The Krispy Kreme Challenge is perhaps one of the most unique things in Raleigh, and I plan on participating again next year. It was my first road race since I started running last summer (with the help of Couch-to-5k). I ran at a nice, casual pace (finishing at 1:01:28 according to the official results) and paused while looking for friends at the halfway point. Next year, I’m not going to look… and maybe I’ll eat more donuts at the halfway point. I just don’t know if it’s physically possible.

Check out my full set of photos from the KKC.

The Haiti Earthquake and this article on Make got me thinking again about emergency survival kits. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry much about earthquakes and hurricanes in Raleigh. But we do have the threat of tornadoes, and there was a touchdown in 1988 not far from where I live. It turns out that 72 hours is the magic number for being rescued after an impact.  Here’s a handy guide if you want to build your own kit (it’s very comprehensive).

There’s also a nice 72-hour kit you can buy from 4 Survival To Go for $99 (pictured). They’re donating 20% of online sales before February 5th for the entire months of January and February to Haiti. If you buy it, make sure to rotate out the Aqua Blox every five years and check the food.  4 Survival recommends you have one in the home, office, and car ($300 per person!). This does look like a very handy kit for the car though, since there’s no way I could carefully fit everything in a compact bag.

By the way. Slideshare doesn’t give you valid XHTML for embedding, but I found this tutorial that shows you how to embed valid slidecasts.

David Travis from Userfocus authored a simple and easy-to-follow short story called The Fable of the User-Centered Designer that follows one man as he attempts to learn what User-Centered Design is. It’s a free PDF that’s a quick read on the computer screen, but a printed copy is only $14.80 on Blurb, with all proceeds going to Room to Read.

[The Fable of the User-Centered Designer via Usability News]

Click here to view the embedded video.

[via Neatorama]

This week, the Time video “The Decade in Seven Minutes” went viral. Check it out!

Technology used to be the driver of new products; it determined the industrial design and components. Now, the size of devices is no longer determined by the size of the computer chip. For example, the iPod Classic sports the same basic design from 2004. The iPod does its job well and the only thing that could (and probably should) be changed include improvements in software and components.

We are living in a period of re-emergence of design. We are realizing that we need to start developing products that are not going to end up in a landfill after 2 years. We also need to design products that will encourage sustainability. Here’s a great example from Volkswagen that makes a game out of recycling:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Volkswagen also created two other videos (Piano Staircase and The World’s Deepest Bin). They created them as demonstration videos for The Fun Theory contest. The contest encourages designs that change people’s behavior for the better. Pretty cool.

Gizmodo was quick to look at both Garmin and TomTom’s stocks on the day of the announcement:

When I bought my Garmin nuvi 660, I saw this coming. My digital camera is already collecting dust, since my iPhone 3GS’s camera is good enough for most purposes. There are GPS applications for my iPhone, but I still pull out my Garmin just because it is already paid for (and the iPhone GPS applications are not).

What’s the future for Garmin and TomTom? Well, Garmin attempted to create an iPhone killer called the nuvifone. It was a good idea, but very poorly executed. TomTom handled things a little smarter, and were the first company to announce a turn-by-turn GPS application for the iPhone (though not the first to release one). TomTom even managed to realize that they could make a little money on hardware by selling accessories (including the suction cup).

Garmin’s nuvifone will undoubtedly bomb, and the company’s future is uncertain. TomTom will probably scrape by, but they need to somehow stay on top of Google.

Some of the highlights at this year’s fair:

• Pig lickers (chocolate dipped in bacon) — They mostly taste just like chewy chocolate with a hint of salt.
  
• The Barrel Monster (near the gardens/flowers) — This is surprisingly nearly identical to the famous Barrel Monster of Hillsborough Street.
  
• Rubik’s Cube Cake — It’s in the back behind some of the more elaborate cakes.
  
• 211 lbs. watermelon — I don’t remember seeing these last year, but the pumpkins were a little disappointing so this drew my attention.
  
• The food. — I had: a ham biscuit, hot chocolate (it was Swiss Miss…), BBQ plate with potatoes and apples, apple cider, fried cookie dough, and roasted corn. They were out of fried mac & cheese all day in the only two places we found that had it. We took home some fudge.
  

It started to rain a little heavier at about 2pm when were making our way back to the car. It was also noticeably more crowded, so I’d recommend our strategy of going on Sunday morning. We did a couple rides: a Ferris wheel and the “Super Shot” (a free fall tower).

I put my complete set of fair photos on Flickr.