Robotic Walker at CHI 2004!
announcements, life & times, usability
February 21, 2004, 01:29 PM
At Jodi's urging, Irina and Chung and I submitted an interactive poster to CHI 2004 on our social robotic walker interface design project. We found out just yesterday that it was accepted! Hurray!
Also, shouts out to Neema, Chad, Patrick, and Kevin for the acceptance of their poster on Apeer, their lightweight link sharing system, as well as to the CMU team for their acceptance to the design competition.
Career Planning
life & times
February 10, 2004, 02:16 PM
There's an article on Boxes and Arrows about planning your future. It's a bit 101, but it's a good read for anyone (like me) who doesn't have much experience with career planning but wants a better sense of where they want to be in a few years. I plan to sketch something out similar to Erin's template before plunging into the workforce.
As an aside, I wouldn't mind having a manager like Erin who takes such an interest in her employee's career goals...
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So It Begins
life & times
January 13, 2004, 03:51 PM
I've finally started the MHCI capstone project course, in which I'll be responsible, along with a team of my fellow students, for completing a large human-centered design project over the course of eight months. This will constitute the largest design project I have yet attempted.
Yesterday, we went through the sensitive process of selecting project preferences and deciding which students get to be on which team. The way that happens 'round these parts is that everyone rank orders their project choices, then votes for a selection committee of representatives who is responsible for deciding everyone's fate for the next eight months. I was granted the honor of serving on this committee by my fellow students.
The process was interesting, to say the least. It was hard to make decisions that had such a large effect on people's lives in so little time. I think having more information would have helped; perhaps a process of rating projects on a scale of one to five would have been more effective than a rank ordering (so that someone who didn't have a strong preference could have been distinguished from someone who did). Also more information on the skill needs of the projects to match against the skills of the candidates would have been nice. There also wasn't a well-defined, repeatable process in place, so the committee had to develop one ad hoc. Perhaps recording what works and what doesn't from year to year would help such a process emerge.
But we did the best we could, and project assignments have been sent out. I'm working on "a corporate product design project for a major educational technology vendor" (damn NDA requirements). I think it's an exciting opportunity to work on a real design project with real constraints, so I'm looking forward to getting started. More information on the project will crop up from time to time, I'm sure.
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Live Long, Eat Well
life & times
November 17, 2003, 12:50 AM
At Kenneth's recommendation, I've been making use of Epicurious recently, which is an excellent online resource for recipe ideas if, like me, you're too busy to read cooking magazines and don't own a whole lot of cookbooks. In an effort to salvage my resolution to cook more, I've thrown a couple of dinner parties recently where I made spicy blackened catfish and green chili and monterey jack quesadillas. Both came out pretty well.
The problem is that the only time I'm able to motivate myself to spend the time to prepare something complicated is when I have guests over. So I guess if I want to cook more, I'll just have to throw more parties. I'm sure my friends won't complain...
Posted by Mathilde on November 18, 2003 at 01:32 PM
Nope, certainly won't complain. :-) Thanks again for dinner, it was really nice.
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My New Friend Socrates
life & times, people
August 05, 2003, 08:54 PM
At my new apartment, there's a cat that often hangs around outside and sometimes comes in to visit me. Here's a couple pictures:
I've named him (her?) Socrates. I'm not sure if he has an owner or not; he has no collar or identification tags but he seems too well fed to be completely on his own. Either way, he's a personable fellow; he always comes out to greet me if he's around just like Rifken, my mother's cat, always does. The similarities end there, however, Socrates is more affectionate and less inquisitive than Rifken as well as more energetic (probably because he's younger). It's funny how different cats have such distinct personalities when you take the time to get to know them.
I'm thinking of getting some cat food or treats to try to lure Socrates into coming by more often. I'm hoping get all the benefits of having a cat without all of the responsibilities :).
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Redesigning My Space
aesthetics, design, life & times, personal
July 25, 2003, 04:07 PM
I've moved into a new apartment recently. I moved in two weekends ago and spent last weekend cleaning and redecorating. All my Pittsburgh friends will (hopefully) get to see it in person soon since I hope to have a housewarming party, but in the meantime (and for those who won't be able to attend), here's a few pictures I took.
