Book Reading #42 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Appendix III: Samoan Civilization as It Is Today
Summary:
Many subtle Western tools and ideals have been acculturated into the Samoan lifestyle. Knifes, tobacco, and mosquito nets are now used, while large canoes have been replaced by smaller ones. The government does not interfere with their lifestyle. Punishment has changed a lot, and the emphasis on puberty has wained. 
Discussion:
I thought it was interesting that some of the same ideals are still present. For example, they still do not use furniture and must not address another while standing. However, the do use mosquito nets and other items, even if they prefer the older ways in some cases. I think it's a good thing that people have not tried to change their lifestyle too much, and rather have let them choose how they want to live. 

Paper Reading #18

Comments:
Comment #1
Comment #2
Reference:
Title: Personalized News Recommendation Based on Click Behavior
Author: Jiahui Liu, Peter Dolan, Elin Rønby Pedersen
Venue: IUI 2010, Google Inc.

Summary:
This paper discusses new ways people who read their news online could get that news. Large numbers of people use things like Google News and Yahoo! to get their news. However, the previous algorithm Google News used was comparing against people who had read similar articles. This poses a problem because recently released articles that haven't been read yet may be skipped over. This system is designed to fix that problem.

Google News, as well as many other sites, use text-based classifications to sort articles into categories. This system would do the same as well, but instead of comparing what articles the user read to what others have also read, it will compare to all articles, with an emphasis on the recent. To conduct this analysis, the group used Google News users, and kept everything anonymous per the Google policies. The first thing this system does is compares what categories the user typically clicks on. This provides a "click distribution." Next it compares the click history with previous months to see if there is a change in the user's interests based on their clicks. Then the click distributions of all users on particular news items is compared to analyze the potential impacts on local, national, and global news. Using this data, a Bayesian framework is constructed to predict the user's interests. Also, the group kept a "recommended reading" section, which did not contain personalized articles, but articles that were popular or significant elsewhere. The results of their test showed that frequency of visits from the test group was 14.1% higher, with a 99% confidence interval. This is a significant improvement.
Discussion:
I thought this article was pretty entertaining. I can see lots of people using it, and only makes Google even more superior. There was lots of technical details and formulas that I didn't feel were necessary. I think a good article shouldn't contain many of those. Those should be saved for a sales pitch or something like that. It's a good way to get people coming back for more, in my opinion. I haven't ever used Google News, but I think I may try it for my news information. They proved that this method works, so it is unlikely that this would fail when taken out of testing. My one complaint is that it takes a click as a positive vote. What happens if you don't like what you clicked on after reading it?

Ethnography Results, Week 7

Wesley and I could not go last night (Wednesday), which is our usual night to go, because of scheduling conflicts. As a result, we're going Sunday and then again next Wednesday.

Update:
Wesley and I went to poetry slam night last night (Sunday). It was a similar atmosphere as the previous Wednesday, but there were even more people there this time. Obviously poetry slam is incredibly popular. I must admit, I thought this was much more fun. The types of people were about the same as Open Mic night. There were a few people from Austin as well, and they fit right in, just to give an idea of the types of people there. Also, one of the performers was a guy I grew up with since I was little. It was funny seeing him perform. He was a guy who, quite simply, was an "easy target" because he didn't know how to stand up for himself. He got "messed with" his whole life, but nothing serious like fights or anything like that. Just simple teasing or pranks. Most, if not all, of the poetry was religiously or parentally charged. People complained or discussed issues with a rough childhood or controversial religious issues. The one exception was a woman who talked about the conflicts of being a stripper and being used sexually. These things, combined with my previous knowledge of my poet friend, causes me to believe that the crowd that attends these things fall into these categories. I understand how having a hard childhood could cause internal conflict that people need to release or express in some way. It seems to me that these people all have some tragedy or strife that causes them to turn to poetry. Overall, I had a good time. It's much more fun when there are more people there.

