ideal programming language thoughts

I think things like strong and weak references have to be brought into the programming language.

so in the definition
class Telephone 
{ 
  public: 
       
      Number phoneNumberDigit ; // normal 
      String weak name ;
      String  lazy phoneNumber ; // regenerable 
 } 


So when you assign elements you have

  thing.phoneNumberDigit = new Number( 230033) ; // normal 
 name <- "bob" ; // weak reference and don't forget it. 
 phoneNumber <- thing.phoneNumber.toString();// we can regenerate on demand 

   when you accesses them you get the same kind of thing.
  
    this->name.something(); 
   if( this->phoneNumber != null )  this->phoneNumber.something() ; // forced by compiler

naturally you would put the access to a lazy value in an accessor to make sure it was there when
you needed it.

Basically weak things say - if everyone else has stopped looking at this then its OK to loose the object. I don't own this I just know about it.
Lazy objects say - hay if your short of space its OK to loose this reference too I will check each time I need it.  Good for compact low memory environments.
  

A Day Made of Glass...

I've found my self strangely drawn to these kinds of things. You know they are made by a 'brain storming' exercise and then made to look cool by a well funded corporate video production team.

They are the infeasible concept cars of the digital industries. Except now they are being made by the glass industry.

A good news day (

Well what a busy day Its 5:46 and I'm about to have my morning coffee. Gonzalo turned with with some AAC students and Ava which was very nice. So they are mostly Architects and Sculptors with a curiosity in things digital ( this was the old  UCL Virtual Environments course I set up a long time ago). They were very fun and it was nice to see some young faces for once.

Gonzalo and I had a good time running them through the final stage of the wineshop. while we did G, told me that Chirs Luebkeman ( Ducan Wilson's boss see my links ) from the mighty Ove Arups is doing a TED talk and he wants to use an image of the Wineshop as part of that talk eke!

Arups are also going to use  run the experiment in their london space for a while as well. This would be really cool Yvonne asked about being truly ecologically valid.

So a happy day. It was interesting I was talking to the students and it made me realise how busy things are and how much we have to play with. The students were quite envious of the kinds of things we have done to the building and more importantly the space we have to do thing with. Which is quite nice its was very good to be reminded of the positive sides of being here.

Today both Gonzalo and I managed to get 6 people through our experiments ( cool!) but for me the most interesting aspect was Gonzalo sat down and did a focus group about the place stats. He started to use the Microsoft desirability cards but in a group context which I thought was interesting. It makes you wonder what kind of work has been done in the context of focus groups and HCI.

While I'm on the good news front OUR HCI2011 workshop has been accepted ( the link to the call is here ) and I'm in a workshop for CHI ( so time to hurriedly sort CHI attendance out too).

Oh and I did I mention that Rose has got most of the grey balls painted and I've nearly completed the pads for Nicolas experiment?

Also a copy of Analog In, Digital Out arrived on my desk - I thought I would check out the Associates widget worked.

Seminar: Prof. Richard Noss, University of London

What we teach is dominated by what you could teach with pencil and paper 200 years ago.

The iPad is the moment when We discovered that office work is not the dominant mode of interaction.

I like any one who quotes Illich
Convivial computing anyone?

If your dealing with paper the starting with line graphs, the move to curves. With software why not start with curves and use lines as special cases.

AI is just getting to the point were is might be useful. AI ED is big but no AI in actual class rooms.

Technology is helping with inclusion.

We talk about using technology to affect how we tech but not what we teach.
Is Doing calculus on the bus is the definition of flexible learning?

Who,how ,what.

Personal inquiry project.
Simplifed problems in science are boring but the best you could with paper. Complexity is interesting and something you can do with computing.

Mi-gen some ideas look hard when you doing have the right way of dealing with them.
Find the right representation and you can teach anything.

People get lost at X and Y - when you get to the abstractions.


Xpresser the swimming pool calculator.

Algrebra is a set of rules for manipulating symbols.Algebra 1
Algebra is also way of thinking. The general case over specifics. Algebra 2

Algebra 2

Tool try's to use AI to diagnose problems make sense of what students are doing.
No ontology about how we think mathematically.
We don't need intelligent tutoring systems - we can't do them if we can't understand the ontology of the subject.

Responding to students emotional estate in maths panic is the emotional state.

Where is teachers facebook?


Personally I am tempted to wonder what would happen if you used a stream based programming language. Pipes moving data . Could you use this to create the balance





Like notion of jam jars on table with number underneath it.

Microsoft Surface watch out

Looks like the age of projector based multi-touch is over.




Here in the lab we are busy with experiments and failing email.

trains and interfaces

From my face book page. 


Turns out that the super saver ticket the web site sold me will not let me travel on the train to Newcastle( even with the seat reservation) . Now have to wait. Until 7:00 to leave so all the rush to leave work early was for nothing. Current choice pay£101 or disappoint kids b not being back in time to read to them. I hate you trainline.co.UK website


Eva Hornecker I still prefer going to the trainstation to buy in person cause the websites don#t really explain which ticket options are valid - and sometimes do not list all the options!


 Well I ended up going to the website because last time I spoke to the ticket office I was far to flexible. The ticket guy was irritated with how flexible I was. Unfortunately I am now living in small village with no ticket office so web is only choice.


Now I have had time to calm down I've started to wonder how complicit my dyslexia was. I find these very texty websites hard to follow and have noticed that for many non text centric tasks I find the iPhone/IPad interface much more comprehensible. 




This inspires an interesting bit of research 


eye track both web and mobile conditions for common web/mobile apps and see if there is any substantive usability issues. 

Finally the experiment begins!

Gonzalo's experiment has finally taken off with lots of visitors  I think he could easily get the base condition done this week. 


We also have three new visitors 

Vaiva Kalnikaite

Pablo Haya

Estefanía Martín

so things are going to be quite busy for a while! 

Microsoft gadgeteer

Just saw a gadgetter processor in the lab. 


Nice for building - less work connecting but more work programming. Processor much more powerful  (16Mb of ram) but the whole thing is much more expensive than the Arudio. Reminds me of the sunSpot. nice but the complexities of getting java working was just to much. 


perhaps this is better. 

Gesture recognition from wearables

I'm sitting waiting for Nicola to turn up to discuss some iPad stuff.

Over Christmas I wondered about creating a wearable which could act as a mobile surface - you could drag and used gestures on any object. This could be combined with a projector to make a multi touch table from anything or have other uses.

Came across this Korean wearable work (see link) Recognizing Hand Gestures using Wrist Shapes. . They use IR optic sensor to detect tendon movement. And a neural network to interpret the gestures.I like the idea of reaching further into the surface of the body to pick up more information t

Cinder - processing replacement

Its in C++ ( so fast ) but not so all encompassing.

Its official even the BBC thinks multitouch will be big ( for something)

Well it must be true. I can't embed the video this so follow the link..

"A touch screen that responds to many people using it has been revealed at the CES technology show in Las Vegas.

The 3M device runs on Windows and Linux. It can be manipulated through thin gloves and responds to more than 20 simultaneous points of contact.

Click's Marc Cieslak tries it out." 

Looks like Microsoft finally did it

A low formfactor MS surface 2 !  I've been predicting something like this as why we do the research now.