Paper Reading #4: Cross Currents: Water Scarcity and Sustainable CHI

Comments:
Vince Kocks
Stuart Jones

Reference Information:
Title: Cross Currents: Water Scarcity and Sustainable CHI
Authors:  Tad Hirsch, Ken Anderson
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010 April 10-15, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia, USA
 
Summary:

This article is about a study in central New Mexico to find ways that new technologies, particularly personal water consumption devices, could assist in water conservation.  The study was done around three large cities, Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, and Sante Fe. This area provides a wide range of water use such as cities, agriculture, a semi-conductor plant, and Native American pueblos.

Interviews were conducted and showed that most people were very familiar with water conservation and recognized it as a priority. People expressed the purpose to their conservation in terms of responsibility and an ethical obligation.

There are several problems with New Mexico's water system. This was shown in the interviews that were conducted. Surface water is transferred based on "rights" and ground water is unregulated. The lack of regulation for groundwater causes over drafting which causes wells to run dry or can lead to aquifer collapse. Some other problems are extreme prices for water rights discourage farming, and the systems leaves room for cheaters. This also leads to mistrust when it comes to this subject.

This shows some things that can be considered in the CHI community. Sustainability is not a simple issue of just using less water, but is an entire system consumption.

Before personal consumption monitoring can be designed a definition of "consumption" must be recognized.  Is it enough to just keep track of the number of gallons that flow from a point? Or would it be better to account for the rate and means through which water is returned to it's source?

Even after how the system will keep track of water consumption, policy and planning must be thought of for the state. There are five distinct challenges associated with water sustainability planning and they are:

• Understanding interactions between human use and hydrologic cycles is an ongoing challenge
• Modeling and simulation technologies are opaque
• Policy implications are indeterminate
• Public participlation remains elusive
• There is a need for greater enforcement, transparency, and benchmarking

Because of this study, designers are cautioned to not think of conservation as an intrinsic good, but rather to see that consumption activities are shaped by a variety of concerns. Sustainability is not a "one-size-gits-all" case, it may be different for each region. Environmental Resource decisions by individual actors and policy makers turn on information, communication, and deliberation - which makes this issue familiar to the CHI community.

Discussion:

This paper is discussing a very important issue, water scarcity. I think the author's decision to interview all of the different communities who use the water differently was very smart because it seems like it would make a water consumption system easier to design.

Based on the different things people care about and observe would lead to a system that works better for everyone and one that can trust. I know you can't please everybody so that's why I think they didn't talk about a specific design idea. They laid the foundation for further research to be conducted in this area.

However, they did show with their own research that one individual region shouldn't necessarily use the same conservation methods as another area. I thought this was a good idea because it included more factors rather than just "just use less water" to find a strong and stable fix to the problem.

Microblogs for Opening Skinner's Box

Reference Information:
                 Title: Opening Skinner's Box
                 Author:  Lauren Slater
                 Publisher: 2005, W.W. Norton                            & Company, Inc.

Chapter 1: Opening Skinner's Box

Summary:
This chapter introduces the idea of Skinner and his reputation. People think he is scary and the name is startling. Skinner's ideas are explained through a series of ideas involving animals and making them do things for food. The ideas have to do with free will and why we do certain things. 

The author begins studying Skinner by going to Harvard to get more information about him. She also finds one of his daughters who lets the author view Skinner's old house. The daughter compares Skinner to Darwin and says people are just threatened by his great ideas. 

Discussion: 
I thought the experiments with the animals was interesting. Especially how Skinner used the Pavlov experiment to further his experiments. His ideas are interesting and I'm looking forward to reading some more. 

Chapter 2:  Obscura 

Summary:
This chapter was about an experiment done by Stanley Milgram that was about obedience to authority. He wanted to see how many people would continously shock another person even if they got the impression that the shock could be lethal. People were interviewed that participated in the experiment to see the effects that it had on them.
 

Discussion:
This chapter gave me the chills kind of. It was very interesting to read and I just couldn't believe how many people were recorded that actually kept shocking people (65%?). 