Street View
Front Porch
Kitchen
Dining Room
Dining Room Wall
Living Room
My Center Of Operations (a.k.a. Desk)
Reading Area
Patio
Backyard
All these pictures are partially to make Micah happy, who has always frowned at me for having too much boring text on this weblog :).
As I was redecorating my apartment I couldn't help but think back to the design process we learned about on the first day of CDF. I went through the familiarization phase while looking for apartments and while moving all my junk, then the development phase when I decided where the major furniture would go, then finally the refinement phase when I positioned all the little things on the shelves and tables and desks. And sure enough, there were "architectural" issues; it would be prohibitively expensive for me to move to a new place just because I didn't like the way my stuff fit into it.
Looks like the basic pattern (along with its consequences) fits to even the most mundane design tasks.
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mv Micah /california/eBay, make, make install
life & times, people
June 25, 2003, 06:25 PM
Congratulations to my good friend Micah, who has just accepted a job as a user interface designer at eBay. Or perhaps I should be saying "Congratulations to eBay, on their success in snagging one of the greatest interface designers to come out of the CMU MHCI program (or any other, for that matter)"! In a few months, if you buy or sell something on the world's online marketplace™, your user experience will be brought to you in part by Mr. Alpern.
Combine this with Kevin's success at landing an offer from the illustrious Google, and its looking like I'll have friends in high places in the not-too-distant future. I'm counting on you guys to remember me while you're out there changing the world... :)
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Happy Birthday to Me
announcements, life & times
June 09, 2003, 11:52 AM
As many of you may already know, today's my birthday, the big two-four. In another year, I'll be able to rent a car at non-ripoff prices. In a similar vein to how many celebrate their twenty-first birthdays, I plan to rent many cars next year and drive them around in a hedonistic driving orgy that I will soundly regret the next morning. I may even, and don't hold me to this, say "Woo!".
In the mean time, however, I intend to celebrate this one the same way I celebrated the last two or three (which is as far back as I can remember): by spending exorbitant amounts of time working on projects that probably won't matter to me a year hence. Some of you may be thinking "Wait a minute! That's how Rob spends every day of his life!", but you are sorely mistaken. Today I plan to wear a party hat.
For some reason I feel that the fact that I was born when the earth was approximately at its current location with respect to the sun gives me a license to blather about my personal doings, something I generally eschew on this forum (at least in the public posts). So here's a brief recap of all the major events in my life for the past year. I present: The Rob Year in Review.
- July 24th to August 5th - Went on a trip to roam Europe with my good friend Dave (who needs to make a web page so I can link to it). We wandered around Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Freiburg, and various towns in the Black Forest. It was a fun and enlightening trip with a worthy traveling companion, and I hope to go back some day soon. I have scads of pictures; one of these days I'll get them digitized and put them on this here website.
- Mid-August - Finished up my work as Lead Developer for the Evaluation Environment project at Orca Computer, Inc., a fine job working for an excellent person. Working on EE was a great growing experience for me, both personally and professionally.
- August 17th - Moved to Pittsburgh, PA to begin my graduate education at CMU's HCII. Ugly city. No one knows how to drive here, either.
- August 19th to 23rd - Went to the orientation sessions for the MHCI program. Met a group of wonderful, wonderful people, all of whom I hope to remain friends with for the rest of my life. Also started work as a Research Associate on the Usability & Software Architecture project with Bonnie and Len.
- Late August to December - Worked on an interface design for Much More, a hierarchical search engine for medical research papers, with Kelli, Dana, and Kathryn. Also worked on a data-driven redesign of the Palm Pilot with Kerry, Rich, and Matt.
- November 2nd - Attended the infamous Halloween Party.
- December 16th - Went to Dave and Busters with Mathilde, Matt, My, Micah, Abby, and Kelly. I remember that evening fondly for some reason.
- Late December to Early January - Returned to Alexandria to spend the holidays with my family and my little sisters (who have yet to come visit me like they promised...).
- Mid-January to present - Started work on the TCinC redesign with Matt and Joe. So far the project has gone a lot better than I originally thought it might (but then, that's generally the case).
- Mid-February - Finally got this here server up and running, something I'd been talking about doing since 1998.
