Human Archives

Worth the Wait

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This weekend I went with some friends and family to one of those “paint your own pottery” places. I wasn’t sure what to expect. We had a gift card to use and it seemed like a fun weekend activity.

The pottery place was bright and airy. Inside were lots of white tables surrounded by chairs. Each table contained big buckets of multi-sized brushes and two trays of glaze, one plain and one “fleckled.” A handy fired tiled with the name and color of each glaze provided guidance. Along the perimeter shelving stretched from floor to ceiling filled with different pottery pieces available to paint. There were houseware type items such as places, cups, mugs, and shark-themed sponge holders. Other shelves held tiles, heart-shaped ornaments, or piggy banks in the shape of a penguin, dragon, car, or princess. Picking the piece to glaze was more challenging than figuring out the colors!

Armed with a piece of pottery, we headed to the table and started glazing. We had a 90-minute time limit, which seemed ample. But it went fast waiting for the glaze to dry for double and triple layers. We left the pieces at the shop to be glazed and eventually fired in the kiln at 1600 degrees (!) before they’ll be ready for pick up. After all that fun, now the hard part is waiting.

This evening I thought again about the cupcake-shaped snack plate I decorated. It won’t be ready for at least a week and I’m eager to see how it turned out. With so many things instantly available and readily customized, I have to confess waiting for something feels a bit nostalgic.

Growing up, waiting was part of the experience. We had to wait for everything. Photos took time to develop, or cost a lot to get them faster. Letters, aka snail mail, took time to handwrite and send. Even television shows only came on once a week. We had to wait a whole week and be available at a certain time to see the next episode. The only thing we could “binge” on was reruns, or sometimes if the network ran a marathon. But sometimes the waiting and anticipation was worth it, almost as though I got to experience the joy twice.

I’m excited to see if my pottery piece was worth the wait. Stay tuned for updates!

Digital Dilemma, Facebook, Social Media

The Tech Mogul Cop Out

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Lately I’ve been reading articles about Meta changing some of its policies. One that really stood out to me was that they no longer want to monitor and fact check on Facebook. According to their about page providing a summary, they claim the restrictions on the platform went too far. They went too far to the other extreme and ending up restricting the “free expression” they set out to enable in the first place.

Social media hasn’t been around that long, but its far reach and speed make it something that needs careful consideration. Less than 10 years ago, content published on Meta (formerly Facebook) was found to have an impact on the outcome of the US Presidential election. There are numerous articles and research on the effects of social, political, and otherwise harmful content posted on Facebook, and others. However challenging these issues are to address, it’s their responsibility. Claiming “free expression” and backing off is an abnegation of their burden.

Some years ago, the argument used to justify any and all content posted was similar to that of a news stand. The argument, as I understand it, was in defense of the news stand. The news stand is only displaying content for sale, but not directly creating the content themselves. This line of thought extended itself to the social media companies. After all, they were only providing a platform for others to express themselves. However, in my mind, the big difference is that news stands display published content. This means someone reviewed and edited the content before publication. Whereas social media companies let anyone and everyone post whatever they feel like. This can be far ranging from silly things, such as funny animal videos, all the way to other extreme. Social media is a hodge podge of political content, medical advice, instruction, cooking shows, tours of people’s refrigerators and everything in between. The content has no direction or limit. All in the name of “free expression.” But how can we call it “free expression,” when some content can be so harmful to others, or illegal?

This new direction of Meta, and other social media companies, is going to lead to other problems. In many instances, these same companies are the leaders of Artificial Intelligence. Now, these AI models are going to be trained by harmful, inaccurate, and damaging content available.

Digital Dilemma, Productivity

The Human Error in Automation

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Whenever I go to the grocery store, I always face a dilemma at checkout. Do I opt for a more error-free experience, but longer wait for the cashier? Or do I use self-checkout, a potentially faster, but maybe more frustrating experience?

I like the idea of self-checkout, in theory. As a teenager, I had a cashier job at a local grocery store. The work was tedious and thankless. During peak times customers could be irate and surly. This made an already boring job feel even less meaningful. When self-checkouts came along, I silently cheered thinking of how many RSI (repetitive strain injuries) could be prevented. I thought they would offer a quick, seamless process to purchase items. Sadly, I found this is only the case if I’m buying a small amount of items without any sales, weighing, or discounts. Due to this, I usually end up waiting for the cashier, convinced it takes less time because of the reduced errors.

Recently, I went grocery shopping for a few items at a busy time. I probably could have gone through the express line, but the lines were long and I opted for self-checkout. Reflecting on the experience, and the half dozen times the attendant came over, I couldn’t figure out why it was so miserable. It was a combination of user error, poor design, and lack of instruction.

After scanning the first item, I realized I forgot to put my grocery bag on the little shelf. I selected the option to “add my own bag,” but somehow it stalled the system. The attendant came over to reset it. Then again, when the first bag was full, the system stalled when I put a new bag on the shelf. At this point in the process I would definitely say it was a combination of poor design and bad instructions.

First of all, the shelf to bag groceries is tiny! It can only support one bag. Secondly, the attendant explained I had to wait 30 seconds before removing the first bag and adding the second. This vital piece of information was missing. The checkout screen certainly never mentioned this. Thirty seconds can feel like a long time to be hanging around to remove a bag. There were several other, less clear, mishaps and stalls.

Eventually I managed to pay for my two bags of groceries, having wasted much time at the self-checkout.