Chapter 3: On Being Sane in Insane Places

Summary: 
David Rosenhan conducted a clever experiment which was to basically test the idea of physicatrics in medicine. He got some people including himself to go to the hospital and get admitted and then acted completely normal to see how long it took for them to recognized as normal. The same idea for this experiment was used by the author who goes to hospitals to see how things have changed. She is not admitted to any hospitals but is usually diagnosed and given pills. Later, in a conversation with Robert Spitzer, Spitzer says that he thinks that doctors just don't know when to say "I don't Know".

Discussion:
I enjoyed this chapter more than the others so far. I thought it was funny how the author says that the Rosenhan experiment is really hated in the field even after 40 years because of how it tries to discredit the idea. I thought it was interesting how the author tried to mimic the experiment and nobody had ever heard of this story before and the "thud" voice. The results were interesting to how many doctors prescribed medicine with nothing more than a 10 minute examination even if they were just "light" medical pills.

Paper Reading #3: Multi-lifespan information system design in post-conflict societies: an evolving project in Rwanda

Comments:


Reference Information:
Title: Multi-lifespan information system design in post-conflict societies: an evolving project in Rwanda
Authors: Batya Friedman, Tron Nilsen, Lisa Nathan, Robert Utter, Milli Lake, Mark Ring, Neil Carden Grey,     Zoe Kahn
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010 April 10-15, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia, USA


Summary:

Rwanda's Flag

The paper starts out by describing the problem that starts this research. In 1994 800,000 Rwandans were massacred in just 100 days. The transitional government that followed the genocide had three justice systems emerge, one of them being the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The ICTR was made to prosecute those who organized and masterminded the genocide.


49 video interviews were conducted to collect the experiences of the ICTR's judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, investigators, interpreters, and the everyday staff. These videos are called the 'Tribunal Voices'. The goal of this was to address the social and technical challenges of creating an information system to preserver, manage, and support access and reuse of the ICTR's information.


This is relevant to HCI because of the intersection between information systems, design, and societal issues.
Multi-lifespan information systems are mentioned because it is important to not that peace building from a genocide is unlikely to be solved in a single human lifespan, so the information must be preserved efficiently.


This project made three important contributions. First, it supports the Rwandan people in their efforts to achieve justice. Second, it provides the HCI community with methods and approaches for undertaking information in post-conflict situations. Third, it it describes the first exploration of multi-lifespan information system design.

Discussion:


This was very interesting to read because I didn't know much about this subject. I think this is significant to the HCI community because of how they use HCI to help in pressing societal issues. It also uses digital material that the Rwandan disempowered population can access instead of in the form of a book which might be clearer to some people

I think the mention of multi-lifespan information systems is important because in the paper it is stressed that this project will possibly help contribute to the lasting peace of Rwanda by keeping this information managable for many human lifetimes to come.

Ethnography ideas

I'm just brainstorming here for the upcoming ethnography project. My ideas include different groups of people to observe that I think would be interesting for me to learn more about.

1) The first group that came to mind was the Core here at Texas A&M. This was slightly motivated by Dr. Hammond talking about the military during class but another part is we see core members everyday on campus and I've seen some interesting things that I would be curious to learn more about.

2) Another group of people that I believe would be interesting to study as a student would be a group of athletes. An influence to this decision is the many teams we have here at our university.

3) My next idea is a not so obvious one but one I've had an interest in for awhile. Professional gamers would be very interesting to learn more about. There are people that actually get paid to practice and compete in computer/console games. I'm not sure how hard that would be to access compared to my first 2 ideas but I can give it a shot.

I don't think my first 2 ideas are the greatest because they are very obvious. I know a lot is already known about these groups but I think it would be interesting to learn more from them as a student. Maybe I'll wake up in the morning with more ideas. I do however think my third idea could be pretty interesting.

Paper Reading #2: Edits & credits: exploring integration and attribution in online creative collaboration

Comments:
Ryan Kerbow
Vince Kocks

Reference Information:
Title:  Edits & credits: exploring integration and attribution in online creative collaboration
Authors: Kurt Luther, Nicholas Diakopoulos, Amy Bruckman
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010 April 10-15, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia, USA

 Summary:

   The most common reason people spend free time editing articles for online encyclopedias or open-source code is to increase one's status in the community. To establish a reputation attribution is essential. Attribution is the act of giving someone credit for his or her actions. This paper presents a qualitative study of attributions practices in online creative collaboration within the domain of Flash animation.

