Archive for January, 2008

Metaplace

Monday, January 21st, 2008

BoingBoing points to Metaplace, a virtual world builder with Raph Koster at the helm. Interesting. Accessible via URL, scriptable, embeddable, connectable. Thinking back to MOO, this seems to address several big problems. I wonder how this system will tackle usability?
The Lua programming language is used for Metaplace. Here’s a Lua introduction.

Running journal

Monday, January 14th, 2008

After a few weeks, I’ve decided to keep my running journal on Google Docs. So far, much better than a WordPress page.
Also so far: I’ve met my goal of three runs per week. Two down this week already. Good.

Visualizing runs

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

My new Garmin Forerunner 305 comes with some rudimentary graphing and mapping software. Here’s a few graphs from today’s easy run (45:34, 4.84 mi, 9:24/mi). Each graph links to a larger view.
First, heart rate and pace. I got faster as I ran, with the first mile at 9:47 and the last 9:05. Unfortunately, the graph [...]

Sweet dreams

Saturday, January 5th, 2008

Jenny writes of sleep. It was my turn with Madelyn tonight. We are on night two of the Big Girl plan: “Neither Mama nor Daddy will rock you to sleep, or lay down in your bed with you.”
After books, I put her in bed, and Madelyn patted the pillow next to hers. “Daddy’s pillow,” she [...]

Nielsen & Loranger, Prioritizing Web Usability

Thursday, January 3rd, 2008

Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger
Prioritizing Web Usability
New Riders, 2006
Jakob Nielsen is the 800lb gorilla of usability, at least where the web is concerned. Why?

Academics like him because of publications like Usability Engineering (1993), which uses a definition of usability accompanied with research into testing and application.
Nerds like him because of his readable, practical, quotable [...]

Running reboot

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

Since I ran a marathon in September 2006 my running has been irregular. I’ve run a lot more than my weblog shows, but not as much as I should. It’s time to fix that:

I’ve looked down on running for less than 40 minutes. No longer. From now on, if I can only manage 20 minutes, [...]

Bowl bomb

Tuesday, January 1st, 2008

Michigan 41, Florida 35: Meyer outcoached by a mile