Crastinate

So That Happened

2010-12-31T21:14:00.000-08:00

It's been a while. Sigh. Such the blogging cliché – "it's been a while since my last post" – as if there was some audience out there that was beginning to squirm in their seats during a too-long intermission. Except that it hasn't been a while. I "post" nearly every day, except that it is in the form of a share or a tweet and maybe the occasional photo. But not here. "Blogging is dead!" Right. And video killed the radio star.

I'd reserved this blog as space for the writing of a longer form. Deeper thoughts. But over the last year, two things happened that steered me away from writing here. The first has to do with my ulnar nerve. Through prolonged usage of mice and keyboards, and maybe sitting the wrong way, my ulnar nerve became inflamed, making it difficult to type at length. It is only the holidays and time spent away from a computer which allows me to type this out. Messages limited to 140 characters look more appealing when faced with tingly fingers. Some days are better than others.

The second thing to limit my writing here was that I was writing over there. At work. I had a few deep thoughts, but I shared them with my colleagues. See, I really like my job and where I work. Rather than just opine about something, or describe how it ought to be, I occasionally have the opportunity in my job to put in motion things that will make it so. More often than not the impact is incremental (but still important). But sometimes the impact is pretty big… like, 'make things better for over a billion people' big.

So why now?

Today is the last day of the first decade of the 21st century and I feel compelled to review and comment, if for no other reason than to read this again another decade hence. As I get older (I'm 35 now) the years flip by faster and faster. My theory is that, as the span of a year increasingly becomes a smaller fraction of one's lifespan, it is perceived to be shorter in relation. Or it could be that my memories of recent events are less front-and-center as I age, creating a kind of temporal tunnel vision. Since I like that theory less, I'll assume the former.

At any rate, writing some of it down is a surefire way to evaporate the sense of "boy, that decade went by fast." Chronicling the diversity and breadth of my experience reminds me that a lot has happened and a long time has passed. So, in the order in which they occur to me, here are some things I experienced during this first decade…

I got married. Twice, in fact – once at the beginning of the decade and once at the end. Obviously, I also suffered through a divorce, which happened towards the end of the decade. Maybe "suffered" is too strong a word – it was amicable as divorces go. My first wedding was on the stage of a big theater – nearly a century old – with hundreds in attendance. My second was in a public garden, with close family. So far, so good.

I watched my award-winning comedy club go bankrupt. I call my comedy club experience my "MBA the hard way." I learned a great deal about running a real business – everything except what it's like to be profitable. It died for several reasons, but the nail in the coffin was the burst of the tech bubble in Austin. With that went the discretionary income of a big chunk of our audience. The highs were the highest and the lows were the lowest in my life.

I left Austin, my hometown of ~30 years, and moved to California after getting hired by Google.

I bought, and later sold, a house. My first (and only, so far).

I lived through a really shitty day on September 11, 2001 while in NYC.

I held permanent residency for New Zealand for a short while. If you have the right skills, it is possible to get it without a job offer. They compete with Australia for immigrant labor. Ultimately I chose door #2: California. I'm tempted to try for it again.

I starred in a viral video that has been seen by millions of people. I won't link to it – you can dig into this blog to find the details. I'm pretty sure that was my 15 minutes, but maybe it doesn't count because no one knew it was me.

I visited Australia, Africa, and Europe for the first time.

I rescued a dog from the animal shelter.

I performed the on-site reconnaissance for the eventual site of a simulated Mars exploration hab, situated in the Martian analogue environment of the high desert of southern Utah.

I started the decade with a Nokia 6185 and ended it with a Nexus S.

I traveled in a submarine to over 1,000 feet below the waves.

I got rid of all my CDs.

I bought my first new car (a 2001 Nissa Xterra, which I later sold to a friend).

I made new friends and lost touch with some old ones.

I spoke at SXSW three times (I'm speaking again at the next one).

I learned how to make a good margarita. As usual, simplicity is the key. The ratio is 1:1:1 of lime simple syrup, Cointreau, and Herradura Silver. Put it in a shaker with ice and then strain into a chilled martini glass. Salt optional. I'm drinking one right now.

Was it worth it? Does my decade of deeds stack up? I think so. After all, it is just a handful of things. There is no resolution hidden here. Sure, I have hopes and dreams for the future. I think I could have done some things better and others I'd do all over again just the same. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." I look forward to the next decade in my life.

Happy New Year to you, and Happy New Decade.

The Identity Bank – A Business Model for Social Networks

2009-09-28T22:57:00.000-07:00

From an op-ed in the Washington Post…

A visit from the pope may attract a large audience, but it's not a great place to make money. Likewise, social networks can successfully bring people together, but don't expect them to turn a profit.

The article is penned by Bo Peabody, the founder of Tripod.

Almost 15 years later and as one of the Web's largest social networks, Tripod generates the same advertising revenue in a year that Google does in an afternoon. The bottom line is that advertising does not work on social networks because social networks are not media businesses.

I don't think Bo means advertising doesn't work at all on social networks, but that it is a weak source of revenue upon which to sustain a business. Users of those services are looking to communicate and connect with other people, and are therefore less likely to be swayed by a product or service vying for their attention.

This is the business model that many social networks have pursued and, as Bo points out, have failed. Bo offers a solution.

Instead of expecting profits that won't materialize, the entrepreneurial community should instead operate social networks as not-for-profit organizations. Wikipedia has grown phenomenally with a not-for-profit business model, and while Wikipedia has its problems, its fate is in the collective hands of its users rather than in the hands of media companies or the stock market. Facebook and Twitter should enjoy the same comfort.

He suggests that social networks should become the property of the commons – that the users own their data. I think this is a laudable goal. And yet, I do believe there is a valuable business model available to social networks: identity verification.

This is a very important service, and it is currently done in a number of ways, with varying degrees of accuracy and trust. At the high end are government-issued forms of verification like passports and state driver's licenses. At the low end are usernames and passwords. In between are mobile phones and credit cards.

Now everyone knows you're a dog

Social networks represent a new platform upon which to build a robust, accurate, and trusted system of identity verification. They are already beginning to fulfill this role – Friend Connect and Facebook Connect get us started on the ground floor with outsourcing Web sign-ins. These services allow us to build a network of trust that can carry identity verification across the Web.

For example, Twitter has, on occasion, been the source of impersonation of various people, particularly celebrities. Twitter offers to verify your account, but only if you are famous.

We're starting with well-known accounts that have had problems with impersonation or identity confusion. (For example, well-known artists, athletes, actors, public officials, and public agencies). We may verify more accounts in the future, but because of the cost and time required, we're only testing this feature with a small set of folks for the time being. As the test progresses we may be able to expand this test to more accounts over the next several months.

But did you know that you can verify your Twitter account already, even if you aren't famous? You can do it with the help of a Google profile. Google profiles allow you to verify email domains. But you can also verify your real name on your Google profile using Knol's ID verification system. Once you have a verified name, you can add your Twitter account to your Google profile links. This will generate a prompt asking if you want to tweet about your profile.