   The focus of the study was done on Newgrounds, who is the largest Flash animation portal on the web. One discusses one method of attribution on this portal by use of the website forums. Collaborative animation projects called "collabs" are put together which can have more than 50 artists on it at a time. A leader divides up the work and the result is published on the website.

  17 animators were interviewed who had experiences with collabs to find out more about this subject. Different methods are discussed in which the leader of the collab can choose to integrate and attribute works such as the "first come - first server" which guarantees your work will be attributed but this collab usually has many more artists, appeals to a certain niche, and is geared towards novice animators.

   Newgrounds has a multi-author system so many people can be credited as a "coauthor" on a single project. To become a coauthor the leader and 9 other contributors can be selected, there is a limit so some criteria must be upheld. This criteria is up to the leader of the collab.

   The findings from this study show the imprtance of integration and attribution in online creative collaboration. The collab leader is usually the person who takes this responsibility and nobody else. This is relevant because in communities such as Flickr and YouTube it is assumed that the uploader of the content is the creator of the content. Newgrounds stands apart by offering its multi-authoring system. This is important because as online creative collaboration becomes more widespread, support for collaborative authorship should grow. This study points to the need to understand, and design for, notions of authorship, ownership, and attribution that are rapidly evolving. Flash animation provides a good example of this.

Discussion: 

  This was an interesting paper to read and wasn't really what I was expecting. The author says it's important in different online communities to have a solid reputation so people will know and respect you and your work. This is done by being attributed for your work through whatever you're doing. The Newgrounds is a good example of this because there are a ton of users and different people creating work collaboratively. This causes the problem of crediting several authors for one piece of work. This sounds weird but just think of the sites such as YouTube who only credit one user for the uploaded video even if there are several authors. I think it is important that we evolve our standards as more collaborative work is starting to become available over the internet.

Microblogs for HCI Remixed

Reference Information:
                 Title: HCI Remixed
                 Author: Thomas Erickson and David W. McDonald
                 Publisher: 2008, Massachusetts Institute of Technology


Chapter 1: My Vision Isn't My Vision: Making a Career Out of Getting Back to Where I Started


Summary: 
A music major in the 70's who had no intentions of using computers was introduced to a digital music machine made by the NRC. The machine was mainly a HCI project with technologically naive users in mind when the it was being designed. The author loved the design and idea and has been trying to get things back to how he started his career.

Discussion:
I think in this essay the author is indirectly saying things are more complicated than they need to be in our current time. The story in general though is cool because he had no intentions of doing anything with computers but was shown that pretty much no matter what you do as a career that computers can be involved. So, now he spends his time trying to get back to where he started, which is think is the simplicity of the music machine.

Chapter 4: Drawing on SketchPad: Reflections on Computer Science and HCI 

Summary:
Sutherland's paper about SketchPad helps answer the question "why should HCI belong in a computer science program?" Besides many of the technical aspects of SketchPad, it anticipated over fifty years ago many of the programming ideas that are still with us today. The Sutherland paper says that HCI belongs in computer science because "the needs of innovative interfaces drive forward the science of computing". There is still a lot of work that can be done with computing systems designed as tools for experts.

Discussion:
The SketchPad is a good general example on how HCI is related to computer science. We can relate to the SketchPad paper on most of the projects we take part in today. I feel all of the matters discussed are still very relevant.

Chapter 5: The Mouse, the Demo, and the Big Idea
Summary:
This paper was about Doug Englebart's oNLine System (NLS) demo video and it's impact. This demo is often described as the "mother of all demos". Engelbart's research was based on augmenting human intellect with the computer mouse. This demo showed that the state of the art today is not unlike the one Englebart described, we have display editing, view control, collaborative remote authoring tools, linking, and object addressing.

Discussion:
I feel that most of this paper was about the author being inspired from the demo of the mouse. It made him realize based on his experience at MIT how important it was. He said that a great demonstration is not hype, but proof.


