Not Really a Mainlander

Why I don’t like Outlook: Reason #122 – Folder Display

2010-07-31T23:42:00.001-04:00

I am forced to use Outlook at work. There are many reasons I don’t like this, including the fact that it doesn’t comply with normal email standards, and I cannot check my mail through my chosen client.

Due to some silly rules, when off campus I cannot even use the Outlook client, but instead must use the web interface. The web interface does not work with Firefox, of course.

Take a quick look at the way it presents the folders:

What do you see first? There is a very unhelpful ‘popout’ effect going on with this list, even at the reduced size seen here. The two least important folders are in bold with coloured numbers beside them: deleted and junk. I have to hunt for the inbox in alphabetical order.

Granted, my inbox is actually empty (yay!) so that’s why it isn’t bold, but it is so critical, it should be right at the top. I hear often from colleagues about the wonderful usability labs at Microsoft. They brag about the ability to recruit and test with ‘real people’ instead of the undergrads us in academia are often forced to use. However, it doesn’t seem to help them solve basic usability issues like this.

Lambert Academic Publishing Continues to Spam

2010-06-07T08:59:00.003-04:00

I was contacted today by a representative of Lambert Academic Publishing requesting that I change the title of my blog post "Academic Spam", in which I criticize their marketing tactics as consisting of sending poorly written spam enticing vanity publishing. That's right: Lambert Academic Publishing and VDM Verlag send poorly written academic spam. Parse that and put it on the search results, Google.

In their latest message, Michael Davis, a Customer Service Executive, insists they are not a vanity publishing house. The two central premises of his argument are that they don't charge the authors, and the publications are available on Amazon.com and in physical bookstores. Anyone can post products on Amazon.com, and removing the pay aspect doesn't make it less vain to essentially self-publish. Oh, and they offer a dedicated "Acquisition Editor" -- someone who apparently can't even write an email without English errors.

As I understand vanity publishing, it basically means you get a publisher to print up your thesis and sell it without proper editing or peer review. This seems to be exactly Lambert's model but they don't charge you (in cash). Instead, they charge you in terms of removing your rights to your own work (you can re-publish only up to 80% of your work). In response to my original post, several people have argued that no harm is done in publishing with them -- it gives you something nice for your bookshelf and CV. I suggest these authors find a local print shop and bindery and do it themselves. Having a self-published on-demand book from LAP is likely to be a negative, not a positive, on an academic CV. Experienced researchers will see right through this in a second. It doesn't bring with it any weight in terms of peer review, it just shows your own vanity and your inability to make your thesis available freely online.

LAP is essentially an on-demand publishing house. I would like to know how many of the submitted theses actually go into the physical bookstores? I would wager that the vast majority exist only as cover shots in Amazon.com listings and in print form on the bookshelf of the author and his or her proud parents. They spam all of us in the hopes that someday someone with a gem of a thesis will fall for it and actually make them some money.

The letter I received today was obviously carefully written -- if they had taken similar care in their initial message, it may not have raised my suspicions. Their spam emails read like shady Nigerian 419 messages.

Well, I decline to change the title of my post, and instead I will link to several others who also consider LAP's emails to be academic spam. Steer clear of this company.

See also:

http://sandcountyfrank.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/academic-spam/

http://littlecomputerscientist.wordpress.com/2009/06/04/investigating-lambert-academic-publishing-with-google-square/

http://hjhop.blogspot.com/2008/12/shady-academic-publishing.html

Tulsa Library: Bastion of Censorship Online

2010-05-17T11:21:00.001-04:00

The Tulsa City library system has a shameful system of online censorship.

I do not support internet censorship of any form, but I do accept that libraries may want to filter potentially visually offensive materials to protect other library patrons from inadvertent viewing.

However, the Tulsa library wifi (which, by the way presents an invalid self-signed security certificate) takes censorship to an extreme level which I haven’t experienced anywhere else.

Examples of blocked sites:

Craigslist
Boing Boing
Google.com/preferences (!) (presumably to disallow one from changing the SafeSearch filter from ‘strict’)

Libraries should be leaders of information provision, not home to the most restrictive forms of censorship. I hope that this policy is a sign of the puritanical culture here, not a sign of things to come at libraries everywhere.

Visualizing the Gulf Oil Spill

2010-05-03T15:46:00.001-04:00

In order to help emergency response and the public to understand the extent of the current Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, several visualization researchers and designers have published useful visualizations.

NASA’s Aqua satellite supplied this image of the Gulf Coast oil slick resulting from the explosion & sinking of the Deepwater Horizon platform. It was captured with the “MODIS” (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) instrument, and shows the oil as it follows the gulf currents across the region.

[click for original NASA posting and high resolution image]

NASA explains why a conventional photograph would not allow us to see the oil spill as clearly as this MODIS image:

“The oil slick may be particularly obvious because it is occurring in the sunglint area, where the mirror-like reflection of the Sun off the water gives the Gulf of Mexico a washed-out look. Oil slicks are notoriously difficult to spot in natural-color (photo-like) satellite imagery because a thin sheen of oil only slightly darkens the already dark blue background of the ocean. Under unique viewing conditions, oil slicks can become visible in photo-like images, but usually, radar imagery is needed to clearly see a spill from space.”

CNN presents an interactive timeline of the oil slick movements, as does the NY Times. The NY Times animation includes narrative of events directly on the map, as well as the use of dotted borders to encode uncertainty when showing predictions of spill extent. Both could be improved with visual encodings indicating sensitive geographical regions, such as bird sanctuaries, oyster beds, tourist beaches, etc. However, it is impressive how quickly the media are able to provide useful visualizations to the public – the flexibility of the medium will allow these designs to be improved as the story develops.

CNN Animation: broad context, few narrations

NY Times Animation: closer context, annotations and prediction

Critique of Culture Colours

2010-05-03T15:39:00.001-04:00

David McCandless has published a book of visualizations called "Information is Beautiful". The visualization that is used on the cover of the book is a graphic of colour connotations across cultures:

[original post at informationisbeautiful.net]

First, let me say that this visualization, along with many in the book, is quite visually engaging. The data is interesting, and it would make a beautiful poster. That said, from an InfoVis point of view, I think there are issues with this design.

Most importantly, the rings are, due to the geometry, different sizes. This means that the slices of each annulus get progressively smaller as you move to the centre. So, the colours of western society are given more visual presence than those of South America.

The location and dual nature of the legend means that to read this graphic a lot of back and forth referencing is needed. Also, it's difficult without at least faint gridlines to determine which ring each colour block is on. This is especially true for blocks in isolation, such as the red block in radial 12.

I personally might have visualized this using a small multiples diagram -- one for each word, perhaps with a single vertical slice for each region.

It would not be as compact, but I think it would be clearer. Of course, this is just a five minute idea and I'm sure it has lots of problems too. His graphic is clearly designed as a poster, and as such, it works well and would look nicer than my idea hanging on the wall.

Visualization Hall of Fame

2010-04-06T20:12:00.001-04:00

My former colleagues Irene Ros and Matt McKeon along with Yannick Assogba at IBM Research have released “Many Bills”, a follow up to IBM’s revolutionary social data visualization service “Many Eyes”. Many Bills draws our eyes on the right stuff, using colour appropriately to highlight thematic similarities and differences in the various bills and versions of bills considered by the U.S. House and Senate. Interactive drill down allows an analyst to see an overview and then focus on an area of interest. I like their use of horizontal scrolling – a technique entirely undervalued in visualization in my opinion.

This tool could be a lobbyist’s dream – or nightmare if the public starts to see what really goes into the laws that govern modern democracies. Following on their social data expertise, Many Bills lets visitors create, save, and share collections of bills that are of interest. Check it out for yourself at http://manybills.researchlabs.ibm.com/

The slick tour will get you started on analyzing this fascinating data for yourself, or check out my sample collection below on Canada and the environment.

Visualization Hall of Shame April 2010

2010-04-05T12:12:00.001-04:00

I’m settled at my new job, and I’m looking forward to getting back to this blog now and then. I plan to feature critiques in the form of “Hall of Shame” and “Hall of Fame” examples of visualization each month. I hope for more “Hall of Fame” examples, but it depends on what I come across over the month. This instalment: poorly designed pie charts.

