That's Curious...

“Tubes explores not just the Internet’s history, but more...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 19:10:10 +0100

“Tubes explores not just the Internet’s history, but more importantly, its physicality, its infrastructure—trying to understand the question of why the Internet is laid out the way it is. The book easily belongs in the growing canon of essential books about Silicon Valley and the Internet as a whole”

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/06/what-the-internet-looks-like-physically/

Over the 20 years the internet has exploded into the primary...

Thu, 21 Jun 2012 11:10:32 +0100

Over the 20 years the internet has exploded into the primary communication tool for a large part of the population. If you’re under 40 you almost certainly use the internet to ‘connect’ and ‘engage’ or any other buzz word you like, with other people. It’s what the internet is really good at: letting you easily and quickly have conversations with people thousands of miles away.

So, how is that going to effect social isolation over the next 50 years? I work for a charity that works with social isolation support groups that work with elderly people to prevent, and counter, older people being stuck in alone, with nobody to talk to. Many have physical problems that prevent them getting out of the house, some have mental health issues and it’s a massive problem for people aged from 50 to 90. They’ll often not talk to anyone for days or even weeks at a time which has serious effects on people’s quality of life.

The groups try to combat this by holding meetings, picnics, dances etc. all provided by volunteers. They have drivers who will go around and pick up older people with mobility problems and one group even have volunteers hosting tea parties at their houses and inviting local older people in. They even encourage people to use Skype and other tools to talk to distant family. They do amazing work and really make a difference to these people’s lives.

It got me thinking about me. I’m 23, but in 50 years I’m going to be like some of these people. Of course, there’s many factors which contribute to social isolation (income, health etc.) but I could be in the same situation. My question is how the internet will affect that. Most of my friends live 2-300 miles away from me and I speak to them primarily over the web and I wonder whether because we’re used to this kind of communication that we won’t feel the same isolation. Can we, as a generation, avoid social isolation through the fact that we’re always connected?That includes this forum post, reddit comments, Twitter, Facebook and whatever communication revolutions occur over the next 50 years.

Of course there’s a lot to be said about actually sitting down and being with someone IRL. There’s having fun on Skype or on Xbox Live and there’s sitting with your friends in person. Can technology overcome this? Video is certainly going to increase its usability through ‘appliance’ devices like the iPad or through your TV. How is that going to affect our ability to connect? Now, an older person can use the phone to talk to someone but there’s still massive loneliness - is that going to be the same for all this technology? Is there simply no substitute for physical interaction?

Technology will advance so much in that time that perhaps we, today’s cutting edge youth, will be left behind and feel as confused and worried about technology as some of today’s older people are today?

There’s lots of question marks here because I don’t know the answers. There’s certainly been studies carried that suggest positive effects on older people who use technology to connect with their families but it’s hard to predict the future of an entire generation.

What I do know though, is that technology has the promise to make a lot of these issues less damaging. As we develop easy to use, universally cheap products for current and future older people that they can shop on, talk to their friends and family with and, of course, read reddit AMAs on then we might just go a step towards reducing social isolation and improve the lives of millions of people.

Image credit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/poll/2012/mar/12/poll-arts-organisations-older-audiences

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2012/06/18/cartoons_...

Sun, 17 Jun 2012 02:53:38 +0100

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/issuecartoons/2012/06/18/cartoons_20120611#slide=3

‘That said, the game is designed to be played in that...

Sat, 16 Jun 2012 23:53:50 +0100

‘That said, the game is designed to be played in that persistent, multiplayer world, so players won’t be able to gleefully destroy a city and then go back to an earlier save file as if nothing ever happened, for instance.’

Goddamn there better be a way to make random cities to destroy. Isn’t that 90% of SimCity?

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/06/sharing-your-simcity-with-others/

A great look at the sins of ‘skeumorphism’, the...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:15:22 +0100

A great look at the sins of ‘skeumorphism’, the design philosophy that looks to emulate real world design when creating digital user interfaces. The prime example is Apple’s iBooks app, above, which with its faux page turn animations and leather bounding gives the user a sense of familiarity, but also intrinsically limits the functionality by relying on obsolete metaphors.

