Hung Truong: The Blog!

Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives – Book Review!

I just finished reading this book with a really long title: Connected: The Surprising Power of Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives. Whew. Being a connoisseur of social network research, this book was very relevant to my interests. Previously I had read Six Degrees by that Duncan Watts guy.

Save the Date! Attend My Panel at SXSW 2010! 3/15/2010

Wait, did I really forget to mention that my SXSW Panel submission for Student Startups was accepted? I really have been busy at work.

I just got news from Hugh (the guy who invented SXSW) that my panel is going to happen on Monday, March 15th 2010! That’s 3/15/2010 for you numerical types. The panelists will be Ellen Chisa from Alight Learning, Ben Congleton from Olark and Rishi Narayan from Underground Printing. I’ll be moderating the panel.

Please comment if you are going to be at SXSW and will be attending! If there’s anything you want me to cover, you can note that in the comments, too. See you at SXSW!

The Worst User Experience I Have Ever Seen

For some reason Chase “upgraded” my card to some random blah thing instead of my Freedom something something. That’s not the point of this post. The point is that I was looking at the ways I can redeem my bonus points. There’s a way you can “pay yourself back” for a previous purchase you made.

It’s pretty obvious the people who handle Chase’s rewards site are total hacks. They want you to type in the purchase date and price of something you bought. Think about that. You have to go grab your statement, find the date, find the price. Then you insert it by hand. WTF? No interface to see what you’ve bought that is eligible for redemption? It’s like they don’t want you to redeem your points. Oh. Wait.

I titled this post “The Worst User Experience I Have Ever Seen.” But I don’t think this even counts as an experience. It’s more like a total disregard for usability.

Grocery Store Antics!

I had a really weird dream in-between snoozes this morning. I’m writing this post on my iPhone on my way to work (don’t worry, I commute by bus).

The first part of my dream was at some kind of museum. It was a place where I had gone as a kid. I saw a hallway with a bunch of mechanical educational arcade type games. They were old. I think one was of Dick and Jane. I felt the kind of nostalgia that you get going to a place you used to frequent as a kid but rarely as an adult. Think back to elementary school when they’d send you to the same place every year or semester. Like the natural history museum for me.

The museum quickly got boring so my dream transitioned me to shopping at a grocery store. I think it was Meijer. Shopping got boring in the dream (which strangely never happens in real life) and I resorted to riding my shopping cart around with another dude who kinda seemed like my friend Matt Strand. But I don’t think it was him.

Then some security guards came up to us with “energizer” brand binders (I could tell because they were drumming them like the energizer bunny, except vertically because the bunny has a bass drum and these guys were playing them like snares). They were going to take us to the manager’s office on the 9th floor or something. I tried to make small talk with the guards. Like “I bet a lot of people mess with the shopping carts and ride on them!” I was trying to make it appear less lame that a 26 year old got caught goofing off. Then my second snooze alarm woke me up.

It seems impossible that my long dream happened in the span of 10 minutes but I guess that’s how our brains work!

iRobot Roomba 530: Review!

I brought home a bundle of joy yesterday. No, I did not adopt a child or animal. But I do have a new pet: the iRobot Roomba 530 vacuum-cleaning robot!

I’ve wanted a Roomba for a while. It makes perfect sense: it’s a robot, which I love. It’s a vacuum cleaner, which I also really like. It’s also kind of a pet. I have to say that the way it moves around is pretty cute. There are really nice, nuanced touches. Like how it beeps as it backs up when it leaves its docking station. Or how it slows down a bit when it knows it’s gonna hit the wall. And it hits the wall a lot. It also plays a sort of sad sound when it runs out of batteries. The Roomba definitely has a personality.

In addition to just being a cool nerdy object, the Roomba does a pretty decent job. It picked up a bunch of gunk the first time it swept through my apartment. It seemed to prefer the living room, maybe because it was dirtiest? Or maybe because it liked the feel of the shag rug. I’m not sure. The algorithm that determines where the Roomba goes seems non-deterministic. So it ends up doing something different each time, but I think the algorithm also ensures that it hits all the spots a couple of times, and it apparently knows when it’s found some dirt, in which case it goes back for more. There are some really nice details about the design of the robot. It’s circular, which means it can turn with a 0 degree radius. It has a rotating brush thingy that helps it get stuff that’s in a corner. It’s also pretty short, so it fits under my couch and my bed. It’s only gotten stuck like once, and that was an edge case where it used a table leg as a ramp.

So far I am very happy with my Roomba. It’s cute, functional and gives some serious nerd cred. I realize that it’s only a matter of time before my Roomba gains sentience and tries to kill me in my sleep. For now, though, it’s worth saving the trouble of having to vacuum by hand all the time.