Why some people mow a lawn better than others

tractordev/wanix

A virtual environment runtime for the web, inspired by Plan 9

Garden | The Paper Pilot

Any and all opinions listed here are my own and not representative of my employers; future, past and present.

Seeking a $54 billion arsenal of killer drones, Pentagon turns to former hobbyists

A company that uses drones to analyze golf course grass. Another linked to a firm that hosts aerial light shows. And one founded by a 23-year-old former drone racing world champion. Any of them, the P...

Avoiding Digital Productivity Traps - Cal Newport

​Last week​ in this newsletter, I summarized some interesting results from ​a study​ that analyzed the behavior of 164,000 knowledge workers. It found that introducing ... Read more

U.S. Army AH-64E Apache's Counter-Drone Capability Rapidly Matures

Apaches scored 13 drone kills out of 14 engagements during Operation Flyswatter, reflecting the AH-64’s evolving counter-UAS capabilities. Apaches scored 13 drone kills out of 14 engagements during Operation Flyswatter, reflecting the AH-64’s evolving counter-UAS capabilities.

Volkswagen put 100 sheep to work under 31,000 solar panels

A Volkswagen factory in Poland is using 100 sheep to maintain its solar farm, cutting mowing while boosting biodiversity and research.

How turning front gardens into driveways has added to night-time heat

There’s a growing trend to pave over front gardens.

The Winning Variant

A/B testing, algorithmic optimization, and the small act of ignoring both — and what it means to make something by hand when a number can tell you what would have worked better.

Silicon Valley über alles

Every day, computers are making people easier to use

Crop is Stardew Valley except you arrive at your farm naked and in the boot of a car

If Stardew Valley is a cosy farming game the Crop is a what you get if you make it a horror farming game.

Demand characteristics in human–computer experiments

Demand characteristics refer to cues that can inform participants in experiments about the hypothesis and influence their behavior. They lead researchers to erroneously infer non-existing effects, undermining the experimental integrity of empirical studies. Despite a widespread acknowledgment of their confounding influence in experimental psychology, experiments involving humans and computers to a lesser extent consider effects of demand characteristics, as computerized protocols are thought to be immune to some experimenter biases. Furthermore, demand characteristics are considered to mainly effect subjective measures. As a result, demand characteristics often remain uncontrolled in studies involving computers, and in particular for objective measures such as performance. In this paper, we present two experiments that underline the importance of demand characteristics in human–computer interaction experiments. In a text-entry study, we made participants believe they were evaluating a research-based keyboard. This belief led to increased performance and self-reported user experience. In a second study, we conducted a thought experiment on the illusion of body ownership in virtual reality, where the experimental design indicated the study hypothesis. We found hypothesis-compliant responses from participants, even when they did not experience the illusion. We conclude that demand characteristics pose a significant challenge to the interpretation and validity of human–computer experiments, even when they are fully automated. We discuss the implications and offer guidelines to mitigate effects of demand characteristics.

Some Things Just Take Time

On friction, patience, and planting trees.