Book Reading #41 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 2: We All Search for Meaning
Summary:
People generally don't remember names because of the lack of meaning. However, people do remember faces. There have been over 200 convicted criminals released because they were found innocent by DNA evidence, and 77% of them were identified by the eyewitnesses.
Discussion:
I liked this chapter again. I like that the author does not speak in technical terms, but also uses a lot of statistics. I found that a lot of the stats he used in this chapter have applied to me in the past. I thought it was just something that applied to me, but apparently is very common.
Chapter 3: We Connect the Dots
Summary:
Humans can make decisions based on things we do not notice or see. For example, strippers earn more according to where they are in their fertility cycle. Also colors, such as black, have an impact on how we make a decision. Finally people generally believe that one should not change answers on a test from the first answer, even though this is proven to be incorrect, and additionally people regret changing these answers more so than not changing them.
Discussion:
Again I found this chapter to hit home, so to speak. I always regret changing an answer more so than not changing an answer. I found the part about the strippers to be very astonishing because I would think that would be the last thing to affect their pay.

Paper Reading #17

Comments:
Comment #1
Comment #2
Reference:
Title: Aspect-level news browsing: understanding news events from multiple viewpoints
Author: Souneil Park, SangJeong Lee, Junehwa SongVenue: IUI 2010
Summary:
A large issue with news reporting is the bias of the author or the news station they work for. A result of this is that the general public does not get an accurate representation of an issue because most readers do not thoroughly search a subject. Instead readers go to one or maybe two providers and get an article that emphasizes certain aspects rather than the issue as a whole. If readers went to all sources and compared the results, they would get a much more accurate view of the issue at hand.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a solution to this problem. Google News, and other things similar to it, only provide event level browsing. This system would organize events based on the aspect that paper emphasizes. For example, each different aspect of the event and how it was covered would be represented in a different corner. Bias in reporters can be seen by the different topics or aspects that they choose to emphasize, as already said, so organizing items in this fashion is not unfeasible. Aspect-level classification is achieved in two steps: aspect extraction and article classification. Keywords play a prominent role in each of these things, but things such as meta-data also are important. The group had high success with their aspect classification system.
Discussion:
I think this is another good idea for news browsing. This one builds off the previous article on the list of readings, which I was actually assigned to read after this one. Reading the other one first made this article much easier to understand. Similar to the other article, this article had a lot of formulas and technical talk despite the somewhat easy concept. As a result I thought it was harder to read than it could (or should) have been. I believe that people, for the most part, are not interested in the technical "how" these things are made, but rather what it does and if it works. I think this system will work given the data that they collected and will be yet another improvement to Google's empire. I'm not sure if their idea of spacing, placing things in the corners, is going to work. People like to look in one area for all their information. Placing things all across the screen is not good management of the screen space, in my opinion. However, I do think that ultimately this will work, especially since it has Google backing. Rule of thumb for me: Never under estimate Google.3

Book Reading #40 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 14: Education for Choice
Summary:
The chapter is aptly titled, as the author clearly believes that our children should be allowed to choose what they believe or how they live, rather than the parents trying to impose their own standards on their children. She states that the multitude of choices present to our children makes it more imperative that children be taught how to think, not what to think, as this will reduce the strain on the adolescents. Thus she believes the strain on adolescents is caused from the parents trying to control their children's beliefs rather than the nature of being an adolescent.
Discussion:
I really disagree with her whole fundamental philosophy in this chapter, but concede she does make a few good points. I agree in allowing children to choose rather than using force, but only to a slight degree. I think parents absolutely should push their children towards what is moral and what they believe is right, but not that we can force them to believe something. Also I disagree that the strain would be reduced even if the child choose for themselves because they would still be different from others. High school is stressful and not because children haven't chosen what they want to believe. Also, I think extending the educational period is a very good thing because as we mature we are more able to make sound decisions.

Book Reading #39 - Why We Make Mistakes

Chapter 0: Introduction
Chapter 1: We Look but Don’t Always See
Summary:
In these two chapters, the author gets the reader acquainted with what the book will be about. He begins with discussing several key historical mistakes made all over the world in various professions, and by defining the term mistake. He discusses the supposedly simple action of seeing, and all the errors that can occur doing what most people do all day every day. 
Discussion:
I liked the author's writing style. He is much more interesting than Stanley Milgram. I found the part about the formerly blind to be most interesting. Seeing seems such a simple task, but actually is quite difficult. I'm guessing listening will come be the same way.