- March 27th - Inaugurated this here weblog that you're currently reading.
- March 31st - Finally broke off all contact with someone who was a major influence in my life for a long time, both in the flesh and in memory. It's funny how things change, isn't it?
- April 7th to 13th - Attended CHI 2003 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Had a grand old time with the MHCI gang and some new faces as well. I feel that I've finally found my people, and that's saying a lot.
- May 19th to present - Started work on the Open Source and Usability project with Jim. Hopefully this project will be as successful as TCinC was (despite the fact that I'm lacking Matt's guidance).
Okay, that's quite enough navel-gazing for one day. We now return you to your regularly scheduled dry intellectualism.
Posted by Dan on June 09, 2003 at 03:44 PM
Happy birthday! I'll buy you a beer when I get to Pittsburgh!
Posted by Dave on June 09, 2003 at 05:27 PM
1. Awwwww...He liked the trip
2. Don't even try and convince me to start bloggin.
3. I also owe you beer...
4. And your Dr. B link is pointing to CMU instead of VT
Posted by Chad Thornton on June 09, 2003 at 07:42 PM
24? Ah, you're just a wee lad. Happy birthday to you, and like Dan, I owe you a beer when I get back to town.
And please, don't link to the Halloween photos ever again - those need to be destroyed...
Posted by Dan on June 09, 2003 at 09:23 PM
On the contrary: thanks for pointing those pix out to us... <evil laugh>
Posted by Rob on June 09, 2003 at 11:51 PM
Thanks, guys. I'm feelin' the love!
Dave: Thanks for pointing out the link. I've gotten used to typing "CMU" instead of "VT" nowadays. Is fixed.
Chad & Dan: Whoops. I thought I might be doing a bad thing by reminding people of that evening... There goes our reputations! :)
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Omelette du Fromage!
life & times, personal
April 27, 2003, 11:35 AM
Omelettes? Check.
Posted by gh on October 05, 2003 at 09:13 PM
*drools*
Posted by g on October 23, 2003 at 08:05 AM
this made my day
Posted by moo on January 07, 2004 at 10:50 AM
omelette du fromage!!
omelette du fromage!!
ooh lala!!
Posted by Miztah Prezident foo on May 05, 2004 at 06:44 AM
Omelette du fromage!!
Omelette du fromage!!
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Retroactive New Year's Resolution: Cook More
life & times, personal
April 26, 2003, 01:07 PM
I've decided that one interest of mine that is sorely in need of development is "cooking". I've always claimed I like to cook, but on the rare occasions that I have time to cook for myself I tend to stick to the easy stuff I already know how to make (spaghetti, scrambled eggs, rice, etc). I made scones from scratch at the beginning of this semester, and that turned out pretty well I thought, but I can't remember anything else particularly interesting I've cooked since then.
So I'm making a resolution. I'm going to cook something new at least once a week starting this summer. So hold me to this, guys. Ask me, "what did you make this week, Rob?" and if I say "ummm... Microwaved macaroni and cheese?" smack me upside the head or something.
I pretested this resolution today by making myself an omelette. Omelette lesson number one: make sure you prepare the fillings before the omelette is sitting in the pan, cooked, waiting for them. It turned out ok though, just a tad, um, "browned" on the bottom.
I'll give it another shot tomorrow.
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CHI Report, Ode to Good Friends
life & times, people, personal
April 13, 2003, 01:22 AM
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CHI Report, Lunch and Games
life & times, usability
April 10, 2003, 11:44 PM
For the next session, I tried attending a session on e-Learning, but the points being made came across as fairly unsophisticated, quite a bit of rhetoric to back up very little insight. If the field is really at this level of maturity, then I can see why current e-Learning systems are not very good. Besides, I was starving since it was past lunch and I hadn't had breakfast.
After an overpriced sub from the Subway cart I went to an informal SIG on video games put on by a couple of guys from Microsoft. It was interesting although I didn't have much to contribute since I know so little about the field. One guy mentioned he was working on developing design patterns for video games, which sounds like an interesting idea. One of the organizers mentioned there was going to be a special games track at CHI 2004; I look forward to checking it out since there seems to be lots of interesting HCI research going on in this field.
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