Completion Adversion

 

 

 

Have you ever collaborated on a project, either personal or for work, in which there is almost a resistance to getting the job done on time? 

The effort starts out simply enough with the concept and intermediate goals set out plainly. But as the project gets underway the goals keep evolving, meaning that a great deal of time is just wasted, because parts of the undertaking have to be redone.

I have seen the above scenario play out several times now with different groups, and persons. As a matter-of-fact my brother Tim who was very creative would often fall into this trap. His projects would grow, and grow. Eventually it was almost guaranteed that he would give up in frustration. Sometimes his undertakings would consume almost half a year. Thinking about my brother, I now wonder what was going on? To be clear, when he would undertake a task and get caught in this loop, it was not a pleasant experience for him. You could see the frustration build. What was once a weeklong project had become months long. What was preventing him from sticking to the original idea and timeline?

As I think back on this now, it is likely that completing the task was not the real goal, rather it was being "in the process", then nuts and bolts of the activity itself. In that kind of scenario, one would not want to reach completion because it would then be like falling off a cliff. There would be nothing left to do, and that would be depressing. So one way to avoid this would be to continually move the goalpost, a little farther ahead each time. But of course if one does not recognize what's going on and what is truly motivating the person, the result is built up frustration which would cancel out for the most part any beneficial effects of the experience.

Please feel free by the way to comment on this post if you have another point of view.

Speaking personally, I have a little bit of this behaviour, but I recognize it and can usually bring myself back to focusing on concrete goals. This took quite a few years of learning however. In my 20s and 30s I was notorious for starting projects that would quickly balloon into unmanageable situations. For me what began to break this behaviour was something that terrified me called a deadline. Now I am not terrified by imposed schedule because I learned that when one keeps things attainable, one benefits from success. In this case that "success" is the completion of a job or project. I'll be the first to admit however that it is always very tempting to go back in and add one more little adornment.-One more little future. Then I think about my dear brother Tim and common sense returns.

This is just a very short post to see if anyone out there has a similar experience. I also find as everyone gets busier in their daily lives, counterintuitively, there seem to be more people with a case of "Completion Adversion".

Have a great day and comments are always welcome.
Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.  

NEW DEVICES: When the "Out-Of-Box User Experience" Doesn't Work for the Disabled.

 

Should the hardware manufacturers be required to provide fully configured hardware setups for their disabled customers when supplying them with new equipment?

Recently myself and a volunteer spent several hours over the phone assisting someone with a severe vision problem set up their new computer. They had reached out to us after several weeks of back-and-forth with both the manufacturer and the store where they bought the machine.

As the discussion on the phone went on it became very clear that nothing on the new machine had been configured for those with vision impairments. And I began to wonder, why the heck did the store who knew the customer from previous purchases sell them the machine without some basic configuration? One might argue that in the modern machine and with the diversity of disabilities that there is simply is no single configuration which would fit all persons in a particular category.Being physically disabled myself, I beg to differ.

Addressing just vision impairments for this discussion, to keep things somewhat simple, the store could have delivered the machine set to low resolution so that things looks of much larger on the screen, instead of allowing the computer to go to the highest resolution the monitor supported immediately upon plugging the initial startup. Which effectively made the machine absolutely useless to the customer. They couldn't see a thing on their monitor. Computers are very flexible and I would be astounded if there was no way to customize a few settings ahead of time. At the very least they could've provided the customer with a few avenues to get the machine properly set up.

To be clear, the volunteers and I will continue working with this person until we get things in order. But I find myself rather annoyed that technology companies, when that they produce computers or phones or indeed some other devices don't take the initial set up into account.  Nor is it any good for a manufacturer to just put an "accessibility icon" in the corner of the startup screen… Because in this case the customer couldn't see it and probably wouldn't have recognized what it was even if it was within their visual range.

This isn't an isolated case either. I have seen it happen with, smart phones, smart TVs, and even some hardware specifically designed for people with disabilities. You would think that last group of product would be the exception. Nope. As a matter of fact it was a joystick, a $700 joystick, and it had the worst manual I have ever seen. Badly formatted and written in addition to being way too brief. My assumption in this case is that they assumed some technician would set it up for the client or customer and time. As a supplier of hardware one cannot assume that there will be a genius at the other end of the purchase chain to configure the device.

Now, we can't entirely blame the manufacturer and supplier. The customer must also take a good amount of responsibility. Unlike the general public, these devices are usually purchased to become an integral part of the person's daily routine and will be in use over a long period of time. I don't know the background in the above situation, but as a consumer you must take your time to fully review whether or not the device you are considering purchasing will actually work for you. This will mean, because I've done it personally myself,

1. After tentatively picking a product, there will be a lot of discussion as to whether it will work for a given situation. This means really looking at, in detail, how the device will physically fit in the chosen final environment. This may mean arranging a loaner device to test out whether or not it will work as anticipated. Checking to see whether the buttons are reachable, whether the screen is too bright or too dark, whether the pointing devices are calibrated to the person's sensitivities. Expect to take quite a bit of time on this initial stage. If the supplier is not willing to provide the time, then it is a good indication that this is not the right supplier. Seek a company that is willing to put in the effort.
   
