Josh Evnin

Welcome Back, Josher

Came back from my weekend trip to Chicago this evening. When I first got to the airport in Indianapolis, I had no problem finding a parking spot. Well, that isn’t quite true. First the machine wouldn’t give me a ticket, then I couldn’t actually find a spot for my car…but other than that I was fine. I chose to park in what they call “Economy Parking” which is one step down from “Tiger Parking,” and two down from “Premiere Parking.” At $5.50/day, I felt like Economy was a steal. Plus, what did the other lots offer for the added money? Well, for starters they would have dropped me off at the door of the airport, rather than across a bridge from it, then the driver would have taken my bags off of the shuttle for me. But the payoff came this evening, when I exited the airport.

As I walked outside with my huge bag (filled to the brim with brand new clothes 😀 ) I realized that the line for the Economy Parking was amassing quickly. As people smoothly walked on to the Premiere shuttle, I was pushed and prodded and made it onto the second Economy shuttle that came my way. When I finally sat down with one cheek on the seat, I looked around and realize that this situation was great. See, while Premiere parking pampers it’s customers with great service at a premium rate, Economy is made for a segment of the population that I really enjoy being with. Heaven forbid that humans should ever have to rub arms with one another! I think it’s great to squish onto a bus with others who are just like me…each person teeming with enough stress to make them excited to get off the shuttle, but not so mad about the service. People like to think this world works as if “you get what you pay for.” I think that people should look around and make the most of their situations…it may just turn out that paying less gets you a whole lot more than you bargained for…

Oh, and BTW, Happy Halloween!

October 31, 2004
A Trip to Chi-Town

I’m in Chicago visiting family. Good times. Last night I went out for all-you-can-eat sushi. It was so good. I really miss sushi when I’m in Bloomington. I guess it’s not really their fault, they are just a bit too far away from water. Chicago definitely treated me well as far as fresh, uncooked fish goes. Tonight I went for some *world-famous* pizza at Gino’s East Pizzeria (sp?). Also fantastic. Chicago is one of those places in the world where you can get any kind of food you want at any time of day. L.A. is kind of like that. N.Y.C. is definitely like that. I would like to live in a place like that, but probably just for a little bit. You lose a lot when you have that kind of freedom. These types of places tend to be crowded, and loud. It’s the places where you can get some real peace of mind where the food isn’t quite as varied…

I also went shopping today with Mom. Got some good clothes for cold weather. Shopping is one thing I really cannot do online. I’m always so worried that the clothes won’t fit. Then when they don’t I have to send them back and expect for my money to somehow show up on my credit card. It’s just so troublesome. This is either a marketing problem, or one for the HCI community. Somehow the architecture of the internet has not allowed me to get comfortable with buying clothing…other things I will only buy on the internet (like technological goodies). Somebody has to get me to buy clothes online…maybe I can invent a really reassuring way of going about it. Time to start thinking about it…

Ok, that’s enough for now. I’ll update again when I get back home to good ol’ Indiana.

October 30, 2004
Reading…
There is SO MUCH reading to do! I swear, all I do is read…here is a sampling of the things I’ve been reading lately:

Emails

A for-fun book

Lots and lots of school reading

Blogs

Websites

Some not for-fun nor for-school books

Assignments

Things I’ve written

Computer Program Code

Menus

Street signs

Newsgroups

Tests (which others have taken)

What if all of this reading could be done really quickly and easily without any…you know…reading!? I think that would be really cool, except for the for-fun reading…since that’s already done for fun. Scientists should really get on solving this reading problem. It seems like so much time is lost for so little information transfer…

In other news, E is currently working on an air hockey game for the DiamondTouch table. That should be really fun once he’s done. I’m always impressed by good programming skillz. I gotta get me some of those. Or just buy a really good programmer for my very own.

I may try installing MythTV again, this time using KnoppMyth. I worked on getting this to work all summer, but never quite got there…I always have a hard time with Linux.

Gave out my first midterm grades yesterday. Subsequently, a bunch of people are now pissed. That’s ok…if they can defend the answers they wrote, then I’ll raise their grades. For now, I think my grading was fair.

Enough of this hubdrubbery. I’m going to get back to reading…
October 27, 2004
Cooltown and a Drawling

Today I turned in a paper about HP’s Cooltown. You can read it if you’d like.

Also, check out this picture I made for my HCI/Design Class. Special thanks to E for the photoshop advice.

October 26, 2004
Background and Foreground

It’s all about background and foreground. Attention is the key to everything we sense. There are so many sensations our body receives in a given instant that it would be wholly impossible to perceive them all at once. Right now you’re looking at the computer screen, but the foreground is the word you’re looking at, while the background is everything else: the rest of the computer screen, all that you see in the periphery, any sounds in the background, the feel of the mouse on your hand, and the weight of your clothes on each inch of skin.

There is at least one sensation that occurs nearly endlessly throughout the day, and you probably have never even noticed it…I bet your tongue is resting against the roof of your mouth right now. Never noticed that before, have you? It’s one of a million things that your brain chooses to store in the background, one of those sensations that you never notice.

Keep a lookout for important things floating in the background. They are the essence of life, and the “little things” that really make a difference.

October 25, 2004
Amazon.com

Anybody notice the layout change on Amazon.com? It’s subtle, but definitely different.

