Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Of whales, user interfaces, and ankle sprains

Tog has a great post about Scott Adams (Dilbert's creator) blog meltdown. In his discussion, Tog talks about piloting airplanes, mental models, usability testing, and magic. Almost an entire Human-Computer Interaction class in one post.

What does this have to do with whales? Not much, except that Scott Adams was whale watching in Maui, and mistook a rock for a whale.

Speaking of whales, a retired Florida Atlantic University (FAU) university professor jumped on a whale and got his foot stuck in a blowhole.

As if that wasn't embarassing enough, there was insurance paperwork to fill out:

After the adrenaline wore off, McAllister realized his left ankle was badly sprained and asked someone to take him to a nearby Air Force hospital. But before he could go, he had to fill out a workman's compensation form.

"Where it asked how the accident happened, I wrote 'I jumped on the back of a humpback whale and got my foot caught in her blowhole,'" McAllister recalled. "Where it asked what steps were being taken to prevent a recurrence of the accident, I wrote, 'I won't jump on any more whales!'"