Google Earth

Haven't seen this announced anywhere yet, but Google Earth is now live (and free).

Disclaimer: employer blah blah.

Google Satellite Maps Update

Google Maps now seems to have brought more of its satellite images into line with those in Keyhole. Though it seems like I still live on the wrong side of the crop.

Pupius and Google

For a long time I used to hypothesize the people I'd put into a 'perfect web nerd team', and once you excluded Batman, Darth Vader and all the models, two names frequently stuck out - Boodman and Pupius. Now, with Google's acquisition of the latter, I think I can safely say "The schircle ish moshtly complete, mish Moneypenny".

Crazy times ahead. Crazy times indeed.

But first, breakfast times ahead. Breakfast times indeed.

YubNub Trip

I've added a quick new side-version of Trip. Instead of parsing everything locally, this one redirects all your commands to the YubNub service, so you can share your custom commands with your friends and so on.

Organ Transplant Rejection Studies Commended

I will surely be hung, drawn and quartered for bringing attention to this given her attitude towards public attention (especially attention coming from the nerdy internet), but did I ever mention that my partner is a great big genius who wins prizes and stuff? Mmmm.. brains.

"I hate photos!"

"A Monash University researcher who is helping determine why some organ transplants are rejected has been awarded a high commendation in the Premier of Victoria's 2005 Award for Medical Research.

Ms Lauren Ely, who is undertaking her PhD at Monash, is studying proteins within the body's immune system that are able to identify "foreign" cells and cause organ transplant rejection."

Processing and Photography

An interesting collaboration between Tom Carden and a photographer.

Microsoft Acrylic

MS' Acrylic is now in free beta, and seems pretty neat, though I can't really tell as 2D vector drawing packages aren't really my thing at all.

Mmm.. Photoshop.

New DART Release

A new version of DART, an Augmented Reality toolkit for Macromedia Director users is out. From the news release:

For those unfamiliar with DART, it is a powerful, extensible AR authoring environment built on top of Macromedia Director. DART if available for free; the license (which is meant to be very liberal) is in each of the Director casts. DART is the product of a research project aimed at understanding how a wide variety of people think about creating experiences and systems that mix 3D virtual and physical spaces. So, what we really would like in return is feedback (what you think, what works and what doesn't, and what you do with it) and acknowledgment when you publish or distribute things built with DART.

I'd write more, but I'm too hyperactive, so just go and check it out.

Look to Windward Impressions

So I promised I'd talk about Iain M. Banks' Look to Windward, a sci-fi novel that seems to be part of a greater series, with no information inside the book or on the cover as to where it sits within that series.

It starts slowly, and it took a while to get into the swing of things, but the story speeds up towards the end and becomes thoroughly magnificent, though never entirely gripping; as I remarked to Lauren, it is the perfect bed-time book as it is a joy to read, but you feel no remorse in putting it down and going to sleep, and with the exception of the last few chapters, there's little to force you to return.

The science is interesting and relatively low-key; instead of making a big deal of all the neato things Banks has thought up, it describes them as we would everyday objects - the amount of detail only extending so far as to inform the reader of function as related to the plot.

It's my first Banks book, and from other reviews I've read, it's one of his weaker works, which implies great things about the many other stories he's written. Look to Windward is moderately recommended, and I'll be off to the bookstore to buy more of his books as soon as my schedule allows.

Olympus HMD

Olympus have introduced a non-instrusive HMD. Ubicomp here we come.

"better, faster, nerdier"

My personal experience with such things says that users prefer displays that can be moved around their field of vision. There's a reason we point our heads towards things when we read them. I think I would enjoy glasses with say three built in low-profile LEDs that notify me of events (blink pattern and colour indicating what type), then a small flat wrist-mounted display for the actual reading (as wide as you prefer) rather than having the information in your face all the time. There also aren't too many instances where a HMD is that useful - you have to change focal length to read things, and it tends to be more distracting than anything else (which is of course, why I made one for my car .. hi again, Darwin!).

I think it could drive me nuts too - I'm one of those people who will absorb all text within my field of view during the briefest glimpse, parse a few words out and fit them together in my head, just have to go back and read it again to see if it really said what I thought it did (my version is usually much grottier), so if something's pushing text at me in my peripheral vision, I'm just never going to get anything done.

