• Buxton: Jobs revived Apple with people already employed there, such as Jonathan Ives. The culture needed changing, not the people.
• Gerken et al present method called Concept Maps to elicit developer’s mental model of API. A related resource: apiusability.org
• Missed Wrangler (creating data transformation scripts interactively), but saw Jeff Heer’s BayCHI talk on it. Good stuff!
• Substance introduces data-oriented paradigm: data is tree of nodes, facets are behavior that can migrate from node-node
• Shared Substance is a framework on top of Substance for multi-display apps, supports service-oriented and shared state.
• For lunch: Japanese-style hot dog (Kurobuta pork, mayo, teriyaki, seaweed) and shio ramen. Made possible by not eating breakfast.

Ethan Zimmerman’s closing plenary: Desperately Seeking Serendipity

• People move to cities partly because it’s less boring and there’s more choice
• Cities seem to provide more chances for serendipity, but people tend to stick to others similar to them (homophily)
• Media consumption also very local. >90% read media in their own country. Leads to Tunisia revolution not well covered.
• For serendipity, people must be prepared to take advantage of chances, and structures should be in place to create them.
• What lessons about serendipity can we learn from cities and apply virtually?
• Worth reading the “extended dance mix” of Ethan Zimmerman’s keynote. Only problem: you can’t hear him deliver it.

And finally:

• Nirmal Patel: “Updated online CHI program so each paper has a link to the ACM DL page.”

• Saw and enjoyed last 3 papers of Photo Sharing session, especially Jones and O’Neill on relationship of photo metadata and sharing
• Will definitely discuss web credibility papers back at work. Need to read other 2 papers in that session.
• Not tweeting much during CHI 2011 itself: the wi-fi is totally overloaded so I can’t connect
• Larry Tesler’s talk was great. I knew he’s hugely important in HCI; I didn’t know he essentially invented cut/paste.
• Kumar et al’s Bricolage (applying existing website’s design to other sites) normalizes DOM. Can see this work applied to lots of other areas
• HyperSource by Bjoern Hartmann et al annotates lines of source code with related web browsing history. #want
• Wondering how HyperSource can scale up, e.g., web page on design pattern affects many lines of code
• Great to see utility of HCI work by Michael Toomim presented at CHI 2011. Eager to see how this work goes from here. +1 for soothing music.
• Bakke et al adds data types, arrays, references to spreadsheets, allowing them to natively model 1-to-many, many-to-many relationships

• Freed looks like an interesting system for creating multiple views of a collection of digital objects (Mendels et al)
• Odom et al: great discussion on the relationship of physical and virtual possessions, including metadata and perceived value

• Enjoyed talk by Leah Findlater on non-parametric factorial analysis techniques. Just the right depth for a CHI talk.
• Didn’t go to many talks today at CHI 2011, a lot of schmoozing instead. Also, I must be getting old, greasy food getting to me.

Here are my Twitter posts on the first day of my trip to CHI 2011, which was held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

• At SFO Terminal 3. Longest security line I’ve seen in years. I better make my flight, which leaves in 1 hour.
• @tsatracker SFO Terminal 3 economy security: 24 minute wait
• At YVR curbside, waiting for my cousin to pick me up. The smokers are ignoring the designated smoking area, yuck.
• Eating lunch at a Taiwanese restaurant with my cousin in Richmond. Traffic here is horrible. SkyTrain would have been faster.
• Visited Granville Island, a great public space filled with art studios, shops, and a food market. Couldn’t resist buying maple caramels.
• Had more Taiwanese food for dinner to go along with lunch. Pork hock: sounds so odd, tastes so good.
• CHI 2011 iPhone app requires iOS 4.2. No way I’m using 4.2 on my iPhone 3G. Should have brought my Nexus One.

• James Landay: “Nice profile of Scott Klemmer’s work in Technology Review: Tools for Better Web Design”
• Watch President Obama announce the death of Osama bin Laden: MSNBC
• [May 1] Osama’s death have prompted huge crowds to gather at World Trade Ctr. (Wall Street Journal) Hard to believe I was there <36 hrs ago.
• Sadat Shami: “Interactive map of emotional reactions and the perceived significance on the war on terror after Bin Laden’s death” (New York Times)
• Overrrated Outcast: “We still haven’t seen Sarah Palin’s high school diploma.”
• Keir Clarke: “Washington Post Map of the American Civil War. I can’t believe how much work has gone into this animated time-line map.”
• New York Times: Intel Increases Transistor Speed by Building Upward. James Landay adds: “This will be more important than people say.”
• “Henry Kissinger”: “I asked Palin for her thoughts on secularism in Turkey. She said she only eats poultry from ‘God-fearing farmers’. #GiveMeStrength”
• Overthinking It: The economics of Death Star planet destruction (via Daring Fireball)
• Why is c the symbol for the speed of light? (Physics FAQ)
• Google at CHI 2011 (via Ed Chi )
• Another sweet stop-motion video: 2000 photos of Paris
• A reminder to all Americans going to CHI 2011: Canada is a foreign country. Don’t forget your passport.

Saturday, April 23

• When setting your alarm for a morning flight, make sure it’s set for AM, not PM. Parked in short term and just made it.
• Don’t remember so many NYC subway service notices, but managed to get to the hotel anyway. Late night pizza nearby for dinner.