The tweet contains a link back to your Google profile. This bi-directional set of links – one account linking back to the other – allows the name and domain verifications to pass through to your Twitter account. This isn't reflected in the UI, but if Twitter tapped into the Social Graph API, they could display the verification badge. You are who you say you are, even without having to be a celebrity.

Now, is that process user-friendly? Not in the slightest. But these are features that were put together quickly, from a number of parts that weren't designed to fit together as a system. Eventually they will fit together. When built on open systems, these features can grow in capability and ease of use.

Take it to the bank

There is real value in providing accurate and trustworthy identity verification. It is essential to the functioning of society. In a decade, we may have identity banks vying to provide you with identity services. Just as you trust a monetary bank to hold on to your savings, you'll trust an identity bank to maintain the personal and private details that uniquely identify you. The identity bank will provide a secure service for identity transactions and the electronic sharing of personal data.

And just like the financial institutions which provide credit cards and collect fees from merchants for processing transactions, identity banks will collect fees from the businesses and services that require your identity to, in turn, provide services to you. Perhaps even the government will outsource identity management and when you are stopped at immigration they can scan the barcode off your mobile, generated by a verified and trusted 3rd party identity bank.

The business opportunity of providing identity services will not be missed. This is the monetization path for social networks. They are nascent identity banks. It is only a matter of time before the various pieces come together and the opportunity is realized.

If this sounds scary – if you are concerned about a private institution being responsible for your identity – think about the world we live in today. So much of our private information and credit history is tied up in corporations that have a near-monopoly and little responsibility to the consumer. We should proactively work towards a world where the consumer is in control of her own information and has a choice about identity verification providers. Let's avoid the same mistakes that have been made with financial institutions, telecom companies, and health insurance.

Bigger is Better

2009-09-24T14:47:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, we made the search box on the Google homepage bigger. Most people who bothered to comment on it seemed to be grumpy. This is understandable – users tend to prefer familiarity, particularly when the interface is something they use every day to accomplish a task. But people are also more likely to speak up when they have a complaint. Overall, people actually like the bigger search box.

I find the speculation across the Web of why we might have done this fascinating. The real answer is exactly what Marissa said in the blog post:

Although this is a very simple idea and an even simpler change, we're excited about it — because it symbolizes our focus on search and because it makes our clean, minimalist homepage even easier and more fun to use.

Search is a conversation between you and the search engine. The search box is your primary means of communicating with the search engine. Making the search box bigger gives more attention to this important interface element, and better conveys a sense that Google is listening. A bigger search box is a bigger click target and the increased font size makes it easier to read. And I'll tell you a secret…

I wanted it to be even bigger.

Not too much bigger. The size of the box is determined by the size of the font inside of it, and the font in my original design was a little bigger. But I had not taken the query suggestions into account at first. The suggestions tend to look better if they are aligned with the search query. But the suggestions would have been too big at my original font size, so we scaled it back a bit. Even simple solutions have trade-offs.

Avocado Margarita Redux

2009-02-22T12:47:00.000-08:00

On Monday, March 16th, I will be moderating a panel at SXSW Interactive called Back Off Man, I'm A Scientist: User Generated Discovery.

Broad access to vast amounts of raw data, along with ever more powerful tools, have given everyday people the ability to make significant contributions to scientific inquiry and enrich our understanding of the Universe. See how passionate amateurs are addressing the fundamental questions of our world.

I'm really excited about this panel and the speakers I've lined up to join me in discussing this great topic.

Kevin Schawinski is an astrophysicist at Yale University and a co-founder of the Galaxy Zoo project. If you haven't seen Galaxy Zoo yet, I highly recommend you check it out. You can help classify galaxies on your lunch break!

Matthew Shindell is a Ph.D. Candidate in the History of Science and Science Studies at the University of California, San Diego. He is also an accomplished poet. Matt will help us understand the meaning of science and the role that amateurs have played in the history of scientific inquiry.

Darlene Cavalier is the founder of ScienceCheerleader.com, a blog that promotes the involvement of citizens in science and science-related policy. Cavalier is a former Philadelphia 76ers cheerleader and holds a Masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied the role of the citizen in science.

If you have questions, suggestions, or ideas about what we should discuss during our panel, please feel free to send them along. One hour isn't a lot of time for a big topic like this, and we have plenty to cover, but I'd love to hear from others who are passionate about this topic.

Technology, Entertainment, and Design

2009-02-22T12:24:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I had the privilege of attending TED in Long Beach, California. This was the 25th anniversary of TED and the first time it had been held in Long Beach. It was also my first time to attend. The theme of the conference was "The Great Unveiling," and the conference was packed with an amazing array of speakers. Additionally, I was fascinated by the stories of many of my fellow TEDsters and the TED Fellows.

As I write this, I'm watching the 81st Academy Awards and remembering back to the presentation about the special effects behind The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Several clips from the film were played and the speaker, Ed Ulbrich from Digital Domain, informed us that the head of the character was, for the first hour of the film, completely computer generated. I was amazed. It was the first time that I had ever seen CGI used in a film and, even after learning it was CGI, still could not tell. It won't be long now until we can create CGI actors, perhaps even resurrecting performers from an earlier age. What will it mean for the world when we can create these performances rapidly on a home computer? Benjamin Button just won the Oscar for visual effects as I finished this paragraph.

An Oscar contender for 2010 will surely be Oceans, by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud, the creators of Winged Migration. A clip from the film was presented by producer Jake Eberts and it was phenomenal (I will soon run out of superlatives). I think it will be a powerful documentary, up there with An Inconvenient Truth, but also moving and beautiful.

Speaking of which, Vice President Al Gore was there to give an update on the climate. He did not paint a pretty picture. In fact, it was rather alarming and depressing – more so, I think, than some of his previous messages. In a few short minutes he outlined how climate change is already causing a thaw of the permafrost in the Northern Hemisphere and how that is leading to a massive bleed-off of methane – 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. His message was, essentially, that if we don't address this issue in a big way right now, we are well and truly fucked. Luckily, there were some other TED speakers who had some ideas about how to fix things.

One of the very best speakers on this matter was Willie Smits. I think, when his talk is released online, it will be viewed as one of the premiere TED talks – in the same category as Hans Rosling or Vice President Gore. Willie was a forester in Indonesia who set out to save orangutans. But to do so, he realized that he would have to rebuild an ecosystem that had been ravaged by the growing population of humans. Rather than apply a series of band-aids, Willie enlisted the help of the locals to begin rebuilding the rain forest through a carefully managed plan. His work resulted in fantastic success in a few short years and his presentation was like a recipe for ecosystem restoration and maintaining healthy forests, while also providing the people a sustainable lifestyle.

