Faablogborg

Finding an Apartment in Silicon Valley with Google Earth

2006-09-01T01:17:00.000-07:00

This .kmz file I created opens in Google Earth, and it is like HousingMaps.com. Except instead of being a mashup of (Google Maps) + (Craigslist.org), it is is (Google Earth) + ((Apartments.com) + (Rent.com)).

The file only contains apartments that are managed by companies, while HousingMaps.com contains apartments that are managed by individual landlords, and sublets. So the data is entirely different, and both sources are useful depending on the type of apartment you are looking for.

The info on each apartment contains URLs to Apartments.com and Rent.com, and in some cases links to Avalon and Prometheus's sites (two major apartment management companies in the area).

This is followed by a sequence of 5 numbers, they are:
2 bedroom cost low, 2 bedroom cost high, 2 bedroom size low, 2 bedroom size high, average cost per square foot.

The price data is of course going to be less useful in the future, but baring any major natural disasters, all of the apartment buildings should still be around.

Enjoy!

Hired!

2006-08-31T21:39:00.000-07:00

I've received an offer from the Mozilla Corporation for a position as a User Experience Specialist, so I'll be moving to Mountain View immediately. I am going to be working on the user interface of Firefox 3.

More information about the Firefox crop circle.

CHI Paper Accepted

2006-01-16T23:52:00.000-08:00

I will be presenting a paper about my masters thesis, titled A Goal-Oriented Web Browser at CHI 2006 in Montreal! I’ll post the day and time of my talk once I find out when it is going to be.

A Goal-Oriented User Interface for Personalized Semantic Search

2005-12-15T12:52:00.000-08:00

I’m done! For the past 10 months or so I’ve been in hiding completing the 288 page 20k lines of code monster that is my MIT masters thesis: A Goal-Oriented User Interface for Personalized Semantic Search. In case your not particularly excited about reading a 288 page document (can’t say that I blame you), I have a bunch of videos and screen shots online as well.

An Execution! Why can’t Microsoft speak the User’s Language?

2005-10-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I heard Steven Sinofsky, currently the Senior Vice President for Office at Microsoft state:

"In China people freak out when they see a dialog box that says 'You have performed an Illegal operation. OK/Cancel.'"

Most of the people in the room (all Computer Science majors who think end users are "too dumb to correctly use their software") roared with laughter. It was hard to tell, but I think he secretly might have found their horrifying user interface error based on a lack of democracy funny as well.

I just had my own little "stupid user" dialog freak out. While putting the finishing touches on my (now 270 page) MIT masters thesis, I got a nice little dialog box that told me that Windows was going to try to stop Explorer from continuing to perform "Data Execution." And that "Data Execution Prevention helps protect against viruses and threats." Now, to put this dialog in a little more context, last night I was working on my thesis and between the hours of 3am and 6am, my computer regularly tried to reboot itself to install a security patch. I kept telling it to stop trying to reboot the machine because I was in the middle of working. One time I got up for a beverage and caught it 5 seconds away from a reboot (was it going to save the changes to my thesis first?)

So, I read the dialog box, and thought to myself:

F%&K!...

...Oh no, I didn't install the security patch, which probably came out on Tuesday, it's FRIDAY, and my Data is being EXECUTED!

So, a few minutes later I realized I was an idiot. Whoever wrote this dialog box at Microsoft meant "execution" as in "code execution," or ".exe." They didn't mean firing-squad-at-high-noon, what-do-you-want-on-your-tombstone, welcome-to-the-French-Revolution EXECUTION.

Nothing is being "executed," explorer just crashed. The developer who wrote this dialog box has probably been talking about Data Execution Prevention for so long he can't fathom how anyone would be confused with the title of his poorly worded dialog box. But that's no excuse.

Ok, back to finishing my thesis.

Xbox 360

2005-09-21T06:57:00.000-07:00

I got to see a 45 minute demo of the Xbox 360 yesterday, presented by Paolo Malabuyo, a Lead Design Program Manager in the Xbox Platform Experience team. He demoed the iPod and camera functionality, and we got to see a recent build of Kameo. I thought the controller felt great. Paolo's slides on the alternative designs for the console and controllers were really interesting.

New York Times: In Defense of Common Sense

2005-08-15T13:58:00.000-07:00

"Ironically, while many scientists disparage common sense, artificial-intelligence researchers have discovered just how subtle and powerful an attribute it is. Over the past few decades, researchers have programmed computers to perform certain well-defined tasks extremely well; computers can play championship chess, calculate a collision between two galaxies and juggle a million airline reservations. But computers fail miserably at simulating the ordinary, experience-based intelligence that helps ordinary humans get through ordinary days. In other words, computers lack common sense, and that's why even the smartest ones are so dumb."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/opinion/12horgan.html

Media Lab's effort:
http://csc.media.mit.edu/

Living in a Tree House

2005-07-31T01:39:00.000-07:00

I'm moving out of my tree house apartment today. The balcony had a bit of an ewok thing going on.

Stefan's Cellular Squirrel

2005-07-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

The Cellular Squirrel made it onto Engadget! At the Media Lab's spring corporate sponsor meeting Stefan presented the Cellular Squirrel directly before my talk. Needless to say, it was a very difficult act to follow. Congrats Stefan!

