Steampunk wheelchair is hardcore steam
By sylvie on March 8, 2010
Recently, I’ve been considering the inevitability of my ending up in a wheelchair. Even if I get the hip replacement surgery, apparently the doodads they implant in you have a limited life and once that time is over, you can’t get a new replacement, which sucks. I don’t feel sorry for myself - in fact, I feel lucky that I’ve had such a long run without too much trouble from my arthritis. I am sorry it’s started to go downhill now as I was hoping for another decade of being able to walk without a cane, but oh well. These things happen.
However, today, i have seen the wheelchair that I want when I find I can no longer walk: the Steampunk Professor X Wheelchair. O.M.G. you must view the video: the chair puts out steam! And it can dispense liquid entertainment (cranberry vodka for the constructor). How sweet is that chair? So sweet I want to build one myself. Sigh.
Via Gizmodo
Topics: Personal | No Comments »
Do violent games influence young people to be violent?
By sylvie on March 4, 2010
If you love a good old-fashioned statistical brawl, head on over to your university library and pick up a copy of March’s issue of Psychological Bulletin (that’s volume 136, issue 2, for those of you who prefer numbers to months).
First up: Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries: A meta-analytic review by Craig A. Anderson, Akiko Shibuya, Nobuko Ihori, Edward L. Swing, Brad J. Bushman, Akira Sakamoto, Hannah R. Rothstein and Muniba Saleem.
Meta-analytic procedures were used to test the effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, empathy/desensitization, and prosocial behavior. Unique features of this meta-analytic review include (a) more restrictive methodological quality inclusion criteria than in past meta-analyses; (b) cross-cultural comparisons; (c) longitudinal studies for all outcomes except physiological arousal; (d) conservative statistical controls; (e) multiple moderator analyses; and (f) sensitivity analyses. Social–cognitive models and cultural differences between Japan and Western countries were used to generate theory-based predictions. Meta-analyses yielded significant effects for all 6 outcome variables. The pattern of results for different outcomes and research designs (experimental, cross-sectional, longitudinal) fit theoretical predictions well. The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior. Moderator analyses revealed significant research design effects, weak evidence of cultural differences in susceptibility and type of measurement effects, and no evidence of sex differences in susceptibility. Results of various sensitivity analyses revealed these effects to be robust, with little evidence of selection (publication) bias.
But here comes the contender! Much ado about nothing: The misestimation and overinterpretation of violent video game effects in Eastern and Western nations: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010) by Christopher J. Ferguson and John Kilburn.
The issue of violent video game influences on youth violence and aggression remains intensely debated in the scholarly literature and among the general public. Several recent meta-analyses, examining outcome measures most closely related to serious aggressive acts, found little evidence for a relationship between violent video games and aggression or violence. In a new meta-analysis, C. A. Anderson et al. (2010) questioned these findings. However, their analysis has several methodological issues that limit the interpretability of their results. In their analysis, C. A. Anderson et al. included many studies that do not relate well to serious aggression, an apparently biased sample of unpublished studies, and a “best practices” analysis that appears unreliable and does not consider the impact of unstandardized aggression measures on the inflation of effect size estimates. They also focused on bivariate correlations rather than better controlled estimates of effects. Despite a number of methodological flaws that all appear likely to inflate effect size estimates, the final estimate of r = .15 is still indicative of only weak effects. Contrasts between the claims of C. A. Anderson et al. (2010) and real-world data on youth violence are discussed.
But wait! Two more papers wade into the fight, coming down on the side of the metareview: Nailing the coffin shut on doubts that violent video games stimulate aggression: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010) by L. Rowell Huesmann; and Much ado about something: Violent video game effects and a school of red herring: Reply to Ferguson and Kilburn (2010) by Brad J. Bushman, Hannah R. Rothstein and Craig A. Anderson.
Okay, first, let me iterate that I am one of the skeptics who are doubtful about the impact of violent games on people’s behaviour. I do believe that there are certain people who are prone to violent behaviour (through nature or nurture, that has yet to be determined) and that their violent behaviour could be set off by a trigger. Of course, having said that, I am open to having my mind changed by a research paper - because that’s what media does, right? It affects our behaviour and our beliefs 
Anyway, I should go read those papers at some point and see what they have to say.
Topics: Research Papers, Psychology | 1 Comment »
Second Life
By sylvie on February 25, 2010
Lots of buzz in the internet about Second Life’s new user interface and its integration of web browsing into the SL world.
The most interesting analysis I’ve read up to now is that of Wagner James Au, who notes that the new viewer does not solve the most basic questions that every virtual world user has:
For them [new users], a Second Life experience must always provide immediate and obvious answers to the big six questions:
- Who will I meet in there?
- What will I do when I’m in there?
- When is it happening?
- Where will I go to do it?
- How do I get there?
