My soup

Cache Rules Everything Around Me

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 08:49:07 GMT

The brain speaks: Scientists decode words from brain signals

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 14:41:51 GMT

In an early step toward letting severely paralyzed people speak with their thoughts, University of Utah researchers translated brain signals into words using two grids of 16 microelectrodes implanted beneath the skull but atop the brain.

¿Qué pasaría si las portadas de videojuegos fueran como las de los CDs de música?

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:11:47 GMT

Ya vimos en su momento qué pasaría si las portadas de juegos fueran como las de los libros, como carteles de cine y como las de Criterion Collection. Huelga decir que en todos y cada uno de esos casos el resultado lo ha partido todo, y por supuesto esta última vuelta de tuerca no es diferente.

Desde el humor al homenaje pasando por lo simplemente ósom, Neogaf demuestra una vez más que cuando la elegancia se une a los videojuegos el resultado tan sólo puede ser amor incontrolado y desbordante. Eso, y añoranza por los tiempos en los que los videojuegos se vendían como LPs. Que ustedes lo disfruten.

First Person: In defense of the 'Happy Days' ' 'Jump the Shark' episode - latimes.com

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 08:46:56 GMT

Contrary to pop culture belief, when Fonzie jumped the shark, it hardly marked the demise of the show.

montt en dosis diarias - 2010-09-08 (hecha para amazings.es)

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 05:01:00 GMT

Now in the Playground: Listening Clocks

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:26:27 GMT

A bit less than a year ago we launched the VIP zone on our Playground, with the promise that we would keep adding fancy visualizations to it as a special treat for our loyal subscribers. We already delivered on this promise with the personalised Listening Trends and Music Universe visualisations, and today we’re delivering some more.

This time around we got inspired by the WOMRAD 2010 paper Rocking around the clock eight days a week: An exploration of temporal patterns of music listening. By applying some nifty circular statistics formulas, we managed to create an interesting new visualisation that shows at what times of the day a given Last.fm subscriber has been listening to music over a certain time period. Here’s an example:

In this case we’re looking at Norman‘s listening behaviour for the past 90 days. Red and green represent weekdays and weekends, respectively, and the longer the hand the more the listening was focused around the time to which it points. Generally speaking, Norman seems to listen to music at later times of the day in weekends than on weekdays, and his listening seems to be less restricted to certain hours in the weekend. It’s also quite clear that he tends to listen to music from 10AM to 7PM on weekdays, which isn’t that much of a surprise since those are our working hours here at Last.fm. He accidentally left his radio playing overnight a few times though, as indicated by the smaller red bars from 8PM until 9AM.

Our beloved LAST.HQ‘s listening clock for the same time period is a more extreme example:

Since we use this account for the reception radio in our offices — which plays pretty much 24/7 — the listening is spread out across all times of the day, leading to two hands that are extremely tiny and cute.

We very much hope you’ll enjoy playing around with this new visualisation, and that some of you will point to particularly interesting listening clocks or discuss potential improvements in our Playground forums. Meanwhile, we’ll start working on the next one!

Nicolás Alcalá - How The Audience Changed The Movie Industry

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 10:18:43 GMT

1 de Setembro de 2010

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:33:42 GMT

1 de Setembro de 2010
9:02

peercouturizado!

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:01:26 GMT

The class of 77%

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 17:11:51 GMT

A study just published in the British Journal of Psychiatry has found that only 23% of the population are without symptoms of personality disorder.

If you’re not familiar with it, personality disorder is a somewhat controversial diagnosis which essentially classifies people who we might otherwise called ‘extremely difficult’ but to the point where they cause themselves significant life problems.

This new survey used the standard diagnostic criteria, but instead of giving people a “you’ve got it or you haven’t” all-or-nothing diagnosis (given when a certain threshold of symptoms are reached) the researchers totalled up the symptoms to make a sliding scale.

The study found that even those who wouldn’t qualify for a diagnosis but still had some symptoms were more likely to have had a history of running away from home, police contacts, homelessness and sexual abuse and were less likely to be employed.

Of course, what the study could be describing is simply that people who have had a rough time come out the worst for wear.

The question is not so much whether this is a high or low figure, but at what point psychiatry and mental health services should offer assistance.

For many years psychiatry has been suffering from ‘mission creep’ where things previously thought to be unhelpful but normal (e.g. low mood after a divorce, shyness) have become classified and promoted as mental illnesses with the accompanying pharmacological treatment.