Architecture and User Interface Design

2005-07-18T07:34:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of parallels between Architecture and User Interface Design. Both fields are centered around the user, both are wrongly criticized as being only aesthetic, and both and have to work cooperatively with engineers. The Media Lab is even in MIT's School of Architecture and Planning. One of the obvious ways to tell a user interface is bad is that there are help messages patched directly onto the interface, attempting to explain things to the user because redesigning/rebuilding at the very end would be too difficult. Now, no offense to Frank Gehry (who has actually be rather involved with the Media Lab recently), but isn't MIT's Stata Center an obvious parallel to "patched" UI? At least the lobby follows Jakob Nielsen's final usability heuristic "Help and Documentation." And I suppose this building's inhabitants are a little smarter then your average human.

Me and Steve Wozniak

2005-07-15T09:27:00.000-07:00

I just ran into Steve Wozniak!

Sunlight

2005-07-11T05:05:00.000-07:00

I'm in crunch mode working on my thesis, so recently I've been in the lab 16 hours a day. I have also been doing almost all of my work at night. That's of course not at all uncommon, either for me or for people here in the lab. But I have started to notice some strange effects to prolonged use of this routine. Those include (1) I'm now on a first name basis with the lab's cleaning crew, and (2) I find the concept of sunlight to be really cool. I mean check out what it's doing to my (usually kind of boring) glass. If you haven't seen it in awhile, sunlight is really something.

Music

2005-07-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

The Killers is a really great band. I’ve been listening to their music ever since they played at the launch of the Xbox 360 on MTV. Their music has a hint of that 1980s A Flock of Seagulls new wave era goodness. In case you’re wondering why I would make such a random statement, it’s actually so I can take a screenshot for my thesis :P I’ll link to it in the comments.

2005-07-06T02:27:00.000-07:00

One of the great things about my apartment is that it is an amazingly good position for viewing Boston's fireworks display. I watched the show with Anna on the roof of my building. In the picture you can see the barge they launched the fireworks from in the center of the Charles.

2005-07-06T02:16:00.000-07:00

I went to see the Boston Pops concert on July 3rd again this year. The picture is actually from the concert last year (it turned out better then any of the ones I took this year). The concert was great, this time Anna and I got there early enough to get inside the oval, and the Boston Pops played the Star Wars main theme.

My Grandma, Bill Gates, and Me

2005-07-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

I seem to be posting a lot about Microsoft recently, so here's an interesting story on the same topic. My grandma, who lives in Iowa and is reminiscent of Dave Letterman's mother (only sweeter and considerably more pleasant), is now unfortunately in the hospital and is starting to become senile. The members of my extended family will regularly call her and tell her what is going on, and she will then relay these stories to the other family members who call her. This makes her kind of a central hub of communication for my family, which introduces the usual message degradation that comes with relaying stories, multiplied by the fact that she is suffering from dementia. Every once in a while a story will begin to spread which is entirely fictitious. During a family reunion a few days ago my extended family began discussing a story they had all heard about me. It goes like this: I decided that I wanted to work for Microsoft, so (instead of contacting a recruiter) I flew to Seattle and drove to Bill Gates' house. After talking to several people at Bill's house, I was eventually let in and got a chance to meet directly with Bill Gates. He decided to hire me, I now work for Microsoft, and Bill Gates and I are good friends. Now there are a couple strange things about this story. The first strange thing is that when my grandmother told it to people, everyone in my extended family (which includes several college professors) thought the story was true. The second strange thing is trying to figure out what true story led to this entirely fictitious one. It's possible that my grandmother confused me with my brother, who met Bill Gates at his house several years ago when he was a Microsoft intern. It's not uncommon for my grandma to confuse us, the last time I visited her in the hospital she asked me how I was enjoying Harvard (Kevin went to Harvard, I'm at MIT, so she was only off by a couple stops on the red line). It's also possible that the story emerged from her hearing that I flew out to Seattle to give a talk at Microsoft Research. Anyway, for any family members reading this, I am not good friends with Bill Gates, and I'm sorry I missed the reunion.

2005-06-23T10:20:00.000-07:00

Industrial design should be sexy... but if you go too far, you end up creating a pornographic mouse.

2005-06-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Apparently each user only uses a small percentage of the features in Word, but everyone uses different set of features so they can't remove anything without pissing people off. I wonder what percentage of users regularly take advantage of every feature. And what stops their brain from exploding?

2005-06-21T18:26:00.000-07:00

Also in the future, the A will travel at "warp speed" between 42nd and 168th, (but not on late nights or weekends, when it arrives at the non-warp platform, unless the E is running local).

2005-06-21T18:23:00.000-07:00

In the future an artificial intelligence bot running on your iPod will use advanced machine learning to understand the (incomprehensible to humans) New York subway system, and will tell you where the crap the A train is through your sexy white headphones.

2005-06-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

From the Media Lab kitchen

2005-06-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

Daily Show tickets! (only took 7 months)

2005-06-15T14:29:00.001-07:00

View of the studio from across the street

2005-06-15T14:29:00.000-07:00

The grand entrance

2005-06-15T14:28:00.000-07:00

People line up on the side of the building, under the trees

2005-06-15T14:26:00.000-07:00

Outside the Daily Show studio

Welcome to Faablogborg

2005-06-01T18:21:00.000-07:00

Velcome to Alex Faaborg's Blog de-blorg, Bork! Bork! Bork!
-Swedish Chef