I came across this brilliant video on YouTube over the weekend.
Q: What if the Beatles covered the classic Led Zeppelin song “Stairway to Heaven”?
A: The Beatnix
I apologize for two tech related posts in a row, but this was just too good to not share.
I was reading an interesting article on a usability design method they call “Paper Prototyping” and the first comment on the article was pure geek gold. In order to truly appreciate it let me give you the context first.
Paper Prototyping is a inexpensive, low-tech method of brainstorming, or of testing the usability of proposed designs for a software interface. Basically, you print out the various aspects of the proposed user interface on paper or cards. You cut out individual elements of the interface design with a pair of scissors if necessary. Then you sit down with the end user and you take the place of the computer.
What: A Variety of Family-Friendly Live Music
When: Friday July 6th 5:30pm – 9:30pm
Where: Tahitian Noni Auditorium 333 River Park Dr, Provo, Utah, Utah 84604 (map)
If you live in Utah or will be visiting during the week of Independence Day, bring your family over to the Tahitian Noni Auditorium in north Provo, near Provo Canyon, on July 6th for an evening of family-friendly music and dancing with the former members of the local Ska Band Skook. The concert is free, but they will be accepting voluntary donations for LDS Humanitarian Services.
Brothers Ben and Joe Wilson formed Skook about 10 years ago in Cache Valley as a ska-influenced punk trio. Soon thereafter they moved to Utah Valley where they added some excellent horn players and their sound evolved into their own flavor of ska. From the beginning Skook was decidedly anti-popularity, and the theme is reflected in their lyrics. From the sarcasm of “I wanna be a suave mac-daddy man” to the still popular anthem “I shop at D. I.,” Skook was cool because they rejected what was “cool.”
Listen to a 5 minute sample mp3 of excerpts from nine Skook songs
Well, I’ve been on vacation all week…sort of. We had planned to go up to Yellowstone National Park, but we canceled at the last minute because of a sciatic nerve problem that would have made the drive miserable for my wife. So I’ve been vacationing at home instead.
It is far too easy to putter away a vacation at home without actually doing anything substantial. You watch videos, surf the web, eat, neglect the laundry, sleep in, and before you know it you have wasted away the entire vacation.
While we have certainly done a deal of that, we decided to use this home vacation to do some fun things that we don’t usually have time for. The weather this week has been perfect so we have been out and about.
In preparation for our upcoming puppet performance at the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival, I was shuffling through some scripts and skit ideas from several years ago and found this little gem that we used to do before we got into puppetry. I had forgotten all about it. With all of the things I need to get done this week, this thought was really sobering and helped put things into perspective for me:
Good Idea/Bad Idea
Good Idea: Whistling while you work.
As a child I really loved the “Garfield” comics by Jim Davis. I owned a few Garfield books that were read so frequently that they fell apart. A few quotes from the televised Garfield holiday specials, which we watched over, and over, and over again, even made it into our family idiom. Among the most lasting were quotes from Garfield in the Rough (1984) that found wide application to our daily lives:
“Oh joy! Oh rapture! I’m so excited I could just barf!”
As if having a blog with a lab notebook grid-paper background wasn’t geeky enough…
Growing up, I always loved home experiment/science trick books like Bet You Can and Bet You Can’t . So when I ran across a web page on how to create a miniature Plasma cloud at home using a microwave, some old fax paper, paper towels, and a grape, I just had to link to it .
