Wierd...
Wow, I'm looking at my grad-school options and also taking some time to read various articles on the interface design and even some musings by Steve Wozniak and I'm now slightly confused as to what direction I want to take my education...
I've always felt that... while I love computers and want to work in the computer industry, I'm not sure if programming was "my deal"... of you get my drift. Back in the day, I was drawn to programming because I was heavy in to Cyberpunk fiction, "counter-culture", hacking/phreaking, etc... I still love those subjects, but as far as information security is concerned, that's my my brother's thing.
I'll be the first to point out that I'm a mediocre programmer. Part of why I want to go to grad-school is so I can really focus on coding and get my hands dirty with some really neat projects. I still want to program, and will try to get better at it, but after some of my more recent readings, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should pool my talents towards some other fields of study.
Ha ha, I can't believe I'm gonna write this, but I think I want to pursue (or at least dabble) in design (c'mon, look at me, I have designer written all over me =P ). I think part of what attracts me to the Mac OS is it's intuitive design. I think what I may want to do is look in to undergrad courses related to interface design and related fields. I'm still going to pursue a Masters in CS, and it may still be focussed in OS design, as I was considering (the alternatives being Artificial Intelligence and Genetic Programming)... but maybe I can tie it all together... or not. Be that as it may, I'm also going to look in to schools with a design-background, and maybe I'll open up my internship/job search to include firms like IDEO and Frog Design (though let's be honest, I'm prolly not gonna get jobs with either of those companies). I really don't know at this point.
All I know is that recently, I've become infatuated with the importance of content delivery and how it can affect how information is accepted. Actually, that's a lie, I picked up The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte a few years back (but never got to read), so this is something I've been tossing around for a while. I also place a lot of importance on an objects aesthetic qualities... I think I'm going off on tangents now...
I dunno, maybe I'm just tired... it IS 3am as I write this... perhaps I'm just on crack.
-Tom
I've always felt that... while I love computers and want to work in the computer industry, I'm not sure if programming was "my deal"... of you get my drift. Back in the day, I was drawn to programming because I was heavy in to Cyberpunk fiction, "counter-culture", hacking/phreaking, etc... I still love those subjects, but as far as information security is concerned, that's my my brother's thing.
I'll be the first to point out that I'm a mediocre programmer. Part of why I want to go to grad-school is so I can really focus on coding and get my hands dirty with some really neat projects. I still want to program, and will try to get better at it, but after some of my more recent readings, I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I should pool my talents towards some other fields of study.
Ha ha, I can't believe I'm gonna write this, but I think I want to pursue (or at least dabble) in design (c'mon, look at me, I have designer written all over me =P ). I think part of what attracts me to the Mac OS is it's intuitive design. I think what I may want to do is look in to undergrad courses related to interface design and related fields. I'm still going to pursue a Masters in CS, and it may still be focussed in OS design, as I was considering (the alternatives being Artificial Intelligence and Genetic Programming)... but maybe I can tie it all together... or not. Be that as it may, I'm also going to look in to schools with a design-background, and maybe I'll open up my internship/job search to include firms like IDEO and Frog Design (though let's be honest, I'm prolly not gonna get jobs with either of those companies). I really don't know at this point.
All I know is that recently, I've become infatuated with the importance of content delivery and how it can affect how information is accepted. Actually, that's a lie, I picked up The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte a few years back (but never got to read), so this is something I've been tossing around for a while. I also place a lot of importance on an objects aesthetic qualities... I think I'm going off on tangents now...
I dunno, maybe I'm just tired... it IS 3am as I write this... perhaps I'm just on crack.
-Tom