Strange, or odd, or funny, or beautiful, or surreal things can happen at this conference and they are often called "TED moments" by people who've been several times. When the winds whipped up and the storm bore down upon Long Beach, the TED balloon inadvertently escaped to parts unknown. (I'm pretty sure that is my photo at the beginning of the video.) I had my own TED moment when I helped a baby seal. We were attending a party at a house on the beach when someone mentioned there was a baby seal. It was stuck on a stretch of sand between the boardwalk and the sea wall. At first, some wanted to wrap it up in a blanket and carry it back to the sea. I used Google Maps on my G1 to pinpoint our location, used Google Voice Search to read about what to do with baby seals, and used Goog-411 to call animal control. Animal control said that they like to see if the seal finds its way back to its mother, but that they would send someone out in the morning. Sylvia Earle would be proud.

But I think the TED moment that really stands out for me was the Friday night before the last day. Eric Lewis, an amazing pianist who could make the piano make sounds I didn't know were possible, sat down at the piano in the lobby of the Westin and performed an incredible array of music for the hundred or so of us gathered there after midnight. And a fellow TEDster put on her tap shoes and joined in, each riffing off the other. After the rodeo rope trick cowboy, dressed in full Western regalia, joined in, I knew that I would be coming back to TED.

Many people have asked me how I was able to go. I think there are a lot of myths that surround becoming a TED member. Don't you have to be invited? Don't you have to know someone? No and no. You become a TED member by applying and, in the words of TED Community Director Tom Rielly, "being interesting." There is, also, the matter of the $6000 registration fee. But $4000 of that is tax deductible – a charitable contribution to a good cause that enriches your mind and soul in return. I think that's a good investment.

Believe Begin Become

2008-10-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in a chair holding several cotton swabs against both arms. I look like I'm cold. Or crazy. Maybe the latter, since I just volunteered to have various bits of polio, yellow fever, hepatitis A, and typhoid injected into my body. The doctor was kind enough to use these super-thin needles – it helps when you're getting several shots, one after the other. Up next: hep B and measles/mumps/rubella. I've decided to skip on the rabies vaccination.

Africa, here I come.

My first project when I joined Google was working on Google Apps. Not long after I started, we signed partnerships with Rwanda and Kenya to provide Google Apps to university students in those countries. I've long had an interest in accessibility, not simply for people with disabilities, but also for people who do not have access to the level of infrastructure common in the United States or Europe. I wondered what the user experience of the Web might be like in Sub-Saharan Africa. After speaking with several people, I determined that the only way to really find out was to go there.

As I was investigating our various initiatives in Africa, I discovered that Google.org was supporting a business plan competition in Ghana and Tanzania and was looking for volunteers to act as teachers for their education program, as well as judges. They were looking for Googlers with previous business, development, and finance experience. Having been a finalist in a national business plan competition, and having run a couple of businesses, I applied and was accepted as a Google.org judge and graduation ambassador for Technoserve's Believe Begin Become business plan competition in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. This became my 20% project for the latter half of 2007.

I arrive a few hours after sunset at Julius Nyerere International on the outskirts of Dar. The air is warm and smells faintly of fire somewhere. I really have to pee, so I duck into a restroom just before customs. When I'm done, I'm the last passenger in a room full of bored customs agents. "Where is your form?" I give a shrug – maybe they gave out one on the plane and I missed it. He points me back towards the entrance, where there are stacks of blue forms and little golf pencils. I wander over and begin filling it out. "Come on, come on," he says. "Where is your passport?" I hand over my passport and the hastily scrawled blue form. "You are here on business?" I nod. He takes my passport with him into a little room full of stern-looking agents. A supervisor takes my passport in hand and nods gravely. They speak for a few moments. Minutes go by and I'm sweating. Finally the supervisor makes little squiggles on the form and the agent returns my passport. "Welcome to Dar. Enjoy your visit." And with that, I hurry out into the night to find my ride.

I confess to having been somewhat ignorant about Africa. I've always been fascinated by cartography, so I'd spent a lot of time going over maps and I felt I was fairly versed in Africa's geography. Over the years, I'd followed the occasional crisis that made its way into Western media, but my knowledge of history and culture was limited. I picked up several books before my trip and read through each. I highly recommend The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński. The Africans, by David Lamb, is also a good, if slightly dated, book. Africa: A Biography of the Continent, by John Reader is, ahem, thorough. I also picked up The Zanzibar Chest by Aidan Hartley, which was more timely, and personal.

I'm chatting with a vendor inside of Kariakoo Market, the largest market in East Africa. Surrounding me are piles and piles of fruits, vegetables, and spices – many of which I've never before seen. "A thousand shillings for these passion fruits," he says. "I'm sorry, but I didn't bring any money." "Well, where is your wallet?" "My pockets are empty." "You are a smart man." Suddenly, there is a commotion nearby. We make our way out to the street, where the front axle of a car has completely sheared off, leaving the wheel hanging to one side. No one is quite sure what to do. A man wearing fatigues approaches and tries to take control of the situation, but no one pays him much mind. It is unclear if he is an official, or if he just likes to wear camouflage.

I spent three weeks in Tanzania. Most of that time was spent reading through about eighty business plans created by aspiring entrepreneurs from across the country. That number was whittled down from hundreds of applicants over a period of several weeks. Applicants of this smaller group were then provided with classes in business plan creation, entrepreneurship, marketing, and capital so that they might put their best foot forward in the final business plans. Myself and another Google volunteer read every single plan, while representatives from Technoserve and Tanzania's business community each evaluated a set. After we'd read through each plan, sometimes twice, we collected our top twenty and began the difficult process of selecting the finalists.

Some colleagues and I have walked over to the food court in a shopping center next to the Hotel Sea Cliff. It's very touristy, and the outdoor food court is lined with several small restaurants – an Indian place, a Chinese place, a Thai place, and a few other places. No Tanzanian place, as far as I could tell. In America, you typically walk up to one of them, place your order, and take your food to your seat. But here you get the sense that the architecture was dictated, but that no one ever quite explained the concept to the Tanzanians.

We sat down at a table and were descended upon by five different waiters with five different menus for each of us. We had twenty menus on the table. There is a certain game to this – it is advantageous for everyone at the table to agree upon a single menu, because it vastly simplifies the dining process, so it pays to decide quickly. Meanwhile, as you are perusing your five menus, a waiter will lean in and say "can I get you something to drink?" Careful! Ordering a drink would almost certainly commit you to a menu. "No, thanks, I'll wait until I figure out the food I want." Finally, we settle on a menu. The winning waiter triumphantly steps in, even collecting the menus of the other establishments, while the remaining waiters skulk away dejectedly.

The number of plans submitted to the Believe Begin Become contest was well in excess of Technoserve's goal. We all agreed that it spoke to the vibrancy of the market, and the new hope that had come to many a would-be entrepreneur. Some of the applicants were applying to expand an existing business, others had a brand new idea. I spent the first two weeks ensconced in my room at the Holiday Inn, pouring over facts and figures, and learning more than I ever thought possible about sisal production, sunflower processing, ship chandling, pineapple wine, fishmeal, and vegetable storage. Many of the plans were agricultural, but there were a surprising number of manufacturing and information services, as well.

