fox@fury
Back from Tahoe
Monday, Feb 02, 2004
Heya, sorry for the lack of posting. Google's annual ski trip was Thursday and Friday, and Trisha, Benjy, Karen, Crystal, Rachel and I all went to my Uncle's place on the North Shore for Friday through Sunday.

Between us we went snowboarding, skiing, sledding, hiking, and more, and all told we had a really good time. I'm certain that photos will ensue soon.

We took the Prius up to Tahoe, despite my fears of snow that would require me to shackle my new baby in chains. As it turned out, we got through Donner Pass yesterday when chains were still imminent, but not required. It was a real joy to drive the 80 miles from the peak of Donner Pass to Sacramento on a single gallon of gas, the fuel economy graph maxing out at 99.9 MPG for most of the downhill ride.

Thanks to the Superbowl we made better time into the Bay Area than one could reasonably expect on a Sunday afternoon, but I forgot to have Tivo record it. While we missed almost all of the game itself, thanks to my media-equipped friends I got to see the Timberlake/Jackson incident ('wardrobe malfunction' my ass (warning: NSFW)).

Thankfully, we got to watch the last 10 minutes of the game, which were the most exciting by all accounts. It sounds like even the ads mostly sucked, though I was glad to see the Pepsi-iTunes ad hosted at Apple.

Now it's Monday again, start of another week. This week looks to be pretty dance-heavy, with hip-hop class on Wednesday, our last Waltz class (Redowa!) on Thursday, and Friday Night Waltz the day after that.

And, of course, tons to do here where, once again, I'm thankful to have the best job in the world.

Revised bio
Monday, Jan 26, 2004
Yeah, so I revised my bio. I need to spend more time and completely rewrite it, but at least now it mentions Google and my new degree.
About Kevin Fox
Monday, Jan 26, 2004
A dotcom veteran who refuses to lay down his arms, Kevin Fox is currently a user interface designer at Google Inc.

Kevin left his ancestral homeland of Los Angeles in the Fall of 1991 to attend UC Berkeley. After four leaves of absence, he completed his bachelor's degree in Cognitive Science in the Spring of 2001. During his sabbaticals he was a reviews writer for MacWEEK magazine, a seeded developer for Apple's Newton MessagePad, a webmonkey, a perlmonkey, web technical lead for Segasoft, Petstore.com and Hewlett-Packard, an invited member of Microsoft's Internet Advisory Board, and the webmaster and technical lead for Levi Strauss and Co. (where, incidentally, he co-invented the online wish list in 1997).

After graduating from UC Berkeley, Kevin worked in Yahoo! Inc.'s User Experience Design group, leading the interaction design for Yahoo! Messenger, Chat, and other properties.

In 2002, Kevin left Yahoo! for Carnegie Mellon University where he earned his Masters degree in Human-Computer Interaction.

One of AOL's first beta-testers in 1987, Kevin now prefers small software foundries where the love for the product gives more karmic dividends then VC dollars. Kevin is now 96% dark-side free, and tries not to be evil.

Labeled 'usability guru' by New Yorker magazine and 'miscreant' by Wired, Kevin enjoys creating personal projects that play off the Internet's nascent communication metaphors. Most of Kevin's online exploits pass unnoticed (and unfinished), while some have made the front pages of the Wall Street Journal, Harpers Weekly, and CNN.com.

Currently residing with his girlfriend in Mountain View, Kevin has finally realized his dream of living within jogging distance from his job at a world-leading internet company.

Kevin is an avid ballroom and Irish dancer, and tries to write a thousand personal words a day. His current goals include learning both kiteboarding and the mysteries of love. Kevin's secret wish is to live in a spacious geodesic dome in the forest, with an attached sprung wood ballroom for entertaining, and an easy commute to the city.

He also likes cheese.

How to survive IKEA: A Gamer's Guide
Sunday, Jan 25, 2004
What if IKEA were a first-person shooter?