All that considered, it doesn't stop me wanting one of these gizmos so badly I could burst.

Kapow!

Lesson number four million and fourty seventy six when flying your brand-new indoor electric remote-controlled helicopter:

When you realise that, after all the modifications you did to your RC controller, the rear rotor control is backwards, don't think 'well, I can only tell what effect the inputs have on the rear rotor if the main rotor's spinning' (since it's proportional and with gyros and stuff).

And if you do think that, then don't get your heli up to speed and then start flicking the DIP switches at the back in the hope of finding the one that reverses the rudder input.

.. because instead of reversing the input you want, you might reverse the throttle input from 'almost none' to 'almost infinity', sending the helicopter at MAX POWER towards you before smashing into a chair and shattering the main rotors into extra sharp super spikey death blades.

Have some before pictures:

At least I'm still here. IN YOUR FACE, DARWIN!

The Beethoven Experience

Oh wow, just wow. The BBC will be offering free downloads of Beethoven's nine symphonies.

When I was learning piano, pretty much every piece I chose as part of my repertoire for the exams was by Beethoven - I detested Mozart and only had minor infatuations with the other composers. I guess the closest most apt description of my afflication was by a super talented friend who stated that I just liked 'dramatic music', which is true enough, and makes me predisposed to secretly enjoying all sorts of crappy scores in pre-battle scenes of cheesy films.

Mmm.. Cheesymite scrolls. I sure hope I can get Vegemite in America.

The new top-level domains (TLDs)

This Slashdot comment by user Bob_Robertson presents an excellent viewpoint on why the new top-level domains (e.g .xxx) do more harm than good.

"What is surprising is the number of otherwise smart people who cannot grasp this. Since the DNS system is already difficult for humans to use by itself (eg. coke.com or coke.net or coke.int or coke.org or coke.ny.ny.us) because they are trying to use it like an index rather than a registry, they then advocate adding yet more TLDs. Yet it is the very use of TLDs that has confused the difference between an index and a registry in their minds in the first place, as well as caused the shell-game problem of which TLD to look under first."

As another user pointed out, if nothing else, the newish '.biz' extension makes for quite a fantastic spam heuristic.

Primer

So on Kottke's recommendation, I just watched Primer, and it reminded me of the super excellent Cypher, in that low-budget sci-fi sort of way.

Highly recommended if you're into thinking-person's sci-fi.

I generally detest being told anything about movies, as I then spend my time watching the movie thinking "ooh, is this the awesome bit that person was talking about yet?" .. "ohhh, is this the bit they thought was sad? ooh, it's not that sad, I'm not crying yet* .. ooh, maybe that's because I'm thinking about it too much .. damn people who told me things!". So for that reason, I tend to not explain things beyond "watch it" or "don't watch it", nor do I watch trailers.

*I once managed to have a sob during Honey I Shrunk the Kids; I mean, the poor man, thinking his kids are all stuffed up like that.

On Gameplay

I was talking with a friend about Battlefield 2 this morning, and the subject of how much I used to love Counter-Strike came up, which got me thinking about a few things:

CS is a solved game for me - I know exactly what to do and when, what's left is just a matter of teamwork/reflexes, which is uncontrollable/boring.

And I've been thinking about this .. for some people, that's enough. There seem to be non-exclusive variants of gameplay appreciation:

1. People who just enjoy being able to move things on the screen (ie all of us who played shit shareware in the 90s).
2. People who are in it for the cinematic experience.
3. People who are in it for the mental aspect (I particularly enjoy the fast-thinking game in 1-1 duels in most indoor FPSs)
4. People who want to get a higher score than anyone else.

My problem is that a lot of games, particularly console games, are ignoring (3), and seem to cover it up with devices such as low-damage, which makes thinking and suprise less important than the ability to keep a stream of fire on a moving target.

I spend a lot of time thinking about gameplay, as it's a subject very close to the whole 'user experience' thing that I enjoy so much. Raph's Keynote at the GDC about patterns and the brain and how they related to fun really hit close to home on a lot of things. Patterns are awesome.

Just not knitted ones, those are boring.