Windows 8 is a MASSIVE Shit Sandwich

“The most common user action on a Web site is to flee.”  - Edward Tufte

Yep, this is how far back my direct Nrrd Grrl influence goes

Many of you reading this may not be aware that I was once neck-deep in computer engineering.  Specifically, I was a Human-Computer Interaction professional, an Information Architect. I worked with a number of high tech OEMS, including IBM, where I worked with both the OS/2 Lan Server/Requester and with the RISC 6000 groups. And I worked at Dell Computers, where I was in charge of worldwide usability.  As such, I was pretty much joined at the hip to Microsoft, as our hardware had to play nice with their software.  We also wrote a fair share of software that had to integrate seamlessly with all the MS code.  My part of this labyrinthian quagmire was an endless and earnest attempt to ensure some measure of user friendliness to our end product.  I was successful in some ways, not so much in others, primarily because I was leading the effort for usability during Dell's Halcyon Days of selling computers faster than they could produce them.  In otherwords, there was little belief in any "Value Add" in increasing the usability of the product.  My work was generally perceived as simply adding to the bottom line. To be fair, given the sales volume of the time, they were probably right to see increasing the cost of their products for ANY reason as, well, useless.  I stand by my belief that creating a better product is the right thing to do, and that in the long run will result in a healthier bottom line, but in a seller's market, who cares about the future, right?

So that's my background with computers.  I just wanted you to understand that interacting with computers is second nature to me; they don't scare or baffle me even a little bit.  At least, they never have before today.

Yesterday, V's ancient, creaking, and extremely patched-together (in some ways literally, with tape and glue) Dell portable (you know it as a laptop) finally let us know it was time for The Big Sleep.  So while we were at Costco, we thought we'd look at new ones, and of course we found a flipping BRILLIANT deal on a nice little HP.  Fast forward to this morning.  The new system's set up, V's gone to work, and I have gained his permission to install Skype so we can talk f2f when one of us is out of town.  Easy-peasy, right?  WRONG!

This is an edlin screen in process

It's been a VERY long time since a computer made me cry out of frustration, but the new Windows 8 interface has managed to drag me down to a level of misery and loathing unequaled since I first started learning edlin (look it up, kids, and be very very afraid). I'd been using vi, and foolishly thought the segue to the DOS editor would be easy. Boy Howdy was I WRONG!  But enough arcane computer lore...

I beLIEVE I finally managed to install Skype, though I was FORCED to create a MS account to do so (let's not talk about the LOATHSOME degree of personal data one is required to share with MS to simply use their product - they act as though they still own FULL rights to the very thing you just paid them hundreds of dollars for...grrr).  However, I cannot even find a way to FIND it on the system, let alone create shortcut for it on the desktop.  Oh sure, it's now in that heinous graphical interface that neither V nor I care to use, but I want it in shortcut icon form on the desktop, and the extreme arduousness of what would seem to be a very simple task had me crying this morning.

Windows 1.01

I say this as both Usability Professional and as humble human user; the number of things I see as wrong with Windows 8 are legion.  I truly wish I had been among the test participants for this product, as my feedback would've set some hair on fire.  Windows 8 is the single worst software system interface I have EVER seen, and remember, I date back to Windows and OS/2 1.0, CPM and  DOS...just to name a very few contenders for Best Frustration Fandango dancers.

Given the choice, and I fully plan to make such a choice available to me 24x7, I will NEVER take another bite of the shit sandwich called "Windows 8."  With a single interface, Microsoft has pushed me from a solid "oh, MS isn't so bad" to the ranks of those who join me in an intense and focused loathing for a company that apparently believes a product this poorly designed is an improvement to our lives.  Or maybe they simply believe that because they control the market (ask any OEM enginerd how much lubricant MS uses whilst screwing them over), they can do whatever they want and the Users will have to change.

I'm not one of those fawning fans of Steve Jobs.  My observation was that he was, in a myriad of ways, just the other side of the same Bill Gates coin.  They just weren't very different.  That said, the most important difference between them, as I see it, was in their intent.  Gates has always had a very linear view, and is all about the monetary result; Jobs was far more holistic, and although he was about the financial result, too, he was always far more attuned to the overall function of the product, and thus made the world a little better place for his efforts.

