:: wikimiki.org ::

Satisfaction

Satisfaction

The term satisfaction can refer to:
- "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", a Rolling Stones song.
- "Satisfaction", a cover of the Rolling Stones song by the Residents released as a single in 1976 and 1978.
- Satisfaction, a 1977 Aretha Franklin album
- "Satisfaction", a song by Benny Benassi, released in 2003
- Satisfaction (aka Girls of Summer), a 1988 movie starring Julia Roberts Other meanings include:
- Satisfaction, related to happiness and utility
- In human-computer interaction, satisfaction, a component of usability, and refers to the comfort and acceptability of the system to its users and other people affected by its use
- "I demand satisfaction" was a common way to request a duel.

(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" is a song written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards for their band, the Rolling Stones. The song was first released as a single in the United States in May 1965, but was also featured on the American version of their album, Out of Our Heads, released in July of the same year. It was a smash hit, giving them their first number one in the United States. The British version of Out of Our Heads did not feature "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", as the song was released as a single there in the August of that year — it was not orthodox practice in the United Kingdom at that time to include songs from singles on albums. The single shot to number one in the United Kingdom as well; it was the Rolling Stones' fourth UK number one. This success, undoubtedly related to the song's anti-establishment and sexually suggestive lyrics, testifies to the rising social, aesthetical and political tide of the times.

Inspiration of an insomniac

During the Rolling Stones' third tour of the United States in 1965, Richards came up with the guitar riff for the song. The Stones were staying at the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida for part of their tour, and one night Richards suddenly woke up, turned on a tape recorder, and promptly played on his guitar (using his newly acquired fuzz box) the riff that opened "Satisfaction" before returning to bed. He would later describe it as: "...2 minutes of 'Satisfaction' and 40 minutes of me snoring." Later, Richards brought it to the studio where the Stones were recording. Jagger took an immediate liking to the riff, unlike Richards, who was worried it sounded too much like Martha & The Vandellas' "Dancing in the Street". Jagger proceeded to write up lyrics for the tune, trying to make a statement about the rampant commercialism the British Stones had seen in America. Richards said of the songwriting process for "Satisfaction": "Mick wrote all of the words that say anything and I wrote the hook. I woke up in bed with this riff and I thought 'I've gotta put that down.'" Richards later described his first opinion of the song: :It was just a riff. I didn't think... I didn't think of it as... I woke up in the middle of the night, put it down on a cassette. I thought it was great then. Went to sleep and when I woke up, it appeared to be as useful as another album track. It was the same with Mick too at the time, you know. It goes da-da, da-da-da... and the words I'd written for that riff were I can't get no satisfaction. But it could just as well have been 'Auntie Millie's Caught Her Left Tit in the Mangle'.

Recording a hit

The Stones soon set about recording the song. To be precise, the group recorded it between May 10 and May 13 1965, beginning just five days after Jagger had finished the song. Richards sang backup for Jagger's main vocals, and played the rhythm guitar. Jack Nitzsche, who was working with the Stones, ended up playing the tambourine after it was decided that Jagger's attempts just didn't work. To create the final effect heard on the release, Richards ran his guitar's sound through a Gibson fuzzbox which he had just received. He thought it would sustain the sound of the guitar to assist a horn section he had planned for "Satisfaction", but the effect was not the one he desired. Reluctant to include the sound on the release, he suggested avoiding further use of the fuzzbox. The other Stones thought the distortion effect created was great, and eventually won out over Richards. Ironically, despite his having dreamt up the riff that created the hit (much like Paul McCartney dreamt up the tune for "Yesterday"), much of Richards' ideas for "Satisfaction" were eventually dropped, including the horn section he had wanted.

The release of a success

At first, Richards was against releasing "Satisfaction" as a single, insisting that the opening riff just sounded like a ripoff of "Dancing in the Street". Jagger strongly supported a single release, and eventually won out. A single featuring "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" backed with "The Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man" on the B-Side was released by London Records in May 1965, and the rest is history. The song made its way through the American charts, until on July 10 when it reached the top. "Satisfaction" held on for a full four weeks, being knocked off on August 7 by "I'm Henery the Eighth, I Am" from Herman's Hermits. Later the song was also released by ABKCO Records on Out of Our Heads in America. In the United Kingdom, the original plan had been to put out "Satisfaction" on an extended play record. The incredible success the song had in America changed the Stones' minds however, and in August 1965, Decca Records released "(I Can't Get No Satisfaction)" featuring "The Spider and the Fly" on the B-Side. The song peaked at number one for two weeks, between September 11 and September 25, before being toppled by The Walker Brothers' "Make It Easy On Yourself". The song's publishing rights, oddly enough, do not belong to any members of the Rolling Stones. Due to a contract they had with lawyer Allen Klein (who was later brought to court by Paul McCartney for interfering with the business affairs of the Stone's contemporaries, the Beatles) signed in order to avoid exorbitant taxes in Britain, the Stones signed over the rights to every song they wrote until 1969. Despite rave enthusiasm from the public, it took a few years for any significant acclaim from members of the musical establishment to roll in. Newsweek called the opening riff "five notes that shook the world". In 1976, Britain's New Musical Express named "Satisfaction" as 7th among the top 100 singles of all time. Eleven years later, "Satisfaction" dropped to 82nd when the magazine recompiled the list into the top 150 singles of all time. In 1991, Vox listed "Satisfaction" among 100 records that shook the world. In 1999, BMI named "Satisfaction" as the 91st-most performed song of the 20th century. The following year, VH1 listed "Satisfaction" first among its "Top 100 Greatest Rock Songs". That year, "Satisfaction" also finished runner-up to "Yesterday" in a list jointly compiled by Rolling Stone and MTV. In 2003, Q placed the song 68th out of its "1001 Best Songs Ever". In 2004, Rolling Stones panel of judges which included Art Garfunkel (formerly half of the duo Simon and Garfunkel) and former Beach Boy Brian Wilson named "Satisfaction" as the second-greatest song of all time, "Satisfaction" coming in second only to Bob Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone". [http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/6596661/500songs?rnd=1121840899755&has-player=true&version=6.0.12.1212?OpenDocument]
Lyrics and melody
The song opens with a catchy guitar riff, launching straight into Jagger's "I can't get no... satisfaction". With the tambourine's beat, Jagger sings in a difficult to identify tone, hovering between hushed whispering commentary and a cynical protest. The verse is approached with more urgent and desperate repetitions of the phrase "and I try", and then leaps into the chorus, where the opening chords from the guitar make another appearance as Jagger half sings and half yells "I can't get no", conspicuously omitting the last word of the song's title. The song's course is then steered to a monologue where Jagger describes his irritation with the increasing commercialism of the modern world — where the radio broadcasts useless information, and when a man goes on television to tell him "how white my shirts can be". Jagger also briefly describes the stress of being a celebrity, and the tensions with his girlfriend caused by his touring. The reference in the verse to not getting a "girl with action" was fairly controversial in its day, interpreted by some listeners (and radio programmers) as a symbol for a girl willing to have sex. The song closes with a fairly low-key whisper of the song's title, whereupon Jagger suddenly leaps into a full shout of "I can't get no... satisfaction", repeating the final word into the fade-out. The song's lyrics were extremely controversial in their day; Jagger stated that "the lyrics to this were truly threatening to an older audience. This song was perceived as an attack on the status quo". The part where Jagger addressed his romantic troubles was also perceived to be overtly sexual suggestive; when the Rolling Stones performed the song on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1966, the line "trying to make some girl" was censored. A sample from the song is available.
Cover versions
"Satisfaction" had many cover versions, another striking parallel with "Yesterday" (which, as mentioned earlier, also came from a dream). Otis Redding had some success with his soul version of the song, which appears on his album Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul (1966). This version replaced the guitar riffs with horns, just as Richards' original intention was. Redding's cover was recorded in July 1965, only two months after the Stones' single was released. Redding had never heard the original, which drew inspiration from R&B singers like Redding, and changed some of the words, including singing "satisfaction" as "satisfashion". He said, "I use a lot of words different than the Stones' version. That's because I made them up." The Troggs also tried their hand at it, attempting a more mellow version of the song. Similarly, Paul Revere and the Raiders did a relatively faithful, though less raucous cover. Devo's memorable take on "Satisfaction" kept the lyrics, but radically reinterpreted the music into their own somewhat choppy, "mechanical" version; it was selected by The Telegraph as one of the 50 greatest cover versions of all time [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml;sessionid=0YYI3EIM55XSLQFIQMGCM54AVCBQUJVC?xml=/arts/2004/11/20/bmcovercont20.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/11/20/ixtop.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=35206]. The Residents created their own radical and irreverent reinterpretation of the song, and made some success off of it as a single in 1976. "Weird Al" Yankovic used the song to end "The Hot Rocks Polka," a medley of Rolling Stones songs rearranged as a polka, on his soundtrack to the movie UHF. At the 1995 Brit Awards PJ Harvey and Björk performed a one-off duet of the song. In May 2000, Britney Spears had a go at covering the song on her album Oops!... I Did It Again. At the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Spears performed a medley of the aforementioned album's title track and "Satisfaction". She began by singing "Satisfaction" in a suit, but soon she stripped off the suit in favor of much more revealing attire beneath and began singing "Oops", displaying a more provocative image than she had before. Parents and media questioned Spears' breakout striptease to which she replied: "I just wanted to look really sparkly and fun. I'm not the kids' parents I can't tell them what to do I just go up and do my own thing."[http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=1431] Cat Power created a piano ballad version of the song (minus the chorus) for her 2000 album The Covers Record. One of the more memorable cover versions for some would be "I Can't Get No Cooperation", a version of the song with modified lyrics which was used on the American children's television show, Sesame Street — the song was used as part of a segment in which a child encountered problems finding others from his age group to play with.
References

