Are cameras literate?

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about my latest purchase, a new shining ixus camera for travelling. But by mistake I accidently deleted the blog post, where I praised this little handy gadget, almost instantly. I never bothered to rewrite it though as the content of the post wasn't exactly earth shaking and revolutionary news. Well, as I got out of the airport in Athens last week I spotted an amazing long line of yellow cabs, as far as you could see. And when I grabbed my ixus, it was stone dead, refusing to co-operate in any way. Not one ray of hope. For a photo geek like myself, it's tough being on the move without a camera! I figure it might be a revenge for removing the blog post. So I took it back to the store tonight and off it is now for service. Meanwhile, I'm glad there's a site such as flickr. David Geerts at the Centre for Usability Research in Leuven uploaded his photos of Athens, I'll enjoy them instead.

Btw, since Lordi's number one spot in Eurovision, the interest in Finnish metal and heavy seems bigger than ever. I promised to compile a list on bands I like. Some glam rock and the like is included as well but still. This is not exactly bubblegum pop:

Children of Bodom
Mokoma
Hanoi Rocks
Stam1na
Viikate
Sonata Arctica
Apulanta
Nightwish
1G3B
Uniklubi

69 eyes is a must see live, especially the drummer!

Mona Lisa was 83 % happy

Further on the happiness subject, Dutch researchers scanned a reproduction of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece and subjected it to an "emotion recognition" software. Their finding is that she was 83 percent happy, 9 percent disgusted, 6 percent fearful and 2 percent angry. She was less than 1 percent neutral and not at all surprised. At first, I thought this technology ought to be tried out after first dates, as it would perhaps save many from the famous "will he call me or will he not?" but then again, the excitement of not really knowing is great too. And apparently, subtle emotions are not trackable with this device. Full article here.

Post running

I'm back home from an unmercifully hot Athens, after a week of conferen- cing, networking and eating enormous quantities of food, more than I'm likely to experience ever again. A greek colleague tells me that not finishing everything on the plate is a major insult to the chef, the restaurant staff and to greek hospitality in general. Since I'm quite a petite mangeuse, I must have offended many souls this past week, sorry for that!

Interestingly, I sometimes got a couple of raised eye brows as an answer when mentioning my nationality to other conference goers and locals in Athens. And when the guys and girls at restaurants try to lure me into their particular restaurant by addressing me in - what they think - my mother tongue, they never get it right. I counted seven different options as to where my home base is (one being China), and no one got it right. But my action scheme immediately after closing my apartment door with all the luggage and tax free bags in my arms uncovers my nationality quite well though. I did the following in a chronological order. 1) I fired up the sauna 2) I fired up my computer and internet connection 3) I put some heavy metal on 4) I enjoyed some dark bread with shrimp mixture on top.

I'm quite eager to start studying the proceedings of the 2 conferences closer as there were many really interesting past and on going studies presented but that's out of the question today as I definitely need the rest. I ran 10 K at a running event this afternoon and after adding that to walking one week around Athens in quite new shoes, my legs are punishing me with aching, soar knees. So nope, this day is devoted to lying comfortably in the couch watching television and playing games.

Papers available

Cheers all entertainment lovers, there are now goodies available on our website. The papers I wrote for the conferences I'll attend in Athens next week just got up-loaded so check them out to see what conclusions were drawn in the audience research on enjoyment and interactivity we conducted last year. Also, there's a article on audience research on movies and... on my job really... that was recently published in Nordicom.

Btw, if any of you readers happen to have a much craved spare ticket to the Eurovision finals in Athens, then do contact me! I feel this could be an occasion to use some of my savings :)

Happiness formula

Do you have no friends but still aspire for happiness? Then you'd better have £50,000 on your account. According to the economist, Professor Oswald at Warwick University, this amount of money is what it takes to make up for not having friends and still be happy. Although, luckily enough for all of us with small purses, according to research on happiness, deep and meaningful relationships with friends and family has a much bigger effect on average on happiness than a typical person's income. BBC News writes more on why the sense of happiness doesn't increase along with the standard of living, and on what does boost happiness, here.
[via 3quarksdaily]