Book Reading #38 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 13: Our Educational Problems in the Light of Samoan 
Summary:
This chapter is all about comparing American and Samoan societies and what could cause the differences in the upbringing. Samoans simply have less choices or thus potential for conflict, whether it relate to religion or the diversity of her family or the family influences on life choices. The treatment of sex is the largest rift between the two cultures, and the author talks at great lengths about the issue. Finally the author at the end compares the (formal) educational differences, and how American children have much different views of work, school, and play.
Discussion:
I think the author is being pretty harsh in this chapter. It seems like she is highly criticizing the American society, while in fact that society, although flawed, put us at the top of the world powers. Perhaps I just have the luxury of hindsight though. Also I think it's obvious the author has a very negative view of religion, which I strongly disagree with and made me want to stop reading as she continually bashed religion.

Book Reading #37 - Obedience to Authority

Chapter 9 - 14
Summary:
These chapters delved into the psychological aspect more than the actual experiments. He does discuss a few more variations however, which involved the effects of groups. Then Milgram gives his explanation for why he thinks the subjects behaved the way they did, which is that they transfer into an agentic state combined with the predisposed and binding factors. Lastly he closes with rejecting the theory of aggression and that his experiment is flawed, as well as a comparison to Nazi Germany.
Discussion:
This section was even harder to read than the first. His technical way of writing just does not keep my attention well. I thought his reasoning for his beliefs was sound, as were the methods of the experiments.

Obedience to Authority

Summary:
This book is all about the obedience experiments performed by Stanley Milgram, and written by Stanley Milgram. Milgram wanted to test whether normal people would be willing to harm another individual under the direction of another. This has obvious parallels to the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Milgram had a naive subject electrically shock another person to supposedly test the effect punishment has on learning. The shock machine did not actually shock the other person, but rather was just designed to see if the subject would administer what he/she believed to be incredibly painful shock levels, although the experimenter assured the subject that they would not cause any damage. Milgram performed 18 variations of the experiment to test each individual angle that could be dissected. People were generally obedient to an alarming amount. If there were group members there also proceeding in the experiment, then the obedience was even higher, almost total obedience. However, if the group members stopped participating, the obedience was almost non-existent. Milgram also studied the effects on proximity/closeness to the victim and to authority, as well as different roles of authority and levels of authority. He found virtually no difference between men and women and the levels of obedience.

Milgram's explanation for the obedience is that people slip into an "agentic" state, where they are no longer themselves per say, but rather an agent for someone else to perform a task. People do not use their own moral principles because they slip into this state and have the need to satisfy the authority figure. He rejects the notion that the aggressive nature of people is the reason for the obedience because people refused to do the experiment when the authority was weakened or not present. Finally he makes a brief comparison to what the Nazis did by saying that while the two events are hugely different, the same underlying principle in his experiment applies to those atrocities.
Discussion:
I have to admit, I really didn't enjoy reading this book. It's not horrible, but I didn't like his writing style. I felt it made it hard to read and lost my attention very quickly. The experiment itself is pretty fascinating, and I enjoyed reading the dialog accounts of the participants. However, the way Milgram analysed the findings or described the experiments was mostly excruciating. I believe his reasoning is correct. I do think there is a large basis for the agentic state, and he acknowledges all the forces in play, all the way down to a subject's upbringing. I also agree that it was not due the aggressive nature of people because of the reasons he described. Overall I think Milgram's experiments are very interesting, but the book itself is far from it.

Paper Reading #16

Comments:
Reference:
Title: Personalized Reading Support for Second-Language Web Documents by Collective Intelligence
Author: Yo Ehara, Nobuyuki Shimizu, Takashi Ninomiya, Hiroshi Nakagawa
Venue: IUI 2010
Summary:
This paper discusses a potential adaptive system to help users browsing the web who are not particularly fluent in English. There are current systems that allow a user to click on a word, and the definition of that word is displayed. This is referred to as a word glossing system. However, these systems do not try to keep accounts of the words that the user clicks, so they cannot predict the words most likely to be clicked in the future. That is the aim for this proposed system: keep records of the words a user has to look up so they can predict which words the user will not be able to know in the future. The system uses the Item Response Theory, which is "a statistical method for analyzing the results of tests of human abilities including language tests." The group used 16 different subjects to test their system. The library they used contained 12,000 words, which were selected from the Standard Vocabulary List as the 12,000 fundamental words that a person should learn to speak English. Logistic Regression produced the most accurate results of the five algorithms they evaluated. An example of a word glossing system, pop jisyo is given below:

Discussion:
I found it incredibly funny that a paper about a system to help users who aren't adept in English to be so hard to read. This paper had tons of technical details that I felt were not fully explained or were explained in too technical of details. I had to skip whole paragraphs because the words looked like pure nonsense. Perhaps my attention was not fully devoted to reading the paper, but I definitely felt that they could have done a much better job of explaining what exactly they were doing. As for the system itself, I think it is a good tool for those who are struggling with a language. I can see this being a very widely used algorithm. However, the bottom line for me is that for a paper about helping others read, this paper should have been written much more clearly.