Pie charts generally are not very useful other than to give a vague idea of relative size. We just aren’t that good at reading angles precisely. Adjacency, colour, the absolute angle, and other factors all confound our ability to read pie charts. Add to that the frequent use of ‘visual bling’ such as 3D perspective which makes it virtually impossible to use the charts for anything other than eye candy. Even if pie charts are useful, the metaphor is that they are pieces of pie. Thus the pieces generally add up to one pie. This point is, unsurprisingly, lost on Fox News. One might expect better from journalists, whose job is ostensibly to inform the public on matters of importance. Even more disappointing is the second chart, from Business Objects, the `business intelligence’ arm of SAP – this is a company that makes visual interfaces as their core business, yet their own pie chart makes no sense at all. Shame!

I don’t claim to even understand the data underlying these charts, but if I had to guess, I’d say perhaps the questions asked about each data item were independent. That is, 70% of people asked “Do you back Palin?” replied “yes”, and 63% replied yes to the same question about Huckabee. In this case, a bar chart would be more appropriate, to understand the relative levels of support. To get data for a pie chart, the question would have to be “Pick one: Palin, Huckabee, Romney”.

Blocking Procrastination

2009-08-25T17:30:00.004-04:00

Dealing with e-procrastination issues or cyberslacking?

In the hopes of helping others, I'm going to admit that I deal with this problem sometimes... unfortunately when it's most important for me to focus. I found one helpful solution that may sound silly to those of you with rock-hard willpower, but for people like me, it's an important aid and reminder to get back to the task at hand. It's called "Simpleblock" and it's a Firefox extension that allows you to be your own "NetNanny". During thesis writing, I've used it to block Facebook, Google Reader, and Google News from my browser. Very helpful! You just have to resist turning it off.

Other focus-enhancing tools I've found include:

the FM3 virtual Buddha machine
white/pink/brown noise generators
Merlin Mann's (10+2)x5 and the accompanying Yahoo widget
using an unschedule and other advice from The Now Habit

Good luck to everyone facing dissertation writing!

Spam Contact Requests from Skype

2009-08-23T16:19:00.002-04:00

Skype has been plagued over the years with the problem of spam 'contact requests'. It's a way for 'sexy girls' to get around your privacy settings and still contact you. While I have my privacy set to allow contacts only from people in my contact list, there is no way to block contact requests, in in reality I wouldn't want to block contact requests anyway since sometime legitimate people do contact me.

So, several times a day I have to acknowledge, decline, and block requests like this:

The Skype forum indicates they are working on it, with 14+ pages of user complaints here and here. Many posters in this forum claim that it's a difficult problem and that users should just disable contact request notifications. I don't think it's a difficult issue, and I also don't want to miss out on legitimate contact requests.

What I don't understand is why this is such a problem for Skype (and Twitter), but not for other services. I don't receive spam friend requests on Facebook, MSN, or Google Talk. There seem to be a simple ways to fix this. Off the top of my head, using social network metrics:

[1] detect new accounts that send contact requests to > N (say, 100) people
[2] if within those N people, the interlinkage ratio is low (e.g. fewer than 2% are connected to one another), flag the account as spam and cancel all those contact requests, block the IP.

This might work because if someone populates their initial contact list for Skype from something like their email database, it's likely that within that email database there are people who are also mutually connected. Whereas a spammer choosing random names or using an alphabetic list will likely request contacts with people who for the large part do not know one another. This would be suspicious.

To augment this, what about some regular expression processing to detect suggestive words in the contact request?

Another option, which LinkedIn uses is to request you to enter an email address of the person you are trying to contact, to confirm that you really know them. I realize Skype intends to facilitate introductions of like-minded people who don't otherwise know one another, but I have never used it for this purpose and I don't intend to. Some sort of captcha/secret question should be an option in the privacy settings so that only requests from people who know me make it through.

I'm not sure how MSN/Google etc. manage these sorts of spam contact/link requests, but they do a good job.

The Enter Key is Disabled (for our Super-Secret Reasons)

2009-08-12T01:30:00.007-04:00

It's a sad day when the IEEE website makes it into my collection of 'infovis and usability pitfalls'. I've been saving a collection to use as icebreakers at the beginning of HCI classes I will teach. Today's instalment, courtesy of my own professional organization, is an arbitrary warning to 'please click the image' instead of pressing enter.

Issues with this of course include the fact that pressing [Enter] in search forms is the standard, assumed behaviour. Secondarily, there is the annoying popup box -- obviously the system knew I pressed [Enter], why give me an irritating message instead of just activating the darn search? Finally, this message ("Enter key is disabled, please click on the image to submit information") is infuriating as it offers no logical explanation as to why the key is disabled, making it seem like an arbitrary inconvenience. It also is not grammatical and does not end with any punctuation, making sticklers like me cringe. HCI 101: Write clear error messages.

These sorts of inconveniences seem minor on an individual basis, but I'd love to see the logs and know how many times a day this message is displayed. It's not even like this will be an easy-to-learn interaction technique, as it is (a) much slower than pressing [Enter] and (b) goes against the accepted conventions (my 'mental model' of how the web works).

It's shameful that an organization that hosts conferences on usability would create an interface like this. What's worse, I had to use Internet Explorer even to get this error message! In Firefox, my preferred browser, pressing [Enter] simply reloads the page with no apparent effect. No error, no search results. Just a reload. Hmmm, isn't the IEEE an advocate for web standards?

Library and Archives Canada Sells Out Canadian Students to US Publisher

2009-08-05T15:02:00.004-04:00

I've just realized that Library and Archives Canada, the provider of the repository of Canadian theses, has outsourced the work of scanning and publishing theses to the US academic publisher ProQuest. It seems I'm way behind the times as this has been happening for years. I have some problems with this maddening situation:

ProQuest sells the theses and keeps the royalties (this was agreed to by the CFS in 2002!)
There is a 'minimum' 6 month delay for a thesis to appear online, but probably 4 years
I have to pay to have ProQuest micofiche my thesis (Microfiche? What the hell is that?)
"Space is limited in ProQuest's database. Therefore, when writing your abstract, make sure that you don't exceed 150 words for masters theses and 350 words for doctoral dissertations" -- what century are we in? Arbitrary restrictions like 350 words for my doctoral dissertation abstract because ProQuest has a faulty database?
I can purchase my thesis from ProQuest at a discount later (thanks!)

This system seems very antiquated. My dissertation will be in full colour with lots of images -- why would I want anyone to receive a reprint from a scanned hard copy? While I know that microfiche is arguably a more stable archival format than electronic files such as PDF, there is a lot of work right now in digital preservation. I think we are far enough along to assume that a PDF can be an archival document. My thesis will be available as a PDF on my personal website for free in any case.

I investigated alternatives -- answer: there are none. Apparently Library and Archives Canada can accept electronic versions directly, skipping the ProQuest step. Luckily, U of T is switching to electronic dissertations as of August 31, 2009. However, they just told me on the phone that ProQuest is still involved even with electronic theses. This is confusing, as the LAC site seems to suggest otherwise.

I asked if I could opt-out of that, and they said no, but that I should feel some comfort because (a) no one will actually buy my thesis from ProQuest so in reality the effect is negligible and (b) they agree with me and tried to get out of the ProQuest arrangement early but could not. They expect things to change in the next couple of years, including the demise of microfiche.

Well, on principle, that's not much comfort. But, as I told the helpful administrator at SGS, at this point actually graduating trumps my principles regarding personal intellectual property rights.

If only I could write dissertation pages as fast as blog posts.

Academic Spam

2009-06-21T13:06:00.004-04:00

I received this message today, from what seem to be a somewhat sophisticated spammer. I receive academic spam regularly, usually from conferences in Florida that accept computer-written papers. I usually just delete them but this one was interesting. They managed to grab my name, my thesis title, and my institution and fill them into what is certainly a form letter. Note the extra spaces before the commas and the two periods after my thesis title (and the odd use of two closing statements).

"Dear Christopher Collins ,

I am writing on behalf of the International academic publisher, LAP Lambert Academic Publishing AG & Co. KG.

In the course of a research at the Library ofUniversity of Toronto , We came across a reference to your thesis on Head-driven probabilistic parsing for word lattices. .

As we would like to make your work available to a larger audience, I am wondering if you may be interested in publishing your thesis in the form of a printed book.