   
2. No new device work exactly like the old familiar device, especially with technology. It will always change. Attention must be paid to in the case of a smart phone or computer aspects like: can some of the old software that is familiar be brought over to the new device. What replacements can be found for the items that cannot be brought over.
   
   
3. Plan ahead for the new device to change in some fashion. With software always being updated there must be a contingency plan in place should something like a new user interface be implemented by the company during an update and thereby moving or altering the position of all the icons. This can happen all of a sudden so arrange for this eventuality. Consider if applicable installing on the new device a Remote Desktop application and arrange for a friend or someone equally trusted to have the ability to remotely connect to the device to make the interface usable again.

These are just some ideas and thoughts I had for today. You could call it my Wednesday morning a rant. Have a good day everyone and of course feel free to leave comments.

Patrick

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement. 

Tied To The Internet: Could we cope without it?

What if, for reasons unknown, the Internet stop working permanently and for presumably other unknown reasons we couldn't replace it with any other technology? Just think up the number of things that would be immediately useless or incredibly limited. Your cell phone would for the most part be just a phone. I bet even text messaging wouldn't work because I am sure that somewhere embedded in the Short Message Service  (SMS) technology is a reliance on the Internet. So scratch one fancy phone. Your computer, aside from your home network, would literally be a standalone machine. No email, video calls, and definitely not know uploading and downloading. No streaming. You get the idea.

Just the removal of one component of our technological life… A technology that is so integrated into everything now that I'm sure almost no one has a grasp of the full impact of the loss, should it one day disappear. My wheelchair gets updates over the Internet. That right. that in itself, tells us how deeply intertwined this communication technology is. I don't think society could go back, actually when the Internet didn't exist for the average person. It is tempting to think "Oh yes, society could go back" but in all honestly I don't think that thought is realistic. Not only have billions of people grown up with having the Internet and have gotten very used to looking up anything pretty much instantly. (Here we are not considering the quality of the information retrieved, just the fact that it can be retrieved easily.)I can't see business reverting to the old ways of doing things either.

It is however, and intriguing thought experiment. The public Internet began around 1993 when the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) put the underlying software in the public domain, and yes I just use Gemini to look that little factoid up. Any links in this article will be my attempt to corroborate these statements. That small amount of "research" took all of 20 seconds. If however we were back in the year 1989 or so, what what I have to do to find the information?… My first thought would be a trip to the library, and I'm probably only thinking that way because I am 66 years old and can remember using a library. However how would someone in their 20s or 30s if they were put in such a situation find any information. A library may be a relic to them, something they will only heard about from their parents.

Let's say a city like Vancouver British Columbia Canada was put in this situation. Would people begin to rally to the challenge of a pre-Internet existence? To be clear I'm not talking about rolling the entire city back to the year 1989 or so, just removing the Internet itself. This might make a fascinating book or at the very least a video series. That may be even better because the viewer could see the impact of losing a technology so critical to our modern lives. 

False Creek, Vancouver BC Canada, circa 1980s
Click to download the full resolution image.
I, Patrick Clark, hereby place this image in the public domain.

This image was scanned originally from a "slide" (More information on what a Slide projector was can be found here,) which had faded and was corrected with scratch removal, white balancing, and slightly cropped because the original image was not aligned properly in the scanner. This photograph was originally taken by my father and scanned into a computer some years later running Windows XP. Restoration was done in 2026 on Windows 11 using Corel Paint Shop Pro 2023 by Patrick Clark.

 

 

I know the photograph of the Vancouver from the early 1980s is a little out of place with the topic at hand since at the time of the photo very few people knew about the Internet and it was still in extremely early development. But it does underline how much things have changed. I think cell phones were just becoming a thing and again they were expensive. But could the average person living today adapt to a world without Internet? I mean, my watch needs the Internet to set the correct time. There is no way to set it manually. So if the battery ever dies, that's it for the watch.

I have lots of old skills that would enable me to cope, and I do remember researching school essays by hand, raiding the aforementioned library. Or buying a physical book and reading the whole thing. These behaviours are sufficiently ingrained in me that I'm not even sure what skills I am using. Someone born in the 2000's however, would have their skills tied to the Internet. 

 

Socialization

This could be most difficult for people who grew up with the Internet. Without social media and text messaging this could be very difficult to adjust to. It would include discovering the lost art of conversation. And conversation is pretty much a lost art indeed in some segments of the population. Go on public transit and there is very little discussion among the riders. Everybody is glued to their devices. There is a lot of subtlety in being social: 

• You have to pick up on clues in the environment. 
• Know how to keep a conversation engaging. 
• Know when to not engage someone. 

 These are all skills that can take many years, may be months if you're only rusty at the particular task.

From my perspective social media has done more harm than good. It doesn't allow people to naturally mature emotionally because they can write or say something inappropriate online and then just disappear. Do that in real life and you would get an unavoidable reaction from the other person. People I think would have a rough time regaining old skills. Learning how to be in a larger environment and sociable is something humans start to learn when they're young and it is complicated to say the least.

