There's a few reasons I love my Kindle. The first is the form factor: the iPad is just heavy enough not to be able to hold it in one hand. That makes it just a bit uncomfortable in certain situations that are far more comfortable than a Kindle (most notably: reading while brushing my teeth and while lying on my side in bed). I'm also a fan of the screen - it feels more like a book, and less in-your-face than other (backlit) screens. Staring a backlit screen, I think, is starting to really mess with my ability to concentrate. I think the simplicity of the device helps me just disconnect and focus on reading, instead of being tempted back and forth by other things. The other thing I really like about it, above and beyond its similarity to real books, is the fact that I actually find myself interacting more with the book. I'm always highlighting paragraphs that catch my eye, or to help me remember the main points of the book. I also scribble reactions, thoughts, notes and summaries in the margin of the book. I no longer have to worry about ruining a book (in fact, the only books I've ever written in consistently is the Harry Potter books, but I own several copies of each book, and I have a very special relationship with those books) (I have a cousin who insists that writing in a book is sacrilegious). This fact of impermanence is important - I know I can get rid of any random note or highlight that I decide is uninteresting or no longer important. It changes the feel of the way I interact with the book - it just "feels" more interactive. I think I do this way more with the Kindle because it's keyboard is just so damn SUGGESTIVE. Not just that I COULD do this, but that I actually SHOULD do this. The Kindle definitely makes this 'normal' and easy. As a side note, I'm very happy with this, because I think it improves my memory. I believe this sort of "externalization" of thinking actually improves your quality of thought and retention. It's also great because I can follow my own narrative and pick books up and down more easily. I worry that as we integrate more and more closely with digital technologies, we loose a lot of this interaction and externalization - it's very hard to mark up a web page, and it's not easy to draw diagrams or scribble notes in a digital space at the moment. I think losing this ability to think a second and third time about the information we're consuming, rather than just consuming it straight up, is a sad skill for us to loose. My only complaint about the Kindle, one that I'm not sure the Kindle app for iPad has solved either, is that it's really difficult to flip through and scan a book quickly. There's a very natural way to skim a book and to also do iterative searches in a book at more targeted levels just by flipping the pages. I flip through the whole book to find the general area of what I'm looking for, then I flip through again to find the chapter, then the couple pages, and finally the passage itself. This is all effortless, and done without thought - something that isn't yet mimicked on the Kindle.

Dinner with friends and family. Seriously, my favorite thing ever. Also, pub golf: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninakix/4797472376/ (which we actually completely failed at since we didn't get past the third bar, but you know, whatever.)

Nooo, for some reason I could never fully get engaged with the digg and reddit type communities. Just not my thing, I guess.

I went to the Apple Store, loitered around campus, went to my BF's, am back at home now, and later plan on visiting a friend. Possibly playing an intense game of Clue.

Hmm. Well, my impression of Google is this: Google is good hearted, and aren't purposely trying to do malicious things. I mean, really, they're a bunch of CS geeks who love numbers and doing cool stuff, and that's what they try to do. Sometimes, as with Buzz, it is hard because they don't accurately predict what people are going to want, and then they have to backtrack. Also, people forget that much of their business model isn't "free" for us - we pay for their services with our data. Personally, I think this is a clever way to provide free services, but it makes some people uncomfortable.

Recently I've been doing less reading online and more reading in books. It all balances out. Another little trick I have is to try to read 25 pages at once everytime I sit down to read a book, but this doesn't really work with the Kindle. :/

The housing is pretty decent, actually. Most of the students actually live on campus. Stanford guarantees housing all four years for undergrads, and the housing off campus can be pretty expensive, so everyone generally does live on campus.

I used to watch it, but then I fell behind, and just decided I'd get all the DVDs and watch it all at once… Though sometimes I regret not catching up and being one of those fans who dissects all the little details and attempts to figure out what's going on in the show…

Cupcakes (:

Hmm, I hope I'm not too late for your assignment… But here's some off the cuff ideas: - Developing snacks that are both healthy and taste good. This is an obvious one, maybe not something in the scope of your assignment… - The experience of eating: I think one of the hardest things in this area is that "healthy" snack foods tend to be things like energy bars (one solid block), but these don't have the same busy-your hands & quantity feeling as say, a bag of chips. - Seeing & being seen. I think a lot of packaging is designed to be a seller in the store, but for on the go in particular, other people get to see you consuming this product. As an example, I am always loathe to be seen eating one of my guilty pleasures (ramen!!), but how much of this could be assisted by the design of what is now those Styrofoam cups? Errm… I have to go. I hope that helps to start you off?

