Archive for August, 2010

Anarchy in the USA

Published August 29th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Commenter “AL” in a Gapers Block thread on Critical Mass in Chicago writes:

It is an outright statement of differentiating values – expressed not through free speech, not through permitted demonstration – but in guerilla fashion with absolutely no accountability. The very organization of CM is setup in distributed cellular fashion so as to obviate the possibility of anyone being held to account for the misdeeds of those participating.

BINGO! To me it’s the “distributed cellular” setup of CM that makes it so powerful, but also so controversial. As Americans, and members of democratic society at large, we’re all brought up believing in the idea that there is a “system” in place and whether we’re for it or against it, its existence cannot be questioned. The “system” allows us to transfer accountability, both good and bad, to symbolic entities and figureheads. Hate the Tea Party? Blame Glenn Beck. Love your iPhone? Thank god for Steve Jobs! But what’s lost in this process is the understanding that all organizations are composed of individuals acting out of their own free will. Probably the reason we choose to ignore this is that it’s really fucking complicated (and often scary) to deal with thousands of distinct individuals, as opposed to a centralized organization. Consider the record industry trying to prevent piracy by suing individual downloaders or the DEA trying to fight drugs by jailing end users. If all these folks belonged to some kind of organization, “United Drug Users” or “Local Downloaders 451″ then the solution would be much easier! Similarly, if the CPD could simply call up the “President of Critical Mass” and ask him to tell CM riders to obey stop lights, then I’m sure the antagonism between motorists & cyclists would be greatly reduced. But because this isn’t possible, the two “groups” are forced to confront each other as individuals. It’s not something that we’re terribly good at (hence the screaming) but it’s an absolutely essential part of being human.

tl;dr CM is divisive because it represents anarchy and disorder, which can be either incredibly empowering or frightening, depending on your personality & perspective.

(FYI, I could go on for days about the *other* socio-political implications of Critical Mass, but I think this is the crux of it…)

All Ticket Agencies are Liars and Murderers

Published August 7th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

So I accidentally bought 2 tickets instead of only 1 for a recent Cinematic Titanic event I went to. When I contacted TicketWeb about the issue & asked for a refund on one of the tickets they wrote back the next day, saying: “Thank you for contacting Ticketweb, we are happy to assist you! We apologize but we are not able to refund or exchange your tickets due to our sales policy: All Sales Are Final once the order is processed and complete.”

So I responded:

Well I guess you must not be very happy then because that didn’t assist me at all. I had hoped you guys would be a little bit forthcoming in the customer service department that Ticketmaster & co. but I guess there’s just something about selling event tickets that’s incompatible with treating your customers decently. Have you become the very thing you hate? Looks like it. Anyway, it’s not worth $25 to me to keep on arguing about this so I’m just going to consider it a donation to the fine folks at Cinematic Titanic who actually do make a point of creating a quality product for their fans instead of living off transaction fees like a pimp or a parasitic leech. Enjoy your long, slow ride into mediocrity and obscurity!

Your Pal,

Eric

Honestly I’m really not that angry about it, but clearly the customer service department over there is asleep at the wheel so I thought I’d lend a hand. =D