I'm strolling through the fish market near downtown Dar es Salaam, picking bits of fish brains out of my hair. I guess I shouldn't be surprised if, when someone is whacking a giant fish with a machete, bits of fish fly about. Just as I think I've picked out the last slimy scale, a group of teens run up to me. "Mzungo! Mzungo!" One of them quickly hands his mobile to his friends and stands proudly beside me. Laughing and chatting rapidly in Kiswahili, they snap off a few pictures. I high-five the kid and resume my stroll.

A few weeks after I'd returned home, the winner was announced: Selemani Kinyunyu won for his carbon credit trading business, in which he plans to sell carbon credits to tourists which in turn fund the sequestration of carbon through farming indigenous trees. We didn't get to meet the entrepreneurs until after we'd made our decisions, to prevent any bias. That was a wise decision, because, having met several of them, including Selemani, it would have made my job even harder. They were such a fantastic group of people. I was deeply impressed by them, and humbled by their perseverance in the face of adverse conditions. Selemani was recently mentioned in an article at Entrepreneur.com.

Rashid ushers me into his van, making sure my luggage is secure. Just before, we were standing in the parking lot of the Zanzibar airport, and he was chatting amiably with all of the other drivers. He has a great mustache and is resplendent wearing his taqiyah cap and white thobe. "Look! That's me," he says as he hands me a Zanzibar tourism magazine. Sure enough, there is a picture of him looking exactly as he does now, if a bit younger. Rashid speeds us down the thin road across the island towards Paje, weaving in and out of traffic, dodging cyclists, and avoiding the occasional lorry overflowing with cargo and locals. We stop at the first of three police checkpoints and Rashid chats with the guard for a minute or so, before he waves us through. "They see you and they think about how much the toll ought to be, but I say we're friends," he says. It's clear Rashid knows a taxi driver mind trick or two.

Someone asked me if I was disturbed by the extreme poverty of East Africa. And yes, of course I find it disturbing. But I was not surprised by it. Africa has suffered much, brought on by environment, colonial powers, or internal strife – all of which was revealed in my research. What surprised me was the potential – it was palpable. Everywhere I went – on billboards, in the newspaper, and on the radio – were ads for mobile companies. Mobile technology has risen rapidly in Sub-Saharan Africa, like a rocket. And it is still going. When I was a kid growing up in Texas, there were plenty of mom and pop general stores or cafes whose signage was subsidized by Coca-Cola. Indeed, Coke could be found throughout the world, even in the most remote of places. But as I drove around Tanzania and Zanzibar, it wasn't Coca-Cola, it was Celtel and Vodacom with their logos adorning the small shops.

I'm wandering in the full moonlight across a vast flat of sand one hundred yards from the nominal shoreline in Paje, Zanzibar. The shallow slope of the coast here, coupled with the great swings of the equatorial tide, cause the Indian Ocean to recede hundreds of yards out to the horizon. Boats lilt on the sand, waiting for the ocean's return. In the distance: palm trees, lights, and music.

"The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa.' In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist."
– Ryszard Kapuściński

Kapuściński's observation helps explain, I think, why it has taken me a year to write about my experience. The grand sum of Africa's history, people, and geography is overwhelming. Each time I began writing about it, I abandoned the effort because I felt I was leaving out too much, and that there was no way my words would do it justice. Even this blog post, as long as it is, leaves out so much of those three weeks. I met incredible people, saw amazing things, and I am honored to have participated. It is an experience I will never forget, and I look forward to returning someday.

Googley Design Principles

2008-04-27T02:43:00.000-07:00

The Googley Design Principles have gone up on the Official Google Blog.

Last month, I gave a talk about the principles at the WritersUA Conference in Portland. Luke Wroblewski, who also spoke at the conference, blogged the principles. That generated some discussion, but what I found really fascinating was that people then took the principles and translated them into half a dozen languages (we'll be doing that as well, soon).

The design principles were created by Susanne Brokaw, Sue Factor, Kevin Fox, Kerah Pelczarski, and myself. Initiative and guidance came from Irene Au, Director of User Experience. Susanne, Kevin, and Kerah had been working at Google for many years, designing the form of products that so many of us use each day and laying the foundation of the principles we had gathered to define. Sue, a fantastic writer, refined our collection of intents, anecdotes, and aspirations into clear and articulate prose.

I learned a lot from my colleagues while collaborating on this project and I'm proud of our work. While the principles are primarily intended to guide our design activities at Google, I hope they will inspire others to think about their own design philosophy and how they can create great products for their customers, too.

Mars Desert Research Station

2008-02-26T13:44:00.000-08:00

From Boing Boing:

The Mars Society Desert Research Station is a facility near Hanksville, Utah where researchers pretend they're living on Mars. When researchers leave the facility to collect samples, they wear spacesuits. Email communication is on a 20 minute delay to simulate the distance the radio signals would have to travel between Earth and the Red Planet. The idea is to identify the challenges, from logistical to mechanical to psychological issues, that a team visiting Mars might face.

I think it's great when the Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) gets covered, because it is such a can-do project. And it gives me an excuse to write down my MDRS experiences, which I've put off for too long.

I was a member of the MDRS site selection committee back in 2000 (I think it was 2000... my memory is a little fuzzy). We had a broad set of criteria for selecting a Martian analogue in the United States. It was clear from the beginning that we needed something in the Desert Southwest, since Mars doesn't have too many plants. But we also had to account for geological diversity, land ownership, security, and the logistics of transport and construction.

The lack of plant cover was a surprisingly difficult criteria to satisfy. Deserts are far more lush than you might think. Google Earth would have been immensely valuable to our endeavor, but it didn't exist at the time. Instead, we used a variety of Landsat, aerial, and USGS imagery, plus GIS data provided by state and local governments.

We identified several candidates. Our first promising candidate was the American Girl Mine in the Cargo Muchacho Mountains of southern California. The mine was no longer operational. A site visit showed it to be unsuitable. Another candidate was a crater in Nevada. I can't remember if it was a volcanic or meteor crater. One of our committee members was a pilot and they did some aerial photography. Even though the vegetation was sparse, it was still too much. Another one was in northern Arizona, and a site visit showed it, too, to be unsuitable.

James Cameron (yeah, that one) suggested to Dr. Robert Zubrin that we have a look in and around the badlands of southern Utah. I recruited my good friend Dr. Patrick Young to join me on a photo reconnaissance to Utah. We did a lot of initial work reviewing land ownership maps, topo maps, aerial photos, and satellite imagery. James Cameron had suggested we poke around Hanksville, Utah.

At first we thought we should be looking at public lands, such as those managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). BLM land is woven together with state land in an odd checkerboard pattern in the area of concern. My guess is that it was some land trade deal in the past - some kind of 80/20 split. So we stopped in at the BLM office to chat about it. People give you funny looks when you ask to build a simulated Martian habitat on their (our) land. The response we received was disinterest coupled with bewilderment.

Patrick and I went on to visit the area where the MDRS would eventually be located. We took copious photos, evaluated the soil, and did a lot of exploring. We even found a coal seam. We wrote up our experiences and submitted our photos for consideration and the site was selected. I think it was situated on a piece of state land, Utah being more amenable than Uncle Sam. I later designed the logo for the MDRS and the original website. I'm proud of my (small) contribution to the advancement of knowledge and exploration. I learned a lot from my experience on the site selection committee.