Chapter 18: Observing Collaboration: Group-Centered
 
Summary:
This chapter was about collaborating in the work-place. Research was done to see the tenancies of people while working together under certain conditions. One case was using a whiteboard or using a table. Different things were observed for each case.  From this research we can figure out ways to make things more efficient.

Discussion:
This was an interesting chapter because it involved technology that promotes collaboration. I think it's very important in terms of efficiency. The last paragraph in the chapter sticks out to me because the author says human factors relevant to collaboration will have a long "shelf life" and will be useful for a long time because people's collaborative practices today are generally the same as they were seventeen years ago. 

Chapter 20: Taking Articulation Work Seriously
Summary:
This paper could be the emergence of computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) as an area of research. They defined CSCE as "an endeavor to understand the nature and requirements of cooperative work with the objective of designing computer based technologies for cooperative work environments". Mutual dependence among the people who need to cooperate  and work together is whats called 'articulation work'. All work is socially situated and involves interaction and coordination.

Discussion:
This chapter highlighted the existence of CSCW as a viable and important research area. This goes hand in hand with the last chapter I read describing how technology can help collaboration and be more efficient.

Chapter 23: Video, Toys, and Beyond Being There
 
Summary:
Computer-mediated communication is described as a crutches for communication and physical contact is described as the shoes, the shoes being what we are more used to. Many things however can be used as "shoes" and enhance human performance rather than mimic it. Computers play an important role in the human experience and our goal in computational design should be to enhance the human experience intellectually and emotionally.

Discussion:
This chapter had good real world examples to help understand better. Things like google allowed the professor to throw out broad concepts because he knew most of his students would google it and ask him questions. He also mentioned the Lily doll who played a big role in interaction between his mother and daughter. It enhanced the human experience greatly and that should be the goal of computational design.

Chapter 24: A Simulated Listening Typewrite: John Gould Plays Wizard of Oz

Summary:
When speech recognition was first being researched,, John Gould used "The Wizard of Oz" method to help evaluate new technology. The method was to use a hidden human that would manipulate a computer interface that was under evaluation to see how it worked out. This simulation is still used today but most studies draw conclusions after much less exposure time to subjects.

Discussion:
This was interesting to read about because it is still applied to day according this paper. This seemed like an effective way to start this research because maybe at the time of the method's creation  they didn't have the technology to efficiently test the computer interface.

Chapter 25: Seeing the Hole in Space

Summary:
 The hole in space is an art scuplture type experiment that was done in 1980 to the people walking by Lincoln Center in New York and those in Century City in Los Angelas. These people were projected in store-front windows using projectors. These people could see, hear, and speak with each other.   

Chapter 26: Edward Tufte's 1 + 1 = 3

Summary:
The 1 + 1 = 3 comes from Edward Tufte saying that if you draw 2 lines you get negative space between the lines which adds another factor. The author gives an example about elevator buttons that illustrate 1 + 1 = 3 and says that the third element added is that the user has to parse, understand, then choose a button. This isn't good and he gives a couple ways to fix it through design. The point was to show that design proplems can be full of presentation clutter that confuses and complicates interaction.


Discussion:
 Many designs today still lack what this article was talking about. I think it is totally true that a lot of design add extra, unseen factors that influence how we use certain things today that aren't necessary.

Chapter 27: Typographic Space: A Fusion of Design and Technology

Summary:
This research area started with a paper that describes a Typographic Space system which allowed the user to lay out text in a three dimensional area  and to apply other basic  typographic attributes.This system opened up many other possibilities.  A new research domain emerged called kinetic typography. This domain is typography with motion as a design variable. The paper goes on to discuss different things that could be successful conveyed through this kind of typography.

Chapter 28: Making Sense of Sense Making

Summary:
The paper being discussed challenges critical assumptions about the functions of computers. Two claims were made that are still relevant. The first is computers are mainly sued for passive storage of information but this type of information is not particularly useful. The second was computers aren't very good at the important process of making sense of the information that is encountered. The first claim is because to Kidd, information is only useful during the act of informing. The second claim about sense making is perceptual and spatial processes are crucial and  AI won't help. It is vital to address Kidd's main questions of how new information is processed and what is the value of stored information.

