Josh Evnin

I experienced something this morning that I have not experienced in a long long time. The other day I wrote about the first test I’ve taken in grad school, and it turns out that my score set the curve. Wow, that hasn’t happened since high school. There is a certain sense of pride that one gets by doing better than all others in a given situation. I think this is a built in function in our brain, like laughing. Anyway, it does feel good, but the important part is that I shouldn’t let this success go to my head. I worked hard to understand the material, and will need to do the same for my next test.

So I kinda feel this urge to get into the Open-Source programming community. I am often very uncertain when it comes to my programming skills, but I think if I really get involved in some project I can hone my abilities by working on something I really care about. So the question is: Which comes first the programming skills or the difficult projects? In any case, I’m going to look into participating in the construction of Sun’s Looking Glass desktop environment. It seems cool and new, and perhaps a good place to pick up Java, a rather important programming language.

I finished my paper. I’d say I did alright. I’ll post it up for you all to read after class is over. (Wouldn’t want my classmates to steal my work before I turn it in…like they would.)

By the way, this book may be a cool one to own, but I wouldn’t know at this point. (hint, hint 😉 )

I really have to write a paper, but I’ll make a quick entry just to keep myself happy…

Just had a discussion with E and W over some good lasagna about the role of parenting and the ability for one to be responsible for their situation in society. Sounds rather complex, and it is…especially when you hash it out at the level of detail (or non-detail) that we try to reach.

I won’t tell who was on what side of the issue, but will say that these types of discussions do come up quite often in our house, and E and I tend to share opinions, while W seems to counter our thoughts…or perhaps we’re countering his thoughts…whatever. Often it may come off as if E and I are attacking W, but I hope he does not feel this is the case. I respect his viewpoints…well, that might be taking it a bit far…I respect the fact that he thinks about his viewpoints and considers those of others, at least to a point. The goal of these conversations is not agreement, at least I don’t think, and so we’re accomplishing our goal. In the end, if we all agreed on everything, this world would not be a very interesting place, so it’s definitely important to listen to others…even if you don’t like what they’re saying.

Check out this company: Approtec

Pretty cool company, me thinks. Perhaps if an internship opens up and I can get some departmental (or other) funding, I can do some work with them…just keeping my options open.

I’ve been waiting all day to write an entry. I should learn to just satiate my need to blog and get it over with. There is really no reason that I deserve this break. I have been working now for nearly 6 hours and have been able to produce a page and a half of notes for my I501 Social Informatics paper. The thing that really sucks is that I thought I would enjoy the topic immensely, but now that I sit down to contemplate the task I am somewhat bored. Here’s the question: How will Social Informatics affect my career?

Well Josh, you say, isn’t it blatantly obvious? Not only will SI build a framework for your future designs, but it will work to define the boundaries in which your users expect to work. I know, I know…it seems so simple, but at the same time I cannot for the life of me think of interesting examples to write about. Blech…I give up. Perhaps I’ll throw together a second stage outline in a bit, and give myself a chance to write it up tomorrow…

So the publication of this media has commenced. Before today I had been keeping my blog under wraps, as a secret forum in which I could practice my writing skills. Now it gets interesting. I think I’m hooked on adding entries, but now that others will be reading, they’ll have to be higher quality.

One could say that I am in a Beta phase of the project. The work is not ready for mass publication, but you can use it at your own risk. Either way, if you’ve found your way here, thanks for visiting. Leave a comment on what you think and I’ll approve it if I know you. At this point, there should only be about 2 people who know about the site, so remember, I know where you live.

As time progresses, I will invite others to view the site, eventually leading to mass publication on the School of Informatics Grad Student Blogs page. At that point I should be sufficiently hooked on blogging, and creating interesting writings regularly. We’ll see how long it will take to get there.

I have decided to think of rules to guide my writing. I’m sure more will pop up over time, but I have come up with my first:

Rule 1: When writing for a public audience, never admit that you are boring.

If I break that rule, then I’m only beating myself over my own head. Calling oneself dumb in front of others is never a good proposition. Let them make their own judgements. If you are bored by me, no one is forcing you to come back. More rules to come…

Hey, if you’ve never been to Chipotle.com check it out. Pretty interesting website. I don’t think many people are using as creative means as the designers of that site.

Check out the Anoto Pen. If you decide to buy one of these for me as a gift, I would be immensely happy. I just think it’s a really cool technology, with major implications for future designs. I’ll comment further at a later date.

This is getting a bit long, and at this point I think I could have written most of my 3-5 page paper. I’ll see you tomorrow (or perhaps sooner if I get bored with my work…).

“Jewish day of rest. Means I don’t work, I don’t drive a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t handle money, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit don’t fucking roll!” -Walter, The Big Lebowski

Control yourselves, the ‘f’ word is alright, as long as it’s in context.

Great movie, that’s all I’ll say. See if you haven’t.

This is a great site for help with Movable Type

http://www.mattmaxwelldesign.com/mtforbeginners/

This is my first entry on www.ev9.org/weblog…if you’re seeing this, then my experimenting worked, go me!

I have my first test of graduate school today: I500. I’ll have to recite all my knowledge about topics such as the history of computing, computer architecture, how computers do math, Boolean operations, the Perl programming language, UNIX, and a bunch of other stuff. I think I’m ready…I’ve studied by building a pretty good cheat sheet, if I do say so myself.

I watched Fahrenheit 9/11 last night with the HCI crew. It wasn’t the first time I’ve seen it, but it was much better than the first time. The point that was really driven home this time was that the poorest people in our country are the ones who actually defend the system that manages to screw them. That just seems strange to me. Sometimes I think that maybe I should join the military. I’m sure my formal academic training could apply in some way. I just don’t know if I have the pride to do such a thing, however. I’m ashamed of a lot of the things we’ve done recently as a country, and would not want to be viewed as a piece of the system that implements such embarrassing actions. But that’s just me…much love to those who are serving, you have more conviction than I.

On a completely different note, I’m listening to Radiohead’s “Amnesiac” album for the first time. Actually, it’s the first time I’ve ever listened to a Radiohead album at all. I like it, it’s not really something you can dance or sing to, more something to just bob my head to. There’s a time and a place for that kind of music.

I think I’m having a string of boring blogs…I’ll try to get out of this funk over the weekend, but no promises. I don’t think anyone is reading anyway!