Scientific Ink

Author: Dunrie

  • Birds in flight (gratitude #17)

    I’ve been noticing the birds. Maybe they’re returning from the woods (robins) or returning from the south (hawks). Or maybe I’m just more tuned into the sky.

    Sandhill Crane Sense of Motion, originally uploaded by Fort Photo.

    We drove to Indianapolis Friday evening, and then back on Sunday. On Friday evening there were thunderstorms forecast, and the sky was dramatic with towering cloud formations and ominous contrasts.

    We went to visit Dave’s grandparents. A quick visit, and I wasn’t sure what we’d find. Things are changing there. Things are changing closer to home as well – loved family are slipping away into forgetfulness. A bittersweet reminder to cherish each moment, because who knows what’s next.

    All the way back we were mostly quiet in the car, and I studied the sky again. I noticed hawks, perched on telephone wires and soaring overhead. I glimpsed a blackbird mobbing a hawk, a lone great blue heron passing overhead, a lone sandhill crane, a killdeer in cropped grass.

    Work is busy, family is calling, I’ve got chores at home piled up from a weekend away. Today at work a sparrow clung to the ledge of my fifth-floor window, chirping cheerily. It reminds me of another world outside my own head, and of a big, big sky.

  • And the winner is…Spiraea! (gratitude #16)

    Spirea "magic carpet" horizontal

    My friend Andy is going to laugh at me. He’s the kind of guy who collects the names of things, so he was a great help when I was in grad school and wondered about the name of, say, any plant, insect, or rock near at hand. We used to work together, and so we’d sometimes walk to lunch together, and often I’d ask him the name of a plant that I admired, but whose name just never, ever stuck with me. Spiraea. It was laughable. I’d ask him again and again to remind me, and he’d mock me, and then tell me it was, yet again, Spiraea.

    Hmmmm. I’m a slow learner sometimes. Anyway, I think he can finally rest assured that until dementia hits, I’m going to remember what spiraea looks like. You see, I just purchased three pink-flowered “magic carpet” Spiraea for the front yard (to replace the “holes” in the garden where I pulled out the euonymus), and I have my heart set on a snowmound white Spiraea for the sunny spot just behind the porch swing. It will fill in the place that DTE dug up and is now empty. Abbott’s had another white variety, but not the snowmound, so I’m waiting.

    I’m grateful for the patient advice on plant selection I got Sunday from Abbott’s Landscape Nursery, I’m grateful for Andy’s patient re-explanation of what Spiraea is (and correcting my spelling), and I’m most grateful for a glorious sunny early spring day spent out in the garden.

  • Spring is here: first BBQ, compost pickups, crocuses (gratitude #15)

    We dusted off the grill and had the first BBQ of 2008 last night. Bahamian grilled chicked from the The Barbecue! Bible. Tasty. Not quite weather for dinner outside, but getting there. Almost time to break out the outdoor table from the garage.

    I noticed all the neighbors out in their yards yesterday, picking up the winter’s collection of sticks and dead vegetation that has now appeared from under the snow. The sheer number of yardworkers was surprising, until I realized that this is the first week of compost pickup with our garbage/recycling. So, I joined in the stick, leaf, and dead stem brigade with my neighbors and our street is now extra organized and tidy, waiting for the city to get the compostable materials on Monday.

    And, the best part, is that I have buttercup-yellow crocuses in the front yard, with squadrons of daffodils, tulips, and even nonbulby friends sprouting up wanting to get in on the early spring action.

    The “extension” between my sidewalk and the street is a dead zone. DTE dug the entire thing up last summer to add a plastic gas main beside the street. The grass they seeded sprouted, but didn’t appear to have survived the winter. Then, just to make the empty ground decorative perhaps, someone did a partial donut in the mud, so I’ve got deep tire ruts in it too. Time to move my euonymus bushes from the front yard into the extension to cover the bare ground (photo shows post-move). Not yet sure what I’ll move into the spot the euonymus used to occupy, but there’s still more spring, and then summer to fool in the garden.