Chapter 34: Revisiting an Ethnocritical Approach to HCI: Verbal Privilege and Translation

Summary:
This paper is based on Arthur Krupat's book, Ethnocriticism: Ethnography, History, Literature. The author rights that the principles of multiculturalism, polyvocal, and heterogeneity to relate to his design methods and developing. He modified Krupat's approaches to better understand and develop questions to help him think through the diverse and troubling choices he faced as an HCI worker.

On Computers

Comments:
Miguel Alex Cardenas
Cindy Skach

Title: The Complete Works of Aristotle - "On Plants"
Editor: Jonathan Barnes


Summary:
This paper was written to figure out if plants have souls. Aristotle says plants desire food, which leads to other things such as sensations. Because they can desire it leads to things like joy and sadness. It was said that joy and sadness is represented by the falling of their leaves. Aristotle then goes on to analyze plant traits such as their ability to sleep and wake. Many more things are compared to make Aristotle think plants only have partial souls.

Aristotle

Discussion:
This is an interesting paper because it can be compared to computers as well (hence the title "On Computers"). Aristotle goes through all of the characteristics of a plant that sound humanly, what about computers? This could relate to the idea of the Chinese Room idea. The computer in this idea is able to trick a human into thinking it is another Chinese person and not a computer. This is done with the ability to communicate.  This is interesting because the more stuff we make computers do, one thing that comes to mind is robots, it seems like they get more humanly, when infact they are just hardware and software designed by humans. Reading this made me think of Walle. Even though I think that computers in no way have a soul it is cool to compare all of the similarities with Aristotles ideas. Maybe he would change his opinion if he saw the world today.

Microblogs for "The Design of Everyday Things"

Reference Information:
                 Title: The Design of Everyday Things
                 Author:  Donald Norman
                 Publisher: 2002, New York: Basic Books (Perseus)


Chapter 1: The Psychopathology of Everyday Things

Summary: 
 How an object is designed matters a lot to the user. The object can either have a poor design or be well designed. The difference between the two is that a well design has clues to help people understand how to use it. This works because the human mind is tailored to make sense of the world, it looks for clues.

There are psychological aspects in designs that hinder designs. Visibility is a problem when there is a lack of clues so it is confusing to figure out.

The fundamental principles of designing for people are to have a good conceptual model and to make things visible. If theses principles are followed then the object is not difficult to figure out, there should be no trial and error to have success.

Mapping and feedback cause problems in designs. When mapping controls to their movements is not thought out things become very confusing. Feedback is also important because it lets the user know if what they are doing is right or not. Technology now is so confusing because we have more features with less feedback.

Discussion:
A few of his examples actually made me laugh because I've experienced the frustration myself. I do agree that the way things are designed needs to change because more times than not I am confused on how to work things. Things should be made more with the user in mind especially when there are a ton of features involved.
Everyday things are sometimes more confusing than they should be. I liked when he said there should be no trial and error to figure it out, you should just be able to pick up clues on the design.

Chapter 2: Psychology of Everyday Actions
This chapter talks about the different ways people blame themselves for things that aren't entirely their faults. It talks about the nature of human thought and tries to explain the bridge between people and technology and it's design.


Discussion:
This chapter was interesting because most of the author's examples we could all relate too. This helped shed light on why design is so important because it seems normal in our culture to blame ourselves.

Chapter 3: Knowledge in the Head and in the World

Summary:
This chapter was about human knowledge in memory. The author talks about different cases of knowledge, one being in the world and the other in the head.  He mainly talks about different issues with human memory.

Discussion:
I like at the end how he says knowledge in the world is always there, waiting to be used and knowlege in the head is ephemeral, here now, gone later. Overall this was an interesting read but compared to the last chapters I had problems getting into the reading.
 
Chapter 4: Knowing What To Do

Summary:
Norman talks about the constraints in design. His example is a 13 piece lego motorcycle. The constraints on doors is discussed next along with constraints of switches. He talked about how things should be made more visible or have an immediate effect after pressing something. 

Discussion:
I liked this chapter because it is very important when thinking about design. I like the examples he gives because while making me laugh they make me evaluate some of the things I use everyday and notice the same flaws and how they could be improved. 

