Shutdown Diary
Well, the crisis just became a lot more real to me from my home state of Texas where my Mom and all but one of 6 siblings live and many of my nephews and nieces. In particular, my oldest nephew's family got hit with COVID-19 infections around Thanksgiving (rural East Texas) and reportedly two nieces' spouses (in FL and TX) have been diagnosed. No word yet on test results for my nieces, but the older one doesn't feel well. My oldest nephew isn't quite sure how his family got exposed, but they suspect two of my grandnieces may have been infected on a school-related bus trip. I do have a relative in an assisted living facility which has experienced a handful of residents and staff infected out of maybe a couple of dozen people; apparently my relative will take her first vaccine shot over the next couple of weeks.
So, make no mistake: this is a nasty disease, and you don't want to get infected. I originally intended to spend Christmas with my Mom in Texas like I had over the last 3 or so Christmases, but not under current circumstances. The recent event of a Latino passenger on a United flight who died of COVID-19 complications is instructive; he had falsely checked off not having classic symptoms like loss of taste and smell.
Although I've been highly critical of Draconian, inflexible public policy COVID mandates and business shutdowns/restrictions, I personally engage in well-known safety practices like face masks. Now I have not met obviously symptomatic individuals in public, but I am well-aware of the risk of virus-laden droplets/spray from coughs, sneezes, etc. so even my otherwise useless cloth mask provides prospective protection. I've generally restricted trips to grocery runs and medically-related visits, e.g., earlier this week a routine blood test and an eye exam. In both of the latter cases, I had to reply in advance to a battery of COVID-19 questions, any symptoms from me or a member of my household, any test results, etc.; in one case, I had to print out a pass.
Daily Annoyances
For interested readers, I also have a companion SoftDoc blog. (SoftDoc was a business concept I coined leaving academia in a 1990's recession. I think I referenced it in passing in a book chapter I published in one of Jane Carey's Human Factors in IT anthologies. I have had research interests in human factors in software and documentation.) I have always liked to look at the fit between humans and technology, meaning not just physical characteristics like display legibility, workstation design for comfort, ease of operations, etc., but cognitive aspects, like personal productivity, task suitability, intuitiveness and naturalness of an interface (e.g., telling vs typing what Amazon Alexa should do) For example, an experienced user might want things like shortcuts to desired functionality. less focus on computer interruptions from task performance, the ability to leverage learning in other contexts, say through interface consistency. (For instance, the Help/About menu in Windows applications often lets us check versions of software, even attach us to upgrade channels.)
I often do anecdotal usability checks in what Don Norman references as the design of everyday things. Do I mistake pulling vs pushing a door open? Do I have to consult documentation in order to replace a battery? Do computerized driving instructions provide convoluted results?
Let me give an example to make a point. When I was driving a U-Haul from Arizona to Maryland back in 2017, I particularly wanted to stick close to interstates with easy on/off ramps. In cities, you are pretty much restricted to driving straight and/or right angle turns. You can't back up or you'll jackknife (I was towing my car), and u-turns are almost impossible. The last thing I wanted was driving on some narrow, unfamiliar streets, maybe missing a direction change driving in the dark. Now I'll often use my Garmin and/or Google Maps--plus hardcopy directions "just in case", e.g., my cellphone had GPS connection issues when I was driving in the Harrisburg, PA area, maybe my Garmin lost its charge. So I was driving on a major highway north through Virginia and into West Virginia. I knew ultimately I wanted to take I-70E to Baltimore. It turns out the two highways intersected in WV, but I didn't know that and my hardcopy map didn't show that.
Google Maps sometimes has some weird quirks. I remember in one case it suggested a route connecting two highways in Pennsylvania was just over a mile long (and it turned out to be more like 15 miles). I ended up driving back and forth thinking I had somehow missed a turnoff for the second highway. Then there were 2 times I missed interviews in Baltimore and Delaware; I remember in each case pleading for driving instructions via the agency from the clients and getting no response. I went to Google Maps. In the Baltimore case I was told the exit should lead to a T-intersection but I found myself it a merge along a coastal route. In Delaware I was told to look for a certain right turn off an exit, which didn't exist. In both cases, the agency wasn't prepared for my call but dropped me after I didn't make the interview.
Now I had just driven several hours through Tennessee and Virginia, and the sun was coming down. I started looking for a hotel; I was hoping to get to 70-E which was quite familiar (back in early 2014 I had commuted back to Baltimore from West Virginia on weekends). Google had me getting off the highway, ostensibly on a route to 70-E. Tired, I couldn't find the connecting route off the exit and I was having to drive in right angles to turn around. I soon found myself driving in an unfamiliar area in the dark and it probably took me an hour to work myself back to the highway. I was determined to find the first hotel I could find which turned out to be in WV. It cost me close to $120/night vs $60-80/night earlier in Texas and Tennessee. I was planning to look at maps via my laptop; however, on asking the desk clerk, I was told there was an I-70 interchange maybe a 20-minute drive ahead
I have several posts in my Softdoc blog detailing anecdotal usability experiences, including the time I tried driving to the nearby WV post office for the first time using my Garmin and found myself on an unpaved mountain one-lane road. Most recently, I described how I had to reconnect my Amazon microwave to my WIFI.
More recently I had become more interested in Bluetooth; I have used it in my car to tap into my library of hundreds of pop hits (mostly 60's to early 2000's). It can also provide an alternative to scarce USB slots on a PC. I'm in the process of transitioning my workhorse PC to a newer laptop with Bluetooth functionality. I bought some nice Bluetooth devices, including a rechargeable keyboard and mouse. The were easily installed and usable from the get-go when all of a sudden the new mouse stopped working.
At first I thought maybe the mouse needed to be recharged. I then checked my Windows Bluetooth settings; the mouse settings, etc.; everything seemed to indicate my mouse should be operational, but it was nonoperational. Was I going to have to go through the hassle of going to Amazon to get a product replacement?
I ended up doing something similar to how I fixed my microwave oven: I dropped the Bluetooth device from Windows and re-registered it. The mouse is now working as expected.
Final Comment This Year on Christmas Movies
I was ecstatic last night when NBC ran "It's a Wonderful Life" and then MeTV ran my favorite (musical) version of "Scrooge" in the early morning hour. And then I discovered E! was running an "It's a Wonderful Life" marathon today. Not to mention as I write, I'm watching my copy of "White Christmas" on my desktop PC.
I'm not sure how these licensing deals work; I think AMC used to run "White Christmas" and/or "Miracle on 34th St." I do hold many classic titles on DVD, but some of them are probably in storage. It's like some are on Netflix, some on Freeform (a cable channel not in my bundle), others on Apple or Disney, etc. I'm simply not going to join a streaming service just to get access to a movie or two. I already have two streaming services bundled with Amazon Prime and my cable subscription.
In a follow-up to a dated cable movie "Merry Kissmis" I found on Amazon, I found it recently playing on Ion channel.
I think Hallmark and Lifetime are finished debuting new Christmas movies this year. Almost none of the new movies really caught my attention while I was working on my blogs. Hallmark is signaling it will continue featuring a Christmas movie once weekly after the new year.