At what point we decide that something is a mental illness has become one of the central psychological and cultural questions of the 21st century.

Link to summary of study at the British Journal of Psychiatry.

El profesor Layton dirimirá la guerra de sexos

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 08:30:22 GMT

Está feo eso de generalizar, pero creo sinceramente que hombres y mujeres no somos iguales. Se deba a algo puramente biológico o a una cuestión de educación, entorno y costumbres, nuestra forma de comportarnos y de reaccionar ante lo que nos rodea es normalmente muy distinta. Lógicamente, eso no tiene nada que ver con la capacidad intelectual de cada sexo, aunque Nintendo no parece pensar igual.

La compañía nipona ha organizado una serie de eventos en varias ciudades de Estados Unidos que servirán para promocionar Professor Layton and the Unwound Future y para que hombres y mujeres compitan entre sí. Básicamente, lo que hará Nintendo es colocar una serie de cabinas estilo londinense con consolas y demos del juego e invitar a los que pasen por allí a probar sus desafíos, contabilizando de forma independiente la puntuación lograda por hombres y mujeres.

El primero de estos eventos tendrá lugar en San Francisco el próximo 7 de septiembre de 11 a 18 horas y después se repetirá en Boston, Chicago y Philadelphia. El juego, por cierto, se pondrá a la venta en Estados Unidos el 12 de septiembre y en Europa el 22 de octubre. En el viejo continente, por cierto, recibirá el nombre de Professor Layton and the Lost Future.

The Imp, by Daniel Raeburn

Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:31:20 GMT

Photo

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:54:46 GMT

The Key to Dreams, René Magritte

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 20:47:23 GMT

The Iraq War: Wikipedia Historiography

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:38:17 GMT

The Iraq War: Wikipedia Historiography
"The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs" is a twelve-volume set of all changes to the Wikipedia article on the Iraq War.

The twelve volumes cover a five year period from December 2004 to November 2009, a total of 12,000 changes and almost 7,000 pages.

The set is part of a project exploring history and historiography facilitated by the internet, and visualising information, opinion, narrative and discussion, by James Bridle.

The rise and fall of American Apparel | Business | The Guardian

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:33:27 GMT

The ethical clothing firm founded by controversial CEO Dov Charney is facing bankruptcy

Delusions of pregnancy, in a man

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:39:52 GMT

A 1999 case report describes a 29-year-old man who developed the delusional belief that he was pregnant.

Mr. R., a 29-year-old married man from a semi-urban background with 8 years’ education, was brought by his wife to the outpatient department at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India, with a 2-month history of suspicious and assaultive behaviour. He would look at the sky and say that everyone including God was trying to assault him. He also claimed that there was a baby in his abdomen.

He believed that he had Jesus in his abdomen to start with, but later reported that Jesus had flown away through his mouth, but was replaced by a human baby. He was sure that the child was 40 days old and it was the same child his wife was having. He could also feel the movements of the child and was sure that it was growing. However, he did not have any other symptoms of pregnancy. He was withdrawn and his food intake was inadequate.

Although the case reported here wasn’t the first case of male delusional pregnancy ever described (though, admittedly, they are rare) this one was of particular interest because, although the gentleman recovered, he later developed another brief psychosis where the delusion returned.

For the second time, he believed himself to be carrying a child. Curiously, both incidents occurred when his wife was genuinely pregnant.

Although there is no clear explanation for why it occurred in this particular case, there is, however, evidence that men show hormone changes when their female partners are pregnant, possibly linked to a well-known syndrome called ‘Couvade syndrome‘ where men can show sympathetic signs of pregnancy.

We’ve discussed delusions of pregnancy before although they are, unsurprisingly, much more common in women.

Link to PubMed entry for case report.

Promoción a precio de información

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 23:33:55 GMT

Como ya sabrán, Pepe Domingo Castaño, Paco González y buena parte del equipo de “Carrusel Deportivo” han abandonado una radio, la SER, para fichar por otra, la Cope. Manolo Lama seguirá sus pasos en breve, cuando finalice la millonaria cláusula de rescisión que le obliga a permanecer unos meses más en la emisora de Prisa. Con estos movimientos de fichas la información futbolística veraniega ha quedado patas arriba: los fichajes periodísticos han eclipsado a los de jugadores y entrenadores. ¿A quién le importan Villa o Mourinho si puede seguir escuchando “¡Pepe, un purito!” gratis y con solo mover unos milímetros el dial? En la Cope están que se salen, “hemos formado un equipo ganador”. En Prisa tienen una pataleta de mucho cuidado: demandaran a la Cope por “competencia desleal”.

