Congrats to my dad who hit a hole-in-one today! I was a 165 yard par 3 on his home course. It was his fourth hole-in-one. I'm still waiting for my first hole-in-one. Of course, I probably need to play golf once in a while to improve my odds.

Anyway, good job, Dad!

I know everyone has already linked to this, but it's so cool I wanted to make sure everyone saw it. Some guys at the University of Toronto have built a cool desktop UI prototype based on more physical, real-world interaction.

I have lots of reservations about how useful it would be as is. There are a lot of risks and pitfalls building user interfaces that too literally mimic real world metaphors. The limitations of the computer interaction model prevent the metaphors from really feeling the way users might expect; it's also silly to not take advantage of the properties of the computer to advantage the user and reduce some of the problems in the real world (note, the BumpTop stuff does actually do a reasonable job of this.)

Still, there are lots of neat ideas here, and I can't deny the beauty and fun factor this prototype demonstrate (very important too). Judge for yourself. (BTW, it's cool to see TabletPCs getting used this way.)

BumpTop Prototype

Michelle sent me this fun Flash animation. Check it out! (Looks like there's a bunch of other stuff worth checking out there too.)

Animator vs. Animation on Albino Blacksheep. (Be sure the click the "Play" button in the animation. At least one friend who shall remain anonymous asked "Is there anything besides this tool to see?")

I took the kids to see the Science Fiction Museum today. This is Paul Allen's museum in the Experience Music Project building. This was the first time any of us had been to the museum.

The collections are pretty impressive for the genre. They have some cool costumes and props from movies and shows like the Twiki costume from Buck Rogers and a great collection of Star Trek weapons and even Kirk's command chair from the original Enterprise. The best part for all of us was the Spacedock, a super well done exhibit of famous spacecraft from different sci fi shows and movies. It really felt like we were looking out on a spacedock; the displays they used for more information were super well done too with these slick dual layered displays. Hard to describe; worth seeing.

As a family, it was only OK. As I've mentioned before, the boys are crazy about Star Wars. There was just enough Star Wars stuff in the museum to keep them from totally rebelling against the visit, but much of the place was dedicated to science fiction from my generation and earlier. What's more, there are very few interactive displays, so kids who can't read much yet (e.g. Michael) or have short attention spans (e.g. Andrew) will not find the place very interesting. The whole place is unnecessarily dark and a little spooky too. I think it would have been more fun to be there by myself, frankly, but even then.

While we were at SFM, Michelle went to check out the DoubleTake show at EMP. (I had taken Andrew to see this with his class a few weeks ago.) This is a showing of some of Paul Allen's private art collection (doesn't everyone have Monet, Lichtenstein, Degas, Rothko, Picasso, van Gogh, etc. hanging around their home?) While the pieces themselves were great, the interesting part of this exhibit is how they have the art arranged. They've paired (in some cases tripled) art together to illustrate some theme, either contrasting treatment of simliar themes or showing similarities across eras and artists. I've never been good at viewing art, but this was a great way to get me to think harder about what I was seeing. (Loved Richter's Candle.)

Neither the SFM or DoubleTake exhibits were very large, so you could easily to do both in a morning or afternoon. In both cases I felt that while there was some amazing/interesting stuff and the exhibits were well done, these weren't great values. They're definitely not great for families with little kids. That said, if you like art at all, go see paintings at DoubleTake. You're unlikely to see so many paintings from such prominent artists in Seattle again.

This video is absolutely rofl hysterical, at least if you're a Star Wars geek.

Thanks, Craig.

I just came across this new sailboat called the Flying Tiger 10. It's a 10m raceboat built in China for $44,000 -- about half of what a comparable boat built in America would cost. It fits in a single container, and the steel cradle can be turned into a trailer. Perhaps the most interesting thing though, is that this boat was designed by a set of folks collaborating via blog and wiki. Boat designer Robert Perry and Bill Stevens posted about the idea on Sailing Anarchy. Pretty soon people started showing interest, making suggestions, and putting down money for the boats, sight unseen. Over fifty boats have been sold so far, all over the Internet as far as I can tell; there are no dealers (unusual for boats). You can read more about this in article from Sailing World.

It's neat to see how these web collaboration principles are moving out of purely electronic products into the "real world". The boat looks good too. I'm really boaty these days after we sold our Tartan 3500 Trinket. Looks like there have been ten sold to the Washington area. Wonder if we'll have enough for a class start? $44K sounds like a good price...

According to PersonalDNA.com, I'm an Attentive Analyst. This is in contrast to Sean Lyndersay and Chris Wilson (both on my team) who are both Benevolent Leaders. I guess I should be working for them instead of the other way around.

You can read more detail about my burdens as an Attentive Analyst here.

Good fun.

Dork
Fib
Poems.
Totally
Loser way to write.
Kind of funny in a sad way.

A Fib is a poem where the number of syllables per line corresponds to the consecutive numbers of the Fibonacci sequence. Amazingly dorky yet amusing. Thanks to John to pointing this out.

One of the pages John links off to had a better love Fib.

A
Rose
Withers,
Jewelry
Goes out of fashion,
Chocolate melts in hand or mouth,
But the Fibonacci sequence goes on forever.

OK readers: let's see your Fibs!

Michelle pointed this funny t-shirt out to me. She found it on one of her favorite blogs -- Little, Yellow, Different (no, there's no connection to my private parts here...)

Regardless of how you feel about guns, I think everyone would agree that if you choose to own a gun, you should be trained in its safe and effective use. I learned to shoot at Insights Training Center and have nothing but good things to say about the school and Greg Hamilton, the founder and chief instructor. The system they teach is very logical and thought through. It truly is a system that integrates the same principles through unarmed, knife, handgun, and long arm self-defense. One bit of evidence of the quality of the program has been two championships and multiple top five finishes for Greg, his instructors, and students at the National Tactical Invitational.

Even if you don't choose to own a gun, it probably isn't a bad idea to learn how to handle them safely. Of course, there are a lot of classes from Insights that aren't firearm related as well including unarmed, folding knife, pepper spray, and others.

One of the things that appealed to me most about Insights is that Greg takes a very pragmatic and unglamorous view of guns and self-defense. For instance, in the first General Defensive Handgun class, when we were all on the firing line, Greg said that if he had this druthers, we'd spend the whole class running away as soon as he blew the whistle because that was the best way to handle a fight; of course, he knew we'd be upset about spending two days and few hundred dollars running sprints. He also warned that a defensive shooting would probably ruin your life emotionally and financially; there is nothing heroic or appealing about shooting someone else. It would simply the be price of protecting yourself and your family.

The classes are also just plain fun. There aren't too many other places you get to move around, yell, and shoot thousands of rounds in a safe environment. I haven't taken the unarmed class yet, but friends who have said it was a hoot to be able to hit someone (in a padded suit) full force.

I already use the learnings from Insights everyday; I am much more aware of my surroundings and take simple precautions like locking my car doors as soon as everyone is in. As a result, I hope I'll never have to use any of the more violent lessons from Insights, but I'm happy to have the option to do so if the time comes.

Insights Training Center

[post edited 4/10/2006 to correct a glaring typo]