Ethnography Results, Week 6

Wesley and I went to Revolutions again last night. We arrived later than usual, at 10 instead of 9, so we could see larger crowds. Shortly after we arrived, the Open Mic Night event started. They were setting up right as we walked in. No one was inside, except for people getting drinks, because of the Open Mic Night going on outside in front of the Starry Night background.

The first performer was one of the owners or workers of the bar, and was a decently talented singer. The lyrics weren't very good though. He sang three songs, then began going down the list of people who had signed up. The first was a homosexual male that Wesley and I had seen before on previous trips to the bar. He used an electric keyboard with another friend providing beats from a beat-box. In my personal opinion it was pretty awful. The songs were weird and he couldn't sing. I felt it was obvious he was trying to release some serious emotions from being outcast or not treated well, but perhaps that was just what I expected to hear. After he performed, his beat-box partner performed two "songs," and then actually sang a third song with a guitar and everything. His last song was by far the most entertaining of the night. The final performer was a very good singer and didn't use any other band members. The one song we listened to of him was again very odd, as he referred to himself as a "whore," but it was supposed to be a love song. My perception of the guy was that he was the type to bring a guitar to a party in order to woo the ladies.

The interactions with the people made it feel very much like a small town. Most of the people there knew each other, and Wesley and I recognized several faces as well. The guy who was singing next to Wesley and I the first night was there, but he was helping set up and sat with the first performer. I assume he would perform later. There was a group of twenty or so people at the far end of the seating area that I swear was no where close to 21. Most didn't even look 18. The rest of the people there was generally about college age or a little above, except for two people, a man and a woman, who were in their forties or fifties. These two seemed to be some of the most regular, and talked on first name basis with the first performer, the owner or worker of the bar. These two sat with the homosexual performer, and they were immediately behind me. There were also a few other guys who looked as though they may be homosexual, but they could have just been eccentric musicians. One girl in particular was looking our way all night, while her friend's attention was on her boyfriend or male friend.

I think that about sums up the night. All in all we were there about 75-85 minutes, and I got home around 1130-1135.

Book Reading #36 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 12: Maturity and Old Age
Summary:
In the sexual relation alone are a married couple treated as one. Pregnant women are treated with special taboo, and are not allowed to do almost any activity alone because only "only things which are wrong are done in solitude and any wrong deed committed by the expectant mother will injure the child." A widowed matai must cast aside his title and pretend to be a youth if he wishes to remarry.
Discussion:
I thought the part about the pregnant women was the most interesting thing in the chapter. I think it seems silly to not allow pregnant women to do anything on their own, but at the same time our culture has a tendency to do some of the same things, even if they're not for the same reasons.

Book Reading #35 - Obedience to Authority

Chapter 1 - 8:
Summary:
This section describes the various experiment methods that Milgram performed, seventeen in all. Subjects responded to authority at an alarming rate, but when the authority was removed their obedience also left. Men and women were not sufficiently different in their obedience rates. Also Milgram believes the fact that their experiment was conducted at Yale had effects on the legitimacy of the experimenter, and backed that notion up when he moved the experiment to a warehouse and produced less obedient results. Milgram also gives dialog accounts of some of the experiments performed, or summarizes them.
Discussion:
This was not a quick read at all. While mildly entertaining at times, this was simply too long of a read. In my book it was 112 pages. I enjoyed reading some of the personal accounts, but some weren't very good. I was surprised at how many different variations he performed, as Lauren Slater did not depict his experiments anything like how Milgram did.

