And thanks for the podcast, it really livens up my commute.

Kids and electronic devices at restaurant: I agree that the easy way it is just to hand over a device to the kids and dinner is “perfect” or is it? We used the same technique until we decided to stop and figure out how to help our kids behave on such environments and it has worked out great. We have 3 (7/5/2) the two oldest have learned the new behavior and they enjoy coloring the booklets of papers that each restaurant hands them over when we arrive. We still dealign with the youngest kid who is still learning how to behave at a restaurant. Sometimes I have to take him out of the restaurant and bring him in when our dinner is ready. This helps us keep the noise at minimum and respect other’s people day out. When things go “perfect” on my point of view it is great to interact with all the kids on a night out, after all people were able to do it before mobile devices right?

First child: I would say, if Justin’s wife wants to try natural birth by all means let her do it, just ensure you are there the whole way, we as men will never understand the physical or mental road ladies go through on such event but only a few that I know would tell you they will never do it again the same way. The only way that I can think of it (and I may be way off base here ladies so forgive me) is self fulding your own start up vs raising money. Imagine our wives would just say. Why go through the whole trouble? Raise money already! get some investors and be done with it, while you just want to go through the pain of doing it on your own and all you want is their support knowing that no matter what happens they have your back.

And there were some other comments but I may just have to listen to the podcast again to remember 😉

The TechZing Summit sounds great but getting there from the UK unfortunately isn’t an option. Having no strict agenda is a good idea but it might be nice to get one or two people in to tell their stories and chat. There might be ‘big name’ people Jason and Justin know that listeners from around the country/world wouldn’t normally get a chance to meet.

I just enjoyed the first episode of Continuum. I tried to get into Fringe but found (in the early episodes at least) there wasn’t enough story tying the episodes together. I much prefer series with a story that continues throughout, e.g. Walking Dead, The Wire, etc. My favourite X Files episodes were where the big conspiracy plot made progress.

Discovered these Play-i things yesterday, that look like they could be interesting in terms of getting kids into a coding mindset. I will confess I haven’t delved too far into what they do or how they work.

Had a good laugh at Jason’s stories about crazy stuff he did as a kid. It reminded me about how my brothers and I used to play a war game where we split up in teams and literally threw sticks and rocks at each other. Not surprisingly a rock cracked my brother Matt in the head one day and he needed a half dozen stitches. Boys really do stupid stuff.

As far as Justin’s wife’s intent on a natural birth I wish them the best. We had that in mind as well for our first child, but once my wife got a real contraction it was like “holy cow, that was not cool. get me the drugs!” Jason’s comment with regard to kids applies here as well: you can have the best of intentions, but once sh*t hits the fan you are going to do whatever you have to do to survive.

Regarding user testing and sample size, the two concepts are basically unrelated. For behavioral testing (usability testing), you’re not actually sampling. Sampling is used for attitudinal surveys (e.g., communicating preferences), collecting demographics, and A/B testing — where probability, variability and population distribution come into play.

User testing measures whether a human can complete a task using a system/software/site/app (also known as “human factors”, “human computer interaction”), which typically results in a binary outcome (success or failure). Jakob Nielsen famously demonstrated that only 5 people are required to uncover ~85% of all defects in a software system: http://www.nngroup.com/articles/why-you-only-need-to-test-with-5-users/

When Joanna and I run “tests” we observe where people fail/struggle/get frustrated and then make changes that we feel will address those issues. Then we test again… and repeat.

Hope that helps!!

Please watch the movie Waking Life. I’ve suggested it before but if you seriously have a desire to see a life-changing movie, Waking Life is the film for you.

Hopefully I’ll be seeing you two in October!

It’s like being in your own virtual reality machine! You can control a lot of it but theres a still an element of surprise. You don’t know what the other actors are going to do, even though it’s your own brain generating the content.

The studies they’ve done on it shows that lucid dreamers have an active prefrontal cortex, which is usually dormant during normal dreams. Thats the part of the brain that controls consciousness.

The dreams are a lot of fun but waking up sucks. I experience sleep paralysis. Only lasts for a little while but long enough to freak me out every time.

Everyone gets a semi automatic BB rifle and you divide up into two warring teams. You get a protective vest, face mask and a thick beanie for cover. There’s a referee who decides the kills, and once you’ve been shot you return to base and no one is allowed to shoot you again.

the fun is in trying to shoot your enemy in a bare skin spot (e.g. back of the neck, leg, arm). You know you’ve accomplished your aim when you hear a bunch of loud cursing from behind the bush.

Quite bruised at the end of it, but a lot of fun!

FYI I try to cap the show to 1.5 hours so that it’s a manageable edit time for me and also more manageable for Jason to do the show notes. But thanks for the kind words that is appreciated.

I just paused the show at the point where Justin is saying to make the next point the last one because you’d gone for two hours already. I want to say, feel free to keep going as long as you have time to. I can pause the show like I just did and pop in and out of it through my day. Going long is definitely not a problem :-).

Cheers,
A.