Your reply including an e-mail address to which I can send an e-mail with further information in an attachment will be greatly appreciated.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely yours,
Kind Regards,

Toolasee Marooodamoothoo
Acquisition Editor"

Minor aside: isn't Toolasee Marooodamoothoo a really awesome name?!

A quick internet search for "LAP Lambert Academic Publishing" leads to some interesting blog hits of other people challenging this shady practice. Apparently if you follow through with their invitation, the first thing they ask for is your banking information, ostensibly to deposit funds from all those sales. To be fair, from their Amazon.com listings (which I won't link to, they don't deserve the hits), and from many experience reports on blogs, they do actually turn your PDF into a 'book' and send you 5 copies. So, if you want five free copies of your thesis, maybe this is a good scheme.

However, since my thesis is available freely on my website [pdf] in full format and as a 8-page paper [PDF], I can't imagine why I would want to sell it on Amazon for an hugely inflated price. It won't be a bestseller. I won't make money. It would just be a rip-off for a couple (at most) of people. I guess now that we have print-on-demand publishing, which is what LAP Lambert uses, anything can be a book. It ushers in a new age of vanity publishing. I can't say I have much respect for people who feel their research gains legitimacy because they put a hard cover on it and charge US$100+. In case my website ever goes offline, my thesis is also freely available forever at the Library of Canada. So, LAP Lambert, no I don't need your services to make my thesis more widely available.

"LAP Lambert Academic Publishing" is the English language division of VDM Verlag. At first I thought 'oh, that must be related to Springer-Verlag', a well-respected academic publishing house. It turns out that 'verlag' means 'publishing house' and they are not affiliated.

EuroVis 2009 Recap

2009-06-19T17:54:00.003-04:00

Over on Infosthetics.com, Petra and I were recently invited to be guest bloggers. I was a bit awestruck to write for Information Aesthetics, I admit.

We have contributed our summary of the EuroVis 2009 conference... check it out!

Auto-Sliding Scales Look Cool, but Destroy Interpretability

2009-06-18T20:33:00.004-04:00

The new Thomson Reuters iPhone app from the folks at Reuters Labs is really great. It has easy and fast access to a huge collection of Reuters information from around the world. Also, you can read news offline, which is helpful for iPod touch owners like me. But, there is one irksome design issue, at least for visualization fans like me.

It has a charting tool to review the history of financial indices. At first glance, it seems really slick. InfoVis for the iPhone! Yay! However, when you actually play with it, you realize that as you scan time, the y-axis is constantly changing. This does not allow for true visual comparison between different time periods. The scale should be set to fit the data for all the available time periods, then panning would not be so disconcerting. An option to zoom in or locally optimize the scale could be provided.

Check out the elastic y-axis on this video. I've noted three different y-values that all appeared at roughly the same height as I scanned the data. Also, the bottom of the y-axis is set to maximize the visual variance in the time period. This means that in the example in the video, the y-axis origin is at about 8,000. This helps a viewer to understand the local variance, but exaggerates the overall impression of variance. Whether this is a good idea depends on the task. I guess most financial analysts are interested in recent history, but it would be nice to be able to zoom out to a zero-origin as a sanity check on relative fluctuations.

A Response to "Sensemaking ok, but ACTION is what they need (Visuale)"

2009-06-04T18:58:00.004-04:00

Enrico Bertini writes the interesting Visuale blog, and recently posted a piece arguing that our research quest for 'Sensemaking' misses the forest for the trees: in the creation and study of analysis processes, we are not actually supporting realistic scenarios where decision support is needed in a timely manner. Specifically, he says "visualization is useless if it doesn't help people take actions". While I don't necessarily agree that all our InfoVis research is barking up the wrong tree, I see his point. Some projects, such as my own Uncertainty Lattices, are specifically designed to help people make fast decisions about data. However, it is true that in the InfoVis, and especially in the sensemaking communities, we seem to focus on process before results.

I see his point in that many of the solutions we develop as researchers are decoupled from actual use. I think Shneiderman & Plaisant addressed this somewhat in their paper on MILCS (longitudinal case studies). The problem is indeed structural: we cannot prove real usefulness without long term deployments, and the incentive for such deployments is low in academia (and, these sorts of experiments are time consuming). We cannot become toolbuilders for business without careful (and publishable) follow up evaluations. So, what is the solution?

I think we could be doing great InfoVis research but also having an impact in the analytics world, especially business analytics. We need to partner more with those real world users of data... I would be elated to see some of the great ideas I see every year at InfoVis and other venues actually become real products. There is a gaping hole between the great research we do and the market.

However, I'm not sure that adding the constraints Enrico mentioned will necessarily lead to a situation of improved design, no matter how much design is improved by explicit constraints. Even a cursory look at the bulk of currently commercially available business analytics tools shows that they would never been acceptable to the 'academic' audience (due to poor information design, layout, and breaking well known constraints about human perception). On top of that, they are almost all ugly.

I recently saw a deployed visual analytic tool using dark blue text on a purple background. It was illegible. But it was deployed and paid for. And, it was working for the customer. I would argue that deployment success and ability to provide insight over exploration is not an indicator of quality design. This is the age old question of the mystery of product adoption by the market. Perhaps it is a factor of providing that immediacy Bertini mentions: the decision support in a short time; the answer rather than a lengthy exploration process. The hated fuel gauges might do that better than my own VisLinks. Great, if we are going for speed and quality of decisions and not depth of insight or potential for discovery. We need to separate the two, as they can't be supported the same way. Sensemaking is not about providing a single answer. That's artificial intelligence, or maybe even 'smart graphics'.

I agree completely on Data Mining vs. Visualization... I would sum it up to say the 'vs.' needs to become '&'. I think the strength for the future lies in closer ties between the two. We have 'data manipulations' as a step in every version of the InfoVis pipeline and in all visual analytics process diagrams, but too often the visualization is actually of some surface data, or the outputs of data mining. I think a closer coupling of the two, bringing vis as a 'box opening' tool for data mining will be important. My own thesis research as been looking at just this for statistical linguistic processes such as translation and information retrieval, and I hope to do more of it in the future.

iTunes Annoyances

2009-06-02T14:14:00.004-04:00

There are many things about the iTunes interface that are irritating, but by far the most annoying is the fact that it does not maintain a 'live' library -- changes to your music outside iTunes are virtually impossible to propagate back to the library. One solution is to delete and re-scan completely, but then you lose playlists, play counts, etc. Another solution used to be to use the great program iTunes Library Updater, but it does not work with newer versions of iTunes.

I just followed a complicated process outlined on Paul Mayne's blog but it only worked for files that do not have a duplicate. If you delete one copy of a duplicated file, then the Smart Playlist method doesn't see the file as missing, because the duplicate is still there. So, you can't clear up situations like this, where an album was accidentally duplicated, then removed:

To make matters worse, you can sort the iTunes table by any column except the indicator column containing the exclamation point. So, it seems the only solution (at least for Windows users) is to ctrl-click every second song in lists like this. That would be a long and tedious process, prone to accidentally deleting the wrong lines. I guess I'll have to do the total delete-rebuild operation.

There are several possible easy fixes to this:

Live monitoring of music folders, as in Windows Media Player
A "remove missing tracks" button
Allow sort on missing status to put all (!) files in a contiguous list

With mature software like iTunes, I don't understand why this feature has not been created. A simple web search yields many complex workarounds -- obviously it's not just me wanting to do this.

Note to HP: Canada does not use A4 paper

2009-04-09T16:57:00.003-04:00

While I think the ISO 216 system of paper sizing (A4, B1, etc.) is much more sensible than arbitrary "letter", "legal", HP should know that Canada doesn't use it! We use "letter". I'm using the HP 'universal printer driver' at work, and it's helpful features raise an interesting question about interface design.

The driver documentation says that the default paper size is selected based on the locale setting in the OS. Mine is set to "Canada", so my default paper is A4. If this worked, it could be a helpful feature to get people printing quickly. The poor design decision here is to not let anyone override this default. To create a profile with default paper size as "letter", I have to create an entirely new printing profile. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except you can't set a new printing profile as the default. So, the default 'General Everday Printing' with A4 is what I'm stuck with, meaning an extra click to change the paper size every time I have to print something. I guess it's time to switch to the older, non universal, driver.

Or, I guess I could pretend to be in the USA, but then I won't be able to read dates and my spell checker would not like how I spell colour.

