Just enough is more
Is it naive of me to sugggest that anyone who needs the upcoming 1,048,576 rows by 16,384 columns in Excel 12 really needs something other than a spreadsheet?
Back in the day Ricky and I made Excel do some stuff it was never meant to. Ricky even ended up refactoring all the VBA that we wrote to make it easier to maintain.
But 16,348 columns?
For reasons best known to themselves, Mercedes Benz have a feature on their website called the “Mixed Tape” where they give away some pretty good music. The current download “mixed tape 8″ is pretty downbeat though I’m reliably informed that this style of music is also known as “Nu Cool”.
(via Jalopnik)
Well all my friends are getting married
Yes they’re all growin’ old
They’re staying home on weekends
They’re all doin’ what they’re told
Just awesome. Congrats.
Lawrence Lessig has a great presentation style that I try to copy, badly, when I have time to prepare the extensive files that are requried. He links to a Dick Hardt’s presentation on Identity 2.0 at the recent OSCON.
The Adelaide Advertiser is reporting on a conference/sales event that will showcase “smart” technology for cars.
The technology, being jointly developed in Adelaide, will be demonstrated this week on the Clipsal 500 track in Victoria Park, along with a range of traffic advances in an industry-only peek into the future.
Experts say the advances have the potential to dramatically slash the road toll and ease congestion – and could within a generation lead to cars that drive themselves.
Sounds great, doesn’t it, concerned motorists? But, what is this miracle technology?
Among innovations on show will be the Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) system being developed by Melbourne firm MoTeC in partnership with Datalink and Adelaide-based Tenix Electronics.
ISA combines three systems to let cars know at what speed they should be moving – GPS for location, video recognition of speed signs, and devices inspeed signs which transmit information to passing cars.
So, the car will get information about prescribed speed limits from various sources. Now, nigh on ten years ago now (eek!), I was given some sage advice from my Dad, which I will now present for the elucidation of you, concerned motorist. That advice is this: You will often find that the safest speed is lower than the speed limit.
But back to the wonderful technology. How will this technology be implemented?
MoTeC spokesman Alex Caldwell said the technology was affordable and it would be up to governments as to how far it was implemented.
Because governments are always able to make sound, informed, decisions about new technologies.
“You could use it so a simple warning noise sounds to alert a driver the car is over the limit,” he said.
“On the other hand, you could have legislation so the sign can `order’ a speeding car to slow to the legal limit regardless of the driver.”
Other advances on show include red lights which “order” cars to stop, sensors to keep a defined gap between cars to prevent rear-end crashes, and video cameras that sound an alert if a drowsy driver’s eyes start to close.
Notice the unctirical nature of the article, concerned motorist? The “advances” include such wonders that remove agency (or the ability to act) from the driver and give it to the computer inside the car and, since governments will (in some distopian future) legislate for this technology the agency is intended to pass from the computer to the government who are looking after the motorists interest. This delegation of agency is supposedly to give governments the power to make things “safer” on the road.
Australian Automobile Association executive director Lauchlan McIntosh said:
“I can see an era of driverless cars happening in my lifetime. We should not accept that we have five people killed on our roads every day when we have the technology to prevent it.”
Obviously, I think this is a bad idea. Getting back to that sage piece of advice: You will often find that the safest speed is lower than the speed limit. The reason that advice is so important in this arguement is that any system that rigidly enforces compliance with the posted speed limit brings with it the implication that it is always safe to travel at the speed limit when that is not the case. These sort of systems could (will) reconfigure people’s perceptions of what it means to be a driver. Instead of being an active driver, engaged with the road conditions, other motorists and road users and activities happening near the road, such a system could, and, in my opinion, will, transform drivers into disengaged passive participants in their own demise.
Here’s my thesis abstract. Comments appreciated even (especially) if you have no idea what I’m on about.
Speech recognition software is often thought of as a easy to use interface that allows a person to talk to a computer instead of controlling it using their hands. Using speech recognition software is often presented in terms of “talk instead of typing”. Presenting speech recognition software as a simple matter of talking instead of typing ignores the difficulties involved in actually using large vocabulary speech recognition software in a productive work environment. This thesis began with the question: what would a speech recognition application for use live in the courtroom of the ACT Magistrates Court look like? To answer this question, a second question had to be asked and a thesis that I originally though would be a software design and implementation project became an ethnographically inspired one: What does productive use of speech recognition look currently like? Investigating the use of speech recognition software and discovering what made it usable became the focus of this project. This investigation led me to another shift in my thinking. When I started this project I thought that the usability of any technology was contained within the technology itself - that usability was inherent. Having investigated a particularly difficult-to-use technology I now believe that the usability or usefulness of any software product resides in the complex interaction of many factors both internal and external to a particular software product.
The basis of this research is two ethnographically inspired studies. In the first study, I observed and interviewed speech recognition users about their use of commercial off-the-shelf speech recognition software in various public service departments. Of the eight interviewees, six had some form of occupational over use injury and one was no-longer working. The major conclusion of that study is that the productive use of speech recognition software is dependant on many factors external to the software mainly contained within the work that is being performed and the environment in which the work is taking place. The second study concerned observing and describing part of the work process of the ACT Magistrates Court involved in sentencing. In this study I interviewed and observed many workers at the Court including Magistrates, Associates, Clerks and other people involved in the sentencing process. The outcome of the study of the Court was to recognise the sentencing process as one distributed in space and time between a large number of people rather than one that is performed by a single Magistrate sitting on the bench.
This thesis presents:
Palm annouces Treo runinng Windows. We are Borg.
Ah, coffee makes the world a nicer place.
Back from Brisvegas yesterday and M and I were a whirlwind of activity once we arrived home. Well, M more so than me. Unpacking, organising Young Mr D for bed (twice, since he threw up after his “first” feed) and finally just being able to sit and tune out.
In addition to actually doing some thesis work while I was in ‘vegas I started a Certificate IV in Workplace Training and Assessment which is a TAFE qualification in training and assessment (natch) which will expand my options when the time comes to look for a job. It’s basically an essential qualification to teach or even work at a TAFE and there are a plethora of other jobs where some sort of formal tranining qualification gives one the extra edge. Besides, how many people will have a PhD and a Cert IV?
Yesterday I caught up with Ricky, Anna, and Matt.
The wedding went off extrememly well with D and R having a great day. I love weddings.
Sadly I was unable to convince my Dad that he needed an MGB GT. Like me he has very ecclectic taste and could equally well end up in a B GT, Volvo P1800 or a mildly worked EH Holden. He’s a died-in-the-wool Holden man so there’s no chance of a Ford, sadly.
And now, on with the Conclusion! Once the conclusion is out of the way I have some extra stuff to add to the Introduction and I’ll have a complete draft which will no doubt be 50% shorter than it should be and have only 10% of the right references. Sigh.
I’m off the QLD tomorrow. Activities will include:
Hooray!
I think all of this is now working. Feed: check. Hit counter: check.
"Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like," says Steve Jobs, Apple's C.E.O. "People think it's this veneer -- that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." -- Steve Jobs, quoted by Matt Jones
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