OT - surviving pandemic from personal experience (no trolling, PLEASE)

[thiggins]

Sadly, I agree, please just close it now, so few post on "surviving the pandemic from personal experience".

I will leave it open if people can refrain from political discussion.

 

[RMerlin]

The way I see it, this thread is just a general place for people to relax during these stressful times. As long we stay away from politics (as these discussions tend to quickly turn into insult matchs), I see nothing wrong in keeping it going.

 

[Val D.]

There is at least one threat on every page to close/ban/delete. It's like forcing people to wear anti-moderation protective gear all the time. I'm self-isolating for that reason. Good luck and stay safe everyone.

 

[distilled]

Is anyone else rediscovering how cool your pets are? I have always had and loved cats, but being in the same house with ours 24/7 has given me a new appreciation for how interesting they are.

This little guy, Rorschach, has taken to joining us at the dinner table every night. When we sit down, he comes running and jumps up into "his" chair and quietly watches us eat.

https://imagebin.ca/v/5IQNFPcg7uJz

And we're locked in here with *him*.

 

[intr0]

My 98 year old mother is in lock down. She called to say 'I love you' and 'goodbye

 

[sfx2000]

Is anyone else rediscovering how cool your pets are? I have always had and loved cats, but being in the same house with ours 24/7 has given me a new appreciation for how interesting they are.

My little Hanzo - the Network Kitty...

We're keeping safe out here in the SoCal...

 

[intr0]

Me puppies! Technically "puppy" but many will understand me calling him puppies. Puppies! Ok. Lol. Great thinking beginning this, @distilled & @sfx2000 !

 

[sfx2000]

Me puppies! Technically "puppy" but many will understand me calling him puppies. Puppies! Ok. Lol. Great thinking beginning this, @distilled & @sfx2000 !

Feel free to post the ones - and tell stories - cats and dogs - they have a routine, and we've mixed that up staying home.

 

[distilled]

Rorschach "fishing" at the other end of the pond, with my brother in law, after i refused to turn over any London Broil.

I am taking this opportunity to catch up on "guilty pleasure" TV, too. "Don't Mess With Cats", "Tiger King", "Killing Eve" and all of the other shows that I would never otherwise admit to watching.

Pets, new potent extracts, boxed wine and and embarrassingly silly television.

Wanna see something just astonishing? Check this dude out. FF to the 55 second mark at the beginning of his act, if you want to skip the nonsense:

 

[intr0]

Rorschach "fishing" at the other end of the pond, with my brother in law, after i refused to turn over any London Broil.

I am taking this opportunity to catch up on "guilty pleasure" TV, too. "Don't Mess With Cats", "Tiger King", "Killing Eve" and all of the other shows that I would never otherwise admit to watching.

Pets, new potent extracts, boxed wine and and embarrassingly silly television.

Wanna see something just astonishing? Check this dude out. FF to the 55 second mark at the beginning of his act, if you want to skip the nonsense:

The eyes tell all. Awesome.

That clown needs to perform Wagner operas.

 

[distilled]

That clown needs to perform Wagner operas.

He really does. He has released albums, and has sent a ton of amazing videos to YouTube. His adaptation of Crazy Train is particularly good. So is Losing My Religion. Just jaw dropping astonishing.

 

[sfx2000]

Things are spiking up out here in SoCal, couple of weeks after the 4th of July where people started gathering, and not doing common sense things - distancing, masks, general hygiene...

I think that in SoCal, they opened up too soon, and in many other areas in the US as well.

The Corona doesn't care about Race, Sexual Orientation, Politics, Religion - it justs wants to adapt and survive to infect the next person...

I trust the science, not the politics - and those that choose not to wear masks in public - I see this as disrespectful, and some might see this as outright assault.

One has the freedom to swing a fist, but that stops at the end of my nose - consider that as a metaphor.

Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few here - be safe...

 

[Gar]

One of the the aggravating parts is the phony test results like some FL sites have been reporting recently (100% positive). It's being used as a political tool and the actual results are very slow to be corrected, if at all. Here in ME we experienced a similar attempt and being a "Liberal" state we tried to bury the truth to hurt the President. As for masks, I support the science too, so I wear a mask in public. Not sure what's really spiking anywhere though, it's hard to be sure. Sad that it's being exploited for politics when lives are at stake.

 

[distilled]

I managed to get so bored that I decided to get a couple I.T. certifications. They are of no real use to me careerwise, but I figure if the kids in the PC room have them, maybe I should too. A+ was easy, except having to memorize some things that have changed in the past 30 years - PC form factor sizes, sizes of CPU, pins and speeds of different memory - basically just rote things. Now studying for Net+, but again, the things I don't already know are mostly learned with flash cards, except one whole major concept that I didn't realize I didn't know the first thing about - IPv6 subnetting. Never even had to think about it, and I know nothing about it, so that test is going to take another week to prep for. It is actually fun, since I have very little to gain or lose, and it is proving slightly more productive than watching Netflix shows while enjoying recreational activities that my state hasn't fully legalized quite yet...