Paper Reading #15

Comments:
Reference:
Title: Jogging over a Distance between Europe and Australia
Author: Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, Frank Vetere, Martin R. Gibbs, Darren Edge, Stefan Agamanolis, Jennifer G. SheridanVenue: UIST 2010
Summary:
Exertion activities have become a good social medium. Some people enjoy working out together, with the main aim at "catching up" with each other. The system presented, Jogging over a Distance, is designed for those runners who enjoy jogging with others mainly for socializing, with exercise as an added bonus. Jogging over a Distance requires a pouch around the runner's waist containing a mobile phone and a mini computer, and the runner must wear a headset and a heart rate monitor. The mobile phone helps with latency issues. The runner's heart rate is taken and compared to the other runner they are connected to. If the other runner is running faster, the audio in the headset is projected to sound in front of the current runner. Likewise if the partner is running slower, the audio will sound as though it is behind the current runner. This allows for real time competition betweent the runners, as opposed to waiting until after they are both done to compare results. Thus, this system allows runners from different areas to compete with one another in real time.

The group recorded 14 runs from 17 different participants. Every pair of runners had some social past, whether they be friends or siblings. Seven runs included a person in Germany or the UK and another in Australia. The system had very positive reviews from the participants, and some preferred it to runner with another because they did not have to slow down for their partner.

Discussion:
This system actually is pretty cool. I know lots of people who like to run, and would like to have a partner to run with. This would make it easy to do that without slowing down for the other person, while still providing the accountability that some people need. I am unable to run anymore myself due to injuries, but I would definitely try this system if I could.

There doesn't seem anything overly technical about this paper or system. Some of the audio techniques are tricky but the paper describes them well. I don't see any reason this system could fail from a technical standpoint. The only difficulty should be getting people to try it.

Opening Skinners Box

Summary:
This book explored the psychiatric experiments of the last half century that had sparked the most controversy. 


The first chapter explored the namesake for the book: B.F. Skinner. Skinner was the father of operant theory. Skinner believed we did not have free will, but rather that we are conditioned to behave the way we do.  He was a humanist and a pacifist, but also had radical ideas of a world controlled not by governments but by behavioralists.  The author uses Skinner's ideas to break her daughter of night-crying, and Skinner's daughter shows her the house that Skinner raised his children. 


Next Stanley Milgram's experiments on obedience are explored.  Milgram had one person sit in an electric chair, and another person was to administer shocks if the other answered incorrectly.  The shocks were a fake, and Milgram just wanted to see who would go through with the shocks.  He found that 65% would administer the shocks. This was obviously highly controversial, and deeply affected those who participated in the experiment. 


David Rosenhan's trials of fooling psychiatrists was presented in the third chapter. In the 1970s, David Rosenhan persuaded 8 other friends to act as those they were insane to get admitted into a mental hospital. Rosenhan then published his findings in Science magazine, bashing psychiatry and claiming it is not a medicine. This obviously ticked off a large number of psychiatrists. The author then tries the experiment herself, and has virtually the same results, except a different diagnosis and they do not admit her.


In the next chapter, the author explores the experiments that Darley and Latane conducted experiments to try to explain why the witnesses of Kitty Genovese's murder didn't do anything. The results were people in larger groups tend to not act on a crisis rather than those in small groups or one-on-one.  


Following that, Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance is dissected. This theory that says humans try to rationalize our mistakes or negative actions. The author explains a cult that displayed this behavior when their "prophecy" of the world ending did not come to fruition, and another more modern example where the mother of a disabled daughter believed her daughter had healing powers after her accident. 


Next, Harry Harlow's infamous experiments were delved into. This is perhaps the most atrocious chapter and the most controversial. Harlow took monkeys from their mothers and gave them two surrogate mothers, one made of cloth and one of wire that provided food. The monkeys preferred the cloth mother, which prompted Harlow to claim that he found the true nature of love. However, the monkeys grew up to be violently unsocial, thus more things were needed in the raising of children. Later in his life he explored depression by locking monkeys in the dark for months or even years. This was a truly sickening chapter, but also highly entertaining. 


Chapter 7 was about Bruce Alexander's "Rat Park." Bruce Alexander wanted to challenge the conventional thoughts on addiction, so he created a rat park with all the necessary items, as well as sugary water laced with drugs. The rats did not like the sugary drug water, and instead avoided it for regular water, even when they were already addicted. Besides a small following, Alexander's findings were rejected because the rats were living in a perfect environment with no stressors, among other things. 


The next chapter challenged the notion of repression. Elizabeth Loftus said memories can be implanted into people's minds, so some people were wrongly accused by people recalling traumas of long ago. Also there is evidence that people can be made to suggest that people can be made to believe they committed the trauma as well. Finally, most people who fall victim of a trauma never forget that experience. 


