Things I’ve read, starred, and shared on Google Reader.
- The effects of gold-medal hockey on Edmonton, Canada water usagePublished: March 11, 2010Source: Boing BoingI feel a great disturbance in the public utility, as if millions of bladders cried out, and were suddenly silenced. Pats Papers: What If Everybody in Canada Flushed at Once? (Thanks, Christina!)
- Heavy Rain: A Peek Into the Future of Movies and Games [Entertain Me]Published: March 11, 2010Source: GizmodoEven if you don't own a PlayStation 3, Heavy Rain is a game you should know because it re-imagines both videogames and movies, combining them into a new genre of Choose Your Own Adventure digital narrative. (Very minor spoilers ahead.) More »
- Leaked Shots Show Sony Mirrorless Touch Camera InterfacePublished: March 12, 2010Source: Wired: Gadget Lab[UPDATE: It's official, although it's not clear whether the screen is touch-enabled. See the Sony video embedded below] The folks at Geeky Gadgets have got ahold of some screenshots from Sony’s upcoming mirrorless Alpha camera. It appears that the innovation isn’t all on the outside: this camera will have a touch screen and a smart new interface to go with it. Mirrorless cameras are becoming popular because they put big sensors in small bodies with interchangeable lenses, and Sony’s concept added typical Sony Style. But looks are nothing without a good product, and these screen shots show that Sony has decided to abstract the interface, forgetting about apertures and shutter speeds and instead focussing on their effects. For instance, we know that opening up the lens shortens depth-of-field and throws the background out of focus, making the subject pop. Sony lets you control this by touching a button and sliding an on-screen control for “Bkground Defocus”. The menu screens are big and colorful, too, instead of the cryptic text lists we’re used to. In fact, going by these leaked shots it looks as if there won’t be many buttons at all on this camera. Even the mode setting dial is a big on-screen graphic (shaped just like a dial!) We love where the camera market is going, with relative newcomers forgetting about the old film ways of doing things and instead concentrating on taking better pictures more easily. More shots below, or click over to Geeky Gadgets to see them all. Sony Ultra Compact DSLR Camera Concept Menu And LCD Screenshots [Geeky Gadgets]
- Conan’s Twitter Team: A Small Army [PIC]Published: March 3, 2010Source: Mashable!
It takes a village to raise a Conan O’Brien tweet. Now that the (former…) late night funnyman has officially joined the Twitterverse, he revealed in a recent tweet the extensive army required to keep Team Coco afloat.Obviously, being funny in 140 characters or less is just too much for one man. Even if that man is Coco.
[img credit: the man, the myth, the legend: Conan O'Brien][via URLesque]Tags: conan, conan o'brien, tv, twitpic, twitter - Funny Or Die Presidential Reunion Unites SNL Stars for Web Hit [VIDEO]Published: March 4, 2010Source: Mashable!Comedy site Funny Or Die has brought together current and former stars of Saturday Night Live (plus Jim Carrey) to create a skit called “Presidential Reunion” that has racked up more than one million views in less than 24 hours.The skit features Fred Armisen, who currently plays Barack Obama on SNL, Will Ferrell bringing back his George W. Bush, Darrell Hammond (Bill Clinton), Dana Carvey (Bush Sr.), Jim Carrey (Ronald Reagan), Dan Akroyd (Jimmy Carter), and Chevy Chase (Gerald Ford). Maya Rudolph plays Michelle Obama.The video itself pokes fun of each president’s idiosyncrasies and stereotypes, offering current President Obama advice on how to fix Washington. The ending features an ad for Main Street Brigade, an organization calling for financial reform. Check it out below:Tags: barack obama, funny or die, politics, saturday night live, snl, viral video
- Do You Perform Research Centered Web Design?Published: March 3, 2010Source: StylizedWeb.comI think we are all guilty of neglecting the research phase when it comes to developing some design concepts. I myself am guilty of performing "research" by opening up some CSS galleries and looking through some magazines. The problem with this common approach is that you are researching aesthetics and ignoring the target users. This of course can be a hard concept to get away from as many of us are striving to make designs that are aesthetically pleasing... and by aesthetically pleasing it typically means pleasing to ourselves. Yes, with this approach the client will agree it looks great and we can look at our portfolio with a glimmer in our eye, proud of our works of art. However what really should be a gauge for success is how well the site performed. Keep in mind some of the most successful sites would probably look ugly in your eyes, but are perfect in the eyes of the target audience. The Knot for example, doesn't strike my fancy in any way shape or form... but brides to be? My not so subtle point is that we should be striving to create effective designs and in order to do so we need to really understand our target users. This means going beyond what the client tells us they like, going beyond looking through CSS galleries to see what we like and instead it means reaching out and finding out what those target users actually like. Don't Trust The Client If nothing else the first step is to understand that you client has a better understanding of the audience than you do. The next step is to acknowledge that everything you (or the client) think you know about the user is wrong. This sounds contradictory but what I am getting at is that while doing client interviews is a good first step to some vague understanding of the audience but it will no doubt lead to assumptions that are simply incorrect. Additionally you can be sure that some of the information gathered from the client is based on assumptions that are incorrect. Your