Desde El Descodificador sólo puedo decir a Prisa que lamento su pérdida. No la del equipo de “Carrusel”, un grupo de periodistas gritones, en ocasiones machistas y soberbios, que tiene todo el derecho del mundo a elegir el lugar donde descargar su humor tabernario. Lo que lamento es la pérdida de modales, perspectiva y credibilidad que el fútbol (y sus secuelas radiofónicas y televisivas) están provocando en El País, mi periódico de toda la vida.

Busquen en la hemeroteca los últimos días… El pasado martes día 17 El País nos contó, a cuatro columnas y con todo lujo de detalles, cómo suscribirnos a Canal + Dos por apenas 15 euros al mes. El miércoles día 18 dedicaron el mismo espacio de la página de comunicación (todo) a la rabieta de la Ser con la Cope por haberles desmantelado la plantilla de deportes. El jueves día 19 continuaron con la misma campaña, defendiendo a cuatro columnas a la emisora de PRISA: “La SER sale reforzada de la agresión sin precedentes de la COPE”, titularon. El viernes 20 dieron la gran noticia, también a cuatro columnas, del fichaje de Michael Robinson por “Carrusel” (Cadena SER). Y el sábado 21 entrevistaron a toda página a José Ramón de la Morena, presentador de “El Larguero” (Cadena SER). ¿Otra vez José Ramón de la Morena? Sí, ¡la segunda entrevista en veinte días!: el domingo 1 de agosto ya le habían entrevistado, en la misma página y con la misma extensión (ocupando todo el espacio).

“Esta profesión tiene un lado oscuro”, decía de De la Morena en esa última entrevista. Y tanto. Ayer en la página de comunicación de El País se podía leer, también a cuatro columnas: “La Liga se juega en Digital +”. Hablaban del comienzo de la competición, y de cómo podemos verla en C+, en Canal + Liga, en Canal + HD… No decían en ningún momento que esa misma Liga se juega también en otras cadenas, algunas de pago y otras no, con lo que la información resultaba incompleta, tendenciosa y hasta patética. Sentí que había tirando a la basura el euro y veinte céntimos que me costó el periódico: estaba pagando promoción a precio de información.

Exploring CQRS, Event Sourcing and DDD with Ruby

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 08:42:30 GMT

Día-Música

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 17:47:38 GMT

Scientists: Being Gay Is Good, if You're a Bird [The Gays]

Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:57:39 GMT

Shared by Drew
Well, fuck.

At least 130 different species of birds "are known to engage in homosexual behavior." Scientists now think this may be because "homosexual behavior" is evolutionarily beneficial. Not to mention totally hot. More »

Margarita

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 20:10:26 GMT

Margarita

Necronomicox

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:45:56 GMT

I admit, I didn’t see maggoty-zombie-cock dildoes coming. But then, I really wasn’t thinking about it that hard. These people were.

florencio:‘Right One’ Toronto After Dark poster

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:11:45 GMT

When justice fails

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:37:35 GMT

I’ve just read a jaw-dropping Slate interview with the co-founder of the Innocence Project, an organisation that has uncovered hundreds of wrongful convictions on the basis of DNA analysis techniques which weren’t available when the case was prosecuted.

The interview is repeatedly astounding and has some terrifying insights into personal conviction, group think and the difficulty of admitting errors.

It tackles how individual motivations and perception mesh with the social structure and tools of the legal system to sometimes produce gross miscarriages of justice.

How do most wrongful convictions come about?

The primary cause is mistaken identification. Actually, I wouldn’t call it mistaken identification; I’d call it misidentification, because you often find that there was some sort of misconduct by the police. In a lot of cases, the victim initially wasn’t so sure. And then the police say, “Oh, no, you got the right guy. In fact, we think he’s done two others that we just couldn’t get him for.” Or: “Yup, that’s who we thought it was all along, great call.”

It’s disturbing that misidentifications still play such a large role in wrongful convictions, given that we’ve known about the fallibility of eyewitness testimony for over a century.