"OK"

2009-03-19T15:28:00.001-04:00

Thanks Adobe Reader! Everything is ok, because I have no choice apparently.

Irony: TSA an "unknown entity"

2009-02-16T23:46:00.002-05:00

The security certificate for the contact forms on the TSA website in the US is invalid. Firefox throws up warnings about an unsigned and untrusted certificate. Somehow I find this really funny.

Nutritional Facts Visualizations

2009-02-09T22:53:00.000-05:00

I recently saw these new nutritional labels at McDonald's, the first being a McDonald's-only infographic and the second is the traditional nutritional facts label. The infographic is in more prominent positions on the packaging. I'm not sure if this is a legislated change, or voluntary, but whatever it is, bravo!

The design is interesting. I think McDonald's is attempting to make the nutritional value of each measured component clear by providing icons for different nutritional components (building blocks for protein, etc.) and bar charts to compare amounts. However, I can't tell what the marker within the bar graphs represent. The units differ across items, so I think perhaps they are normalized to recommended daily intake (full bar = 100%). But, what value does vertical broken line represent? It can't be 50%, since the 45% Fat bar is well beyond the marker. Perhaps I'm missing something obvious here, but without an explanation, this chart doesn't provide as much information as it could. Ideas?

Shared Responsibility

2008-12-08T15:32:00.002-05:00

However, grammar isn't anybody's responsibility.

Update: Mark says, "I'm left to conclude that 'Safety and Security' is some department they think everyone is responsible for."

Thankful graphs

2008-12-02T02:36:00.003-05:00

Jeff Clark at Neoformix did it again -- a simple visualization of streaming data that is entirely captivating. I let his "Thankful" twitter vis run for a while, and a surprising pattern emerged... the word most associated with "Thankful" on twitter tonight?

Work.

Maybe it's a sign of the economic times?

Thanks to Jeff for continuing to inspire. I really should take his cue and start making some small apps...

I know what I'm thankful for tonight: the possibility of no more PM Harper come next Monday!

Response to "5 False Myths of InfoVis"

2008-11-01T21:40:00.003-04:00

I started this post as a comment response to Enrico Bertini's interesting post "5 False Myths of InfoVis", but it started getting really long, so I decided probably I could justify posting my response here.

For reference, here are Bertini's 5 False Myths (I think 'false' may be a redundant word here):

FM1 - InfoVis is about data exploration
FM2 - InfoVis is about discovery
FM3 - InfoVis is about new visualization techniques
FM4 - InfoVis is about vision
FM5 - InfoVis is about the data

Well, this is a very interesting list. I agree with many of the points, especially the second class way our community seems to treat interaction. I think interaction design should play as central to good InfoVis as the visual design.

I'm not sure what I think about FM1 and FM2 -- I think some combination of discovery and exploration certainly is undertaken by real users using real infovis tools, especially in the bioinformatics and intelligence domains. I've seen this sort of exploration myself in ethnographic studies of scientists at work with ad hoc visualizations. But, yes, these are not the only reasons for doing InfoVis research.

Some work is moving forward on FM3 -- we are seeing more studies of how people see data and use visualization (e.g., Van Ham & Rogowitz at this year's InfoVis) rather than always creating "new" techniques. My own work from last year's conference was about combining existing techniques to leverage the benefits linking of multiple visualizations of related data.

Finally, I think FM5 is my favourite -- I'm a big proponent of the "human-in-the-loop" decision making model, often advocated in the CHI and CSCW communities. I think we need to create interactive experiences that aid task completion through a blending of the user's world knowledge and any new information present in the data to be visualized. We shouldn't make presenting the right answer from the data our goal, as we won't be able to do it without solving artificial intelligence in a real way. And if we could do that, we could just solve problems algorithmically and wouldn't need InfoVis. Bertini is right in that most tools do not take account of any prior knowledge, but there are some good examples from the VAST community where prior knowledge can be explicitly entered into the analysis process (e.g. i2's 'Analyst's Notebook' or IBM's Research's HARVEST project). My U of C colleague Torre Zuk has also done some analysis of how a physician's prior knowledge affects their decision making when presented with a visualization. This is certainly a challenging and fruitful area for more research.

Thanks Enrico the thoughtful posting!

Green Party and the Seal Hunt

2008-09-15T11:16:00.002-04:00

I recently wrote the Green Party of Canada for two reasons. First to congratulate them on their leaders debate victory. I had been dismayed by the NDP blocking Elizabeth May from the Leaders' Debate and was thinking about changing allegiances. While the NDP did back down, they as yet have not replied to my inquiry as a member why they were trying to block her in the first place. My second reason for writing the Green Party was to ask them about their position on the Newfoundland seal hunt. They were more responsive to my emails, and their position on the Newfoundland seal hunt appears below.

As a result, I think I'll be sticking with the NDP. The Green Party argument that
it is "the largest killing of marine mammals anywhere on the planet" is vacuous. Just because something is big doesn't make it qualitatively different from something that is any other size. It is hypocritical to argue against the seal hunt unless you advocate against all animal harvest, and I don't think they do. That would be a more defensible position than singling out a particular industry because it has a bad reputation.

The perceived cruelty of the seal hunt is mostly just misrepresentative propaganda of the IFAW, showing a few sealers committing crimes for which they were charged. Governments are supposed to work with the facts, not the rumors and misinformed ideas of foreign countries and lobby groups. It seems the Greens wouldn't be up to that task after all. I also disagree that the local impact is minor. The annual seal hunt in Newfoundland provides a living for many rural families who work very hard to provide a product for which there is a market. Any party that doesn't support a sustained and managed sealing industry doesn't get my vote.

Their response, in full:

Dear Christopher,

Thank you very much for your question regarding the commercial seal hunt in Newfoundland. Also, thank you for your support in getting Ms. May in the debates on October 1 and 2... it was a real showing of Canadian democracy at its best.

The Green Party of Canada has developed an extensive vision for Canada entitled Vision Green. If you are interested in our complete platform please visit www.greenparty.ca and click on "Issues".

The seal hunt is viewed by many people in Canada and abroad as an inhumane activity that is not ecologically sound nor sustainable. This is particularly true now that climate change has increased pup mortality in spring due to a lack of, and thin ice.

The annual seal hunt is the largest killing of marine mammals anywhere on the planet. Its enormity threatens Canada's overseas reputation for little local value.

Our Vision

The Green Party does not support a commercial seal hunt in Canada. We are not opposed to subsistence hunting by aboriginal peoples and local communities. However, we consider seal hunting, like whaling, to be a threat to the marine ecosystem. The loss of ice due to climate change threatens seal populations and exacerbates what many believe is an already unsustainable level of hunting:
Again, thank you for your concerns about the seal hunt and taking the time to email us. If you have any questions do not hesitate to email, call or visit our website.

Sincerely,

Tyler Andrews
--
Green Party Information Centre
Centre d'information du Parti Vert
1-866-868-3447
www.greenparty.ca/donate

Vote for Tomorrow
Votez pour l'avenir

Samsung Spam

2008-09-12T17:17:00.004-04:00

I recently asked Samsung a question about a product, and of course I ended up on their crappy webmail list. Today I finally got around to clicking "unsubscribe", and this is the form I was brought to:

"Dear Samsung Customer,

Occasionally we send email messages with news and special offers. If you would prefer not to receive such messages

in the future, simply remove yourself from our email list by selecting the option below and clicking the 'Update' button.

[] Please remove me from your email list.

[X] On second thought, please continue to notify me of new products and promotions

[] Please change my email address to: ________________

[UPDATE]"

Yes, they pre-select an "I've changed my mind" button when you click "unsubscribe" in their email. If I hadn't been paying attention, which is entirely likely, I would have assumed it was the usual blah blah and just clicked "update", thinking I was getting out.

What I really don't understand is who Samsung thinks will actually click to unsubscribe and then change their mind. Probably no one, but everyone who sees this smarmy form will be slightly ticked off at the audacity of pre-selecting a form to do exactly the opposite of what you've already indicated as a preference. It's subtle, but now I'm annoyed at Samsung more than I was when they were just spamming me. Annoying potential customers is not a good business practice!

It got worse when I pressed "update" on the form:

"We're sorry to see you go. Please allow 7-10 business days for us to process your request."

7-10 days to process a single database command? Are they still using punch cards or something?