goal during the initial interviews is to get enough information and knowledge to know where to look to start performing actual research. The interview and client questionnaire is not the research itself. Phase I, The Basics The first design meeting that you hold should really aim to understanding the basics of the target audience. Basic age, demographic and interest information. I stress that you shouldn't try and extract any more information. Rather than looking for answers instead look for examples. The problem with asking "What does your audience care about?" is that you will get an answer that is really what your client thinks the audience cares about... which most of the time is not the actual case. Instead ask to give an example of a perfect customer, one that they would like to have 10 times more of. This will draft up a real example where you can get an idea of life stage, interests, gender, family, geographic location, etc... I would also stress to try and get contact information for this example as well. Repeat this process to get a decent sample size of actual examples of customers based on factual information and you have a pretty good base to start your research. Phase II, Understanding With 4 - 5 examples of the "perfect customer" you will start to notice some pattern. It might be age range, family size, occupation, interests, region, etc... but you should be able to find some common thread among them. However this isn't enough to really decide what should be visually communicated to them in a manor that will maximize website effectiveness. From there you can dive a little deeper. You can now start asking more probing questions, however it is important to only record answers that are based on fact rather than assumption. For example it may be a good idea to ask "Why did this customer purchase from you rather than a competitor?" -- if the client hasn't specifically asked them, don't bother. However more sophisticated companies with healthy marketing departments will be cataloging this sort of information in a CRM system. If the client is unaware of why they purchased that is OK, instead ask permission to contact the client for a brief interview via e-mail or phone. If the customer really is a "perfect customer" they would be happy to spend 10 - 15 minutes of their time answering questions about your clients company or product. This is the perfect time to start drafting interview questions, such as: Why did you select this company over a competitor? What do you identify with in regards to this company? How would you describe yourself (if you can show people an image of someone they would agree is "like them" you increase empathy dramatically) What emotions do you associate with the company or product you purchased? (Happy, sad, fear, etc...) What are you looking for when choosing a company/product for this need? These types of questions will give you incredibly valuable insight into the decision making process of the "perfect customer." It is important to ask these sorts of emotional and logical questions rather than design questions (such as what is your favorite color) as most people will give suggestions that will actually not resonate with them at all. This will let you as a design aggregate the information and responses and draft a visual strategy that communicates the goal of the message with out the recommendations of those who are not trained in visual communication. Phase III, Immersing There has long been a strategy of design research in which a designer actually follows and monitors target customers over a period of time. Typically this is documented through photo journal to provide easy visual reference and inspiration when it comes time to design. Unfortunately this practice is rarely practiced as turn around times become shorter and budgets become smaller... however you can really get the same sort of effect simply by doing some research through easily available social media. Finding examples of the "perfect customer" on FlickR will give you a snapshot into what photos are most important to them in their lives. There are plenty of Facebook fan pages, groups and discussions that will give you insight into consumer hopes, concerns and aspirations. The always classic blogs and forums are a great way to follow and understand your market. Searching for conversations on Twitter regarding your service or product will give you lots of people to follow and better understand on a micro level. Yes... It Actually Works Wonders If you have any doubt that two equally stunning and beautifully designs that have different approaches can perform completely different than consider this example: At one point the popular Guitar Magazine decided to redesign the cover of their publication. If you have done work in the publication industry you will learn that the cover of a book can make a dramatic difference in sales and this is no different for magazines. Originally the covers featured prominent guitarists and musicians. This made sense as these were often the primary articles of the publications and it was only logical to try and sell the best content the magazine had to offer. However after doing extensive research on their target market they found that what people cared amount more where beautiful guitars themselves, not the musicians who played them. So after a redesign the cover then focused on a different, beautiful and interesting guitar every month rather than a person of interest. Despite the fact that the content didn't change and the new cover wasn't any better designed (from an aesthetics or rules of design perspective) sales increased dramatically. This would have never happened had research been ignored during the redesign process. They likely would have changed the magazine enough to make it look interesting and completely missed what the target users really wanted to see when they were browsing through the magazine stand.
