Vincent Gable’s Blog

February 4, 2010

Deus Ex Ignorantia

Filed under: Design,Quotes | , , , ,
― Vincent Gable on February 4, 2010
Felten’s Third Law
Given an intractable and complex policy problem, people tend to look to areas they are not experts in to save the day.

For example,

Given a difficult technology policy problem, lawyers will tend to seek technology solutions and technologists will tend to seek legal solutions. … It’s easy to reject non-solutions in your own area because you have the knowledge to recognize why they will fail; but there must be a solution lurking somewhere in the unexplored wilderness of the other area.

Ed Felton.

December 18, 2009

Guess Towards the Middle

Filed under: Design,Quotes | , ,
― Vincent Gable on December 18, 2009

Survey researchers call this kind of behavior satisficing – it happens when people taking a survey use cognitive shortcuts to answer questions. In the case of questions about personal behaviors that we’re not used to quantifying (like the time we spend online), we tend to shape our responses based on what we perceive as “normal.” If you don’t know what normal is in advance, you define it based on the midpoint of the answer range.

Aaron Shaw, writing for Dolores Labs

Related:

Acquiescence Response Bias

the tendency to agree with any assertion, regardless of its content

June 19, 2009

All’s Well That Ends Well

Filed under: Design,Quotes,Usability | , , , ,
― Vincent Gable on June 19, 2009

the peak end rule. When thinking about a total experience, people tend to place too much weight on the last part of the experience. In one experiment, people had to hold their hands under cold water for one minute. Then, they had to hold their hands under cold water for one minute again, then keep their hands in the water for an additional 30 seconds while the temperature was gradually raised. When asked about it afterwards, most people preferred the second option to the first, even though the second had more total discomfort. (An intrusive medical device was redesigned along these lines, resulting in a longer period of discomfort but a relatively comfortable final few seconds. People liked it a lot better.)

Bruce Schneier

June 17, 2009

We Feel Faster Than We Think

Filed under: Quotes | , , , , ,
― Vincent Gable on June 17, 2009

I’ve been saying this for a while — as a medium gets faster, it gets more emotional. We feel faster than we think.

Clay Shirky

April 6, 2009

A Teddy Bear in the Uncanny Valley

Filed under: Design | , , ,
― Vincent Gable on April 6, 2009

I came across this creepy robot on Sentient Developments,

battlebot.jpg

… Its head is designed to look like that of a teddy bear, to provide reassurance to the wounded soldier it is transporting.

I don’t think I’m alone in finding that cold metal visage discomforting. I wouldn’t want to come-to, bleeding on a battlefield, staring into those lifeless inhuman eyes.

Personally I think a red cross symbol on a plywood board would make a better head. It’s not unsettling, and it’s what medics wear, so it means “help” to the wounded.

What I find so interesting about the BEAR’s “face” is that it’s clearly nonhuman, yet feels off in the same way as an android from the Uncanny Valley. My understanding of the Uncanny Valley phenomenon was that people didn’t reject creations that didn’t mimic some real creature. But I can’t accept the BEAR, even though it’s mimics a fuzzy-doll, not any kind of living creature.

I think the BEAR is an important advance in life-saving technology. I’m sure that robots will have an important roll in dangerous rescues, on and off the battlefield. But I have a feeling that a more purly-mechanical looking machine would have a more pleasing bedside manner.

March 7, 2009

Don’t Work Against Yourself

Filed under: Quotes | , , ,
― Vincent Gable on March 7, 2009

Reaganite conservatism axiomatically disdains government, and that creates a perverse incentive for conservative politicians to run government badly (or at least not to run it well), since the failure of government confirms conservative prejudices and (in theory) provides the movement with additional evidence in favor of its ideology. We just saw a particularly vivid example of this pathologically self-destructive dynamic at work in Bobby Jindal’s otherwise inexplicable attempt to turn the Bush administration’s utter ineptitude after Hurricane Katrina into a GOP talking point.

Damon Linker

I generally try to keep politics out of my blog, because political discussion on the internet isn’t productive. But I think there is a good lesson in this bit of history, and it’s very applicable to software development.

February 20, 2009

Bad Apples

Filed under: Quotes,Research | ,
― Vincent Gable on February 20, 2009

What they found, in short, is that the worst team member is the best predictor of how any team performs. It doesn’t seem to matter how great the best member is, or what the average member of the group is like. It all comes down to what your worst team member is like. The teams with the worst person performed the poorest.

Jeff Atwood

February 19, 2009

“Enhanced” Sports

Filed under: Research | , , , , , , ,
― Vincent Gable on February 19, 2009


200px-Oscar_Pistorius-2.jpg


Oscar Pistorius
, “The fastest man on no legs”, uses carbon-fiber prosthetic feet to run … apparently more efficiently then an able-bodied sprinter. And if he isn’t more efficient today, it’s a sure bet that technology will surpass mere flesh in the near future (at least in sprinting).

