April 18, 2005
I was very disturbed for a second...
When Pixelsurgeon ran this link under it's headline - "'Minority Report' interface created for US military" - for some reason I became very worried that anyone has made the prevention of crime through precognitive psychic information actually possibly.
The article is about how a supplier for the US military is trying to create a computer interface based on the one Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report, 'yknow with the gloves and the white lights.
I'm going to spend the rest of tonight marvelling at my own paranoia.
Posted by jonny at 01:41 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 11, 2005
The trip of a lifetime
It's the usual practice to preface an article such as this with the saying that "nostalgia isn't what it used to be." Do that, and I'll cut off your hands.
Doctor Who is back on TV now. This is old news, I know, but with one thing and another I haven't managed to see an episode until today. It's good - it's appropriately shiny for the 21st century, the acting's good and it doesn't take itself too seriously. It's just like I remember Doctor Who being.
Being a child of the mid-80s, I don't actually remember Doctor Who that well. I gained a measure of cultural consciousness just as the Sylvester McCoy incarnation was coming to an end. I don't remember any specific episodes, just a middle-aged man in a scarf wondering around a quarry. I haven't really seen any of the previous series - I caught a couple of John Pertwee episodes here and there, the Peter Cushing movies, but mostly I only ever saw clips on shows were people go on about how great Doctor Who was.
Maybe that's why this version seems so right, for want of a better word. I remember Doctor Who being good but not why that was. This Doctor Who, for me, seems alright for its own reasons. But because of that, it's also reclaiming its past, reinforming my past experience of it. Time, it is said, is not a straight line.
Posted by jonny at 02:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 08, 2005
Failing to communicate
I'm in the process of typesetting a newsletter for Aberdeen University's Students' Association (AUSA). It's a typically uninteresting kind of publication: some details about initiatives no-one cares about (National Student Employment Week, just as an example), some reports on past sporting triumphs, so on. The idea is that it will be emailed out to all students as a PDF attachment. The problem is that no-one is going to read it.
There are two separate problems. Firstly, for the most part the topics the newsletter covers are not the ones students are concerned about at the moment. There will be some photos from the new Union which is opening in the city centre in a couple of weeks, but there is no mention of the Rector problem - Aberdeen Uni has, to the best of my knowledge, been without a Rector since the most recent incumbent's term in office ended, despite elections having been pencilled in for November. 2004 - nor is there any talk about student radio (a key election pledge for the current AUSA president that hasn't materialised) or indeed the promised referendum on NUS membership (a key election pledge for the current AUSA president that hasn't materialised).
There is, however, a nice poem about the Hilton Campus Union which closes at the end of term and a whole page dedicated to meeting the ladies who staff the General Office at AUSA HQ (who are, it should be noted, wonderful people though this is conveyed better by meeting them in person than by email).
Essentially, the first problem is that the newsletter doesn't contain any news that is particularly relevant to those AUSA hope will read it. The second problem is the way the information is being presented.
Through the year (Years, in fact. Communication between AUSA and the student body has never been what you might call good.) meaningful communication between AUSA and the students it represents has been minimal. It is not as if nothing has been happening during the academic year. Besides the lack of a Rector, student radio or an NUS referendum, AUSA has announced plans to refurbish the Central Refectory as well as the adoption of a new three-year strategic plan. Yet these fairly important developments have not been publicised. It's unfair to say that the information has been obscured or hidden, because it's readily available. What is unfair is the sheer amount of work it takes to find anything out.
And now, all of a sudden, AUSA has decided that it has all these really important things that all students must know. The newsletter is going to be one huge, indigestible lump of information that is going to be uniformly ignored. Confronted by an unsolicited email with an attachment, most students are going to question how much of value they've heard from AUSA this year and weigh it against the chances of this email containing any vitally important info. Then they'll hit delete.
The one-shot email newsletter is a hopelessly inefficient method of communication. It contains too much information and too little of real value. Some of it is interesting, but unnecessary. If AUSA wants an email newsletter that works, they need to revise how it is conceived and distributed.
- Go monthly. This way the info in the newsletter is more relevant at any given time. It also cuts down on unnecessary content because everything has to have temporal relevance.
- Don't include the content in the email. Host the content on the AUSA website and put links to the individual articles in the email. This allows people to pick and chose what they want to find out and gives them a sense of control. If there's anything desperately important, keep it in the email. If not, a brief description and a link will do.
I suggested these things when I was asked to typeset the newsletter. I was told to make a PDF to email to everyone. It doesn't necessarily matter to me whether people read it or not, I still get paid. But AUSA have taken the route of doing what is easier for them rather than what is easier for their members - the students. That matters to me.
Posted by jonny at 01:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
April 01, 2005
Prince Charles and the bionic carrot...
From Klosters...
"I hate doing this," he [Prince Charles] muttered under his breath and, "Bloody people," as he smiled wryly, apparently blissfully unaware that microphones on the ground in front of him were picking up every murmur.
But the prince's ire seemed mostly directed at the normally inoffensive BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell, a man once known to his colleagues as the bionic carrot and hitherto most famous for sitting on a studio-invading lesbian demonstrator while he carried on reading the Six O'Clock News.
"I can't bear that man anyway. He's so awful, he really is. I hate these people," Charles added as a not so sotto voce running commentary to his sons when Mr Witchell ruthlessly probed the prince's feelings about his forthcoming wedding. For public consumption, he merely said: "I am glad you have heard of it." [Source.]
Curiously enough, the only TV report on this I've seen was logged by one Nicholas Witchell, who must be feeling valued right now.
Posted by jonny at 03:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack