The choice of font makes a huge difference to readability. Professor Arnold Wilkins (U. Essex,UK) has conducted extensive studies on the 'hygiene of reading'. his recommended font is Verdana with Times and Courier among the worst. (You want to avoid fonts with high autocorrelations.. where all the letters are very similiar looking and so it's difficult to keep track on the right place in the text). He also recommends using lower contrast and avoiding flicker as best you can:
"We read under light that is too bright and that flickers continually but imperceptibly, disturbing eye movements and visual search. We read text that is too small with fonts that are too striped, impairing reading speed. We read from displays that direct glare into the eyes, causing headaches. There are simple steps we can take to make our reading more hygenic."
when richard dawkins went on the bbc radio 4 program 'desert island discs' he took a computer as his one luxury item, citing a reason very like this.
Simple Heuristics that Make us Smart
on
Blink
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The real research on this topic is that of Simple Heuristics that make smart - Gigerenzer & Todd (OUP, 2000) - on first appearance a dry academic psychology text on bounded rationality and how we use lots of shortcuts to get close to the right answer to complex practical problems. the slightly artificial but effective example they give is determining German city size.. which is bigger Wiesbaden or Stuttgart? you've probably no idea..(German readers - don't interupt just yet) but may have at least heard of Stuttgart as might surmise that it was larger. Not only would you be right in this case but you've just discovered the highly effective "recognition heuristic".. and whats more your ignorance works for you..
asked to say which was bigger from pairs of biggest 73 german cities, american college students were more accurate than germans in germany.. the result was reversed for american cities. neat huh?
This heuristic can then be extended to something called 'take the best' which uses extra information in a very frugal fashion.. all you do is compare two items on the best cue you have..(in this case 'have i heard of it?') if your best choice discriminates between them then pick the one it tells you to, if not move to the next best cue (for city size being a state capital or having a premier league sports team are good indicators)
this is a very plausible model of a low cost stategy that might be used in human decision making.. the most surprising thing being that it gives the computationally intensive and informationally exhaustive multiple linear regression a real run for it's money in accuracy at a fraction of the cost in storage and calculation.
"Plenty of real scientific research happens at the limits of detection. As I recall, Einstein's relativity was an example of this at the time he proposed it. Quantum physics and the outer limits of astronomy are further examples. "
The limits of detection does not refer to something that is _technically_ difficult to detect (like quarks) but an effect which is _statistically_ difficult to get.. like the claims for ESP, which claim that since their gave a 50.05% hit rate, it is not just chance but some real effect, but the claim continues the nature of the phenomenon is such that you will never improve much on this rate.. never get to 55%, 60% or better.. In stark contrast to the claims of relativity and QM which have been comfirmed to one part in 10^14!!!!
I had one of these Sinclair 2" portables and it bust quite quickly (which may be the reason for its commercial failure!) Naturally, I took it apart. It is basically a standard CRT; one single gun and a bunch of magnets, albeit in an original arrangement. The beam was directed sideways at phosphor on one side of a flat sided tube and you looked in through the other side. Lots of oblique angles!
It was only small cos the screen was small, This would not scale well to 17" monitor. At a guess the case would be about 8" deep and 38" wide!!
Another crypto inspired author and slashdot favorite, Neal 'Cryptonomicon' Stephenson, has his own crypto challenge. It is certain to be harder than this one.
I wasted half a day, and have since given up.
Mind you the Poe cypher has been around 150 years, Stephenson's Eruditorum challenge has resisted solution for 1 (and counting.)
The destruction of very young babies (and not just handicapped ones as suggested) is one Gedankenexperiment among many in Singer's wider interest in the cognitive science and the issues it raises. He investigates how our moral principles consistent with our modern scientific knowledge.
For example, Singer was involved in starting the Great Ape project, which advocates equal rights for primates, the same moral and legal rights as humans. (Rights but not obligations, in the same way that young children and the mentally ill are absolved of certain responsibilities.)
This fact suggests a rather different 'spin' on the quote than/. suggests. It does seem, to me at least, to be inconsistent to believe that apes should be protected and respected, but not so children.
Not the sort of mistake a Princeton professor would make.
On the other hand sparking debate through controversy is no bad thing.
Slashdot circa 1933 (?) Shock horror: Physics professor advocates poisoning of kittens to test nuclear theory.
Slashdot Mirror
yep.. i voted and i'm just a grad student..
but thanks to these performance enhancing drugs I take i will soon be a top scientist, oh yes!
The choice of font makes a huge difference to readability. Professor Arnold Wilkins (U. Essex,UK) has conducted extensive studies on the 'hygiene of reading'. his recommended font is Verdana with Times and Courier among the worst. (You want to avoid fonts with high autocorrelations.. where all the letters are very similiar looking and so it's difficult to keep track on the right place in the text). He also recommends using lower contrast and avoiding flicker as best you can:
"We read under light that is too bright and that flickers continually but imperceptibly, disturbing eye movements and visual search. We read text that is too small with fonts that are too striped, impairing reading speed. We read from displays that direct glare into the eyes, causing headaches. There are simple steps we can take to make our reading more hygenic."
http://www.essex.ac.uk/psychology/psy/people/wilkins/wilkins.html
when richard dawkins went on the bbc radio 4 program 'desert island discs' he took a computer as his one luxury item, citing a reason very like this.
The real research on this topic is that of Simple Heuristics that make smart - Gigerenzer & Todd (OUP, 2000) - on first appearance a dry academic psychology text on bounded rationality and how we use lots of shortcuts to get close to the right answer to complex practical problems. the slightly artificial but effective example they give is determining German city size.. which is bigger Wiesbaden or Stuttgart? you've probably no idea..(German readers - don't interupt just yet) but may have at least heard of Stuttgart as might surmise that it was larger. Not only would you be right in this case but you've just discovered the highly effective "recognition heuristic".. and whats more your ignorance works for you..
asked to say which was bigger from pairs of biggest 73 german cities, american college students were more accurate than germans in germany.. the result was reversed for american cities. neat huh?
This heuristic can then be extended to something called 'take the best' which uses extra information in a very frugal fashion.. all you do is compare two items on the best cue you have..(in this case 'have i heard of it?') if your best choice discriminates between them then pick the one it tells you to, if not move to the next best cue (for city size being a state capital or having a premier league sports team are good indicators)
this is a very plausible model of a low cost stategy that might be used in human decision making.. the most surprising thing being that it gives the computationally intensive and informationally exhaustive multiple linear regression a real run for it's money in accuracy at a fraction of the cost in storage and calculation.
just thought i'd let you know.
now if we could just persuade them to stop hunting whales..
lack of people doing real work because they are too obsessed with meetings has always been a bigger problem everywhere i've worked.
"Plenty of real scientific research happens at the limits of detection. As I recall, Einstein's relativity was an example of this at the time he proposed it. Quantum physics and the outer limits of astronomy are further examples. "
The limits of detection does not refer to something that is _technically_ difficult to detect (like quarks) but an effect which is _statistically_ difficult to get.. like the claims for ESP, which claim that since their gave a 50.05% hit rate, it is not just chance but some real effect, but the claim continues the nature of the phenomenon is such that you will never improve much on this rate.. never get to 55%, 60% or better.. In stark contrast to the claims of relativity and QM which have been comfirmed to one part in 10^14!!!!
can't believe nobody has mentioned this one..
GNU version of (one of*) the oldest and best board game there is. it is already on your ibook!
*yes yes i know all about go
I had one of these Sinclair 2" portables and it bust quite quickly (which may be the reason for its commercial failure!) Naturally, I took it apart. It is basically a standard CRT; one single gun and a bunch of magnets, albeit in an original arrangement. The beam was directed sideways at phosphor on one side of a flat sided tube and you looked in through the other side. Lots of oblique angles!
It was only small cos the screen was small, This would not scale well to 17" monitor. At a guess the case would be about 8" deep and 38" wide!!
He should be on the list, he told me so himself!
Another crypto inspired author and slashdot favorite, Neal 'Cryptonomicon' Stephenson, has his own
crypto challenge.
It is certain to be harder than this one.
I wasted half a day, and have since given up.
Mind you the Poe cypher has been around 150 years, Stephenson's Eruditorum challenge has resisted solution for 1 (and counting.)
Good Luck!
Scenario:
I write OSS and it is spread widely via ftp, etc.
Other than burning a CD to backup my HD I make no 'hard' copies.
Sometime later..
I discover that Big Business Inc. has just applied for/been granted a patent on the features of my SW.
I would protest, but...
Q1. How do I prove I published earlier?
Q2. What constitutes publication?
Q3. How do I do it cheaply/for nothing?
Neal Stephenson's own crypto challenge
http://www.eruditorum.org/
Which I am only posting here, because I have had zero success with it myself.
Besides, I am sure NS's 'neat prize' will be way cooler than amazon.con
The destruction of very young babies (and not just handicapped ones as suggested) is one Gedankenexperiment among many in Singer's wider interest in the cognitive science and the issues it raises. He investigates how our moral principles consistent with our modern scientific knowledge.
/. suggests. It does seem, to me at least, to be inconsistent to believe that apes should be protected and respected, but not so children.
For example, Singer was involved in starting the Great Ape project, which advocates equal rights for primates, the same moral and legal rights as humans. (Rights but not obligations, in the same way that young children and the mentally ill are absolved of certain responsibilities.)
This fact suggests a rather different 'spin' on the quote than
Not the sort of mistake a Princeton professor would make.
On the other hand sparking debate through controversy is no bad thing.
Slashdot circa 1933 (?)
Shock horror: Physics professor advocates poisoning of kittens to test nuclear theory.
- Kazparr