From Up on Poppy Hill

good ghibili movie (from last year). ;_; so sweet, peaceful, and good to watch with older generation. My mom said that's how they use to cook rice, or to print tests, ...

http://studioghibli.wikia.com/wiki/From_Up_on_Poppy_Hill

Taller on Mondays

I think I'm taller on Mondays, requiring me to adjust the driver seat back from the steering wheel, and as the week progresses, I get shorter and have been noticing myself nudging the seat forward again. I think this is because I lay around in bed all weekend -- web surfing, gaming, napping -- and gravity lengthens me, making me taller by Monday morning. 

Clones

We don't need clones anymore that live in a separate island to be personal donors ;-P

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/10/08/162496684/nobel-winners-unlocked-cells-unlimited-potential?sc=tw

Nobel Winners Unlocked Cells' Unlimited Potential
"John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka discovered that every cell in our body — from skin and heart to brain and lung — can reinvent itself and become any other cell type. These stem cells have vast potential ..."

Cribbing

Here we were learning how to crib -- make a stack of support gradually in case anyone is stuck under something heavy and needs help getting out. The plastic tub has a box of 4x4s and 2x4s. This was super educational. Our neighborhood's community clib house/center would be a good place to prep 2 tubs of this 

The Happy Movie

interesting research. doing things bigger than oneself, community roles, we're wired to get happier/dopamine release from those actions.

www.thehappymovie.com

Bug in Cuke

I was slicing the cuke (from our garden!) into chunks to investigate the bug tunnel ... and ...
I accidentally sliced the bug in half ...

Mom's Chingrish

when i read out my mom's emails in my head, i hear it with a chingrish accent.

Eat My Little Dearie

Eat my little dearie; get plump and ... Tasty (>*_*<)

Missing Children on take out Coffee Cups

Instead of broadcasting missing children in milk cartons where young children may not necessarily know what to do about discovering a lost child, what if we broadcasted lost children on coffee cups where thousands of cups are bought by adults each day. We would get even more viewers on each day and every day.

Perhaps more lost children could be more quickly found...

On a similar idea, we could also post Wanted criminals. However, that might be a bit disturbing and have people start the day on a bad note.

Coffee cups can also be a great advertising platform for generic distributors who do not need to show their brand on the coffee cups.

Plants vs Zombies on a Touch Surface

johnny and i played plants vs zombies on the ipad yesterday. All Day. Much better than on the PC. Almost too easy  Now if only we had the Surface table to play plants vs zombies~ le sigh~

Texting while Driving

A very creative nessage to get ppl to know how dangerous it is to drive while text. Make them text whike they drive...in a practice lot. Maybe still not effective enough, but is a great start.

Bilingual Kitties

Johnny's been away at Portland so I've gotten back to speaking Mandarin to the kitties. They totally look at me blankly and don't understand me anymore. My dog Chocolate was bilingual! Gotta train these kitties too now 

Lizard Rent

Lizard living outside our house. Where's the rent dude??

Knob Dials vs Buttons - Car Heater

Sparkles, (our silver station wagon) has a dial knob for the temperature control. I have a problem with this dial. Every time it's cold out, I want to just literally dial it all up. That's got to make it heat up faster right? ... Yea, Nope.

Typical affordance design issue.
I associate dials with the ability to turn something up immediately. Like a cook top stove. (OK, our stove top is not a typical stove top, it's an electric wok, courtesy to my electronic geek hubby, but it gets the point across eh? ;-) )

Stove tops become hotter as you turn the dial up as the flame gets bigger. The problem with the car heater, unlike the cook top stoves is that the knob just turns up the temperature control, not the amount of hot air being blown in. In my usage, changing the desired maintained temperature is not a common action. I do however often want to feel warmer or cooler faster via stronger air current blowing at me. So in my case, I would rather not have the temperature controls be associated with the most easy to use button controls.


Design Solution.

• Turning up the dial increases the amount of air blown into the car
• Temperature control should be switched to the up and down buttons where the current buttons to increase the amount of air blowing in.