Tom Hobbs writes:

‘We need to design UIs that are stripped down as much as they can be. This means avoiding superfluous and gratuitous ornamentation, both visually and through how they move. But this doesn’t just mean focusing on “raw” elements that just support function. It is not simply a case of stripping everything back to the point of a handful of elements for the sake of being minimal; that would be simplistic. As with film, there’s an opportunity to delight by incorporating elements that are there purely to serve emotive purposes. This is why the philosophy “just enough is more” is rather more important than just simply “less is more.”’

‘Over the past decade, the power of A/B testing has become...

Fri, 08 Jun 2012 01:05:21 +0100

‘Over the past decade, the power of A/B testing has become an open secret of high-stakes web development. It’s now the standard (but seldom advertised) means through which Silicon Valley improves its online products. Using A/B, new ideas can be essentially focus-group tested in real time: without being told, a fraction of users are diverted to a slightly different version of a given web page and their behaviour compared against the mass of users on the standard site. If the new version proves superior — gaining more clicks, longer visits, more purchases — it will displace the original; if the new version is inferior, it’s quietly phased out without most users ever seeing it. A/B allows seemingly subjective questions of design — colour, layout, image selection, text — to become incontrovertible matters of data-driven social science.’

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2012/06/features/the-ab-test?page=all

‘Anonymous does matter, but just not in the way that we...

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 20:58:04 +0100

‘Anonymous does matter, but just not in the way that we think. Over the years its supporters have reveled in this notion of being an “Internet Hate Machine,” a mysterious clique of super hackers, and political protestors — all of which are only part of the true story. What fascinated me most about Anonymous, and what fascinates me to this day, is the sub-culture that it ultimately comes from. Putting the vast amounts of e-drama to one side, there is a profound social acceptance between people in the online worlds of Anonymous and 4chan, that you won’t find in the real world of office politics and traffic lights. There is an extraordinary ability to spontaneously organize events and hype out of thin air. As Sabu once said, it also gives a voice to people who otherwise wouldn’t have one.’

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/7/3070945/parmy-olson-inside-anonymous-five-minutes-on-the-verge

An amazing look at the work of Timothy O’Sullivan, one of...

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 10:55:21 +0100

An amazing look at the work of Timothy O’Sullivan, one of the first people to photograph the expanding American West after the Civil War.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2149899/The-American-West-youve-seen-Amazing-19th-century-pictures-landscape-chartered-time.html

How would geopolitical theories address a zombie apocalypse?...

Thu, 07 Jun 2012 07:51:18 +0100

How would geopolitical theories address a zombie apocalypse? That’s the question asked here by Daniel W. Drezner.

It’s an interesting and comic look at the political theory and how even something insane and outlandish can be addressed in realist, liberal or neoconservative terms.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/night_of_the_living_wonks?page=full

youmightfindyourself: Girl Model The film opens at the Russian...

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:39:17 +0100

youmightfindyourself:

Girl Model

The film opens at the Russian modeling audition where Nadya is discovered, picked out of a seemingly endless lineup of almost identical pale, bird-limbed preteens. Nadya gives different numbers for her age depending on what the agents want to hear. In fact, she is just 13. “They like them young,” Arbaugh notes of the Asian fashion market. “Really, really young.” Nadya comes from a grim village, and her family doesn’t have much money. Nadya’s family and entire town see her modeling opportunity as a great boon, and they honor her with ceremonies, parties, and a bittersweet send-off. But once she lands in Tokyo, the fantasy abruptly shatters. She’s dropped in the largest city in the world with no guide and no translator. She speaks neither Japanese nor English, the language most often employed by the international fashion industry. Eventually, she finds her way to the agency-rented apartment, a closet-sized hovel she shares with another teenage model. She has no contacts, no cash, and no way to communicate. Though Nadya is tall and lovely, she is clearly a child. Desperate and helpless, she even pleads with the filmmakers to help her; one of them eventually provides her with a working phone, on which she sobs to her mother and begs to come home, like a terrified child at summer camp. The conditions are so bad that her flat-mate purposely eats until she gains two centimeters around her hips, violating her contract and getting sent home early. The cold, robotic feel of digital video adds to the grimness of Nadya’s circumstances, both in Siberia and the alienating urban efficiency of Tokyo. The merciless lighting and clinical cinematography make Nadya and the other models look like waxen figurines, all blue veins and skin shining tight over skeletons.

