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Headed to Santa Cruz for mountain biking, surfing and laundry.

Erica Hall of Mule Design gave her presentation on Copy as Interface last Friday at Six Apart. There were some pretty interesting concepts she shared.

The main concept is that words are a very important part of an interface and seriously effect the feelings users experience when using a site.

She pointed out that in an interface "we aren't writing, we are speaking in text". She had an interesting slide noting that before literacy we had an oral tradition, now we are evolving to a "secondary orality" as she put it.

Oral Culture --> Literacy --> Secondary Orality

She offered some guidelines when choosing how to speak in a user interface....

Five ways to get words right:

• Be authentic
• Be engaging
• Be specific
• Be appropriate
• Be polite

7 things to avoid

• Vague
• (Too) Clever
• Rude
• Obvious
• Inconsistent
• Presumptious
• Unnatural

Copy as Interface Slides on Slideshare   -   A longer review of the presentation

The recipe, by popular demand:
- 3 cans refried black beans
- 20oz plain Greek yogurt
- 1/2c chipotle in adobo (blended to a paste)
- 1c minced leftover vegan sausage (optional)
- 4 green onions (fine chop)
- 1/2 bunch cilantro (finely minced)

Great Package Design from www.welovejam.com  (at Rainbow Grocery, SF) 

Had a lot of tasty odds and ends: asparagus, mushrooms, vegan Italian sausage, romain salad with Cajun tilapia, avocado, tomatoes and fresh lemon juice dressing. Digesting with TiVo'd UFC.

I'm just following the law....

I gotta try this....

Surely was "before the sweat"... but it should have been more like "Beau, before he lost a lung" ...I'm still wheezing. But I'd ride up all seven hells again tomorrow. Totally stoked that I'm not sore.

Actually missed hill 5, due to a flat tire. But I fixed it quick enough to climb over hill 6, then climb it a second time with the whole group in order to make up for missing hill 5. Not finishing was not an option.

I love my bikes.

Thx to Yann for challenging me to ride this with him.

Here's a link to Frank's wrap up on Flickr. With a shoutout. Woot!

And an SFBG article about the rider from fellow rider Kat Renz: The road to hell is paved with potholes

For a pissing contest, see the discussion about which SF hills are the steepest, see this event on Yelp, apparently we missed a couple of SF's steeper hills, I guess there's time for a part two.

Here's the current top 10 ('cause they could change over time!)

1. Filbert between Leavenworth and Hyde is a 31.5 percent grade.
2. 22nd between Church and Vicksburg, 31.5 percent.
3. Jones between Union and Filbert, 29 percent. On the ride! (Ouch!)
4. Duboce between Buena Vista and Alpine Terrace, 27.9 percent.
5. Jones between Green and Union, 26 percent. On the ride! (That makes two blocks of hell on Jones!)
6. Webster between Vallejo and Broadway, 26 percent.
7. Duboce between Divisadero and Alpine Terrace, 25 percent.
8. Duboce between Castro and Divisadero, 25 percent.
9. Jones between Pine and California, 24.8 percent.
10. Fillmore between Vallejo and Broadway, 24 percent.

Cold Little Star pizza FTW! Garth and Ayako hit up the Westfield foodcourt.

Tonight's contribution to cooking-at-brads. Orange and Beet salad cribed from Elise's Simply Recipes. Photo doesn't look so good, but this was a very simple and tasty dish. I highly recommend this recipe as a compliment to any rich or gourmet foods... tonight it complimented a surf and turf combo of flank steak and grilled scallops with a burre blanc sauce.