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Another exciting show is coming up soon! Rodrigo y Gabriela are playing at The Showbox April 24th. I will definitely be going! I will be looking for tickets since they are apparently sold out. Please contact me if you have tickets and want to get rid of them.

I sat trying to figure out how to best describe them and the best I can come up with is a mix between Latin rhythms, classical music, and rock. Their covers of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” and Metallica’s “Orion” are worth a listen, but I personally find their own tracks more exciting.

I’m pretty excited that Ratatat is coming to Seattle soon. Recently I’ve been listening to their self titled CD a lot at work. The songs sometimes sound so simple but they just have a great melody to them.

If anyone is interested they are playing at Neumos on March 27, 2007. Tickets are only $13.

Just to give you an idea of what they are like, here are some videos I found of them playing live.

• Ratatat - live at the Gypsy. Dallas, Tx
• Ratatat - live at SFBH Wellington

Inspired by Jamie’s entry on gender and conversation I thought I’d share some thoughts on a book I recently read called Self-Made Man: One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back.

Norah Vincent, the book’s author and a journalist for the L.A. Times, spends 18 months as a man and writes about her experience. Read the rest of this entry »

During Scott McCloud’s closing plenary speech at CHI2006 I was particularly taken with one web comic he presented. For some reason I thought of it again recently and spent a good hour scouring the internet looking for it. The illustrations are pretty amazing and I love the use of size.

And without further ado: Pup by Drew Weing.

Today at the University of Washington was the yearly BizTech fair. For those of you who don’t know what what I’m talking about; BizTech is “a technology fair for staff and faculty.”

I worked at the Catalyst booth last year as an undergrad and I have to admin it wasn’t my favorite activity. Sure, it was interesting to talk to the various people who stopped by, but for the most part it pulled me out of my comfort zone.

For this year’s BizTech I still worked at the Catalyst booth, but this time as a fulltime employee. I have to say that it was actually a great experience. Many people stopped by our booth and had nothing but kind words. It was also a chance for me to hear some firsthand accounts of how people are using our tools and what things they would like to accomplish with them in the future. By the end of the day we had a whole page full of people interested in being contacted for usability studies; how sweet is that?

So what did I learn today? I learned that sometimes I get so caught up in the support emails and bug fixes that I forget about the many users who are happy with our tools, that sometimes I am my harshest critic, and that sometimes just talking to a few happy users is all it takes to remind me why I love doing what I do.

While tagging my latest photo on Flickr with the phrase UW I thought to myself, “Hey Self! I can do better than that!” So, I set out to do “better than that” by adding some context to where the photo was taken. I’ve heard of Geotagging but I’m not all that into longitude and latitude numbers as metatags on my photos. I just don’t find coordinates like that all that useful or interesting. Instead I decided to provide a link to a aerial/bird’s eye view of where I was standing when I took the photo. Read the rest of this entry »

I suppose I’ll jump on the bandwagon too.

My PersonalDNA reading:

You are a Considerate Leader.

• You tend to find beauty in form and efficiency, as opposed to finding it in broad-based, abstract concepts.
• You’re not set on one way of doing things, and you often have the skills and persistence to find innovative ways of facing challenges.
• Relating to others so well, and understanding their emotions, leads you to trust people in general, even though you’re somewhat shy and reserved at times.
• Because other people would benefit immensely from your understanding and insight, you should try to be more outgoing in social situations, even when they make you uncomfortable. Others will want to hear what you have to say!

Read the full report

While creating an account at an online financial site I ran across this little gem of a form and couldn’t help but laugh.

Wikipedia defines a signature as:

A signature is a handwritten (and sometimes stylized) depiction of someone’s name (or some other identifying mark) that the person writes on documents as a proof of identity and will. It acts as a seal.  

Can someone please explain to me how retyping my name serves this purpose? I’m sure there is some legal reason why this is required, but in all honesty this is a huge waste of everyone’s time. If the sole purpose is to confirm that the user has read and agrees to the terms said above then ask them to check a box and save them from useless typing.

Check it out at www.slide.com. Haven’t really played with all the features yet but the idea seems simple enough. So far it feels a little like flickr, but unfortunately I kind of feel like either I’m missing something or it is (what? no comments on photos?). Maybe it’s because I don’t any contacts yet? If anyone is interested my slide page is at http://kevinp.slide.com.

For the past week I’ve been reading through the blog of Jensen Harris, a UI designer for Office 12. In addition to being a preview of Office’s new features, it’s a look into the world of an interaction designer and what’s involved in redesigning an application as large as Office. Be sure to follow the links in the top 30 list for some of the more interesting posts.