The jobs Nadya’s agency promised are in truth only auditions, and only one of them pans out to an actual photo session. Nadya’s contract sounds like something out of the old Hollywood studio system, or a major-label record deal. The company invests an enormous amount of money up front for scouting, travel, lodging, auditions, and even the shoots themselves, which the model must pay back, plus interest, from her pittance earnings before she gets to keep a dime. Intertitles reveal that Nadya left Tokyo not with the financial blessings her family hoped for, but with thousands of dollars of debt and exactly one addition to her portfolio to show for it. At one point, the filmmakers try to corner the Japanese representative of Nadya’s agency, asking how, exactly, they can run a business that drags hundreds of Russian girls to Japan and back with almost no product to show for it. The agent gives a vague non-answer about girls willing to do anything to get photos for their “books.” Clearly, the truth is that these modeling agencies are little more than extortion machines. No body-image horror, no sexual favors, no drugs; just the simple and terribly common transfer of money from the less powerful to the more powerful.

Exposing this corruption would be fodder enough for a documentary even if the agency and the fashion industry were faceless monsters. Instead, Redmon and Sabin have Ashley Arbaugh. At the beginning of the film, Arbaugh comes across as thoughtful and conflicted. She seems to cringe at the objectification her job requires, yet also captivated by the beauty of the girls she finds. Never once does she seem completely comfortable with her task. When we get glimpses of a video diary Arbaugh kept when she herself modeled in Asia, we can see why. Exhausted, bloodless, defeated, sometimes weeping, she expresses an alienation and hopelessness that perfectly echoes Nadya’s current feelings. If anything, Arbaugh in flashback is even more sympathetic, because she was older than Nadya and better able to express herself. Why, then, does Arbaugh continue to work as a scout? Is she another victim, older and slightly more wary, but still at the mercy of the machine?

Fascinating piece: 10,000 words on Solid State Drive; today...

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:21:32 +0100

Fascinating piece: 10,000 words on Solid State Drive; today I’m reminded how infinitely complex the universe’s complexities are.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/inside-the-ssd-revolution-how-solid-state-disks-really-work/

Ministry of Truth: Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 08:51:55 +0000

Ministry of Truth: Hiroshima: The Lost Photographs :

Hiroshima: The United States Strategic Bombing Survey Archive, 1945, International Center of Photography, Purchase, with funds provided by the ICP Acquisitions Committee, 2006
One rainy night eight years ago, in Watertown, Massachusetts, a man was taking his dog for a walk. On the curb, in front…

intelligencesquared: “Good Riddance to the mainstream...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 16:03:18 +0000

intelligencesquared: “Good Riddance to the mainstream media”

A debate over that statement with individuals such as David Carr and Michael Wolff. Featured in the NY Times documentary posted earlier. Very news nerdy, but very interesting.

bbciplayer: Storyville: Deadline An incredibly interesting and...

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:00:06 +0000

bbciplayer: Storyville: Deadline

An incredibly interesting and thoughtful documentary on the running of the New York Times. A look at its past, its role and its ability to survive in the digital media age.

For UK folks you can watch the entire thing on the BBC iPlayer for free, otherwise there doesn’t seem to be a free version available online. Still, well worth looking for if you can.

Entire Tamriel Landmass built into Skyrim.

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 17:51:35 +0000

Just awesome.

ppsh-41:

I didn’t know if this was posted yet on tumblr, so I thought I’d do it. The landmass of almost all of the provinces in Tamriel, has been put into Skyrim. All which are inaccessible(without console commands) and which serve absolutely no purpose in the game. Why are they there? I personally don’t know. But take a look at the effort Bethesta put into these seemingly pointless landmasses.

At the south-eastern most part of Skyrim lays Stendarr’s Beacon.

If you’ve looked at a map of Tamriel, you’ll know this is the closest place in Skyrim, to Morrowind.

If you travel directly North East of Stendarr’s Beacon, you’ll end up finding a path to your right, in between two huge mountains.

I noticed how beautiful the path really looked. It seemed quite enthralling actually for some reason.

The path is nestled between two mountains, decorated with trees, and at the end of it some type of gateway, or arch.

But, that open archway is the end of the road. The game doesn’t allow you to go any further. I find it strange, that there’s an area like this leading from Skyrim to Morrowind. Nowhere in the lore was this stone wall mentioned. And why would it be an open arch like that? Why not closed? Why is there a space at all between these mountains if we can’t go any further? As you can see there are still trees and foliage beyond this wall, but you aren’t able to access it without console commands.