- [http://www.50plusmag.com/being50plus/111202krichards/111202krichards.html 50plus]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00004SCX6/002-1680877-9591268?v=glance Amazon]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- [http://www.acclaimedmusic.net/ Acclaimed Music]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/soldonsong/songlibrary/indepth/satisfaction.shtml BBC]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- [http://www.bmi.com/awards/1999/top100.asp BMI]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- [http://www.keith-richards.com/ Keith-Richards.com]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- [http://www.onmc.iinet.net.au/top/1965.htm Oz Net Music Chart]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- [http://www.songfacts.com/detail.lasso?id=449 Songfacts]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
- Unterberger, R. [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:eju06oa471t0 AMG]. Retrieved October 11, 2004.
External links

- [http://letssingit.com/rolling-stones-the-i-cant-get-no-satisfaction-vbqshfh.html Lyrics] Satisfaction Satisfaction Satisfaction Satisfaction Satisfaction Satisfaction

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin (born March 25, 1942) is an iconic American gospel, soul and R&B singer born in Memphis, Tennessee, but raised in Detroit, Michigan. On January 3, 1987 she became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many have called her "The Queen Of Soul" and "Lady Soul". She is renowned for her soul and R&B recordings but is also adept at jazz, rock, blues, pop, gospel, and even opera. She is generally regarded as one of the best vocalists ever by such industry publications/media outlets as Rolling Stone and VH1, due to her phenomenal ability to inject whatever she may be singing about with gut wrenching soul (hence the title) and sheer conviction. She has won sixteen competitive Grammys (including an unprecedented twelve for Best female R&B vocal performance) and the state of Michigan has declared her voice to be a natural wonder. Unknown by most people, Franklin surprisingly has only had two songs hit the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100, "Respect" in the 1960s, and her 1980's duet with George Michael, "I Knew You Were Waiting For Me". However, many of her singles have hit Top 20, Top 10, and Top 5 positions.

Biography

As a child, Franklin and her sisters, Carolyn and Erma, sang at her father's Detroit-area church and made her first recordings at the age 14. She signed with Columbia Records after being discovered by legendary A&R man John Hammond. In the early 1960s, Franklin had a few popular songs, most notably "Rock-a-bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody." Though Columbia really wanted her as a jazz singer, the results never gave full rein to Franklin's talents. Her greatest and most innovative work was yet to come. After moving to Atlantic Records in 1967, Franklin teamed up with producers Jerry Wexler and Arif Mardin, resulting in some of the most influential R&B recordings of the 1960s, including "I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)", a much more soulful and impassioned song than most of her earlier work. By the late 1960s, Franklin had earned the nickname "The Queen of Soul", having become an internationally famous artist and a symbol of pride for the Black community. Franklin said herself of this period, "When I went to Atlantic, they just sat me down at the piano and the hits started coming." She released numerous Top Ten hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dabbling in gospel music, blues music, pop music, psychedelic music and rock and roll, including notable covers of songs by The Beatles ("Eleanor Rigby"), The Band ("The Weight"), Simon & Garfunkel ("Bridge Over Troubled Water"), Sam Cooke and The Drifters. Live at Fillmore West and Amazing Grace were two of her most influential full-length releases, the latter a double LP of live gospel music recorded in a Los Angeles Baptist church. Surprisingly she never made it to number one in the [UK]] pop charts — the best result being a number four with her version of Burt Bacharach's "I Say a Little Prayer" in 1968. Among her most successful hit singles from this era were "Chain of Fools", "You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)", "Think", "Baby I Love You", "The House That Jack Built", and "Respect", a cover of an Otis Redding single which became her signature song. After the R&B category was added to the Grammy Awards in 1968, she was virtually unchallenged, winning eight successive awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance; she later added three more Grammies in this category in the 1980s. In the early 1970s, her music mellowed slightly, though losing nothing of its power, and she continued the hugely successful relationship with Wexler and Mardin while beginning to take a greater role in producing her work. A partnership with Quincy Jones led to a disappointing album in 1973 Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky). But it still produced a standout track "Angel", written by her sister Carolyn which became a soul classic. She returned to working with Wexler, but their last collaboration, the Atlantic LP You was released in 1975. Franklin released several LPs after You including Sparkle in 1976 which yielded a #1 R&B single, "(Giving Him )Something He Can Feel" , Sweet Passion, Almighty Fire (also produced by Curtis Mayfield) and La Diva, her last Atlantic LP. Wexler had now left Atlantic and the partnership was over. Despite working with artists of the stature of Curtis Mayfield, popularity and critical success waned during the mid to late 1970s and the 1980s, though she scored several hits, often with partners (such as Luther Vandross). Her most notable 1980s hit was the dance song "Freeway of Love", which charted in 1985. Most critics dismiss her post-Atlantic material as far inferior to the legendary recordings of the mid to late sixties. She married Ted White in 1962 and he became her manager during her years with Columbia Records. The marriage ended in 1969 and she has always refused to answer questions about it. A Time Magazine cover story in 1968 led to a lawsuit from Ted White over allegations that he had roughed her up in public. The affair made her guard her private life even more jealously and she gave no interviews for several years after that. She lives today in Detroit.

Interesting facts

Aretha Franklin was sued for breach of contract in 1984 when she was unable to star in the Broadway musical Sing, Mahalia, Sing, (based on the life of gospel legend Mahalia Jackson) mainly because of her phobia of flying. She was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame in 2001.

