Outline, need suggestions!!!

Hey guys.  So unfortunately I am way behind schedule on pumping out this paper (I’ll admit it).  I left it for last out of the three big ones.  Anyway, I have a pretty rough outline that I’m working with right now, and I could use some suggestions on theories that you think apply well or examples of video game power ups that do not fit well within a game would be great.  Unfortunately, my outline format got really messed up in the transfer, but hopefully it is still understandable.  Thanks guys!

Research question:  What makes this power-up such a fun and appropriate addition to the Super Mario Bros Game line?

Thesis:  The propeller power-up in the New Super Mario Bros Wii game is an entertaining and appropriate addition to the Super Mario Brother’s game line because it is effectively phenomenological in its effortlessness.

Oh semiotics, you are so tricksy.

I wanted to share a little story of something that happened recently with you as an example of why I get all itchy whenever we talk about semiotics. It’s not that I don’t like semiotics outright, it’s just that I cannot escape the thought that signs only have significance in their relationships and meanings to people. While I acknowledge that when we examine a sign with respect to its relationship to relevant discourses we are putting it within a context, I feel like semiotics doesn’t acknowledge the extreme amount of interpretation required for viewing that sign in a particular manner. So here is an example that I think illuminates my point. The other day Lynn and I were driving to campus with another friend and the subject of the video “Leeroy Jenkins” came up. For any of you not familiar, here is the video.

Our friend said that she doesn’t like this video because of the racial overtones it has. Lynn and I were really surprised – we’d never recognized any racial themes to the video at all. Our friend was shocked that we hadn’t. For her, the name Leeroy automatically meant that the “character” Leeroy was black and the fact that he references chicken at the end (something I totally didnt catch until after I watched it again after this conversation) bring up all sorts of racial cues.

Lynn and I both discussed at length how to us, the name Leeroy connoted a lower class, hick type that usually, in our minds, white. A few days later our friend shared with us the urban dictionary entry for “Leroy”. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=leroy  If you scroll to definition #3, clearly more people than just our friend connote the name with the racial stereotype.

The point is that clearly before this conversation took place, Lynn, myself and my friend all would have come up with very different semiotic readings of this same video. The differences in lifeworlds meant that we didn’t view the signs the same way at all. I understand that because a semiotic reading is just that – a reading – it is not really right or wrong, but this still just does not sit well with me. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of not acknowledging lifeworlds in semiotic analysis.

Just thought I would share – happy paper writing!
Also, it’s taken me literally over half an hour to submit this post. And I can’t figure out how to get the link to be a link, sorry bout that. Not happy with wordpress right now – geeze louise.

Jalou

Full disclosure: I ♥ Dolce & Gabbana and I am going to be unabashedly biased towards anything that has a D&G tag on it.

Here are a few facts:

• For those of you who have not heard about Dolce & Gabbana, it is one of the biggest (and one of the best IMO) luxury fashion houses of the world and is based in Milan.
• Sony Ericsson has collaborated with D&G and released a limited edition of their phone called Jalou. The name of the phone is derived from a french word jaloux which means jealousy!
• The D&G edition is plated with 24 carat gold and is faded-rose in color. There are other colors but they are do not carry the D&G tag on them.
• The retail price of the phone is $800 and the price of the D&G edition is undisclosed. D&G is known for it’s notriously high pricing especially since it’s a luxury brand.

Since we have been reading some fashion texts and trying to apply that to interaction design, I thought this was a particularly interesting artifact to talk about. We have talked so much about a phone like the iPhone where owning the latest tehcnology is fashion. So I was wondering how does it work when it comes to something like the Jalou. Clearly it cannot be discarded as “advertising” and “branding”. It gets even more interesting when you compare the advertisements of the same phone – one made by Sony Ericsson and the other by D&G.

Thoughts/comments?

Dolce & Gabbana

Sony Ericsson

An alternative solution to multi-touch technologies for high-class restaurants

I came across this video about a relatively new high-tech oriental restaurant located in London. Even though the restaurant is not using multi-touch technology, I think that their interaction is more down-to-earth and useful than the applications shown in the cheesy (and degrading) Microsoft Surface ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2R24CfeZoY) .  The concept seems to be quite simple: the video is projected on each table by an overhead projector.  Customers interact with the application using a touchpad so there is no need for the whole table’s surface to be touchable.

