DROP TABLE 01;

I’m a user experience designer. My favourite story is from aviation engineering. I don’t remember the year or all the details, but the US Navy had put stupid amounts of money and time into engineering a new fighter jet. It was worked out on paper and built to exact specifications. Then, during the first human test of it, the pilot ejected on the tarmac before it took off. The plane crashed, obviously, but the pilot couldn’t explain what happened (apparently he had a concussion from his unscheduled landing).

The plane was built again, and shortly after takeoff, the pilot again ejected without explanation.

What the fuck was going on?

In the retelling I heard, someone finally noticed the design of the cockpit was to blame. In trying to cram all the standard controls plus new ones into the smallest amount of space, the designers had moved the eject lever right next to the lever to adjust the seat position – they’d coloured the eject lever red, but the pilot couldn’t see that since it was below and slightly to the right of his ass, and both levers were the same size and shape. Nobody noticed this was a problem until at least two pilots accidentally ejected on takeoff.

This might be apocryphal, I don’t know, but I learnt it as an example of how things might look good on paper, but you can’t really know until a user fucks everything up.

They’re not required here. You just plop your child in your regular car with no changes whilst they’re learning. It’s insane. I bought a magnetic sign to warn people though, because that seems nuts to me.

I was making a joke tho.

Little Bobby tables learns to drive.

This is smart. When my son was learning, I put a magnetic ‘student driver’ sign on my car, too. More people should do this. It’s just polite.

I hadn’t heard of that, thank you! That trailer looks amazing. I’m excited for it now, too.

This physically hurt me.

Who can I sue? Any lawyers in the chat?

Your man card wasn’t forfeited, it’s gilded. Only real men can appreciate art.

Have you seen Sondheim’s Into the Woods? It’s a masterpiece. It’s on Prime if you haven’t seen it. It stars Chip Zien, Bernadette Peters, Joanna Gleason, Tom Aldredge, and other big names. I’d like to see anyone say Zein, Aldredge, and Sondheim aren’t ‘real men’.

Yes, and the man who proposed the theory retracted it later, saying it would be like basing human behavioural theory on observations made in a supermax prison.

That actually makes sense that these losers would venerate it, since the behaviours they idolise are very like what you’d see in prisons: machismo instead of real manhood, narcissism and subjugation instead of empathy, and hatred instead of compassion.

And yet they managed to obliterate a poorly-specced launchpad, causing massive damage to a nearby town and wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem.

I can’t remember NASA ever doing that.

Oh, thanks for pointing that out.

I was formulating an angry rebuttal in my head, then saw your comment and realised I hadn’t noticed the username. Of course it’s Musk. That’s rebuttal enough.

The poetry contests were great. I miss that.

You seem very excited so now I have to check it out.

e: holy shit, it does

I got that reference.

It must be exhausting to go through life saddled with so much mental bullshit.

Yes, thank you.

e: I will soon. I’ve lost my access to GitHub after a recent breach. Thanks again.

Isn’t that true of pretty much everu technology, though? I remember in the late 70s there’d occasionally be a loud pop and a puff of smoke from the television, and I’d tag along with my dad to the tv shop to buy new vacuum tubes, then we’d remove the back of the television and do minor repairs. Everyone knew how to do that.

My television today is a magic black box.

Socrates said books were dumbing down humanity because, since people could just look things up in books they wouldn’t have to memorise information anymore, and that made their brains soft.

Ever since society began, some people have been convinced the next generation’s technology was going to be society’s downfall, whether it was Socrates’ books, the telegraph in the 1800s, radio, the (land line) telephone, dishwashers (women will become lazy and unsuitable wives and mothers), screened windows (society will collapse because you won’t hear your neighbours and pedestrians on the street, we’ll all become hermits and die holed up in our homes), comic books would rot the brains of the youth, then music, then video games… it goes on and on.

So far, those predictions have never been true. Every older generation freaks out when the ones after come of age. It’s like societal growing pains.

I’ll read comments, but I would never listen to voice comments. Literally never. I’d spend an hour googling for context and solutions before I’d listen to a voice message in the code pages.

Voice is objectively the worst way to convey data via computer. It almost always wastes my time, is horrible to skim for relevant info, and for complex topics is an absolute nightmare.

Text is so, so much more efficient. I can’t imagine why anyone would want this. If it’s ever implemented, please don’t make it obvious. Nobody should be encouraged to inflict this on coworkers or future devs.

e: errant ’s’

Well that’s stupid. I could infringe IP by carving a gloved mouse on a stone tablet. Are you gonna ban stone tablets? And hands? Jesus, Sheila, get a grip.

Food for thought, though: we thought the same thing about all other animals until only a couple of decades ago, and are still struggling over the topic.