Speaking With the Machine

Published August 7th, 2010 in Uncategorized. 2 Comments
The first time I visited Amsterdam I stayed at a hostel called The Flying Pig on the outskirts of the central city, near the Vondelpark and the van Gogh museum. After spending a day rambling around the various cafes, museums & shops in the city I returned to the hostel one evening only to find my entry barred by a robot… of sorts. Most people would probably think of it as less of a robot and more of a keyless entry touchpad, but after having a brief discussion with the automaton I’m inclined to give it a bit more credit. Our conversation went something like this:
Me: 5 – 4 – 2 – 1
Robot: ["beep beep" + red light]
Me: 5 – 2 – 4 – 1
Robot: ["beep beep" + red light]
Me: Crap… 5 – 2 – 1 – 4
Robot: ["beeeeeeep"+ green light + unlock]
After finding my way down to to the bar in the basement and listening for a few minutes to the variety of multi-lingual conversations taking place around me I came to the conclusion that my interaction with the touchpad device was really no different from any of these.
When any two devices capable of input & output encounter each other, whether they be human, machine, Dutch, German, goat or buffalo, a series of questions & deductions invariably takes place. For example, “What is this? OK it’s a person so I can talk to him. Except… I am in Japan & I don’t speak Japanese. I wonder if he speaks English. Guess I’ll ask. Crap, no dice. OK, let’s see what we can work out via gestures…” or “Hey this is a dog! I love playing fetch with dogs, but I hate getting mauled by them. This one seems safe because he’s rolling around on his back though. Let’s see if he knows how to fetch… [throws ball] Nope.”
So, the word for this kind of process as it relates to computers & telecommunication is “handshaking” and it’s defined like this:
Handshaking is an automated process of negotiation that dynamically sets parameters of a communications channel established between two entities before normal communication over the channel begins. It follows the physical establishment of the channel and precedes normal information transfer.
In other words, when one fax machine talks to another, the “crazy noises” you hear at the beginning of the call is actually a weird computer-ese version of the human-human or human-animal process described above. It’s like:
FAX1:
HEEEEEEYAREYOUAFAAAAAXXXXMACHINE??!?! [beeeeep sqqqarrrrk beeeep]
FAX 2:
YEEEEEAAAAAHBUTIMANOLDSHITTYYYYYONESOTAAAAAAKEITSLOOOOOOOOOKAY??? [bleeeeeerrrrrrrpp-pp-eeeeeeeeeee]
And once that’s done, the magic (…of fax) happens. Or doesn’t happen, depending on whether the fax machine has found another of its kind or just an angry old man who doesn’t know what’s going on (in which case the fax machine will just keep calling him back every 5 minutes because fax machines have really weird senses of humor).
There are forms of “handshaking” for dogs (“Let me sniff your butt. No, let me sniff YOUR butt.”) and birds (Strut, strut, strut… PLUMAGE!!) and babies (Will this book fit in my mouth? No. Well then… “SCREEEEEEEAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!!!!!!”) but the ones I find the most interesting are those that take place between humans and machines. The old man and the fax machine. Me and the hostel keypad.
What my conversation with the keypad made me realize is that every single element in the design of something like a keypad (or a website or a videogame) plays some part in either facilitating or confusing the process of handshaking & communication. Should the keypad be shaped like a phone keypad or a single row of numbers? Should it beep once for an error and twice for a correct entry or the other way around? Should a fax machine immediately start BEEEEEEEPING loudly when someone picks up? Why couldn’t it announce “This is a fax machine!” in English first before launching directly into it’s own robotic language? And so on.
As a guy whose job it is to help design websites, games and other such products, I believe it’s very important to think carefully about this sort of thing, and to be aware how your assumptions about the way things are “supposed to” work might impact people who don’t share those assumptions. Because while I personally enjoy exploring confusing or experimental interfaces and learning new man-machine language dialects, I also understand that this is not everyone’s cup of tea.
For more information on the topics discussed here, I recommend that you look up the terms “HCI” or “UX” on what certainly must rank among the most successful human – machine communication systems yet invented. Happy Handshaking!

The World’s Greatest

Published August 2nd, 2010 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Johnny 5 needs more input

Kevin Kelly knows a thing or two about good journalism, so when I saw on his blog that he had posted a list of “The Best Magazine Articles Ever” (as nominated by the readers of said blog) I knew that I was in for a treat! Several of the articles I had read before, but quite a few were ones that I had meaning to get to for awhile & so I decided to take advantage of the rare summer-y weather in San Francisco this weekend to get outside & read them on my nook (via instapaper!)

Two articles that I found particularly awesome were this one:

“As We May Think” by Vannevar Bush (1945)

And this one:

“Space War: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among Computer Bums” by Stewart Brand (1972)

Because despite being written 38 and 65 (!!!) years ago they have both not only proven to be completely prophetic about the development of the internet and the videogame industry to date, but they also serve as a reminder how how much important work remains to be done in both fields!

But enough of my jibber jabber… Go read some stuff!

ps. OK, a little more jibber jabber… If you’re looking for suggestions on where to go after the previously mentioned articles I’d also highly recommend David Foster Wallace’s “Consider the Lobster“, Michael Lewis’s “The End“, Bill Joy’s “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us” and Atul Gawande’s “Letting Go“. And if you find any other awesome ones, let me know in the comments!

(“Johnny 5″ Photo by liquidnight on Flickr)

Archives