Google Reader — what not to send me

So I've been using Google Reader for a couple of weeks now, and on the whole I like it a lot. Just today, for example, I learned that archeologists have recently found, about five miles from Stonehenge, a large settlement used by the the builders of that ancient monument ("Stonehenge builders' houses found"). I'll be in that part of the world two months from now and have already planned to visit Stonehenge (again), so with this timely piece of news I'll just add a swingby to Durrington.

HOWEVER — I would like to be able to tell Google Reader not to show me certain types of things. Specifically, sports. (I couldn't care less who's playing for what team or in what bowl, or who's making how many gobzillion dollars.) Also, entertainment. (Except maybe for the Britney Spears Guide to Semiconductor Physics, which has a wee bit of redeeming social value.) But it seems that all I can do is subscribe or unsubscribe to specific feeds. And I couldn't figure out how to ask them directly.

Now let's just hope that Google indexes this entry and finds out it's about their product. :-)

Paper on integrating HCI engineering and software engineering

About ten years ago I coauthored a paper called "Integrating HCI Engineering and Software Engineering: A Call to a Larger Vision", which I presented at the HCI '97 conference in San Francisco. My coauthor and I discussed a problem that was then plaguing the HCI community — namely, its relationship with software engineering and how to integrate the two. We encouraged both disciplines to take a larger view, and we presented system engineering as a structure for achieving such an integration.

This problem still arises in the interaction design community, underscoring the paper's continued validity, so I have posted it in my webspace. You'll find it at "Integrating HCI Engineering and Software Engineering: A Call to a Larger Vision".