“To design something really well you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to thoroughly understand something — chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that. Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask a creative person how they did something, they may feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after awhile. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or have thought more about their experiences than other people have. Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. They don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions, without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better designs we will have.”
- Steve Jobs, Wired (March, 1996)

Windows 8 will certainly work for a segment of the User Base, and due to MS's  aforementioned market share, even disgruntled users will struggle with the interface and finally learn to use it to some degree because they have no choice, but ultimately it's not an improvement on the knowledge and understanding already existent, and that makes it a bad product.   The tasks that are supposed to be easier and enhanced through technology are suddenly made more difficult and arduous with Windows 8, simply because of what seems to be a decidedly solipsistic view of what Users "should" desire.

I realise my rant is too little, too late, and my efforts will go unheard.  I am a User Advocate from birth-to-earth, and occasionally I cannot bear to keep quiet another second.  Experiencing an interface so frustrating that I was literally weeping cannot just be allowed.  I've been on a real gratitude to the Cosmos kick the past couple of weeks, and today I am proFOUNDly grateful that I made the decision to return to the Land of Apples a few years ago.  I'm truly sorry I wasn't in a position to do battle against the advent of Windows 8, but I am grateful beyond reckoning that Steve Jobs and his team of Wunderkind worked so hard to create this elegant, efficient, beautiful system for us.

“One bad experience and poof…customers are history. Sure, you can replace them, but at five times the cost.”  - Pavvo Hanninen, Director, University of Alabama

Purpose

I know I should have a purpose...no, make that A Purpose.  Everyone tells me I need one in order to be happy, and I don't really doubt that they're correct.  But I just don't care.  I know I should, but I don't.  Oh, I get small spikes of purpose-driven living.  Clean this, feed that, get something done in one mental space or another.  But really?  I don't care overmuch about almost anything.  I wonder if I would care more if there was no roof over my head or food for my cats,,,probably so.  And I DO hope that question is never tested.  But I don't really care about ME.  I even feel guilty SAYING that, cause it feels as though I shouldn't care about me, that it's not allowed, that I'm not worthy.

Jen keeps asking me if I "feel worthy," and I've decided it's a good question to ask.  I feel I deserve some good coming my way, love, laughter, light, but I'm not really sure I believe I'm WORTHY of any of that.

Which, of course, brings us right back to self-worth.  Of which I have almost zip, it turns out.  So how do I regain or rebuild or just gain/build for the first time Self-Worth?

I've read many a tome on the subject of building self-esteem, but to be perfectly honest, I've gotten VERY little from any of the pundits and their books and talks and workshops, etc.  Probably the single best workshop, in terms of long-lasting usefulness, was with Hale Dwoskin, teaching The Sedona Method.  The Sedona Method is an interesting amalgam of techniques and approaches, most of which can be found in the world's religions as well as all the self and corporate help work that's around.  It works by simply asking a series of questions that are geared toward achieving the mindfulness necessary to alter one's intent.  I've tried a number of different approaches to feeling better, taken a number of workshops and read dozens of books that promised change, but The Sedona Method was the only thing I've found that worked and continues to work over time.

Hale Dwoskin leads an exercise in letting go

So there you have my suggestion for one way to be pro-active in making your life a bit better, day by day.  Has it worked for me?  Yes, but only when I actually make a point of practicing the technique, every day.  Unfortunately, that is NOT the case, so I continue to lurch from wrecked moment to miserable minute.

See, there's this wicked cycle.  I'm depressed, so I don't work at that which might actually make me feel better.  Know this; chronic depression is exhausting.  I'm tired fairly constantly, and being tired, actively DOING something - even going outside to sit in the sun, as a simple example - is just too much for me to manage, most of the time.

Earlier this week, I reached a point of emptiness, and I decided it was time to die.  Now before you freak, understand that even the act of suicide is more than I can manage at the moment.  I also truly understand that what I REALLY want is to feel better, not die, so I continue to put one foot in front of the other, day after day.

Will things get better?  Sure.  Temporarily, at least.  But given a bit of time, I'll find myself right back here at the end point again.

I wonder if the cycle gets shorter over time?

If You're Looking For Me...

Due to the B***S**T of the people who've taken over Ron's estate handling (entirely his fault for leaving zero instructions on what and how he wanted his estate handled), I no longer have my regular email (they are holding the domains for ransom   -one of which I have owned for almost 20 years,  but that Ron administered, including paying the yearly fees in trade for some work I did for him - NOT on paper anywhere, unfortunately), nor do I have my telephone, which, though my own phone and account, was paid for out our business account, as that's ALmost the only thing it was used for.  As of this writing, I don't have a phone or control of my domains, and cannot conduct business either as RVBC or for Lorien Shaw.

So if you're trying to reach me, leave a comment here with some form of email address I can use, and I'll drop you a line from a gmail or yahoo account of some sort.

