You can always change this.

I had an opportunity to collaborate on a paper with Marcus. His project, briefly, is about assisting a change in behavioral patterns of youth in Africa. By the means of application development, participatory design, and incremental implementation-evaluation cycles, he aims to affect the ways people talk (or do not talk, currently) about HIV.
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When you want to find an equivalent of engagement in Finnish, you better don’t consult a dictionary. It becomes a truly linguistic journey.

First of all, I am not looking for meaning of engagement as a promise to marriage. I am after the meaning of the word in the domain of HCI, computing and gaming. As in ‘I was so engaged playing 8-puzzle that I forgot I am controlling it using my eyes only’. Or as in ‘We build a interactive system that is more engaging than just viewing the animation passively.’

It turns out that Finnish does not have a good translation –single word– describing the multidimensional meaning of ‘engagement’. Here are terms that we found corresponding only partly with the umbrella term of engagement:

aktiivisuus, aloitteellisuus, innostuneisuus, sitoutuneisuus, osallistuminen

None single of them is engagement. It would be interesting to do a study that would measure how much each of these terms describe/contributes to the original engagement. Something like ‘Rate the game in the following dimensions’. Any proposals?

Second day of Koli Calling 2007 over. Brief observations:

This year’s Koli shall have a small subtitle: Phenomenography or A.B. was here.

The best way how to induce a heart attack on a person is to tell that a research question of his/her student indicates another method of inquiry than a phenomenographic one.

One of the interesting studies was about Karelian pies and the fall of Rome empire. Well done with the last slide!

Seriously, the study of teaching strategies to students in programming classes by (Michael de Raadt) was perhaps the only one that actually had a experimental and control group. It turned out that the control group somehow developed about 30% of the assessed plans, while the experimental applied about 50% of the plans that were taught to that group. Who likes Soloway’s research, check the paper as this is a nice application of his studies.

The quote of the day: You would not buy a washing machine with a bug. (Which is a free paraphrase of a real quote about washing machines, software, bugs, and disclaimers).

Latest news from Koli 2007, day I. over:

We managed to split the audience pretty much in halves: a half loves the idea of conflictive/disruptive materials, those were nodding. Another half would love seeing us unboned, those were rolling their eyes. It was a great fun.

Robert McCartney, the current editor of ACM JERIC, said he wants to change the perception of the journal as an outlet of ‘I have these great course materials’ papers. Instead, more empirical work is invited.

There are as many foreign conference-participants as the domestic ones, a fact that’s considered positive. Also, since 2004 there seems to be a growing proportion of research papers (whatever it means). Well done, I think. Pity our paper really was only a proposal this time.

Finally, the quote of the day overheard while queuing for the dinner: ” I think I read too much Ben-Ari!’

It happens often that a group of colleagues or friends meets with a new partner or with another group of potential collaborators or new friends. To break the ice, the two groups start to introduce themselves to each other. The process usually is cold, people taking turns and introducing themselves. One could almost observe a template (for a professional type of meetings with partners): “Hi, my name is $X $Y, and I am $PERSON from $CITY and $COUNTRY. My background is $B, and at the moment I am working on $W. $W means doing $D which is a part of $P. Besides $W I also do $W2 and partly $W3. Thank you.”.

Although impressing a feeling of competence, I find that approach quite sterile and impersonal. Also, it rarely is of any greater importance to the listeners to know the details of the work the stranger does. Here is a simple step that improves the atmosphere and has, in my opinion, many other positive side effects.

Either in addition to the self-introduction or as a complete replacement of it, it shall be the rest of the group to introduce the person to the strangers. In professional meetings, such as an encounter of two research groups, it of course can happen that it is only YOU who knows your own research best and do not want the others to brag about it. However, while introducing oneself, one rarely talks about his characteristics, skills, twitches, and other PERSONAL details that make one UNIQUE. If forced to talk about it, many people start to feel awkward. Therefore, I suggest that it shall become a habit that co-workers, team-members, or friends do talk about the person in question.

Give it a try and let me know how did it work for you.

The story is short and sad: within one year, the great Mac Book Pro, as far as software is considered, worked like immaculate. As for the hardware side, Niko forbid!, there were way too many problems.

First, the battery had to be replaced under the Apple battery exchange program. The new battery lasted till yesterday; the laptop does not start on it anymore or shuts down without warning when disconnected from power cord (but fully charged). In addition, the capacity seemed to drop down in last months, at it’s best I could run for about 2.5 hours. It seems the defective battery is a general problem in MBP.

In the meanwhile, I had also problems with the power cord. At the point where the cord goes into the great magsafe plug, the insulation had not managed to endure the torsion and twist and the wires appeared gradually from the insulation and frayed. At the end they broke completely and the whole power adapter had to be replaced. To avoid the same to happen, I have fixed the new cable near-by the magsafe with a good layer of scotch tape.

To remain with the power adapter, after a friend wanted to quickly disconnect the charger from the wall (in plain English: he kicked the charger), I had to fix the exchangeable male plug with a glue. Also, I have not mentioned that from the beginning there seems to be some current flowing through the casing when the laptop is connected through the power adapter to mains.

There are some other problems with the casing. At the point above the dvd drive the metal plate bends upwards, so every time you rest your palm on the computer, you feel it moving.

After searching for other reports on MBP issues, I begin to feel these are not isolated cases. I become annoyed by having to send parts for replacement every three months. In summary, MBP has so far been a good tool in a disappointing wrapping. The good parts, however, cannot outweigh the problems with hardware.

Woody Allen once said:

My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers.

Observing how boring and unoriginal lecturers (and thus lectures) at most of the university CS courses are, I suggest the lectures shall be limited to at most 1 hour at a time. So, the four hours per week of reading from slides would be reduced to half. Students can read the slides in their own time, teacher concentrates on what is important, courses (probably) become more compact, more practical by having better proportion of lectures/demos,… in short, only positive outcomes. (It’s your time to point out the negative ones in the discussion)

How do you like this proposal?