What I found particular interesting is that the designers thought about several ways to customize the customers’ experience such as allowing them to choose the virtual tablecloth and to have each entrée being displayed right unto your dish as opposed of just seeing the pictures on the menu.  Additionally, while their waiting for the food, customers can play digital games, get info about tourist places nearby, order a taxi, and even see (via video stream) how the chef is preparing their food.

Also, the interaction seems to be very intuitive: other videos located in the restaurant’s website show first-time costumers and kids interacting with the applications without any problems.

A multi-touch solution would have been quite expensive for a small restaurant so I think that it is really creative how the owners of this particular restaurant explored other alternatives and came out with an interaction that might have even surpassed the success of implementing a much more expensive and sophisticated solution (such as Microsoft Surface).

for the love of Phenomenology!

This might be a li’l out of sync with the class since we are way past phenomenology and into semiotics now.  Nevertheless,  I’m excited  that I got to see this video on the works of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre and Ponty.  It seems to be an old talk show (70s or 80s )  with  Professor Hubert Dreyfus as the guest who explains the history of Phenomenology  from Husserl and Heidegger to Sartre and Ponty, how they differed and evolved, with huge emphasis on Husserl’s technical intentionality and Heidegger’s Dasein.  I wanted to share it with you all.

Note that the video has 5 parts. I see it as a more elaborate version of the paper we read for class [I think it is Dourish's Embodiment paper (?)] but it does not go deep into Embodiment.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Present to Hand & Ready to Hand vs Transparency and Reflectivity?

So in the readings for Thursday (Bolter & Gromala, 369-82, “Transparency and Reflectivity: Digital Art and the Aesthetics of Interface Design”), I just wanted to ask if anyone noticed that (or agrees with):

Present to Hand & Transparency are the same thing.

Ready to Hand & Reflectivity are the same thing.

Transparency Def:
“… they usually assume that the interface should serve as a transparent window, presenting the user with an information workspace without interference or distortion. They expect the user to focus on the task not the interface itself.”

Reflectivity Def: “There are times when the user wants to be immersed in the data and to forget the interface, and other times when the user needs to step back and look at the interface rather than through it.”

Present-to-hand
You awareness is on the tool, not the task.

Ready-to-hand

You are using the tool, but your awareness is on the task.

————————————–

Do you agree? Yea? Nae?

Are the differences that I am not seeing/understanding? (If so, please make them “present-to-hand” for me!)

Thanks!

Hang Em’ High…

So the other night I decided to watch a Clint Eastwood western. I watched Hang Em’ High for the first time; since it was one of those movies I had wanted to watch and always eluded me (available on Hulu).

I really enjoyed it, but in particular, there was one scene that got me thinking about ready-to-hand, and present-to hand. I know Ben brought up this point earlier when he wrote about his experience with Casey playing DDR. Though my point is really that in the scene I watched, the director used some interesting techniques to really capture the visual action, and make Clint Eastwood’s handling of a gun look very ready-to-hand.
Here’s the scene, where Clint Eastwood’s character (who is an expert gunman) guns down a criminal that had tried to kill him earlier:

I know this film is a work of fiction, but it is kind of scary to fathom that there are people that are so well trained to use firearms that their guns become ready-to-hand. Then their intention to kill becomes reality, almost as if their mind kills another person instead of their hands and a gun. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people; well, while I don’t completely agree with that saying, in the case of this scene, I’d say the ready-to-hand-ness of the gunman is pretty well portrayed.

Now that I’ve said that, since we’ve been talking about sequences lately, I thought I’d do a sequence analysis so the director’s design is out there, in front of us, and we can think about how he used camera/film techniques to portray Clint Eastwood’s character as a tough, pissed off, expert gunman who can shoot so well with a revolver that it’s ready-to-hand to him.

