Asymptomatic

There must be intelligent life down here

They Gave Me the Chair
June 13, 2007

I spend a lot of time in front of the computer. I like to attribute this to my job, but I expect that even if I wasn’t being paid for it, I’d still spend a lot of time there.

Something to consider when you spend as much time as I do using a computer is comfort. To enable myself to continue using the computer without pain, I’ve taken some steps to be as comfortable as I can.

An ergonomic keyboard and mouse are standard equipment on my desk. Likewise, I use a mouse wrist rest to relieve some of the stress from the frequent use of the mouse. Most people keep their monitors directly on their desks any more, but I make a point to keep my monitors low to avoid neck strain. One area that I have not spent as much time considering as I should is my chair.

I’ve been sitting on this old chair from Staples for a few years now. It’s not a bad chair on the whole, and as a home chair for the desk it’s fine. The trouble is, since I’ve started working at home, I’ve been sitting in it day-in and day-out for months, and it has taken its toll on my back. So I started a hunt for a good office chair.

Art for the House
June 08, 2007

Our house has a lot of bare walls. I think that we don’t know how to decorate. One thing that we’ve thought we could do is get some art to hang around. As it turns out, art is hard.

Recently Abby’s elementary school held a student art exhibition. They’ve been creating art all year based on classical works. One of the artists they were emulating was Piet Mondrian. I knew of Mondrian from his strange paintings of primary-colored straight lines and boxes, but I did not know of anything else he had painted. When I saw his “Grey Tree” exemplar among the 2nd-grade recreations, I was struck by it in a way that I had not thought about art before.

Mac Ads
June 08, 2007

I don’t think I’ve said anything about this, because hey, who wants to start a holy war, right? But I’ve seen just one too many of those Mac ads, and they deserve comment.

Yes, they are funny. Ok. Let’s just go past that to what’s bothering me.

Web Design Book Review: Community Building on the Web
June 05, 2007

If you know me well enough, you’ll know that I’m a book nut, but not for novels. I like reference books and books on how things work. I’m wired that way.

My latest kick is on web project and interaction design. This incorporates “design” in both common definitions: Designing the layout and graphics of a site to achieve certain goals, and designing the way a site works from behind, including everything from organization of page to software construction. I’ve recently ordered a pile of books covering these topics, because no single book covers the topics I want all in one volume.

Ear Force!
June 04, 2007

I bought 2 pair of new headphones from Amazon recently. They are Turtle Beach’s model Ear Force X2 headsets.

The primary purpose of these headsets is to connect them to an XBox 360 controller as the microphone source. What happens is the headset’s base station, while connected to the Xbox, transmits the game audio to the stereo headset, and the headset’s microphone connects to the controller to send Live chat sound back to the game. It’s a pretty nifty idea, but not why I bought them.