I want to record an important principle I follow when writing on this blog. I do not use AI to write significant portions of text for me, and I have no intention of ever doing so. The process of writing is so helpful that I can't give it up.

There was an article where GPT-4 attempted to write three posts in my voice, but it was clearly explained as such. I also occasionally use AI to help with my grammar or other phrasing, but in those cases, I never lift more than a few words from the response. I consult with AI about wording like that about as often as I consult a thesaurus.

AI slop doesn't worry me as much as it worries some others. I expect AI-generated content will improve dramatically over time and will become indistinguishable from content produced by the human mind. We may already be there, for all intents and purposes. As far as I'm concerned, that's not the point. Again, the process of writing benefits me, and I'm not willing to forego that benefit.

There is an upcoming post which uses an image generated by ChatGPT. That post credits ChatGPT as the creator, and I plan to always credit AI for images it creates.

#Life #Tech

“Everybody wants to save the Earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

—P.J. O'Rourke

I love this quote, because I've been that guy. I've been the guy who thinks he can save the world but who literally doesn't help his mom with the dishes when he visits. Thankfully, I've dramatically softened in my activism (appropriately discussed ever so briefly in a recipe but nowhere else on this blog), if it can even be called activism any more, and I did help my mom with the dishes during my most recent visit, although I'm sure I could have done more.

I interpret the statement like this: riding a “high horse” can be fun, and there really are important societal problems that ordinary people can help improve. That said, there are always more ordinary problems that need attention, and sometimes fixing those things goes further than protesting in the streets.

#Life #Quotes #SocialMedia #Tech

I'm a Woz, not a Jobs. I write this in reference to the personalities of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, the founders of Apple, although I would never claim to be as intelligent or as effective as either of them. Although I do have a strong product mindset and deep interests in usability and user experience, at the end of the day, like Wozniak, I want to be a good programmer, not a good businessman. I want to learn, not earn.

Some people are motivated by money, and that's completely reasonable. It pays the bills! It's just not who I am. It's not who I've ever been. Money, metrics, status: I care about those things like penguins care about Pilates. I'd rather watch paint dry.

Don't get me wrong. I can be deeply motivated under the right circumstances. You can hardly pull me away from the computer when I'm learning, iterating, honing my craft, and producing something I'm proud of. That's where I find flow. “Faster, faster, faster, more, more, more!” just because that’s what your boss wants? No, that doesn't work on me.

I'm amazed that style of management works on anyone, to be honest, but it must. I suppose some people who are motivated by promotions and prestige can clench their teeth and bear it. Maybe they even enjoy the challenge. Me? I don't see the point. Life is short, and nobody spends their final moments reminiscing about their corner office or their fancy car. Let's be honest, those things lost their luster after one week.

I regret not being more clear about this aspect of my personality in the past. Moving forward, I want to embrace who I am. If others don't like it, that's fine, but they're probably not the right people for me, and I'm probably not the right person for them.

#Favorites #Life #Maxims #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

The other day, I watched as a customer walked into a restaurant asking for his order. The restaurant hadn't received the order, however, and the man became upset. He admitted that he's not great with technology, and he complained that this always seems to happen with the restaurant's third-party ordering system. When it does happen, he gets no confirmation email and his card is not charged.

The next day, someone in an online class expressed confusion about how to meet their coach for a scheduled appointment, but the coach had no appointment on their calendar. Similarly, years earlier, a relative told me they had ordered an Uber, but it never showed up.

In all of these cases, I'm almost certain the users did not click the final button labeled Order, Confirm, Submit, or similar. (The restaurant owner blamed browser cookies, but that has nothing to do with it.)

I can hardly blame these users, though. I once showed up to a hotel, thinking I had booked a room with them, only to find that they had no reservation under my name. I looked for the confirmation email, and sure enough, it didn't exist! I needed to quickly book with some rinky-dink place across the street. I had made the same mistake!

This isn't about tech literacy or intelligence; it's about bad user interface design. A depressing amount of software ignores the basic rules of usable design. In this case, what looks like a confirmation screen (i.e., “your order has been placed”) may actually be a confirm screen (i.e., “tell us that you're sure”). When users are on those screens, their loci of attention may be on the order details rather than the user interface. They want to know that the flight time is correct. They want to know that the price is correct. They may not be paying attention to the Confirm button, which is probably offscreen anyway. They may not be looking at the tiny text at the top which reads, “Please review this information before booking your flight.” They are focused on something else, which may explain why they miss context clues in the periphery. Jef Raskin discusses this at length in his book, The Humane Interface.

So before leaving an app, website, or other ordering system, be sure to confirm, confirm, and confirm again. Slow down. Read carefully. Scroll. Zoom in and out. Make sure there's nothing else you need to do. A few seconds of prudence may prevent lots of frustration later.

#Life #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech #TechTips

This fairly recent obsession with metrics in the workplace is driving companies insane.

A while back, I watched a video about all the ways hotels are trying to save money by, among other things, eliminating storage space, making the bathroom less private, removing desks, and pressuring guests to work at the bar, where they can spend more money. (By the way, that bartender? They're also the receptionist.) These changes are, of course, driven by metrics like “GSS” and “ITR,” whatever the f@*k those are.

