1. The strip is designed to keep you inside casinos. Inside my hotel (the Flamingo, because we information architects like to kick it old-school), every path you can take is designed to take you through or into a casino. The rooms don’t even have those terrible hotel-room coffee makers, which I presume is to get you downstairs, near where you could spend money, without caffeine. It’s bizarrely fascinating.
2. The keynote speaker at the conference has an office literally down the block from where I work. I walk past his building at least a couple of times a week. And yet I don’t think I would ever have just walked in to say hello. Now we’ve exchanged cards, and I’m hoping he or someone from his firm will come address our brown-bag series in the works.
3. Steven, in comments to my last post, directed me to the geeky story behind the Bellagio water display, which has made me unreasonably happy. Thank you, Steven!
4. I’ve seen the room where I’m presenting. I’m definitely going to need to run for a presentation-clicker. (I bought one in New York, which is… um, I think still on my bed at home.)
Oooh, Las Vegas, ain’t no place for a poor boy like me
If I had to choose, I don’t think my first viewing of the Las Vegas strip would have been jet-lagged and stomach-achey from a turbulent flight. Still, I can’t imagine it wouldn’t have been overwhelming anyway. And this from a woman who functions at her best in New York.
The Bellagio water spectacle, so beautifully captured at the end of Ocean’s 11, is even more impressive visually in person, but it’s spoiled by being choreographed to “I’m Proud to Be An American.” I have been reminded more than once on this trip so far how different New York is from most of the rest of the country, but I’m in the sort of mood where that seems pretty all right.
I may end up posting some notes from the conference here: apologies in advance if your geekiness doesn’t intersect with mine.
Academic instincts
Now that it's safely over, and Jason can't drive out here to cause trouble, I can report that my talk to the Usability Professionals Association, "Information Architecture Meets Industrial Design: Working Collaboratively Across Disciplines" was very well-received, and more fun to write than I'd expected. I talked about my experience working on the IQ/MAX turret, a specialized phone for financial traders.
It was a presentation. It was written in Keynote. And yet I keep calling it a "paper." Old habits are very strong indeed.
I'll be giving a revised version of the same paper talk at the IA Summit next month, so, should you be really interested in information design, come on down -- I'm speaking on Monday morning, late enough that I'll be fully caffienated, but not so late (I hope) that people will be ready to leave.
It’s a gas gas gas
Walking into the office this morning, I said, "Is that --"
"Gas, yes, you smell gas," said one of my coworkers, passing me in the hall. "The whole city reeks."
Oh.
Well, between the unexplained smell in New York, and the unexplained bird deaths shutting down Austin, the quote of the day is clearly this one, from DeLillo, via the ever mot-juste-y Caleb Crain:
Happy New Year, everyone!"It doesn't cause nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, like they said before." "What does it cause?" "Heart palpitations and a sense of déjà vu." "Déjà vu?" "It affects the false part of the human memory or whatever. That's not all. They're not calling it the black billowing cloud anymore." "What are they calling it?" He looked at me carefully. "The airbone toxic event."
Shameless Friend Promotion
Speaking of audience/creator feedback loops, my friend Shana TiVo-blogged the John Stamos gay-marriage TV movie Wedding Wars for Planet Out last night. It's delightful and funny, and much faster than watching the whole thing yourself.
9:49: I OFFICIALLY LOVE THIS MOVIE. Sean Maher: "What are you doing? You're not political. You don't even watch the news!" And as soon as Stamos turns to correct him, Maher says, "Anderson Cooper doesn't count!"