Shot # & description	Shot Type	Dialogue
#1 Eastwood tipping his hat, leaving jail	medium	N/A
#2 Worried look of local Sheriff, looks back at grinning prisoner	Close up	N/A
#3 Eastwood strolling calmly across the street, lighting up a cigar (striking a match on his boot), then noticing something important he sees	Continuous medium, zoom in to close up upon realization of something	N/A
#4 a brown horse that Eastwood recognizes	medium	N/A
#5 Eastwood starts walking towards the horse for closer inspection	Close up, zooms out to long shot and follows Eastwood	N/A
#6 The saddle reads the word “JED”. It is Eastwood’s previously owned saddle that was stolen from him	Close up	N/A
#7 Eastwood then turns towards the saloon, and goes in to find one of the criminals he’s looking for	Continuous long shot follows Eastwood into Saloon	N/A
#8 Eastwood’s reflection in the bar mirror as he bursts through the doors	Long Shot, pans following bartender till Eastwood comes into view, follows Eastwood as he walks left, and closer towards the camera, stopping once he reaches the criminal he’s looking for	JED (Eastwood): You’re under arrest Reno.
#9 Reno responds to the Marshall (Eastwood) while he’s drinking liquor	Close up	RENO: You talkin’ to me Marshall?
#10 Eastwood looks pissed	Close up	JED: You’re name’s Reno, isn’t it?
#11 Reno responds to the Marshall (Eastwood) while he’s pouring liquor	Close up	RENO: Look Marshall, I dunno what kind of town you’re runnin’ here….
#12 Reno is pouring liquor, ignoring Eastwood, and Eastwood is getting angrier	Medium shot	JED: This isn’t my town.RENO: Well I wouldn’t know…see, I just rode in….gonna wash down some trail dust..
#13 Shot Reno, with Eastwood extinguishing his cigar into Reno’s glass of liquor	Close up	RENO:…and
#14 Full shot of Eastwood still with his cigar in Reno’s liquor. Eastwood looks pissed	Medium shot	N/A (stare down)
#15 Reno stands up	Close up	RENO: All right Marshall, whaduya say I done?
#16 Eastwood looks pissed	Close up	JED: You don’t remember me, do you?
#17 Reno	Close up	RENO: No.
#18 Eastwood looks pissed, pulls down his scarf to reveal his hangin’ scar	Close up	JED: When you hang a man, you better look at him!
#19 Reno looks scared as hell	Close up, zooms in to Extreme close up of Reno’s scared face	N/A
#20 Eastwood’s scar is visible to the audience	Extreme Close up, pans up from scar to Eastwood’s eyes. He looks pissed.	N/A
#21 Reno looks scared, starts to back away from Eastwood as camera follows	Close up	N/A
#22 Reno continues to back away from Eastwood. Angle makes Eastwood look tall and towering, and Reno looks small like a scared little kid.	Medium shot	N/A
#23 Eastwood continues his stare down, and covers his neck again	Close up	N/A
#24 Shot of Reno backing away, with Eastwood in the foreground	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	JED: Don’t go for that gun Reno…
#25 Shot of Eastwood with a low camera angle, makes him look tall and in control	Close up, low angle	JED: ..I need you alive.
#26 Reno pulls his gun to kill Eastwood	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	N/A
#27 Quick, clear shot of Reno pulling his gun on the Marshall	Medium shot	N/A
#28 Quick shot of Eastwood pulling his gun fast, in reaction to Reno	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	N/A
#29 View of Reno’s eyes widening as he is shot and killed	Extreme Close up	N/A
#30 Eastwood looks pissed as he shoots and kills Reno, pulling the trigger again and again	Medium shot, low angle	N/A
#31 Eastwood continues to gun down Reno as Reno falls down over the barrels of whiskey	Long shot of Reno, Eastwood in front of camera, over his shoulder	N/A
#32 Reno collapses and falls from his feet, dead, whiskey pouring on his face.	Medium shot, pans to follow Reno’s corpse falling to the floor	N/A
#33 Eastwood looks satisfied as smoke clears from his gun	Medium shot, low angle	N/A
#34 Shot of Eastwood walking towards the corpse, saloon patrons can be seen in the background. The local Sherriff runs into the saloon.	Medium shot, pans left following Eastwood, zooms out as he checks Reno on the floor	N/A
#35 Shot of local Sherriff checking the corpse	Long shot, changes to medium as Sheriff stands up to address Eastwood	JED: You know em’?SHERRIFF: No…JED: Anybody here know em?
#36 Shot of Eastwood and the saloon patrons	Long shot, holds steady for a while, then zooms into a medium shot.	JED: Goes by the name of Reno. Come up here and take a look at him. SHERRIFF: He musta just rode in.JED: That’s what he said, how much to bury him? SHERRIFF: Elwood?ELWOOD: Well…15 dollars oughta do a fair job Marshall.   JED: All right, there seven dollars there, I’ll give you 8 more. Mark it down there. Don’t anybody leave! I want everybody to write down in this book exactly what they saw… PATRON #1: I didn’t see nothing marshall…
#37 Shot of Eastwood responding to patron.	Close up	JED: Fine, then you say that in writing.
#38 Shot of patrons talking to Eastwood	Close up	PATRON #2: Nobody’s gonna fault ya Marshall…you gave him every chance.JED: Then say it in writing.PATRON #1: Marshall, I can’t write!
#39 Shot of patrons talking to Eastwood	Close up	JED: Well the Sherriff here can write it down, and you can put your mark on it.
#40 Shot of everyone in the saloon.	Long shot of patrons, Eastwood in foreground at medium distance	JED: Sherriff, there’s a saddle out there that belongs to me, I’ll be takin’ that.
#41 Shot of Eastwood	Close up	JED: Any of his friends or relatives show up, want his horse or his belongings, you let me know, heh…
#42	Long shot of patrons, Eastwood in foreground at medium distance, holds steady as Eastwood walks away from camera towards doors, and out of the saloon.	JED: …you can wire me in Ft. Grant.SHERRIFF: You gonna pick up the Swede now?JED: No….I’m gonna have that steak now.