I have never seen the Mars Desert Research Station in person.

Soon I Shall Have My Avocado Margarita

2008-02-11T13:42:00.000-08:00

I will be speaking at SXSW Interactive on Monday, March 10th. My presentation is titled Client-Side Code and Internationalization. It is going to be exactly that - one hour of XHTML, CSS, UTF-8, RTL, and tips for prepping and testing your designs even if you don't speak the language. I was frustrated last year when doing some localization work and I thought I'd share what I'd learned about the subject.

SXSW takes place in my hometown of Austin, Texas. I miss Austin and I'm thankful to SXSW and everyone who voted for my talk for giving me the opportunity to visit and drink one of these.

The next week, I'll also be presenting at the WritersUA Conference in Portland, Oregon. It is a conference aimed at user assistance professionals, who spend a great deal of time thinking about users and helping them solve problems. It's a great place to give my other talk, Guiding Principles of Googley Design. I've never been to Portland before, but I hear it is a fantastic town and I'm looking forward to it.

Update: My SXSW 2008 slides [2MB PDF] are now available.

I'm Internet Famous

2008-01-27T15:16:00.000-08:00

In December, my friends Leon and Andy, who were featured in last year's Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal, cast me in a little video project they were doing. It was directed by Bob Odenkirk (Mr. Show), and also starred Jerry Minor (SNL) and Brandon Johnson (Arrested Development).

Here is the first video...

On YouTube, it has been viewed well over two million times. It has been viewed millions of times across many other sites and blogs. It was the number one featured video on CollegeHumor.com and was featured at the end of Anderson Cooper's show on CNN and was also seen on Attack of the Show, Talk Soup, and America's Most Outrageous Moments.

I don't think any of us expected the magnitude of the response. Many people thought it was hilarious. Others said it was clearly fake. A few said it was fake, but thought it was funny anyway (my favorites). Those shouting fake often pointed to the extraneous boom mic, the redundant guy with the soda, the lack of an affiliate logo, bad lighting, the non-existence of Canadian brown finches (a species we made up on the spot), and my "obvious bad acting." :-)

Well, now the truth can be told. It was indeed a marketing stunt to promote Frumondah Soda, made by Nigerian Sunshine International.

Yes, that's right, we made a fake viral video to promote a fake soda and we made a fake documentary about it. With a musical number at the end.

I would like to thank the Academy...

The whole experience was a fun ride. I knew that theatre degree would come in handy one of these days.

Down Under

2007-10-05T17:38:00.000-07:00

I was in Sydney, Australia for two weeks last month working out of the Google Australia office and attending Web Directions South. I had a great time. Sydney is a wonderful city - I really enjoyed walking through the neighborhoods, the CBD, and around the harbor.

I was also able to take a train out to Katoomba and hike into Blue Mountains National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was beautiful! I hiked down into the valley and back up the Grand Staircase - 900 switchbacking steps straight up a rock cliff. There was a sign that marked the halfway point and I couldn't decide if they were being helpful or cruel. Despite the name, the area is really a bunch of sedimentary mesas. If it weren't for the thick covering of eucalyptus, I imagine it'd look a bit like parts of northern Arizona or Utah.

I flew to Sydney on United. I've expressed disdain for United in the past, and my sentiments remain unchanged. Fourteen hours on a cramped, aging 747 with crappy projection screens and even crappier CRT monitors spaced every 30 feet or so. The movie selection was awful, the sound system broke on both of my flights, and the videos had the squiggly lines that come from having played a VHS tape too many times. And don't even get me started on the food. Next time I head Down Under it is Air New Zealand or nothing.

Upon arrival in Sydney, I waited in a customs line for about 60 seconds and then was greeted with a pleasant "G'day." We had a brief conversation about my visit and then I was on my way. Upon arrival in LAX, we were greeted by a man shouting at everyone to "FACE THE WALL!!!" Americans and foreign visitors alike froze in confusion. There were no signs, just maze after maze of ribbon barriers. The man shouted for us to turn and face the wall several more times.

He was apparently trying to get a very large crowd of slightly dazed people to spontaneously form a line that zig-zagged across the room because a single file line would have been impossibly long. No one had thought to deploy more ribbon barriers, despite the fact that knowledge of the plane's impending arrival was known at least 14 hours in advance. Eventually we all figured out where we were supposed to be and then endured, in my case, a twenty minute wait.

I had plenty of time to think about the awful customer experience for people arriving in the United States. How a country handles visitors says a lot. The lack of resources was evident. There were more arrivals than could be accommodated by the allocated officers, baggage carousels, customs inspectors, and space. There was a lack of signage, of attention to the details, and of any effort to actually make people feel welcome. Lacking. Where do all of the resources go in the richest superpower in the world?

My Dog is a Republican

2007-09-09T09:44:00.000-07:00

I should have seen the signs much earlier. It's been staring me in the face for years - perhaps it was denial on my part. But I've finally come to terms with the fact that my dog, Harriet, is a Republican.

Harriet absolutely loves people. People shower her with attention and provide her with all of the comforts of life. It's pretty easy to get Harriet to do something if you give her a treat. She is, of course, quite happy with this arrangement. The only time Harriet gets really upset at people is when they are threatening her borders: our front door and back porch, respectively.

Harriet is also very leash aggressive towards other dogs. While attached to me, safe and secure, she is constantly on the attack. She blusters and barks, daring any other dog to get anywhere near her or defy her will. When I take her to the dog park and she gets to run around off leash, Harriet always takes a go-it-alone approach, maintaining a respective distance from other dogs and only occasionally tolerating others. Harriet is a chickenhawk.

Harriet barks and lunges at buses with such violent ferociousness when we're out for a walk that strangers are often shocked and quickly walk the other way. Nor is her hatred directed at just buses - she is equally angered by commuter trains and motorcycles. She has no problem with cars, trucks, or SUVs. I've wondered how she was distinguishing among various forms of transportation and now I know: Harriet scorns environmental efficiency.

Harriet doesn't know where Osama bin Laden is and she doesn't seem to care.

Don't get me wrong, I love my dog, but that doesn't mean I have to share her politics or world view.

Mobile Wallet

2007-08-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

I wish I could pay for things with my cellphone. If only I lived in an advanced nation on the forefront of mobile banking like... Nigeria.

The future is already here - it is just unevenly distributed.

– William Gibson

Strange Maps

2007-07-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

I've long been fascinated by cartography, remote sensing, satellite imagery, etc. Strange Maps is my new favorite blog.

Slow Glass

2007-06-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

The most important effect, in the eyes of the average individual, was that light took a long time to pass through a sheet of slow glass. A new piece was always jet black because nothing had yet come through, but one could stand the glass beside, say, a woodland lake until the scene emerged, perhaps a year later. If the glass was then removed and installed in a dismal city flat, the flat would—for that year—appear to overlook the woodland lake. During the year it wouldn't be merely a very realistic but still picture—the water would ripple in sunlight, silent animals would come to drink, birds would cross the sky, night would follow day, season would follow season. Until one day, a year later, the beauty held in the subatomic pipelines would be exhausted and the familiar gray cityscape would reappear.