- Why Are 80% of Harvard Students First-Borns?Published: March 6, 2010Source: Thinking About ThinkingThat’s my estimate anyways. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was my freshman year at Harvard, and I was going to the first lecture of “Justice” – one of the most popular classes on campus. The lectures took place in Sanders Theater packed by over a thousand students since it’s only offered once every three years. The first question the professor asked – please stand up if you’re the first born child in your family (inclusive of only children). I literally felt like everyone in the entire theater stood up – except me since I’m a youngest child. Why is it that such a high majority of Harvard students are first borns or only children? Because birth order matters according to Dr. Kevin Leman, author of The Birth Order Book – Why You Are the Way You Are. I’ve been reading it – here’s his framework on how the different orders generally are (noting that not every characteristic applies to every child): First Child: perfectionist, reliable, conscientious, a list maker, well organized, hard driving, a natural leader, critical, serious, scholarly, logical, doesn’t like surprises, a techie. Middle Child: mediator, compromising, diplomatic, avoids conflict, independent, loyal to peers, has many friends, a maverick, secretive, used to not having attention. Youngest Child: manipulative, charming, blames others, attention seeker, tenacious, people person, natural salesperson, precocious, engaging, affectionate, loves surprises. Only Child: little adult by age seven, very thorough, deliberate, high achiever, self-motivated, fearful, cautious, voracious reader, black-and-white thinker, talks in extremes, can’t bear to fail, has very high expectations for self, more comfortable with people who are older or younger. Tags: Birth+Order, Kevin+Leman, Harvard
Filed under: Pop Culture - 6 Critical WordPress Plugins You Should Have InstalledPublished: March 5, 2010Source: Six RevisionsWordPress, the ubiquitous open source publishing platform that powers many of your favorite blogs and web publications, also powers Design Instruct and Six Revisions. By using WordPress plugins, site owners can extend and tailor their WordPress installation to meet their needs. However, using many plugins can affect a website’s performance, and thus, you must be highly selective in choosing the plugins you install. Design Instruct and Six Revisions only uses six WordPress plugins. We’ve kept our plugins to the bare essentials—any other features we add to our WordPress installation, we develop ourselves specifically for our sites. In this article, we share with you the WordPress plugins that we use on our sites. This article is part of Design Instruct Week, a weeklong celebration of our newly launched site, Design Instruct. This week on Six Revisions covers topics that deal with running websites and design, written by the founders/editors of Design Instruct and Six Revisions. Be sure to check out the Design Instruct Week Twitter Giveaway, which gives out different prizes every day of Design Instruct Week. 1. WP Super Cache WP Super Cache speeds up WordPress posts and pages by creating static HTML versions of them, updating them at an interval of your choosing. This cuts back on the need for server-side processes to generate a post or page whenever a visitor requests them. After page performance testing on Design Instruct, we discovered that WP Super Cache single-handedly improved page response times of unprimed caches by 259.1%, lowering the average total page load time from 9.56s to 3.69s for the most content-heavy post we have. WP Super Cache Download Page 2. Akismet The biggest annoyance a WordPress site owner will encounter is moderating comments to weed out the ones posted by guileful spammers. Akismet abates this burden by filtering out known comment spammers that are registered on their blacklist database. In the two years that Six Revisions has been using Akismet, it has caught over 124,000 spam comments with 99.3% accuracy. This plugin saves us a lot of time so that we can focus on what’s truly important in running websites: creating and publishing content. Akismet Download Page 3. WP-SpamFree Although Akismet is great, it works only through a blacklist database of reported spammers. WP-SpamFree adds an additional layer of spam protection by using cookie-based and JavaScript-based techniques to ensure that the comment form submitter isn’t using remote-site scripting or client-side scripts to automatically post comments on your site. WP-SpamFree is similar to a captcha in that it tests to see if a comment form submitter is human. This plugin eliminates the need to use a traditional captcha system that can affect website accessibility. On Design Instruct, WP-SpamFree has captured over 130 automated comments in under a month, which would have been about 26% of all the comments on the site. WP-SpamFree Download Page 4. Google XML Sitemaps Generator A Sitemaps XML file is crucial to have if you’re interested in helping search engine spiders like Googlebot accurately index the content of your website. The Google XML Sitemaps plugin automatically generates and updates your Sitemaps XML file for you. It also pings search engines to let them know that there’s new content on your site waiting to be indexed every time you publish and update posts and pages. For regularly updated web publications such as Design Instruct and Six Revisions, this plugin bails us out from having to manually rebuild the file and notify search engines whenever new content is published. Google XMP Sitemaps Download Page 5. All in One SEO Pack The All in One SEO Pack WordPress plugin is packed with features that improve search engine visibility of your content. On Six Revisions, with over 450,000 visitors from Google searches alone in the month of February, this plugin is critical in helping visitors find your content through search engines. All in One SEO Pack Download Page 6. WP-PageNavi WP-PageNavi is a convenient WordPress plugin that adds a pagination feature on your site so that readers can navigate to older posts easier. It’s highly configurable and customizable to the way you want it to look and function. You can see WP-PageNavi in action at the bottom-left of the home page and category pages on Six Revisions, and bottom-right on Design Instruct. WP-PageNavi Download Page What WordPress plugins do you consider critical to your website or blog? Share it with the rest of us in the comments. Related Content 15 Useful Tools for WordPress Bloggers Using XAMPP for Local WordPress Theme Development 16 WordPress Sites to Help You Build a Better Blog Related categories: WordPress and Web Development About the Author Jacob Gube is the Founder and Chief Editor of Six Revisions. He’s also a web developer/designer who specializes in front-end development (JavaScript, HTML, CSS) and PHP development, and a book author. If you’d like to connect with him, head on over to the contact page and follow him on Twitter: @sixrevisions.
