I was only 4 when this tragedy took place. Growing up, I had heard of this horrible thing but I really didn't know much about it. Today, November 18, 2008 marks 30 years since the Jonestown Massacre happened and technology has allowed this story to be passed along to hopefully remind and teach people that this should never have taken place.
My boyfriend had me watch a documentary with him on MSNBC. It was called "Witness to Jonestown." He had asked me if I knew about this story. I nodded and said "Wasn't it about some cult that committed suicide?" He nodded back and told me that there was much more to the story. He had seen a similar documentary on another channel so we sat together and watched this one. After an hour I felt kind of sick. I couldn't believe that this could have happened in my lifetime. We talked about what we had just seen for a bit then went online to further our knowledge. I was able to pull up tons of information. There were articles from newspapers, magazines, an audio recording of the last moments, and some video which was shot also before everything happened. I was in shock!
I felt that the story would have been lost in time without the detail that was kept using modern technologies. Having this be a reminder of the horror of this happening, I hope it will continue to educate people to the truthfulness of how this came to be and how to ensure it doesn't happen ever again.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Stupid Vacuum Cleaner
The book chapter we were asked to read from "The Design of Everyday Things" was very interesting. It went over a bunch of design pointers how they are used. Some considered criteria are accordance, constraints, mappings, feedback, visibility, and
conceptual model.
Looking around the everyday things I interacts with, I found one particular item that I wanted to share. This item would be the newly bought Eureka Vacuum Cleaner that was purchased by my company for our production office. At first glance I was quite happy as we didn't have one in the past. The dirt on the carpet was pretty gross, so having such an item brought joy to me.
Taking it out of the box, there were a bunch of pieces that needed to be assembled. The main body of the vacuum looked pretty similar to any other vaccum. The problem was that this niffty vaccum was a compact all in one. The tubes and connectors all somehow fit onto the small body and it was up to me to figure out how it was assembled. The visability of the inital item was ok but to where the attachments went, it fails for sure. As I was putting things together, one of the attachments didn't fit. It looked like it should go in one spot but as I tried to put it there, the plastic holder snapped in half. I would say that affordance was pretty poor as well. The plastic holder looked like it was designed to hold everything and be sturdy but it didn't last long for it to break. Great going.. I just broke our new vaccum. The mental model I had of how the thing should work and be put together was drastically different. Everything designed on this particular vaccum had only one way for it to go on and one way to go off. Finally I kind of had it put together. I found the power button and woooooom, the sound it made gave me good feedback that it was indeed on. The mapping of the controls worked as it should... the floor type adjuctment was set so that up meant think and down meant bare. As I pushed the vaccum forward it went forward and so fourth. The floor was finally cleaned but I still could not figure out how to get it back to how it was supposed to be assembled. The picture you see is basically the unit as it lives in the back of the room today... stupid vaccum.
conceptual model.
Looking around the everyday things I interacts with, I found one particular item that I wanted to share. This item would be the newly bought Eureka Vacuum Cleaner that was purchased by my company for our production office. At first glance I was quite happy as we didn't have one in the past. The dirt on the carpet was pretty gross, so having such an item brought joy to me.
Taking it out of the box, there were a bunch of pieces that needed to be assembled. The main body of the vacuum looked pretty similar to any other vaccum. The problem was that this niffty vaccum was a compact all in one. The tubes and connectors all somehow fit onto the small body and it was up to me to figure out how it was assembled. The visability of the inital item was ok but to where the attachments went, it fails for sure. As I was putting things together, one of the attachments didn't fit. It looked like it should go in one spot but as I tried to put it there, the plastic holder snapped in half. I would say that affordance was pretty poor as well. The plastic holder looked like it was designed to hold everything and be sturdy but it didn't last long for it to break. Great going.. I just broke our new vaccum. The mental model I had of how the thing should work and be put together was drastically different. Everything designed on this particular vaccum had only one way for it to go on and one way to go off. Finally I kind of had it put together. I found the power button and woooooom, the sound it made gave me good feedback that it was indeed on. The mapping of the controls worked as it should... the floor type adjuctment was set so that up meant think and down meant bare. As I pushed the vaccum forward it went forward and so fourth. The floor was finally cleaned but I still could not figure out how to get it back to how it was supposed to be assembled. The picture you see is basically the unit as it lives in the back of the room today... stupid vaccum.
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