So, I went into No-clip like the BAMF I am and travelled down this path.

Landmass photos below.

Read More

Weave is an excellent (and free) to-do app for the iPhone

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:45:53 +0000

I am a very forgetful person. This often lands me in trouble with family-members, my girlfriend and and various governmental agencies. Yes I can remember every word of the Stonecutters song, but tell me a phone number and I’ve got no chance. Thus, I need a device to keep track of literally everything: my phone.

I’ve been using the Reminders app that Apple included in the iOS 5 update, but it’s a little thin on features and so in looking for a more fully-fledged option I found Weave.

Instead of just a long list, Weave brings in ‘projects’, which act like folders for your items. This is a problem I had with Reminders; I had simply lots of tasks that were just notes that didn’t really needed working on immediatly. This is often films I want to watch or a new band I’ve heard of and just want to quickly jot the info down, but probably not do anything with it for a while. With Weave I can just create a folder called “Music” and then add the item into there. I can then view that project later and keep my attention on things that actually need doing.

The main screen (above) is what you see when you first open the app and here you can see a list of recent notes as well as ones due in soon. You can also star the items to keep them pinned to the top of the list.

Adding items is easy enough and there’s the usual due date forms as well as ‘time spent’ option where you can record the days, hours or minutes you spent on the app (useful for invoicing). The app is quick to open, although I did notice that when you re-opened the app it displayed a “Working…” dialogue over the screen, meaning you’d have to wait a moment. Irritating when you’re trying to frantically remember a phone number or your girlfriend’s birthday. (Seriously).

Weave also features a handy Income/Expenses feature. This turns a useful to-do app into an income tracking system too. You simply add an expense (or, if you’re lucky enough, an income) and it keeps track of them all. You can link it to a specific item in a project too: A small menu pops up when you tick an item as complete asking you how long you spent on it, whether you made any money or spent some.

It doesn’t have any location-aware features like Apple’s Reminders, so that might be a deal-breaker for some. Personally I’m not out and about doing stuff enough for it to be useful, but that’s just how I use it.

There’s a few minor features worth mentioing before I finish. You can set Weave to send you a notification at a certain time of day nudging you to start some tasks. I’ve set mine for 9AM Monday to Friday and Weave cheerfully greets me with a “Good Morning!” and asks me whether I’d like to get stuff done. I find this particularly useful as getting me to start a task is often the biggest battle. Weave also offers a data back up feature that requires an account - again, totally free.

It’s worth checking out a few others, but Weave fits into my workflow quite well. It does a great job of taking Apple’s Reminders and giving it a bit more punch. And best of all it’s totally free, surprising considering the amount of features and general fit-and-finish of the app. Great stuff.

It's not all sunshine and puppies: Things that annoy me about Skyrim

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:05:02 +0000

To counter my last post on Skyrim where I gushed endlessly about how great it is, here’s a list of things wrong with it.

Glitches and bugs: it’s a Bethesda game

This is standard fare in open-world games, especially ones that have so many variables going on at one time. There’s literally hundreds of things going on that could trigger a problem, so it’s a little unfair to say ‘there should be no bugs’. However, freezes and other glitches can ruin games. I’ve had two freezes so far and while I’ve not lost any considerable amount of time it’s very, very easy to do so.

Similarly, the game chugs slightly when saving and, oddly, when riding a horse, especially when sprinting. I don’t know if this is because it needs to load characters and other objects quicker than usual but for me (on PS3) I’ve seen some issues.

It’s nowhere near Fallout: New Vegas levels and they’ve done very well to have a game running so smoothly. It’s not drastic and shouldn’t deter you, but it affects gameplay so kind of has to be brought into consideration.

DRAGONS: Oh, it’s dead…

Dragons are seen as some of the major draws to this title, and yes they’re damn cool. However fighting them… well it’s not the epic challenge that I would imagine. I first encountered one while playing on the ‘adept’ difficulty setting and noticed quite quickly that you could hack ‘n’ slash your way through one in a fairly short amount of time. On the next outing I upped the difficulty and still found them a bit wussy. It’s very fun, but once you get them on the ground it’s just a case of applying health potions and hitting attack.

