Categories
FlashOfFlash

Elephant sleeping in space

The first class for Flash of Flash was true to the class name. We breezed through the basic menus and toolbars. The class site is a solid reference and I’ve installed the free educational version of FlexBuilder, but haven’t made use of it yet. Our first assignment was to create an animated splash screen for the final prject with motion and shape tweening. I’m not sure if this will be part of my final assignment, but I kinda like the bit I put together. Flash is becoming easier as I use it over time. Smile.

Categories
CraftingWithData

Logging data in 2 states

For the datalogging portion of this week’s assignment, Kim and I discussed using various sensors and types of visualization options. In the end, we decided to go with processing based visualization and the firmata protocol. A screen shot is above. Some data measuring breathing with a stretch sensor is stored in text files: alert + hyperalert. And the code is here.

Categories
CraftingWithData

Thinking Scientifically

The assignment for this week was to 1) log some data and 2) read the first chapter of The Canon by Natalie Angier, which is titled Thinking Scientifically. Part one seems pretty simple, and I’ve done some data logging for Rest of You this past week using a stretch sensor, which measured my breathing. However, we were encouraged to do some group work, so I plan to meet with a classmate this afternoon, possibly working with a range finder, fsr, and/or stretch sensor. It should go well. As for the reading, it’s short, so I’ve read it through a couple times. Some key ideas I’ve taken are below.

Science:

  • is not a body of facts and does not deal with absolutes
  • is about critical, hard-nosed thinking
  • is comfortable with uncertainty
  • is a state of mind in which nothing is taken at face
  • breaks problems into smaller pieces  (reductionism)
  • approaches problems from many different angles
  • is more common in everyday life than we might think
  • bypasses binaries in favor of “empirical universalism”
  • allows simple ideas to yield rich phenomena
  • is an aggressive, confrontational, and humbling process
  • demands evidence and requires new ideas to be consistent with what is already know
  • encourages us to admit mistakes, analyze misconceptions, and improve our understandings
Categories
RestOfYou

Log Yourself: Air in my belly + on the screen

So I got Arduino, Processing, and the stretch sensor/bra strap to a functional level.

So far, see my code, circuit, and arduino. It’s pretty basic, but the potential is serious and… I like that.


breath screen from benyee on Vimeo.


breath belly from benyee on Vimeo.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Linda Stone + quality of life

Last night, I attended the Applications class led by our department’s chair, Red Burns. The guest speaker was Linda Stone, who spoke about a range of topics, but it seems her main current interests include sleep and breathing (and how they relate to physiological responses, specifically the vagas nerve), which correlates directly with my idea to make a sleep assistance experience from a couple nights ago for Rest of You. Her presentation highlighted some previous ambitions I had forgotten about and helped me realize a broader, more significant context for this project — something like breathing awareness for the improvement of quality of life. I also think it needs to be potentially cool, fun, sexy… Looking forward, “quality of life” is really a phrase that I think ties together the work I want to do, as it relates to the connections between attention, emotion, and coincidentally, breathing. In short, her perspective helped me gain a greater perspective on my perspective. Thanks, Linda! In her talk, she notes books, projects, other ideas for further investigation:

A fellow ITP student has posted notes on ITPedia as well. Thanks Aaron!

Categories
CraftingWithData DesignForEmergingPlatforms FlashOfFlash LiveWeb RestOfYou

Integration rambling

It feels pretty good when puzzle pieces seem in place. Looking up at the full moon last night reminded me that we’re not so big and important as we tend to imagine. But of course we have significance in our environments, and we have a lot of control of what we do in and with our lives. Tis hard to keep perspective sometimes when things are extremely bad, or good. Natural reminders are nice I suppose, as long as we recognize them from time to time.

As I exited the train this morning/afternoon, it occurred to me that a pattern has begun developing with my classes this semester. The assignment for Rest of You this week is to look at myself or some sorta biorhythm (?) I produce, and try to think of or use it in a meaningful way; meanwhile, get Arduino up and running with a sensor. The one for Flash is to create an animation as an splash screen for any project using motion/shape tweens, etc. The task in Crafting with Data is to log some data using a program already provided, and like Rest of You, use the Arduino. While I was unsure if I would have the time or energy to take Flash, I now feel that taking the 2 credit course is the perfect solution to my inability to improve my Flash skills over the summer. It will motivate me and support my skillsets in other classes and beyond. My initial hesitation to buy new pComp supplies has been comforted since I’m using the items in two classes already. Also, Liveweb and Design for Emerging Platforms are going to overlap for sure, and will benefit from the Flash lessons as well. I plan to attend Red’s class tonight, as I’ve heard the speaker should be relevant to Rest of You. Hopefully it’s inspiring. Hopefully collaborative projects will begin gaining strength. Hopefully I will remember to eat well, exercise, and share myself.

