gracewoo@ml

tech news: brain reading interface

They say that any good technology is indistinguishable from magic. Also, in a previous post I suggested the potentials of designing for the extreme.

http://www.itpro.co.uk/621094/cebit-2010-the-computer-that-reads-your-mind

I would say that this interface, although intended for the disabled, has some very neat potentials for some new experience designs. This sort of thing is certainly not the first of it's kind but getting letters pumped out is certainly at least some sort of interface.

food: birthday cake!

Babi and Mami sent me this delicious cake from Rosie's bakery. It got just slightly smushed but is still as delicious delicious

tech news: Opinions of the Internet in 1995

Polychronis passed this link along today: http://www.newsweek.com/id/106554

This is an article about the Internet from 1995 published in Newsweek on my birthday. Basically, Clifford Stoil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Stoll) thought that there was far too much hype about what a few computers getting connected together could do. In 1995 (15 years ago), he says:

"Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth in no online database will replace your daily newspaper, no CD-ROM can take the place of a competent teacher and no computer network will change the way government works."

In contrast, Nicholas Negroponte, now director of the OLPC project felt the Internet was the future of social computing and interaction... to which Clifford Stoil said:

"Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Intenet. Uh, sure"

This brought me to the conclusion: You can't go wrong with optimism for you will always be "ahead of the times"

tools: create files and operate

generate_file_list () { for ((i=0; $i<10; i++)); do echo file_out$i.out; done;};
for word in $(generate_file_list); do echo "$word"; done;

Edit:

for ((i=0; $i<10; i++)); do convert $(printf 'foo-%02d\n' $i); done

food: breaded chicken

tastes better because it was cooked by szym :)

tech news: interesting viewpoint

http://armstrongonsoftware.blogspot.com/2009/12/comet-is-dead-long-live-websockets.html

television: Dollhouse cancelled

After watching the two newest released episodes of Dollhouse, I'm even more devastated that the show got cancelled.

dissonance: six simple machines

There are a number of things I learned as a child which don't make much sense to me now. Among them, the scientific method, color theory and the six simple machines:

http://atlantis.coe.uh.edu/archive/science/science_lessons/scienceles1/finalhome.htm

The six simple machines are: lever, inclined plane, wheel and axle, screw, wedge and pulley.

In both cases, I wonder what the rational was in creating this particular generalization. Perhaps it is helpful in teaching concepts. However, in hindsight, the generalizations don't really make much sense. That said, is there perhaps a more up-to-date generalization for "six" simple machines that will one day, too, look a bit unintelligible.

For all intensive purposes, it could be: for, if, else, while ... hm that's only four.

Or, it could be: union, intersect, concatenation ... hm that's only three

Or, it could be: insert, delete, sort ... hm that's only three

and none of these feel truly unified.

I mean, seriously, generalizing tools only makes sense if one has an idea for a machine model in the first place.

tools: tabs generator

Who would have thought that tabs are one of the best types of tools? :p

http://www.tabsgenerator.com/

food: chocolate frosting

cake mix: 99-cent Jiffy generic chocolate cake mix w/ two eggs

random frosting recipe: non-fat yogurt, a bit of half-n-half leftover, one chocolate bar stolen from a hotel, raspberry filling from another box, powdered sugar ... (basically random stuff in the fridge + sugar).