Why movie-playing software has a "repeat" button

Short shameful confession: I had more fun than I can possibly tell you when I drew that last comic. Not only is it fun to create comics visually, but Comic Life makes these adorable sound effects when you resize images, delete them, increase the font sizes, etc.

My readers who are software designers - you seriously need to make more programs have cute sound effects. Can you imagine how much more joyful it would for people when they made a database entry it said, "YEAH!" every time they hit 'commit', or "Vooooooop!" when they resized a column in Excel? Help a girl out, put the FUN back in functional!

Anywho, on to today's post topic, which occurred to me in the wee hours of the morning.

For the longest time, I couldn't understand why movie playing software had a "repeat" button. These days I barely have the attention span or time to sit through one movie, let alone the same movie several times. I thought, well, maybe it's for those always-on televisions in places like hospital waiting areas and electronics stores. The people that work there, forced to watch this same horrible movie repeatedly, are not going to want to get up every time the credits roll. Especially if it's playing on forty TVs.

But, still, that can't possibly explain the design decision for a repeat button.

No, it had to be something else...

Image Description: Top panel, alarm clock says 4:12. Next panel, bright-eyed kid says,
"Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!". Next panel, bleary-eyed mother. Next panel,
kid says, "Wakey WAKEY, Mommy!". Last panel, an iPad showing "Finding Nemo", with a
magic wand pointing to the repeat control with the words "Magic!"

I remember the first time I saw the magic. It was winter, and my son was at a party with a dozen small children. They were indoors and literally bouncing off the walls. After about an hour, another parent said, "How about a movie?" and all the hyper kids screamed, "YEAH!". He put the movie in. Snap - just like that - immediate silence. Stillness. They were transfixed for hours.

With great power comes great responsibility, speaking of comics. But ParentWars be damned, bright-eyed children at 5am qualifies as the fairest use of television ever conceived.

Wales will host the Celtic Tri Nations Championships for the first time this weekend. Swimmers from Wales, Scotland and Ireland will go head to head at Wales National Pool, Swansea.



Georgia Davies clinches bronze in Delhi



Catherine Shearer, Senior Sports Psychologist at Sport Wales, explains why the event will assist our next generation of swimmers on the road to the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

·         Familiarity breeds confidence - the more accustomed an individual is when competing on ‘the big stage’, the more their confidence is enhanced

·         Major events can be stressful for athletes so if they can get as much experience as possible at performing under pressure, the better they will become at handling it!

Welsh swimmers at the 2010 Commonwealth Games - in the final minutes before racing

·         There are a number of distractions at events such as friends, family and the media which can disrupt optimal preparations. Events like this give swimmers the chance to practice at not letting these distractions get in the way of their performance. Instead, they can focus on delivering a good performance.

·         Competing at a high level also allows swimmers the opportunity to watch experienced and successful swimmers prepare for an event. Learning by example, they can feel more confident that they are doing the right things.

• Competing also gives the opportunity to put into practice the hard training they put in everyday

If you fancy going to the Celtic Tri Nations, you can buy tickets here