Ned Gulley’s Blog. Resident buzzwords: synthetic biology, ambient displays, swarm robotics, wise crowds.
Posted in Autism & Jay on Apr 30th, 2002
Time magazine is doing a cover story on autism: The Secrets of Autism. Some numbers from the article… “Not long ago, autism was assumed to be comparatively rare, affecting as few as 1 in 10,000 people. The latest studies, however, suggest that as many as 1 in 150 kids age 10 and younger may be [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 28th, 2002
Botox parties represent an amazing amount of cultural convergence. Botox, or botulism toxin, is generally bad news. It kills by paralyzing important muscles, like the diaphragm and the heart. But a teeny-tiny squirt injected just above your eyebrows can wipe out muscle-induced wrinkles by paralyzing the associated squinty muscles. A little creepy, but you can [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 27th, 2002
While I was at CHI, I finished Word Freak, subtitled Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius, and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players. It’s a good read, filled with an obligingly weird cast of characters. Having seen it recommened on peterme.com, I bought it for my wife, our reigning in-house champion (I knew I was [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 19th, 2002
Happy Patriots Day! I’m off to CHI next week, so no posting for a while. I’ll be participating in a workshop about online communities, talking about MATLAB Central. Apparently they’re having disastrously low turnout for the meeting. Minneapolis. Oh well.
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 19th, 2002
The Google API is showing up everywhere, even in MATLAB. Check out Matt Simoneau’s new Google Toolbox and use Google’s SOAP interface to pull data into MATLAB as a structure.
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 18th, 2002
So all the kids are talking about Google Answers, the new service from Google that lets people post questions and that get answered for a fee. I’ll be interested to see if they can make it work… they’re amazingly ambitious and do a good job with most of the stuff they tackle. Anyway, I was [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 17th, 2002
Here’s a fun article at Salon about people who write game modifications, or mods: Triumph of the mod. Once again, the gaming industry is leading the way for the rest of us. Simulation, real-time graphics, UI design, and now software process and practice. The incredible game-playing and game-building rush makes people devote insane amounts of [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 16th, 2002
The Soda Constructor was a web hit ages ago; I thought sure it would be an overnight fad. But this thing has legs (literally). The zoo page lets people add their own models, and while some of the results are silly, others are fascinating. It’s very clear the simple model they put together captures a [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 15th, 2002
Wanna get the lowdown on computer game addiction? Don’t read the dry reportage on CNET. Visit the front lines and read the discussion at the gaming site ShackNews. I thought all the gameboys were going to slam the psychologist loser-heads who would dare suggest that games are addictive. But some of the posts were refreshingly [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 14th, 2002
See the John Lynch Artist Portfolio at absolutearts.com. John, a painter from Berkeley, California, was originally featured here at our very Star Chamber web site, where you can still see his gallery. Congrats, John, on the new site! Actually, I’m a little puzzled by the fact that they seem to be offering for sale a [...]