-- Light of Other Days, by Bob Shaw, 1966

That short sci-fi story by Bob Shaw was the first thing I thought of when I read about Cornelius Van Der Vies, his dog Boo Boo, and Google Streetview. Cornelius was a homeless man who could often be found in downtown San Jose. He is pictured in Google Streetview, just around the corner from where my wife works. He was killed in May in a fight to protect his dog.

Google Streetview is a snapshot of a city. But unlike Google Earth, it isn't taken all at once. The snapshot embodies an extended moment in time. And it is at a human level. We are able to walk down a street and see what is going on at a space and time in our past. Try it - find something or someone of interest, travel down the street a little, and look again.

Bob Shaw's short story inspired a more recent take by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter called The Light of Other Days. As a novel, it is ok, but it raises a lot of interesting concepts that we're starting to encounter with services like Streetview and Twitter. The plot involves devices that enable anyone to see anyone else in the present or past. The technology is immediately disruptive and transformative. Societies are stripped of privacy and governments are stripped of secrecy. History comes clearly into focus. Later, the devices are adopted by the young to serve as a means of instantaneous "telepathy" with their friends, enabling a sort of group mind.

In a post I wrote nearly 2 years ago, I said "what happens in a world where we can record, search, and play back every single moment of our lives?" And share it? And blend it with the content of others? What if every one of us (or even very few of us) became our very own Streetview Van?

My Early Days On The Electronic Frontier

2007-06-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

On November 2, 1988, Robert T. Morris, a student at Cornell, released a worm onto the Internet from MIT. The worm exploited a number of vulnerabilities to copy itself onto servers, find other servers, and continue making copies of itself. It was quite good at this, so good in fact that it unleashed a denial of service attack on the fledgling Internet, bringing a large percentage of those systems to a grinding halt.

I first learned of this event, not from news accounts of the time, but from postings on the bulletin board systems (BBS) I dialed into with my modem. Some of those BBSs connected to the Internet through FidoNet email gateways. The Internet was still known as ARPANET in some corners. The Morris worm and the Internet fascinated me. I wanted to figure out how it all worked and how I could go exploring. It was a real-world text adventure.

I wanted to be a part of this "cyber wilderness" that was far more interesting than any BBS. But where to begin? I needed a guide. A mentor. I started digging around and posting questions to my BBS community. It turned out that there was a sysop who knew a lot. He ran a local BBS called the Pheonix Project and he had written A Novice's Guide to Hacking. Fittingly, he called himself The Mentor and he had written just what I needed. I was 13 years old¹.

Following in the footsteps of The Mentor, the TCP/IP based Internet wasn't the first network into which I dipped my toes. Instead, having dutifully RTFM, I jumped into Telenet. Telenet was owned by Sprint at the time after they had acquired GTE a couple of years earlier. It was the first commercial packet switched network in the United States, and connected to similar networks throughout the world. Networks with names like Datapak, Austpac, Venus-P, and Tymnet. These networks would later be absorbed into the Internet.

I spent a lot of time exploring these networks. Once I had found my way into an X.25 PAD the fun really started. I was talking to machines that belonged to organizations such as NASA, Stanford, CMU, IBM, Price Waterhouse, and D&B. (Ironically, I later worked for D&B.) What I found in those places wasn't so interesting as the journey I took to get there. No machine ever asked me if I'd like to play a game of Global Thermonuclear War.

Eventually, I made it on to the actual Internet. Still learning, I abandoned my hackish endeavors when the government began raiding hackers nationwide in early 1990. On March 1, 1990, the United States Secret Service conducted a raid on the home of Loyd Blankenship in my hometown of Austin, Texas. Loyd had been arrested before, after which he had penned The Conscience of a Hacker. Loyd was The Mentor.

On that same day, the Secret Service raided the office of Steve Jackson Games². Loyd had written GURPS Cyberpunk, a role playing game that was to be published by SJG. Presenting a sealed warrant, they proceeded to confiscate computers, papers, files, etc. They also took the computer that was running the Illuminati BBS, one of the systems I'd called a few times. They did all of this out of ignorance and inferred guilt-by-association: Loyd's BBS hosted copies of Phrack, Phrack had published a Bell South memo they'd received about E911 admins, Bell South had gotten embarrassed and pissy and had called the cavalry.

These events led to the creation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) on July 10, 1990 and on May 1, 1991, Steve Jackson Games, with the help of the EFF, filed a civil suit against the United States Secret Service.

These events kick-started a community of techno-civil libertarians in the Austin BBS scene. One BBS I dialed into a bunch was Bamboo Gardens North, run by Ed Cavazos. Ed was also studying at UT Law School at the time. The Bamboo Gardens community was an interesting lot, full of activist types after the Steve Jackson Games raid. The Illuminati BBS came back to life and hosted many same members of this new activist community. Mike Godwin, aka Johnny Mnemonic and also at UT Law, was an early fixture of these communities. He went on to become chief counsel for EFF.

Because so much of this was centered in Austin, it was natural that leading community members got together and formed EFF-Austin. And being the young idealist that I was, I joined up. On August 22, 1992, I attended my first EFF-Austin Cyberdawg at Europa Books on The Drag. A Cyberdawg was an "informal networking mixer designed for the general membership to meet face-to-face with others members, as well as the Board of Directors." I had a great time chatting with John Quarterman, Paco Xander Nathan, Ed Cavazos, and Bruce Sterling⁴. You can read about it in the first ever issue of EFF-Austin WORD. It was my birthday and I was 17 years old.

A few weeks later we all went out and saw an EFF-Austin sponsored screening of Sneakers, one of the great underrated films. It stars Robert Redford, Sydney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, James Earl Jones, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, and Mary McDonnell. My earliest recorded Usenet post was about the film. That Usenet post is chock full of early (Austin) Internet artifacts. I took my handle, Hagbard, from the main character of The Illuminatus Trilogy by Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea. Back then, because of the still fragmented nature of the Internet, we didn't just have an email address. In my sig I had a UUCP, ARPANET (on a dot-mil domain!), and Prodigy address too. The moderator of my post was Prentiss Riddle, another fixture of the Austin BBS and electronic civil liberties scene.

On March 12, 1993, I sat in a federal courtroom and watched as District Judge Sam Sparks found in favor of Steve Jackson Games and awarded the plaintiffs $52,000 in damages, citing lost profits and a violation of the Privacy Protection Act by the US Secret Service. Steve Jackson³ and his counsel were there, as were agents and representatives of the US Secret Service. It has often been referred to as a landmark case that established the limits of law enforcement power over digital communications. I remember seeing Paco Xander Nathan there. He was covering the case for Wired. My friends were originally turned away by the bailiff because we had come wearing blue jeans, which was apparently unacceptable in Judge Sparks' courtroom. We went home and made a quick change to make it back in time for the decision.

