Moving Up, Jumping Ship, Etc.

Going over to Wordpress, folks! Merging my static website with the blog, and Blogger just doesn't have the chops to do that well. All new content will be at the Brushpile, so go there instead. All the old stuff is there as well as other exciting new & used content!

Sunday Afternoon And The Portage Of Tools

Today, we bring you another project which shall either be embarrassing, stupendous, or both, and possibly prove once and for all that you should think twice before admitting you know me.

We present to you, the Toolpack Rev. 1! Completed in a single Sunday afternoon of actual work and a lot of other random time of thinkage. (Including during the sermon this morning. Ahem. Sorry Pastor Warren.)

Over the past months I have been carting a growing collection of tools and other paraphernalia to work and back and have been resisting the trend among my fellow movers to buy Very Large Toolboxes (or bags) which end up being Very Heavy and Very Awkward and working best on wheels. I can usually get away with just my backpack (with lunchbox strapped on) and toolbag, but on the days when I need toolbag, drill, wrenches, books for the truck ride, first aid, *and* yummy lunchyness, I feet a distinct need for a couple extra arms. (Three if I have to bring my boots, too.)

This inspired - or at least prompted - the thought that I could probably fit it all on an old backpack frame, if I were crazy enough to try, and could find a backpack frame. After weeks of prowling curbs and checking out Goodwill I remembered Dad had one in the basement. (Thanks, Dad.) With the addition of some snazzy 1-1/4" safety-orange webbing I snagged from the dumpster at the freight warehouse, we got us a lean, mean, tool-carrying... thing.

Now at least I can break my back eccentrically.

Change Of Face(book)

Over past Facebook changes I have largely, roundly, and imaginatively derided complainers. I have a very long, somewhat impolite, and happily unpublished blog post to that end somewhere, regarding the last facebook restructuring, and I still have very little patience with people who whine, cry, and generally carry on obnoxiously about every single thing Facebook changes. No good reasons, no quantitative analysis, or in depth discussion - mostly just a pity-party of complainers.

I know, most people may not be good at analyzing and comparing things, and/or don't have the time - but they still find the time to complain without a second thought. The least they could do is be respectful about it, and (*gasp*) say something about why they don't like it. Face it: posting things like "it STINKS!!! i hate facebook now it sucks and its different and what were you smoking?" does not inspire any respect at all and is mostly un-helpful.

So in the interest of my own opinions on whiners, I will not whine about the changes. I will attempt to compare the current UI iteration thoughtfully to past versions and provide insight into why most of you hate facebook so much right now, or at least did last week. And I apologize for the length of this post, but it seems I can't do things like this by halves. To my knowledge, this is the most thorough analysis of Facebook's interface changes ever published.

Anyway, here's my nut-shelled opinion: I think the layout took a couple steps forward and a whole bunch of baby steps backward. The changes have been made in the name of simplicity and ease of use. It is definitely more simple. However, it is visually less structured (i.e., more cluttered), does not always work the way I want or expect it too, and does not provide me with as much control or value. If it does not do what I want it too, ease of use tanks as well. This is a case where simpler is not necessarily better.

Goodness

Filtering based on friend lists
This is really nice - it's the one major feature I wanted in the old facebook that wasn't there.

Layout
The layout *is* simpler. For the most part, the underlying concept of the new facebook is pretty good, with exceptions noted below.

Badness
In the Operational Unintuitions Category
(Or, assumptions about user behavior which might not be quite right)

The post box operation is nebulous
It looks the same everywhere, but can behave very differently depending what page it's on. It is completely unclear that posting on your own wall is different than posting on someone else's, which has been very aptly demonstrated by my newly-facebookified mother, who replied to multiple wall posts by setting her status. The concept of a "status" is completely hidden unless you already know how it works.

• This could be easily remedied - for starters, change the post button text to say "Set Status" when on your own profile page, unless posting a special type of content.

(See also the note on post format - either change the format so it works better, or split statuses back out to a separate entity. And the "What's on your mind?" line is a bit hokey, but I can't think of anything better than "Post stuff" or "What do you want to share today?")

The Recent activity thing is confusing
Labeling activity on the wall as "recent" serves no useful purpose for two reasons:
1) I can figure out if yesterday is recent on my own, thank you, based on the post's timestamp
2) The "Recent Activity" boxes are all through the wall, even if the activity is no longer recent. This makes the term "Recent" totally useless.