Sunday, April 24

• For brunch, meeting up with Sabrina, old HCI/IBM friend, and her husband Steven, who turns out to work for Google! Small world.
• Awesome brunch at Balthazar in SoHo. Eggs Norwegian with smoked salmon and hollandaise. We got lucky: no wait!
• Visited the Morgan Library, as in JP Morgan. Amazing collection and buildings. They have 3 Gutenberg bibles!
• Surprised the ice skating rink is still up at Rockefeller Center
• It was beautiful earlier today, but now it’s a downpour. Luckily we have umbrellas. Yay NYC weather.
• For dinner, had the best pastrami at Katz’s Deli. I always make a trip there when I go to NY.

Tuesday, April 26

• I keep forgetting how much humidity affects how warm it feels. 70º in NY easily feels 5–10º warmer than in SF.
• I also don’t feel the need to wear sunglasses in NY like I do in SF. The sunlight is much more diffuse (humidity? pollution?).

Wednesday, April 27

• New cafe in Google NYC opens today! Gorged on fried calamari.
• The theme of the new Google NYC cafe is street food. There’s an actual food truck in the cafe, serving dessert.

Thursday, April 28

• At a colleague’s apartment west of Midtown. Great views from the roof, and great Turkish food delivered for dinner!

Friday, April 29

• Tried to go to Ippudo for ramen, but the wait was literally 2 hrs. Went to Rai Rai Ken instead, which was solid.
• Vince was still craving pizza, so we went to John’s Pizzeria & got half cheese half sausage. Excellent, highly recommended!

Saturday, April 30

• Amazing hot fresh bagels at Brooklyn Bagel. Didn’t realize they could be so good!
• Visited World Trade Center. Unbelievable number of tourists. Didn’t realize so much of 1 WTC is already built.
• Awesome gelato at L’Art del Gelato in Chelsea Market. This trip has been a home run foodwise.
• LIRR to JFK is a bit more than the subway but 20-30 mins faster. And both are MUCH cheaper than a taxi.

• Thou Shalt Not Be Colloquial: why the King James Bible endures (New York Times)
• Sadat Shami: “Awesome overview of the New York Times’ R&D Lab’s Project Cascade – a tool to explore the life stories in social spaces” (Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard)
• @StartupJesus: “Googling ‘Torture + Friday’ used to return hits about Good Friday, my day of torture on the cross. Now you just get hits for Rebecca Black.”
• My heart goes out to the victims of the tornadoes in the South. What a horrible disaster. redcross.org

• Sadat Shami: “Giving up tenure… and getting happiness in return? Reflections from someone who did” (The Scientist via Nick Diakopoulos)
• I think I’ll get a standing desk (New York Times)
• Jeffrey Bigham: “How languages may have diffused from Africa, modeling phonemes” (New York Times)
• Boris Smus: “Allow me to explain sorting algorithms through interpretive dance” (YouTube via Pamela Fox)
• This collaboration of cellist Yo-Yo Ma and street dancer Lil Buck is amazing (YouTube)
• Looks like the folks at Red Hat are creating their own JVM language called Ceylon (Ars Technica)
• Sandra Kogan: “Walmart’s $1.85 billion mistake. They relied on what customers said in a survey versus what they actually do.” (Phil Terry)
• Dilbert creator Scott Adams: Forget art history and calculus. Most students need to learn how to run a business. (Wall Street Journal)
• Mugizi Rwebangira: “How to fool yourself into working harder” (Dextronet)
• Impressed by Ovi Maps 3D. Besides buildings, trees and overpasses in suburban Silicon Valley are also 3D.
• Republicans paying $575 an hour to defend Defense of Marriage Act (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Sadat Shami: “Google Map Maker allows you to add your local knowledge to a map [currently for the United States only]”
• Kayur Patel: “1998 Onion article on streaming video. It’s more interesting than funny in today’s Netflix age.”
• Frog Design and design innovation in China (Forbes via James Landay)
• Can a complete novice become a golf pro with 10,000 hours of practice? (St. Petersburg Times via Lynn Wu)
• John Regehr: “‘Facts have no meaning on the Internet.’ —Thomas Jefferson”
• Boyce Avenue not only covered Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream,” they subtly changed some of the lyrics: YouTube video
• Intrigued by Hyde, a static website generator in Python and Django by Lakshmi Vyas. Boris Smus switched his blog to it.
• xkcd: Seismic Waves
• Mike Lee: “So busy bitching about iPhone location logs I forgot to check in on Foursquare”
• The joy of mapping a 2D image on to a 3D terrain model (The Map Room)
• Cities build airport cities — ‘aerotropolises’ — for growth (USA Today via Sara Galligan)
• Sadat Shami: “BO.LT is a web-based tool that enables people to quickly, without code, remix the content presented on a website” (Huffington Post)
• Madhu Prabaker: “Interesting new approach to metered parking in San Francisco. sfpark.org”
• Sadat Shami: “Recommendation service Hunch revisits the Mac vs. PC debate with this infographic based on their users”
• The Onion: ‘The Economist’ To Halt Production For Month To Let Readers Catch Up