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Welcome! pdx.social is an online community for people living in the greater Portland, OR region. 🌲 Established April 6th, 2017 🌲

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I'm watching a video on the psychological tricks they use in technology, like "natural scrolling", smooth scrolling, elasticity, and skeleton loaders.
...I think I'm immune to these. They say, for example, skeleton loaders take a little more time but trick your brain in to perceiving less time because there's something there to process in the mean time. This has never worked on me, and I've always perceived that extra time and it angers me.

@hellomiakoda

Can we burn UX/UI to the ground? Circa 1990 I was fine. Now I want to kill people every time I interact even with devices which have no fucking right to have a computer embedded in them.

@angelastella The 90s fucking NAILED it with UI! Stuff had buttons, but it had the number of buttons appropriate for the device.
There were menus! I want to save a file? Huh, a whole menu about what to do with files and OH LOOK, save is right there where it makes sense to be. And EVERYTHING that used files had that menu.
Do you know how many times I reboot my TV in the entirety of 1983 to like 2010? ZERO!

Miakoda

@angelastella Why does my washer and dryer sing at me?! I fucking hate that shit! It has ERROR CODES! WTF?! My old one... ON. When the cycle was done, it was off and went BZZZ. No expensive control boards and shit.

@angelastella Granted, some stuff is awesome! I love that my lights are "smart" and I can control them from my bed, and turn my heater on before I get home.
But you know what I got rid of fast? TELLING my lights to turn on. That sucked.
Turns out, I just wanted more buttons so I could put buttons in the places I will be.

@angelastella But THIS...
THIS is bullshit!

@hellomiakoda

"All off" makes me think someone, at long last, understood us.

@angelastella I have a return home button. It boosts the heat in the winter (or AC in summer), kicks on the fan to get the temperature evened out, and puts on the big light so I can quickly put my shit down... and with no further buttons, a few minutes later, it kills all the lights except my dim little string, turn off that noisy fan, and just... ahhhhhhh.

And if I can get a door sensor, that function will be built in to my "I'll be home soon" command - triggering the ahhhh stuff by my door.

@angelastella Currently, "I'll be home soon" is sent via telegram. It asks me about how long. It will prep the room to my temperature.
With the door sensor added, it would then wait for the next time my door is opened to then kick off that "lights to see to put shit down" and then "dim lights because overstim" chain of events.
But... I lack a door sensor.

@hellomiakoda @angelastella Good thread. Take-aways: We need more buttons here; I need to get everyone used to just on/off in the dashboard and clicking through to the entity for everything else, I think.

@hellomiakoda @angelastella I won't use Telegram, but I need to investigate Tailscale…

@fishidwardrobe @hellomiakoda

Telegram is no worse than the alternatives. Every one of them is compromised.

@angelastella @hellomiakoda Well, in general yes. Which is why I won't use them either…

I have to have Whatsapp for work and Discord for home. I try not to say anything interesting on either one…

@fishidwardrobe @hellomiakoda

Exactly. But the whole idea of doing that because opsec is widely ridiculed. Whatever.

@fishidwardrobe @hellomiakoda

No, I've brought it up because I live in a country currently fighting an infection by neofascist "libertarians".

@krans @fishidwardrobe @hellomiakoda

They've tried to implement "security by obscurity". I don't know if they're currently doing so.

@angelastella @krans @hellomiakoda "Compromised" is a wide field. Personally I won't use them because I don't want my telephone number to ID me – it ID's **me**. Too much. But that's just me.

@fishidwardrobe @krans @hellomiakoda

Yep, that thing is a leak in itself. When (not if) they're hacked you're exposed to just about anything.

@angelastella @fishidwardrobe @hellomiakoda Glad we agree that Signal isn't compromised. I was worried for a second.

@hellomiakoda

Buttons, switches and knobs are good for machines. Seeing and pointing and listening and talking are for people.

@angelastella ...For the record, I will be fine with artificial people seeing and talking and listening. People =/= human.

But my laptop, and the server that turns my lights on... Button. Or click a button on a screen.
...most human-like thing I have it do is read out my sensors cause I can't see shit with my glasses off.

@hellomiakoda

If a machine is also a person I apply person rules. That's not under discussion.

A long time ago I hoped to become a machine, but... well, you know how well that's going.

@angelastella I know. I so badly wish to be an robot. I so badly hate being a biological life form.

@hellomiakoda

Yep. Biology is weird. And mostly unrepairable. I'm a widow because of that.

@hellomiakoda

Yep. It makes repairs a pain in the ass. I hate them with the fury of a thousand exploding Suns.