Josh Evnin

I think I need to be a little more tolerant when it comes to the things I’m studying…I find myself very judgemental about the ideas that are presented to me. It’s not because I don’t like them, but because I’ve learned about them in other contexts, and now it just doesn’t feel the same. I need to learn to let go of my instincts and just have some faith in my teachers. Ech…I’m tired.

Off to Indianapolis tomorrow to represent the HCI/Designers from the school of Informatics when the school goes to visit Eli Lilly. 17 Bioinformaticists and E and myself…it should be interesting to say the least. We’ll probably hang out in Indy afterwards, should be fun.

Watching Waiting For Guffman at the moment…great film. I just noticed that I need some sleep…perhaps I’ll leave. Yes, yes I will.

Here’s some quick news for everybody. Mozilla Firefox v1.0 was released this morning. What does this mean? It means that you no longer have to depend on Internet Explorer to browse the ‘net. You may not realize it, but Internet Explorer has many security flaws that are going untouched by the likes of Microsoft. Firefox is a free browser with a ton of features (but works almost identical to IE, so there’s nothing new to learn). Go to the Firefox website to check it out, or just click here to download it now!

This morning I taught my first class as a graduate student. It was pretty cool. In case you aren’t in the know, my job while I’m here at school is to be an Associate Instructor (which is basically code for “Teacher’s Assistant”), and this semester my class is the Undergrad intro to HCI design course. Along with the other AI, Tony, I taught about frameworks for design evaluations. Among the many frameworks are: “quick and dirty” methods, formal usability testing, field studies, and predictive studies. You can check out the slides
from this morning’s lecture.

I’m pretty busy lately. There’s a bunch of reading I’ve been needing to do, but I keep putting it off. I also want to exercise…I think I’ll go home and do that in a few minutes.

I found this really cool tool my web host offers called Fantastico…it is rather fantastic. It allowed me to seamlessly install two different types of Wikis (phpWiki and TikiWiki) with 2 clicks of the mouse. I tried to install these last week and worked on it for hours without success…now I can do it in 5 minutes. Who knew? Perhaps I’ll do a little writeup explaining what a Wiki is in the next few days. For now, just check out the definition in the Wikipedia (a cool resource in its own right).

Check out Audioscrobbler. It keeps a record of the music you listen to, then if you go to the website it will recommend other artists you might like! It also allows you to find others who listen to music that is similar to yours…and then you can see what they’re listening to that you’re missing! Pretty cool, huh? Just another great example of Collaborative Filtering…

Long to-do list today…but I’m too tired to start. Why is it that one is far less motivated to do things at the times when they have the most time free? One could say that I wasted this morning away…I’d prefer to think I relaxed it away. However you interpret it, I have a lot to do.

Last night I went out with some friends from school. We started at the Irish Lion, an (obviously) Irish pub that has the best stew. Stew is great on cold days, great comfort food. (On a side note, I look forward to making stews and chilis and soups once I purchase a stock pot. If you come across one for cheap, let me know!) The Irish Lion also sells beer by the yard, that is they serve you a beer in a glass that is a yard long. They’re hard to drink from, but fun nonetheless. I chose a half yard, because I wasn’t into drinking an entire pitcher of beer in a single sitting.

We later moved on to The Upstairs Pub, which had no cover charge (always a plus). It’s a cool bar because you can chill there, and there’s no false pretenses looming in the air. That is, no one is overly dressed and trying to act cooler than they really are. At the same time, it’s not a dive bar, so the people are at least a bit cool.

At the end of the night we jogged over to La Bamba’s…the local late-night burrito joint. Reminded me of my old college days…how many nights did I spend in cheap-ass taco shops? How I long for one more California burrito at Lolita’s, or a Jumbo from Roberto’s II…the Mexican food is fine here, but it’s no San Diego…

I bought a CD yesterday on a whim, and am so far *very* pleased with my purchase. Jimmy Eat World’s “Futures” is awesome…go get it.