This is/was done (I think) because it is easier to filter programmatically and visually groups wall posts and informational stuff separately. However, it would still be better to use the "Today", "Yesterday", "Some other day" headings, grouping the posts and other activity underneath. The smart date headings were great because they are very simple, require no interpretation, and (most important!) give the user control over what they think is "recent" enough to be interesting. I honestly don't care if it's recent, I just care if it's interesting to me and generally when it happened.

The single "delete" button is not intuitive
When I click it, I do not expect a particular friend to stop showing up on my news feed, I expect to just get rid of (or de-rate) that particular post or post type. The friend-based behavior is redundant - news feed supposedly already rates somewhat based on friend activity/interaction. This is an example where simplification is completely irrelevant - it's simpler, sure, but it a) isn't very useful and b) doesn't work the way users expect.

Wall post filtering is not designed from a user's perspective
This one is sticky. The wall has been restructured for ease of use by everyone but the person who owns the profile. The defaults should be to show user+friends, with option to show only friends or only user. The current settings emphasize broadcasting the activity of the user, rather than letting the user choose how they want their wall to work and be used.

Wall posts no longer have a "Reply" link
This is a UI dilemma - it's a duplicate feature. Yes, you can just as easily post on a friends wall by clicking their name or on the "Wall-to-Wall" link, but if I'm replying, I look for a "reply" link. It's not intuitive to click one of the other links. It would be amazingly intuitive to click "reply" and have a post box drop down (or pop up), like a comment, only it would post directly to the friend's wall instead of commenting. This would be a killer feature.

The new feed is a lot of information in a huge, daunting list
It's very hard to get useful information out of so much data. The old feed algorithm provided a much better balance and control over what showed up - now I have almost no useful control. See also the note above about wall post activity/date headings.

I no longer have control of post types in the News Feed
Before, there were preferences with sliders to customize the type of content that came across my feed. Now the only way to do that is manually, with application filters. Not good.

And now in the Visual Miscues section...

Post format is visually muddled
Previously, the name of the poster was in a sort of header and the message was separate. The current run-on format is harder to read because it is not visually well-defined. It works great for statuses, but nobody writes wall posts like statuses. Heck, most people don't write statuses like statuses. For wall posts, a better balance between space and readability would be good - even just putting a break between the name and post.

The new feed is harder to read - no visual formatting!
The old news feed formatting was much easier to read - the "Today" "Yesterday" etc. headings broke down the news feed into smaller, more easily parsable chunks. (The abbreviated & more compact format helped, too.) Coupled with the more mashed post formatting, it's much harder to read the news feed.

Miscellaneous UI quirks

• The rounded images look icky and ill-defined. Keep the sharp, square, refined look.
• Can we please put pokes with other notifications or something? Burying them in the middle of the right-hand sidebar has always bugged me, it makes no sense.
• Group invites & friend requests should go back over on the right hand side with events, pokes, etc. They get lost visually at the top, even if it makes sense grammatically.
• Highlights are pretty useless. It looks messy and is distracting. I want the relevant stuff I like to show up in my feed, not over there. Reformatting them could help, or put some sort of visual break between the news feed and highlights.
  
• People You May Know should be hideable. It's useless to me - I want the option of not seeing it, like I had in a couple versions ago with apps on the profile page.

My Big Solution:
Put all invites, events, pokes, and notifications on the right-hand sidebar. Group as necessary for ease of use. Limit the amount of space notifications can take up, or make it say "You have 23 notifications" and the link unzips it.

So there's my take. Hope it's useful.

On Backing Into Snowbanks

There is a peculiar danger, one which does not immediately present itself, in backing one's automobile into a well-established snowbank. One naturally thinks of the calamitous: dents, dangling bumpers, inability to remove automobile from said snowbank. However, it is also prudent to be aware of the more innocuous difficulties.

Such difficulties are presented by strange noises. A small but pleasant whistling, not unlike that of a turbo (which my car indeed lacks) presented itself from the rear of the car, along with an intermittent noise of a rattly, puffing, hissing sort, beneath the floorboards, but only when I put the engine under load. These made for an uneventful but nonetheless interesting trip from Freeport to Falmouth, where examination could commence.

I suspected something to do with the small existing exhaust leak just forward of the catalytic converter. Brief examination confirmed the continued existence of such, and that more sound was produced from it than previously, but precisely why it should suddenly sound like an air compressor at higher engine speeds rather baffled my understanding of exhaust problems. (Which, admittedly, are primarily limited to "things falling apart".) However, curiosity regarding the turbo-whistle revealed a very mundane plug of icy snow lodged firmly in the tailpipe. This, thanks to my existing exhaust leak, had not rendered the services historically served by the potato, and merely required a bit more huffing and puffing of the engine.

