Archive for May 2006

When I came to Pittsburgh almost two years ago, I rented the smallest truck available (not a trailer since I had some hefty furniture in tow), and fitted all of my belongings into 6 boxes (plus some odds and ends that went in my car).

Well, odds and ends are in my car again, but somehow the number of boxes has increased this time around.

Last count we were up to 25. I didn’t know I had that much stuff! I think they are using smaller boxes for books and what not, and they put a lot of padding into the boxes. But still… it makes me feel like… I have too much stuff. They even called in a third guy to help load things into the truck. Was this standard procedure? I hope so. I hate being a difficult case.

Graduation has occurred! As of two days ago, I’m officially a Master of Human-Computer Interaction. Lesson learned? Even if the cap & gown distributors say “Everything should be set,” try on your cap. Otherwise you’ll look like this guy…

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As my Masters education comes to a close, I’ve been reflecting on this past semester. In many ways, I think it was my best one at CMU. I wouldn’t trade anything for what I learned in prior semesters, but this one just felt more rewarding overall.

One reason was probably the high emphasis on service this semester – which was not intended, but I’m glad it worked out the way it did. In my International Marketing class, we had a service project where we worked with Global Links, a Pittsburgh-based non-profit that collects surplus medical supplies from hospitals and distributes them to third world countries who desperately need the supplies. It’s a pretty important mission, and one that seems obvious but doesn’t readily come to mind when one thinks of what typical non-profits do.

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Jason took pity on my appeal to Vince for the Wall of Dew pictures, so he made them available to me. Here are the shots (including one that catches me as a blonde… oh my…). Click to enlarge the shots.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this horrid display of caffeine indulgence. Yet another reminder why it’s a good idea to kick caffeine.

Another thing that pisses me off about 7-up is that they’re being sold in 4-packs now. Y’know what’s handy about the 6-pack rings, aside from their added ability to be reapplied to Mountain Dew cans to make an 8-foot tall Wall o’ Dew? (More on that if Vince ever sends me pictures of our monument. -cough-). There are two eyelets in between each square of four cans, making it perfect for grasping and picking up.

You can’t do that with 4-packs!! They’re hard to pick up, and I almost pulled cans out just trying to get it into the grocery cart. C’mon 7-up, do some usability testing. Although, I guess it is logical that you start selling less of your product in the hopes that someone might finally buy it. (Can you tell I’m no longer a 7-up consumer?)

Has anyone seen those new 7-up commercials claiming that 7-up is now all natural, showing fresh lemons and limes bouncing around in water?

Yeah. What a bunch of crap. You know what’s not in 7-up? Anything with the word “lemon” or “lime” in it. It’s carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup, and three things that sound like I made them in Chemistry class with the word “Natural” in front of them.

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A few weeks ago I posted a blurb about Kingdom Hearts 2 with a link to a video previewing KH2, FF7 AC, and the new Zelda game. I stumbled upon the music used for the second half of the video, Million Miles from Home by Dune. It’s fun and upbeat, so check it out on iTunes if you liked it.

On another note, I’m finally done with the MHCI program at CMU. More on this later with my graduation post, coming later this week.

Colleagues and loyal blog readers know that I’ve been working on the PICOLA project for quite a while - practically since day one at CMU, and culminating this week with a few final programming tweaks and a paper on opinion formation.

When it came to PICOLA, I was pretty quick to drink the proverbial kool-aid – it made sense that normal opinion polls had the tendency to be fallacious, at times, due to an uninformed public (especially when it comes to political or social issues). But one of my sources for this paper suggests that informing the public doesn’t necessarily make the results better. And, I suppose I knew it all along: If there’s one thing I learned in my Psychology major, it’s that opinion formation can be fickle at best.

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If you were to number the days of the week, 1 - 7, what number would Tuesday be? Would it be 2? It would be in my head. And oddly enough, that leads to a lot of calendar errors for Tuesday events. Check out my haircut for the upcoming week:

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Sadly, today was the last day of Game Design class. I stand by my original stance that it was one of the best courses that I’ve taken. As promised, I have the second half of fun lessons from Game Design.

Between a game design conference, an HCI conference, and a day that I forgot when the shuttle left for the PTC, there aren’t as many as last time, but you should still enjoy it. In quote form this time:

1. Microsoft came out with this ad campaign in the 90s, suggesting, ‘What if your computer could turn on like a lightbulb?’ WHAT IF IT COULD, YOU IDIOTS? WHY DON’T YOU DO THAT? MORONS!
2. I hate dustpans! They suck! They’ve been the bane of my existence since I was 5!!!
3. Swiffer was a sweeping success.
4. Do you think the very best business people go into the game industry? NO! No they don’t! They’re trading securities in Malaysia or something.
5. Usability is easier to figure out than playability. [Not a joke - a deep thought that I particularly like.]
6. With private investors, it’s all about the hype. It’s sad, really… they lose a lot of money.
7. One of these days, retailers are gonna wisen up to MMOs and say, ‘Hey! We’re only getting the little piece!’
8. There are lots of good things you can do with waffles! Chocolate waffles, strawberry waffles. Waffles can have toppings…
9. The key to Location-Based Entertainment is to make it something you can’t get at home. It’s very important. Arcades know it… prostitutes know it…
10. Bowling is the gold standard of location-based entertainment.
11. IBM contributed three things to the computer business: The I, the B, and the M.
12. In juggling, if you’re not dropping, you’re not learning.

Oh, Game Design, what a good class. One thing I will truly miss from CMU.