Next, the preconceived notions of memory are challenged in this chapter and the next, with some medical insight as to how memory actually works here. Kandel discovered CREB, which is what binds short term memory into long term memory. He and others are working on CREB enhancing drugs, which could greatly increase our memory capacity. Kandel also discovered CREB's antithesis, which could help people forget traumas.


Finally, the last chapter explores the history of the lobotomy, as invented by Moniz. Psychosurgery is at least as effective as psychopharmaceuticals, if not very more effective. Finally the author explains a recent lobotomy and it was a good success.
Discussion:
I really enjoyed this book. The other books have been just ok at best, but this one was very entertaining to me. I liked reading about the nature of humans and challenging commonly held principles. Also, I always appreciate a Boondock Saints reference, as with the Kitty Genovece chapter. This book also contained a lot of actual scientific data and analysis, which I found very interesting. I liked where she challenged how psychiatrists in our nation diagnose mental issues, because I've never been a fan of psychiatry. I feel like it's all guess work with nothing but one person's opinions and interpretations backing it up. I believe this is why I found the scientific portions of the book so entertaining, as well as the controversy associated with each experiment Slater explored. Overall, this is a great book and one I have recommended to others to read.

Ethnography Results, Week 5

Wesley and I went back to Revs on Wednesday, March 9th. We arrived a little after 9. It was still very empty, even though it was Open Mic Night. There were three women to our right, and three more women arrived as we were about to leave. These people did not dress as many of the people we had previously seen, leading me to believe the atmosphere is different on Wednesday nights. Additionally, the bartenders were different as well. They were women as well, and not dressed "artsy" or eccentric. I could not see the people at the bar because my back was turned and I felt turning around and staring was a bad idea. However, this group was quite loud. It made it difficult to talk to Wesley. Obviously this group was either a regular, given how comfortable they were to dominate the scene, or they had already had too much to drink.

I had a Sam Adams Winter Lager, while Wesley had a Newcastle. Upon ordering we noticed that the beer was more expensive than last time, which prompted a look to the specials board. It turns out that Thursday is a better night if you like imported beer like Newcastle.

Discussion: I like the bar alright, especially on Wednesday. I'm more comfortable in that crowd as opposed to the crowds we have been seeing. I think we should try to arrive and stay a little later than we have, but it is really dang hard to find the time to do that. The beer isn't cheap, but it's decently priced for a bar. The main complaint I have is the lack of people. I don't like it when people can over hear my conversations, and I prefer larger crowds when I go out. The atmosphere just seems to be stale with the crowds we have been seeing.

Book Reading #34 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 10: Chipped
Summary:
This chapter explores the history of the lobotomy, as invented by Moniz. Psychosurgery is at least as effective as psychopharmaceuticals, if not very more effective. Finally the author explains a recent lobotomy and it was a good success.
Discussion:
Regardless of the success, I still find lobotomy as abhorrent. I'm not a fan of drugs either, but I still think it's wrong to mess with the brain like that.

Book Reading #33 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 11: The Girl in Conflict
Summary:
Jealousy and conflict are not as prevalent in Samoan culture as our own, largely due to the independence and the opportunity to experiment freely. Rash delinquency was uncommon, and only demonstrated in two girls in the author's nine months there.
Discussion:
I feel like I have a good idea of the Samoan culture now, and can predict how they would act or react in certain scenarios. I'm trying to make the most of a subject that does not interest me very much, and found this chapter to be mildly entertaining. I found the stories of the conflicts to be most interesting.

Paper Reading #14

Comments:
Comment #1
Comment #2
Reference:
Title: Sensing Foot Gestures from the Pocket
Author: Jeremy Scott, David Dearman, Koji Yatani, and Khai N. Truong
Venue: UIST 2010
Summary:

This paper explains a possible interface for foot-based interactions with a mobile device when the device in one's pocket. There are three axes of rotation with the foot: ankle, heel, and toe. The four experimentation conditions were:

• Dorsiflexion: rotation of the ankle such that the angle between the shin and foot decreases.  
• Plantar flexion: rotation of the ankle such that the angle between the shin and foot increases. 
• Heel rotation: internal and external rotation of the foot and leg with respect to the midline of the body while pivoting the rotation on the heel of the foot. Toe rotation: internal and external rotation of the foot and leg while pivoting the rotation on the toe of the foot.

