digital curry

I just finished reading an article on leadership that talked about six different leadership styles and in what situations to apply each. The article didn't resonate with me at all. While trying to deconstruct something into its elements and trying to analyze those pieces to understand a style can be a useful problem solving technique it doesn't always work well; especially when dealing with more abstract concepts like emotions or motivation. Such technique can be very limiting at its best and way off the mark at the worst. Also a lot of journals and management articles make leadership to be some some abstract, out there concept that frankly sounds boring and burdensome. I think leadership is fun. I think you need to have been around a leader , and reflect on your times around him to truly understand leadership. A leader does more than getting work done - he affects you profoundly and leaves you wanting to be like him. A good way to think about it is to take a walk down memory ...

I intend to try the forced choice paradigm in one of my upcoming usability studies along with a payoff scheme. Looks like it would be more useful in a formative study but I definitely think we can use this to test some features of the interface even at a later level.

This weekend is Salmon days in Issaquah and despite the horribly rainy day I enjoyed visiting the local hatchery and talking to a few people from F.I.S.H. (Friends of Issaquah Salmon Hatchery). Going for salmon days was quite a no-brainer, since the moment I stepped out of my cute house, I'm in downtown Issaquah right where the Salmon days celebrations are going on. The story of Salmon's is fascinating as I learnt today! Salmon's are in fresh water and then migrate to the Ocean for a period of 4-5 years where they mature and then return home (homecoming!) travelling miles and miles of Oceans,seas and lakes, typically to the streams where they were spawned to reproduce. This is the last stage of their life and after laying the eggs they soon die. It's fascinating that they travel all that distance to be back they were born. Even more intriguing is the way they get there. There is apparently no conlusive answer, but I was told today the friendly and knowledge docent at ...

So I'm back on my blog after a really long time. There are quite a few reasons, some legitimate and some that I make up to feel better about my not posting quite often enough. Either way: here are a few random things to get started again. Probably inspired by the thought of "quantity over quality". Not that I approve of the thought (or disapprove of it) or to suggest that this post is sub-quality. 1. I spent the weekend in the lab! Why ? Hardware woes! I installed Vista x64 on my swanky quad core 8 GB machine and spent a couple of days customizing the machine only to find that the the eye tracking analysis tool that I needed to install for my most recent eye tracking study wouldn't install on a 64 bit machine. The labs were all occupied during the week so I had to go to the lab on the weekend to analyze the data. The software was horrible! I'm inclined to believe that software is probably the only industry where a product as buggy as that can be sold. I can't ...

Just came back from the closing plenary address by Bill Buxton at the CHI 2008 conference here in Florence, Italy. It's been quite a hectic week - with 20 hours of student volunteering, lunches, dinner parties and a smattering of completing assignments in bits and pieces thrown in. Florence is charming. It's got a charm about it, the streets, the air, the life in the city - almost purposeful and poetic at the same time. It was also fun to meet again with people form the Office Design Group at Microsoft including my manager during the internship! I also met with lots of people whose papers I'd read not knowing woh they really are. Oh, Natasha and I also ran into Jonathon Grudin late last night looking for directions while we were getting some icecream! We didn't make it to the final four teams at the Student Design Competition ( I must say I hated the part where the time for judging was not allocated uniformly and we got the short end of the stick on that one). One of t...

Not bad, I'm posting the second day in a row like I promised myself yesterday - surprising myself! Things that happened Today: 1 surprising thing: I actually made good on my resolution to write this entry today. New Things I learnt: 1. one deviation principle for finite and infinite repeated prisoner dilemma games and their implication in reputation systems 2. Vulnerabilities in the $_FILES variable in php 3. Walrasian equilirbium and how we can use leverage competitive analysis in the design of agents. 4. Some surprising heuristics that can be useful in a game where strategic agents act as stabilizing factors. 5. Some dutch words :) 1 Adventurous thing I did today: Nothing ....darn! Something inspirational I read today: A good story starts with something simple, takes you somewhere you don't expect to go and leaves you with something you cannot forget.......profound :) I should go to bed.....its almost 2:00 am and I have class in the morning

Reading diaries you write years later is an illuminating experience. Not only does it take you down the memory lane - but seeing yourself from an outsider's perspective tells you a lot about yourself. It's also a learning experience because you realize that things that seemed so important then don't matter so much now, and things that seemed trivial then are the things you treasure so much today. So to gift myself those moments later in life I've decided to write something each night. Of course, I've bravely and foolishly resolved to do this earlier too each time failing but inspired by the adage that "If you fail once, try something different" i'm going to post each night with a specific goal. Even on the busy nights i'll write a short note on something new I learnt in the day, or something else that moved me. Tonight I have two things to jot down: 1. One I read a couple of fascinating articles on the injection method in Ruby and the different th...

I've been away from my blog for so long I almost started to miss it. The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic. I've been working from 6:00 pm to 3:00 am almost every night in the past week. The night-outs were mainly to get our poster for the CHI 2008 student design competition submitted. Now, that we've submitted it - things should get just a little bit better - or maybe i'm speaking too soon! Back to work and maybe today i'll get to sleep by 1:00 am :)