- First Cosmic Dust May Have Been Discovered By Crowdsource Hero [Science]Published: March 6, 2010Source: GizmodoIn 2006, a NASA spacecraft returned to Earth with samples that scientists hoped might contain cosmic dust, a byproduct of star formation. They let the public look for the elusive particles online. A squinting citizen might have just found one. The particles in question are pieces of interstellar dust, a substance containing atoms formed during the birthing of the sun and our neighboring planets. Don Brownlee, a researcher at the University of Washington, likens the dust to a "library of what was in the early solar system." You would assume that the first cosmic dust would be discovered in a laboratory by some crazy-haired scientist, but the distinction may go to a Canadian man named Bruce Hudson. Hudson was a participant in Stardust@home, a program that anyone with an internet connection use a virtual microscope to scour the samples for these particular particles. Scientists are currently analyzing Hudson's find and are "cautiously optimistic" that it is the first cosmic dust ever to be returned to Earth. If Hudson's particle is indeed interstellar dust, the discovery could give unprecedented insight into the formation of our solar system and the processes by which our universe recycles its materials. It also goes to show that armchair astronomers can really make significant scientific contributions. So good work, Bruce Hudson. Now get busy on SETI@home. [BBC via PopSci]
- Fish!Published: March 6, 2010Source: Pixdaus: Popular Today Pics
- APOD: 2007 September 18 - Tungurahua EruptsPublished: February 18, 2010Source: FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE
- Flickr Photo Download: The Spectrum of User Experience: Preparing the next blog entryPublished: March 3, 2010Source: FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE
- Ecole | Works | Flat #1Published: March 4, 2010Source: FFFFOUND! / EVERYONE
- Chemist Who Helped Invent Birth-Control Pill Also Pioneered Novels About Science [Writing]Published: February 26, 2010Source: io9Carl Djerassi, the chemist who helped invent the birth-control pill in 1951, has spent the past couple of decades crafting a new type of literature, which he calls "science-in-fiction." It's not science fiction, it's fiction about science. In a new interview with the Stanford Daily, Djerassi explains that he started writing novels in 1983 when his girlfriend, English Professor Diane Middlebrook, left him. He poured his rage into a 383 page novel about her. When they finally reunited a year later and got married, she read his novel and told him, "You know, it's not really very good." But she helped him improve his writing, and he started creating novels about the lives of scientists and the scientific process. (Middlebrook died in 2007, sadly.) More recently, Djerassi has graduated to writing plays, also about science. He tells the Stanford Daily:
"I realized that if I wanted my ideas to reach a wider audience, doing it through scientific articles would get me nowhere," he said. "I wanted to talk to the 99 percent of people who are not just anti-scientific; they're ascientific–or afraid of it." This gave birth to "science-in-fiction"–which, he emphasizes, is very different from "science fiction"–a genre that uses fictional forms to analyze the ethical, moral and personal dilemmas that often arise in the "tribal culture" of science, as he characterizes it. After his success with novels, he moved to "science-in-fiction" drama around 2000 after being inspired by a similar scientific play. He prefers drama because of the ever-evolving nature of a play: even after it has been published as a script, everyone interprets it differently, giving it new life. But the overlap between science and literature remains scant, and Djerassi is painfully aware of this. "I'm really sitting between two schools," he said. "To the literary establishment, I'm still the outsider chemist who's sticking his nose in a field that's not his business. And to the chemists, I'm wasting my time."
[Stanford Daily] - The Real Problem With Midichlorians [Rant]Published: February 26, 2010Source: io9Lately, when people ask Lost's producers if they're going to answer our questions, they bring up Star Wars' midichlorians, as proof that some things are better not explained. But like so many people, they're missing the real reason midichlorians sucked. Damon Lindelof told E! Online a while back:
There are certain questions about the show that I'm very befuddled by like, 'What is the Island?' or 'What do the numbers mean?' We're going to be explaining a little more about the numbers, maybe significantly more about the numbers, but what do you mean by 'What do the numbers mean?' What is a potential answer to that question? I feel like you have to be very careful about entering into Midi-Chlorian territory. I grew up on Star Wars; I've seen the Star Wars movies hundreds of times; I can recite them chapter and verse, and never once did anyone ever say to me or did it occur to me to say, 'What is the Force, exactly? Can you explain that for me, better than Alec Guinness does?' I understand, 'When are we going to find out about Libby?' That's a very finite question. 'Who is Jacob?' OK, yes, we've been talking to this guy named Jacob, so those questions then should have answers, but 'What is the Island?' That starts to get into 'What is the Force?' It is a place. I can't explain to you why it moves through space-time-it just does. You have to accept the fact that it does.
Carlton Cuse similarly told the Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan:I mean, mystery exists in life and we kind of always go back to the midi-chlorians example [in the 'Star Wars' prequel films]. Your understanding the Force was not aided by knowing that there were little particles swimming around in the bloodstreams of Jedi.
This is part of a wide-spread problem with midichlorians — I would say a galaxy-wide misconception, in fact. People understand that midichlorians were a terrible idea, but they don't understand why they were a terrible idea. And this misunderstanding allows storytellers to get away with saying they won't explain stuff which they really should explain. (And for the record, I still have faith that Lost will answer the questions that really need to be answered — including why the heck this island is so important, and why the battle over the island's future isn't just a random real-estate dispute, no different than your uncles fighting over your grandma's Florida beach condo. This isn't especially a slam against Lost — just trying to clear up a disturbance in, you know, the Force. And stuff.) So let's break this down once and for all. 1. We already had an explanation for the Force. Check out what Obi-Wan Kenobi says in the original Star Wars:Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.... A Jedi can feel the force flowing through him.
That's actually a pretty clear-cut explanation, although it doesn't go into particle physics or anything. But compared to a lot of science-fiction explanations, it's refreshingly free of technobabble, and it's fairly specific: The Force is an "energy field created by all living beings." Possibly mystical and soul-related, as Han suggests, or possibly just some kind of life-energy. And certain people have an in-born ability to sense and interface with this life-energy. What's so hard to understand about that? But midichlorians actually contradict this explanation. All of a sudden, instead of there being an energy field that "binds the galaxy together," there are little microscopic life forms inside of the Jedi, allowing them to... do what? What do the microscopic entities have to do with the galaxy-wide life force? Are they like symbiotes that allow you to connect to the energy field? If the Force is in every living thing, then why do only some people have midichlorians? Does the Dark Side of the Force have different-flavored midichlorians than the light side? What was a fairly clear-cut explanation suddenly becomes incredibly muddled.