After picking a hole in the ice chunk with a bungee-cord, it was observed by experiment that normal operation had recommenced and that revving the engine produced an impressive spray of melted snow. Much fun was had by all.

Reformation Day Record

Today is the day Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses on the door of Castle Church in Wittenburg. Normally I wouldn't post something like this, but I find it very fascinating that upon this momentous date I also hit my current record of Ninety-Five (concurrent) Firefox Tabs.

Trivial and pointless, I know, but oddly coincidental. And look, ma, no swap! I haven't even maxed out my RAM yet... (And technically it's 96 since I just looked up that Wikipedia link.)

The Nemesis, Conquered

I have won. For the past week, a mosquito has been annoying me, flying around - just enough to be audible - about twenty minutes after I go to bed and shut the light off. Abominably an elusive chap, he naturally was not there when I turned the light back on to look.

To spite me and tempt fate (apparently), he decided to prowl while I was still up last night (though how a mosquito can prowl seriously, I surely don't know), but I'd have to be a magician to have caught him. Or at least have had my glasses on. Every few minutes he'd fly close enough to be heard or caught sight of, but promptly disappear again, thereby postponing my bedtime, cumulatively, by more than is necessary to mention.

But Sir Mosquito was finally undone. When I woke up this morning he was placidly set upon the window, up high, as I lay down below. He was too slow; I promptly dispatched him to the realms of that which is past and shall return no more. I have won. I have beaten the mosquito.

The Pod Is Cast

I've discovered podcasting. It's a fascinating phenomenon, that one subscribes to what are, effectively, (mini) radio shows and listens when one pleases. I don't quite know why it fascinates me so. Perhaps it's the fact that, really, I'm an audio/radio geek at heart and if I have the choice of watching, listening, or reading, I will listen while I work on something else.

Whatever the reason, really, it's fascinating. Also internet radio. I still listen to Thistle & Shamrock, but it's also very nice to be able to listen to other celtic music or British folk any time, 24/7. And while I'm on this internet audio kick, I should also tell you that I've been listening to Three Men in a Boat during my otherwise quiet, music, or NPR saturated driving time. Excellent book, by the way. Timeless British hilarity cannot be had much better. All this to say that I downloaded it from Librivox, which aims to record, through volunteer vocal chords, any and every book in the public domain. Tall order, but good results so far. There is the occasional quality issue - some people, well meaning and talented as they may be, do need some coaching to make their reading aloud palatable - but the enjoyment has largely outweighed that particular chapter.

I should also note that the iPod shuffle excels at audiobooks, as long as you don't do the shuffle part. It's a book-on-a-stick that remembers where you left off!

If I had a decent mic and less cumbersome recording setup, I'd consider doing a State of the Stickman podcast to top my extended family's penchant for weekly/monthly/otherwise periodic email narratives of goings-on.

Of Windchimes, Foghorns, And The Wonders Of Science

It's been a bit windy around here the last few days, which led us, over supper last night, to ponder the age-old question: could the wind be harnessed not just for the pleasant tinklings of windchimes, but also to produce the mellifluous hoot of the glass bottle? Blowing across the bottle undoubtedly works for mere humans, so it seems it could also be possible to use nature's breath to do the same thing, there being a lot more of it.

However, there still remain a few questions to be answered by prototyping:

• What airspeed is required to produce sound?
  
• Is it necessary to funnel/control the airflow in order to produce sound?
• Can we sound up to a three-note chord, with each note denoting a higher windspeed?
  
• What will the neighbors think?
• And, most importantly, will it keep Mom awake at night?

We may or may not have too much time on our hands this summer... so the prototype may or may not get built.

The Bane Of Browsing

I love tabs. I love Firefox sessions. But sometimes it gets out of control...



Is there a support group for this sort of thing?

I Know It's Spring

I hit a bug on the way home from class the other night.

The Winter's War

The fallen lie along the road,
Broken, bleeding, dying,
Casualties of the winter's war,
In ditches as you pass them by.
The war was long and cold and hard,
Fought in deepest snow -
The trenches ready made
To hide from fearsome foe.
Guerrilla tactics: hide inside the very banks
Thrown up by the enemy,
Taking cover from slicing blades of death
Which come oh, so swiftly
With orange flash and muffled roar
To crush the lurkers in the banks,
And cutting down the army's flags
With wings of death to slay the ranks.
With each new storm and fall of snow
The casualties mounted;
The ranks slowly dwindling
Until the lost could not be counted.
But now that spring has come to us
The battles become fewer.
Melting cover recedes,
Running to the sewer;
And the fallen lie along the road,
In broken pieces, life's course run:
Your mailbox is now safe again,
The plow trucks have all gone.

