Locusts

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This summer I was lucky enough to receive a Nuffield bursary to work on a short research project. During this time I build a game to study the seeing and sensing of others across multi-touch work surfaces. I combined interactive tabletops and vibrotactile sensory augmentation to enhance collaborative task performance.

The end result was game, where players must work together to defend their crops from swarms of hungry locusts. The game incorporates a number of technologies including: Diamond multi-touch tables, and vibrotactile actuators. The software isn’t entirely complete due to lack of time. There is a project homepage at http://locusts.googlecode.com/

Breaking News: Journalism and the Internet

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1 Introduction

The decline of printed news in the UK is not a recent phenomenon. Since peak circulations in the 1950s, they have fought a loosing battle with technical innovations; such as radio and television.(Thompson, 1990) In the 21st century the new media is online, and downward trends are more marked that ever.(ABCs, 1931 – 2009) Clearly providers of quality journalism are struggling to adapt. But is the Internet just another technology to which traditional skills can be tailored? Or is there a fundamental change taking place that will redefine the profession of journalism?

This essay will explore the role of journalism and news companies in the modern consumer landscape. In particular it will focus on the newspaper of record1 and other, largely respected, news sources. The red tops (tabloid press) will be mostly disregarded because, it is the opinion of this author that, their contribution to society is more tenuous.

Continue reading →

Stuff

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It took me over a year, but I finally got around to posting this video. It’s a presentation done for a Technical Communication Skills class. The remit was to talk for 5 minutes about anything. The catch is that you are only allowed one take, thus it is full gaffs.

Checkers

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Cropped screenshot showing a game of checkers in progress. 

Cropped screenshot showing a game of checkers in progress.

As coursework for one of my subjects I was required to implement a Checkers (English Draughts) game in Java. I’m quite please with the result, and so have decided to share it here. The program has minimal features, but is quite polished. To try it out click on the launch link below.

Launch the application

Instructions

Clicking the above link will download the game to your computer. You will be given a security prompt as the whether or not I should be trusted. If you want to play you will have to click “Trust”. Assuming you do trust me the game will then run. Continue reading →

Another Upgrade

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It’s been a while since anything happened here, and because I have a bit of time at the moment I thought I would update the site. No new content yet but I’ve made a number of changes:

  • Upgraded WordPress to version 2.7.1.
  • Changed the theme to iNove designed by mg12.
  • Reclaimed a few genuine comments from the spam bin.
  • Fixed some issues that people where complaining about.
  • Remove the “about me” page because it served no purpose.

Colour Gradient PHP Class

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I wrote this class to handle smooth gradients of colour and other data types. Specifically I wanted a robusts way to handle fonts size and colour for tag-cloud object that I’m working on at the moment. Although the task wasn’t very complicated I am quite pleased with my solution because it is so easy to use and transparent.

Example 1: Simple Gradient

Gradient Example 1 Continue reading →

Mac OS X Activity Monitor – why have you forsaken me?

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Update: Suddenly and for no apparent reason this issue disappeared. After months of scrathing my head over this, it has gone leaving me none the wiser. The Mac giveth and the Mac taketh away.

Activity Monitor Graph Problem - Large VignetteFirst I just want to say that I have a MacBook, and I love my MacBook. I’ve been a long time user of Windows and Linux based PCs, nowadays however I just want it to work. So I am officially a Mac convert, but…

I have this problem with my MacBook. It’s been there ever since I can remember and I have spent more hours than I care to mention trying to fix it. It’s only a tiny little problem that really isn’t worth complaining about, but it is spoiling my “Mac Toa”… Continue reading →