Well, after looking back, it’s interesting how rapidly the shots begin to change and cuts happen as tension builds before Eastwood guns down the criminal, and then the shots get longer again after the shootout and calmness returns. I’d say that this is a classic example of rhythmic montage: the cutting of the shots is based on the visual narrative, and the feeling that is being communicated to the audience, (of calmness or high intensity), is communicated through the contrast of a rapid succession of shots, or rather, long slow shots.

Ok, that’s all for now,

-Joe

Reflective Interface Qualities

While reading about reflective qualities of the interface, it made me think of not only The Reflective Practitioner, but the way it was conveyed seemed to me that this type of interface quality is not only to strike a conversation with the artifact, but also to make us think and ask questions of the world around us (and the examples of net art and digital art presented were pretty epic). Anyways, I started looking for an example of an “artish” augmented reality type of design to comment on, and I found this:

This augmented reality pet was pretty interesting from the fact that the pet actually has pretty realistic behaviors, and that I could have a pet without actually having it in my house (as I am allergic to pet dander). But that was pretty much the only thing I liked about it (along with all of the comments of it on youtube – comments), as I didn’t like that I had to constantly keep adding semacode markers to allow the dog to move and behave in a larger amount of space. That didn’t seem like something a real dog would need in order to move around (and also, it makes me think that this would eventually be monetized, and the amount of cards one would have to buy would be epic, potentially leading to a large amount of waste when this whim of an interaction is over with), along with having an owner put this much effort in to having a pet move. While having a device that overlays the dog in real life is part of AR, I would have liked to see this interaction pushed further – incorporate our glasses, or other types of “reflective” surfaces in the environment to bring the dog to other environments. After all, a dog pretty much comes and goes wherever it pleases, and having a dog that sat still until you prodded it didn’t make me engaged with it at all.

I guess the only part of this interaction that would make me reflective would be the fact that this would not want me to get a pet, because it would serve as a reminder of all the effort I would need to put into the care of the alive being. If this was the intent of this interaction, then it certainly has succeeded, as it made me think (and then the authors would also have another exemplar of an interface to put in their mixed reality category, although I didn’t think that lumping mixed reality and digital art as reflective interfaces meant the same thing to me – they are pretty much different, in my eyes, as the mixed reality apps usually are meant to place more information in our environment to help us make the choices we need to make, whereas digital art helps us to push our understanding of the world around us and what we can do with it. This app, even though it may push developers to change the world, doesn’t really make me reflective in the same way the authors intended, so I guess I am looking for others’ thoughts here).

