Hello, thanks for visiting my website! I'm a computer science PhD student at Lancaster University, researching situated displays in small communities. This is my home on the web, where I'll post up odd bits and pieces.
Tuesday, 23 September 2008
Just Because You're Paranoid...
...don't mean they're not after you.
Jason tells me the flashy lights on escalators are called 'facetraps' -- the idea is that the shiny thing makes you look upwards at the camera so they can get a clear shot of you. Worked on me at least, so I guess there's a nice photo somewhere of me squinting suspiciously at the camera.
I did get a chance to use my fancy biometric passport on holiday to avoid a huge queue, but my girlfriend wouldn't let me. Technology foiled by society yet again...
Posted at 09:50 UTC | 1 Comments | Link This | Email This
Sunday, 7 September 2008
Underground Paranoia
I was down in Cambridge again in July, which necessitates a change through London. I had luggage, so I decided to take the tube instead of walking between Euston and King's Cross. They're so close together I probably ended up walking further through the endless white-tiled tunnels than I would have done on the surface, but never mind.
The Underground reminds me of clinical, dystopian futures, possibly because they usually film movies about clinical, dystopian futures in metro stations, but with that in mind, I noticed a flashing green beam above the bottom of the escalator, a bit like that flashing cross-hatch pattern you get from barcode readers. Its probably just some part of the escalator, but I got to wonder if it might be some kind of face recognition gizmo up there, matching me up against my biometric passport data for nefarious purposes.
Google sheds no light (flashing green or otherwise) on the matter, so I'm hoping someone might see this and satisfy my curiosity...
On a related note, I'm going on holiday to Portugal this week, flying from Manchester Airport, where they're trialling biometric passenger checks, so I look forward to testing it out voluntarily, on September 11th no less.
Posted at 19:09 UTC | 1 Comments | Link This | Email This
Thursday, 4 September 2008
Initial Thoughts on Google Chrome
I gave Chrome a try (obviously). I am, in fact, using it to post this:
- It is indeed quite fast, but then, so was Firefox before I loaded it down with add-ons and history.
- Flash brings it quickly to a halt.
- I miss Adblock.
- Scrolling is strange and jerky.
- That flashing status bar in the bottom corner drives me beserk.
- "Porn Mode" will be in the dictionary by 2010.
- Searching from the address bar is a good idea.
- So are the thumbnails of my favourite sites.
- But it seems to be lacking an awful lot right now.
All in all, its nothing to ditch Firefox for, but I'm certainly hoping that, just like everyone has pinched their Awesome Bar, they'll pinch a couple of things back for 4.0.
Posted at 13:43 UTC | 0 Comments | Link This | Email This
Tuesday, 12 August 2008
I'm Me, I Promise: Online Banking Usability
Online banking is awesome, no doubt about that, but it neccessitates the tedious process of proving that I am indeed who I say I am. That needn’t be as difficult as it frequently is, and I’ve had two vastly different experiences with different banks.
Natwest gets it very, very right. Their first step is to enter a ten digit code to identify myself, which sounds daunting, except the first six digits are my date of birth and I only have to remember four. Next step is to enter my PIN and password, but only three random characters from each. That's not as difficult as it could be either, because the password and PIN are the same each time (that might seem like a strange thing to point out, but its going somewhere), so after a while I know the positions of each character by heart. As each character is entered, focus automatically moves to the next text box, which is handy.
Icesave, despite having a very similar procedure, gets it really badly wrong. It too starts with a ten character code, but this includes letters and numbers, seven of which are random, so I can't remember it. The website helpfully offers to "remember" it for me, but frequently forgets at a later date. The second stage is also similar to Natwest's, just much lamer. It asks me for three random characters from one of three possibilities (memorable name, memorable place, or memorable date), so I have no hope of learning the positions by heart. To make things worse, it gives me no clue as to what format the date was in, and I have to pick the three characters from drop down boxes rather than tapping them on my keyboard--for dates, this involves tediously scrolling through the entire alphabet to get to the numbers.
Since Britons are supposedly more likely to change their partner than their bank, I don't think Icesave need to be too worried about haemorrhaging customers any time soon, but it just goes to show what a difference a little thought during the design process can make.
Posted at 21:08 UTC | 0 Comments | Link This | Email This
Thursday, 7 August 2008
On Mispellings
Bad spelling should be accepted, says some criminology lecturer, possibly after running out of red ink while marking exams. Its a bold idea, that the most common misspellings should be added to the English language as variants, and while its unlikely to happen, it had me quietly cheering as I read it.
What impressed me less was the response from BBC readers. I join in these discussions occasionally, and I'm usually elated to see that the top-rated handful of comments represent opinions which are sane, moderate and occasionally enlightened (that is to say, they match mine). But faced with the terrible prospect of making slight changes to the English language, the posters apparently all turn into rabid nationalist lunatics, frothing at the mouth about "dumbing down" and "bastardisation" (that's "bastard" from Old French by the way).
Do these people think God handed us the Little Oxford English Dictionary and Pocket Grammar Guide out of the blue, or do they arrogantly believe that we have simply perfected the art of communication and should call it a day? Do they think our language today bears any more than a passing resemblance to the language used by, say, Shakespeare? (As an aside, I seem to recall reading that Shakespeare himself, that hero of the English language held aloft by people who conveniently forget they don't understand a word of his plays, was responsible for many new words and corruptions of the language).
They seem to forget that if language did not evolve, we would have no language. English was not "dumbed down" by an influx of Norse words, or Norman words, or the word "banana". It was enriched.
Language is about conveying meaning, not following rules. If it communicates the message effectively, does it really matter if i comes before e?
Posted at 20:40 UTC | 0 Comments | Link This | Email This