On Creativity And Inspiration

I've noticed in the past couple weeks how creatively dull this semester has felt, particularly regarding this blog. I had chalked it up to being busy: "I don't have time to do homework and blog and keep up with the details of life!" Ah, but I still have time that I kill, regularly.

So I started wondering: what gives? What is it about this semester that makes it feel the way it does?

Last week I got my much anticipated copy of On The Edge of the Dark Sea Of Darkness in the mail, and, well, indulged. I permitted myself the luxury of spending a piece of my evening (in reality, four+ hours) ignoring school work and sleep, immersing myself in the story. (I just can't seem to stay away from something that has such a seriously goofy title, by one of my favorite artists, with a subtitle that reads: "Adventure. Peril. Lost jewels. And the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree.")

Then I realized some of what I was missing: inspiration. Creative input, artistic brain food, whatever you want to call it. For me, that is something I generally get from reading excellent books. Don't get me wrong, I've been do a lot of reading this semester - reading about management and team building and statistics and building things with CAD. Stuff that is really pretty creative in practice (maybe excepting statistics), but not much that really inspires in textbook form.

I hadn't been reading for the sake of reading, to enjoy the existence of a good book.

There must be a balance. Too often I try to read things because I think I should, or because it's useful, it's related to something I'm interested in or is supplemental to an interesting topic from a class. But, many times, that's more taxing than it is helpful, and what I need most is a break from trying to remember useful information. I need to take time away from the every day tasks, I need to spend time enjoying and admiring creation in the work of others, to be refreshed and inspired. Shards of reality often are more clearly seen encapsulated in myth than in daily life; the creation, more often than not, reflects glimpses of the Creator.

And it's inspiring. (I keep using that word. It really does mean what I think it means.)

Dr. Seuss And Theology

Have you ever thought how much God is like Green Eggs & Ham? It's a weird food. It's somewhat odd stuff, it doesn't look right and sounds sorta disgusting. Ham and Eggs are not supposed to be Green, it just isn't right. It's unconventional. And it's introduced to us in an unconventional way, by an unconventional guy with an unconventional name - and that unconventional guy, The Great Sam-I-Am, just will not go away.

Then we go through so much ridiculous trouble to avoid him and his abnormally colored wares. ("I will not eat it with a Fox, I will not eat it in a box!" Or on a train, or in a plane...) And after going through all that, we find out that Green Eggs & Ham really are really good, after all! And we end up good friends with the Great Sam-I-Am himself, creator of this strangely unconventional dish that apparently isn't even sold in stores, but given personally.

So there you have it, metaphor where there never was (and probably ever shouldn't be). This post brought to you by the color Green and Theolo-vision.

Things I've Recently Discovered

Item One: The Klezmonauts - Oy to the World!
You may have already guessed, but Oy to the World is a klezmer Christmas album. Yes, the songs and carols you know artfully arranged in - well, a (mostly) klezmer style. It's one of those unique finds that somehow defies normality and manages to be musically excellent, quirky, humorous, and poignant, all at the same time. I really need to get my own copy.

Item Two: Time Flies.
Here it is 2008 already, and I haven't blogged since last spring. Scary how more than half a year can fly by so busily with nary a peep escaping to the electronic presence. I think the introverted season has been good - or has it been extroverted? Am I stuck so far in my own head so I don't write, or am I so busy reading and consuming other writings that I don't write? I really have no idea. Anyway, it's been different, and now this next bit will probably be different as well, but I don't know how or what way it'll affect this blog.

Item Three: Books are Really Cool.
Having not made/had much time to read in the past summer and fall, it was nice to actually finish A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court after about seven months of reading it in fits and starts. It was also nice to get through a couple other books on my reading list in the space of a couple weeks - an amount of dead-tree examination unheard of in the recent months. The recommendation stands for all of them:
1) A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (Mark Twain)
2) Too Busy Not To Pray (Bill Hybels)
3) Me, Myself and Bob (Phil Vischer)

Which reminds me, I don't have a super-schnazzy rating system to use when recommending things here. Have to work on that.

Some People Get Inspired

I just get crazy urges to make six-foot tall snow rabbits right before suppertime. Then I have to go back out after eating and finish the project before it gets dark and the weather decides to start alternately snowing and sleeting. I tell you the truth, it's a rough life.