- Why should I stay, afterward?
Good questions VR developers should ask themselves as they plan their worlds.
On the other hand, I respectfully disagree with Mitch Wagner’s analysis that Second Life is too complicated to join:
In Second Life, you have to choose an avatar name. That confuses newcomers. They want to use their real names, or the nicknames they use everywhere else.Then you have to decide what your avatar is going to look like.
Then you have to download and install software.
Then you have to learn to navigate in-world. That takes an hour or more.
Replace Second Life with World of Warcraft, invert a few steps (downloading and installing the software comes before you decide what your avatar looks like and what its name is going to be), add an extra step (you have to decide what side you want to join, Alliance or Horde), and you can see the absurdity of the argument. All these complicated steps have not stopped 11 million people from playing WoW on a regular basis.
Okay, I am willing to admit that at least some of the people who went to check out Second Life were not gamers and so were confused by all these special steps. And it would be nice if you had some freedom in your choice of name (has Linden Labs changed that yet?). Of course, complete freedom means that you’ll end up with people sporting x-rated names, so maybe limited freedom isn’t all that bad.
Anyway, my point is this: people are willing to go through as many hoops as the designers put up so long as there is content that they really really want. If my bank’s web designers required that I do a pirouette in front of a webcam every time I logged into my bank’s website, I would put that tutu on. If Blizzard decided that all its players should do the funky chicken before they’re allowed to play, well, you get the picture.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to find interesting content in Second Life.
Topics: virtual reality | No Comments »
Reviewer of the Year
By sylvie on February 24, 2010
My week started off nicely with a letter from Dianne Murray, general editor of Interacting with Computers, informing me of the publication of her formal thanks to the journal’s reviewers. What I didn’t realize was that I was named one of the journal’s Reviewers of the Year (this link opens a short PDF file). It made my day.
I have done 15 reviews for IwC, so I guess they like the way I do them. My reviews tend to be very action-oriented and can get lengthy as I am obsessive about noting down improvements to writing.
There are two persons who are responsible for the way I do my reviews. The first is Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who used to be a professor at Université de Montréal’s psychology department, but left to become president of Latvia after its independence. Vaira was supervisor for my master’s and co-supervisor for my doctoral work. I was literally in awe of this woman: I both admired her greatly and was scared of her. She is the only teacher I ever had for whom I felt it necessary to dress up whenever I had a meeting with her. This woman taught me that “good enough” was not good enough and that I should always strive to do my best (even today, if I think that something is “good enough”, I immediately think of her, which spurs me to continue working). She would return my chapters covered in notes about how to improve my writing, which I greatly appreciated.
The other person was a member of my PhD jury, Martin Arguin, another professor at the department. At the time, we doctoral students would both reassure ourselves and complain that there would never be more than one and a half persons reading our thesis, including ourselves and our thesis supervisor. The lesson being, you could work and work to improve your thesis forever, but why bother when nobody was going to read it? Well, it turned out that if you had Martin as a jury member, the number would be bumped to 2 and a half people. He didn’t just skim my thesis, he actually sat down and read the whole bloody thing, covering the margins with notes in red ink. He was very specific about what I could do to improve my thesis and I was grateful for the information.
So now, whenever I do a review, I pass it on, as they say. I feel that my goal as a reviewer is to help researchers write a paper that people will want to read and will profit from. And I hope that at least one person will appreciate my suggestions.
Topics: Personal, Review | No Comments »
The social affordance of everyday things
By sylvie on February 15, 2010
I’ve had the same joke conversation with people twice now: “How did we ever get around before Google/iPhones?” I know that they’re kidding, and yet I can’t help myself but answer “Maps! We had maps, guys. Remember those? They were great.”
OK, so I admit to having a soft spot for maps. I drive André crazy because, even though we own a GPS to guide us, whenever we take a road trip, I like to have a map with me to follow where we are. The GPS is great to tell you exactly where you are and what route you should be taking to get to your destination. The map, on the other hand, is a wonderful tool to give you an overview, a general sense of where you are, and ideas on where you might want to go. This is especially useful when you’re on vacation and you are open to improvisations in your schedule.
After that conversation, I was thinking about ye olden days, when we only had maps to guide us, and how that had an impact on our social behaviours. An open map is easy to recognize and a clear indicator that the person is lost or unsure of where they should be going. It has a social affordance that the person is in need of help, and I have been on both the receiving side and the giving side of that help. This is a great way to start a conversation with a tourist, to help them find their way and give them extra ideas on where they should go.
But somebody who is thumbing through their iPhone, well, they might be reading their email or checking the stock market for all you know. You have no idea if they need help. On the other hand, maybe if you have access to a Google map on your smartphone that pinpoints exactly where you are and where you are going, maybe if you can do a search on “what’s hot in the city”, maybe you don’t need other people’s help. It’s a pity, though. After all, we are social animals and we thrive on social contact.