Bank "upgrades" Fees

2008-07-22T22:04:00.004-04:00

I really dislike marketers sometimes.

I understand they want to make their product sound appealing, but I'm so sick of seeing announcements that say things like new fees are being introduced to "serve you better", or features are being removed from a service to "address customer needs". Just call a spade a spade: features are removed, prices are raise, to make more money. The changes probably still wouldn't make me happy, but at least I could respect the company for respecting me.

The latest example of this comes from President's Choice Financial, Canada's big "no fees" bank. PCF services have been gradually reduced since it's inception -- I used to get free cookies and "P.C. Points" for my transactions. Now, I get ever increasing fees for "special services". The newest special service will be depositing cheques drawn on US banks (which I do often, given that I work in the US part of the year). What really gets me though is this sentence from their notice: "Please select the “view fee changes” button below for the upgraded costs." They need a dictionary: upgrade = to improve what was old or outdated (WordNet). I guess these fees are "upgrades" from their point of view, but certainly not the customers'.

New Overdraft "Protection" Rules Proposed in the USA

2008-06-27T14:31:00.002-04:00

Last year, when I first opened my US bank account, I was hit with 3 X $35 in overdraft fees. It turned out that most customers are enrolled in a mandatory overdraft protection "service" here. It extends to ATM withdrawals and debit transactions, unlike in Canada where these services only kick in for paper cheques.

So, when I took money out of the ATM and when I spent $5 at Starbucks, I was actually charged these fees. Stupid me for thinking that when there was no money available, the ATM wouldn't give me money (there was still a hold on my first deposit). At the very least, a warning message to the effect of "this transaction will incur a $35 fee" should have been presented. In Canada we get warnings of this sort all the time, e.g. when you use a different banks ATM and they disclose the fee.

I called Bank of America to decline this service recently, just in case. However, you cannot decline this "courtesy service". I doubt many people would view a $40 coffee as a courtesy, especially when they could just choose to use cash. Covering a rent cheque, ok, charging for ATM transactions, not ok.

There is hope -- the Federal Reserve is considering mandatory opt-out availability. Opt-in would be better, but this is a good step.

Escape from XML Parsing Hell

2008-06-25T23:27:00.003-04:00

I just spent 3 days on the most futile effort of my life, or so it seems at the moment. I'm posting this in the hope that it might help someone who Google's "slow XML java parser" in the future. I've been parsing a lot of XHTML files using Java for a project. However, it was taking about 1s per file, and the time was the same for files of 15k or 150k. Clearly something was wrong. It was also the same for the Xerces SAX parser, the DOM parser, dom4j parser, the Piccolo SAX parser, ... nothing was fast enough. All the benchmarks I could find said it should be on the order of 20ms / file.

Anyway, I brought home my laptop tonight because I was still so frustrated with this stupid slow XML parsing problem and I couldn't put it away. I started running my test program when not connected to the internet, and it generated an exception saying it couldn't connect to www.w3.org. So, I was thinking, why the heck is it doing that? I'd already set the parser to be non-validating.

It turns out the parsers all fetch any external DTD that is referenced, even if the parser is non validating! So for every file, the header line was referencing the XHTML DTD and it was downloading it from an external site. So, if you have an abnormally slow XML parser, maybe this is why!

This feature disables that, in case you are ever parsing xhtml in the future and don't care about validation:

xmlReader.setFeature("http://apache.org/xml/features/nonvalidating/load-external-dtd" , false);

Now it parses 100 trials in 250ms total (down from about 55 seconds). And, I guess my program has stopped retrieving the same XHTML DTD from www.w3.org thousands of times an hour (sorry w3.org, it wasn't a DoS attack, I swear).

Phew! What a waste of time. I would never have thought to check for unexpected network connections. Glad my internet wasn't working at home.

3 days of work, help from colleagues, testing various parsers, running on various machines, profiling my code, ... for a 1 line fix that I found by accident. Sometimes I hate computers.

Now, time to move on with my super-cool-top-secret project. :)

Tips Gone Wild!

2008-06-23T14:36:00.003-04:00

Here in the USA, I've long been irritated at the prevalence of tipping, and the ever-growing rate (at my last check 20% is considered the default). The tradition has been creeping more and more into everyday life in Canada too -- notice the tip jar at your local Starbucks.

Well, it's gotten to a really crazy level here. I was in the shopping mall the other day and I bought a water at a little convenience kiosk (the type of place that sells snacks, lotto tickets, and cigarettes). And, to my surprise, there was a "Tips appreciated" jar. Tips? For taking my money for the water I got for myself? What's the going rate for that? 20%? What then does the grocery cashier deserve, after handling so many products and packing them up carefully? It just makes no sense.

I can't imagine that the amount of tip money generated by this can make up for the shame of begging for tips when you actually offer no discernible level of customer service.

Macleans has a nice article about this, that I think is right on. Maybe I should send the author a tip.

Postmark Mystery

2008-06-19T18:12:00.003-04:00

I recently received some mail from the US, and the postage was canceled with a skull and crossbones postmark. It looks rather creepy and unusual. I searched online but couldn't find any description of a special canceling stamp being used in Chicago, or any images of this stamp.

Does anyone know what's the story behind this? Is it just a normal thing? I've never seen anything like that before.

Beautiful Word Clouds

2008-06-12T19:34:00.002-04:00

I love working at IBM Research because there are cool things happening all over the place -- reminds me of being at a university lab in many ways. It's really fun, energizing, and, yes, even interns get paid to do it. One of those cool things, although officially a personal project supported by IBM, is Jonathan Feinberg's "Wordle", a beautiful, highly packed, word cloud, launched online today. Think tag clouds but more artistic.

In many ways, this Wordle is very similar to a visualization I have proposed, called an "author fingerprint visualization", in that it has a unique looking structure for each individual dataset and uses free text as input. From talking to Jonathan, however, it seems that his layout is random, and I would want something deterministic and stable, so that the same text would create the same or very similar images each time, like a real fingerprint! Also, Wordle uses simple word counts to determine sizes, whereas we have envisioned a series of measures based more on information content.

But, it's more beautiful than anything I could make, and the website, launched today, is just buzzing with activity. Check it out!

Toronto's Sad Trees

2008-06-09T22:18:00.000-04:00

I was again saddened to see the state of the sidewalk trees of Toronto when I visited last week. I don't understand why the City can't plant trees in a way that will give them a fighting chance! It's an eyesore and a complete waste of money to plant a tree in a concrete box inlaid in the sidewalk, with about 20cm by 20cm of space for rainwater to enter. Yet they do it over and over, replacing the dead sticks with new ones that will die in 1 summer. Take this photo as an example. At left, the trees at the new MARS Discovery building were planted in the lawn. The trees along the sidewalk (the same species, I believe) were planted in concrete inlays. They are the same age and are only 5m apart, yet one set thrives and the other is completely dead. For anyone who lives in Toronto, this is predictable. Why it isn't predictable to the city's arborists is a good question I would love to have an answer for. It can't be more economical to use concrete when you know you will have to replace the trees every few years!

Incidentally, here in Cambridge, MA, they plant the trees with narrow metal gratings around the roots, so water can enter. They seem to be doing very well, and don't cause any disruption to the available walking space on the busy sidewalks, while still allowing for rainwater irrigation and some air exchange in the soil.

Community Business Improvement

2008-04-18T17:18:00.003-04:00

I've often filled out comment cards, feedback forms, and even sometimes I've sent compliment and complaint letters. However, I've never really felt that my ideas could change the business to which they were addressed. Usually customers have ideas to improve a business not because they care if the business succeeds, but because they want the experience to be better for themselves.

As much as I'm loathe to say this, Starbuck's is doing something innovative. They are collecting customer (and employee!) ideas of "doable" ideas to improve Starbuck's, and inviting everyone to vote on their favourites. Some are have already been implemented, others are coming. I've often complained that Starbucks doesn't ask if you want your coffee for here or to go, and they don't recycle -- both ideas are high on the list of votes. While this isn't the same as a corporation being responsive and responsible to the community (the shareholders still rule), it is a step in the right direction. And, a good PR stunt, as evidenced by this post. :)

My Starbucks Idea

Non-resizable Windows: Showing Their Age

2008-03-25T15:16:00.005-04:00

Some parts of Windows look like they haven't been changed since the NT days, when 800x600 was standard resolution.