 

[sfx2000]

I managed to get so bored that I decided to get a couple I.T. certifications

That's a good use of time to be honest.

Whether it's doing IT certs, or any other classes - beats wasting time on Netflix

I've actually signed up for a 24 week UC online course on UX/UI design, and I'm still working on a 30/70 mix (30 percent in the office, 70 percent at home)... I'm a couple of weeks into it, and it's pretty challenging so far, but learning much

 

[distilled]

Whether it's doing IT certs, or any other classes - beats wasting time on Netflix

True that. A person can only stagnate so long before either giving in to brain rot, or giving the grey matter some exercise. IPv6 subnetting isn't exactly rocket science, but it is more thought than watching Trailer Park Boys.

UI/UX design must be fascinating. It must be a combination of tech, art and psychology, right?

 

[sfx2000]

UI/UX design must be fascinating. It must be a combination of tech, art and psychology, right?

Art and science - human centric design - and it's a lot harder than it looks.

fun stuff!

 

[RMerlin]

Art and science - human centric design - and it's a lot harder than it looks.

fun stuff!

Microsoft engineers badly need to take that UX course IMHO. The way Office 365 UI has been evolving is flat out bad design. For starter, the current tendency to move a bunch of widgets in the titlebar. Yesterday I was working on a Word document. I just wanted to move the window between my two monitors. I had trouble finding a spot where I could click on the titlebar to drag it - it was 80% taken up by shortcuts, the new filename widget, the new search widget and the regular window widget.

The Search bar move to the titlebar was very contested. There was an issue on the MS portal asking for the reversal of that change (I had started a similar request, which was merged into that one). There were a thousands of upvotes in favor of reverting this bad design decision, with a bunch of user feedback explaining why it was a bad UX design (I personally hate having to move my mouse all the way from the message list to that search bar, which used to be right above the message list). The end result? Microsoft replied "we are not reversing that change because we don't want to.". And they locked the issue. Zero rationale to justify their decision...

A titlebar should be limited to showing the title, and providing window management feature. Having application features taking up 80% of the real estate is bad design, because it impairs your ability to do window management.

We could also talk long and hard about more bad UX design decisions within WIndows in general. Or the horrible UX they had implemented for the original Edge (zero visual cue to indicate that there was a user-editable URL field there - you had to click on a flat surface to see a text input bar appear). Or the Windows 2004 start menu change where half of the time that I try to click on the Power icon in the start menu, the menu expand before I can get the popup asking me if I want to restart/shutdown, requiring me to do a second extra mouse click.

This extends to websites in general. Lack of input field validation make for a poor user experience. Here in Canada, our postal codes are in the form of A1A 1A1. Well, some websites will require the space, some will refuse the space, and some will accept both forms.

 

[sfx2000]

Microsoft engineers badly need to take that UX course IMHO. The way Office 365 UI has been evolving is flat out bad design. For starter, the current tendency to move a bunch of widgets in the titlebar. Yesterday I was working on a Word document. I just wanted to move the window between my two monitors. I had trouble finding a spot where I could click on the titlebar to drag it - it was 80% taken up by shortcuts, the new filename widget, the new search widget and the regular window widget.

Without taking things off thread - the evolution of the MS Ribbon UI in Windows Office is problematic, and this has been noted - discovery of features is one thing, but "how do I get there again" is another. One of the reasons why I'm still on Mac - there is a menu bar so far... Windows isn't the only challenge for UI/UX - Android is another, and even Apple has issues with newer versions of IOS. Much less the common consumer Router UI's we see here in this community - designed by Engineers perhaps, but not focused on the human side for the user - not going to throw sticks at any vendor.

It's an interesting class... as @distilled mentions - it's part human psychology and how we interact with things.

First question was - how do you make a cup of coffee, and how to draw this interaction out in a timeline, what happens if it doesn't work as expected. It's harder than one would imagine - some folks have a automatic drip machine, some have a french press, and some don't drink coffee.

It's the classic question for a designer - "tell me how you think it should work..."

perhaps time well spent during the lockdown (and extended lockdown 2.0)

 

[RMerlin]

One of my customers is into (among other things ) website design. Back in the day (that company has changed a lot these past few years), they had a special setup where test subjects would sit at a computer, and browse websites, asked to locate this or that information on the website. There would be various metrics measured, such as the time spent on each pages, which part of the screen their eyes were focusing on, and so on. It allowed them to properly evaluate their design from a usability point of view.

That's what distinguished the "real" designers from your average Wordpress hacker doing stuff at a discount on his spare time. My customer was far more expensive than your typical Wordpress shop, but they showed advanced care in the human interaction portion of their design, rather than just make it "look good".