Categories
FlashOfFlash RestOfYou

Almost asleep…

It was late two nights ago when I decided to power off and get into bed. Throughout the day I had been trying to wrap my mind around a concept that would incorporate measuring breathing in some interesting way and allow me to use Adobe Flash. The idea that came to me as I drifted off was nothing revolutionary, but practical, challenging, and fitting of certain elements in my personality. I think I’m hoping to build an experience for anyone needing a little (or a lot of) assistance falling asleep.

…more details to come.

Categories
CraftingWithData

Reading with skepticism

Another part of this week’s assignment is to find two articles, one that represents information well and one that doesn’t do such a great job. After being primed with Huff’s book (How to Lie With Statistics), it is almost effortless to find problems with or at least questions for virtually every article on the web. Capturing some data that doesn’t seem biased or misrepresented in some way seems impossible.

Economist (deceiving) – While the data is interesting in this article, we don’t know who the actual author is, and the chart both focuses imagery and fails to specify the type of average mentioned.

Webmonkey (a little better) – This article is extremely brief, but it does give us the name of the author and some relatively close estimates of  the number of APIs offered and API keys issued.

Bloomberg (not bad) – There is a lot of data here with many source details and actual numbers (versus vague percentages) provided.

Categories
RestOfYou

Analog read

Getting back to pComp had me feeling somewhat anxious, since it’s been quite a long while since I’d built any kind of circuit. I didn’t have the supplies any more, so purchasing a new Arduino, breadboard, and sensor, was almost like back-to-school shopping (except no new Transformers trapper keeper or sweet smelling markers – heh). During the first week of class, my original intention was to work with posture and pressure sensors placed on my bottom, lower back, and upper back. However, the demo from class two inspired me to do a project with breathing and the stretch sensor. I don’t have a focused concept worked out yet, but I was successful in getting a decent range of numbers from the Arduino with some basic code and wiring. See a brief video below.


stretch sensor read from benyee on Vimeo.
int analogPin = 3;

int val = 0;

void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); }

void loop() { val = analogRead(analogPin);

Serial.println(val); }

Categories
RestOfYou

Illusion and The Media Equation

To inspire some thinking about illusion, I read The Media Equation by Reeves and Nass. While the numerous concepts are engaging and informative overall, moving through an excess of lab scenario details is semi-tedious. The authors set out to demonstrate that people respond to TV, computers, and new media, in essentially the same ways that they respond to real life. The book offers thoughts around a multitude of psychological experiments, which are all based on a relatively simple 7-step method (i.e. take an example of how humans interact socially in their natural environment and then substitute in a computer or interface in order to test for the similarities or differences that occur). Reeves and Nass predict rules in each case, and their results are pretty convincing, but many of the conclusions they imply rely on stereotypes and social norms that would hopefully evolve over time.

Each chapter provides at least one lesson. Topics include:

  • media and manners (politeness, distance, flattery, judgment)
  • media and personality (characters, interfaces, imitation)
  • media and emotion (good/bad, negativity, arousal)
  • media and social roles (specialists, teammates, gender, voices, orientation source)
  • media and form (size, fidelity, synchrony, motion, cuts/scene changes, subliminal)

Most of what I’ve taken from the text is about social norms or patterns and the automatic responses many of us have to a wide range of stimuli. In other words, the book could solely be a social sciences analysis if the authors decided to drop the computer/media component. This component mainly wraps the range of findings into the single idea that we may think of hardware/software and media as inanimate, but by and large, we treat them as if they were living, breathing  things, both social and natural. This is the key point in connecting the title to illusion.

The most surprising segment of the book for me related to flattery, specifically on p55: “Whether praise is warranted or not will have no effect on what people think about the praising computer.” I’m skeptical because it seems illogical that subjects would disregard or feel unfavorably toward the computer (or person) giving unwarranted praise, but the tests show otherwise. This finding may play out in real life, but it seems the flatterer would risk losing integrity. A lesson though is that positive feedback is generally lacking in both real life and software interfaces. Maybe this is obvious, but it would be wise to move towards a flattering approach for increased likability of our work and selves. Further along on p101, Reeves and Nass introduce “gain theory,” which relates to preference when a subject changes to imitate or respond favorably to a user. The Pollyana Effect p120, the cumulative nature of arousal p137, and continued themes about attention/focus, and memory, were also especially interesting.