Microblogs for "Coming of Age in Samoa"

Reference Information:
                 Title: Coming of Age in Samoa
                 Author:  Margaret Mead
                 Publisher: William Morrow and Company, 1928

Chapter 1: Introduction

Summary: 
 During the time this book was writtin people noticed the change in adolescents in America. The author says that changes in the science of pyschology and maladjustments have changed the youth. There wasn't any data from anybody to show what was causing this plight. Anthropologists questioned if the problems were due to being adolescent or being an adolescent in America. Because our society is to complex with many variables it would be hard to conduct a study with our adolescents. Mead travels to Samoa and studies the youth of their civilization because it is primitive and completely different than America. She uses this study to help figure out if the problems are with our culture. 

Discussion:
This was a very interesting way to look at this problem. I like how the scientific approach was discussed where keeping all variables constant except for one in an experiment provides good data but that couldn't be done for this case because there were so many variables that could not be kept track of. Going to a primitive civilization to basically compare the children as an anthropologist was a good idea because no explanation was found through psychology or biology.

Chapter 2: A Day in Samoa


Summary:
This chapter just describes the basic everyday life of a village of Samoans. It generally describes how the people prepare for their day and what kind of esential activities they do.


Discussion:
Everything is very primitives that the people do in this chapter. 

Appendix II: Methodology of this Study


Summary:
How the study was done was described in this chapter. The study was done with three groups of girls from different villages on the coast of the island of Tau. However, ceromonial data was gathered from all seven of the villages on the island. The main study group was sixty eight girls between the ages of nine and twenty. More information is given about the methods used, such as interviews conducted in Samoan.


Discussion:
This is important because it has all of the basic information about the control groups and some of the methods used to study the Samoans.

Appendix V: Materials upon Which the Analysis Is Based


Summary:
This chapter has the data used in the study. A record sheet is kept for each girl in the study, a sample sheet for the study is given with the information that is recorded for each girl. More examples are given as tables, such as sexual information and family structure. Simple intelligent tests were given because along with a checklist for girls to note their experience.


Discussion:
This will be a good chapter to reference because it actually shows the some of the data sheets that were used in the study.

Chapter 3: The Education of the Samoan Child

Summary:
In this chapter the different stages of a Samoan child are talked about. It describes from the time of the babies birth, how it is the young girls responsibily to take care of new babies, and their responsibilities that follow as they age. It talks a little about the boys but mainly about the girls. 


Discussion:
I think it was interesting how the author described the time the little girls have to watch over babies was possibly the worst time of their life. I think its kind of funny how the elders rely so heavily on very young girls to take care of the babies. As the girls grow up it seems pretty logical, as they get older they get more responsibility and more freedom.

Chapter 4: The Samoan Household


Summary:
This chapter talked mainly about the structure of a Samoan household. It talked about how ranks influence the household and how they change. It gave real examples of households and how ranks influenced certain things.

Discussion:
This is an important chapter because it explains the structure and how Samoans view the household. I thought the most interesting part was dealing with the taupo title. I thought the example of the beggar was interesting too because of how the guy hung around all day and did everything for the family and only at the last second before bed he expressed his desire.
 

Paper Reading #1: Only One Fitts' Law Formula - Please!

Comments:
Chris Kam
Stuart Jones

Reference Information:
Title: Only One Fitts' Law Formula - Please!
Author: Heiko Drewes
Presentation Venue: CHI 2010 April 10-15, 2010 Atlanta, Georgia, USA

 Summary:
First things first, what is Fitt's law? Fitt's law gives a relation for the mean time to point at a target of given size in a given distance. This is important because pointing is a very frequent action when interacting with a computer using a mouse device.

The problem with Fitt's formula is there are at least four different equations used in the community that do the same thing. There are many publications regarding Fitt's law and they all don't agree on a single formula.

Fitt's law can be derived from a simple model often called the discrete-step model. This model is demonstrated by a pointer that approaches the target in steps. After each step the pointer aims to the target center and reaches a position within an error circle, this is the starting point for the next step. Each steps brings the pointer closer to the target and ends when the pointer reaches the target.