Albums

- 1956 The Gospel Soul of Aretha Franklin
- 1961 Aretha
- 1962 The Electrifying Aretha Franklin
- 1962 The Tender, The Moving, The Swinging Aretha Franklin
- 1963 Laughing on the Outside
- 1964 Unforgettable: A Tribute to Dinah Washington
- 1964 Songs of Faith
- 1965 Yeah!: Aretha Franklin in Person
- 1965 Once in a Lifetime
- 1967 I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)
- 1967 Aretha Arrives
- 1967 Take It Like You Give It
- 1967 Lee Cross
- 1968 Lady Soul
- 1968 Aretha Now
- 1968 Aretha in Paris
- 1969 Aretha Franklin: Live!
- 1969 I Say a Little Prayer
- 1969 Soul '69
- 1970 This Girl's In Love with You
- 1970 Don't Play That Song
- 1970 Sweet Bitter Love
- 1970 Spirit in the Dark
- 1971 Aretha Live at the Fillmore West
- 1971 Young, Gifted and Black
- 1972 Amazing Grace
- 1973 Hey Now Hey (The Other Side of the Sky)
- 1974 With Everything I Feel in Me
- 1974 Let Me in Your Life
- 1975 You
- 1976 Sparkle
- 1977 Satisfaction
- 1977 Sweet Passion
- 1977 Most Beautiful Songs
- 1978 Almighty Fire
- 1979 La Diva
- 1980 Aretha
- 1980 Aretha Sings the Blues
- 1981 Love All the Hurt Away
- 1982 Jump to It
- 1983 Get It Right
- 1984 Never Grow Old
- 1985 First Lady of Soul
- 1985 Who's Zoomin' Who?
- 1986 Aretha
- 1986 Soul Survivor
- 1987 One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism
- 1989 Through the Storm
- 1991 What You See Is What You Sweat
- 1998 A Rose Is Still a Rose
- 2003 So Damn Happy

Filmography

- The Blues Brothers (1980)
- Blues Brothers 2000 (1998)
- Immaculate Funk (2000) (documentary)
- Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (2003) (documentary)
- Singing in the Shadow: The Children of Rock Royalty (2003) (documentary)

External links

- [http://members.tripod.com/~seand85/aretha1.html Aretha Franklin Online] Fansite Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha Franklin, Aretha ja:アレサ・フランクリン simple:Aretha Franklin

Benny Benassi

Marco Benassi, better known as Benny Benassi (born in Milan, 13 July, 1967) is an Italian disc jockey and a euro house/electroclash artist. He usually works in studio with cousin Alle Benassi. The two also produce tracks together under the name Benassi Bros. The duo started DJing in the late 80s in their hometown, before moving to Larry Pignagnoli's Off Limits production studio in the mid 90s, creating music for various acts, including Whigfield, J.K. and Ally & Jo. His first big international hit was "I Feel So Fine", released as KMC with vocals by Dhany in 2001. After moving from eurohouse to electro, he had another successful hit single was "Satisfaction" in 2003/2004. Some of his singles have charted high in the United Kingdom and have been played world-wide in clubs. Benassi also remixes the music of his contemporaries, such as DJ Tomcraft and Fischerspooner.

Discography

Albums

- Hypnotica (2003), as Benny Benassi presents The Biz
- Pumphonia (2004), as Benassi Bros
- ...Phobia (2005), as Benassi Bros
- Best Of (2006), as Benassi Bros (to be released)

Singles

- "Somebody To Touch Me" (1995), as KMC (with Dhany, Davide Riva and Larry Pignagnoli)
- "Street Life" (1996), as KMC (with Dhany, Davide Riva and Larry Pignagnoli)
- "Stone Fox Chase/Funky Harmonica" (1998), as Benny B.
- "Life Is Life" (1998), as Benny Bee
- "Waiting For You" (1999), as Benny Bee (with Jennifer Bersola)
- "I Feel So Fine" (2001), as KMC (with Dhany, Davide Riva and Larry Pignagnoli)
- "Get Better" (2001), as KMC (with Sandy)
- "Satisfaction" (2002), as Benny Benassi presents The Biz (with Violeta and Paul French)
- "Able To Love" (2002), as Benny Benassi presents The Biz (with Violeta and Paul French)
- "Don't Touch Too Much" (2002), as Benassi Bros (with Paul French)
- "No Matter What You Do" (2003), as Benny Benassi presents The Biz (with Violeta and Paul French)
- "Love Is Gonna Save Us" (2004), as Benny Benassi presents The Biz (with Violeta and Paul French)
- "I Love My Sex" (2003), as Benassi Bros (with Violeta)
- "Illusion" (2003), as Benassi Bros (with Sandy)
- "Rumenian", as Benassi Bros (with Violeta)
- "Hit My Heart" (2004), as Benassi Bros (with Dhany)
- "Make Me Feel" (2004), as Benassi Bros (with Dhany)
- "Memory Of Love" (2004), as Benassi Bros (with Paul French)
- "I Want You To Come" (2004), as Bat67
- "Stop Go" (2005), as Benny Benassi presents The Biz (with Violeta and Paul French)
- "Who's Knockin'" (2005), as FB (with Ferry Corsten and Edun)
- "Every Single Day" (2005), as Benassi Bros (with Dhany)
- "Rocket In The Sky" (2005), as Benassi Bros (with Dhany)

External link

- [http://www.bennybenassi.com/ Official website]
- [http://www.offlimits-production.it/ Off Limits.]
- [http://www.dontstoptherock.com/happenings/benassi/ Benny Benassi Live in LA 11/23/05.] Benassi, Benny Benassi, Benny Benassi, Benny Benassi, Benny Benassi, Benny

Julia Roberts

This page is about the American actress Julia Roberts. For the similarly-named American country music singer, see Julie Roberts. Julie Roberts, December 7, 2001]] Julia Roberts (born Julie Fiona Roberts on October 28, 1967, in Smyrna, Georgia, USA) is an Academy Award-winning American actress. She shot to fame during the early 1990s after starring in the romantic comedy Pretty Woman opposite Richard Gere. Since then, Roberts has gone on to become the highest-paid actress in the world with an asking price of over 20 million dollars. Her impressive film career has also given her the title of most bankable actress in Hollywood, with box office receipts well over two billion dollars on the strength of numerous blockbusters such as Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, and Ocean's Eleven. She won the Best Actress Academy Award in 2000 for her critically praised turn as the title character in Erin Brockovich after two previous nominations during the 1990s. She was also placed at the pinnacle of the Ulmer Scale, a comprehensive guide to the global star power of actors and directors in independent and studio films created by James Ulmer, ahead of such other luminaries as Tom Cruise and Tom Hanks. This was partly due to her ability to open a film based solely on her name above the title without the support of a male costar, something few other actresses are able to do. Roberts is the first of three actresses (as of July 2005, the others are Cameron Diaz and Angelina Jolie) to join the coveted "$20 Million Club", when she signed to do Erin Brockovich for that amount.

Family background

Roberts' father, Walter Grady Roberts, was a vacuum cleaner salesman, actor and writer of Irish, Scottish, Welsh extraction on behalf of his father, Walter Thomas Roberts, and English-Scottish descent on the part of his mother, Beatrice Beal. Julia's mother, Betty Lou Bredemus, a church secretary and actress, was born in Minneapolis in 1934, daughter of football player Wendell John Bredemus (whose mother Eleanor Johnson was born in Sweden) and Elizabeth Ellen Billingsley. Her parents divorced when she was five, and her mother remarried. Her father died of cancer when Roberts was nine. Her elder brother Eric Roberts, from whom she is estranged, is also an actor. So is her niece, Emma Roberts, whom she would often take along on sets when she was younger. Roberts wanted to be a boxer as a child, but soon after graduating from Smyrna's Campbell High School, she headed to New York to join her sister and pursue a career in acting. Once there she signed with [http://www.clickmodel.com Clicks] modeling agency and enrolled in acting classes.