Is there a kernel of truth to all of this? Sure. Aloft Hotels are cozy, and they seem to follow this playbook. I didn't mind staying in one when I was stuck in San Francisco for one night more than ten years ago. Would I want to stay in one of their rooms during a business trip or anything else lasting more than a couple of days? Hell no. I'd like a desk and somewhere to put my clothes. (I know, I'm so needy. I travel with clothes.)

Metrics are fine, sometimes, when their use is limited and their shortcomings are genuinely appreciated. Taking them too seriously and letting them make the decisions, however, is a recipe for disaster. Hard questions demand more thoughtfulness than that. “GSS” and “ITR” are meaningful until they aren't, and nobody is going to find solace in those abbreviations when generations of potential customers steer clear of your business because they actually want something good.

Sadly, I don't think most businesses think that far ahead.

Show me the metric which proves that your business isn't taking a massive risk by ignoring common sense. Until then, I don't care about “the numbers.”

#Life #SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

The video If TikTok Were Honest is surprisingly good. It does a great job of explaining the harms of social media in general and the harms of TikTok in particular.

Say you're into politics. [TikTok] will push you further and further into the extreme edges of whatever side you're on. Why? Because outrage and confirmation bias keeps you glued to your screen! This isn't just bad for your worldview, it's bad for society. Echo chambers breed division. They make people more certain they're right, more hostile to differing opinions, and less likely to engage in actual conversation.

—If TikTok Were Honest

Let's not gloss over the reminder that this is bad for your worldview. That's one of my biggest problems with social media. In making people more extreme and less aware of differing opinions, their persuasive ability weakens and they become counterproductive in their activism. To add insult to injury, they sometimes actually come to think of themselves as the sacred protectors of their various causes. Give me a break.

Don't leave social media because I told you to. Leave social media because it's making you hurt the people you're trying to help.

#Life #Maxims #SocialMedia #Tech

Distrobox is amazing. It's like Linux Subsystem for Linux in the best possible way. (That's a play on the name Windows Subsystem for Linux.) With one command, anyone can spin up the shell environment of another Linux distribution, and the host files will be right there. Are you using Debian because you value desktop stability, but you want to use the latest Neovim? No problem. Use Distrobox to create an Arch or Fedora environment, install Neovim, and use it. That's it!

I'm surprised, disappointed, and a bit embarrassed I didn't know about it until now.

#SoftwareDevelopment #Tech

I know many people who use social media only to follow businesses they care about, so that they can hear about specials, promotions, events, and changes to hours. It's true that some businesses don't update their websites or provide newsletters, so I can understand the appeal of using social media to follow them. The situation seems to be getting better, though, with more and more businesses maintaining a healthy online presence outside of the big, centralized antisocial platforms.

I don't want to be too cynical, but using social media for this purpose does seem like opt-in advertising on some level. It's too bad that many of these users will also be manipulated into liking, commenting, buying, sharing, following, radicalizing, and you know, dismantling democracy.

#Life #SocialMedia #Tech

This has to be one of the strangest developments I've noticed in online communication recently—and yes, sadly, the real world, as if there were any difference.

At some point, it apparently became fashionable to slap the label narcissist on anyone who has behaved badly, as well as many people who haven't. Someone's ex is a narcissist. That one's boss is a narcissist. Everyone's parents are narcissists. What in the world is inspiring people to talk like this? Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) does exist, yes, and there may be some very conspicuous examples of it in public life, although I'm not qualified to diagnose anyone. Still, it's a minority disorder. The Cleveland Clinic reports that NPD affects around 0.5% to 5% of Americans. Clearly, most people who behave badly from time to time do not qualify for a diagnosis. Moreover, mental illnesses like anxiety and depression are far more common.

Yes, sometimes people treat others badly because they are narcissists, but others are unkind due to their depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, addiction, or one of the dozens of other psychological afflictions that cause so much pain. In most cases—not all, but most—I'm sure those suffering with these ailments endure much more agony than the people around them. Of course, that's assuming the target of the “narcissist” label is even clinically unwell. Maybe your boss just wants to further their own goals at the exclusion of yours. That's not narcissism. That's not mental illness. That's just corporate life. (I would argue that any manager pursuing their own goals at the exclusion of yours is a bad manager, but that doesn't make them a narcissist.)

Language evolves, and I suppose people can use the term narcissist to mean brute, if they choose. The dictionary wasn't handed down from the heavens, unchangeable. I just worry that being so sloppy with terminology unfairly demonizes the vast majority of mental illnesses that inspire unusual behavior for other reasons. I also think it can suggest a degree of intent that simply doesn't exist. Maybe that person at the convention shouted at you because they struggle with anger or because they never learned how disagree respectfully, not because they want to feel superior to you.

I do wonder—and this is pretty speculative—whether some people are so cavalier with the term narcissist because they want to deflect attention away from their own narcissism of a different kind. I'm not talking about clinical narcissism, the type that seriously harms oneself and others, but rather more ordinary narcissism, the kind that leads one to believe that anyone actually cares about their status updates. I think it's plausible that social media does foster some amount of casual, everyday narcissism. Could it be that people throw the term around because they're uncomfortable facing their own shrouded narcissism of a different kind?

Instead of throwing labels around, maybe we should spend more time looking in the mirror—in a healthy way. I will try to do the same.

#Life #SocialMedia #Tech