To capture the test movements, the group used motion capture cameras. 2.3% of the trials were removed from the results. Targets closer to the origin were selected quicker than the ones at the edge of the region. Participants said that heel rotation with external rotation as the easiest method. They used machine learning to recognize the foot gestures. Using a Naive Bayes method, the group was able to identify 10 different foot gestures with 86% accuracy. In the future, they plan to create a real-time application to recognize the foot gestures, and install the application on a mobile device
Discussion:
This is a ridiculous waste of time, in my humblest opinions. I sincerely hope these guys aren't getting paid for this. Foot-based interactions is a horrible idea. How is this remotely practical? I don't see anyone ever using this. Feedback is minimal, and it's just not a natural way to interact with things. Also, they had not created the application in this paper, but just had users select what they were trying to do then do it. This paper was also very long, but the content made it seem even longer. I just couldn't get past that this is just a stupid idea. These people getting paid is like the guys on the show Jackass, except not as good of an idea.

Paper Reading #12

Comments:
Comment #1
Comment #2
Reference:
Title: Cosaliency: Where People Look When Comparing Images
Author: David E. Jacobs, Dan B. Goldman, Eli Shechtman
Venue: UIST 2010
Summary:
Photographic triage refers to saving or deleting photos based on each photo's priority, or taking another photo when needed. This is a common task for photographers. This paper presents a potential solution to aid in this task. The paper proposes a "learned model for calculating the importance, or saliency, of image pixels in the context of other images." The article classifies this feature as cosaliency. Most research in image saliency only considers one image at a time, while this paper examines two images next to each other. The paper then classifies the term "goal map" to signify the user-generated cosaliency maps because, intuitively, these are what the program strives to obtain. The model uses eight features to classify images: Gaussian Prior, Contrast, Faces, Oliva Saliency, and Judd Saliency for single images, and Flow Divergence, Nearest Neighbor Error, and Nearest Neighbor Incoherence for multiple images. The authors had 198 people participate in the study, and cosaliency outperformed saliency by a good portion. The limitations were that this triage may not be appropriate for all types of images (such as sporting images), it only measured the effectiveness of static detail crops, and it doesn't explore the non photorealistic visualization of cosalient images.

Discussion:
This paper was a bit more boring than the previous papers I've read recently. This seems like a somewhat useful feature, but it really doesn't strike home to me. I don't mind leaving images as they are, and never would need something to crop the images I do crop. Also, this seems like a bit much to write a whole paper about. It just doesn't seem that important or novel. The math and ideology just didn't seem overly complex. Overall, this paper is ok, but it doesn't excite me nor make me want to keep track of things like this.

Book Reading #28 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 9: The Attitude of the Personality
Summary:
The word musu expresses "unwillingness and intractability," and can be applied to a mistress, chief or baby. It is treated with superstitious respect. For the most part, villagers know everything that happens with other villagers.
Discussion:
Reading how villagers know everything that goes on with other villagers made me think of celebrities and how they get no privacy, although it's not really that similar. Musu seems just weird. Overall this chapter was pretty boring. 

Book Reading #29 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 8: Lost in the Mall 
Summary:
Elizabeth Loftus challenged whether or not repression exists. She said memories can be implanted into people's minds, so some people were wrongly accused by people recalling traumas of long ago. Also there is evidence that people can be made to suggest that people can be made to believe they committed the trauma as well.
Discussion:
I liked this chapter a lot, again. I've always been skeptical of repression, but I don't think it's fair to say things like that when I've never been a victim to something like that. I really enjoy this book.

Book Reading #27 - Emotional Design

Chapter 2: The Multiple Faces of Emotion and Design
Summary:
Visceral design is tied to attractiveness, behavioral design is related to efficiency and pleasure of use, and reflective design is personal satisfaction, memories, and self-image. No matter what, no single design will satisfy all users, thus market segmentation becomes very important. Lastly, designs must balance what people "need" and what people "want," and this is not an easy task.
Discussion:
So far I enjoy this book more than the previous book by Norman. This one seems more practical and less obvious. I have never thought of designs specifically in the three dimensions he proposes, so I find reading about it interesting.