This is a discrete-step model for Fitt's Law

This is only a model and it has problems like all models. It ignores factors which directly influence the pointing actions. Other factor's include the subjects' mood, their nervousness, their eye-sight, chemical substances like alcohol or caffeine in their blood, or distractions from the environment.

A scientific approach must be used to decide which formula to choose. Each of the four formulas is acceptable in the HCI community but each demands good statistical values for its use. This is not the scientific approach.

One possibility is to make HCI an art so all cases are acceptable, but HCI wants to be a science then scientific standards must be discussed.

Discussion:
This was kind of a confusing article. I understand the confusion in having four formulas but there were terms I didn't understand that were thrown around.  One of his statements stuck out in my mind, the author said that Fitt's Law is one of the few HCI formulas used and supports a scientific claim rather than the art of design and sof factors due to human nature. This sounds like people in HCI are not used to viewing things scientifically in this field. I'm sure it's not that simple but that's what it sounds like. So, people are using this formula however they choose and not using it scientifically. I think if there has to be more than one formula then they should have different names. From the author's perspective it sounds like a Highlander scenario where, there can be only one! Therefor, the HCI community wants to be a scientific community it needs to figure out a standard for this formula.

The Chinese Room

Comments:
Luke Roberts
Poala Garza

Reference Information:
        Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room
        The picture is from - http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/searle_chinese_room  /searle_chinese_room.php   

Summary:

       To anybody like me who did know what the Chinese room experiment is, it was introduced by John Searle in the paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980. The experiment argues that a program cannot give AI a mind to understand the actions it is doing. This thought experiment puts Searle in a room alone as people outside of the room slide cards with Chinese symbols for Searle to respond to. Even though Searle does not understand any Chinese and it looks like just scribbles he uses instructions from a program to write back. Searle argues that because the computer does not literally think, it cannot literally understand Chinese. 

Discussion:
 
       To better understand the experiment and make it simple, I found a flash version that takes 5 seconds to complete.


http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/searle_chinese_room/chinese_room_flash.php?modGUI=203&compGUI=1864&itemGUI=3258

       This experiment was introduced in 1980 and we all know that technology has greatly advanced since then, especially the things being done with AI. I do believe that for the time being I agree with the results of the experiment, that AI cannot not understand what it is doing. As a programmer I feel that even for the Chinese room example if a computer on one side of a door were to make a Chinese speaker on the other side of the door think it was indeed another Chinese speaking human it still does not understand Chinese. I don't think the argument can be made that even if it tricks every Chinese speaker in the world to thinking it's a Chinese speaking human, it doesn't understand. The computer is just following a list of commands based on the input.

Blog Entry #0 - Introduction

E-mail:
aaron.kirkes (at) gmail (dot) com

Class standing:
5th year senior

Why I am taking this class:
Besides the fact that it counts for one of my electives, it looked interesting! After our first class it sounds kind of fun.

What experience do I bring to this class?
I'm kind of a shy person so hopefully this class helps me open up with all of the participation requirements. Besides that I bring some decent programming skills.

What do I expect to be doing in 10 years?
In 10 years I hope to have a successful career underway in either hardware or software design and have a loving family.

What do I think will be the next biggest technological advancement in computer science?
I'm not really sure where the next big advancement in computer science will be but I like what Google is doing with that car that can drive itself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nYhKD8leAg

If I could travel back in time, who would I like to meet and why?
If I could travel back in time and meet somebody I would have to say somebody who signed the declaration of independence like George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, or John Adams. It would be interesting to hear their stories. I'm not a big history fan either it would just be fun I think.

What is my favorite style of mustache and why?
I would be jealous of anybody that could rock one of those mustaches that curl upwards. It just looks crazy! In all seriousness I would not grow a mustache like that just so everybody knows.

If I could be fluent in any foreign language which one would it be and why?
If I could be fluent in any language I would pick French because my girlfriend can speak it and so does her family.

Interesting Facts:
Some interesting facts about me are I live with my Canadian girlfriend,Michelle and our cats,  Eva and Navi, I also really enjoy playing computer games, preferably Starcraft 2. :)