I had similar thoughts while coming back home on the train. I brought André’s Kindle with me to read L’ile mystérieuse (*). André has covered his Kindle in a Hitchhiker Guide’s themed gelskin, so whenever we use the Kindle, we look like huge dorks (okay, we are both huge dorks, so I guess that’s truth in advertising). I walked down the wagon at one point and saw several people reading physical books. It was an interesting contrast. I could see immediately what they were reading and how far along they were in the book. There was one guy who was reading a book on advertising that looked like it was either an art book or a critique of advertising. If I had been seated next to him, I think I would have asked him what the book was about and whether it was interesting. It looked like an interesting book. Here it was the book’s art cover that was offering a social affordance for the start of a conversation.
I’m not advocating that we all give up our electronic gadgets and go back to the stone age. But I think that maybe the people who design and build these gadgets need to think about how they could incorporate the original social affordances into the gadgets. Why couldn’t the back of my eReader display (if I so choose) the title and art cover of the book I’m reading? Maybe I could have an electronic map that I could “unfold” (project?). I think we should think about these things a bit more than we do now.
(*) Do not read adored children’s books when you are an adult lest you be sorely disappointed by how silly they turn out to be.
Topics: Personal, HCI | No Comments »
That Facebook data thing
By sylvie on February 10, 2010
Pete Warden has managed to gather a lot of data from public Facebook profiles and this has been making the rounds of the blogosphere, especially since he is generously going to make the data available to researchers.
Sarah and I had a lengthy discussion about his data collection methods because we were trying to figure out just how much information he could have collected from public FB profiles. We randomly went through profiles of people we didn’t know just to see what could be found on those pages. Very often, it wasn’t a lot: the person’s name, a photo, pages (I’m guessing those are fan pages) and friends. Not even the city where they were living was listed. Of course, this method has its limits: we picked a very few samples and made our way through friends’ lists in order to move from person to person. Perhaps a different sample would have given us completely different results.
On the other hand, poking around in FB’s privacy settings, we came across these paragraphs:
When your friend visits a Facebook-enhanced application or website, they may want to share certain information to make the experience more social. For example, a greeting card application may use your birthday information to prompt your friend to send a card.If your friend uses an application that you do not use, you can control what types of information the application can access. Please note that applications will always be able to access your publicly available information (Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages) and information that is visible to Everyone.
In case you’re wondering, you can find this under Privacy Settings > Applications and Websites.
So maybe Pete was able to collect his data that way, which would explain how he could establish maps of relationships in the US.
The reason I’m writing about this, though, is more than just a question of methodology. It’s how people are taking his results and blatantly applying it to the population as a whole. That is just wrong.
The data that Pete collected may be a good source of information about people who use Facebook, but to then claim that it can be applied to the population in general is just wrong. danah boyd has already shown that there is a difference in the type of people who use FB and those who use MySpace. Does that mean that one is more representative of the general citizenry than the other? Nope. Neither are. They are each sub-cultures of the digital citizenry and the digital citizenry is a sub-culture of the population in general. I know it’s hard to believe, but not everybody is on Facebook.
That map of his may be an interesting look at how FB users are interconnected but it doesn’t mean that it’s true of people in the US in general.
Now I’m going to get all scientific-y and note that it’s quite possible that the data collected could turn out to be a good approximation of how the general population behaves but we can’t assume that that is true.
So in conclusion: Pete Warden’s data? Great for people who want to do research on Facebook users. Not so great for people who want to understand society in general.
Topics: Social Software, Science reporting | 1 Comment »
Via Preference: it’s not usable if you can’t access it
By sylvie on February 9, 2010
I was looking at how expensive it would be to go to Toronto by train for the upcoming GI PC meeting and discovered that Via Rail has a reward program called Via Preference. Since I love train travel, I thought I might as well sign up.
The sign-up process itself was simple enough: fill out the form, bla bla bla, nothing new there. With these kinds of online sign-up systems, there is usually a step in which the information that will let you sign up is sent to the email address you provide. To my surprise, though, Via Preference presented me with a page giving me my membership number and eschewing the whole “wait until we send you an email so that you can officially sign up” rigmarole. Which would be great, except that the membership number I copied/pasted doesn’t work.
Now usually this wouldn’t be a major problem. Click on “forget password?” and expect them to send the information to the email address you gave them, right? Nope. Via wants me to enter my membership number. Except that the number is wrong. And since they didn’t send me an email with the correct membership number, I have no way of recuperating the correct number. Which leaves me up the proverbial creek paddle-less.
Yes, I tried using the back button on my browser. No, I couldn’t reach the page where the number was displayed.
I am going to try emailing them. Maybe I’ll be able to get the information back.
Topics: usability | No Comments »