Meanwhile, I apparently have contracted whatever plague V had the past week.  My own fault for taking such care of him, but hey...sometimes you simply have to weather the times labeled "...for worse" in order to enjoy the "..for better" times ahead.

Speaking of weather...after a profoundly dry summer, Autumn in the form of windy, cold, and wet arrived over the weekend.  The back yard is filling with leaves from the cherry, plum, apple, and walnut trees, and the lovely maple out front is starting to drop her red and gold glory, too. " Winter is coming!" the wind whispers and shouts.

I finished a commission piece for a woman in Arkansas, a doll called "The Conductor," and in the process rediscovered how great it feels to see one of my creations finished.  I always dread the costuming process, but when done, I am consistently thrilled with the result.  I also love how almost all of my dolls are capable of standing on their own.  Apparently, that's not a common skill.  I've just always understood the anatomy plus center of gravity equation involved in standing.  Here're a couple of pictures taken just after I was finished.  A few details have been added since taking these, and he may yet be placed on a platform for better stability.  Better (portfolio worthy) photos will be taken before packing and shipping him to Arkansas, and I'll post them here.

 The Conductor by E. Lorien Shaw, 2012

The Conductor, detail

Now I'm going back to recovering from the Plague (blech) and my book, and the A**H**LES in Texas can go to Hell.  Oh, that's right...they're already THERE!

Cream Puff or Shit Sandwich? Either way, ya gotta eat it

Two weeks ago today, my dearest friend on the planet died suddenly of heart failure.  He was 57, and I'd known him over twenty years.  We were in business together, he maintained five different domains for me, and he paid the licensing and insurance on my sweet rolling studio, Towanda.

Well and good.

But.

This dear friend, who'd had a couple of close calls the past ten years with heart attacks, apparently never really believed he would die.  He left a signed, but non-notarized will, written in 1996, predating all our legal dealings and thus leaving me in legal quicksand.  His 90 year old mother owns everything now, and though not suffering from dementia, she isn't capable of dealing with both the shock of losing her son (and primary caregiver) AND the extraordinarily complex business puzzle he left behind.

Ron was an IT guy, so of COURSE he left neither instructions nor passwords to his virtual world for us to find.  There are at LEAST one hundred - ONE HUNDRED - different domains that he owned and managed.  And only HE knew how to access them, and all the servers on which they reside.  Last July, Ron got rid of the huge room full of servers in Austin, and replaced them with VIRTUAL servers all over the world.  My domains reside in North Carolina, Washington D.C., Africa, and Australia, though they are registered to an address in the United States.  Fun, huh?

So now it seems my business, insignificant as it is, is in limbo.  And so is my sweet bus.  Neither of which would have been Ron's wish, but that's only heresay at this point in the game.

There's a woman involved in wrapping up Ron's estate who has zero love for me.  It seems her perception is that I'm interested in raiding the estate.  Not the case at ALL, but it's clear her mind is made up.  I figure the worst that can happen is for the business and my bus to be taken away from me.  And in the big picture, I suppose that's really nothing of particular import.  But it feels as though I'm not being allowed to keep my friend with me, that I am to be stripped of any possible love or memories I might regain through these paltry material possessions.  And that really hurts.

The Interstitial Cystitis is flaring massively from all this stress, so I'm dealing with THAT horrendous physical pain, too.

I find it all completely exhausting, and hope it just quietly goes the fuck aWAY soon.

The thing that really bothers me in all this is that I can't grieve the loss of my friend properly while my mind is being taken up with material matters.  Ron was the only person in my life with whom I could discuss a very strange and personal set of subjects.  The only one who not only didn't LAUGH when I recounted my tales of Close Encounters (of the 3rd kind), but countered with his own.  The only person I knew who enjoyed playing "What would happen if the world ended by ***?"  And we shared dreams, both sleeping and waking.  He was my go-to guy when I needed talking off the proverbial ledge.

As isolated as I am in my day to day life, I especially miss having someone with whom I had shared all that and more.  I keep seeing things that cause me to reach for the phone or the computer in order to tell Ron...and then I remember he's not at the other end of the phone anymore.

And my heart breaks anew.

My emotions run the gamut of those expected - sorrow, guilt, anger; lather, rinse and repeat as necessary.  But he's gone, and there is nothing - NOTHING - I can do about it.  And so I go on.  I'm better when someone's around; alone time allows me to fall backward into the dark blue place of deep sadness.  There's progress since a week ago, though.; I no longer want to unzip my skin and step out of it in order to get away from how I feel.

This is incredibly hard, and I hate it.

