A Drunken Madman

My good friend Kirk just sent me this, and while it's passed by my desk before, and it's approaching a year old, I hadn't made time to digest it, let alone blog it, but I'm glad I finally did as the video really crystallises the touch-input game for me.

Let me just gear you up for this. Once you watch this video, your perception of computer interfaces will change. Nothing is utterly brand new in the hardware - we have this technology right now. What is different is the non-tangible aspect - the WAY the interface, as Jeff Han says in the video, disappears into the background. The objects on screen become, in a very true sense, real, manipulable objects.

I'll let you watch the demo, but expect me to be enthusiastic about this kind of thing in the future. I'm already a partial convert to touch interfaces and alternative input schemes, but this could take things well beyond what we currently fumble with in the computing world. The list of possible applications is too long to go into, but imagine desktop collaboration with multiple users working the same large surface. Imagine musicians able to build digital fretboards and manipulate them in new ways. I could go on all day.

A quick side-note, apparently Apple were trying to hire Jeff Han, and some of these multi-touch concepts have already made their way into the iPhone. Now I'm tempted to move up from my XDA. More expense...

My girlfriend, Esther, works for a little ticketing company here in Sydney called Moshtix. It's a great company, for whom I've done a little work myself.

Well, Moshtix has recently been acquired, and the announcement has broken today. It's now coming under the auspices of News Ltd's interactive arm, News Digital Media.

Mr Murdoch, I've had some bad things to say about you in the past, but let me just say, now that your company is helping to pay part of my mortgage, well...

Nothing has changed. I'm still not going to read the bloody Telegraph.

But if there's a staff discount on Foxtel, count me in

I reinstalled my audio driver the other day and (re)discovered a little gotcha which may catch some people out. Allow me to explain below.

My laptop has a Sigmatel C-Major Audio device and runs Windows Vista Business. Out of the box, audio works fine though the speakers. Plug headphones in though, and you may notice no sound coming through, as I did. Why is this? Well, for some reason yet to be discovered, the default state of the driver leaves the headphones option muted in the advanced sound properties dialog.

To switch it on, go to control panel, and open the 'sound' applet. In the first tab here you see playback devices, and you should see 'speakers' Highlight this and click properties (or just double-click). You should see a tab for 'levels'. scroll down the list until you see 'headphones. it'll be muted, as the image above shows. Switch it back on, stick your headphones on and rock out to your heart's content.

A number of other options are switched off, including microphone, which would make Skype a fun experience ("can you hear me? I SAID CAN YOU HEAR ME??).

FInally, I'm unable to get the headphone jack in my port replicator/docking station working, but that's a problem for another day.

I have come to a conclusion, as I often do, which may surprise readers (all three of you). You may be aware of the Toyota Prius, which aside from being the World's Ugliest Car also lays claim to saving-the-world-one-puff-of-CO₂-at-a-time super efficiency.

Friends, I shall prove to you that this is a myth.

My theory is built upon the observation that Prius drivers potter along like they're your bloody granddad. For instance, I personally was stuck in a queue of traffic on a single-lane, no-overtaking, 60kph-limit road for about 4km at 30kph, just a day or two ago. In my car (heavy, diesel-powered 4WD) that meant I was in second gear at middling revs.

Now here comes the mathematical bit.

Let's say that five minutes at 3000rpm in my car produces one unit of CO₂. Let us further say that ordinarily, stretch of road A would take me five minutes at 3000rpm, thus emitting one unit of CO₂.

Happy with the maths so far?

Right, so normally, I'd be doing the regulation 60kph along this stretch of road to take the aforementioned five minutes. On Prius Day, as I have named it, I was stuck at 30kph, at about 3000rpm. (The revs are probably higher, but let's face it, this is bogus math and we all know it, let's just continue).

This means I was at 3000rpm for ten whole minutes. wait, hang on, that means I emitted twice as much CO₂ because I was stuck behind a Prius? Fuck! Call Al Gore!

Worse, let's imagine (as was in fact the case) that it wasn't just me stuck behind said Prius, but a queue of other traffic.

Let's put this into a formula

Let X = baseline emissions for an average car along this stretch of road
Let P = Prius
Let M = me
Let Q = queue of cars I was stuck in.
Let J = overall Journey

So,

P = (X/3) (emissions for Prius over this stretch of road)
M+Q = (2X + 2X + 2X + 2X) (emissions for the rest of us stuck behind)
therefore
J = (8X) + (X/3) or 8.3X, to simplify things
divided by all five cars = 1.6666 recurring

or, roughly 1.6 times the normal CO₂ emissions for these cars along this stretch of road

Gee thanks granddad. We're all gonna cook and it's because of you and your lousy Prius.

This post brought to you by Totally Hokey Maths inc., a division of Grumpy Fucker corp.