The cultural, ethical, and even technological, issues surrounding cyborg/transhuman athletes are fascinating.

The Genie is Out of the Bottle

Let’s be blunt, technology plays a roll in every sport today, and there is no going back.

Technology goes into equipment as basic as a shoe — making them lighter, springer, and more adhesive then anything humans have worn before.

The impact of better equipment was popularly recognized by at least the 1920s (if you have an earlier source please share),

Much of Improvement in Baseball Is Attributed to Evolution and Steady Progress of Mechanics and Invention

WHEN Babe Ruth hits three home runs in one game or the home team cracks out a barrage of base hits to score seven or eight times in one inning, it does not necessarily mean that long-distance hitting in modern baseball comes from superiority of today’s players over those of years past. The truth is that much of the improvement in the game itself and in the proficiency of its players has come from evolution and progress in science and invention.

Popular Mechanics, May, 1924

Then there’s the elephant in the room: the athlete’s body, and the “stuff” that goes into it.

The prisoners dilemma essentially forces athletes to dope — because the only way to be sure your opponent does not have an advantage over you is to take advantage as well. (This is the best overview of the doping problem, and solution I have seen.)

But it’s not just drugs and steroids. There’s also nutrition, and sports medicine. Where exactly is the line between a supplement and a drug? More chemical sophistication goes into todays vitamins than the drugs of the past.

Modern training regimens and equipment seem to have more to do with the science of conditioning then the love of a sport. It’s interesting that someone who just played all day would be at a disadvantage compared to someone who used targeted exercise machines.

Genetic engineering might be the most interesting future trend to watch. Obviously genetics are a huge part of determining physical ability.

What do We Want?

We love to watch superhumans compete. Professional athletes are supermen, since they play significantly above average human ability.

But we also want a “fair” and “honorable” fight. I honestly don’t know exactly what it all means. It’s OK to have an unplanned genetic advantage. Drugs are bad, even if everyone has access to them. We love the underdogs the most, yet celebrate the winners who have the most funding going into their training.

What’s Sportsmanlike

It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you place the blame.

–Oscar Wilde

The problem with giving disabled athletes accommodations, like carbon fiber feet, is that they are only work until they start winning. Then accommodations become an unfair advantage. It doesn’t matter if they are unfair in reality, because they look unfair.

But there’s a quality of life problem with essentially saying, “you cripples can only play with the other cripples”.

Accommodations in the context of sportsmanship is a sticky issue, and I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I’m not necessarily against “play until you win”, as a lesser of many evils. Sometimes playing is more important then winning.

One analogue is gender differences. There is good reason behind having separate men, women, and weight categories for sports. But in recreational play, mixed gender teams are often the norm (Ultimate seems to work very well with mixed gender teams).

But there’s a good case to be made for letting “enabled” athletes to compete separately, but to their fullest — essentially making the Paralympics the Cyberlimpics.

Conclusion

Maybe these pretty women will distract you from realizing I don’t have any answers, (Via Sensory Metrics):

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February 17, 2009

Hard-to-Say Names Feel more Dangerous

Filed under: Design | ,
― Vincent Gable on February 17, 2009

Via Schneier on Security, in two tests, ostensible food-additives were rated as more novel and dangerous when their names were harder to pronounce. In another test, amusement park rides were rated as more thrilling, but more sickening, when their names were harder to pronounce.

Here’s a link to the abstract, but I can’t figure out how to find the real article.

January 16, 2009

Economic Distress and Fear

Filed under: Quotes | , ,
― Vincent Gable on January 16, 2009

Part of the debtor mentality is a constant, frantically suppressed undercurrent of terror. We have one of the highest debt-to-income ratios in the world, and apparently most of us are two paychecks from the street. Those in power — governments, employers — exploit this, to great effect. Frightened people are obedient — not just physically, but intellectually and emotionally. If your employer tells you to work overtime, and you know that refusing could jeopardize everything you have, then not only do you work the overtime, but you convince yourself that you’re doing it voluntarily, out of loyalty to the company; because the alternative is to acknowledge that you are living in terror. Before you know it, you’ve persuaded yourself that you have a profound emotional attachment to some vast multinational corporation: you’ve indentured not just your working hours, but your entire thought process. The only people who are capable of either unfettered action or unfettered thought are those who — either because they’re heroically brave, or because they’re insane, or because they know themselves to be safe — are free from fear.

Quote is from The Likeness, a novel set in Ireland, by Tana French. (Via Schneier on Security.)

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