Digital Dilemma, True Confessions

The Art of Being Bored

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Technology ruined boredom. Yet, in its own special way, created a new kind of boredom. Whenever I go out, I can’t help but notice how much everyone fixates on their devices. This is an amazing thing for me to notice because I’m also one of those people with my head down and phone out. I also see lots of kids playing, or rather, watching devices.

Growing up I wonder how we ever made it through tedious, drawn out things without handheld entertainment. This included many long car rides, endless trips to the grocery stores with our parents, and lengthy family events. Somehow we managed. A small part of me thinks it’s because of the boredom. Consequently, we figured out all kinds of ways to keep ourselves entertained.

Now I find it’s too easy to be “entertained,” but in an almost mindless, hypnotic way. I’ve even noticed my own habits and patience levels changing because of these devices. For example, while I’m waiting for something, anything to happen, I whip out my phone. I also sometimes do things on my phone, or try to, while I’m doing other things. A popular favorite of mine is to watch TV and also scroll on my phone, or play games, at the same time. Essentially this means I’m not really focusing properly on either thing. Although I have two forms of entertainment in front of me, it sometimes creates this paradox of feeling bored. I suppose it’s because neither activity feels particularly fulfilling. If I was really enjoying the TV, I wouldn’t feel tempted by my phone. And vice versa.

For these reasons and others, technology ruined boredom. I can feel bored with, and without, my devices. And it feels very difficult to attain a suitable level of boredom. The kind of boredom we experienced could feel motivating. We would do something, anything, to alleviate the boredom. Even lazing around talking about being bored forced us to come up with ideas. Occasionally, some of them turned out to be something really good. Or at least a few good laughs trying something. Other times it required us to invite new people over to break up the monotony of our own company, giving us new opportunities to socialize.

I’m sometimes struck by the irony of creating technology that keeps us entertained in oh-so-boring ways.

Human Archives

The Magic of Memory

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Reminiscing with family over the holidays evoked myriad thoughts, stories, and emotions. I found it interesting how we each remembered different things. Or sometimes we remembered the same thing in our own distinct way. This perhaps signified the strength of the experience driving the memory. Sometimes, one of us recalled a memory that was unique, something that nobody else remembered.

In today’s world of instant photos, videos, and access to any information, does that diminish the value of our memories? Do we still need so much brain power to memorize and create memories, knowing we can obtain answers so easily? Or maybe it’s that we’re so busy capturing moments on our devices that we process the memories differently now. In any case, I’ve certainly noticed that I don’t retain information as easily. I know some of this is because I’m ageing, but I’m distracted by my devices. Whatever the reason, it did raise some interesting questions for me about our memories, what we’re actually internalizing, and what we really need to spend our time memorizing.

In school it was common for us to have closed book exams. Memorizing vast amounts of information was a requirement. Even in grad school our hands cramped up from handwriting everything we studied into small blue-covered booklets with wide-lined paper inside. No books, or resources, allowed, most of the time. Of course back then we only had “dumb” phones, so accessing information wasn’t quite as easy. But it still didn’t reflect reality. Even now at my new job, doing new things, if I don’t know something I can either look it up or ask someone. There’s no need for me to spend time memorizing facts and details, though remembering the many new acronyms can be pretty useful.

During the holiday week, I also read an article about doctors working with and competing against ChatGPT to see which group fared better in diagnoses. ChatGPT won, though that doesn’t seem surprising to me. But again, it raised this question of the usefulness to memorize so much information when resources are readily available. Then again, my father raised me to believe the only thing we ever really own in this world is what’s inside our heads. I guess we all have to find a balance to expend energy with the things we need to remember most.

Productivity, True Confessions

The Inaugural Smart Swim

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Following up on last week’s post, I took the plunge. I’ve used my new smart swim goggles for two swims! I have to confess I was feeling a bit dubious after fumbling through the set up process, but the results were impressive. Admittedly, there was some user error involved getting the goggles to sync with my phone. After a few failed attempts and some internet searching, I discovered “location” needed to be activated on my phone for the sync to work. I also didn’t realize that features, such as the workouts, requires a premium subscription. Almost everything requires a subscription. Even so, there are still plenty of cool features for a newbie like me to explore.

After figuring out the setup I headed to the pool. I wasn’t sure what to expect toggling through the goggle’s options before landing on “open swim”. This is basically the only option available without a subscription. I started going through the same warm up I’ve been doing for about 10 years. Before the goggles I suspected my times were slower. The goggles confirmed that I’m about three minutes slower. For swimmers, a few seconds can be a big difference so three minutes is huge.

My warm up is 20 laps. I alternate between front crawl, backstroke, and breaststroke. While swimming, the goggles projected the total time and distance by default. I felt vaguely disappointed that I didn’t have more details during the swim. However, once the swim synced with my phone everything changed. Somehow the goggles accurately detected when I changed strokes and calculated a whole bunch of information about them. The results surprised me. I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be so accurate.

The stroke statistics offered measurements on the time spent at each stroke, the distance per stroke, and a few other things. They also measure something called “SWOLF” which is a combination of the time and number of strokes. Below are some examples of the statistics from my second swim. There was some user error on my first swim and a few things didn’t record correctly.

I haven’t figured out what everything means yet. I also haven’t figured out if having the stats will affect my relationship with swimming. For the moment I’m enjoying the new perspective, which is definitely giving me some new energy after 25+ years of lap swimming. This is definitely one of my top 10 favorite gifts.