Take this printer setup box for example:

Under "HP" printers, there are 20+ "pages" of printers listed. The scrolling resolution on such a small scroll bar with such a long list is awful. Given every printer name starts with "HP", you can't really hit the first letter or number of what you want either. Having installed the three printers I use maybe 6 times over the past months thanks to Vista printing issues, I've become all too familiar with this long scrolling operation, and now I've resorted to using the keyboard.

This window should be much bigger, giving a better overview allowing faster "jump to" the area of the list you want. Also, a bigger window would increase the resolution of the scroll bar. The availability of screen space is obvious in this screen shot, from one of my two monitors:

Windows certainly knows the resolution of my screen and could size this box accordingly, if they really don't want to allow me to have a resize handle.

I strongly believe it really is the little things that add up to ruin an interface experience.

Open Letter re Tibet

2008-03-25T15:11:00.002-04:00

I sent the below letter to the Prime Minister. I do not claim to be an expert on the region, or on what the state of Tibetan human rights during the reign of the monastic government, but I think what is happening now is truly abhorrent. Why do we ignore Tibet? Darfur? Congo? Guantanamo? Canada should be a country standing up for human rights.

---

Dear Prime Minister Harper,

I am writing today to express my concern for the people of Tibet. For many years I have wondered why the developed countries of the world, like Canada, have ignored the plight of that country, suffering under occupation by China. Recently, it is becoming increasingly clear that the occupation of Tibet by China is unjust and against the ideas of freedom and human rights that the people of Canada support and the privileges we enjoy. Why does Canada do nothing to support Tibetan human rights? If another country had invaded Canada, I’m sure we would want someone to come to our aid. Imagine losing our free press, our rights to assembly and free speech, and having yourself, the legitimate head of government, exiled to a neighbouring country. Of course, it’s unthinkable. The situation in Tibet is, to me, equally appalling. I understand that perhaps it is too late for a "free Tibet", but we must advocate for the fair treatment of Tibetans.

I’m appalled to see the treatment of the Tibetan people as they make peaceful protests against their oppressors. That the Chinese government blames His Holiness the Dalai Lama is just absurd and insulting. No one inspires more people to lead a peaceful path than him.

Please support the Dalai Lama’s call for a United Nations-lead investigation into Chinese human rights abuses in Tibet.

In addition, I call on you and all political leaders and other prominent Canadians to decline to attend the Beijing Olympic Games in protest. It is not right to celebrate the Olympic spirit in a country that is clearly not making sufficient progress towards supporting the ideals put forth by the Olympic organization.

Sincerely,

Christopher Collins

No more lists of JREs in Add/Remove Programs

2008-03-14T16:26:00.002-04:00

I just upgraded to an experimental version of the Sun JRE (6uN b13) and found this nugget of information in the release text:

"follow-on update releases will no longer be listed as separate items in the Windows "Add or Remove Programs" dialog"

This is really great! When I did the update I had to remove 4 versions of JRE and 3 JDKs. Generally, I only use the latest one, but all the others are kept around, cluttering things up. With my OCD, this change will save me some time. :)

Dell vs. Lenovo Automatic Update

2008-03-13T17:15:00.002-04:00

I'm lucky to have a brand new Lenovo (IBM) ThinkPad and a new Dell desktop. Both systems are generally great. One big difference I've noticed is in the level of software support. Both Dell and Lenovo supply an auto-update program to update drivers and, in Lenovo's case, the various helpful utility programs that come with the system.

I've had a vastly different experience with each. My laptop is always up-to-date, and the update program has never failed, performing bios flashes, software upgrades, and even installing some new features. It's not always present in the system tray, and does not send me stupid and useless messages. From the first day, the Dell update program has been sending inane popups like ads for a new wireless mouse, a notice about upcoming daylight savings time, and update notifications for hardware that I don't even have. I don't need such interruptions! I just want driver updates. The program has the "express service tag" of my machine -- doesn't that supply all the info on what hardware I have? Worst of all, whenever I click any of the messages that I might actually need, two annoying things happen: first, I get a popup asking me to inform Dell that I've read the message (which I decline); second, the support program reports and error, saying it can't find "Windows NW\applications\wordpad.exe". As you probably know from previous posts, I use Vista. Anyway, why does this program want to open WordPad? Perhaps it is opening some file type that has been registered to a non-existent version of WordPad? I don't know. But I also can't ask anyone. You see, despite the fact that U of Calgary purchased long-term extended warranty support on this machine, it only covers hardware. So, when a piece of Dell-supplied software doesn't work, I'm asked to pay $129 for a support subscription, on a machine that's only several months old. And, if what I've read is true, if I managed to read Dell support they'd just read me a script telling me to restart the computer and update the software anyway.

What's going on with customer service these days? In the meantime, I've uninstalled all the junky software Dell sent, and I'm doing updates manually with my service tag and their website.

Mystery Error Dialogs

2008-03-13T17:11:00.004-04:00

I received this error today and I thought, "what application is crashing"? It wasn't hard to find out -- I just had to look at the taskbar to see which application was highlighted. But, it would be easier if a fatal error message had the name of the application in the title or text somewhere. When will application programmers adopt a culture of ensuring, where-ever possible, that crashes provide informative feedback? I guess they tried to diagnose the problem here with the suggestion that maybe another instance of the program was already running under another user.

Down With Keyboard Focus Thieves

2008-02-23T22:06:00.005-05:00

I know it's a design trade off for an application to steal keyboard focus or not. However, I think when it must be done, it could be done better. I was installing an Office service pack today, which is a lengthy process, and at one point, while I was typing in an IM window, the install grabbed the keyboard focus. Before I noticed, I had hit 'space' and acknowledged whatever button was the default. Then I saw this:

There is no "back"; there is no way to see what happened. A box appeared and disappeared before I saw it, and now the install is cancelled and must be restarted.

Argh! As I'm writing this, it just happened again! I was running the install and it went to completion. It popped up some sort of confirmation box and as I was typing, again acknowledged the default option. In this case that option was "restart your computer". So, as I'm trying to write a blog entry, windows are closing and I'm thinking "I hope Blogger autosaved that entry already!". Luckily Vista popped up with a message about unresponsive programs that couldn't be closed (Firefox, for some reason), so I had a chance to cancel the reboot.

I think if an application has to steal keyboard focus, it might as well steal visual focus too. As much as I dislike the disruptive full screen blankout of the User Account Control system in Vista, at least it gets your attention. The problem with that one is that you can't say "go away, I'll decide later". Something visually unavoidable (even on 2 monitors, which is where I have most trouble with this) but with the option to minimize it for later would be great. Dialogs that appeared on the currently active monitor would also be better. Additionally, when a dialogue box steals keyboard focus, the OS should be smart enough to recognize whether you were vigorously typing before the automatic focus shift occurred, and ignore keyboard events until a short pause in typing occurs, indicating the user probably has stopped typing and has realized their application lost keyboard focus. This would help avoid inadvertent spacebar or enter presses that activate buttons before we see them.

Or, perhaps even better, don't steal focus for events like "the install finished". Flash the orange indicator in the taskbar/dock and wait for the user to be ready to acknowledge it.

Cyberslacking

2008-02-23T02:45:00.002-05:00

In a fit of energy, I decided to stop procrastinating. I was inspired by some listening and reading I did... while procrastinating. Tim Pychyl, a Carleton University Professor, has a great website on procrastination -- the research focus of his group at Carleton. He also has a great podcast called "iProcrastinate". Anyway, my favourite episode of the podcast basically consists of him chastising the listener for "cyberslacking". Basically, this is the self-delusion that because you are sitting at work, at your computer, you are "working". We all know, deep down, that isn't true. He rails against Facebook, email, IM, online news, etc. and says these are forms of entertainment, not forms of useful work activity (no matter how much we might try to convince ourselves that using Facebook is for research into social networks).

This really resonated for me. I often go home feeling like I've missed an entire day, and that is because I've been "cyberslacking" for hours, rather than getting up and leaving my computer if I've made a conscious decision not to work, or otherwise intentionally shutting off distractions and getting to it. As hard is it might be, I think he's right, I need to turn off IM and email notifiers for several hour blocks, and force the Facebook use and the newspaper to my at home hours. That way, maybe I'll actually get some at home hours. This isn't rocket science, it's something I've been battling for a while, but having a Dr. who researches procrastination somehow just validates the problem for me.