In online media news, I downloaded a novel this morning, Implementation. I believe it is only being released on the net. The first part of the first chapter is pretty entertaining. You should read it. Thanks to jill/txt.

Final note: to those of you on the West Coast (including Arizona), I’m now on East Coast time…Indiana doesn’t change it’s clocks. That means I’m 3 hours ahead of you…just FYI. Enjoy your weekends.

I always believed in futures,
I hope for better, in November,
Try the same booth, same lucky numbers,
It could be a cold night, for a lifetime.
Hey now, you can’t keep saying endlessly,
‘My Darling, how long until this sun burns me?’

Say hello to good times,
Trade up all the fast lines.
We close our eyes while the nickel and dime take the streets, completely.

I always could count on futures,
If things would look up, they’d look up,
Why’s it so hard to find a balance,
Between living decent and the cold and real?
Hey now! What is it you think you see, my darling?
Now’s the time to disagree…

Say hello to good times,
Trade up all the fast lines.
We close our eyes while the nickel and dime take the streets, completely.

Hey now, the past is told by those who win, my darling,
What matters is what hasn’t been.
Hey now, we’re wide awake and we’re thinking, my darling,
Believe your votes can mean something!

-“Futures,” Jimmy Eat World

My team lost, and now I sulk. Well, not exactly. It seems that the American people have let their opinions out into the air, and it turns out that I don’t agree with more than half of the country. It’s almost embarrassing…and at some points I don’t like the looks of things in this country of mine, but I guess I have to live with it for now.

Oh, and I’m not just talking about the presidency…how is it possible that 11 states voted to ban gay marriage? Jeez, some tolerance would be nice. Sometimes I miss living in liberal California, where it was possible to simply tune out the rest of the country…under the guise of a governor who swore to “pump me up.” Perhaps all this turmoil will be just enough to help me test out life in other countries…we’ll see about that.

In the end, I’m surprisingly optimistic. I walked around the office this morning humming patriotic tunes, which was nice. Things really aren’t bad here in the ol’ US of A, especially when taken in context. ..this morning in one of my classes we watched a movie about the Holocaust, and somehow that was able to make me feel better about my country and daily life. Sometimes we just have to thank our lucky stars.

This is more for my memory than yours… http://www.localcelebrity.net/

I’d be willing to lay down a hefty sum of money that says that at least 90% of all blogs that are published today somehow mention the presidential election that is taking place. It is a pretty exciting thing…this election. Both everything and nothing is on the line. No matter who wins, our everyday lives will go back to normal. I’m not here to debate that fact, because I’m sure some will…but I’ll skirt right on past the details…

I arrived at my polling place at 7:40 this morning, and was out the door by 8:40. The room was filled with nerves, but it was fun for me. Of course, the party representatives all looked at me with glaring looks when I whipped out my California State driver’s license…they all checked their books to make sure I wasn’t breaking any federal laws. I just wanted to vote at a real machine instead of using the boring old absentee ballots. This was my first experience of voting at the machines…I really wanted to take a picture of myself doing it, but didn’t work up the gumption to do so while I was in the booth.

The interface I used to vote was error-prone in many respects. I don’t want to get too into the details, suffice it to say that it could use some work. Also, to our backs was a set of windows which looked out to the parking lot, which was a bit worrisome.

I’m glad I voted, and if you haven’t done so, you should do it soon! The results will be in at some point tonight, probably long after I’m in bed. This whole East-Coast time thing is pretty weak when it comes to election results. Late night news in old Cali’ is on really late here, and I probably won’t be able to stay up for it…

In other news, a small sum of money is burning a hole in my pocket. I’ll be good and not buy anything, but it’s still fun to think about things that would be cool to buy on Ebay.

I have a lot of reading to do, and election results to research, so peace outside to you.

P.S. (I’ve never P.S.ed before in a blog entry, is that legal?) You can’t buy alcohol in Indiana on election day until the polls close, isn’t that strange?