui l’intéressent ou qui l’intriguent, pour habiller le discours de Haddock". Par la suite, il oubliera l’influence célinienne pour "inventer ses propres formules", "en véritable créateur". Etayée par une argumentation honnête sur l’environnement politique du dessinateur, sur les activités éditoriales de ses collaborateurs et amis (notamment Robert Poulet, qui consacre deux articles à Bagatelles dans la presse belge lors de sa parution, ainsi que Paul Jamin et Raymond de Becker) et sur la manière dont Hergé faisait feu de tout bois en matière de sources et de documentation, la démonstration convainc ; Brami va même plus loin, et suggère que c’est finalement grâce à la lecture de Céline que le personnage de Haddock va prendre sa véritable dimension. Ses premières apparitions dans l’aventure le montrent en effet en ivrogne pathétique et déplaisant, sans charisme ni particularité d’aucune sorte ; ce n’est qu’à partir du moment où il lance sa première bordée d’injures aux pillards arabes (page 62 dans l’édition reliée), bordée potentiellement inspirée par la lecture des Bagatelles, qu’il "devient" véritablement Haddock, "attachant et immédiatement reconnaissable". De là à dire que Haddock ne serait pas devenu l’un des plus célèbres personnages de l’histoire de la bande dessinée si Céline n’avait pas écrit ses pamphlets, il y a un pas qu’on a tout loisir de franchir ou pas.

[Artwork] Dana Wyse's pills

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I like Dana Wyse's collection of pills, especially the "don't have ugly children" :) And her "celebrity sperm" is also very interesting (one ounce of fresh sperm from Gerry Adams, Al Gore, Bill Gates, Tom Cruise, Michail Gorbachev, Martin Amis and 100 other important men) .

When and how did you invent your pills? In 1996 in Paris. It happened like lightning hits old men on golf courses, that’s how the idea came to me. Violently, like divine intervention.

[Space and Place] Architecture for space station

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Softroom is an architecture agency that worked on space station design (as well as previous aircraft interior design).

Softroom believes there is a clear overlap between the disciplines of space station architecture and aircraft interior design. "Both share similar restrictions in terms of form and materiality as well as the ever-present demand for lightweight, efficient solutions." says managing director Oliver Salway.

[Tech] Visualizing live text streams with TextPool

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TextPool allows you to watch a dynamic, interactive visual summary of the latest topics of discussion in live text streams (discussion taking place on hundreds of cable channels, newswires, blogs, chatrooms and email). For instance, here is a summary of six hours of content from several news feeds on April 5, 2004, focused on stories related to the terms “president” and “iraq”.

[Future] People complaining about FOAF

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The FOAF search engine plink has been shut down because of people's complaints. That is indeed a challenge with social software: some relatives/friends/colleagues does not want to show up on some webpage while using google. Orient Lodge postes about it:

Plink “has shut down. For now.” Why? Julian Bond writes at Ecademy, “The interesting thing here is that there are approximately 15 Million structured data files out there on the web in XML of which FOAF is just one type. And the search engines currently do nothing with it. And when a programmer does try to do something, they get abuse from people who don't realize they didn't have any privacy anyway.”

Dom Ramsey writes at rdfweb-dev, “It was fun to do, but I'm now getting way too many complaints from people who have appeared without permission in other people's FOAF files and have found themselves via Google.

Trying to explain FOAF to these people generally doesn't work, and more often than not, they're too irate to care. So the easiest thing for me to do is just take the site down.“

[Tech] VRML RSS Reader

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(Via), Newsworld is the world's first 3D RSS reader in the form of a VRML scene. I don't know if any of you already dealt with VRML but anyway... I don't like it but the project is funny, mixing cutting edge tech (RSS) and old-school 3d: vrml is neal steaphenson's snowcrash oriented, so it's a kind of tribute to old cyberpunk concepts. It is a joke or what?