Beautiful Decay

As a adamant fan of beautiful decay and impermanence, I am always watching to find new ruins that move my soul.

The great collapse of 1991 had broken the childhood dreams of this Soviet Sanatorium/Hotel to ever welcome visitors into its corridors.
Due to an economic collapse, upon near completion of this Soviet Sanatorium/Hotel in 1991, all funding was stopped and the building was left to the elements.

Windows shattered, weeds and moss grew in the dining hall, and crayon-colorful walls spilled out into the staircases.

Now the ruined building stands as a windowless skyscraper, surrounded by forests and small villages. But its beauty lives on...

A sweet friend from another era in my interesting life sent me the Joni Mitchell Painting With Words and Music dvd last week.

I finally had time to unwrap and pop it into my 'puter for a quick look. And at the first drift of that familiar guitar, I immediately broke into tears.

For years, the song I claimed as my personal anthem was All I Want (I am on a lonely road and I am traveling), and then an entire flurry of songs took on personal meanings - A Woman of Heart and Mind (time on her hands and no child to raise), Car On the Hill (I've been sitting up waiting for my sugar to show...he makes friends easy, he's not like me - I wait for judgement anxiously), and of course Jericho - the last two being particularly imprinted with the aforementioned friend's mark.

Former husband Don was People's Parties and Same Situation - one never without the other, and later A Case of You (You're in my blood like holy wine...you taste so bitter and so sweet...I'm frightened by the devil and I'm drawn to those ones who aren't afraid...go to him, stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed).

Another man evoked Impossible Dreamer (don't think, just dance), and in the 90s, first Urge for Going, and then Cactus Tree became the song that described my life (there's a man who...and she's so busy being free) and the man at the center of it.

And then I quietly drifted away from everything, including Joni.

Oh sure, I listened to her now and then, but less and less frequently. And then this lovely disc arrived, and I chose first to listen to Just Like This Train...sung by a Joni who, like me, is older and wiser and more full of pain and laughter and darkness and light,her voice and delivery revealing all that and more.  And beyond the first few notes, just like that, my heart was opened again and all the fear and pain and fear and pain came pouring out. "I'm always running behind the time...lately I don't count on nothin', I just let things slide..."  The original, Court and Spark version wasn't nearly as rich as this live performance. It took years of experience for Ms. Mitchell to deliver that song with the depth of knowledge required to reach out, touch and open my heart.

Joni Mitchell's music is, very simply, the soundtrack to my life.  Thank you, Rick, for continuing to share that connection with me, if no other.

Breast Cancer is Personal

Today marks what would have been my mother's 94th birthday.  After fifteen years of battling breast cancer, she died in 2001.  Usually I note this day and let it pass with a private moment.

  Me 'n (in) mom, 1952

My mother was a strong and active advocate of women's rights - in particular those involving our bodies, so after yesterday and todays news, I just feel I must stand tall and object to the  discontinuation of Planned Parenthood's funding by the Susan G. Komen Foundation.   As they ONLY discontinued PP's funding and no other organisation, I believe their decision is due to a clear political statement, and I am here to say that my mother and I do NOT agree with that decision. 

My mother died from this disease, and had she not had access to the medical care available through Planned Parenthood, she wouldn't have lived those fifteen years. 

Breast cancer frightens women more than heart disease, because we have been taught that our breasts are a major part of what makes us viable females.  If men had the same kind of breasts as women, and required mammograms, no discussion would be required, as they would be given top notch tests and care.  But women, who are consistently devalued by our society, have to fight for the most basic of healthcare.  By the way, men get breast cancer, too.  I can only imagine how difficult that situation would be for a man.

I have long-believed that making health matters - especially those with personal values involved - political issues is just wrong. 

In my twenties, I had two brushes with cancer, first with cervical cancer - caught by a doctor during my regular pap at Planned Parenthood - and then with breast cancer.  A nurse at Planned Parenthood held my hand as I cried about the lump found in one breast, and took the time to calm my fears and explain the situation. When I got pregnant and was in a blind panic, another nurse at Planned Parenthood sat with me and listened to my fears.   

As someone who has been in a situation that required me to make the extremely difficult decision to have an abortion, the fact that it was legal and safe was simply cream; I would have found a way to abort, and easily had ended up like my father's sister, who was buried in her wedding dress after a botched home abortion.

Making healthcare a political hot potato doesn't benefit anyone.  If those who would force their morality on me have their way, women will be shoved back into second-class citizenship.  No one benefits from an entire gender falling ill from lack of care.  No one.  And as my mother's advocate, I can't let that happen without a fight.