At the time, I had no idea that the threads of my life were woven together with some of the pivotal events and people that would come to define the early history of the Internet and the EFF. Some of it I didn't even remember, and I learned of my involvement from archived written accounts while researching this post (thank you, Google). This post is longer than any I've written, and I've left out a lot. I guess that's what happens when you chronicle some portion of your life. Twenty years from now, when I've forgotten it all over again, I'll be able to come back here and remember.

Footnotes:

1. "We cannot unduly inhibit the inquisitive 13-year-old who, if left to experiment today, may tomorrow develop the telecommunications or computer technology to lead the United States into the 21st century. He represents our future and our best hope to remain a technologically competitive nation." - Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) in 1990

2. Also raided on that day was the home of Chris Goggans, aka Erik Bloodaxe, who was the editor of Phrack Magazine. Chris was a founding member of the Legion of Doom hacker group and he also lived in Texas. No charges were filed.

3. Two other bits of my life trivia in regards to Steve Jackson: I once played Steve's Illuminati card game with him at my high school and Steve was the first to ever pay me for my writing when he published a page I had created for his extended version of the Principia Discordia. If you have a copy, mine is the Discordian Blessing. Fnord.

4. Bruce Sterling and I chatted at this event (the EFF-Austin Cyberdawg) and then again some years later during a party at his home. He had a video of a Rube Goldberg machine running endlessly on his TV. I impressed a number of people with my toothpick fork salt shaker balancing sculpture.

A Giving Phase

2007-04-02T15:20:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 2005, I created the Moon Phase widget for OS X Dashboard. I've written about it before.

The widget has a donation button on it which, if clicked upon, takes people to a donations page. Generous people from around the world have donated through that page, much more than I ever imagined, and I am grateful for it.

Now that I've been collecting donations for a while, I've noticed a trend. Donations tend to arrive when the Moon is full. A few more match up to when the opposite occurs - a New Moon. My guess is that people are noticing the widget when it appears different than it usually does, with some part illuminated and some part in darkness. This only happens twice a month, so the novelty is infrequent.

Many people find astrology fascinating, though it is rooted in fantasy. I find it fascinating when other objects beyond Earth actually do impact our behavior and lives. That people think to kindly send me some of their money when the Moon happens to be opposite of the Sun is just plain cool.

NASA Tests Moon Hab

2007-02-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

NASA will begin testing a two-room, inflatable building that will be a model for its planned base on the moon.

NASA Tests Moon Building - CNET

It's good to see NASA finally getting its act together and doing some real, practical research into the area of long-term human habitation on the surface of other worlds. Too bad they are late to the party and are pursuing the wrong target.

The Mars Society has been operating its Flashline Mars Arctic Research Station in the desolate wastelands of the Canadian Arctic for over six years. It has been operating its Mars Desert Research Station in Utah for almost five years. Both are run under full simulation conditions: crew members must wear space suits when outside and radio communications are delayed to simulate light travel time between Earth and Mars. Scientists from all over the world have participated on crews and have conducted valuable research into off-world exploration and habitation.

One of these habs looks like an actual research facility where work gets done and the other looks like an exhibit from EPCOT Center.

Google Apps: On In 60 Seconds

2007-02-22T06:09:00.000-08:00

Hooray For Gregory Peck's Ass!

2007-01-20T10:44:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine pointed out to me not long ago that I am mentioned in a biography about Gregory Peck.

I am mentioned following a droll anecdote about Mr. Peck, Isaac Stern, and Jane Fonda. I shit you not:

Isaac Stern recalled 'the time when we were together in the South of France, drinking a great deal, being rowdy, throwing plates in a restaurant and breaking them.' At that, Jane Fonda clutched her hand to her chest in awe. 'He's done it all. By God, he's even broken plates with Isaac Stern!'

Better than that, Greg had the singular distinction of becoming the subject of a zany, Marx Brothers sketch comedy titled Hooray for Gregory Peck's Ass! Jon Wiley, one of the troupe's principals, decided to send him a copy of their script for comments. 'We looked up his address on one of those maps of Hollywood stars' homes,' recollected Wiley.

'What can I say,' Greg replied. 'Other honors and accolades pale by comparison. Hooray for Gregory Peck's Ass! is the solacement of my later years.'

The name of our troupe was Only Ninety Percent Effective. Mr. Peck wrote us a letter, which you may read.

In-House Design Panel at SXSW Interactive 2007

2006-12-16T05:57:00.000-08:00

On March 12, 2007 I will be moderating a panel for SXSW Interactive called How To Create A Kick-Ass In-House Design Team and I'm very excited about it. I have lined up some truly kick-ass panelists and I think it is going to be a lot of fun.

Having attended several SXSW Interactive conferences over the years, I noted that much of the conference tended to cater more to agency designers. I think that had a lot to do with the background of the presenters, because the audience for SXSW is fairly well distributed. I decided to address that imbalance by presenting a panel specifically for in-house designers.

The panel will address challenges faced by in-house design teams, large and small, and the unique opportunities that in-house design teams have to shape a company's products, brand, and strategy. My vision for the panel is for it to be heavy on practice and light on theory. For the panel, I wanted people who've really gotten their hands dirty building great in-house teams, and who continue to make great teams even better. The panelists:

Lisa C. Anderson, Director of User Experience for the Small Business Division of Intuit

Irene Au, Director of User Experience for Google

Ed Garaña, Creative Services Manager for Hoover's

Tjeerd Hoek, Director of User Experience for Windows at Microsoft

Given that line-up, I suppose I could have easily called the panel User Experience For Fun And Profit. Perhaps we'll host an after-panel.

If there is anything you think should specifically be addressed by the panelists, leave a comment. Otherwise, see you in March!

NASA To Build Giant White Elephant On Moon

2006-12-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

Permanent moon base planned: NASA wants to start building way station for Mars voyages near south pole by 2024

Following in the footsteps of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, NASA has announced it will be constructing yet another ridiculous boondoggle on the surface of the Moon.

NASA's reasons for returning humans to the Moon are baffling. For each of the reasons given, Mars is clearly the better destination.

Human Civilization - Extend human presence to the Moon to enable eventual settlement.

Human settlement beyond Earth is all well and good, eggs in one basket and all that, but Luna shouldn't be at the top of anyone's list for places in Sol System to live. It has no atmosphere, crazy radiation, and very little water. Mars has an atmosphere, less-crazy radiation, and lots of water. Mars also doesn't suffer from that two weeks of complete darkness problem.

Yeah, yeah, I know, put the base in permanent sunlight at a pole and mine (theoretical) water in a nearby crater. That's some settlement, yup.

Scientific Knowledge - Pursue scientific activities that address fundamental questions about the history of Earth, the solar system and the universe - and about our place in them.

NASA is trying to make the comparative planetology argument here, but it doesn't fly. Scientifically, the Moon is good for one thing: radio astronomy. We can build a huge radio telescope on the far side in a big crater using materials mined from the regolith. But that can be automated. Geology is important, yes, but robots can do that, too.

