Thursday, May 21, 2009

Arduino Ethernetsheidl code.

I couldn't find any on line code to check the ethershield working on Arduino so here is mine. You need telnet.

#include
#include
#include

/*
* Chat
* this is an example of the simplist possible hello world
* program. Use telnet to talk to the machine
* telnet ipaddress you give the machine.
*/
int boardLED = 13 ;
int ledPin = 12; // LED connected to digital pin 13
int greenLED = 11;



byte mac[] = { 0x85, 0xDC, 0x1D, 0x14, 0xD7, 0x53 }; // second mac address 85:DC:1D:14:D7:53
byte ip[] = { 169,254,74,14 };// find your own network address
byte gateway[] = { 169,254,74,32 };
byte subnet[] = { 255, 255, 0, 0 };
Server server = Server(23);

//int thing[12];

void setup() // run once, when the sketch starts
{
pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // sets the digital pin as output
pinMode(greenLED, OUTPUT ) ;
pinMode(boardLED, OUTPUT ) ;
Ethernet.begin(mac, ip, gateway, subnet);
server.begin();
}

void loop() // run over and over again
{
digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // sets the LED on
delay(random(0, 250));
digitalWrite(boardLED, HIGH);
delay(random(0, 250));
digitalWrite(greenLED, LOW);
delay(random(0, 500)); // waits for a second
digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW); // sets the LED off
digitalWrite(greenLED, HIGH);
delay(random(0, 1000)); // waits for a second
digitalWrite(boardLED, LOW);
Client client = server.available();
if (client) {
server.write(client.read());
}
}

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Interesting observation of the morning

Just noticed some people talking about signage in the building. 

Looks like the positioning of the signage is highly intuitive. Which is not to run it down, a visitor to the building is going to be better at evaluating when they need help rather than an occupant. There can be many non discursive elements to signage. 

From observing the conversation focus on visitors vs locals. 
Concerns with "messy" (visually cluttered). 
No strong notions of navigation. 

I never noticed that the sign to the pervasive area said 'post room'. 

Existental insideness

thounght for two experiments.
1.investigating by interview peoples desktops. Both phisical and virtual
when users have been using software for long periods they don't think consusly but use there body to remember.
2. Displays using expressions faces to visualize data like energy consumption up or down ( so a more emotional engagement). Also I suspect that text, images, signs and people are different categories when it comes to how people read signs. 
3. Why not put the attrium study up as an MSC project to gain more data. We have the write up why not get more data. 

Tuesday, May 19, 2009


C = 1.0 - (R/255)
M = 1.0 - (G/255)
Y = 1.0 - (B/255)
K = MIN(C,M,Y)
C = (C-K)/(1-K).
M = (M-K)/(1-K).
Y = (Y-K)/(1-K).


Unfortunately if you mix BLUE ( CMYK = 1,1,0,0) with YELLOW ( CMYK = 0,0,1,0) you get grey (0.5,0.5,0.5,0) not green ( 1,0, 1 , 0) 

I think the solution is to go to HSL space but be aware of the possibility that you can go either way round the colour wheel.

sheep

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Thoughts on technology

1. Science and technology are different things. People even particanters frequently merge to the two together but they are not the same thing. One does not lead to the latter. When an atomic physicist builds an atomic bomb they actually become atomic engineers. They are engaging in a separate process, with separate rules and separate processes and outcomes. Science has higher credence with the wider population so sometimes subjects are miss represented to maintain cultural funding.

1.1 Scientists and Technologists think differently about things. For a scientists the ultimate outcome is promotion of self and their perticualr beliefs. For engineer the ultimate outcome is the promotion of the changes made by the technologist them selves the self is unimportant. This is ego centric and world centric production.

2. I might contend that science is an extension a practice based upon technology. A microscope ( technology ) is invented and this leads to a number of scientific discoveries. Many scientists engage in technological development in the name of science and it is these developments which frequently 'spin off' into technology rather then the scientific results. Scientific knowledge is largely ignored (or not researched )when developing new products. I would contend the creation of new medical drugs is largely an technological process rather than a scientific one.

3. A technology is defined by the experience of it - what it affords. A table or chair is hard to define until you define what it lets you do with it you couldn't do with out it rather than what it is. For many engineers this is what might be termed 'utility'. But utility has a number of preconceptions about what is good and what is 'bad'. For example making a game or something fun is an affordance but does not sit well with most engineers vision of 'utility'.

4. The affordance drives the adoption mediated by the process of capitalism.
Today I felt very sorry for the people marching for jobs outside parliament. If they want to have some kind of influence they should have really marched outside some venture capital buildings.