Films

Julia Roberts made her film debut playing a supporting role opposite her brother, Eric, in Blood Red (she gets just two words dialog), which although completed in 1986 was not released until 1989. Rail-thin, long-legged, and sporting a thick, curly mane of auburn hair, she looked more coltish than elegant in the movie. Here, her large hazel eyes and huge mouth are capable of much expression, sometimes radiance, when she cuts loose with her trademark megawatt smile and a braying laugh. Roberts first caught the attention of moviegoers with her performance in the film Mystic Pizza in 1988. The following year she was featured in Steel Magnolias as a young bride battling diabetes, garnering her first Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) for her performance. She catapulted to worldwide fame when she co-starred with Richard Gere in the Cinderella story Pretty Woman in 1990. The role also earned her a second Oscar nod, this time as Best Actress. Her next box office success was the thriller Sleeping with the Enemy, playing a battered wife who escapes her demented husband and starts a new life in Iowa. She played Tinkerbell in Steven Spielberg's Hook in 1991, which was followed by a two-year period of no acting roles other than a cameo appearance in Robert Altman's The Player (1992). In early 1993, she was the subject of a People magazine cover story asking, "What Happened to Julia Roberts?" Later that year, she co-starred with Denzel Washington in the successful The Pelican Brief, based on the John Grisham novel. For the next few years, she starred in a series of films that were critical and commercial failures, primarily because she was cast in roles that strayed too far from her film persona. She broke her losing streak with the hugely popular comedy My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), and eventually regained her earlier reputation as an actress who could open a movie and guarantee box office success.She also starred with Hugh Grant as Anna Scott, a film actress in the hugely popular 1999 film " Notting Hill ". In 2001, she won critical acclaim and finally received a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Erin Brockovich, who helped wage a successful lawsuit against energy giant Pacific Gas & Electric. Julia will appear in a Broadway play starting in March 2006. The play is called "Three Days of Rain".

Personal life

Roberts' personal life has often been in the spotlight, a fact that served as the basis of her (1999) film Notting Hill, a romantic comedy about a famous actress falling for an ordinary guy played by Hugh Grant. Her character, Anna Scott, was said to be closely modeled on Roberts herself. (When asked in one scene how much she was paid to appear in a movie, Scott replies "fifteen million dollars"—precisely the amount Roberts had received to appear in Notting Hill.) Roberts was engaged to actor Kiefer Sutherland in 1991 but ended the relationship just days before the wedding. Julia ran off to Europe with Jason Patric, and the two were eventually a couple after she and Kiefer broke up. She later eloped with country and western singer Lyle Lovett shortly after meeting him. The ceremony was noted by her being barefoot. They divorced in 1995, ostensibly due to their respective career demands keeping them apart, but they still remain friends. Julia also briefly dated Friends star Matthew Perry and Daniel Day-Lewis. For a time she lived with actor Liam Neeson and dated Benjamin Bratt from 1998 to 2001. Roberts met her husband, cameraman Danny Moder, on the set of her movie The Mexican in 2000. He was already married to Vera Steimberg Moder, but they eventually divorced. Julia and Danny were married on July 4, 2002, in Taos, New Mexico. They became the parents of oddly named twins, Hazel Patricia Moder and Phinnaeus Walter Moder on November 28, 2004. Roberts bought a penthouse in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighborhood. She reportedly loves to shop anonymously, buying her own organic greens on weekends at the market in nearby Union Square. She splits her time between her homes in New York, New York, Venice, California, Malibu, California, and a 50-acre (202,000 m²) retreat in Taos, New Mexico. She is reportedly a fan of the long-running soap opera Days of our Lives. Roberts has a production company called Red Om Films ("Moder" spelled backwards; formerly "Shoelace Productions") and has given of her time and resources to UNICEF as well as to other charitable organizations. She has made trips to Haiti, India, and other countries promoting peace, goodwill, and help for others in need. She has been named one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" a record-setting eight times. Although, in 2005, Julia Roberts did not star any movie due to family reasons, she is still Hollywood's highest-paid actress, bringing in 20 million US dollars for each film.[http://english.people.com.cn/200512/02/eng20051202_225259.html]

Filmography

- Charlotte's Web (2006)
- The Ant Bully (2006)
- Ocean's Twelve (2004)
- Closer (2004)
- Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
- Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)
- Full Frontal (2002)
- Ocean's Eleven (2001)
- America's Sweethearts (2001)
- The Mexican (2001)
- Erin Brockovich (2000)
- Runaway Bride (1999)
- Notting Hill (1999)
- Stepmom (1998)
- Conspiracy Theory (1997)
- My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
- Everyone Says I Love You (1996)
- Michael Collins (1996)
- Mary Reilly (1996)
- Something to Talk About (1995)
- Prêt-à-Porter (aka Ready to Wear) (1994)
- I Love Trouble (1994)
- The Pelican Brief (1993)
- The Player (1992)
- Hook (1991)
- Dying Young (1991)
- Sleeping with the Enemy (1991)
- Flatliners (1990)
- Pretty Woman (1990)
- Steel Magnolias (1989)
- Blood Red (1988)
- Mystic Pizza (1988)
- Baja Oklahoma (Made for TV) (1988)
- Satisfaction (aka Girls of Summer) (1988)
- Firehouse (1987)

Awards won

Best Supporting Actress

- 1990: Golden Globe for Steel Magnolias

Best Actress

- 1991: Golden Globe for Pretty Woman
- 2000: Academy Award for Erin Brockovich
- 2000: British Academy Awards for Erin Brockovich
- 2000: Golden Globe for Erin Brockovich (2000)
- 2000: National Board of Review for Erin Brockovich
- 2000: Screen Actors Guild for Erin Brockovich

Awards nominated

Best Supporting Actress

- 1989: Academy Award for Steel Magnolias

Best Actress

- 1990: Academy Award for Pretty Woman
- 1990: British Academy Awards for Pretty Woman
- 1997: Golden Globe for My Best Friend's Wedding
- 1999: Golden Globe for Notting Hill

External links

-
- [http://www.twoop.com/people/archives/2005/10/julia_roberts.html Julia Roberts] - A timeline of her life Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia Roberts, Julia ja:ジュリア・ロバーツ simple:Julia Roberts

Happiness

Happiness, pleasure or joy is an emotional or affective state in which we feel good or happy. Overlapping states or experiences include joy, exultation, delight, bliss, and love. Antonyms include suffering, sadness, grief, and pain. The term pleasure is sometimes used to indicate a short-term response, while happiness is sometimes used to refer specifically to a more long-term state. Historically, happiness was often thought of as success in life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this older sense meant living the good life of rational virtuous action, and thus was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, meaning roughly "to be well-souled." This understanding of the term has not been completely discarded among moral philosophers, and is still especially prevalent in Virtue ethics. Nowadays terms such as well-being or quality of life are usually used in everyday speech to signify the classical meaning and happiness is reserved for the felt experience or experiences that philosophers historically called pleasure.

Psychological views

Positive psychology

Martin Seligman in his book Authentic Happiness gives the positive psychology definition of happiness as consisting of both positive emotions (like comfort) and positive activities (like absorption). He presents three categories of positive emotions:
- past: feelings of satisfaction, contentment, pride, and serenity.
- present (examples): enjoying the taste of food, glee at listening to music, absorption in reading, and company of people you like e.g. friends and family.
- future: feelings of optimism, hope, trust, faith, and confidence. There are three categories of present positive emotions:
- bodily pleasures, e.g. enjoying the taste of food.
- higher pleasures, e.g. glee at listening to music.
- gratifications, e.g. absorption in reading. The bodily and higher pleasures are "pleasures of the moment" and usually involve some external stimulus. An exception is the glee felt at having an original thought. Gratifications involve full engagement, flow, elimination of self-consciousness, and blocking of felt emotions. But when a gratification comes to an end then positive emotions will be felt. Gratifications can be obtained or increased by developing signature strengths and virtues. Authenticity is the derivation of gratification and positive emotions from exercising signature strengths. The good life comes from using signature strengths to obtain abundant gratification in, for example, enjoying work and pursuing a meaningful life.

