Author: Kirk

The Power Of Photography

World Press Photography has an annual award for photojournalists. They have put up a showcase of the winner from each year for the past 50 years. These photos are not “the best photos of the year” or “the most powerful photos of the last 50 years” – rather they are simply the winners of the award for the last 50 years. That being said, these pictures will affect you emotionally.

High-tech (and high resolution) Flash version is available here.

Low-tech version (with slightly more detailed descriptions) is available here.

Another image that I’ve found in this Ars Technica thread about the power of photography:

Sudan Famine “Pulitzer Prize” winner 1994: photo and photgrapher’s biography.

Photojournalism would be a hard, hard thing to do.

Motivational Thought of the Day

From People Can Change

Anyone who is motivated primarily by shame to seek change is not only likely to fail at change but risks actually making the cycle of shame worse. Shame never motivates lasting change. Likewise, those who pursue change to satisfy other people — whether family, friends, religious institutions or society at large — are likely to find neither success nor satisfaction in trying to change when doing so is not truly their heart’s desire.

We’re Pregnant!

It’s official, there really will be another Bridger coming into this world!

Alisa and I are happy to announce that we are expecting our first child in around 28 weeks. The offical due date is April 26th, according to both the doctor and midwife that we’ve spoken to.

I can’t say that this has all really sunk in yet (I’m told that it never does, but that’s another story), but we’re both jubilant!

Note: Since Dale is the only one reading this, I consider this to be an offical notice for you, Mr. Marsden.

I Hate Internet Explorer

I’m currently designing a website interface for a personal project. Things are at the preliminary stages, but I’ve already stumbled across the one reason I hate working with web pages in terms of design …

Internet Explorer simply does not adhere to web standards.

What this means is that I can plan a layout for the website, code it according to industry standards, and test it in Firefox. It will look like this.

Website viewed in Firefox browser

Please understand that this is a preliminary design. Ignore the colours and layout as I’m using them to rough out my ideas. In all likelihood things will change dramatically as I build the site up. But at this point it is good to take a look at the basic structure of the site.

I then decide I should test it in Internet Explorer too, simply because I know everyone doesn’t use Firefox. Why that is I do not know, but I know the majority of people are still using Internet Explorer. OK, and here is how the page is rendered by I.E.

Website viewed in Internet Explorer browser

The exact same code, but with totally different results. Now I need to go and figure out if there are any known tricks I can use in order to make I.E. pretend it is standards compliant. I really hope I.E. 7’s CSS support is vastly improved when it comes out.

How Did We Get By Without It?

German researchers, after many long periods of intense research and user testing I’m sure, have produced a Smart Beer Mat.

It’s able to detect when the suds are running low in the glass. It also can detect movement, making those creative TV executives salivate at the thought of interactive TV in pubs. Who votes for Miss America with their beer mat? The pub-goer of the future, that’s who!

And who can forget those beloved pub games?

One important direction which needs further investigation is the large body of drinking games which has developed in certain cultures and how they can be supported using our beer mat.

It’s all very academic and formal. Money well spent. I suppose advertisers would love the thing though.

Robots In The House

Mitsubishi has announced the availability of their new robot for general public purchase – wakamaru. It is designed to, well, here’s what they say:

“wakamaru” lives in accordance with his own daily schedules as well as those of its owners, and it can update these schedules based on contact with the owner.

Not only does “wakamaru” respond to actions from people like other conventional robots, but it also takes the initiative in speaking to the family based on the information he obtains from contact with the family.

“wakamaru” connects itself to the network to provide necessary information for daily life. It looks after the house while the family is absent, watches out for unusual conditions, and is convenient for the life of family members.

Marketing-speak aside, I think there’s some interesting things being said here.

  1. The robot is a he
  2. The robot “lives”

Continue reading Robots In The House

What Do I Do?

I’m moving into a new job tomorrow, and I’m being asked (understandably) what exactly I’ll be doing. Since I haven’t actually started the job yet, it’s tough for me to give concrete examples of what I’ll be doing, but let’s see if I can’t shed a little light on my super-secret mystery.

My official title will be “Systems Analyst / User Interface Designer”. Now that’s a mouthful. However it is also nice and descriptive. As you may or may not know, when it comes to computers, I’m deeply interested in usability and the user experience. I’m able to do programming when I want or need to, but in the end I’m not terribly passionate about the inner workings of programs. I’m more interested in how people interact with them.

So what does a Systems Analyst do? In a nutshell I’ll be looking at customer requests for improvements and new features in our software and I’ll be trying to figure out the best way to fix our software up. The best way may or may not be what the customer asks for exactly, but requirements elicitation should be part of the process so their initial needs may end up changing as our discussions continue.

It’s still a little abstract, I know. However I came across this great example of systems analysis (in the guise of the term “Information Architecture”) to a batch of today’s emerging music players. For anyone interested in IA or SA, it’s a neat, simple read. Anyone not familiar with the things we do, it’s a simple introduction because we all understand digital music players to some extent.

As for the title “User Interface Designer”, that’s where my heart lies. Designing the interface and workflow that users are confronted with when using software is my real area of interest. I enjoy the designing phase of things so much because I find it to be so creative – implementing mock-ups of the interfaces and running user trials to see how they work in real situations is just plain fun for me.

So this position is my first step away from supporting technology and users (Systems Administrator, that kind of thing) towards my real area of interest – usability. I’ve been dipping my toes into whatever Usability waters I can find, such as recently joining a project at Open Usability and participating in several discussions on the Gnome Usability Mailing List. And now I am finally moving into this fascinating area professionally.

Huzzah! Wish me luck!

DRM and You – A Consumer’s Introduction

DRM – What the heck is it? Digitial Rights Management is becoming much more prevalent today as consumers are beginning to purchase digital media online rather than analogue or consumable versions from brick and mortar stores.

In plain English? People are really starting to buy online music. iTunes is the most well-known name in online music right now, but there are a myriad of other companies out to try to lure you out of your expendable income.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation have published an introductory guide to the various DRM that today’s most popular online music stores are using. In effect, they outline what restrictions the files have on them once you purchase your mp3’s from the stores. What kind of restrictions? How often can you burn playlists, how many different computers can you play the file on, etc.

Note that the guide also lists a few online resellers that do not use any DRM in the sold files. This means you have total control over what you can do with those files. They list the following:

emusic
Audio Lunchbox
Bleep
Live Downloads

Of those, I have only ever used emusic, and I was impressed with their services at the time (several years ago).

In addition, you should check out your favorite artist’s website, as they may be selling their albums themselves. Some record labels are also doing the right thing, and offering their new releases online as well. I recently purchased a song from Nettwerk and it came without any DRM that I am aware of.

I’ve also found a few sites that offer Live recordings of shows as well as uncompressed songs for purchase or free download. Check out my Music page for more details.

So don’t limit yourself to just using what everyone else is using. This industry is in a state of flux – don’t accept anything less than you are willing to, and try to find products that give you the most for your dollar.