More fun stuff had in Quartz Composer today. If you’ve got Mac OS X 10.4, grab: Earthspin v1d, Earthspin Bubble 2, Lines Dance 4, Plasma Fun 11 and maybe my favourite so far, Spun Stars.
All are very small and dial-up friendly except for the Earthspins. All work as screen savers if placed in ~/Library/Screen Savers/.
Share and Enjoy!
Ever wanted to actually cook while watching a coooking show? The way they’re set up, you can either tape them and copy down the recipe for later, or miss crucial steps. I suggest a new type of show, the prototype of which will be called “Cook Along With Iain”. This could actually work if Iain Hewitson was interested.
Details:
Wouldn’t that work really well? If you’re a TV exec. who likes the sound of it, go for it and give me a line in the credits.
Don’t read any links, reviews or other information about Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. Just grab it and read it. Great storytelling and a wonderful time to be had between two pages.
Anyway, it’s a Wednesday off, which means I’m working, again, on my tutorials for QUT. They should be finished soon, which is good as I’m teaching my Photoshop Masterclass next week and brainspace will shortly become more limited. The wide open spaces of three months of low-stress full-time work are visible on the horizon; will I appreciate them as much as I should?
There’s much more to happen before then. Weddings (or at least re-celebrations) and theatre and books and video and stuff to have fun with. Life’s good. Let me know how yours is in the comments.
Happy dance time! Nic got the job! Nic got the job! Wheeeeeeee! (If you don’t know what that means, please return to your lives and remain calm.)
Happy thoughts going to B&P who are about to do something very fun.
Interesting stuff around conversation from a human-computer interaction study. A Japanese person and an American person are placed in a virtual conversation in 3D space. A computer agent detects pauses in the conversation and suggests a new topic to proceed with. Some agents were safe, injecting topics such as movies, music and the weather. Some were unsafe, presenting money, politics and religion.
While both Japanese and American participants found the unsafe agent’s subjects more interesting, the Americans found the safe agent of value while the Japanese did not. “Of value” means increased opinion of their own behaviour and of their conversational partner.
Implications of this kind of research are interesting – they’d better be. I get to mark about 60 assignments on this stuff in a few weeks’ time.
Personally, I want interfaces to be as unobstrusive as possible and messages to be informative. More as it comes up.
The skeptical atheist (me) says Amen: In the name of God.
Who knew? GoLive CS/CS2 is the QuickTime slideshow editor I wanted about 2 years ago. iPhoto does nice fades, but I wanted wipes and stuff. And now I have them. More ideas bubbling away too, but will I have time?
Another test. Don’t bother reading it.
If you can read this, I can post without a browser. Only nerds will care.
Thoughts with those @ BB, near Oval tube in London.
What kind of drugs was the advertising executive on when he (must be a he) came up with the toothpaste flavoured “Empowermint”?
How dumb can this world get before it implodes?