Design of Everyday Things

So I finally got around to reading The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald A. Norman (I think I was first pointed to it by Jakob Nielsen). It's a bit outdated and the writing's not so great (he belabors his points), but he does lay out some basics of what makes for good design from a user's point of view.

His seven principles are:

1. use knowledge in the world and in the head
2. simply structure of tasks
3. make things visible
4. good mapping
5. exploit power of constraints
6. design for error
7. when all else fails, standardize

The point I found most interesting comes at the end when he is discussing information technologies: "... imagine what it will be like when trying to find something in the libraries and data bases of the world, where the organization was done by someone else who had no idea of what my needs were. Chaos. Sheer chaos."

Keep in mind this was 20 years ago, but remember what it was like to find stuff on the internet before search engines (particularly google) came along? Search engines, tagging and folksonomies are not something that Norman (and most of the rest of us) could have conceived of back then!

The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson

Read a great book by Steven Johnson on the map created by John Snow in wake of the cholera epidemic in London in 1854. I first read about the map (from an information representation point of view) in one of Edward Tufte's books, of course, but here we get a detailed picture of the epidemic itself, social conditions of the time, London as a young metropolis, the state of science, and even a little primer on microbiology. In the first part of the book, Johnson tells the tale of the epidemic chronologically, with many side paths into the above-mentioned topics. Though the side paths are fascinating, sometimes they just slow the narrative down - you're saying, "wow, that's a neat metaphor about how the 'river of intellectual progress is not defined purely by the steady flow of good ideas begetting better ones; it follows the topography that has been carved out for it by external factors,' but, c'mon, I want to know who gets the cholera next!!"

Apart from the gripping story of the cholera epidemic, there are a couple of themes that I thought Johnson discussed particularly well. The first I mentioned above - Johnson explores how scientific ideas are shaped by ideological context. It's not a revolutionary idea, but the book has a particularly graphic and rich example in terms how diseases and the possibility of microbes were conceived of in mid-19th century Europe.

The second fascinating theme Johnson touches on in the end, with a discussion of how London, with is population of 2 million in the 1850's, was an experiment in whether that many people could actually live packed so densely together. It was a time when rudimentary water and sewer services were just being planned and built, and Johnson is particularly graphic is describing how the garbage and sewage of the city's inhabitants were handled. The experiment succeeded of course and we have megacities now, some of whose slum areas are repeating the developments that London went through 150 years ago. In any case, it's an interesting study of the history of cities on our planet.

I highly recommend this quick but informative read - you'll not only ponder the nature of scientific inquiry and the development of cities, but also learn what pure-finders search for and how cholera strips the epitheleal cells from the small intestine thus leading to a "rice water" stools. Priceless!

Low tech to high: camping and a visit to a particle accelerator

Last weekend we went camping near the town of Greenport on the North Fork of Long Island. The beaches on the North Shore are rocky, which makes the swimming experience not so enjoyable, but they were still beautiful, and especially tranquil in the late afternoon sun. We really enjoyed ourselves in the town of Greenport, quiet and charming, where people treated us in a normal, friendly manner rather than as tourists to be barely tolerated. (Greenport photos here)

Camping is easier than it used to be - our tent popped right up and we managed to set up in the evening dark without any drama. The only drama was our second night there when it bucketed down with rain! I spent much of the night waking up intermittently and wondering when the tent was going to start leaking; fortunately we only got a few sprinkles during the final downpour at about 6 am (maybe the tent had finally had enough of repelling water?). The private campground, Eastern Long Island Kampground, was full of RVs but, thank god, a lot quieter than the state park we stayed at last year (Wildwood on the North Shore).

So last year after our camping trip we decided to drop by Brookhaven National Laboratory because I had read they had tours there on certain summer Sundays. Wow, we had such a great time seeing their biology labs (DNA analysis, electron microscopes and much more) that I thought we ought to come back this year. In fact, this year we timed the camping to coincide with a visit to Brookhaven's RHIC (Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider), a particle accelerator that is currently the most powerful heavy-ion collider in the world. What does that mean, you say? Well, I don't REALLY understand the physics of it all, but if I understand correctly basically you have two tubes in which sub-atomic particles run clockwise and counter-clockwise in a big 2+ mile circle at 99.995% the speed of light. At 6 points the two tubes cross over each other and that's where the streams can intersect and the particles running in opposite directions can collide - BOOM! (Interestingly enough, there was speculation at one point that the RHIC could create a black hole or another phenomenon that would destroy the earth - Wikipedia explains). Anyway, there are detectors built at the intersection points and they record the results of the collision, teaching us a lot about -- well, about what conditions may have been like right after the Big Bang and about lots of other stuff I don't even pretend to grasp.

Even though I don't understand it, I can still be impressed with the science of it, the engineering of it (individually built circuit boards, hand coding of software, etc.) and the sheer enthusiasm of the hundreds of scientists running experments on it. In fact, what makes these visits to Brookhaven so exciting is that the tour guides are the actual scientists working on the experiments. These are not museum exhibits where you are lectured about science, this is living, breathing scientific work being conducted by brilliant and occasionally very eccentric scientists. Here I should stop and mention Dr. Achim Franz of the PHENIX experiment, who gave us a great feel for the life of a physicist - years spent designing the experiment and the detector, the work of maintaining the detector, the terabytes upon terabytes of data, the scientists all over the world who analyze the data and use the results, the time spent in committee meetings coming up with acronyms like PHENIX, and all the rest - thank you Dr. Franz!

Anyway, it was an excellent geek adventure and for anyone who's interested in science (or especially anyone who has kid(s) interested in science), I can't recommend it enough. I'm looking foward to returning next year -- maybe we'll go see the National Weather Service, and try to camp in Montauk! (more RHIC photos here )

My first youtube posting

My first youtube posting! Here's Maia and Zhanna dancing along to Takfarinas at Summerstage. And it was so easy - no wonder youtube is as popular as it is.

Anyway, the music was great - I've liked rai since I first heard it in Tunisia almost 20 years ago, and this was something related, which the program calls yal... Takfarinas' style is "a blend of Kabylian folk, French pop, flamenco, reggae and funk."

Summerstage was filled with young people dancing, drinking, and checking the scene out. I felt old. But we had a great time dancing, sweating (it was torrid), and in Maia's case, jumping, leaping, sprinting, and I don't know what else!

Rollerblading Newbies

DSC00142
Originally uploaded by Ruru.

After all those hours at Modell's trying out rollerblades, it was finally time to put them on and give them a try! We didn't do too badly.

Staying true to form, Paul went out and skated as fast as he could around and around, and I went back and forth in front of the benches until I could sort of skate, slowly but without falling. Maia needs a little more practice but she was willing to give it a shot!

Delia, who tried out her new spiffy blades, took these photos plus many videos, which I'll try and post on YouTube.

Wikipedia vs Britannica

After all the hulabaloo about problems with Wikipedia, Nature conducts an investigation of science articles on Wikipedia and finds around 4 inaccuracies per article. However, Britannica has around 3!

OK, I know science articles may not be as controversial as other types, but this, I think, augurs well for Wikipedia in general.

I'm Yoda?!?

Ok, I can't resist these little quizzes, especially when they promise to reveal which SF or fantasy character you're most like. And I actually found the questions interesting. But Yoda?!?! Why can't I be Spock? Well, I guess I can at least take comfort in the fact that I'm not Wesley.