KungPowThinking

There’s a big fire in Sierra Madre, CA. Approximately 500 acres have burnt so far, but luckily no homes. My grandparents, sister and some cousins live in Sierra Madre. For those of you who don’t know where Sierra Madre is, it’s just north of the 210 freeway north of Arcadia and northeast of Pasadena. It may be one of the last real small towns in Southern California. So small that last I checked they’ve only got one stoplight.

Anyway, I called my family and the fire is basically in my grandparents backyard. Their backyard is a couple acres and stretches past the watertower you can see from the freeway. The fire burned (is burning) the hill right behind their house. They have been asked to evacuate, but won’t leave – not a surprise for those of you who know my grandfather. My family has got them all packed up ready to go if the fire gets too close, but for right now everyone is hanging out at the house. When I spoke to them they sounded relaxed while describing the fact that they could see flames from the front door. They promised to keep me updated if they have to leave, but something tells my my grandfather will be on the roof of the house with a hose putting out embers before anyone is able to drag him away.

You can get pretty up to date information about the fire at SierraMadreNews.net.

So management is kicking us out of the apartment for a week to do some repairs. Well, they say it’s only going to take a week but who knows what’s going to happen once they start work. They’re going to come in and tear up the downstairs ceiling to fix the banging pipes, repair the broken shower floor, install security bars on downstairs windows, replace the downstairs door, repair some other miscellaneous odds and ends, and hopefully return it to the condition it was in when we moved here 4 months ago. I may need a couch to sleep on for a couple days. I don’t mind as long as they get the job done in the week they’re asking for. I wish I could go on a vacation, but the work never ends. Never ending work isn’t a bad thing, so I’m not complaining. I just wish I could relax for a few days on some beach somewhere while my bedroom is being demolished.

Used Facebook Chat for the first time last night. A friend I haven’t spoken to in eight years pinged me. It was amazing getting back in touch with her, and I’d like to thank Facebook for that. Here’s how the experience went. She initiated a chat. I didn’t notice for about 30 minutes because I was browsing in another tab. I clicked over, saw the chat, and thought, “oh cool!” I replied and we began chatting. Within five minutes we were getting a little confused. The lag was just enough so that we were constantly interrupting each other in mid statement. We then exchanged instant messenger screennames and continued the conversation over a real instant messenger. My take on the experience – great way to initiate a contact with a long lost friend, but not adequate for extended dialogs (by extended I mean anything over five or six back and forths).

Not an unexpected experience given the challenges associated with web-based IM mentioned in my previous post. The back and forth nature of the web doesn’t lend itself to “instant” things. Even if the post/response mechanism is quick, rendering isn’t. It’s not like a web browser rendering HTML/CSS with some javascript can really compete against a real application when it comes to responsiveness, and w/ web-based chat that’s exactly what you are doing. Remember many people’s first experiences on the Internet were tied directly to AOL instant messaging and chatrooms, not web pages. Their expectations are high when it comes to IM for a reason.

Wow. Looks to me like Facebook just launched a chat application. Interesting. I know from experience that web-based chat is a bit of a pain, especially when you’re not using Flash. We did an early implementation with Userplane at Spark that worked decently, but not “perfectly”. If Facebook’s implementation works it could keep people online longer, but with many members adding their IM contact info to their profiles, I’m not sure I would have chosen to take the time to develop such a complex feature that has so much competition (AIM, MSN, Y!, GTalk, Skype, etc).

The two biggest technical problems with web-based chat are:

1. Knowing whether or not someone is really online – I don’t think there’s a reliable way to determine if someone has just left their browser open and gone to the mall or if they’re reading a long profile. Not to mention issues w/ caching, expiring sessions, constantly pinging to see if the window is still open, etc.

2. Getting users to notice when someone is actually trying to chat with them without being obnoxious about it. This is a pain in the butt. I have yet to see someone do it well in a web browser. Oh yeah and most browsers have multiple tabs nowadays – tough to get people to notice when they aren’t looking.

We tried an interesting implementation using a Flash pixel instead of a refreshing iframe or javascript to maintain an open connection between the user and the server. This allowed for greater accuracy and instant reaction time with notifications of chat requests. Sorry to say it was never actually deployed because the developer who worked on it was fired 3 days after it was ready to go.

This post is a little late, but we’ve been busy over here at Eastmedia.

I’ve just had the chance to catch up on world news, and I read that protesters attacked/harassed Olympic torch bearers to the point that they even discussed rerouting the runners and/or canceling entire legs. My first thought: All of this over Tibet and some guy who got 3 years in jail for speaking up against the government in a Communist country?

OK look, I’m not a fan of authoritarian government, occupation (ours, theirs, or anyones) or Communism, but I am a fan of the Olympics. The idea that once every four years countries, despite their differences, can come together in peace to compete is one of the few things that makes me feel good about the world. To me the Olympics represent something very human and not political. They can be a powerful reminder that people are people despite political, racial, economic and class differences. Protesting the Olympics over politics seems to be contrary to what many of the protesters want to accomplish. It’s not well thought out.

Now I understand that people are upset that China was chosen. The arguments being made by protesters point to China’s concept of “Human Rights”, the IOC giving in to the money by not taking the higher road, and issues in Tibet. I just wonder if it ever occurred to any protesters that having the Olympics go well in China could actually help their cause not hurt it? I’m sure that question can be argued either way.

My bigger issue is with the actual protests themselves and the behavior of the protesters. Harassing torch bearers and suggesting boycott is ridiculous. Go ahead and protest China because you disagree with their policies, but harassing an Olympic torch bearer, who is probably doing something they never even dreamed they would have the opportunity to do, makes you a complete lowlife ass. At that point your statement of disagreement is no longer political, it’s personal. And to my point about the Olympics being a time when countries can come together in peace, it seems to me that protesting the Olympics amounts to nothing more than protesting peace.

Oh yea and as far I understand it, Tibet has been part of China since about the time of Kublai Khan. That’s a long time. I’m not sure how the US would react if a state tried to claim autonomy by leaving the Union, but I think it might look somewhat like the Civil War. It sucks, but it seems to me that Tibet has had it easy. It’s just a shame that Communism sucks so bad.

My Amazon order arrived today. I received five new books – actually only two of them were published in the last year, but they’re new to me so there.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum – Alan Cooper

Alan Cooper’s book is an absolute classic, and probably the most referred to book in all of interaction design. I can only apologize for not buying it sooner. It’s like when I was in junior high collecting comic books. Every time a storyline would reference a previous issue, I’d go crazy until I bought it. Cooper’s work has been referenced so many times that having the book in my hands makes me feel a bit like when I finally got my hands on a compilation of the entire X-Men Inferno series.

Thoughtful Interaction Design – Jonas Lowgren and Erik Stolterman

I don’t know anything about this book, but it looks good. Anytime someone can talk about interaction design and use the word “thoughtful” it makes me smile.

The Design of Future Things – Donald Norman

I want to design future things.

The Design of Everyday Things – Donald Norman

Another book that’s referred to often. Can’t believe I didn’t pick it up at a NNG usability conference w/ a discount.

Technology as Experience – John McCarthy and Peter Wright

Amazon makes recommendations, and I buy. Nuff said.