Why does society.me put all these weird spaces in questions? It's really irritating. Anyways, I have a Kindle and an iPad and I also use dead trees. I don't use my iPad for books, but I do use it for longform articles. But I loveeee my Kindle for books, it's really fabulous. I also like that I can make notes and highlights. That's so great, I think I actually absorb books better when I make comments and highlights, too. I use dead trees for when there's a book I'm using as reference or going to read multiple times, when it's not available on Kindle (though usually, then I just don't bother reading it), and when one of my family members gets a book.

Mystery. There's a little bit of agony to anticipation that sometimes gets frustrating, while it's sometimes fantastic, the best anticipation occurs with mystery hand-in-hand. The term "mystery" reminds me of my youth, during which time I spent far too much time on Harry Potter forums & fansites, discussing every possible mystery of the HP series. I think that sense of mystery often leads to inquiry, and if you do that, there's some fantastic engagements that can take place. I believe it's Chip & Dan Heath, in their book "Made to Stick" that point out that one of the best ways to capture interest is to actually make people aware of what they don't know - think about which of these headlines is more compelling to you: "Oil Spill in the Gulf Unlikely to be Cleaned Up Soon" vs. "What's Keeping the Gulf Dirty?"

To be honest, I saw Michael Dearing (http://www.society.me/michaeldearing) use the service, thought it was cool, and so added it. I enjoy it because it's an easy way to answer questions, give advice, etc. to all my friends and readers. The anonymity is a pretty unique and cool feature. Once I started using it, there was no real reason to switch, and for what I'm using it for, the community is not terrible important. That said, I am kind of intrigued by a lot of the stuff society.me is doing, I just wish they had an older usergroup, so I'd find something other than Justin Bieber to talk about on it!

Of course (really, who in this day and age doesn't?). I actually find that I procrastinate more the more tired and stressed out I am - this being a very unhappy coincidence. So, if possible, I try to get some rest. If not, I start out by writing a to-do list. Then I start small - checking off the smallest items on this list so I can feel happier and in a more productive mood before moving onto the big things. For big things, I try to break it up and look at chunks as much as possible (Yes! 1/36th of the way done with this problemset!). Sometimes I have to stay away from the computer, when it gets really bad.

Not too much. If I want it to be private, it's not on the internet. But otherwise, there's not a ton of secrets I have to keep, and not a ton about me that's interesting enough that it'll cause me trouble anyways. I've been blogging since the sixth or seventh grade, so I've become pretty open over the years…

Of course. Always learning, always growing. Plus, you do a lot of learning in the stuff you do outside of class, anyways, so that's not likely to change.

Ah, I have heard that that's a great book. I'll have to check it out - my dad read it, so I know there's a copy around here somewhere.

Probably not. My timing seems to be all off.

No, I do not want to, but it's weird, I've been itchy lately too.

He likes design and dogs and start-ups about as much as I do, but he has an obsession with airplanes that I think can be explained by his gender.

Take the stairs.

Ah, such an outdated bio. I'm 21, soon to be 22 in a week, I'm still at Stanford. Product design does actually mean creating/designing your own products, and though you may not be fixing the flaws in other people's designs, we do spend an awful long time fixing the flaws in our own designs…

I still don't have a plan yet!! Does anyone have suggestions as to what I should do?!

A new Macbook Pro… and by that I mean, APPLE PLEASE RELEASE THEM NOW THANKYOUVERYMUCH. Seriously, I am not buying a Core 2 Duo. Anyyyways.

I haven't been working much at the moment, so right now I'm mostly focusing on school

Yay, you guys are awesome!

Aha, got it. I think it has to do with these questions filtering into my 'inbox.' Inbox implies messages specifically for me, while these questions are more or less shouted out to the world. I really do wish these were separated, I also wish I could just answer questions while browsing around…

No, but do you know how I unsubscribe from these interest groups???

Also, do these questions show up in my personal 'inbox'??? I hope they're distinguishable from the questions people are actually asking me directly…

It's an interesting feature. My only issue with it was to go to that page and be inundated with a bunch of questions about Jonas Brothers, Justin Beiber and "shoping." It's unfortunately a bit off-putting - I would prefer to see users I identified with a bit more ;)