How Not To Design Stuff: Dellusions Of Power

The University of Southern Maine employs the use of a large number of Dell Optiplex GX280 computers in labs and classrooms. They are modern computers, pretty fast, quiet, not real pretty, and the power button of these computers looks pretty much like any other typical power button on the planet: it's round, it has that funky little circle-with-a-line-symbol-of-power-thingy, and it glows green. However, one unfortunate design flaw has caused lost time and headaches.

How, you ask, can the design of a power button result in confusion and lost work? Visual feedback.

Fact: The button glows green when the computer is on.
Fact: People expect something on the computer to glow green when the computer is on.
However: In order to tell that the button is glowing, one must look almost straight at it from the front. If you are a little to the side - which is the normal arrangement for the Labs - you can't see the light.

Result: If the computer is positioned anywhere but in front of the user, the little green glow is invisible unless one leans over and peers at the button.

One would not think this to be a terrible problem, a dinky little light doesn't make that much difference. After all, you can also tell if the computer is on by looking at the monitor.

That logic is conveniently defeated by two different circumstances.

1) Some classroom computers are attached solely to a projector - if the projector isn't on (or is blanked), there is no feedback from the screen.
2) In the John Mitchell Center CAD lab, all the monitors are on a separate power circuit and can be turned off at the professor's whim.

We are back to using the power button glow as the sole indicator of computer status. This is a dangerous prospect to entertain if the glow cannot be easily seen - and did I mention that pushing the power button when the computer is on immediately shuts it down?

(Cue scary theme music.)

You push the button. Nothing seems to happen for a couple seconds. You push the power button again. The computer you just turned on shuts off again. You wait longer this time, and are confused. You push the power button again, firmly, and wait longer and something finally shows up on the screen. You can now do useful work before class starts.

Then, the monitors are shut off during lecture and you forget the computer is on - and there are no visible glowy lights to tell you either way. The lecture is over and you push the power button to start the machine up. It shuts off. And, since the computers have DeepFreeze (or equivalent) installed, anything that you saved to the internal drive is wiped clean at boot.

It sounds ridiculous, but I've seen people lose valuable work because of that. Extra frustration, problems, and lost work - all because the power button doesn't provide a good (i.e., visible!) visual cue.

Welcome Back To The Grindstone

Since we're now well back from Thanksgiving break, overloaded with homework, and careening our way into Advent and the Christmas season, I thought this would be a good moment for inspiration.

To offer some, that is (though I wouldn't mind recieving some, either).

Advent means coming, as I'm sure some of you know. Since we have a lot to look forward to in the coming days - finals, for instance, and, of course more finals, and Christmas break and home at the end of them - it is increadibly easy to lose sight of everything but the pin-prick of light at the end of the tunnel.

So take some extra time out with God in the days ahead. Yeah, I know, you have to study, you have to do this and that and the other thing. (By the way, my name is Kettle. Pleased to meet you.) This is an amazing season with an amazing story and it's all to celebrate our Creator. I can't fully comprehend it right now - I'm too lost in homework and doing stuff. I need to start talking to my Creator again.

So how are you doing? I don't think God cares so much about the ecumenical part, even less about the gramatical - but spiritually, He is concerned with us. That's amazing, too.

Crossposted at the USM IV blog.

I'm Lost

...in a geeky sort of way. Find me.

The Modern Wonders of Letter-Folders

Have you ever gotten a ridiculous sense of excitement and/or satisfaction from watching some mechanical gadget work? Do you know the exquisite feeling of childish glee when exploring some technological wonder?

It's absurd, really. Why should I be so fascinated with the operation of an automatic letter folder? What is so riveting that I could sit, feeding paper into it, for hours? But there is so much satisfaction in the snatching "ka-chunk" and sudden exit of a magically folded piece of paper! The perfect creases! Ah, it is so beautiful! *sigh*

Why do I feel like a total geek right now?

Fanfare For The Common Blog

The Bad News: Doug TenNapel stopped blogging. That is, like, a serious bummer, man.
The Good News: I haven't read the three years worth of archives yet.

Like many personal blogs, Doug TenNapel has (or had) a less-than-perfect grammatical style, sloppy spelling, and he rants about personal stuff, politics, and religion. Unlike many personal blogs, it actually was interesting and relevant to my life, too.

I'm not really sure why. All I know is that Doug has a knack for illuminating the weirdness of life in a humourous and relevant way. Maybe because he's not blogging as some sort of "public service" his perspective is actually more useful... but I'm hyperanalyzing a good thing.

Anyway, Doug, I'll miss the insight and (sane - sorta) perspective. Keep it up in your now more private life.