Venture capital is driven by risk rather than understanding the technology and its outcomes so you get some strange results. Venture Capital has its own logics which limits what it can and cannot do. For example VC cannot stray to far outside the current technological domain.

5. All new products are the process of either technology push ( technology affordance) and market pull. I would content a successful project is actually a combination between the both. Pull is the potential market and push is why your potential competitors havn't met that need yet.

6. Market need is a myth. Who sat round in the 1820's saying if only we could get from London to Manchester in 3 hours life would be so much better? Needs are only discovered/perceived by creating methods to meet those needs. This what we think of as market need is simply known technological affordance (If I can get from London to Manchester in 3 hour how could I use that). When it looks like you are assessing market 'needs' then you are only applying knowledge of current known solutions rather than being open ended about speculating entirely new ones. It is very difficult to frame a question where a true need is identified, and if it was done generally then its moderatly unlikely that the technologist in question will be able to innovate sufficiently to meet that need.

7. All technology is in fact driven by appropriation. Appropriation is process of users seeing affordances which have not been perceived of by the original creators. Phoning your self up to leave a message as a reminder is example of appropriation. In fact appropriation drives all new technologies. Only does meeting a need ( for filling a new affordance) leading to substantive innovation but this assumes the technology creator knows both the aforndance and the likely appropriation - which can happen but is rare.

8. Appropriation also cultural -in modern society we use thing to meet social needs most of our vital needs are already catered for. So for example people might consider solar panels on their roofs but not insulation in their buildings. The movie and digital media are pushing them selves towards extinction due to digital copyright problems. The obvious solution would be to demand analogue storage devices (DVDs) which would inheriantly introduce noise into the picture and so make copying difficult. But they cannot due to the view of digital media being 'the future'.

9. Appropriation can occur for non discursive reasons. SUV/4x4 met a non discursive need.

10. The experience of technology is fundamental to our relationship to it and the every day.

11. Some technologies are about what to think with and some are about what to think of.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

New table working

Paul got new surface on table looks very good.works great

Talk

Fun day gave talk about the attrium study. Few things emerged out of it.
Richie keen to redo study in us. He has laser people counters,
Talked to someone about clocks and made mental note to thing about our internal mental clocks and how big clockS reset them. What other internal info do we have that changes?
Promised power ploint to Paul + audiance guy.

Helped richie get network ardiunio working

Did mac diamond touch TUIO program for jeff and spoke to dave.
Need to get. Back to table.

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Thinking.

I was reading this

1. B. Hillier, “Between Social Physics and Phenomenology: explorations towards an urban synthesis?,” in Proceedings of the 5th International Space Syntax Symposium, vol. 1, 2.

And started to make lots of links between Phenomenology/Ethnography and HCI. In essence David Seamon has made a lot of interesting noises about how the architectural theory space syntax links in with phenomenology mostly the phenomenology of space. Due to the focus on building from experience to create life in the streets. I see phenomenology/syntax as a very complementary views of the world. Hillier sees it as a bridge between phenomenology and social physics (his term).

I was talking about this with Paul and Riche saying how what I would like to do for HCI what syntax did for urban design. Effectively create a theory of object (software) which could be used analytically for design. Currently we operate from theories/practices of human (psychology) and society ( Ethnography ) which gives the computing people/designers little to contribute but interventions. Is this getting to the essence of HCI ( to use the phenomenology).

I guess what I'm looking for what is called space in architecture but for HCI. Space in architecture is a very abstract concept but is very familair (you by the building by the price per sqr foot), is not that which we build it is defined by what we build, it is what we build for and what architects think we respond to.

Richie said something interesting, when you are looking for a new house you look at the empty rooms and think what you can do with them. In HCI terms your looking for the affordances of the builds volume/void/space. But we don't talk about specific affordances the way space syntax can be specific and objective about space.

Going back to the rooms , when I look at Excel, or word don't think about what it is I think about what I can do with it. So Excel has a large 'interaction-space' for want of a better word. Clearly both Excel and Word set an agenda but are very flexible within in that realm. I'm still not sure what I mean.

Richie also had that zen moment about space defining the bowl. When you buy a bowl all it does is to define that space, with out that space it is not a bowl. Bill also talks about things forming from relationships of object, a table is just a number of chunks of wood until they form in a specific set of relationships. Perhaps the table is also the space it defines underneath it and above it.

I'm speculating but perhaps the space in things is the paths through the things we flow through when we use them. The orders of clicks and pages on a web site the sequences of clicks on a mobile phone. Are these paths essential uses of things are they part of our use of things?