My favourite quote: "Cyberslacking is making you a mouse potato". OK, well maybe "desk potato" would be more congruent with the original phrase, but whatever, it's a nice saying.

So, as of today, no more mouse potato. At least until I forget about this blog post. Enough cyberslacking with my blog.

Windows Usability: Small Boxes for Long Texts

2008-02-12T18:39:00.001-05:00

Windows Vista (and XP) have a fixed-size box for editing environment variables. It looks like this:

[Sidebar: I took that screen shot with the Vista "Snipping Tool". You draw a red box to define the capture area, but the inclusion of the red box in the screenshot was unexpected!]

So, when you want to enter something like a path (mine is 434 characters), you have to scroll this tiny box. And, yes, you have to scroll it by positioning the cursor in the box and holding down left or right (or using a keyboard shortcut like home/end). Once you set it, you have the same problem if you want to read it -- the form for viewing environment variables is fixed at a small width that appears to be designed for 640x480 monitors.

Some of the unpolished aspects like this, the buggy UAC system and slow printing, along with the the persistent awfulness of the calculator and notepad applications make me wonder why Microsoft didn't finish Vista before publishing it.

Referendum Clarity

2008-02-08T20:06:00.000-05:00

Clear working of a referendum question is a required in order to achieve a result that validly reflects the wishes of voters. Students are paying extraordinary fees these days -- questions asking for more money must be carefully considered. When I was a member of the executive of the Graduate Students' Union at University of Toronto we had a policy that the wording of any potential referendum question had to be approved by the general assembly of the Union. This vetting process resulted in subtle but clarifying changes to the question wording so that the referendum could be considered fair and valid. Clarity on referendum questions and outcomes is actually legislated in Canada (the controversial "Clarity Act") but student organizations needn't be held to such high standards. I do, however, think they should at least have grammatically correct questions!

There is currently a referendum and election underway at the University of Calgary Student's Union. Upon looking into some policy, it seems they union here has an even clearer procedure and policy about how to approve referendum questions. In a nutshell, 5% of the student body has to sign a petition supporting the referendum. The petition must contain the wording of the full question to be put to students, and the final question is then approved by the Student Legislative Council through a process of 2 readings. Referendums about fees have to meet three additional criteria:

i) information on the purpose of the fee;
ii) the university sessions for which the fee applies; and
iii) the level of the assessment of the fee in all faculties,
programs, and sessions in which the fee level is different.

Also, "If the SLC decides the wording of a referendum or plebiscite
included in a petition is unclear or potentially in violation of the
Constitution, bylaws or Procedures of The Students’ Union, the SLC may, by SLC resolution, refer the question to the Review Board for clarification, grammatical correction of the wording or form, or a ruling on the validity of the question" (SLC Election By-law).

So, then I have to ask what the SLC was thinking when they didn't send this question for review and grammar correction:

"Do you support an increase of $1.00 for each full-time and part-time students, in all faculties, per session (fall/winter/spring/summer) for the continued growth, maintenance, and operations of NUTV, a non-profit society."

Yes, it says "for each full-time and part-time students" and ends with a period. The session information is separated by a clause from the dollar amount, muddying the readability. NUTV is not defined other than as a "non-profit society." Some question!

Compare it to another question from the same referendum:

"The Gauntlet is the independent student newspaper of the University of Calgary. Currently, Gauntlet fees are $3.50 per session for full-time students and $1.75 per session for part-time students. Do you support an increase in the Gauntlet fee of $1.00 per session for full-time students and $1.00 per session for part-time students?"

I guess I should expect better writing from a newspaper than a tv station. This question provides context (current fees) where the other one doesn't. This provides more of an ability for voters to judge the value they are getting for the current fee. In order for student governments to be well-respected organizations, I think they need to take issues like referendum validity seriously. The SU of U of C seems to have not followed it's own by-laws in not correcting the NUTV question. They should also add a fourth clause to referendum questions regarding fees: (iv) current levels of the fee, if any.

Well, I'm not an undergraduate, or a U of C student, so it's really none of my business. I guess I'm a political junkie and I miss being involved in student governance. Or, I just need to get a life.

DocBook: Reading Help Documentation Made Difficult

2008-01-30T18:30:00.000-05:00

Over the past few weeks I've been learning all about XML (much overdue, I know). I've created my own file format with it's own DTD, even. Then I found out that DTDs went the way of the dinosaurs a few years ago. Oops. Well, I'm not learning anything else.

This all seemed really convenient because yesterday I downloaded a new Java package that has documentation shipped in DocBook format, an XML Schema format that can (supposedly) be compiled into a PDF, HTML, or other sorts of files. You would think that there would be something like "docbook2pdf" to compile it, but looking over the DocBook Wikipedia pages, and Googling all about DocBook, such a thing doesn't seem to exist. That would be too easy (if you think LaTeX-like document creation is easy).

Instead, I followed the ironically named "really quick guide to DocBook for Windows", which required me to install various cryptically named packages like "fop" and "saxon" (+ 3 more). Then I downloaded the "easy DocBook scripts for Windows" and edited the files to point to the install locations of the aforementioned packages. What a pain in the ass. Java has Javadoc for a reason! Compiling help documentation should not be so difficult.

In the end, I thought I was all done. I even registered "compile DocBook" as a right-click item for xml files. Then, I click it and get about 4 pages of error messages (sounds like LaTeX).

DocBook was started in 1991 and development continues today. I wish they would develop a simple front end for ~~idiots~~ computer scientists like me.

Computers, you've got a LONG way to go. Makes me excited, but also dismayed, to work in HCI.

Windows Vista Sync Center

2007-12-10T16:35:00.000-05:00

I use two computers, and I store files on a network drive which is backed up. So, I need a good synchronization solution.

I was excited to learn that Windows Vista ships with a program called "Sync Center". Of course, if you are using Windows Home Premium, Sync Center is crippled and won't sync to network drives, which is exactly what I need it for. I don't even want to get into the issues with Vista versioning. Suffice it to say I use Vista Business on my laptop and Home Premium on my desktop, and the differences are unpredictable, annoying, and unnecessary.

Even if you have Vista Business, you can't use Sync Center to synchronize to a USB key. They claim you can synchronize files to your mobile device, but it appears after much searching that this actually only means Sync Center will call Windows Media Player to synchronize music and other media to a music player. It assumes my memory stick is a media player, so I can't set up a sync for anything but music.

I guess that excitement was for nothing. I'm so naive... I actually thought it might work without any hassle. Microsoft created a Sync Center that is unusable for the two synchronization scenarios I use. I'll stick with AJC Directory Synchronizer. It's not as pretty, but it works, which is more important.

What is a Master's degree?

2007-12-06T17:17:00.000-05:00

Some rushed thoughts...

I attended my second U of Calgary Master's defense today, and I have come to the conclusion that the requirements for a U of C Masters degree, at least in Computer Science, are too demanding. Or, maybe it's better to say that Master's degree requirements in general are too inconsistent across institutions. Everyone knows that a Bachelor's generally consists of 4 years of full time classroom-based study. A PhD is 4-5 (or 6+) years of intensely focussed research culminating in a dissertation that positions the candidate as the world expert on a particular small subject. But, what is a Master's?

The requirements are not even generally consistent across peer institutions. Many universities, U of Toronto included, are putting a lot of focus on lowering "time to completion" for their graduate programs. This might come in the form of strategies to get the real time-to-completion in line with the expectations currently on the books (better financial support for students, better progress monitoring and response), or it may mean re-working the entire degree to shorten the expected time needed to finish (reduce course load, rework thesis requirement). It seems to me that U of C computer science hasn't made much effort in this direction. While this may be a principled decision on their part towards maintaining a certain level of quality and rigour in their program, employers don't know that a U of C Master's degree produces a thesis that is of a depth and quality that goes beyond a Master's from another university. So, I think if people are taking a "terminal" degree, they are not getting much advantage from the longer time frame of the degree here. If they are going on to PhD, I guess the experience of writing a significant thesis, and defending it would be beneficial.

There is a general push toward shortening Master's degrees throughout North America. Cynics will argue that this is so more Master's students can be pushed through the system -- in many departments they are unfunded, so can be considered "revenue generating", like undergraduates. Having been in on institutional planning processes at U of Toronto, I'm sad to say there is some truth to this. Despite whatever the questionable reasons may be for this trend, I think if a University does not recognize the widespread move toward 12-16 month Master's programs, they are doing their students a disservice.