Mechanistic view

good life

Biological basis

While a person's overall happiness is not objectively measurable this does not mean it does not have a real physiological component. The neurotransmitter dopamine, perhaps especially in the mesolimbic pathway projecting from the midbrain to structures such as the nucleus accumbens, is involved in desire and seems often related to pleasure. Pleasure can be induced artificially with drugs, perhaps most directly with opiates such as morphine, with activity on mu-opioid receptors. There are neural opioid systems that make and release the brain's own opioids, active at these receptors. Mu-opioid neural systems are complexly interrelated with the mesolimbic dopamine system. New science, using genetically altered mice, including ones deficient in dopamine or in mu-opioid receptors, is beginning to tease apart the functions of dopamine and mu-opioid systems, which some scientists (e.g., Kent Berridge) think are more directly related to happiness.

Difficulties in defining internal experiences

It is probably impossible to objectively define happiness as we know and understand it, as internal experiences are subjective by nature. It is almost as pointless as trying to define the color green such that a completely color blind person could understand the experience of seeing green. While we can not objectively express the difference between greenness and redness, we can certainly explain which physical phenomena cause green to be observed, and can explain the capacities of the human visual system to distinguish between light of different wavelengths, and so on. Likewise, in the following sections, we will not attempt to describe the internal sensation of happiness, but will instead concentrate on defining its logical basis. Importantly, we will try to avoid circular definitions -- for instance, defining happiness as "a good feeling", while "good" is defined as being "something which causes happiness".

In non-human animals

For non-human animals, happiness might be best described as the process of reinforcement, as part of the organism's motivational system. The organism has achieved one or more of its goals (pursuit of food, water, sex, shelter, etc.), and its brain is in the process of teaching itself to repeat the sort of actions that led to success. By reinforcing successful decision paths, it produces an equilibrium state not unlike positive-to-negative magnets. The specific goals are typically things that enable the organism to survive and reproduce. By this definition, only animals with some capacity to learn should be able to experience happiness. However, at its most basic level the learning might be extremely simple and short term, such as the nearly reflexive feedback loop of scratching an itch (followed by pleasure, followed by scratching more, and so on) which can occur with almost no conscious thought.

In humans

When speaking of animals with the ability to reason (generally considered the exclusive domain of humans), goals are no longer limited to short term satisfaction of basic drives. Nevertheless, there remains a strong relationship of happiness to goal fulfillment and the brain's reinforcement mechanism, even if the goals themselves may be more complex and/or cerebral, longer term, and less selfish than a lower animal's goals might be. Philosophers observe that short-term gratification, while briefly generating happiness, often requires a trade-off with negative repercussions in the long run. Examples of this could be said to include developing technology and equipment that makes life easier but over time ends up harming the environment, causing illness or wasting financial or other resources. Various branches of philosophy, as well as some religious movements, suggest that "true" happiness only exists if it has no long-term detrimental effects. Utilitarianism is a theory of ethics based on quantitative maximization of happiness. From the observation that fish must become happy by swimming, and birds must become happy by flying, Aristotle points to the unique abilities of man as the route to happiness. Of all the animals only man can sit and contemplate reality. Of all the animals only man can develop social relations to the political level. Thus the contemplative life of a monk or professor, or the political life of a military commander or politician will be the happiest.

In Artificial Intelligence

The view that happiness is a reinforcement state can apply to some non-biological systems as well, such as a program or robot could be said to be "happy" when it is in a state of reinforcing previous actions that led to satisfaction of its programmed goals. For instance, imagine a search engine that has the capacity to gradually improve the quality of its search results by accepting and processing feedback from the user regarding the relevance of those results. If the user responds that a search result is good (i.e. provides positive feedback), this tells the software to reinforce (by adjusting variables or "weights") the decision path that led to those results. In a sense, this could be said to "reward" the search engine. However, even if the program is made to act like it is happy, there is little doubt that the search engine has no subjective sense of being happy. Current computing technology merely implements abstract mathematical programs which lack the causal and creative power of natural systems. This does not preclude the possiblity that future technologies may begin to blur the distinction between such machine happiness and that experienced by an animal or human.

Behaviors and emotions associated with happiness

The following behaviors and emotions are commonly associated with happiness: Material:
- money and business, prosperity
- food
- massage
- using certain psychiatric or recreational drugs
- refuge - taking from the material things in life, getting back to nature. Social:
- freedom
- peace
- nonviolence
- closure
- shopping
- friends and friendships (also penpals)
- dating
- flirting
- gifts
- greeting cards and postcards
- family and parents
- lifestyles and alternative lifestyles
- music Emotional:
- kissing
- sexuality
- love
- romantic relationships and romance
- compassion
- pets and animals Spiritual:
- Tantra
- religion
- philosophy, Epicurus, Epicureanism
- spirituality
- meditation and yoga
- enlightenment Physical:
- sleeping
- drinking, alcohol
- eating
- sports Other:
- hobbies
- decoration
- science
- books
- work
- cinema
- expanding knowledge, reading and learning new things Epicurus taught that although it is good to satisfy our natural desires for food and drink, pleasures often conceal painful consequences.

External links

- [http://worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl/ The World Database of Happiness] — a register of scientific research on the subjective appreciation of life
- [http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1389-4978/current Journal of Happiness Studies] - a social psychology journal with studies largely based on subjects' self-reports
- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pleasure/ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry "Pleasure"] - concentrates on the quesion "What is pleasure?", including historical and recent, philosophers' and neuroscientific, approaches to happiness, with a long Bibliography. and links at the end to leading affective neuroscientists' websites
- [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2099-1793873_1,00.html The Sunday Times Magazine] — article on the scientific study of happiness
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/lifestyle/tv_and_radio/making_slough_happy/manifesto.shtml Happiness Manifsto] Category:emotion Category:personal life

Utility

In economics, utility is a measure of the happiness or satisfaction gained from a good or service. The concept is applied by economists in such topics as the indifference curve, which measures the combination of a basket of commodities that an individual or a community requests at a given level(s) of satisfaction. The concept is also used in utility functions, social welfare functions, Pareto maximization, Edgeworth boxes and contract curves. It is a central concept of welfare economics. The doctrine of utilitarianism saw the maximisation of utility as a moral criterion for the organisation of society. According to utilitarians, such as Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) and John Stuart Mill (1806-1876), society should aim to maximise the total utility of individuals, aiming for "the greatest happiness for the greatest number." Utility theory assumes that humankind is rational. That is, people maximize their utility wherever possible. For instance, one would request more of a good if it is available and if one has the ability to acquire that amount, if this is the rational thing to do in the circumstances.

Cardinal and ordinal utility

There are mainly two kinds of measurement of utility implemented by economists: cardinal utility and ordinal utility. Utility was originally viewed as a measurable quantity, so that it would be possible to measure the utility of each individual in the society with respect to each good available in the society, and to add these together to yield the total utility of all people with respect to all goods in the society. Society could then aim to maximise the total utility of all people in society, or equivalently the average utility per person. This conception of utility as a measurable quantity that could be aggregated across individuals is called cardinal utility. Cardinal utility quantitatively measures the preference of an individual towards a certain commodity. Numbers assigned to different goods or services can be compared. A utility of 100 units towards a cup of vodka is twice as desirable as a cup of coffee with a utility level of 50 units. The concept of cardinal utility suffers from the absence of an objective measure of utility when comparing the utility gained from consumption of a particular good by one individual as opposed to another individual. For this reason, neoclassical economics abandoned utility as a foundation for the analysis of economic behaviour, in favour of an analysis based upon preferences. This led to the development of tools such as indifference curves to explain economic behaviour. In this analysis, an individual is observed to prefer one choice to another. Preferences can be ordered from most satisfying to least satisfying. Only the ordering is important: the magnitude of the numerical values are not important except in as much as they establish the order. A utility of 100 towards an ice-cream cone is not twice as desirable as a utility of 50 towards a candy. All that can be said is that ice-cream cone is preferred over the candy. There is no attempt to explain why one choice is preferred to another; hence no need for a quantitative concept of utility. It is nonetheless possible, given a set of preferences which satisfy certain criteria of reasonableness, to find a utility function that will explain these preferences. Such a utility function takes on higher values for choices that the individual prefers. Utility functions are a useful and widely used tool in modern economics. A utility function to describe an individual's set of preferences clearly is not unique. If the value of the utility function were to be, e.g., doubled, squared, or subjected to any other strictly monotonically increasing function, it would still describe the same preferences. With this approach to utility, known as ordinal utility it is not possible to compare utility between individuals, or find the total utility for society as the Utilitarians hoped to do. The concept of ordinal utility suffers from the absence of an objective definition of choice. For example, say, someone purcahsed a Coca Cola. Question is what did this choise was made against? Was it a choise between Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola? Or was it agaist all other fizzy drinks or was it agaist all other drinks including milk or against all other sweet including candy and ice cream. Or was it choice between purchasing and not purchasing. Or purchasing now or purchasing one hour from now or for that matter any point in time. While act of purchasing Coca Cola is an empirically fact, question of what that choise was made against is an philosopical one.