It's like the sort of thing that happens to superheroes all the time. Spider-Man used to have a clear-cut (if silly) explanation for his powers: he was bitten by a radioactive spider. But then, at some point, the writers of his comic decided there needed to be a "Spider totem" involved, and a spider queen, and Anansi knows what else. Flash suddenly had to have the "Speed Force" bolted on top of his previously simple origin, and Green Lantern had to have a whole emotional spectrum, with different colored rings for different emotions. And so on. It's part of the nature of retcons: What was once simple becomes baroque. Instead of building on the explanation we already had, Phantom Menace demolished it to put up an ugly new monstrosity. 2. If someone had told you Episode I explains more about the Force and how it works, you'd have been stoked. Seriously. Imagine if, back in 1998, someone had told you the new movie includes the Jedi finding young Anakin and discovering his huge potential Force powers — including the means by which they determine that the Force is moving strongly in this one. You'd have thought, "Ooh, Lucas is going to open up the mysteries of the Jedi. There'll be cool Yoda-esque koans and riddles and spiritual disciplines, and possibly more blindfolds." And you'd have been right — in theory, more understanding of the Force would have been a good thing. It's one of the coolest things about Star Wars. If you wanted to go back in time and take all of the discussion of the Force out of Empire Strikes Back, I would have to go back in time and stop you, because that stuff all rules. So yeah, more of that type of exploration of the Force would have been terrific. It's not that midichlorians were an explanation for something which should have been mysterious — it's more that they were a dumb, ridiculous technobabble concoction. And they're not an explanation you can build on, which is even worse. You can build a whole architecture on top of "an energy field that connects all living beings," and the original trilogy did, quite well. But you can't build on top of "microscopic critters in the blood." It's the difference between explanation (Empire Strikes Back) and hand-waving (Phantom Menace). What the Force is, and how it works, is something that we're better off being shown, through examples like Yoda's Taoist teachings. Telling us how the Force works, by tossing around silly jargon, isn't really an explanation — it's just Lucas flailing around with a glue-gun, sticking things together randomly. So your take-away point here is that it's not that explanations are bad — ham-handed, idiotic explanations that make things less cool are bad. 3. Star Wars never made "What is the Force?" into a central mystery. There's a reason that Star Wars explains what the Force is the very first time we hear about its existence: It's part of the set-up. We're not supposed to sit around wondering what the Force is, except to the extent that we see Luke learning how to use it. Luke's lessons in the Force are our way in to understanding its subtleties — but the over-arching question of what the Force is? We know that from square one. Likewise, we're not really supposed to wonder how the Enterprise flies on Star Trek, or how the TARDIS dematerializes on Doctor Who, or how the ships can "jump" on Battlestar Galactica. Those things are not set up as huge mysteries that the characters are trying to get to the bottom of. We don't get tossed clues about the nature of the Enterprise's engines. The mystery of the Enterprise's engines and how they work does not deepen over time. Scotty does not say "I'm doin' the best I can, Cap'n, but I canna understand what these Dilithium crystals have to do with anti-matter in the first place!" Every now and then, these shows will throw fans a bone, by mentioning some new details of how these things work. But we're not supposed to think of these things as central mysteries to be solved. The Force is the same way. Lost's island, though, is mysterious from the moment our castaways crash on it, and its mysteries deepen in every episode. Even now, I constantly see promos for Lost reruns which show Charlie asking where the hell this place is. The show has gone out of its way to play up the mystery of what the island is, and who Jacob is, and how the Man In Black got there, and so on. It is the central mystery of the show, and one I still have great confidence will be resolved, in spite of Cuse and Lindelof's statements trying to lower our expectations. Why would Cuse and Lindelof be trying to lower our expectations anyway? Could it be because they saw another show with a cult following, which promised "all will be revealed," over and over again, and then turned out to have a somewhat... idiosyncratic definition of the word "all"? But let's not reopen old wounds. The point is, there's a difference between your set-up and your big mysteries. We don't expect Lost to explain how the plane that crashed on the island was able to fly in the first place — Even though I don't fully comprehend all the principles of aerodynamics that go into keeping a jet plane in the air, I know they work because I've flown in them. I'm not even looking for a detailed explanation of, say, how the island is able to move through time and space. We've seen it work, so we know it works, and we've gotten enough details about unique magnetic forces to let us fill in the blanks. But when you set up something as a central mystery and you make people start talking about it in grandiose terms (i.e., referring to the island as more important than, say, Tuvalu) then you owe us an explanation, all right. It doesn't have to be a series of diagrams or schematics, or go into ridiculous detail. It shouldn't contradict what we've already learned. And it would be nice if it had some element of showing along with the telling. But one way or another, if you make a big deal out of asking a question, then you have to provide an answer. That's just basic storytelling. So let's stop using midichlorians as shorthand for "explaining stuff which should remain a mystery." Midichlorians are more like "a clumsy retcon that screws up an