Developing Usable Experiences

Pain of loss, an island, and the stream.

October 30th, 2006 8:30 am —  145 views

This last week was interesting in that it was unique compared to so many other weeks. For starters, 16 hours were spent inside a car. Last Tuesday I attended a funeral for the child of a friend (a first for me). Then Friday and Saturday were spent on an island celebrating the yearly seasonal shift punctuated by Halloween and the end of the tourist season on the Rock.

Interwoven into the normal tapestry of life once again are the threads of academia. Two classes require a good deal of attention but I focus on my vocation as a developer by constantly pondering and applying the principles from class to life and work situations. New patterns are revealed when events are viewed with different lenses. But alas, so many lenses.

Certainly there are times when one might say that life is normal and really mean it. Normal being when the routine from one day to the next is mostly consistent. It could be argued that “normal” also includes those things that may also be considered “abnormal” such as rare events etc. However, before something can be considered part of normal it has to occur within the context of pre-existing patterns as a “unique” event. Over time and the accumulation of these unique events, new patterns emerge identifying similarities in existing and even new events. This is the “stream” you might say.

Take this funeral I attended; a first for me. Not the first funeral but the first that I’ve attended for someone younger than myself. Also the first time a friend has lost a child. With these experiences the years accumulate and sometimes they can feel pretty heavy.

The weekend was spent with some long-time friends on an island where it was cold and rainy. The island has a certain charm. There are no cars. Only horses and bikes. The pubs all had live music and Halloween decorations. Most people were in costumes. I was part of a set of domino games pieces. I was a “7″ domino. We spent the night trying not to fall down…which was quite a feat given the copious consumption of “spirits”.

Back to the stream. I have to get ready to see my Chiropractor to adjust my skeleton. For reasons not so unique but stemming from my posture and environment, my interconnections sometimes get themselves into positions that strain connective tissue, muscles and the like. Sometimes this can cause headaches when those connections are at the base of my neck, which is usually the case. Anyway, my appointment is in 34 minutes and I’m still in my pajamas.

I’ve noticed that the infrastructure the supports blogs and chats has considerable auditing and provenance related facts just built right into it. There is no substitution for having a hushed conversation while crouching in the center of a field of corn. This obvious fact changes things in ways we have yet to fully understand. But it seems we are learning.

Shalom

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2 Comments 

Comments

2 Responses to “Pain of loss, an island, and the stream.”

  1. Dawn King on October 30th, 2006 5:31 pm

    I’m sorry about the funeral…glad about the island…great picture of a bunch of drunk dominos…hope the skeleton gets fixed. Does any of this have to do with social systems regenerating themselves or dealing in control loops to change the inputs based on the outputs? Or have anything to do with U1 or U2 or affinity notes? Or is there a lack of affinity? And what’s an affinity note anyway? Do social systems really write affinity notes? Why?

  2. Spike on June 9th, 2008 5:19 pm

    All those things I suppose.

    Why? Well, it isn’t certain.

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