Sam Hind

lecturer in digital media and culture at the University of Manchester, UK.

sam.hind@manchester.ac.uk

  • Muki Haklay on Which? magazine’s satnav methodologies.

    mukih's avatarPo Ve Sham – Muki Haklay's personal blog

    The Consumers’ Association Which? magazine  is probably not the first place to turn to when you look for usability studies. Especially not if you’re interested in computer technology – for that, there are sources such as PC Magazine on the consumer side, and professional magazines such as Interactions from Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (SIGCHI).

    And yet…

    Over the past few years, Which? is reviewing, testing and recommending Satnavs (also known Personal Navigation Devices – PNDs). Which? is an interesting case because it reaches over 600,000 households and because of the level of trust that it enjoys. If you look at their methodology for testing satnavs , you’ll find that it does resemble usability testing – click on the image to see the video from Which? about their methodology. The methodology is more about everyday use and the opinion of the assessors seems…

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  • A History of the World in Twelve Maps

    Martin Dodge reviews Jerry Brotton’s recent title at Society and Space. Further reviews are available at Times Higher Education, The Economist, and the Guardian.

  • Castells on Protest and Space

    A Comment is Free video over at the Guardian. Aside from taking rhizomatic as his own concept, this is a relatively good introduction by Manuel Castells into the dynamic of protest movements, urban space and what he calls ‘cyberspace’. I’m always a little wary of the latter category hence the scare quotes.

    I find it a little odd people like Castells are still trying to make sharp boundaries between urban (‘physical’) and cyber (‘non-physical’) space. The city is full of digital technology – in fact, contemporary cities are positively built on it, so why when it comes to discussing protest movements do we essentialize urban space as being pure, physical, non-digital space? Conversely, why do we see the digital as not having an effect on ‘on the ground’ protest? It patently does.

  • When is a protest not a protest?…When it’s Critical Mass

    A bike blog post on The Guardian concerning the trial of 9 cyclists prosecuted after last summer’s Olympic Games Critical Mass.

    The case seemingly revolved around the definition of protest, and whether the ill-fated ride constituted a protest event or not. The London Metropolitan Police thought it did. Critical Mass participants, arguably, did not. It is described by the author of this piece as an ‘explicitly apolitical social event’.

    Critical Mass rides are patently not ‘explicitly apolitical social events’ but neither are they hotbeds of wanton anarchy either. Unfortunately and inevitably, they seem to have been drawn into debating whether or not it constituted a political event in order to contend the London Met’s deployment of section 12 of the Public Order Act (“to prevent serious public disorder, serious criminal damage or serious disruption to the life of the community”).

    ‘Serious disruption’ is obviously a supremely subjective term. Serious public disorder and criminal damage maybe less so. But in truth, this section is readily mobilised if a “senior police officer…reasonably believes” disorder, damage disruption or intimidation is to take place.

    So no matter how hard you argue to the contrary, if the senior officer has reasonable belief – and really, that’s no great burden of proof – whatever event, procession, march or ‘apolitical’ bike ride is going to be halted and offending participants arrested. Spinning them as harmless social events won’t quite cut it, despite the obvious injustice.

  • If everyone had a car…we’d be in Los Angeles

    (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / March 7, 2013)
    (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / March 7, 2013)

    Another one of those provocative ‘what if?’ videos from the BBC this morning, sitting somewhere between a GCSE level Geography video, a JG Ballard novel and a Volvo advert. Expect futuristic music, indeterminable blurs of light, honking big skyscrapers and speculative prototype moon buggies.

    Which is nicely juxtaposed with an LA Times article from a few days ago. The city has a $410m traffic surveillance project to manage vehicle flow and control all 4,398 of it’s traffic lights. It’s the first in the US to do so, and has apparently seen driving speeds increase 16% and travel times drop 12%.  Except, no one thinks it’s done anything.