explanation we already had." - No Lie! Your Facebook Profile Is the Real YouPublished: February 26, 2010Source: Wired: Wired Science“On the Internet,” one dog tells another in a classic New Yorker cartoon, “nobody knows you’re a dog.” The internet is notorious for its digital dens of deception. But on Facebook, what you see tends to be what you get — at least in one study of tailless, two-legged young adults. College-age users of Facebook in the United States and a similar social networking site in Germany typically present accurate versions of their personalities in online profiles, says psychologist Mitja Back of Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany. People use online social networking sites to express who they really are rather than idealized versions of themselves, Back and his colleagues conclude in an upcoming Psychological Science. “Online social networks are so popular and so likely to reveal people’s actual personalities because they allow for social interactions that feel real in many ways,” Back says. Back’s team administered personality inventories that evaluated 133 U.S. Facebook users and 103 Germans who used a comparable social-networking site. Inventories focused on the extent to which volunteers endorsed ratings of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional instability and openness to new experiences. The subjects — who ranged in age from 17 to 22 — took the inventory twice, first with instructions to describe their actual personalities and then to portray idealized versions of themselves. Then, undergraduate research assistants — nine in the United States and 10 in Germany — rated volunteers’ personalities after looking at their online profiles. Those ratings matched volunteers’ actual personality descriptions better than their idealized ones, especially for extraversion and openness. Facebook is so true to life, Back claims, that encountering a person there for the first time generally results in a more accurate personality appraisal than meeting face to face, going by the results of previous studies. Adriana Manago, a psychology graduate student at UCLA, calls the new findings “compelling” but incomplete. College students on Facebook and other online social networks often augment what they regard as their best personal qualities, Manago holds. In her view, these characteristics aren’t plumbed by broad personality measures like the ones measured in Back’s study. And students’ actual personality descriptions may have included enhancements of their real characteristics, thus inflating the correlation between observers’ ratings and students’ real personalities, Manago notes. “Online profiles showcase an enhanced reflection of who the user really is,” Manago proposes. In a 2008 study, she and her colleagues found that 23 college students sometimes used another online social networking site, MySpace, to enhance their images, say by Photoshopping acne out of a picture or posting a video of themselves driving a sports car at high speeds. Still, the new findings make sense, remarks psychologist Sandra Calvert of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She emphasizes that social-networking sites have fostered a new type of communication among teens and young adults, in which one person can create personal content that gets broadcast to a multitude of friends. In a 2009 study of Facebook use among 92 college students, Calvert’s team found that young women reported a whopping average of 401 online friends, while young men reported an average of 269. Image: escapedtowisconsin/Flickr See Also: Twitter, Facebook Won’t Make You Immoral — But TV News Might Your Mom’s Facebook Status: I’m Crunching Climate Data!
- Nuclear Reactors, Dams at Risk Due to Global WarmingPublished: February 26, 2010Source: National Geographic News
- Top 5 Web Design Debates That Cause the Most RiotsPublished: March 1, 2010Source: Line25The world that surrounds the topic of Web Design is home to many debates and opinions on best practices or generally how things should and shouldn’t be done. While many of these opinions are accepted and taken on board by everyone, there are some that end up being split into two opposing camps. One camp will provide an expert opinion for one side of the argument, while the other contradicts with an equally valid argument. Let’s take a look at the five most popular debates; the ones that often end up developing into digital riots with opinions flying like arrows across the vast no-man’s land known as the comments section. Should links open in a new window? Camp one says: Links to external sites should always open in new windows. There’s nothing more annoying than browsing a website, clicking a link and being whisked off to a totally new site, losing the page you wanted to revisit. Internal links should maintain the browser session in the current page, but anything that leaves the site should open in a new tab or window. Camp two says: As web designers we shouldn’t take the control away from the user. Whether a link needs opening in a new window is their choice. There’s nothing more annoying than a website taking control of my browser and opening a new tab or window for a link without my permission; if I wanted to open it in a new window, I’d do so! The problem only gets worse with inexperienced computer users, new windows break their trusty ‘back button’. The mediator says: In general, opening a new window should be avoided, but is recommended for some situations such as opening a help link in a shopping cart or opening a non-html document such as a PDF. To further aid the usability of your site, use a small icon to identify links that do open in a new window, or provide an options panel that’s configured with Javascript. Further reading: Should Links Open In New Windows? Beware of Opening Links in a New Window” Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents Should links use the words ‘Click here’? Camp one says: ‘Click here’ has been proven to provide a higher click through ratio than descriptive anchor text. ‘Click here’ is a call to action people associate with the web, so it should be used on links to achieve the highest