Disqus - Latest Comments for nickpunt

Re: Deep Space Nine Upscale Project Season Finale: What We’ve Brought Ahead

Nick Punt — Tue, 26 May 2020 00:42:43 -0000

If you're having trouble syncing between different framerates, you may want to consider using Nvidia's Super Slomo to interpolate frames.

https://news.developer.nvid...
https://towardsdatascience....

Re: 1980s computer controls GRPS heat and AC

Nick Punt — Fri, 12 Jun 2015 17:50:18 -0000

If it uses SCSI the drive can be replaced with an SD card using the open source hardware SCSI2SD, which explicitly supports the Amiga. Hardware cost: $70
http://www.codesrc.com/medi...

Re: Why Gmail 2013 Sucks

Nick Punt — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:25:06 -0000

Its not that bad, though I agree with picture attachment + signatures issues since those violate expectations that could result in users accidentally doing things that others see (social embarrassment is a far worse outcome than poking around a bit to learn a new UI). Design is all about tradeoffs, and efficiency vs ease is one of the classics... gmail is just a few shades of grey too far from where you like. And rapportive not working... well, that's just gonna happen as services evolve.

Also, not to be pedantic, but you should make sure to utilize those usability heuristics yourself. Case in point is this comments box, which is not fixed width, meaning line lengths can be 200+ characters on a decent sized monitor. Typesetters long ago discovered long lines = poor readability, and found the optimal width to be ~50-75 characters, as eyes can't track back and forth much beyond that. This to me is a far more troublesome UI issue than anything you brought up about gmail :)

Here's some reading to get you started: http://baymard.com/blog/lin...

Re: Educon 2.5: The Politics of Ed-Tech (Storified)

Nick Punt — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:11:17 -0000

Oh that makes a lot of sense, thank you. Purchasers are definitely not well informed enough about who they're buying from & what that's implicitly supporting. We in edtech media need to provide more information as well as pressure to appeal to the better nature of the players in the space.

Re: Educon 2.5: The Politics of Ed-Tech (Storified)

Nick Punt — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:31:48 -0000

The motives and values of those in power in our space matters, but reading this I don't know why or how.

Example 1: Reed Hastings contributing $9000/yr to politics is background noise to someone worth $300mm, more likely suggesting a general disinterest in politics rather than any big agenda.

Example 2: COPPA was a pretty outdated law written prior to the modern internet, so it stands to reason anyone who operates on the internet will benefit, for profit or non profit. It brings up lots of issues, but pointing out people lobbied for it doesn't really get us much?

The issue matters, but I can't quite tell what came out of this session other than a sense of general uneasiness and a few random facts. Maybe I just had to be there?

Re: 5 Reasons Why Web Publishing is Changing (Again)

Nick Punt — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 03:58:59 -0000

Hey Richard, our new site is now live, check it out! The design is more app-like and will serve as a template as we more deeply integrate community contributions and wiki content into the site.

Also, just today we announced the seed investment we received from Washington Post & NewSchools Venture Fund, as well as from execs at Allen & Co and O'Reilly Media. We think we've gotten an ideal mix of media investors now supporting us as we dive into what 21st century journalism looks like. You can read more here: https://www.edsurge.com/n/w... or check out the news on some other sites (techcrunch and insidehighered seem to have written extensive articles).

Let me know if you've got any questions!

Re: 5 Reasons Why Web Publishing is Changing (Again)

Nick Punt — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:11:28 -0000

You've basically described the playbook we're employing at my news organization EdSurge. Our team is a combination of journalists and product developers, and we felt traditional blogging was too static and ponderous in the age of apps, so we built a custom publishing system & app.

Almost to a T these 5 concepts guided our development- we've focused on shorter more casual pieces designed around an app-like stream, adding lots of context to each (we've built a large parent/child topics wiki). We set a high bar for quality, and have kept away from ads. We're building our system for the education technology sector, but I imagine others will be using Medium et al for more general purposes. Our v2 redesign goes live soon, check it out in a few days at www.edsurge.com

Re: Startup to Offer Hybrid College Experience to Veterans

Nick Punt — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:41:55 -0000

We're no longer in the era where college is an isolated retreat serving a homogeneous and privileged few. As an industry, higher education is slowly awakening to a new, more connected reality that takes into account students needs both pre- and post-college. It's unfortunate how many students with a lot of potential get lost in these gaps. The better we can serve students in these transitions, the more diverse our college population will become, and the more we will be able to fully utilize the latent talent of our nation.

Unfortunately, college services that fulfill these transitional needs are still underfunded and undervalued. As it stands today, most colleges are not structured or resourced in a way to adequately address transitions for many audiences, including (and especially) members of the military. These structural constraints mean that outside innovators are the best positioned to make a big impact in transitioning students into college and the workforce.

Fidelis' approach is quite unique. By virtue of their position managing both college and workforce transitions, Fidelis becomes the biggest advocate for a military student in their college experience. The partnerships being forged between colleges and Fidelis are a great example of value that can be built when commercial players with aligned incentives join colleges to solve problems.

To me, there are two fundamental approaches one can take in building services around student transitions. The first is to focus on a particular student population with specific needs, and be a full service provider for them. This is Fidelis' approach. The second is to focus on a particular pain point in the transition that most students encounter, and help smooth that transition. This is my company's (Inigral) approach. Both are aligned to and built around students needs, both are complementary approaches, and both make a dent in fundamental access issues by helping students build stronger foundations for success. I'm really looking forward to seeing Fidelis grow and prove this out - they have the right stuff.

Re: wiki_preface [Building Web 2.0 Reputation Systems]

Nick Punt — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:38:31 -0000

Hi Randy, I tried to create a user account to make a minor edit or two on the wiki, and got an error message saying there was a problem with the server sending an email.

Thanks for putting this content online in unfinished state - it's already been v useful in a design review I'm doing.