If you really care about "fundamental questions about the history of Earth, the solar system and the universe - and about our place in them," then Mars is the place to be. Mars is great for comparative planetology because it has a number of similarities to Earth - many more than Luna. Additionally, Mars may be a destination for paleontology and, perhaps, astrobiology. The Moon can't even come close to that claim.

Exploration Preparation - Test technologies, systems, flight operations and exploration techniques to reduce the risks and increase the productivity of future missions to Mars and beyond.

This one is, I think, the most egregious. It implies a couple of things that are just plain wrong. One is that we need to use the Moon as some kind of waypoint between Earth and Mars. This is criminally stupid. Imagine gasoline cost $10,000 per gallon and you had to drive from Houston to Chicago. You wouldn't stop to rest in Seattle along the way, would you? But that is exactly what NASA expects us to do.

Space travel is expensive and it requires a lot of energy. This energy is typically expressed in terms of delta-v, the change in velocity one needs to make to get from point A to B. As Newton explained to us, things in motion tend to stay in motion, so stopping at the Moon before we head to Mars is a bad idea. It takes a lot more energy to leave Earth, land on the Moon, leave the Moon, and land on Mars than it does simply to go from Earth to Mars.

In fact, it takes less energy to get to Mars' surface from Earth's surface than from Earth's surface to the Moon's surface. This is counterintuitive, because the Moon is closer, but distance has little to do with it. It is the gravity well that is important. And while Mars has a deeper well to descend into, it has an atmosphere: free brakes!

If you are going to test exploration techniques for Mars, you should do it in an environment analogous to Mars. Luna ain't it.

Global Partnerships - Provide a challenging, shared and peaceful activity that unites nations in pursuit of common objectives.

Blah, blah, blah. Too bad nobody called Russia first, because they forgot to put the Moon down as a line item in the budget. And I'm sure China is so excited to share.

Economic Expansion - Expand Earth's economic sphere, and conduct lunar activities with benefits to life on the home planet.

Yes, perhaps we'll have cracked the fusion problem by 2024 and we'll be hunting for some helium-3. I won't be holding my breath. If NASA is serious about economic expansion (or, really, about any of these issues), they'd crank up an Apollo-style program to build a space elevator instead.

Public Engagement - Use a vibrant space exploration program to engage the public, encourage students and help develop the high-tech workforce that will be required to address the challenges of tomorrow.

To boldly go where we've been before, yup, that'll engage 'em. These "challenges of tomorrow" were challenges in 1960 and were solved nine years later. Since then, we've been going around in circles and they're asking for another 15 years to go back. For the money we've spent on Iraq, even I could be living on Mars right now.

I was working on becoming an astronaut up until my sophomore year of college. I'm glad I changed direction, because I would be going nowhere very, very fast if I hadn't.

UPDATE: The New York Times shares my opinion in this matter.

Driving In The Bay Area

2006-12-02T05:40:00.000-08:00

As a recent transplant to the Bay Area of California, I've come to notice some differences. One of the most striking is that entry and exit ramps for freeways are typically not placed where I expect them to be. In Texas, if I'm on the west side of a freeway and I wish to go north, I need to cross the freeway and make a left turn towards the north. This will lead to an entry ramp where I can get on the freeway.

In California, this is rarely the case. Instead, you would cross the freeway and make a right turn heading south. This puts you on a great circle which winds around and drops you quickly onto the freeway, heading north - the opposite direction that you had to turn.

Sometimes it plays out as I described for the method in Texas, but you never know beforehand unless you are familiar with the junction. My expectation to make a left turn, when that was the direction I wanted to go, initially had me in the wrong lane on several occasions causing me to have to make a mad scramble to the right hand side of the road. But sometimes it is on the left. So very odd.

The reason for this right-turn-to-go-left business, I figured out, is because there are no frontage roads for freeways in California. Frontage roads are so common in Texas that there is even a Wikipedia entry about them specifically. It is just something I'll have to get used to - when in Rome, and all that. There are benefits. The freeway isn't lined with the traffic-inducing sprawl of businesses clamoring for my attention and there is more room for lanes.

Another difference I've noticed is that there really isn't a fast lane. In Texas, the left lane is reserved for passing only, though it doesn't really play out that way. Still, the fastest traffic is most commonly in the left lane and passing is done on the left. Not so, here in California. Cars traveling at a variety of speeds can be found in any given lane. I have been passed a number of times on the right, even when the left lane was completely open and it wasn't designated as a carpool lane. I am not a slow driver.

There are no gas stations in the area where I live. I have to drive a ways before I find one. In Texas they blanket each corner of an intersection. We do love our petroleum products in Texas. Maybe I'll give up my gas guzzling Xterra for a hybrid. That said, my commute is shorter and the view is more pleasant than the one I had previously.

Finally, In-N-Out is awesome, but it's no Whataburger.

Mokai Gravity Canyon

2006-11-06T04:35:00.000-08:00

While Diana and I were in New Zealand last month, Diana went bungy jumping and we both took a ride on the Flying Fox. Both activities took place at Mokai Gravity Canyon. Here are the videos:

Going to Google

2006-11-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

This month, I begin a new job working as a User Experience Designer for Google. I am terribly excited.

A little over a year ago, I wrote about how I had adopted a number of Google products for my everyday needs. I mentioned Google Reader, GMail, and personalized search. Since that time, I have also become a fan of Google Analytics, Google Earth, Google Adsense, Google Maps, Google Video, and Google Calendar. As a passionate user of Google products, I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am to know that I will soon be contributing to those products.

For over two and a half years I have worked for Hoover's. Hoover's has been the best place for which I've ever worked. The people at Hoover's rock and I am proud of the work I've done there and the opportunity that Hoover's provided me. And even if we often had to explain to people that we didn't sell vacuum cleaners or chicken-fried steak, we were busy creating some truly kick-ass products. Only a place like Google could have lured me away.

Interviewing with Google is famously intense. Sending my resume to Google felt like buying a lottery ticket. Graduating to the next step in the interview process is not unlike having your numbers appear, one by one, on the television screen. As you get closer to the end, the stakes go up and emotions run high. When the call finally comes, you can hardly believe it. Boom - your life is changed.

The decision to leave Hoover's wasn't an easy one. I wasn't really looking to leave when I applied to Google. Many of my friends scoffed when I tried to explain my difficulty. "It's Google," they would say, every one of them, with this sort of "what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-you" emphasis in their voice.

Typically, in my life, I make snap decisions. I tend to feel that making a decision is better than not, even if my decision turns out to be a poor one. I believe this because, for me, poor decisions have a way of working themselves out anyway and I learn from the experience. But I recognized that I had an opportunity to deliberate a bit on this one, and so I gave it a great deal of thought. That I decided to do what I would certainly have done had I made a snap decision doesn't invalidate that process, but I don't think I've gotten religion on the need for careful consideration, either.

What will I be working on? I have no idea. But I can point you to this design exercise I did as part of the interview process wherein I redesigned a Google Video page. I had a great time doing that and I'm really looking forward to designing Google products for real.