Monthly Archives: December 2006

Jack Bauer wouldn’t have stood for that!

By Catherine Winters | Published: December 19, 2006
I thought this was kind of interesting: “RCMP Spied on Tommy Douglas”. I don’t just mean the culture of J. Edgar Hoover-esque agency creepiness that would ultimately lead to the downfall of the RCMP Security Service and the subsequent creation of CSIS, Canada’s modern intelligence agency. (For those of you outside Canada, CSIS is known [...]
Posted in Brands, Canada, Media, News, Politics, Pop Culture, Privacy | Comments closed

One Laptop Per Child UI

By Catherine Winters | Published: December 12, 2006
This is really fascinating. Design studio Pentagram has developed the look and feel of the UI for the One Laptop Per Child project. (“Pfft, poor people… right?”) They’ve abandoned the “desktop” metaphor, in favour of the “zoom metaphor”. This echoes OLPC’s overall design goals in sticking to the basic Children can quickly switch between different [...]
Posted in Usability | Comments closed

Interactivity != better

By Catherine Winters | Published: December 12, 2006
This may be the least effective use of an interactive map infographic ever. It attempts to present information on an important subject, but it’s very difficult to take in due to poor UI and ineffective use of the map itself. Why on earth does this tool use the same icon for identifying a target country [...]
Posted in Canada, Media, News, Usability, Visualization | Comments closed

If kids don’t learn about making tasers in school, they’ll just learn it on the streets.

By Catherine Winters | Published: December 12, 2006
The CBC is running a story on enterprising young hooligans making good entertaining use of readily-available giant capacitors. Oh no, homemade tasers! Well, no, not exactly. They sure hurt and make you pee yourself though! This actually reminded me of things I did in high school, so maybe this is something we want to encourage! [...]
Posted in Law, Totally Awesome | Comments closed

Second Life: The Official Guide ships!

By Catherine Winters | Published: December 5, 2006
So I guess it’s probably about time I updated the look of this blog. It’s come to my attention that I may be the only published blogger not to have plugged their book on their site in every possible way. Maybe I should do something about that…
Posted in Blogosphere, Catherine, Second Life | Comments closed

Matt Haughey on collaborative search-and-rescue

By Catherine Winters | Published: December 2, 2006
This is fascinating. Matt Haughey writes about his thoughts on the disappearance of CNet editor James Kim and his family: If each recording is say 30 minutes long for a road, split it into 10 equal parts, 3 minutes long, and upload all of them to youtube. Ask viewers to leave comments pointing out when [...]
Posted in Blogosphere, Privacy | Comments closed