Paper Reading #13

Comments:

Reference:
Title: Multitoe: High-Precision Interaction with Back-Projected Floors Based on High-Resolution Multi-Touch Input
Author: Thomas Augsten, Konstantin Kaefer, René Meusel, Caroline Fetzer, Dorian Kanitz, Thomas Stoff, Torsten Becker, Christian Holz, and Patrick Baudisch
Venue: UIST 2010
Summary:
This paper explores a new extension of the touch surface technologies. Their goal was to create something similar to tabletop computers, but not as limited by size and reach. Thus, they devised a system that one could use with the feet and spans the entire floor. Users are mapped to specific positions, therefore distinguishing between users and allowing multiple user functionality. To overcome the issue of people inadvertently setting off the touch screen, the user must jump, but there is also a more precise mode that the user can activate. Also, since the foot is about 200 times larger than the fingertip, the system condenses the foot into a single, customizable "hotspot." The design is based on "frustrated total internal reflection" (FTIR) with a high camera resolution, and this is what allows direct manipulation. Additionally, the position of the body and head will play a role in the interaction with the device, and wil be calculated based on weight distribution statistics. They are currently creating the larger prototype.
Discussion:
I like that they are thinking big here. I do think that people will be unlikely to use their feet, however. People like to use their hands. People are generally much more coordinated using their hands as opposed to their feet. I think some sort of cane or long device would be a good support to the foot based interactions. Also something to mimic the mouse would be a good idea as well, in my opinion. I don't think this is something that we will see in very many households though, similar to the tabletop computers. Some businesses might be able to make use of it, but it should be interesting to see how they market this and who they target with this system. I found this read pretty interesting overall.

Book Reading #30 - Emotional Design

Chapter 3: Three Levels of Design: Visceral, Behavioral, and Reflective
Summary:
Visceral design is the built-in attractiveness, in which physical features dominate. Performance and use dominate in behavioral design, while attractiveness and rationale do not factor. Finally, reflective design is all about the meaning of the product, and how it connects with the user.
Discussion:
This chapter was very boring. I felt like it was just a repetition of all the things from the previous two chapters. Norman repeated himself highly in the previous book; I hope he does not do that in this book.

Book Reading #31 - Coming of Age in Samoa

Chapter 10: The Experience and Individuality of the Average Girl
Summary:
There is very little privacy in the Samoan culture. Children see death, sex, and birth. Homosexual relations are usually casual and substitute for heterosexual ones, except in the case of Sasi, who made lots of advancements on boys.
Discussion:
I think it's scary that children are so exposed, but I guess there are some good things that can come from it, like maturity. Homosexual relations are awkward and I don't see why they happen anywhere. It's unnatural.

Book Reading #32 - Opening Skinner's Box

Chapter 9: Memory Inc.
Summary:
Kandel discovered CREB, which is what binds short term memory into long term memory. He and others are working on CREB enhancing drugs, which could greatly increase our memory capacity. Kandel also discovered CREB's antithesis, which could help people forget traumas.
Discussion:
This is a pretty horrifying chapter. I cannot believe someone actually removed a portion of another's brain. Also, a pill for super memory or to forget is pretty scary stuff. It could be great, but it could produce horrifying results as well.

Ethnography Results, Week 4

Wesley and I's trip to Revolutions was much better than the previous week. We arrived a little after 9 and left between 1030 and 1045. There were only some band members setting up when we arrived. By the time we left, there were about 10 people altogether, and more arriving. One guy who arrived not long after us overheard us talking about technical stuff and then he came and sat with us to join the conversation. He was very interested in music and how one could use programming to enhance music. He talked to Wesley and I (mostly Wesley) for over an hour. I was happy with the selection of beer that they had. I had two New Castles. 

Other than the guy who was very friendly, the band didn't talk that much to anyone, including amongst themselves. Towards the end of the night, another guy came along and performed a song with one of the band member's banjos. I thought he was pretty good. Two couples arrived before we left. I'm pretty certain one of the employees was dressed as and referred to itself as a she, but was actually a he. Also there was another possible person that fell in this category because "she" was wearing a scarf covering up her neck area and was masculine. Lastly there was definitely a gay man there and he looked at me a few times. I didn't know whether to be flattered or creeped out. 

Finally, I was a little mistaken in my first impression of the interior. I remembered there being a lot more pictures than there actually were. There were still a lot, and several that weren't hanging, but they didn't cover the entire interior as I had previously stated. The bar definitely seems geared to the artsy and musical crowd. It is not a crowd I'm accustomed to, but I still had a very good time.