  • Internet User Experience 2008 (gratitude #14)

    This week is the Internet User Experience conference, a conference spotlighting methods for dramatically improving today’s web site user experience. I attended the conference last year and gained a lot from listening to my colleagues in other usability, web design, and human factors companies locally and globally. I was grateful for the things I learned that were new, the things I learned I wasn’t wrong about, and for the people I met and got to know better.

    This year, I’m excited to return for a day and a half of presentations, inspiration, networking, and learning.

  • How to buy a usable alarm clock – rebuy the one you have

    Bedside table

    Our alarm clock, the Big Ben Moon Beam clock that we got as a wedding present in October, 2000, no longer snoozes. This is a problem, because at our house we’ve developed a complex system of setting the clock too early, setting the alarm too early, and then waking ourselves up by the mental calculations required to figure out if we really can hit the snooze button again (“well, the clock says 7AM, which means it is 6:40, so technically I can snooze one more time”).

    The Moon Beam has been pretty good, it starts waking us up by light, and then has an alarm bell it uses if we fail to respond to the light. It is relatively simple, a single button on top to snooze it, a switch to turn the alarm on and off, and dial controls to set the time and the alarm. The only tricky part is setting the alarm. It’s an analog clock, so the only way to set the alarm is to set the alarm hour hand to the right place. One semi-perplexing feature is that it is a 12 rather than a 24 hour clock, so I have been shocked to hear an alarm bell ringing in the evening and I have to remember to set the alarm before going to sleep. My main quibble is that it glows a little too ardently in the night-time. It’s kind of like a night-light.Alarm Clock Glows in the Dark

    I loved our clock, it’s attractive and non-complex. When I took it to the Alarming Usability event put on by the Michigan Usability Professionals’ Association last April, I thought it would be the clear winner, based on its simplicity. MiUPA set up some tables at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum and tempted passers by into testing the usability of the clocks we had brought. We had 4 digital clocks and my dear analog, and we had folks rate the clocks before using them, try to set the alarm, and then we tested to see whether they were successful.

    The clocks were typically harder to use than visitors expected, mine included. Folks had trouble setting the alarm using the dial, and even though there were few controls, somehow they weren’t straightforward. The clock ace was a hotel manager, she’s essentially had to become an expert in decoding alarm clock interfaces for her guests. Everyone else struggled with the new alarm clocks. For more background, check out the alarming usability summary slides online (slide 23 for summary stats for this clock). I was sad to see that mine wasn’t the best.

    So, now that our Big Ben is unsnoozable, I am shopping for a replacement. I tried to shop in downtown Ann Arbor, but didn’t find an alarm clock at Acme Mercantile or Downtown Home & Garden. I looked online, and was unhappy with the digital clocks available. As an officer in MiUPA, I can’t buy an unusable alarm clock. It would be unprofessional!

    I thought back to the Alarming Usability Event, and I remember being suspicious of the conclusion that product design for alarm clocks was generally poor. Only frequent fliers are constantly bombarded by unknown alarm clocks. Those homebodies among us need to learn one clock and keep at it. So, one of my take home message from the event was that using new alarm clocks is difficult business, because they have to be learned. But, a known alarm clock is usable enough for my purposes. So, I’ve decided to eliminate the cognitive load of choosing a new alarm clock and stick to my very own Big Ben Moon Beam. I’m getting my Moonbeam from LL Bean, and while I was tempted by the blue one, I ordered the yellow. Maybe if I switch it quickly I won’t even notice it’s changed when I slap towards the ringing yellow thing’s snooze button.

  • Goodies from Ann Arbor (gratitude # 13)

    So, when I went to meet my sister for the Heinrich family reunion in Logansport, I brought with me some local treats for my Atlanta-based sister and her family. Specifically, I transported the following:

    I’m happy there are still some special things I can share from my hometown. As for the tea tasting, my sister preferred the Genmaicha and my mom preferred the Gunpowder #2. I’m trying to make room in my cupboard for Jade Oolong – the best tea ever, so I was happy to give away the Genmaicha and Gunpowder.