Monthly Archive for February, 2008

In sickness and in health

Published on February 23, 2008 in health and mental health. 1 Comment

It seems to me that before we can heal we have to be sick. And I think we get stuck in this state of limbo between health and sickness.  We know something’s wrong… we’ve hurt ourselves, or someone has hurt us, and we’re focused on how we want to be.  All we can see is that place we’re trying to get to, and we’re trying so hard to get there.  We want that future right now, and we want it so bad that we’ve forgotten about the present.  We’re unwilling to admit that we’re not there, that in fact we’re here, and there is some distance away, and until we get there, we’re going to be in some pain.  We’re sick.

And once we admit that we’re sick, we can start to accept that we’re sick.  And once we accept that we’re sick, we can start to find a way to be happy right now.  Find a way to be happy in bed, with a thermometer in our mouth, instead of just letting ourselves be miserable until we’re better.

Because I don’t think the sadness comes from being sick, it comes from pretending that we’re OK when we’re not.

PRAISE JESUS!

Published on February 22, 2008 in google and pi. 2 Comments

Google has finally made Gmail search not suck!

If you’re a Gmail user, you’ve almost certainly had the sense that you were searching for an email that you know is in your archive, yet searches for words you KNOW for a FACT are in the email turn up empty.

It turns out that Gmail search got hopelessly confused by punctuation. If you searched for “meeting” but your email actually contained the word “meeting.”, Gmail wouldn’t be able to find it.

Did you catch that? It would match “meeting” but not “meeting.”

Honestly, this is an embarrassment for a product team that claimed that we should all give up folders and instead rely on Google’s state of the art search to manage our email. And it’s an embarrassment for a company that claims to be a search company.

I wrote a totally dumb search engine for The Daily Jolt’s marketplace several years ago and even that code, dumb as it was, could handle periods and commas. (Although it looks like The Daily Jolt has let it fall into disrepair. Facebook has all but destroyed them) But I digress. The real news is:

GOOGLE FIXED IT!

As of today, Gmail search is, at the very least not totally asinine. Evidence:

gmailsearch.png

I’m not sure if this is related to the suggestion I sent to them or what, but either way I’m relieved.

That said, this whole situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I want an explanation. What happened, Gmail team? How could something so basic slip past your radar? Do you not use Gmail yourselves?

Honestly, the whole episode is a crime against rationality. It seems excessive, but I almost think we deserve some sort of public apology.

Time machine

Published on February 13, 2008 in being queer, holidays, love, pi and the closet. 0 Comments

This morning I got a message from my past. I sent it on November 6th using a web site called FutureMe, which lets you send messages to your future you.  I requested delivery for today, February 13th, 2008.

Here’s the message:

Dear FutureMe,

read this and post about it:

http://www.alternet.org/sex/47666/

And so that’s what I’m doing.  It’s appropriate for today, the day before Valentine’s day.

Getting Things Done

Published on February 8, 2008 in organization. 3 Comments

I had an insight the other day about procrastination. It’s a twofer:

  • Truth A: I should never, ever, ever put anything off.
  • Truth B: There is nothing that cannot be set in motion this second.

“Putting something off” basically means ignoring it and hoping it will work out the next time it pops into your life. I put things off because I think they are OK to ignore. But this is the wrong way to think.

The right way to think, when something is demanding your attention, is to think about your four options:

chart.png

Essentially, the top row represents “not putting it off” and the bottom row represents “putting it off”. So let’s take a look at the value of each option:

Obviously, #4 is just asinine. There’s no sense in enduring the pain of having it hanging over your head if you’re never going to do it. A lot of “putting things off” can be eliminated by taking a couple of extra seconds during triage to realize that though you’d like to think you’re going to respond to some email, or go to some event, you never will. You should come to terms with that, delete it, and move on with your life. Put it in Box #2.

Box #2 is obviously the nicest of the whole picture. Not only do you not have to do anything, but you can do so guiltlessly. What more could you want?

And if you find yourself miraculously in Box #1… well, praise the lord. You’ve found your calling.

So all that’s left between us and never putting things off is Box #3. Things you don’t want to do now, but you’re pretty sure you’re going to have to do them eventually. This is where Truth B comes in.

