see a puffin eat a fish

After close to a a year of manually entering ssh credentials to connect to four different hosts ( + constantly getting logged out when the wireless dies or the remote host times out) I decided to finally take the time to figure out how to get openssh running on os x so I could ssh without a password. I got the key pairs working but still had the problem of being prompted for my key password which wasn’t any better than getting prompted for my remote host password. Turns out I also needed to run SSHAgent, a program that keeps my passwords in memory and has the best icon ever – an unphased blowfish going to work.

I’m picking up Anna’s sister from the airport today and her flight has already been delayed for two hours since the decider is fundraising for his base down the street from my work. Major highways closed for his motorcade, traffic everywhere, it’s a real party. So i’m hitting refresh on the Alaska Airlines site, keeping an eye on her ETA, when the time of departure changes from a timestamp to a link. Clicking on it I see this:

Real time plane location! I love it.

Tomorrow is Rob’s last day at Microsoft, he’s one of the first ITPers to go back home. It’s a good time for an update.

I have about a month left at Microsoft, after that a few weeks more in Seattle and then we drive back east. Demetrie and Rob have been hard at work using Google MyMaps (we say Microsoft Virtual Earth whenever anyone is in ear shot) to plan our drive back. Then it’s time to make some decisions about my post ITP life. It’s going to be cool, whatever it is. I’ve met so many great people along the way we’re bound to do something incredible. Just as long as we don’t settle.

My two main projects at Microsoft are a persuasive game for ad-hoc networks and interfacing with Boku, an xbox game that teaches kids programming. The persuasive game project is at the analysis and data visualization stage while the technology we built for Boku will be put to use in the next few weeks as testers start creating content for the game. Along the way and in spite of myself, I have to say i’ve gotten pretty deep into .net, web standards/services and now have a cursory understanding of XNA. The community components Demetrie and I have built are now so ingrained in the xbox application that it will not build if our services don’t respond. How’s that for impact? Oftentimes interns are off on their own but even as I write this, at MSR there are full time Microsoft employees who can’t do a build unless my stuff is up. Feels like i’m making a real contribution.

I’ll put up screen shots of these projects later. I’m way behind on photos.

Seattle has been a good time. Anna has been sewing up a storm and we’re planning on camping in a rain forest in a few weeks. We have also been doing our best to make the weekly screenings from the Jacques Tate festival. Miss everyone and can’t wait to get back!

Also I have to say — what is up with Facebook? My old coworkers are on facebook, my present boss, my friends in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s my friend’s 18 year old son, my colleagues, the ITP alums, everyone is on Facebook. I don’t think i’ve seen a social network have such a strong attraction to everyone I know or have ever known. Something is going on.

(Ipod anti-theft case in the form of a zune sleeve)

Today Microsoft gave me a Zune! Now I know i’m going to get flack for having ‘the social‘ (sounds like some unfortunate disease) but it was still really nice of Microsoft to give me one. Even if I don’t use it for its intended purposes (I don’t even think I can use it with a mac) I now have a handheld device with a 3″ screen, a 30 gig hard drive and wi-fi! I am woefully uninformed when it comes to the Zune but i’m sure something interesting will come of this acquisition.

Last week I got to spend some time with Jim Gemmell of the MyLifeBits project pioneered by Gordon Bell. We talked a bit about where I was going with the WayMarkr project and my experience running a life blogging application. The cool thing is I got to see first hand some of the multimedia screen savers describe in the recent New Yorker article about Bell. In fact while I was showing Jim my work, I think it was being recorded into his life stream. Very neat. The above animated gif was grabbed from their website.

I’ve also had the opportunity to assist on some user experience testing in an actual lab like the kind Yelena showed me at her office. One way mirror, screen video recording, ominous voice coming over the loud speaker, the works. I’ve been making things with computers for years but this was my first experience actually seeing someone external to the company use something I have built. Very surreal and a humbling experience everyone should go through.

Finally, today was the Design Expo, a design presentation showcasing the winning projects from 7 major design schools (including ITP). I’ve always consider ITP to be off to the side with respect to conventional design schools and systems of critique so it was interesting to see the ITP group present alongside groups from Carnegie Mellon, Hong Kong and Brazil among others. The ITP group came up with a Tamagotchi like device where your virtual character gains strength and skills as you physically exercise. The device is (of course) networkable but what’s more interesting is your character also gains strength if your parent matches your exercise regiment. 80% of overweight kids have at least one overweight parent.

The group from India devised a game which discouraged smoking during break time for call center employees. The game’s villains were the ’smokidemon’ which reminded me of QuitNet’s Nicodemon.

The image above is of a napkin we passed back and forth cataloguing the amazing quotes from the expo.