In terms of empirical studies, that’s right. And 30 or 40 years ago, the Supreme Court acknowledged that eyewitness identification is problematic and can lead to wrongful convictions. The trouble is, it instructed lower courts to determine the validity of eyewitness testimony based on a lot of factors that are irrelevant, like the certainty of the witness. But the certainty you express [in court] a year and half later has nothing to do with how certain you felt two days after the event when you picked the photograph out of the array or picked the guy out of the lineup. You become more certain over time; that’s just the way the mind works. With the passage of time, your story becomes your reality. You get wedded to your own version.

And the police participate in this. They show the victim the same picture again and again to prepare her for the trial. So at a certain point you’re no longer remembering the event; you’re just remembering this picture that you keep seeing.

Link to Slate interview with Innocence Project co-founder.

Fossilized Koopa Discovered In Pacific

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 00:04:10 GMT

Say hello to Meiolania damelipi, a species of turtle that has been extinct for about 3,000 years. Does it look familiar to you? As if you'd seen it somewhere before? Geekosystem explains it far better than I ever could:

M. damelipi bones were found during an archeological dig in the ancient village site of a seafaring Pacific island culture. From Wired:
The bottom layer of the garbage pile, dated to 3,000 years ago, had many meiolaniid bones. The top layer, dated to 2,800 years ago, had none.

Truly, it is a sobering reminder of the affect that the human race has had on the planet even before we developed nuclear bombs, plastic, and carbon-based – Oh who are we kidding…

Do meiolaniids look like Bowser, or do they look like Bowser?

Yes, there's a striking resemblance to Nintendo's famous Bowser, King of the Koopas. Moreover, there's a striking resemblance to Bowser's bleached bones variation, Dry Bowser, from New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart Wii, and Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games. That fossil just plain looks mean. It's a perfect facial likeness. I feel the innate need to knock it off a bridge into a lava pit just looking at it.

In the eye of the swarm

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 23:46:56 GMT

The Economist has a great article on how computer models of how bees, ants and birds operated in swarms, are being deployed as ‘artificial intelligence’ systems to solve previously unassailable problems.

To be honest, the premise of the piece is a little too grand to be plausible: the introductory paragraph announces “The search for artificial intelligence modelled on human brains has been a dismal failure. AI based on ant behaviour, though, is having some success.”

This is really not true, as artificial intelligence has actually been a great success when applied to limited and well-defined problems. The article really just explains how the study of swarm intelligence has allowed us to tackle a new set of limited and well-defined problems that were previously out of easy reach.

However, it does give some fantastic examples of how swarm behaviour, where the combination of simple individual behaviours can solve complex problems, can be applied to a range of problems:

In particular, Dr Dorigo was interested to learn that ants are good at choosing the shortest possible route between a food source and their nest. This is reminiscent of a classic computational conundrum, the travelling-salesman problem. Given a list of cities and their distances apart, the salesman must find the shortest route needed to visit each city once. As the number of cities grows, the problem gets more complicated. A computer trying to solve it will take longer and longer, and suck in more and more processing power. The reason the travelling-salesman problem is so interesting is that many other complex problems, including designing silicon chips and assembling DNA sequences, ultimately come down to a modified version of it.

Ants solve their own version using chemical signals called pheromones. When an ant finds food, she takes it back to the nest, leaving behind a pheromone trail that will attract others. The more ants that follow the trail, the stronger it becomes. The pheromones evaporate quickly, however, so once all the food has been collected, the trail soon goes cold. Moreover, this rapid evaporation means long trails are less attractive than short ones, all else being equal. Pheromones thus amplify the limited intelligence of the individual ants into something more powerful.

Link to Economist article ‘Riders on a Swarm’.
Link to Wikipedia article on swarm intelligence.

Comiendo cochinillo en Segovia… al mi me ha tocado el que...

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 21:34:53 GMT

Balanced Anarchy

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:51:44 GMT

I’ve started watching “The Day The Universe Changed” in 10 minute bites on youtube.

I love this contemporary review from the Sydney Morning Herald:

This series, in which he verbally dances through the earth-shattering events in history is, quite simply, exciting. Like an intravenous slug of ice-cold Akvavit, he provokes shivers of shock and pleasure. His mix of cleverness, egotism, fun, imagination and accessibility is similar to the television styles of Robert Hughes or J.K.Galbraith, except that Burke is also naughty — like a mischievous elf.