Forms of utility

The forms of utility are ways of factoring and interpreting the value of utility from the perspective of the customer. Utility can be derived from the products form/function, time, place, price, and possession/ownership. These utility forms are defined as follows. #Form/function utility is a characterization of the physical attributes of the product or service itself. These may be derived from the function it performs, the asthetics involved, the durability of the product, etc. For example, when a meal is prepared for you, the chef has added form utility since eating the meal raw would be less appealing. As another example, when Ford assembles a car it has added form utility since a customer is more pleased with an assembled car. #Place utility is attributed to the location in which the product is purchased or delivered. For example, when a purchased bed is delivered to your residence, the seller is adding place utility. #Time utility involves the availibility of the product or service with respect to the time it is demanded. For example; the fast food industry strives to serve food fast, this adds time utility to the value of their food. #Price utility comes from the satisfaction a customer recieves by purchasing a product or service at an agreeable price. For example, by placing a discount on items sold to seniors, the seller has created price utility. #Ownership/Possession utility stems from the ease and value of the taking of possession of the product or service, by assuring the customer that adding the item to their ownership will be simple. For example, when a grocery store accepts debit cards in addition to credit cards and cash, the store has added possession utility to their products by simplifying their purchasing.

Utility functions

While preferences are the conventional foundation of microeconomics, it is convenient to represent preferences with a utility function and reason indirectly about preferences with utility functions. Let X be the consumption set, the set of all packages the consumer could conceivably consume. The consumer's utility function

u : X \rightarrow \textbf R

assigns a happiness score to each package in the consumption set. If u(x) > u(y), then the consumer strictly prefers x to y. For example, suppose a consumer's consumption set is X = , and its utility function is u(nothing) = 0, u(1 apple) = 1, u(1 orange) = 2, u(1 apple and 1 orange) = 4, u(2 apples) = 2 and u(2 oranges) = 3. Then this consumer prefers 1 orange to 1 apple, but prefers one of each to 2 oranges. In microeconomics models, there are usually a finite set of L commodities, and a consumer may consume an arbitrary amount of each commodity. This gives a consumption set of

\textbf R^L_+

, and each package

x \in \textbf R^L_+

is a vector containing the amounts of each commodity. In the previous example, we might say there are two commodities: apples and oranges. If we say apples is the first commodity, and oranges the second, then the consumption set X =

\textbf R^2_+

and u(0, 0) = 0, u(1, 0) = 1, u(0, 1) = 2, u(1, 1) = 4, u(2, 0) = 2, u(0, 2) = 3 as before. Note that for u to be a utility function on X, it must be defined for every package in X. A utility function

u : X \rightarrow \textbf

rationalizes a preference relation <= on X if for every

x, y \in X

, u(x) <= u(y) if and only if x <= y. If u rationalizes <=, then this implies <= is complete and transitive, and hence rational. In order to simplify calculations, various assumptions have been made of utility functions.
- CES (constant elasticity of substitution) utility is one with constant relative risk aversion
- quasilinear utility
- homothetic utility

Expected utility

A von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function

u : X \rightarrow \textbf

assigns a real number to every element of the outcome space in a way that captures the agent's preferences over both simple and compound lotteries (put in category-theoretic language,

u

induces a morphism between the category of preferences under uncertainty and the category of reals). The agent will prefer a lottery

L_1

to a lottery

L_2

if and only if the expected utility (iterated over compound lotteries if necessary) of

L_1

is greater than the expected utility of

L_2

. Restricting to the discrete choice context, let

L : X \rightarrow [0,1]

be a simple lottery such that

L(x_i) = p_i

, where

p_i

is the probability that

x_i

is won. We may also consider compound lotteries, where the prizes are themselves simple lotteries. The expected utility theorem says that a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility function exists if and only if the agent's preference relation on the space of simple lotteries satisfies four axioms: completeness, transitivity, convexity/continuity (also called the Archimedean property), and independence. Completeness and transitivity are discussed supra. The Archimedean property says that for simple lotteries

L_1 \geq L_2 \geq L_3

, then there exists a

0 \leq p \leq 1

such that the agent is indifferent between

L_2

and the compound lottery mixing between

L_1

and

L_3

with probability

p

and

1-p

, respectively. Independence means that if the agent is indifferent between simple lotteries

L_1

and

L_2

, the agent is also indifferent between

L_1

mixed with an arbitrary simple lottery

L_3

with probability

p

and

L_2

mixed with

L_3

with the same probability

p

. Independence is probably the most controversial of the axioms. Daniel Bernoulli has shown how the personal utility varies with the personal degree of risk aversion, itself linked to the initial wealth situation of the person.

Discussion and criticism

Different value systems have different perspectives on the use of utility in making moral judgments. For example, Marxists, Kantians, and certain libertarians (such as Nozick) all believe utility to be irrelevant as a moral standard or at least not as important as others such as natural rights.

References and additional reading

- Neumann, John von and Morgenstern, Oskar Theory of Games and Economic Behavior. Princeton, NJ. Princeton University Press. 1944 sec.ed. 1947
- Nash Jr., John F. The Bargaining Problem. Econometrica 18:155 1950 Category:Utility ko:효용 ja:効用

Human-computer interaction

Human-computer interaction (HCI) is the study of interaction between people (users) and computers. It is an interdisciplinary subject, relating computer science with many other fields of study and research. Interaction between users and computers occurs at the user interface (or simply interface), which includes both hardware (i.e. peripherals and other hardware) and software (for example determining which, and how, information is presented to the user on a screen).

Aspects and goals

Interdisciplinary aspects

Combined with computer science and information technology are fields including:
- Aesthetics
- Anthropology
- Artificial intelligence
- Cognitive science
- Design
- Ergonomics
- Human factors
- Library and information science
- Philosophy
- Phenomenology
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Sociology
- Speech-Language Pathology

Goals

A basic goal of HCI is to improve interaction between user and computers, by making computers more user-friendly and easier to use and also make it convenient for the users to use the technology. More broadly, HCI is also concerned with
- methodologies and processes for designing interfaces (i.e., given a task and a class of users, design the best possible interface within given constraints, optimizing for a desired property such as learnability or efficiency of use)
- methods for implementing interfaces (e.g. software toolkits and libraries; efficient algorithms)
- techniques for evaluating and comparing interfaces
- developing new interfaces and interaction techniques
- developing descriptive and predictive models and theories of interaction A long term goal of HCI is to design computers that can be exploited to their fullest potential as instruments that enhance human creativity, liberate the human mind, and improve communication and cooperation between humans (see CSCW). Professional practitioners in HCI are usually designers concerned with the practical application of design methodologies to real-world problems. Their work often revolves around designing graphical user interfaces and web interfaces. Researchers in HCI are interested in developing new design methodologies, experimenting with new hardware devices, prototyping new software systems, exploring new paradigms for interaction, and developing models and theories.