Here’s how it looked on June 17

And here’s what you see today

October 24, 2004
Some Random Randoms

Turns out my blog is leading to some thought in others…that’s a plus. Just had a mighty fine debate with B about beauty on the web. He made a very valid correction to what I said earlier: Style sheets did not cause the web to become more beautiful. Rather, added beauty on the web caused the invention of Style Sheets and other tools to allow for more control. The technology does not invent the need, rather, the need invents the technology! Great stuff…

I watched the first two episodes of Dead Like Me in the last two days. Pretty interesting plot line. I won’t ruin it for anyone, you should just try to see an episode or two. It makes some deep theological and philosophical claims about life and death and the afterlife, etc., but leaves just enough ambiguity so that most viewers will *probably* not be offended. And though it deals with death, it is not completely depressing, which is nice.

Bought a little DVD player yesterday. Needed something that would play burnt DVDs. This one seems to work, and was only $41 at Best Buy, so I figured it was worth a shot. I also figure that this one will break just in time for me to get a real job in a few years, so I’ll be able to afford one with nicer features. Guess I shouldn’t count my chickens before they’re hatched, but I will do so anyway.

Still looking for a nice recliner to put in my room. If you see any let me know. I don’t want one that’s big and bulky and old school La-Z-Boyish…but their newer stuff looks pretty hip. If I had real money I would look into outfitting my space with some Herman Miller, but that will have to wait…

I’ll end with an update of what I’m reading now…

For fun:
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell

For school:
Studying Those Who Study Us: An Anthropologist in the world of Artificial Intelligence, by Diana Forsythe

Design Research: Methods and Perspectives, by Brenda Laurel (layout of this book is fantastic…really made for designers…)

Designing the User Interface…, by Ben Shneiderman et al.

Attractive Things Work Better, by Don Norman

The Cost of Frustration, by Jared Spool

The Computer for the 21st Century, by Mark Weiser

Ambient Wood: Demonstration of a digitally enhanced field trip for school children, by Yvonne Rogers Et al.

Phew…that’s a lot of reading… 😉

October 24, 2004
More Hint, Hints…

These are clearly for my own bookkeeping…here are some things I would like:

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Malcolm Gladwell
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers
Super Size Me
Logitech io2 Digital Writing Pen, this may be a passing trend though…

To be further updated…

October 23, 2004
The Beautiful Internet

What do you think of my blog’s layout? I recently received a comment about it, but won’t say whether it is positive or negative. I must admit, for better or for worse, that the skeleton for this site is basically the default offered by MovableType. I’ve added some chotchkies here and there, but it’s mostly unchanged. So there go my creativity points…But really, what is it that you pay attention to when you look at a website? Is it the layout, or the words?

I think the internet has changed greatly over the last few years. In the beginning it was all about content, simply publishing words. More recently a lot of emphasis has been put on creativity in how things look. This change has mainly taken place because before it was not possible to have a lot of control over how webpages looked. Since the advent of style sheets, the ability to control layout has improved by leaps and bounds. The web is now beautiful, but is it better than before?

This question is a prime topic for HCI study. Surely, the content that is on the internet is of lower quality than in the late 1990s, IMHO. Since most websites look so nice, there is a lot of pressure to only upload pages that uphold rules of creativity and usability, but not necessarily content. I know that I rarely (if ever) build informational websites, because I do not have the time or motivation to make the pages look good.

In the end users of the internet win and lose. We lose much valuable content in exchange for usability and beauty. As in all design related fields, we must deal with tradeoffs. I’m not going to make any statements about whether or not we’re better off now than we were in the past, but it is important to realize that these questions are arguable. Not all technology necessarily improves with time. Sometimes it just takes on new forms.

October 22, 2004
The Tipping Point

I started rereading one of my favorite books this evening. It’s called The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, by Malcolm Gladwell. It got me thinking in terms of changing the world again. The tipping point is the moment at which a relatively small phenomenon becomes huge. This “tip” can be caused by a whole host of things. A classic, and fun, example happened in the mid 90s when the Hush Puppies brand of shoes went from near extinction to extreme popularity. It turns out this revolution was started by less than 100 hip kids from NYC. All of a sudden all of the major designers featured Hush Puppies on the runways of Paris.

This book is great because it puts some focus on the little things in life. Life really is based on the details. Something as insignificant as a new haircut can change one’s entire outlook. A recent tipping point occurred in my life within the past few weeks. Making the switch from Blogspot to MovableType has caused an explosion in the amount of blogging I do. These things happen all the time! Look out for tipping points in your life. If you’re aware of them, you’re more likely to figure out how to make them happen! Oh, and buying and reading this book wouldn’t hurt anyone either.

On to newer things…IBM is awesome! Turns out a problem I had is under warranty…so they’re sending me out a brand new piece of hardware, completely free. Oh, and they called me within 10 minutes of me posting my maintenance request online…after business hours. Great service makes me smile. It’s almost like getting what you pay for. 😛

Big shout out to my Mom, who sent me a nice pair of running pants for the upcoming winter season…I’ll definitely be protected from the elements! Thanks Mom!

There was something else I wanted to say…but it’s not coming to me at the moment, I hate when that happens. Well, it’ll just give me a chance to write again tomorrow…to sleep I go.

October 20, 2004