factor my bling

In a story parallel to that of the “World of Goo” creators (excellent Wii game, btw, completely different subject), my friend Kenny is trying to get an online business going with a help of his web-savy developer friend. The idea is fairly novel – they collect salary information from those who sign up, and let users input as many personal attributes as they wish. By doing so, users can find out, for instance, what the average salary of a Tufts grad is – or, if they would've made more money if they were a foot taller.

I've given them tips on the usability aspect of things, and can say that I'm genuinely impressed with the results. They've already solved some significant technical problems, like how to deal with incomplete data sets, and how to anonymize the data effectively.

Kenny & Co. recently went through the alpha launch, so feel free to check out the results of their labor on Blingfactor.com. Go ahead, sign up, look around, and let me know what you think.

v-day recap

Ah yes, the Hallmark holiday you just can't skip - Valentine's Day... Susan and I are developing a tradition of sorts, where we go to Spanish-type restaurants every Feb. 14th (Mexican counts, right?) This time, we ended up going to Dali's, a tapas place, which proved to be ground zero for romance - judging from the never ending line outside.

Here's a picture of Susan enjoying garlic shrimp, scallops in butter sauce, and squid in its own ink - yum! The food was really good:

But, that's not all that the Mrs. got. At home, there was a brand-new shoe closet waiting for her:

Well, OK, it wasn't really a surprise, because the Mrs. helped put up the shelves. Still, Jonas, eat your heart out ;P

sign me up!

As soon as CHI announced that their next conference will be in Boston, it was pretty clear where my annual educational outing will take me in 2009. Early registration is now open, so I signed up today.

Now, if your boss needs some additional encouragement to sign off on your travel plans, let him/her know that you can get a $200 discount off of the registration rate by becoming a SIGCHI member (which costs $55). If the corporate powers refuse to pay for the hotel, let’s talk – I should have room in casa Stusan. If there’s no money in the travel budget, hitchhike. Point is, get your bum over to Boston & get schooled ;)

P.S. Oh yeah, did I mention that Judy Olson will be the opening speaker? Even if she did leave SI for the greener pastures of Irvine, you can bet that she'll start things off on the right foot.