Terminology

- HCI vs CHI. The acronym CHI (pronounced kai), for computer-human interaction, has been used to refer to this field, perhaps more frequently in the past than now. However, researchers and practitioners now refer to their field of study as HCI (pronounced as an initialism), which perhaps rose in popularity partly because of the notion that the human, and the human's needs and time, should be considered first, and are more important than the machine's. This notion became increasingly relevant towards the end of the 20th century as computers became increasingly inexpensive (as did CPU time), small, and powerful. Since the turn of the millennium, the field of human-centered computing has emerged as an even more pronounced focus on understanding human beings as actors within socio-technical systems.
- Usability vs Usefulness. Design methodologies in HCI aim to create user interfaces that are usable, i.e. that can be operated with ease and efficiency. However, an even more basic requirement is that the user interface be useful, i.e. that it allow the user to complete relevant tasks.
- Intuitive and Natural. Software products are often touted by marketeers as being "intuitive" and "natural" to use, often simply because they have a graphical user interface. Many researchers in HCI view such claims as unfounded (e.g. a poorly designed GUI may be very unusable), and some object to the use of the words intuitive and natural as vague and/or misleading. For example, some may argue that input through handwriting is natural, while others counter that handwriting is a skill requiring years of training for children to acquire, and thus is very unnatural. Intuitiveness is probably best thought of as a relative notion, rather than being intrinsic to a user interface. Intuitiveness depends on the user's familiarity and previous experiences, and is subject to cultural and other biases. For example, an icon that looks like a garbage can (for deleting files) may be very mysterious looking to someone from a culture that doesn't store garbage in cans. Even a computer mouse and drag-and-drop actions are not intuitive to a user who has never seen or used them before. For more on this topic, see the article Intuitive Equals Familiar from Jef Raskin listed below.
- Data Density and Information Absorption. The rapid growth in the density of computer screen real estate has created an opportunity to accelerate "information absorption" to much higher levels. Classic "data density" on a computer is 50-100 data points, recent advances in data visualization enable 1000s of data points to be presented in forms which can be rapidly absorbed. Interfaces such as virtual reality will give further growth the potential density of information presented.

Design methodologies

A number of diverse methodologies outlining techniques for human-computer interaction design have emerged since the rise of the field in the 1980s. Most design methodologies stem from a model for how users, designers, and technical systems interact. Early methodologies, for example, treated users' cognitive processes as predictable and quantifiable and encouraged design practitioners to look to cognitive science results in areas such as memory and attention when designing user interfaces. Modern models tend to focus on a constant feedback and conversation between users, designers, and engineers and push for technical systems to be wrapped around the types of experiences users want to have, rather than wrapping user experience around a completed system.
- User-centered design: User-centered design (UCD) is a modern, widely practiced design philosophy rooted in the idea that users must take center-stage in the design of any computer system. Users, designers, and technical practitioners work together to articulate the wants, needs, and limitations of the user and create a system that addresses these elements. Often, user-centered design projects are informed by ethnographic studies of the environments in which users will be interacting with the system.
- Contextual Usability: Contextual Usability (CU) is a framework also arising from the ‘ethnographic turn’ in the human, social and computer sciences and during the 1990s, although statistical direct observation methods and system-logging also play a role in its analysis. CU seeks to privilege neither users nor technology within a use or usage process. As such it links usability, ergonomics and user experience design to ideas emerging from social studies of science and technology such as actor-networks and sociotechnical constituencies . It seeks to locate motivations, instances and circumstances of use against social, cognitive and cultural influences. These can promote or negate the formation of usage patterns and periodicities. It views usability as a project (in design) and an experience (in use), one which is 'just outside' the boundaries of design affect and 'just inside' a potential or actual users whole experience of an artifact or service. It generates data according to a quadrant which includes use, usability, usage, and usefulness. It is most associated with the work of Derek William Nicoll.

Academic conferences

One of the top academic conferences for new research in human-computer interaction, especially within computer science, is the annually held ACM's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, usually referred to by its short name CHI (pronounced kai). CHI is organized by [http://www.acm.org/sigchi/ ACM SIGCHI] Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction. CHI is a large, highly competitive conference, with thousands of attendants, and is quite broad in scope.
- [http://www.hci-international.org HCI International]
- [http://www.chi2006.org/ CHI 2006]
- [http://www.chi2005.org/ CHI 2005]
- [http://www.chi2004.org/ CHI 2004] There are also dozens of smaller, more specialized HCI-related conferences held around the world each year.
- [http://www.acm.org/uist/ UIST 2005] — ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
- NIME — International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

References

General

- Ronald M. Baecker, Jonathan Grudin, William A. S. Buxton, Saul Greenberg (1995): Readings in human-computer interaction. Toward the Year 2000. 2. ed. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco 1995 ISBN 1-558-60246-1
- William S. Bainbridge, ed. (2004): Berkshire Encyclopedia of Human-Computer Interaction. 2 volumes. Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire. http://www.berkshirehci.com. ISBN 0-9743091-2-5
- Stuart K. Card, Thomas P. Moran, Allen Newell: The Psychology of Human-Computer Interaction. Erlbaum, Hillsdale 1983 ISBN 0-89859-243-7
- Alan Dix, Janet Finlay, Gregory D. Abowd, and Russell Beale (2003): Human-Computer Interaction. 3rd Edition. Prentice Hall, 2003. http://hcibook.com/e3/ ISBN 0-13046-109-1
- Brad A. Myers: A brief history of human-computer interaction technology. Interactions 5(2):44-54, 1998, ISSN 1072-5520 ACM Press. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/274430.274436
- Jakob Nielsen: Usability Engineering. Academic Press, Boston 1993 ISBN 0-12-518405-0
- Donald A. Norman: The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York 1988 ISBN 0-465-06709-3
- Jef Raskin: The humane interface. New directions for designing interactive systems. Addison-Wesley, Boston 2000 ISBN 0-201-37937-6
- Ben Shneiderman: Designing the User Interface. Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. 3. ed. Addison Wesley Longman, Reading 1998 ISBN 0-201-69497-2
- Bruce Tognazzini: Tog on Interface. Addison-Wesley, Reading 1991 ISBN 0-201-60842-1
- Julie A. Jacko and Andrew Sears (Eds.). (2003). Handbook for Human Computer Interaction. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum & Associates. ISBN 0-8058-4468-6

Regarding intuition

- Jef Raskin: Intuitive Equals Familiar. In: Communications of the ACM, vol 37, no 9, September 1994, pp. 17-18, http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/182987.584629

External links

- [http://www.acm.org/sigchi/ ACM SIGCHI] Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction
- [http://sigchi.org/cdg/cdg2.html#2_1 ACM SIGCHI's definition of HCI]
- [http://www.hcibib.org/readings.html List of books on HCI at HCI Bibliography]
- [http://www.berkshirepublishing.com/hcipc/ Database of HCI in Popular Culture (movies, books, drama, television, and music)]
- [http://www.usabilityviews.com/ Usability Views]
- [http://www.baddesigns.com Bad Human Factors Designs]
- [http://www.useit.com/ useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design]
- [http://www.usernomics.com/user-interface-design.html HCI and User Interface Design Resources.]
- [http://www.ok-cancel.com/ OK/Cancel] A popular online comic strip targeted at human-computer interaction experts.
- [http://www.interaction-design.org/ Interaction-Design.org] - an open-content, peer-reviewed Encyclopedia covering terms from the disciplines of HCI, Interaction Design, Design, Human factors, Usability, Information architecture, and related fields.
- [http://hcc.cc.gatech.edu/ Human-Centered Computing Education Digital Library] - a repository of freely-available Human-Centered Computing and HCI educational materials. Includes lectures, syllabi, videos, sample tests and assignments from a variety of institutions.
- [http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Human-Computer-Interaction EServer TC Library: HCI]
- [http://www.userinterfacehallofshame.com UI Hall of Shame] A blog which analyzes examples of poor user interface design. Category:Human-computer interaction Category:Human communication ko:인간과 컴퓨터 상호작용 ja:マンマシンインターフェース

Duel

:For an account of the Steven Spielberg film, see Duel (film). :For an article about the UK band, see Duels (band). ---- A duel or duel of honour is a formalised type of armed combat in which two individuals participate. Duels represent a contrived combat situation designed to maximise fairness of combat. They usually develop out of a desire for one party (the challenger) to redress an insult to his honour. Typically, duels have been fought between members of the same social class; they are regarded as especially noteworthy when those partaking are of the upper class but occur at all social strata. In the modern United States, duels occur rarely but duel-like gunfights occur mostly among the urban poor. Dueling is defined as combat between two people with the possibility that at least one of the two die.[http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=duel&use1913=on&use1828=on] In the original laws of northern Europe it was the appeal of last resort in dispute processing. It is now illegal in all but a few countries around the world. poor.]]

