DISQUS

Ah, but you misunderstand. I say nobody will read it not because it's long or because it's unusable but because it's simply not worthwhile to read.

Goes back to the three circles: Usable, Useful and Desirable. Mine fits only the first ;)

On the computer, I use a Toshiba M200 Portege tablet PC to draw directly into Photoshop CS. That's pretty much it. I experimented with Flash but in the end found I felt more comfortable in PS. Nowadays, I set the pressure sensitivity to be quite firm and use a 9 pixel round brush which gives me a pretty large range of thickness without ever changing brushes.

Yep. It's mentioned in the Slate article linked in the second comment by Audiophile. Very applicable and it's a large part of my introduction now.

One interesting difference though - the Uncanny Valley does go up when it reaches an indistinguishable state. In computer graphics, we're a lot closer to reaching such a state with the exception of where close interaction with humans are involved. Spider-man, for example, uses CG seamlessly and it's sometimes hard to tell if it's a stuntman or a rendering of Spidey in the movie.

Well ... when you click on a news link a month later, that tends to happen. Really, the point wasn't that there wasn't anything to report in my life, it was more in awe of how Associated Press can report something as asinine as "Sundays now just another weekday" as news. It's astounding.

I don't typically like blogging about the food I ate or the clothes I wore for the day and I guess a large part of my "hobby" is over at OK/Cancel so I've become more selective about the things here. It's not a statement that my blog is "above that" - blogs are digital manifestations of people's personalities and they reflect that. Anyways, I suppose it's time to blog so I'll do so.

I found another site that had the same article so the link SHOULD work now.

Excellent. Many of your points are in the plans for my test. I ran a test level yesterday with modified physics and cartoony graphics (or more cartoony at least) which I also intend to run with normal physics and graphics (basically there's 4 permutations of real/unreal graphics/physics).

Video taping is something I'd toyed with but until now, it didn't occur to me to tape the user's expressions. At CHI, a presentation talked about how you could discern a lot from the player's expressions and that may be a good way to go.

Exit surveys were initially planned for each room where I had them do a task but I think doing a full level may be more appropriate.

In the abstract game, I would say you still have SoD but perhaps we are arguing semantics. You mention two potential issues, one which I've considered (adaptation to an environment/game) the other I hadn't (potivie effects of breaking SoD). To me though, if you can say "cool!" because it defies sensibility, you've accepted it, your disbelief is suspended.

Perhaps the questions I should look to answer are better stated as:

i) given a set of graphics, are there a set of initial expectations on how these graphics will behave

ii) if so, when/how does it affect the user (e.g., positively or negatively?)

I should mention, we registered Kurioso.com.

Technically, it's curious in portuguese but that's really of no significance. It sounds cool, and starts with a K and has the whole curious, new experience seeking theme. Maybe next year, I'll get around to moving the site and designing something for it.

Regarding (1) I don't THINK I stated that they have something to do with -each other-. My premise is that SoD is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for immersion. I don't delve deeply into the definition of immersion or other qualities because it's too big of a problem and a previous student already has dealt with many of those issues (recently published in ACM SIGCHI).

The part I'm really testing is: does graphic realism generate a level of expectation in behavioural realism? I argue the question is important because I think if there's an expected behaviour that's not met, SoD is broken. I don't claim that meeting these expectations is sufficient for SoD either though.

So the problem is, how do I measure whether something is matching the expectation level? In your example, the graphics are unrealistic in that they don't portray anything near the real world. Just like Tetris. Hence, there ARE no expectations to be met and anything you do with them is accepted. Try a Tetris game with people in contorted forms (actually I've seen this) - it looks bizarre.

Wordpress is nice and PHP is definitely easier to customize (tho I haven't really touched much perl, I just use the plugins and built in MT codes). One major gripe I have is that I can't really create multiple blogs off one installation and as you can see from my usage, that'd be a problem.

I'll also have to make decisions regarding OK/Cancel's platform but that's a much more complicated discussion that I won't get into yet.

Anil, if your technorati or whatever else brings you back this way, can you help answer my licensing question? I sent it to 6A not too long ago. It could be the difference between $700 and $70 which also may equate to the difference between MT3.0 or some other alternative =(

Sorry I didn't manage to say hi at SxSW, btw. Next year ...

I think Tom had his birthday about a month or so ago. It was either late March or early April so I'm guessing he's ... a Pisces? I don't know the signs very well.

I don't know what I think of the zodiac signs. There's plenty of people born around the same sign as me with quite different personalities but sometimes, there do seem to be patterns. However, I always figure it's just as likely to be coincidence. Though the "Birthday" book, a thick blue book with 2 pages of description per day of the year always makes for fun reading no matter waht.

Curious ... why would you think that?

For the audience, Andrei is an HCI working on Auto Systems in Germany. He's the one that came up with our iFly parody on BMW's iDrive and I met him at CHI.

for vancouver? yes, feb. of course =)

"Where's the Party Yaar?" and "Bollywood/Hollywood" are also good ones to catch. I also saw Bombay Dreams the musical recently and enjoyed that. Worth the half price TKTS ticket but not the full admission.

"I love Michael Bolton. I really do. All his songs. And I love more than just his music. His hair. It's so sexy."

"This is my first time having IM sex"

"Her" = Uma Thurman in Kill Bill Vol. 1

They have other colours on the site that are less radical. The white with blue or red stripes is pretty cool.

Nao: isn't the movie called the Game of Death? or was that just the American title? Her outfit is deliberately meant to be a homage to Bruce Lee I believe.

Thanks! We put a lot of effort into trying to capture everything in an interesting and aesthetic way.

And hey, feel free to send e-cards with our pics =)

Jwan: I don't have too much time. I am simply a professional procrasinator -

http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~john/procrastination.html

fo' sho'. shoot me an email since i don't have yours.

i'll post more about schooldisco later. it's late here. or early. whatever.

Actually, Depp based his character in part on Rolling Stones' guitarist Keith Richards. In particular, he copied Keith's swagger, and slightly slurred English accent. Watch the movie again and try not to let this fact distract you - it's impossible ;-)

so why would you go to the store in the first place, ben? =)

brian: that sounds remarkably similar to the bonus plan of a certain company i contract to in austin ...