Mind-Gangster # 1.

Game-theoretic allegations about branding and Snooki

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 11:08:29 GMT

Allegedly, the anxious folks at these various luxury houses are all aggressively gifting our gal Snookums with free bags. No surprise, right? But here's the shocker: They are not sending her their own bags. They are sending her each other's bags! Competitors' bags!

Call it what you will — "preemptive product placement"? "unbranding"? — either way, it's brilliant, and it makes total sense. As much as one might adore Miss Snickerdoodle, her ability to inspire dress-alikes among her fans is questionable. The bottom line? Nobody in fashion wants to co-brand with Snooki.

The full story is here and I thank Morgan Warstler for the pointer.

BBC Dimensions: The Pakistan Floods

Fri, 20 Aug 2010 08:47:10 GMT

Shortly after the launch this week of BBC Dimensions at http://howbigreally.com, it was given a good test of how the system can respond to current events as well as bringing the scale of historical events and places home.

Max Gadney, who commissioned the project at the BBC, and KeltieCochrane (who produced the inforgraphic assets that are superimposed on the maps) collaborated to quickly produce a ‘Dimension’ based on map graphics on the BBC News site, showing the extent of the current terrible flooding in Pakistan.

Initially it’s superimposed over the UK, centred on London. When I saw it stretched from the Bay of Biscay, across Britain – to almost the tip of Norway, it gave me real pause. I went and donated to the Disasters Emergency Committee.

You can donate to the emergency fund at http://www.dec.org.uk

The Case of the Disappearing Lead Actor

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:04:26 GMT

Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People.

The Case of the Disappearing Lead Actress

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:04:20 GMT

Scathing Reviews for Bitchy People.

‘Bed Intruder’ Rant Buys Family a New Home - The Lede Blog - NYTimes.com

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:04:12 GMT

It began with unlikely fodder for music, comedy or pop culture stardom: a local news report about an attempted rape. But then the victim's brother stepped before the camera and a viral video franchise was born.

Ha Ha Fuck You People

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:34:25 GMT

Maybe you’ll think twice about going to public animal-torture events in future.

Video found for me by Ryan Keely, thanks.

75 momentos memorables de DC

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:22:53 GMT

En Comics Should Be Good, uno de los blogs de CBR, se han marcado una lista con los 75 momentos más memorables de la historia de DC.

Parece que no han tenido en cuenta nada de Vértigo, que es la franquicia de DC que más me interesa, pero aún así merece la pena darle un repaso. Salen Sandman y Hellblazer (que aunque popularmente son series de Vértigo, arrancaron en DC), aunque especialmente en el caso del rey del sueño con un momento bastante prescindible. Yo me quedaría con Rose conviertiendo a su abuela en vórtice o la primera vez que el Corintio se saca las gafas. En Hellblazer sin duda con Constantine borracho meándose en el rey de los vampiros, pero para gustos…

Por mucho que me flipe “The Killing Joke”, poner el tiro a Bárbara Gordon (hija del comisario, batgirl y tras el tiro que la deja en silla de ruedas, el oráculo) por encima del primer Action Comics, es un poco raro.

Wolfram Blog : 25 Best Hangman Words

Thu, 19 Aug 2010 09:52:06 GMT

Mathematica analysis of picking the optimal words to win the Hangman spelling game. Code and link to Wolfram Demonstration are included.

Arbitraging against the German state in Paraguay

Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:13:00 GMT

David Carter sends me a fascinating article about a German man, who has been "operating" in Paraguay:

Jürgen saltó a la fama -y puso en pie de guerra a las autoridades- cuando un periódico local descubrió que se había atribuido la paternidad biológica de 300 menores en Europa, Asia y América.

...Es, ni más ni menos, la fórmula que discurrió para que el Estado alemán tenga que conceder la ciudadanía a los pequeños desamparados de este mundo, fruto de embarazos no deseados, de amores transitorios; los hijos de los tarambanas que dicen que van a comprar cigarrillos y se hacen humo.

«Yo reconozco como mío a un pobrecito [lo dice en español] del Tercer Mundo y mi país, gústele o no, se ve obligado a otorgarle una subvención de 500 euros mensuales. Así lo establece la ley, y las leyes están para ser acatadas», explica.