This is a screamingly funny piece from The Morning News: IKEA Walkthrough 2.3.1

The Penguin is back!
Friday, Jan 23, 2004
The original Penguin Baseball site couldn't handle success and has gone down. You can find a permanent mirror (at least until, if ever, the other site comes up) here.

Spread the word!

Orkut!
Friday, Jan 23, 2004
So yesterday Google soft-launched Orkut, a new online community site along the lines of Friendster and Tribe.

Like Tribe, Orkut supports communities, but this is still a starting point. I expect it'll get better as it grows. The site's launched invite-only, so only members can invite new users. Rather than try to figure everyone I know, I'm happy to invite Fury readers who I know even the littlest bit (you know, old friends, the frequent commetners, stuff like that).

Drop me an email if you're interested and I haven't invited you yet!

Penguin Baseball and Website Mixmaster
Thursday, Jan 22, 2004
Note the two new bits in the Meme-o-matic: Penguin Baseball and Website Mixmaster. Cool stuff!

Mostly this post exists as a placeholder for folks to comment on them. Some day I'll support comments for individual memes.

London, Summer of 1992
Wednesday, Jan 21, 2004

(first in a series)

It was more than ten years ago that I spent a summer studying drama in London. A program(me) in acting, directing, and playwriting, it brought about 25 college freshmen and sophomores together, half from the UK and half from America, though only one other from so far away as I was.

In the early days of the course we spent a good amount of time learning about the differences between the Brits and us Yanks. Easy differences like power voltages, the difference between cookies, crackers, and biscuits. Surprising differences like what it takes to get a bank account in London versus New York, and what that relationship means to you.

Each morning us Yanks would emerge from our dorms at the London School of Economics, vacant for all the budding economists were on holiday, and walk, rain or shine, to Euston Station, get our morning biscuits and march down into the tube for our two-part runs to the theatre in Sloane Square.

Emerging from the station it was a quick right, a few doors down, then another right, down the alley to the back door of the theatre, in the door, up the steps, past the offices, around to another black-clad stairwell, then up one more set of winding, narrowing stairs with a rise-over-run fit to remind us again that we weren't on western shores anymore.

There, on the same attic studio where the Rocky Horror Show was first performed, we would learn about theatre and about humanity: what makes us different, what makes us the same, and how the delta between people is drama.

More than ten years ago, and still the memories flood back, like vignettes of mirror-world humanity.

Ping
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2004
pong
One-way ticket to Mars?
Friday, Jan 16, 2004
Paul Davies makes an interesting case for a realistic mission to Mars: Make it a one-way trip (NYT registration required).

It wouldn't be the first time explorers have gone on to new lands without expectation of coming back, and the potential gain is significant. Unlike the Moon, Mars can provide a sustainable habitat, with minimal supplies sent from Earth each time the 2.2-year window opens up.

Further, if we start with a crew of four, and add more people as the colony proves its viability, then this concept starts to look less and less like a suicide mission, and more like colonization.

Sure, there are tons of problems, not the least of which is that so far 20 of the 36 craft sent to Mars have failed en-route, which makes gambling on the bi-annual resupply from Earth a harrowing and possibly deadly game, but improving the reliability of the one-way trips is infinitely easier than trying to engineer a round-trip with current technologies.

  
aboutme

Hi, I'm Kevin Fox.
I've been blogging at Fury.com since 1998.
I can be reached at .

I also have a resume.

electricimp

I'm co-founder in
a fantastic startup fulfilling the promise of the Internet of Things.

The Imp is a computer and wi-fi connection smaller and cheaper than a memory card.

Find out more.

We're also hiring.

followme

I post most frequently on Twitter as @kfury and on Google Plus.

pastwork

I've led design at Mozilla Labs, designed Gmail 1.0, Google Reader 2.0, FriendFeed, and a few special projects at Facebook.

©2012 Kevin Fox