This may just be because I’m not that far through; I imagine the dragons get bigger and scarier. Still, it didn’t feel like the epic battle that I thought it would. Maybe I’m being picky?

The Menus: Down, down, down, down, down

The menu system in Oblivion was rather pathetic. It felt old when the game came out and was always a cumbersome and slow. Skyrim’s menu system improves on this greatly and is leagues ahead of Bethesda’s initial offering.

However it’s still not perfect. It can be fiddly sometimes, with lists of items that seem to go on forever. It’s also harder to keep track of all the items you’ve got. I do lots of trading in the game and sometimes find it trickly to find that little thing I want to sell. As far as I can tell you can’t see an overview of an item unless you select it, unlike Oblivion’s menus where you could always see the value, damage etc. (See screenshot below)

I also tend to exit them by pressing circle a lot when trying to just go back a sub-menu. That might be my mistake, but circle is the natural back button.

Selecting items that you flick between frequently has been improved by the favourites menu but if you adds too many items (swords, shields, potions and spells) it becomes fairly useless - another scrolling list.

The speech menus are pretty perfect, it has to be said. Much better than the previous engines.

/rant

A letter to a woman widowed with three children from author Kurt...

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:43:12 +0000

A letter to a woman widowed with three children from author Kurt Vonnegut.

lettersofnote.com, via reddit.

Skyrim: A world where simply occupying it is exciting

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:56:02 +0000

When sitting down to play games like Skyrim, you have to give yourself a considerable amount of time. It’s not enough to simply say, ‘hey, I’ll play a couple of hours this weekend’.

Two hours in Skyrim will barely get you out of the tutorial.

No, Skyrim demands that you play it. It demands that you sit down, remove all distractions and just play the damn game. Consuming it in tiny sips will only result in frustration.

The reason for this, to me, doesn’t lie in Skyrim’s missions or quests. Yes they’re entirely entertaining and are nicely varied to give you lots of stuff to do, but they’re not why playing the game is so fun. The real reason is the universe Bethesda have created. It’s here that the game really shines - by simply letting you exist inside this amazing world.

Dropping into the local inn in Whiterun and you’re presented with a place where you can sit and listen to conversations, make requests from the bard or sit and drink your weight in mead. The roaring fire feels warm, the characters - even ones that serve no purpose towards the story - are personable and add a great deal to the experience.

Walking around the town there’s a sense of existence that it’s hard to match elsewhere in a videogame. Everything and everyone seems to have a purpose beyond being something for the player to interact with. Of course that fruit seller isn’t real, but the depth in her story makes it feel that way, despite the fact she’s a tiny character in the scope of things. Bethesda have let the world exist in its own right, not just to serve the player.

The introduction of work adds to this. Being able to chop wood or smelt swords or armour means that you can also fit into this finely crafted world – you don’t feel like the exceptional outsider that you often feel like in RPGs. You’re not the hero, just a bloke without superpowers or a destiny that needs to be fulfilled. You can create your own role to play.

That’s where Skyrim has me enthralled. I was playing last night when three men approached me in the wilderness. They told me I was going to die and attacked me. After I finished them off I searched their bodies and found a note with “contract” written on it. These men, it turned out, had been hired by a man I had met in Dawnstar and stolen a note off of to see what it said. Once I’d read I put it back, but he noticed and was a little pissed. A minor NPC that I barely spoke to took out a hit on my name. It’s this kind of thing that adds to that immersion.

Bethesda have managed to create a game where it would be entertaining enough if all that was expected of you was to simply occupy it. Remove all of the quests, remove your character’s special role in the story and you’ve got a fully formed world that operates in such a consistent and enthralling manner. Just being able to be a part of that is what I find the most the entertaining and what will be keep me coming back long after every quest is complete. You really should be playing this game.

worrydream: A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design The next time you make a sandwich,...

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 14:41:18 +0000

worrydream: A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design

The next time you make a sandwich, pay attention to your hands. Seriously! Notice the myriad little tricks your fingers have for manipulating the ingredients and the utensils and all the other objects involved in this enterprise. Then compare your experience to sliding around Pictures Under Glass.

Are we really going to accept an Interface Of The Future that is less expressive than a sandwich?

Not only is does this article make a very good point about the banality of so-called ‘future devices’ (that is, that they don’t utilise the full range of abilities our body has) it’s also wonderfully presented.