The bottom line is that he is going to poor countries and fathering as many children as possible, and probably fabricating some paternities along the way, so that each child's mother can receive a 500 euros a month subsidy from the German government. The German treasury already has paid out over three million euros to various children under his (supposed) paternity.

In 1993 he was sentenced to prison for three years, for impersonating a lawyer without having a rightful license.

nuevo avatar

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:43:32 GMT

nuevo avatar

Introducing BBC Dimensions

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 10:08:06 GMT

About a year ago we did some workshops with the BBC, to look at new ways in which history could be explored and explained using digital media. We came up with 30 or so ideas which got narrowed down to 5 ‘microbriefs’ for possible future prototyping.

One of our favourites from the off was an idea we called “Dimensions”.

From our original concept document:

“We want to bring home the human scale of events and places in history. The Apollo 11 Moon walk explored an area smaller than Trafalgar Square; the distance between your WW1 trench and the enemy could only be as much as from your front door to the street corner.
Dimensions is a feature on websites that juxtaposes the size of historical events with your home and neighbourhood. You’re hearing about the span of the base of the Great Pyramids, or the distance of the book depository from JFK, or the extent of the Great Fire of London… Dimensions overlays this map on a satellite view of where you live.”

Earlier this year we began to design and build a public prototype of the BBC Dimensions concept which we’re putting live today.

It lives at http://howbigreally.com and it’ll be available as a trial for the next few months.

Let me give you a little tour.

The home page is a collection of what we’ve been calling ‘packages’ – themed collections of ‘Dimensions’. For instance here: ‘The War On Terror, ‘Space’ and ‘Depths’

What’s a Dimension then? Well, basically what it says right there on the homepage: “Dimensions takes important places, events and things, and overlays them onto a map of where you are.”

You can have a play right there and then by entering your postcode or a place name. It understands most things that google maps understands. We’ve built the prototype using google maps, but there’s no reason why it couldn’t work on top of another mapping system eventually.

As we were building the prototype, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil-spill disaster occurred, and you might have seen the excellent visualisation at http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/ by Andy Lintner.

When we saw that and how well it was received – we knew we were on the right track! Dimensions is a platform to explore a lot more in that vein.

Wandering into the ‘Space’ package reveals a few different types of dimension – sizes, plans, routes.

The routes, such as that taken by the Apollo 11 moonwalkers mentioned in the original concept really can be revealing when juxtaposed on your postcode, or an area you know well…

For instance if I type in our studio’s postcode…

I can see that Buzz and Neil would have barely left the building’s carpark…

Some Dimensions let you go a step further, literally – by allowing you to plot a route around your neighbourhood, or perhaps your commute, or perhaps a nearby bit of countryside – so that you can viscerally experience the distances involved.

You point and click on the map to make your walk like so – a little gauge runs along the bottom so you can see how far you have left to plot…

…and when you’re happy with your route you can print out a map to take on your dimensional ramble.

The distance just about takes us from the front-door of our studio to a refreshing pint in one of our locals, The Book Club. Just the thing after a moonwalk.

And that’s Dimensions!

One of the things I love about it is things like that – where something huge and momentous is made grokkable in the familiar. I also love that that’s all it really does.

It’s a bit like a digital toy – that just does one thing, very clearly (we hope) and delights in doing so.

It’s imagined that if the prototype is successful, it will be integrated into the main BBC site for embedding into history and news storytelling online.

The prototype system that we’ve made allows designers and producers at the BBC to create as many Dimensions as they want to using standard SVG creation tools. It’s also possible that this system could be opened up for local history enthusiasts to create their own dimensions to contribute.

The BBC worked with KeltieCochrane to create the initial content that’s in this prototype, and it was fantastic to see the system we built fill up with their work. My favourite’s The Colossus of Rhodes. Brilliant.

We’ll write some more here about both possible futures and the behind-the-scenes of Dimensions later. In the mean-time, many thanks to Matt Brown, Tom Armitage, Matt Webb, Phil Gyford and Paul Mison who worked on this with me, and Max Gadney for giving us a lovely brief.

Alan Kay once said that “A change of perspective is worth +80 IQ points”- that’s the goal of BBC Dimensions. So long as it delivers tiny bursts of that along with the little grins of ah-ha it seems to generate, we’ll be very happy.

You can find the BBC Dimensions prototype at http://howbigreally.com