click through results. Camp two says: Using the words ‘Click here’ hinders the usability of a site. Instead of being able to see where the link goes and what it does, the user has to read the surrounding text to gain an idea of what’s going to happen. Quality guidelines suggest that anchor text should explain what a link offers. The mediator says: A descriptive link should always be used to help increase your site’s usability, accessibility and optimization for search engines. It is be interesting to hear that ‘Click here’ performs better on banner ads, but I’d imagine that bounce rates would also be in favour of descriptive links. Further reading: You should follow me on Twitter Don’t say ‘click here’; not everyone will be clicking Does Telling Someone to “Click Here” Work? Should Bold <b> and Italic <i> tags be used? Camp one says: If your aim is to make a word bold, use the <b> tag. It’s not correct to use the <strong> tag if the word doesn’t have any extra value or importance. Screen readers pronounce the <b> and <i> tags differently, and they are also included in the HTML5 specification. Camp two says: Bold and italic tags are often used to make text appear bold or italic, so semantically anything that is being used for visual aesthetics should be reserved for the CSS stylesheet, and not included in the HTML markup. If an element has of specific importance or requires emphasis, the <strong> or <em> tags helps identify it with meaning. The mediator says: <b> and <i> tags shouldn’t be used to make text appear bold and italic for the sake of it being bold or italic, this visual styling should be left to the CSS. If a word or passage of text is of high importance, either the <strong> or <em> element would be the best use. The <b> and <i> can and should be used when no other tags fit the situation (eg: <cite>, <var>, <dfn>). An example might be text in another language. Further reading: Semantic Use of Bold and Italic Elements When semantic markup goes bad A reconsideration—in defence of <b> and <i> (or: people fear what they don’t understand) Should a logo be enclosed in a <h1> element? Camp one says: Logos shouldn’t be wrapped in a header one, the <h1> element should include a description or title of that particular web page. This is the best approach for SEO, otherwise the primary header for every page would be the same – the company name. Camp two says: The main identifier of what website you’re on is the logo. With the <h1> being the largest level of headers, it’s natural to place the logo and site title inside a <h1>. This way, when the page is viewed without CSS, it still holds the same visual structure and hierarchy. The mediator says: The definitive use for a <h1> is to describe the subsequent content. Therefore if a particular website has a title or heading that describes the content and appears in the design, this should be placed in the <h1>, otherwise the next highest structural and descriptive item would be the logo. Further reading: Semantics in HTML: What’s in a Heading? Semantic uses of <h1>, <h2> … <h6> HTML tags The H1 Debate A site should be viewable in IE6 Camp one says: Internet Explorer 6 makes up 10% of the market share, so it’s crucial that a website is made to work in IE6, as well as newer browsers. There lots of major corporations who have large networks running IE6, as well as lots of computer users who don’t know how to upgrade. Camp two says: IE6 is considerably out of date and doesn’t support the technologies that are present in web design today. It’s poses a risk to the user’s online security and is the never ending nightmare for all designers. Large companies including YouTube are phasing out support, so should you! The mediator says: IE6 usage is definitely on the decline, and its death will be quicker with large websites dropping support. Whether you support IE6 depends on your own user statistics. Alternatively, consider offering more basic page styling to IE6 users rather than fixing complicated layout and CSS problems. Further reading: How To Support Internet Explorer and Still Be Cutting Edge Do you support IE6? Universal Internet Explorer 6 CSS 10 Usability Crimes You Really Shouldn’t CommitHow to Code up a Web Design from PSD to HTML10 HTML Tag Crimes You Really Shouldn’t CommitDesign & Code a Cool iPhone App Website in HTML5
- Software: You're Soaking in ItPublished: March 5, 2010Source: Paul Kedrosky's Infectious GreedLines of software code in various manufactured products:
Air Force F-22 Raptor: 1.7 million F-35 Joint Strike Fighter: 5.7 million Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner: 6.5 million Typical Mercedes/BMW/etc: ~100 million
More here. - How Maryland keeps its costs downPublished: March 3, 2010Source: (title unknown)Democracy in America Health care costs M.S. A successful "bending of the cost curve" other states can learn from Images: MAGGIE MAHAR reports on how Maryland has bent down the curve on healthcare inflation.
In 1977, Maryland decided that, rather than leaving prices to the vagaries of a marketplace where insurers and hospitals negotiate behind closed doors, it would delegate the task of setting reimbursement rates for acute-care hospitals to an independent agency, the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission. When setting rates, the Commission takes into account differences in labor markets and how much a hospital pays in wages; the amount of charity care the hospital does; and whether it treats a large number of severely ill patients. For example, the Commission sets the price of an overnight stay at St. Joseph Medical Center in suburban Towson at $984, while letting Johns Hopkins, in Baltimore Maryland, charge $1,555...Since the program started, the Wall Street Journal reports that Maryland hospitals have enjoyed a steady profit margin, unlike hospitals in other states that often make more money during boom years and less during a recession...What is most remarkable is how state regulation of prices has contained costs. When the program began in 1977, the state’s hospital costs were 25% higher than the national average. Today, Maryland’s hospital costs are 2% lower than the national average.