If you haven’t seen “text rain” before, it’s pretty darn cool, and is the kind of cool stuff I usually keep around in my head for off the wall concepts.

Sample Hot Pockets Scene Analysis

So while reading for Tuesday’s class, all of the movie references I found were pretty inaccessible for me, (partly because I haven’t seen any of the movies they were trying to reference, and didn’t have any videos for me to look at while trying to read their breakdown) so I thought I would try to do a mini-breakdown-scene analysis of one of my favorite comedians: Mr. Jim Gaffigan. This clips is about one of his most famous bits: his commentary on hot pockets. Please enjoy.

Shot #	Shot Type	Dialogue
1	medium	“feeling slow”
2	pan out	applause
3	medium	“white trash”
4	close	audience laughing
5	close	“i’ve never eaten…”
6	closer	“i’ve paid for that!”
7	medium	“my back hurts”
8	close	“ow”
9	closer	“hot pocket!”
10	far	audience laughing while saying hot pocket
11	close	audience applauding
12	far	see all of the audience and the stage
13	medium	“i like nascar”
14	close	“never see that going to dinner”
15	close	audience laughter after ceasar salad
16	close	his waiter impression
17	close	cut to the hypothetical orderer
18	medium	waiter again – “it’s frozen”
19	close	waiter “boiling lava hot”
20	close	audience laughter
21	close	“burn my mouth”
22	close	“it’ll destroy your mouth”
23	far	“everything will taste like rubber”
24	close	“i’ll have the hot pocket”
25	far -> close	“hot pocket!”
26	medium	“haven’t been around”
27	close	“i got an idea!”
28	closer	“cook it in a nasty sleeve”
29	far	laughter to toilet
30	close	veggie hot pocket
31	closer	“still want diarrhea”
32	medium	“roll of toilet paper”
33	close	“dignified way of buying”
34	close	“stick it in your cart”
35	medium	“hot pocket!”
36	medium	“lean pocket”
37	close	“take out of box”
38	medium	puts it in the toilet
39	close -> far	response to flush pocket
40	close	“pocket pocket pocket”
41	far	“introduced the breakfast hot pocket”
42	close	“finally!”
43	closer	“can’t think of a better way to start the day”
44	medium	“hot pocket”
45	close	audience applauding
46	medium -> far	audience applauding
47	close	“hot pocket for breakfast”
48	medium	“do love that jingle”
49	medium	“what do you got so far bill?”
50	close	“hot pocket?”
51	medium	“that’s good”
52	close	audience laughing
53	medium	“now what can we run in mexico?”
54	close	“caliente pocket?”
55	medium	“you’ve got a gift my friend”
56	close	“hot pocket”
57	far	“commercial for”
58	close	“now they’re just messing with us”
59	closer	“he went crazy up there”

So here’s a couple of thoughts to start a discussion. I think it is very interesting that when there’s a cut to the audience, it is either to show people directly laughing, or to show the enormity of laughter and applause. I guess it is used as a means to show how good Gaffigan is at standup. It also helps me see when and how people are laughing at the jokes. Also, it is interesting that when Gaffigan assumes different personas during his standup, there is a rapid series of cuts, which I guess is used to serve as a “transporting” of Gaffigan to his other personas so the people at home can follow along with whom he is supposed to be. I also thought it was interesting that the “normal” perspective is to show Gaffigan at normal eye level, to show him as right in front of the people at home, which is used to help us not only see him (which may be hard for some at the show), but to also see the nuances in his body language to get his jokes better.

I didn’t end up realizing how many different shots there were in a simple standup routine. It’s amazing! What did you notice?

A close reading of WoW tear-jerker

So I decided to look at a bit of machinima made from WoW clips set to the song “Here Without You” by 3 Doors Down. It has been an interesting journey. It is incredible to think that some clips from World of Warcraft set to a cheesy late 90’s love-rock song could make me misty-eyed. I dare you to watch this video multiple times and not be moved at least a little bit.