Jul 14

Working It

In the army, I had to work out much harder than other people because I don’t sweat much. And because I don’t sweat much, people assumed I wasn’t putting forth any effort. That got me punished in some cases or at least pushed to do more in other cases. So I’d often end up doing 2-3 times or more as many reps as someone else, or run much farther.

It sucked, but it also made me at the time very buff.

I can’t help it that I hardly sweat. Been that way my entire life.

Jul 14

Terrible Design

If you want to see some really terrible design — truly abysmal — take a look at the new Google Chrome.

The tabs are now completely invisible. Just utterly indiscernible and the UI is a gray blob of a mess. Do designers not realize that contrast improves designs greatly, that being able to distinguish elements is very important? And this particularly harms those with poor eyesight.

Designers should not be allowed to design anything as their priorities and incentives differ from those of the users so much now in all cases.

Jul 14

Halting State

Aw hell, I have 287 different tabs open in six different browsers on five different computers.

This has exceeded even my cognitive capacity and is now offering no benefit. Let the cleansing commence.

Jul 14

Say You Will

When I write, my mind is blank. I am thinking of nothing. If I have to think, no writing is happening. One of the reasons I can hold a conversation or even watch a movie while writing is that it requires absolutely no real cogitation of any kind.

I wrote a 1,000 word essay in about 30 minutes a bit ago (not for this site) and I had no thoughts in my head any of that time. If I had been thinking, no essay. You might think that if I focused some thought at it, my writing would improve. Absolutely not; it either happens not at all or just becomes incoherent ramblings.

Thanks, brain, for doing all that. I don’t know what’s going on up there but it works. I am far better at writing than I am at IT, but writing pays nothing. But if it did, I’d be set.

Jul 14

Dit dit doot

While the new Reddit design is not great, it’s the only recent design change that I recall that is not actively far inferior to the previous design. It’s not really an improvement, but it didn’t torpedo everything.

That, then, makes it a stunning success, as it didn’t actually destroy the site.

Update: Never mind. Just realized it has infinite scroll. I don’t go there much anymore, and now I will be going there less. Another site down the drain.

Jul 13

Map Reduce

“Is the electron a particle or a wave? It’s neither: it’s a theory.” -Richard Feynman

Something many STEM types consistently forget: the map is not and never will be the territory.

Jul 13

Tech Wreck Heck

It’s darkly comical that as tech is having more of an impact on all of our lives, economists insist that it’s having little to no effect because it does not show up in the very narrow set of 19th Century-oriented measures their profession uses as its benchmarks.

The world would be wholly better off if economics as such were eliminated, and the study of “political economy” resurrected. Never happen, though, as would require recognizing that economic choices are inherently political, are actually choices, and don’t require a hundred pages of abstruse math to comprehend.

Jul 13

Leaving Mac Vegas

I will be sad about leaving the software ecosystem of MacOS. While there is much less software available than in any other platform, it’s almost all high quality. Not so on other platforms. For instance, word processors. There are four or five available for the Mac and they are all pretty good to great.

For Windows, there are dozens if not hundreds and yet they all bite ass. For Linux, there are a few dozen and they are all just terrible.

But at least the fonts don’t look like festering crap stacks.