In contrast, Ms Mahar writes, Massachussetts has some of the highest hospital costs in the nation. That's because brand-name hospitals like Mass General and Boston Women's and Children's know that insurers can't afford to leave them out of the provider network. They can thus negotiate reimbursement rates two or three times as high as their generic competition, even though their health outcomes are often no better.Ms Mahar's article gibes with Ian Crosby's argument that insurance-company consolidation can make health care cheaper (since it allows insurers greater price-setting power), whereas producer consolidation makes it more expensive. Maryland's Cost Review Commission essentially removes the power of large, consolidated providers like Johns Hopkins to charge higher prices at will. Interestingly, this is essentially the same kind of system used in private-sector universal health-insurance systems in Europe to control costs. In the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and France, government price boards are crucial in keeping medical inflation down, and are part of the reason European countries have costs half to two-thirds as high as America's, with outcomes that are just as good.The usual argument against cost controls is that they prevent the market from rewarding investment in services that have high demand. The argument fails to account for how different health care is from normal markets (a difference recognised by, among others, Friedrich Hayek). Costs are inevitably paid by third-party buyers (insurers or government) to ensure the moral guarantee that everyone have access to care. And doctors exercise such power over complex care decisions that neither patients nor insurers can usually decide whether drugs or procedures are worth the price. Ultimately, when trying to figure out how to hold health-care costs down, theory and ideology only get you so far; you have to look at what works. Clearly, whatever Maryland is doing, it works. - Resetting the Zero Point of CivilizationPublished: March 5, 2010Source: The Long Now BlogA pillar at the Gobekli Tepe temple near Sanliurfa, Turkey. (photo: Berthold Steinhilber/Laif-Redux) The good folks at Atlas Obscura pointed me to this fantastic story on an archaeological find near the Syrian Border in Turkey that pushes back the date of great stonework, and in effect the beginning of known civilization, by many millennia. (snippet below)
Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here, a revolution in the story of human origins. Schmidt has uncovered a vast and beautiful temple complex, a structure so ancient that it may be the very first thing human beings ever built. The site isn’t just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape. The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. In fact, Schmidt thinks the temple itself, built after the end of the last Ice Age by hunter-gatherers, became that ember—the spark that launched mankind toward farming, urban life, and all that followed.
- 'Futurama' is Coming Back This June! And Bender! And His Banjo! And Fry!Published: March 5, 2010Source: TV SquadAre you looking forward to the carefree and sunny days of summer when the temperature drops to a balmy 80 or 90 degrees, just perfect for tossing around a frisbee, taking a walk with a loved one or just appreciating the sheer beauty and majesty of Mother Earth? Now you've got a perfect excuse to leave all that crap for the hippies and stay inside.
Hitfix reports that some unidentified "Comedy Central sources" have confirmed that the brand spanking new episodes of 'Futurama' will hit the cable network's airwaves on Thursday, June 24.Continue reading 'Futurama' is Coming Back This June! And Bender! And His Banjo! And Fry! Filed under: Animation, Futurama, Pickups and Renewals, Reality-FreePermalink | Email this | | Comments - VERY POPULAR Techno Song??Published: March 4, 2010Source: Bad Questions For Yahoo Answershttp://sg.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071021113419AAYCo66Thanks to Ellie for this.
- Officials Sue Couple Who Removed Their LawnPublished: March 2, 2010Source: SlashdotHugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that Orange County officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for replacing the grass on their lawn with wood chips and drought-tolerant plants, reducing their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their front yard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year. 'We've got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future,' said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book. But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require that 40% of residential yards to be landscaped predominantly with live plants. Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery — lavender, rosemary, horsetail, and pittosporum, among others. But according to the city, their landscaping still did not comply with city standards. At the end of January, the Has received a letter saying they had been charged with a misdemeanor violation and must appear in court. The couple could face a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for their grass-free, eco-friendly landscaping scheme. 'It's just funny that we pay our taxes to the city and the city is now prosecuting us with our own money,' says Quan Ha." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
- Google Responds To Privacy Concerns With Unsettlingly Specific ApologyPublished: March 2, 2010Source: The OnionMOUNTAIN VIEW, CA—"Whether you're Michael Paulson who lives at 3425 Longview Terrace and makes $86,400 a year, or Jessica Goldblatt from Lynnwood, WA, who already has well-established trust issues, we at Google would just like to say how very, truly sorry we are," said CEO Eric Schmidt.
- Why A Salad Costs More Than A Big MacPublished: March 4, 2010Source: The ConsumeristThis is why you're fat.
- Dogs Filmed at 1000 Frames Per SecondPublished: March 2, 2010Source: PetaPixelThe above is a beautiful slow motion video (1000fps) shot of dogs jumping for dog treats flying through the air. It’s actually an advertisement for Pedigree, as you’ll see at the end. It’s interesting seeing all the little details our eyes can’t ordinarily pick up. (via Boing Boing)
- (via shaqshead)Published: March 3, 2010Source: it's the 90's
- Study Says Luxury Changes People for the WorsePublished: March 5, 2010Source: LuxistA new study found that when people are exposed to luxury they become more self-centered and less empathetic towards others.
The study was put together by Harvard professor Roy Y.J. Chua and London Business School assistant professor Xi Zou as a step towards understanding how luxury goods effect the human psyche, and as a means of explaining the harmful decisions of wealthy groups like Wall Street executives. In the study people were asked to make a series of decisions designed to pit self-interests against society-interests, and the people who thought about luxury immediately before the test made more selfish and potentially harmful decisions than those who didn't.
The results seem to suggest that businessmen who have meetings at posh resorts surrounded by opulence and luxury will make more profit-driven, self-interested decisions than those who meet in a modest conference room. What do you think, does being surrounded by luxury make a person more likely to think only about themselves?
Via psfkFiled under: WealthStudy Says Luxury Changes People for the Worse originally appeared on Luxist on Fri, 05 Mar 2010 18:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
- Orangutan Hacks Snack Machine [Image Cache]Published: March 5, 2010Source: GizmodoAt the Hanover zoo, an orangutan must pull a succession of strings before being rewarded with a nut. Sometimes, the experience gets a bit frustrating:We've all been there, buddy. We've all been there. [Telegraph via Animals don't think...][Image by Rex Features]
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