Month: January 2024

Audible – and other pathetic things

Somewhere along the line, words morphed, changed meaning and morphed some more till we ended up using nouns as verbs and then we made those verbs meaningless.

Case(s) in point: solution and vision. Both have been co-opted by whoever the fuck and are now consistently used as verbs. Solutioning. Visioning. No. Just no.

Back to what landed me here. Words. Too few or too many have also been a massive problem for the past couple decades of all out tech progress.

When I see messages like this one from Audible, I can see the evidence of huge business issues. The low ‘give a shit’ level shows here:

Audible message with lots of words

This might be called UX Writing cuz it’s 2024 but it screams of management issues. How do I know this?

A few reasons:

1. Audible has been a struggling business since Amazon acquisition. Just do a bit of searching online (aka Googling)

2. Audible’s highest level tech support has never been able to merge my accounts. There are two of them (two records, one database, have some ideas about where, how and when it got fucked up but that’s a story for a different day. IYKYK

3. Audible messages like this one:

Your title’s almost ready Give us a few seconds while we load it to your Library, then refresh the page to start listening.

What? I know people don’t read but when they do, they get confused. Rightfully. This really makes no sense to a native English speaker and is evidence that no one at audible cares enough to make it make sense.

My audible subscription will continue to go through its cycles – resubscribe, cancel, rinse repeat until either I become to broke to afford the resubscribe or when i improve my patience for certain audio titles and wait till the awesome public library system has them.

Recipe #1: democracy’s downfall

The recipe for the downfall of democracy:

Semi-equal parts highly-concentrated wealth, corporate media, outta control antisocial, and algorithm-driven internet

Heavy pinch of redirection via culture war issues

Finely chopped handful of former rights for women sprinkled on top

Using your non gas stove top, on high heat:

Add wealth, media, and algorithms via data centers strewn across the planet and low earth orbit. Heat on high till boiling then bring to a steady simmer

Add the culture war issues and stir occasionally

Simmer until Summer 2024

Serve up hot, family style

Sprinkle additional decimation to women’s rights on top for extra impact

Good luck!

Thank you, Ms. Ross

I don’t really care, I don’t wanna keep my head down, got nothin’ to share, maybe I should put my phone down. I don’t really care if everybody likes me, I just wanna love myself.

I didn’t know I needed to hear this song today. Hell, I didn’t even know the song existed but thankfully, Tracee Ellis Ross talked with Tonya Mosely on Fresh Air and it aired today.

Tracee also shared this: S.H.A.M.E.

Should
Have
Already
Mastered
Everything

The perfect antidote to the news cycle.

Good design is in the details

UPDATE: customer service for the company referenced provided a diagram revealing 2 small screws I overlooked. MY BAD.

Yes it’s a “duh” statement. Of course good design is in the details. I’m having one of those bad usability days because somewhere along the line, folks decided to ignore maintenance as part of the process of creating a product. (No, I’m not about to go off on Boeing. Thankfully I’ve not been touched personally by that predictable charlie foxtrot.)

White, Woozoo globe fan made by IRIS, USA
One of my (filthy) Woozoo fans

I want to talk about fans. I like to sleep with a small fan on and appreciate airflow throughout my apartment. I found this product a couple of years ago. I bought two of them. They’re great, with one BIG exception. The design ignored maintenance.

As you can imagine, after a while, a fan gets a lotta, um, crap stuck to the blades. Vacuuming does a good job early on but years of use means they MUST be cleaned.

The fucking fan is difficult, no, it’s impossible for me to clean, with only my two hands. The globe clips DO NOT RELEASE easily and I’m spare you the rest. It’s pretty mundane stuff but since I wasted a lotta energy and a couple of hours of frustration, here I am venting to the interwebs.

White Woozoo fan, label, product identication label

I loathe finding the constant evidence of our disposal mindset. It won’t ruin my day but it’s ruining the planet. I hate that IRIS USA INC would rather I spend (now) $160 to replace these fans and add mine to a dumpster. Dammit.

Dammit, I said details matter

It’s one of those days. I just saw a link and read: Coach PMS which made no sense to me, at first.

What’s a PMS coach? Why would someone become a PMS coach? Christ do the Kardashians have PMS coaches now? Here I am thinking about cramps and bloating and nausea and bleeding and things I really don’t think Greg can relate to. (Unless he’s a trans man who didn’t have the benefit of blockers, then, I apologize.)

Wait a sec. Oh, PMS, in this case, is an abbreviation for Product Managers (PMs). Guys, get a woman to look at your shit before you toss it out there.

The URL is: coachpms.com

Sorry to rag on this man but it’s been a lotta these for a lotta years. And yes, pun intended.

#IYKYK

Death doula training

Next up, death. Ok sorry not funny but 100% true: no one gets out alive. It’s preposterous to think it’s 2024 and choosing how one leaves this world isn’t a simple concept or easy process. Multiple doctors questioning your sanity, decision making, feelings, wishes and all at a time when the end is near and the goal is to hasten that ending, to make it as comfortable and smooth as possible.

Do you want your loved ones last words to be “it hurts”?

Doubtful.

But in any state in America that has finally made it legal to choose how to end your own life, they have forgotten about that final step and how difficult, painful and fraught it will be. Why make it worse by forcing a human to ingest a toxic mash that will cause them the kind of pain they’re seeking to escape?

It’s utterly ridiculous that medical professionals prefer this to something that would be administered intravenously. I genuinely do not understand. It actually makes me angry. It’s unfair and unnecessary.

Here’s what happens when someone who is in hospice has finally gone through the arduous process of planning the end of their life: they have to orally ingest 100 ground up morphine pills after already having to take other medications that are intended to help ease the process. If those meds can be administered easily via a pill then why on earth would you then force the individual to swallow something so incredibly harsh?

It feels punitive. You wanna die? G’head and do it but we’re gonna make it the worst last moments of your suffering. How the fuck is that humane.

This incredibly loving human had to justify his choices for two weeks to doctors who had very little notion of who he was and one who barely respected the decision to end his life.

I cried all day after watching the film a daughter made about her dad’s last few weeks. His last words gutted me. I can barely hold back tears when it flashes back.

It. Hurts.

To the Timoner family: your gift of Last Flight Home should be required viewing for anyone who thinks about free will. This is what freedom is about.

May Eli Timoner’s memory live on in his children and grandchildren.

Humanity needs more of this

Daniel Schmachtenberger talks. His POV collides with Tristan Harris and Center for Humane Technology. I wonder if they’ve talked. So many things overlap.

“History written by the winners turns into a naive progress narrative where the things that won get measured and all the things that get destroyed don’t. Where was the cost externalized?”

“…study some theory of mind, you won’t find a definition of consciousness that does not require the definition of attention as fundamental.”