When I was about 15 citizens band radios (CB) were all the rage and I was caught up in it. This is the first time we saw people say things and act inappropriately go off the air. You couldn't do that before. If someone said something rude the other person or a group of people would let them know right then and there that whatever they said was unacceptable.

My CB radio a RadioShack Realistic TRC 30A
Circa 1975

Society needs people with good socialization skills. It is fundamental in getting along. The question is and I know I'm repeating myself - Could people pick these critical skills in adult life? Would there always be something rough around the edges with these people or could they successfully master socialization? My goodness the number of questions in this article so far is rather surprising. From my initial perspective it looks like we really do rely on the Internet in a lot of areas.

On the other hand, there are many positives that being able to communicate rapidly and exchange information brought to us by the Internet that have benefited people. So like life itself there are no absolute good or bad in this discussion. 

I remember my parents absolutely freaking out whenever it was necessary to make a long distance phone call. The price was expensive and charged on a permanent basis. Now with just your browser, you can have a conversation with a friend on the other side of the world and the cost is negligible complete with real-time video. 

Would handwriting come back in to use?

This is a point I really find a mind blowing. The fact that they do not teach handwriting in school. Initially it makes sense since everything is done online. But consider the intimate connection of writing something on paper. It involves a completely different mindset and I wouldn't be surprised if it ultimately affects in a positive way one's cognitive abilities. Not just the mechanics of creating a written sentence, the way you are putting together the thoughts in your mind. It is much more intimate than typing on a keyboard.

I know from personal experience using voice dictation that a person speaks in day-to-day language very differently than they write. Presumably this is due to the fact that you have time to think while constructing a paragraph. Voice dictation on the other hand there is a tendency to write very informally. So if someone always had access to the Internet and did not learn handwriting the challenges they would face would be quite large. After all this was a skill which took time to develop. Never mind reading someone else's handwriting. Both my parents were in healthcare and my father had particularly bad, almost abstract, and writing. Very few people have to deal with this now.

And all that is happened is that one component, albeit a big one, has been removed in this discussion. "The Internet".

I am really interested to hear your comments. When time permits I will also add a YouTube video version of this article.   ... And here it is:

Have a great day!
Patrick 

 PS: This is the 200th post on this blog. I plan to keep on going😀.

 

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement. 

Fleeting Micro Judgements

 

Someone says something to you. In the milliseconds, before you have an initial reaction, your mind is already deciding the value of what what was just heard. It is determining before you have your initial feeling about the statement, whether the feeling you experience should be one of pleasure, disgust, or anger. In short your brain is putting a label on it before you're even aware of hearing what is being said by the other person. This happens very quickly, in a fleeting moment your mind may be considering something else. Nevertheless these judgements have made their mark and coloured your perceptions.

These "micro judgements" as I call them, work in concert with cognitive bias, are so automatic and often arbitrary, that it is a wonder the average person isn't a walking, talking body of contradiction. Fortunately our higher brain functions manage (i.e.functions that require advanced, complex, and abstract processing )to project the appearance of rational human being most of the time. But put someone under the right kind of stress however and these micro judgements can become visible. 

These small almost instantaneous judgements reveal a far more complicated psyche. When I was in my 20s  to my dismay, I found many negative biases. And I thought myself quite a liberal, so that discovery bothered me greatly initially. Then I realized that all of humanity has these contradictory and complementary micro judgements. I still didn't feel great about my little discovery but I did take away from the ongoing experience one simple fact:

"It is better to know about these biases, then it is to be in denial of them."

It is an ongoing journey of paying attention and personal learning. As opposed to ultimately being an emotional train wreck running in neutral.

Imagine if we were all taught in early school to pay attention to the judgements we make about everything around us. The insights a young mind would gain would be a phenomenal asset throughout out their lives. And I Do Mean Phenomenal. I see many people today who are in terrible emotional states because they are at odds with themselves, only they don't know it. They only know the manifested symptom. This "symptom" often catches them off guard because it doesn't fit in with who they think they are. Yet if we can get people to learn how to be introspective at an early age, I think we would unleash not only emotional wellness but probably who are better thinkers. -- "He paused, to consider deeply problems faced by society."

Today we spend a great deal of our time reacting to the external world, as though nothing else mattered. "It's all out there" is the mantra of the modern age. In truth, the most powerful modifiers are internally based.Take for example the emotion of Love. There is no greater feeling. It is so profound that it can instantly change your outlook on the entire world and those around you. Think of someone you love right now. All of a sudden the world seems a better place. Nothing external has changed. All you've done is acknowledge and get in touch with some totally internal experience. You can be in the worst mood and yet after thinking about a beautiful memory, all of a sudden things are markedly improved.

People must reacquaint themselves with their internal motivations to not only see the profound effect micro judgements have on their personal outlooks, but to understand the tremendous potential available. I think the larger world is that of the psyche. It is the totality of our complexity and also our potential.

Have a great day!
Patrick 

** NOTE: The picture displayed at the top of this article is from the service Ideogram AI.  As a layperson, I have read their relevant "terms of service" and determined, to the best of my ability, that the image may be viewed by the public.  However before any reuse, please review fully their terms and if necessary contact the company for more information.

The use of said image does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.