Piñatas can be beautiful things. Nanna arranged to sneak a few of the boys’ comic encyclopedias to a professional and came back with a wonderful Flash, in full sprint, for Archie’s fourth birthday. Amy filled it full of treats, and I found a nearby tree to hang it up over a limb. I was proud of my handiwork until I took a step back and realized what was about to happen. By then, it was too late.
Zzzz
It is 4:47a, and I am typing. I just spent the past three hours up and working on tweaking the plug-ins of this blog. My head hurts, and I’m ready for a nap. But first, some thoughts on sleep.
Emergency 2.0
Bloomington has a growing awareness of how Web 2.0 can be used to create community, promote business, and share resources. With access to news still constrained by the timing of events, I think Twitter just showed it’s value as a catalyst for the spread of information … at least to those making use of the channel.
Where is the power in design?
Even in the best of classrooms, decisions are severely constrained. You are assigned seats, follow a dictated schedule, work independently, talk at prescribed times, and compute known solutions. As class sizes grew, so did the level of control exercised by the teachers. Typical students lack the power to make decisions. This is not because they are not capable but because the teacher hasn’t first given up her power. Applied to interaction design, this issue of power affects both the user and the designer.
Nitpicking Jurasic Park
Carter wandered into the kitchen this morning, eager to tell me about his night with Daddy.
Carter: Daddy told me the Jurrasic Park story last night but he’s not very good on the dinosaurs.
Me: Umm- he didn’t actually write the story, he’s just retelling it.
Carter: Well, he wasn’t very good with the dinosaurs because if [...]
Building sustainability through design
Sustainability is a hot topic. Partial credit goes to Al Gore’s documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, and the devastation of Hurricane Katrina that preceded the movie. In the world of human-computer interaction, designers are now thinking deeply about the consequences of their creations. Last spring, IU School of Informatics professor Eli Blevis presented his research paper—”Sustainable Interaction Design: Invention & Disposal, Renewal & Reuse“— to the international CHI community in San Jose, California. This seminal work jump-started formal research about how design and sustainability are related.
I am 92% Dennis Kucinich
National politics is depressing, and it has been for a while. My expectations for what a liberal candidate should be like have been lowered again and again, occasionally finding glimmers like Paul Simon and Paul Tsongas. The Change.org candidate selector confirmed what I already knew: Dennis Kucinich is the best match for me.