Let's mashup this flu

... when typing in a zip code Google offers a new feature displaying where flu vaccins are available. Only one major hickup: the efficiency of this tool is totally linked to the availability of the data. Reserves need to be reported. And I imagine reserves need to be monitored as well, almost in real time, to avoid rushes on health centers that are supposed to have vaccins according to Google but ran out some time ago. Still: a cool way of mashing up data. With thanks to the guys from Smartplanet. Oh, and only in the US, I imagine?

Teach ADAMS about user centric design

Lo and Behold! 2 athletes have been a bit careless about their whereabouts and got suspended for a year by the Flemish anti-doping agency. Said athletes defend themselves by saying the app they have to use is too complicated, Internet is not available everywhere and they can't log in when they've forgotten their passwords. Be that as it is, one example of 'too difficult' kept going around in my mind: Xavier Malisse explained that he has to indicate his 'Daily Residence' when he is e.g. trainig for a couple of weeks on the other side of the world. His training venue cannot be his Daily Residence. He then doesn't know what to fill in, leaves it blank, gets an error and a faulty whereabouts.

So I went looking for this application and found a description of Adams on the Web.

Djeezes! If they would have considered getting the advise of a usability expert instead of creating an application that is based on the rules and the data needed, the end-result would have been something an athlete can use. Not something based on rules like:

As mentioned in the Location Descriptors section, athletes have to create location
descriptors for “Mailing Address”, “Daily Residence”, “Training” and “Competition”.
Yet, some might not be applicable.
“Daily Residence”: Every day of the quarter must have a “Daily Residence” entry.
As the “daily residence” appears in orange in the calendar, each day of the
calendar must have one orange entry.
This information can’t be provided by the team manager either

I for one don't know WTF this means ...

The Luxemburg Flu

Isn't this a tad strange? We have this website monitoring the numbers of Belgians infected by the Mexican flu. I personally still don't know too many people actually being sick. A lot of them, myself included, have a cough or a slight cold ... and even those with a flu have the flu (the regular flu or the other one: there is not much difference except when you belong to a risk group. Every GP will tell you that).

But look at this map!

Wouldn't you expect the major cities to be critical in spreading this disease? Where people are packed together in schools, office buildings, on trams and busses, on the subway and on the train?

But no, it is our lovely, green, very lightly populated provice of Luxemburg that carries the crown. Or did they switch the legends and the colours? Are we talking Luxemburg Flu now? Not even enough pigs in Luxemburg to consider a semantic mashup ...

Always nice to be proven right :-)

New study proves what I've been saying for al long time, especially to those who advocate that our kids today are turning into weird, a-social, isolated and creepy kids when you look at the time they spend online.

No, they are not. And there is a new study to prove it.

In fact they are very social creatures, thanx to having a lot of online friendships. I see it in my 13 year old son, who gets to know new friends by meeting them IRL after having met them through other friends online. I see it with myself, meeting up with people I haven't seen or spoken to in ages and hooking up again online. Not necessarily to spend real time with them but just to follow what they are into and, once in a while, actually getting together.

So, yessss, it always feels great to be proven right :-)

I'm so jealous of people who invent stuff like this

You have to agree that it's a great idea, even though just a gimmick and probably a very expensive one: the complete Beatles catalogue digitally remastered on an USB stick looking like that! I'm not particularly interested in spending fortunes on Beatles catalogues (aren't they more or less part of the human genetic imprint by now?) but I would be crazy enough to want to have one of these ... With thanks to Mashable for pointing it out to me :-)