Truth B states that “There is nothing that cannot be set in motion this second.” Maybe I don’t want to answer this email, but I can add responding to my todo list, give it a priority, and file away the email. If I’m on the bus and I can’t actually write a paper, but I can still make a plan, write it down on a napkin, and visualize myself turning it into a paper later on. If I need to do some reading but I don’t feel like it right now, I can think about when in the future I might do it, choose some good times, and then visualize myself doing the reading at those times.

This is about dealing with the issue and putting structures in place that increase the chances that it’ll get done eventually. It’s not procrastination, it’s freeing your present self by delegating to your future self.

You might say “c’mon Erik, you’re splitting hairs here. That’s putting things off!” But there are two differences, and the differences are huge:

  1. Instead of just hoping that it will get done, you’re taking steps to ensure that it gets done.
  2. You’re setting yourself up so you can safely ignore the work. No more daggers hanging over your head.

With nothing hanging over your head, and the original task destroyed and turned into a much easier task that will be much more likely to get done automatically later on, you’re free to work on things you actually want to do right now.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

What goals, whose goals?

Published on February 6, 2008 in design and feminism. 0 Comments

I’ve been thinking today about goals. Not life goals, but design goals. If you’re building a piece of software or a home or a device, what are your goals?

I saw a presentation today about some information visualization tools, and there were two goals talked about for a visualization:

USABILITY

and

UNDERSTANDABILITY

But I started to think: what kind of goals are these? Say you achieve these goals, that someone can sit down at your tool and USE it effectively, or UNDERSTAND the information being presented.

Then what?

Does it matter if they never sit down with the tool? Does it matter if they can’t USE it in the context of their lives? Does it matter if it doesn’t help them UNDERSTAND data that really makes a difference to them?

I think this is one of the things that’s seriously wrong with Interaction Design. And this is something Eli Blevis really drove home to us when I was at Indiana University. What really matters is: did things change for the better?

The world was one way before you put your software or your device or your building out there. The world will be another way after. Is it different? Is it better?

The iPhone is really usable. It’s really easy to browse Wikipedia while I’m on the bus. But how is my life different because I can browse Wikipedia on the bus? Will being able to look up what a superdelegate is change my life? Probably. Will it make the world better?

That’s doubtful.

But even if I think the world is better because I can read Wikipedia on the bus, who am I? What is it about me that made my opinion matter? Are there people out there whose values are being ignored?

This is where feminism comes in. My values are being readily encoded into the culture. I have built software that thousands of people use. The patriarchy is heaping prestige on me with a PhD and paying me to be here. I will run companies. But this has a lot to do with the fact that I’m a white, american, middle class, educated, straight-passing, cisgendered, nondisabled, gender-binary-passing, male-passing person. My definition of “a better world” is being amplified through my privilege

And that’s bogus. I think checking my privilege means not charging ahead towards what I think is a better world. It means acknowledging that because of who I am, my voice obscures other peoples’ voices. Because of who I am, I elbow other people out of the way to make my vision happen. Checking my privilege means actively working to lessen those effects.

But that won’t make my privilege go away. And inevitably, I think I have a responsibility to use my privilege to change things, to design things, and to really try to bring about a better future. But even when I do that, I need to be very careful to question my motives, and to question the ramifications of my choices from a feminist perspective.

At least, that’s my understanding. My white, male understanding. I’m almost certainly wrong about a lot of it, and missing important truths.

What I’m doing

Published on February 4, 2008 in blogging, communication, family, happiness, life and pi. 1 Comment

I posted recently about how my blog seems to tend towards the negative.  This is one of the reasons why my parents are continually worried about my happiness, despite the fact that I think I’m as happy or happier than I’ve ever been.  I’ve also talked with my mom about how she doesn’t really get to see the little things that happen to me day to day, because we don’t talk that frequently.

One of the solutions to this is just to talk more often, possibly for shorter conversations.  My sister and I have been working on that.  But I thought another thing that might help is “microblogging”.

Microblogging was originally for keeping activity logs (”I’m going to take a shower”, “I just found a snickers bar in the couch”, etc).  It’s since been used for bookmarking streams, news feeds, and a variety of other creative social purposes.  But I’m going to use my microblog to keep track of things that happen to me that I think are worth noting, but not worth blogging about.

For now I’m keeping it on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/erikpukinskis

February is Black History Month

Published on February 3, 2008 in community, history and pi. 0 Comments

Find out what’s happening in your community. I already stupidly missed the entire San Diego Black Film Festival.  Here’s a list of events for San Diego.