The defense I attended today had a committee of 4 examiners -- including an external -- and had 90 minutes of very rigourous questioning. Of course the candidate was well prepared and did a very good job (congrats!), but I think the depth of analysis and critical thinking expected by the committee went beyond what I think is reasonable to expect from a Master's student. Heck, I was squirming in my chair at some points imagining having to answer questions like that as a PhD candidate. Indeed, in some universities, there is no thesis. In others, such as U of Toronto, there is no defense.

I think there is a real disconnect about what is a Master's degree across institutions, with the variation going from 12 months of course work to 2-3 years of focussed research with a thesis and defense. For me, the Master's is a degree that should allow someone to specialize in a sub area of the discipline they studied in their Bachelor's degree, and should allow Universities to identify appropriate candidates for PhD studies. I think some research component is essential to assess the latter. While students in the more traditional, and more extensive Master's programs certainly leave with better preparation to conduct research and write academic papers, I think they may have to spend too much of their time and money to get to a point that will be considered equal to someone who took a 16 month degree at a peer institution. I know my view isn't universally accepted; I'm sure I could be convinced of the need for more traditional, research-based Master's. What I really think is most important is we work for general consensus across institutions on what constitutes a Master's degree so we can compare apples to apples when evaluating graduates for employment and further study. I don't mean to disparage U of Calgary -- they have been great to host me here and I've really enjoyed the vibrant and exciting research environment. It's just that as a future member of the academe I think it's time to start thinking about these things and weighing in on the discussion of the future of graduate programs in Canada.

Winter's light

2007-07-03T12:30:00.001-04:00

Winter's light
Originally uploaded by VickyTH

Reading "The Colony of Unrequited Dreams" by Wayne Johnston and thinking of home lately. Today I searched for "Avalon Barrens" after reading about a train trip across the province and came across this amazing photoset from VickyTH in Torbay, Newfoundland. Somehow barren, stark, cold coastline makes me want to hop on the next flight.

DocuBurst featured in the Toronto Star

2007-06-11T18:15:00.000-04:00

Ryan Bigge did a great job at explaining DocuBurst in an article Sunday's Toronto Star (better than I could have done myself, that's for sure).

Check out the Sunday Star to find out a bit about my research.

Procreate or Your Marriage is Null and Void

2007-02-10T21:05:00.000-05:00

A group in Washington is challenging a court ruling that upheld the state's "Defense of Marriage Act" (the "no same sex marriage act") by supporting it.

The court supported the Act's claim that marriage exists for the purpose of procreation. So, the group is putting forth a ballot initiative to ban marriage by people who do not procreate, either by choice or due to medical reasons.

It's an awesome idea giving the right a dose of their own medicine!

http://www.wa-doma.org/Default.aspx

Eternally Hopeful

2007-01-26T15:47:00.000-05:00

"The character also will be determined and self-assured; approachable and trustworthy; and eternally hopeful and optimistic with a smart sense of humor and warmth about him, officials said."

Who is this?

You guessed it, the new Maytag repairman.

It amazes me how companies actually act like they believe this drivel!

I guess the world could use more eternally hopeful characters.

Climate Update

2006-12-09T14:51:00.000-05:00

So, being someone that studies data graphics, I have to admit the ones I produced about the climate don't tell the whole story. Annual cycles are not going to follow my plots -- they are multi-year averages. Averages are pretty meaningless without standard deviations. I've received a few emails asking me to update my blog with the current weather.

Calgary: -3^oC, Toronto, -5^oC, St. John's, 0^oC

It's pretty warm here right now. Then again, it's also still warm in the other cities I've lived.

Calgary is freakin' COLD

2006-11-23T16:19:00.000-05:00

I'm so bad at keeping up with this blog. Lot's of interesting things have been happening -- for more on that, read someone else's blog. :)

So, I've been in Calgary for about 6 weeks now. It's been great -- the iLab has a lot going for it. Great people, great equipment, nice atmosphere, amazing research, but man it's cold.

Everyone I talk to says "oh, you're from Newfoundland, it's sooo cold there" or the same blah blah about Toronto.

Well, here are the facts: Calgary is COLDER!

2006-10-14T13:35:00.000-04:00

more tarako

I would run away from these creepy dolls that look like they are straight out of a Margaret Atwood dystopian novel.

2006-10-14T13:30:00.000-04:00

the curse of the tarako

Japanese TV is so strange... this is creepy and mesmerizing at the same time. Worse, there are more like this, each stranger than the next, all advertising spagetti called "Tarako", which means fish roe.

New Media Headaches

2006-09-10T18:48:00.000-04:00

Back from Newfoundland, where I was "unplugged" for 3 glorious full days. 150 email messages and a website update later, I've caught up.

I've been reading blogs, watching YouTube, and yes, also reading the newspaper (online) recently and I'm amazed by the hubbub about the changes to FaceBook. I don't even have a FaceBook page. I think I was once on Friendster and Orkut, but that was years ago. Between Google Talk, MSN, Flickr, Blogger, my personal website, and oh yeah, work, I can barely keep up. I stopped by my friend Jeremy's office the other day and saw that he has a FaceBook page. I came back here to my office and thought "I should have a FaceBook page too". 10 minutes later, anxiety ridden at the prospect of another website I would have to maintain, I bailed on that. I'm in computer science, and I find it easier to keep up with cutting edge academic research than with the latest online craze. What's worse, my colleagues in Knowledge Media Design, and the best up and coming researchers in my field all manage to do it somehow. I think my need to join these things comes from some strange need to fit in with these prominent young researchers, not really from a desire to broadcast my (boring) self even more. It's a similar feeling to meeting a student who excells in every class, has a huge network of friends, leads a charity he created when he was 8, and gives sold-out piano recitals in his spare time. You wonder, where the hell do these people get the time?

I know there is a lot of research going on right now about the level of connection we have to computers and the resulting disconnection from real life. I also have read lots of research examining the intricate social networks people build using new media. Another avenue to investigate could be new media and "keeping up with the Jones'". I'll volunteer as a subject.

Academia sometimes feels not that different from high school. There are still pressures to fit in: have a nice laptop, have stories about exotic travels around the world ready to tell on demand, use words like "disaffected" in regular conversation (I was called "disaffected" this week and had to look it up on WordNet), and now, at least in my area, you should have a plethora of up-to-date social webpages. Oh, and keep up with the latest novels too. I guess social networking could benefit research if you could create a community of like-minded researchers to discuss ideas, but breaking the barriers to connecting to strangers online is as intimidating to me as walking up to famous researchers at a conference coffee break.

My partner is at the other extreme: he hates getting emails and refuses any other sort of internet connection. I envy him too, but I'm somewhere stuck in the middle.

[Update: 25 November, 2006... I'm now on FaceBook! :) ]

The file is attached...

2006-08-03T10:58:00.000-04:00

Just when I thought I had invented something revolutionary, a Google search deflates the sails. Ever send an email saying "The file you asked for is attached." Then press send and go "oh crap" and send a second message, with the file? Or worse yet, wait hours then get a confused message back: "you forgot the attachment".

In computational linguistics we are obsessed with evermore complex analyses of language, but a simple keyword spotting algorithm could help millions of people remember their attachments. Just scan for the prefix "attach" and warn the user attempts to send without any attachment.

Turns out a couple of people have made Thunderbird extensions that do this. Too bad I just switched to managing all my mail with Gmail. Why don't all the providers do this simple trick? It could be enhanced to work very well with some simple language models (e.g. ignore "attachment" if it modifies another noun like "hose attachment", ignore "attach" if it appears in quotes, etc.).

My old blog...

2006-08-01T18:35:00.000-04:00

It only has 5 posts, but you can see it at http://chrisnf.livejournal.com

PhinisheD: The New Me!

2006-08-01T16:58:00.000-04:00

So today I discovered PhinisheD.com. Finally a bunch of people having similar experiences in grad school. Today was also the start of "new me" which is actually a return to "old me". I've realized that to be happy and get work done, I actually have to work less and have more fun. So, time to make time for friends, yoga, meditation, long bike rides (thanks Jeremy for suggesting routes), and getting up early.

Let's see how long this lasts... hopefully going to Calgary for the fall will help shake things up a bit.