Rules

Duels could be fought with some sort of sword or, from the 18th Century on, [http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/techniques/pup_wd.html] with pistols. For this end special sets of duelling pistols were crafted for the wealthiest of noblemen. After the offence, whether real or imagined, the offended party would demand "satisfaction" [http://gaslight.mtroyal.ab.ca/gaslight/mysticXN.htm] from the offender, signalling this demand with an inescapably insulting gesture, such as hitting the offender in the face with a glove, or throwing the glove before him, hence the phrase "throwing down the gauntlet". This originates from medieval times, when a knight was knighted. A would-be knight would receive a ritual slap in the face, said to be the last one he ever had to accept without retaliating tenfold. Therefore anyone being slapped with a glove, was considered, like a knight, to accept the challenge, or be dishonoured. Both parties would name a trusted representative (a Second) who would, between them, determine a suitable "field of honour", the chief criterion being isolation from interruptions. Duels traditionally took place at dawn, for this very reason. It was also the duty of each party's second to check that the weapons were equal and that the duel was fair. At the choice of the offended party, the duel could be:
- at first blood, in which case the first man to bleed would lose;
- till one man was heavily wounded and unable to physically continue the duel;
- to the death, in which case there would be no satisfaction until the other party was mortally wounded;
- or, in the case of pistol duels, each party would agree to fire one shot each, after which the duel would be declared over. Under the latter conditions, one or both parties could intentionally miss in order to fulfil the conditions of the duel, without loss of either life or honour. This practice occured despite being expressly banned by the Code Duello of 1777. Rule 13 stated: "No dumb shooting or firing in the air is admissible in any case... therefore children's play must be dishonorable on one side or the other, and is accordingly prohibited." Practices varied, however, and many pistol duels were to first blood or death. The offended party could stop the duel at any time if he deemed his honour satisfied. For a pistol duel, the parties would be placed back to back with loaded weapons in hand and walk a set number of paces, turn to face the opponent, and shoot. Typically, the graver the insult, the fewer the paces agreed upon. Alternately, a pre-agreed length of ground would be measured out by the seconds and marked, often with swords stuck in the ground. At a given signal, often the dropping of a handkerchief, the principals could advance to the marker and fire at will. This latter system reduced the possibility of cheating, as neither principal had to trust the other not to turn too soon. Another system involved alternate shots being taken - the challenged firing first. Many historical duels were prevented by the difficulty of arranging the "methodus pugnandi." In the instance of Dr. Brocklesby, the number of paces could not be agreed upon; and in the affair between Akenside and Ballow, one had determined never to fight in the morning, and the other that he would never fight in the afternoon. John Wilkes, who did not stand upon ceremony in these little affairs, when asked by Lord Talbot how many times they were to fire, replied, "just as often as your Lordship pleases; I have brought a bag of bullets and a flask of gunpowder."

History

In English, the word duel is attested from the latter half of the 15th century. It derives from Old Latin duellum "war", in Middle Latin associated with duo "two" by popular etymology, shifting its meaning to "one-to-one combat". The word is ultimately from a PIE root
- deh²v "to burn, to destroy", cognate to Old English teona "damage". Physical confrontations related to insults and social standing pre-date human society, but the formal concept of a duel, in Western society, developed out of medieval judicial duel and older pre-Christian practices such as the Viking Age Holmganga. In 1459 (MS Thott 290 2), Hans Talhoffer reports that even though duelling was prohibited in Franconia, there were still seven capital crimes that were still commonly accepted to be settled by a judicial duel: murder, treason, heresy, infidelity towards one's lord, blasphemy, forgery and rape. Most societies did not condemn duelling, and the victor of a duel was regarded not as a murderer but as a hero, his social status often increased. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable and accepted manner for gentlemen to resolve disputes. Duelling in such societies was seen as an alternative to less regulated conflict. The first published code duello, or "code of dueling", appeared in Renaissance Italy; however, it had many antecedents, ranging back to old Germanic law. The first formalised national code was France's, during the Renaissance. In 1777, Ireland developed a code duello, which was indeed the most influential in American duelling culture.

Prominent duels

To decline a challenge was often equated to defeat by forfeiture, and was sometimes even regarded as dishonourable. Prominent and famous individuals ran an especial risk of being challenged for duels. Among the most famous duels are the American Hamilton–Burr duel, in which notable Federalist Alexander Hamilton was fatally wounded, and the duel between Duke of Wellington and the 10th Earl of Winchilsea, wherein both participants intentionally missed the other. The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin prophetically described a number of duels in his works, notably Onegin's duel with Lensky in Eugene Onegin. The poet was mortally wounded in a controversial duel with Georges d'Anthès, a French officer rumoured to be his wife's lover. d'Anthès, who was accused of cheating in this duel, married Pushkin's sister-in-law and went on to become French minister and senator. The whole affair was instigated by anonymous letters, apparently written by two homosexual princes in order to revenge d'Anthès for his homosexual affair with the Ambassador of Holland. The last fatal duel in Canada saw Robert Lyon challenge John Wilson to a pistol duel after a quarrel over remarks made about a local schoolteacher whom Wilson ended up marrying after Lyon was killed in the duel. In 1864, American writer Mark Twain - then editor of the New York Sunday Mercury - narrowly avoided fighting a duel with a rival newspaper editor, apparently through the quick thinking of his second, who exaggerated Twain's prowess with a pistol. [http://www.classicauthors.net/Paine/twainbio/twainbio46.html] [http://www.underthesun.cc/Classics/Twain/autobiography/autobiography8.html] [http://www.twaintimes.net/page4.htm] (See also: List of famous duels)

Opposition to duelling

The Catholic Church and many political leaders like King James I of Britain, usually denounced duelling throughout Europe's history, though some authorities tacitly allowed it, believing it to relieve long-standing familial and social tensions. Duelling began to fall out of favour in America in the 18th century. Benjamin Franklin denounced the practice as uselessly violent, and George Washington encouraged his officers to refuse challenges during the American Revolutionary War because he believed that the death by duelling of officers would have threatened the success of the war effort. Furthermore, duelling was often used as a façade for legalised murder. In 1806, Andrew Jackson—later to become a U.S. President—shot an opponent after the duel had technically ended. By the end of the 19th century, legalised duelling was almost extinct in most of the world. Some American states have laws which establish procedures for legal duelling, but it is unlikely that they would be upheld in court.

High level bans

Many jurisdictions have very high level bans laid against duelling, with stiff penalties for violation. Several United States state constitutions ban the practice, the most common penality is disenfranchisement and/or disqualification from all offices.
- Alabama 's Constitution (Article IV, Section 86):
- "The Legislature shall pass such penal laws as it may deem expident to suppress the evil practice of duelling. <