Sometimes I’ll run into a baffling issue with a tech product — be it headphones, Google apps like maps or its search features, Apple products, Spotify, other apps, and so on — and when I look for solutions online I sometimes discover this has been an issue for years. Sometimes for many many years.
These tech companies are sometimes ENORMOUS. How is it that these issues persist? Why do some things end up being so inefficient, unintuitive, or clunky? Why do I catch myself saying “oh my dear fucking lord” under my breath so often when I use tech?
Are there no employees who check forums? Does the architecture become so huge and messy that something seemingly simple is actually super hard to fix? Do these companies not have teams that test this stuff?
Why is it so pervasive? And why does some of it seem to be ignored for literal years? Sometimes even a decade!
Is it all due to enshittification? Do they trap us in as users and then stop giving a shit? Or is there more to it than that?
I like seeing a group evolve and form good friendships. I also like sci fi and weirdness. For these reasons, two of my favorite shows are The Expanse and Severance. In both, by the end, I felt like I was “part of the team” in some way.
What are a couple of your favorites? What kind of itch do they scratch?
When I was in the end of my PhD, everything except writing my thesis made me feel guilty. I ended up learning to find joy and peace in doing laundry and washing dishes. They became my guilt-free breaks — I had to do these things. FYI - I didn’t enjoy washing dishes before.
Washing dishes has become a really powerful part of my day, haha. Not only is it still a guilt-free break but it is a daily reminder to be mindful. I’ve noticed that whenever I drop and break a dish, my mind is not present. In fact, in those moments my mind might actually be drifting somewhere negative.
Maybe not so much a “hack” as a … lesson? Or something? But yeah, the whole cliche about having the right attitude and being present and mindful. I try to apply it in other parts of life, not just the dishes.