M. recommended S. Todes, Body and world (MIT Press, 2001). to check out. Looks embodied.



Monday, May 11, 2009

Dana table

Nice morning getting table back up and running with new image software.
Must put in wires to stop moving. New mirror orders. Need to speck to tuur about table top. Might so inner sock.
Paul has got new silicon top.
Need better colour mixing light or paint.
Mary needs to sort out man with big van
Need to sort out paint and edges.
Need to do project plan with times on.
Soft ware needs channels.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Acrylic suppliers.

Good for table top or solar powered dryers.

http://www.barkston-online.co.uk/cuttingCalc.php?osCsid=da2f063265cbb0c5724b5eb3c0001fb2

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Heat pumps again

Notes about heat pumps related interaction

So what have I found. A fair amount about the visualisation to do behaviour change little about thermostats and nothing about interaction with heat pumps. Some nice stuff about looking at families in this context. SmartHome is a power world.

http://www.spinellis.gr/pubs/conf/2002-SANE-iFurnace/html/ifurnace.pdf
Information Furnace. About a system linking everything together. Not thery ubicomp.

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/jfroehli/publications/HCIC09_RoleOfFeedback.pdf
Promoting Energy Efficient Behaviors in the Home through Feedback: The Role of Human-Computer Interaction

http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1409668
Getting to green: understanding resource consumption in the home

Palmtop Programmable Appliance Controls - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.39.9258&rep=rep1&type=pdf
looks to be using small device to program home appliances.

http://research.stepgreen.org/site/uploads/Footprints/dillahunt_final.pdf
Motivating Environmentally Sustainable Behavior Changes with a Virtual Polar Bear
Socially-Aware Requirements for a Smart Home http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.104.5771&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Energy Aware Dwelling: A Critical Survey of Interaction Design for Eco-Visualizations
http://www.jamesjpierce.com/publications/energy_aware_dwelling.pdf ( looks at visualisation.

Facilitating the programming of the smart home
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=1160084


Page 1
1 Workshop 18 - Residential Environments and People Interaction between occupants and sustainable building Karin Soldaat k.soldaat@otb.tudelft.nl Paper presented at the ENHR conference "Housing in an expanding Europe: theory, policy, participation and implementation" Ljubljana, Slovenia 2 - 5 July 2006

short paper on using X-10 adn TKl as interface (text based).
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/330000/327654/a7-benedict.html?key1=327654&key2=6730251421&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=33305013&CFTOKEN=44195938

searches.
"thermostat interaction HCI"
"Thermostats hci interaction sustainable"

Another system how too

I'm mid paper writing at the moment
but got emailed this
http://labs.ideo.com/2009/02/11/hacked-rear-projection-tv-into-multitouch-display/

Is a good how-to on how to do laser scanning.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Heatpumps

Notes about heat pumps related interaction

http://www.spinellis.gr/pubs/conf/2002-SANE-iFurnace/html/ifurnace.pdf
Information Furnace. About a system linking everything together. Not thery ubicomp.

http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/jfroehli/publications/HCIC09_RoleOfFeedback.pdf

Palmtop Programmable Appliance Controls - http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.39.9258&rep=rep1&type=pdf
looks to be using small device to program home appliances.

Socially-Aware Requirements for a Smart Home http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.104.5771&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Energy Aware Dwelling: A Critical Survey of Interaction Design for Eco-Visualizations
http://www.jamesjpierce.com/publications/energy_aware_dwelling.pdf ( looks at visualisation.

Facilitating the programming of the smart home
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=1160084


Page 1
1 Workshop 18 - Residential Environments and People Interaction between occupants and sustainable building Karin Soldaat k.soldaat@otb.tudelft.nl Paper presented at the ENHR conference "Housing in an expanding Europe: theory, policy, participation and implementation" Ljubljana, Slovenia 2 - 5 July 2006

short paper on using X-10 adn TKl as interface (text based).
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/330000/327654/a7-benedict.html?key1=327654&key2=6730251421&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=33305013&CFTOKEN=44195938

Saturday, May 2, 2009



Note books - http://www.pinballpublishing.com/
Pillows - http://www.inmod.com/design-your-own-pillow.html
nice bags - http://joshjakus.com/UM-bags.php

http://www.shapeways.com/ - they make shapes but how much ? ?

Friday, May 1, 2009

Note books and tables.

I was thinking about place and relating it to my place and tabletops. Clearly tables play a part in meetings. We have them we deliberatly remove them remove them . Clearly tables have the affordabce of holding things.
This led me to think about notes and note takeing. What effect does the size of the note book have on the kinds of notes and jottings people make?
I realized I could examin my own note books to see what kinds of notes I made and if the differing size of note books changed what kinds of things I drew.
Perhaps there is a msc project here